Mending & Healing - Abhigya (Abhi-Pragya)

Finding Her

Finding Pragya wasn't going to be easy. Abhi had foreseen that but he never expected it would be so difficult. Starting out, he contacted a private investigator that an acquaintance of his recommended to him a while ago for a different matter. It was a man named Kartik Hooda. Abhi wasn't sure about the man's background but his acquaintance assured him that Kartik was the best in his line of work and nearly always got the job done. Luckily the man was available and willing to work for him. He knew finding Pragya was a long shot and it wasn't going to be easy but he was almost certain she was in the city so hopefully it would narrow down the search.

He gave the Kartik all the information he had, including that they recently met at the construction site and that she took him to the hospital. Kartik warned him in advance that it wasn't going to be easy and may take some time. Abhi already knew that but what choice did he have other than praying to a higher entity he couldn't bring himself to believe in. This was his best shot other than running around Dehli in hopes of randomly running into her.

Kartik worked quite fast, faster than he expected, and managed to figure out that the woman who brought him to the hospital was indeed Pragya and thankfully managed to procure an address as well. Abhi didn't want to know how given that the nurse refused to share it with him when he asked her and lied to him about Pragya. He could only guess it was on Pragya's insistence incase he tried looking for. That stung heavily. The idea that despite of being so close, she didn't want to see him. That while she cared enough to bring him to the hospital and stay with him until he was out of danger, she didn't stay long enough for him to wake up. Would it have killed her to wait? Did she still blame him, resent him and blame him for their daughter's death. Had 15 years done nothing to ebb away any of it? These questions kept swirling in his mind as he waited for Kartik to verify the address as Pragya's. You'd think it would make it easier to find her after getting her address but it turned out to be a complete bust. Her contact number was no longer in service and she had vacated the address weeks ago. Essentially, they had hit a dead end and had to start the search from scratch. That's where it had gotten difficult. From then onwards, Kartik started off searching for her in all the collages, universities and schools taking a chance on the fact that she may have returned to her previous profession as a professor.

The two months hadn't been easy for Abhi. He had spent it keeping a vigilant eye on Rhea, trying to keep her from trouble. He was thankful that summer vacation had started which meant that at least she was out of school and unable to cause trouble there. He sent her away to camp and on a trip with Aliya and Aryan. That also kept his sister away from him which was a bonus if anything. It allowed him to focus on fighting the battle regarding his feelings for Pragya. The search was beginning to take a toll on him. Never before had he needed to find her like this. Of course he had searched for her during life endangering moments the two of them kept finding themselves in but in each of those times Pragya wanted to be found and there was information of some kind to go on. Not to mention fate always seemed to be on their side in the matter. No matter how far Pragya walked away from him, destiny always brought them closer again. He was really counting on fate to intervene once again. That being said his emotions were a mess. On one hand was his own mixed feeling alternating between anger and desperation to have her back in his life. Then there was fear of her hatred. Fear that she may refuse and in that case he had no idea what he would do for Rhea. Fear that she may take Rhea from him and separate him from her altogether. It was hard to have a clear thought with his emotions in the mix. He just couldn't understand why things always had to be so complicated between them? Why couldn't they just be simple? Why was it so hard for them to be together? Every single time they took a step towards each other, something or the other, pushed them a hundred steps away from each other.

On the other hand Aliya was perplexed by her brother's recent behaviour. He was even more withdrawn than usual and far too quiet and calm for her liking. A withdrawn, pensive and secretive Abhi Mehra was never a good combination for her. She was certain there was something going on in his mind but even when she tried to talk to him she couldn't figure out what. He gave away nothing and just told her he was worried about Rhea's behaviour and nothing else. That did show in his behaviour though. He was certainly more vigilant about Rhea but there was still some distance there which everyone could feel. In fear of disappointing or angering him even more Rhea had been on her best behaviour. It helped that summer vacations allowed her to take Rhea away from him but at the same time it meant she was also away from him and couldn't figure out what was really going on with him.