The Angel That Set Them Free

TATSTF-6

After several minutes of Arnav looking down fondly at the sleeping form of his daughter in his arms and of Khushi staring intently at him for all his minute reactions and movements.

He finally stepped out of his trance and, "Let's go home."

Truth be told, he wanted to leave this place oozing with the smell of chlorine, as soon as possible.

He said while handing back the baby to Khushi again, "How long have I been here? Are we in the next day already?"

To say that Khushi was flabbergasted would be an understatement.

And, to say that it had happened two times in a row within an hour of him waking up.

Excellent, Arnav.

Seems like you won't stop embarrassing yourself enough in front of her anytime soon.

But she recovered quickly. "Two days.", clipped as her reply was.

"WHAT?- HOW?- It was just a few minutes ago that I was trying to wake up but my arms wont help me and-"

"Well, you weren't in the best of condition when you were brought in, you know? With the amount of blood loss that you suffered, you were this close to slipping into coma, had it not been for me to-"

She realized with a jolt, what she had let slip from her mouth, in her anger, panic and worry for her husband.

She had decided to follow the doctor's instructions ~of not allowing him to think about the incident that led him here or confront him and instead let him rest both physically and mentally for a while~ a bit too strictly.

And moreover, she was ~ofcourse~ worried for him. For his well-being. After all, he was her husband. Although, he had made no such attempts from his side. Yet, she had felt it, to be too petty of her, to hold it up against him, for his behavior, when she clearly knew that he was at his lowest, those past few months.

Which had finally led to this. Him, in scrubs, lying in a bed, unconscious for two days straight, in a hospital. With a bandage wrapped around his wrist. She didn't even want to think about that evening.

She had hardly taken a walk around the park and was returning to her home after regaining her rationale, her practical thinking, which she had often felt so proud to own.

She didn't know why but she felt oddly at unease, while climbing up the stairs to her floor. Her insides roiling in a strange and creepily weird anticipation, as if something horrific was waiting for her, to be discovered.

Nevertheless, she tried to calm her nerves, as she inserted the key only to find it already open.

'Okay so now, this is strange. Why the hell did he not lock the door?' She thought to herself.

As soon as she entered the apartment, her ears were already bleeding with the shrill-ness of the newborn cry, coming from inside their bedroom.

So, she slipped out of her flip flops. The lights were all off such that the drawing and dinning halls weren't visible at all and the part of the kitchen that was usually visible from the entrance was dark too.

She walked up to the bedroom and even the bedroom lights were off. Turning on, she walked over and picked up the child carefully.

"Aww, you are crying?", she changed her voice pitch slightly, as she always did, to baby-talk, while handling newborns and asked rhetorically.

"Shhhhh. Ok. Now. Stop crying, dear."

"I am here, see? I am here. Shhhh."

"Or are you hungry? "