The Foundation Stays

When the choice comes

The trio spent the flight thereafter in complete silence.

Jassi stared out of the window, registering very little. Rohit slept dreamlessly. Hardik slept through a nice dream where he and Jassi were sitting in the same flight, on either side of Rohit bhaiya and whispering nonstop around his head, drawing the occasional glare from him, whereupon they'd fall silent for half a minute and then resume their discussion. 

Hardik didn't see any mean quips about captaincy or injured ankles mentioned there, so either this was from a separate timeline, or they'd made up, or they'd never fought at all. Whatever be it, Jassi and he were friends in the dream.

Hardik and Rohit were woken up by Ash after the flight touched down in South Africa. Hardik's general feeling of contentment dissipated at the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes: Jassi's blank face.

Suddenly, he felt sure that it would always remain this way between them. The only place they could be friends again were Hardik's dreams--and maybe Jassi's nightmares. It wasn't a very cheery thought.

He'd flown to South Africa on impulse, but it didn't seem a very good idea anymore. So as they were lining up for customs, Hardik pulled Rohit aside and was just about to say he'd return directly from the airport when Jassi appeared in front of them.

"Come on quick, Rohit bhaiya, we'd already be needing time with the hotel guys for arranging an extra room."

Rohit stared. Hardik stared. One with raised eyebrows, the other mostly blank but maybe with a little bit of hope. Jassi sighed and led the way to the customs queue.

_________________

"Are you absolutely sure locking them together in a room isn't going to work this time?" Virat whispered to Rohit in the bus that was taking them to their hotel in Centurion.

Rohit gave him a dirty look.

"No, because my tactics has a history of working the best with these two," explained Virat, "mine and Shreya's."

"Don't make me break a glass on your head, Vi," said Rohit.

"No one values help anymore," Virat whispered audibly, and then shut up as Rohit started to sit up straight.

_________________

Virat got the hotel staff to put Jassi and Hardik in the same room even if he'd scrapped the idea of locking them in together. He thought the fact that Jassi didn't protest was very encouraging, but Rohit pointed out that it was probably because Jassi, who'd not slept on either flight, was too tired to even fight anymore.

Which was probably the truth, because he crashed on bed without changing clothes as soon as they'd got the rooms.

Hardik tiptoed around the room to unpack his meagre belongings he'd 'borrowed' from Rohit when they'd left from Mumbai, and ended up on the balcony, which overlooked the trial road to the cliffs, which in turn overlooked the ocean, all apparently owned by the hotel.

As Jassi slept the whole day away, Hardik tried to get his head around what he could possibly say to break through the walls Jassi had built up between them. He didn't feel remotely angry any longer. He couldn't imagine how he'd tried to break glass on Jassi's head earlier the same day. He wasn't sure why he'd been stupid enough to lose his temper when he was the one who had everything to lose.

And now there didn't seem anything he could say to make Jassi listen--he didn't seem likely to change his stance of simply refusing to listen--even if he had agreed to share a room.

Rohit came into the balcony around evening to offer Hardik a coffee.

"We should wake him up, don't you reckon?" asked Rohit, not bothering to lower his voice. "Else he'd stay awake the whole night and feel sleepy over practice."

"I'm awake," Jassi mumbled sleepily from the room.

"Come and join us," called Rohit.

Hardik, who didn't want Jassi to be put in a bad mood immediately upon waking up, told Rohit, "I'll go," and tried to sneak out of the balcony and out of the room.

Jassi intercepted him, saying dully, "You might as well stay. What's done is done. I realize I can't change it anymore--so you're my captain and that's it, now."

The resentment in that acceptance made it kind of worse than the rejection so far.

Hardik lingered at the door of the balcony as Jassi went to sit beside Rohit bhaiya and claimed the coffee mug.

"If--" he began, and stopped, because he needed a while to frame what he was thinking. "If you don't support me--actually support me, I mean--I obviously can't do any of it."

"You can do anything," Jassi said in a monotone. "You were happy about going to GT because it was something new, and you did everything right there--"

"Jassi, I was heartbroken about going to GT," said Hardik, stung by the injustice. "I missed our team so much that--"

"Don't call it your team."

"Jassi," said Rohit, sounding really stern and tired at the same time. "If you say anything more like that, there will be no difference between you and the people who call themselves Mahi bhai fans and call for Jaddu bhai to get out."

Jassi, who always seemed to get affected by that tone of Rohit's, bent his head.

"I was just saying..." he said, with forced calm. "You don't need anyone, Hardik. That's why you act like the whole world will always make excuses for you and even they don't, who cares, you don't need them."

"You're my best friend," said Hardik, blinking fiercely. "You're supposed to believe the best of me. And you're not even taking middle ground, you're straightaway assuming the worst of me."

"And that's my fault?"

Jassi was blinking, too.

"Don't--don't you think it is?" asked Hardik. "If it was you, I'd never go around believing you tried to hurt Rohit bhaiya for personal glory."

"No, you wouldn't," said Jassi quietly. "I wouldn't either if it was Rahul or SKY or anyone. But the thing is, it's--it's...perfectly...believable of you."

Jassi had known he shouldn't have said that even before he did. Rohit's expression mirrored that knowledge.

"Well," Hardik said, also very quietly.

He was about to say something along the lines, 'then I guess we were never friends at all, because you don't know me.'

Instead he found he could just say, "All right."

Even Rohit didn't try to stop him when he turned away.

________________

Somehow, Jassi knew with a terrifying intensity that, in the light what he'd just said, if he let Hardik walk away that day, it would be the end of them, and there would be no return, ever. They'd never be friends again. Even if they tried their soul out later, if Jassi sat here today and let Hardik leave, they'd never be able to return. 

And when the choice came, Jassi discovered he didn't want that. 

Whatever Hardik had done or not done, he didn't, truly, want to lose him.

He leapt up and went for the door, blindly.

"Hardik!"