The Angel That Set Them Free

TATSTF-5

A sharp pain coursed through his left hand, darkness surrounded him, he tried to spot something around himself that would help him realize his whereabouts, he tried to move his limbs but the pain deepened and he felt himself too weak to be able to do anything.

He gave up.

Again.

After a few minutes, his eyes stirred open and his throat felt parched.

Eyes squinting, he tried to sit up but his limbs refused to co-operate.

"Water."

He managed to rasp out.

He felt a soft hand on his neck, helping him to lift his head, to down the liquid. He felt the frostily relaxing surface of the glass, on his lips.

Sweet and cool water, ran down his parched throat. Almost too swiftly, that he choked on it and coughs started bubbling out of his already weak body rapidly. The hand, soft but firm, helped him to sit up, on the bed. He coughed a few more times, before recovering from the choking.

He tried to drink the liquid slowly this time, giving time to his parched throat, to become familiar with the wetness, thereby, quenching his thirst.

Gradually, he felt his senses awakening.

The room was painted white with white curtains hanging at the window. Evening light shining through the gaps.

Arnav looked over the room and then at himself. Dull yellow scrubs. A bandage vehemently covering the slit on his wrist. A saline running into his veins through the small scratch in his right hand. Machines beeping around him. An oxygen mask lying beside him indicating that he had been unable to carry out the most simplest of tasks at some point of time. He felt oddly ashamed now, of his reckless action.

A girl was seated beside his bed.

No.

Not any other girl.

It was her.

His wife.

Khushi.

He kept staring at her but she was checking out ~what appeared to be his medical reports~ very keenly. Not paying any heed to him.

Her jaws clenched infinitesimally.

Rage.

Angry.

She was very angry.

He had somehow managed to piss off his ~six months old wedded~ wife without having, any form of communication, ever since their marriage happened.

She stubbornly kept her gaze, on the file ~for what felt like hours~ and then looked up. Directly. At him.

He was startled at the sudden-ness of it.

He sensed her heaving a quite sigh. A sigh of resignation or apparently frustration.

He noticed her raising an eyebrow as if daring him to say something. Exasperation dripping from her body language.

For the first time, he was really looking at his wife. Her doe-shaped eyes, her sleek nose, her plump li-

*ahem*

Get a grip, Arnav.

Her thick black mane, hanging behind her, her petite form clad in a pastel green dress, her parting covered with vermillion, her neck adorned with only a mangalsutra, one that, he had put there, months ago.

The wedding ring gleaming on her left ring finger.

A few red bangles ~probably from her marriage bangle pairs~ adorning her slight wrists.

Had she always looked so....serene?

He cleared his throat. And, hoped to not embarrass himself anymore in front of her.

"Doe...does my family know?"

"Huh."

To say, that, she was flabbergasted, would be an understatement.

Nevertheless.

"No." Came the clipped reply.

He felt relieved. Somehow, he was not yet ready to face their wrath.

And, he felt a sudden surge of respect for this woman for not acting out of rush.

"Thank you."

"For?"

"For not informing them."

She snorted. Kind of sarcastically. He realized.

"Ofcourse your most welcome, Mr. Raizada."

"Do I need to 'inform' them, the next time, you try something else, that would be more effective?"

"And maybe I can help you out, to.....you know, pick up the most accurate plan that would surely..."

He fell silent. Ashamed, once again, of his impulsive reaction, in the spur of that moment.

Truth be told, he hadn't realized, the consequence of his reckless decision.

He knew his family, a little too well.

They ~in fact any family~ would be devastated for the rest of their life, had he been successful, in achieving what he had set out for.

Life had given him a second chan-

A shrill cry of a new born filled the room, all of a sudden. He startled and looked around for its source. A baby cot lying beside his bed.

It, really, had been a new-born, then.

The last sound that he had registered before blacking out.

Khushi had already taken up the baby in her arms and cooed it back to sleep.

She did it so smoothly; knowing all the right moves.

"Whose is it?"

She looked up, teeth gritting and voice dropping, dangerously, by several notches.

"Shouldn't I be the one asking this?"

He was struck.

With a jolt, he realized that he never heard back from Myra or that hospital, where she had gotten herself tested, after his inquiry for the same.

Funny, he had presumed her to go through abortion, immediately.

Why would she keep her ex's child? He had thought.

He had felt a pain in his heart, then.

But, now here was it.

The child.

No.

His child.

The father-ly instinct immediately kicking in; he felt a sudden urge to hold the small form in his arms and protect it from the world & it's vices.

A ghost of a smile, creeped its way, into his face.

"May I?"

Khushi handed it to him carefully.

Though, struggling, but he managed to hold it, close to himself. He placed a kiss on it's forehead.

From the corner of his eyes, Khushi was observing, all of his movements very closely.

"What is it?"

"Girl."

No.

Angel.

My angel.

His smile never left his face.