Vikrant had a soft smile on his face as he sat listening to the girl in front of him, talking animatedly about her dance class. A wave of tenderness, protectiveness washed over him as she once again reminded him of his little sister, Veera. Both girls had gone through harsh realities of life and yet their zeal for finding their happiness never died down. He was not able to do much for Veera but for Khushi, he stood strong. At times, forgetting that he was just her doctor. His mind went back to the day almost 3 years ago when her case was handed over to him, a trusted name in the field of neurosurgery in India. It had been a little over a week since her accident then. The team of doctors attending her had concluded that she was suffering from retrograde amnesia, that is, she couldn't recall memories from her past. They were yet to see if she suffered from forming new memories as well. Her husband and her family were by her side, but she was not ready to talk to anyone, obviously scared due to unknown faces around her. And that was when Dr. Vikrant was called in.
In his career until then, he had not seen too many patients suffering from amnesia but from whatever little experience he had was enough to assure her family that she will be ok. Thankfully, the area of her brain where language skills are stored was not harmed so she was still able to converse to them. Her muscle memory too seemed to be doing well so far, meaning she was able to eat, walk, do things that a normal functioning adult does. The only thing that was affected by the injury was that her past was erased from her brain. Her memories were locked away. And sadly, medical science was not that advanced yet to precisely know how to unlock them. He had specifically chosen to become a neurosurgeon to study and work on how the human brain works, how we process thoughts and memories but as they were not physical entities, he was still struggling to get a breakthrough.
Albeit, they had managed to convince her that her name was Khushi Singh Raizada and she had taken it well thus far. None of her relationships were revealed to her yet, and that was when her husband, Arnav Singh Raizada came to him with a request to let her be known as just ms. Khushi Singh Raizada, youngest daughter of the Raizada family. Arnav shared some of his reasoning with Vikrant as the rest of her family silently agreeing and although, Vikrant had felt anger towards the husband after knowing how he had treated the poor girl in the so called 'short term marriage', he also saw regret in Arnav's eyes. And thus, he nodded to the request. He would have anyhow suggested revealing one truth at a time about her. But after knowing how many dangerous truths lay in her past, he would rather have her have a sense of normalcy for a while before preparing her to deal with some bitter truths of her past.
"Vikrant jiju, are you listening?" Khushi's voice broke his chain of thoughts, and he gave her a guilty smile as he mumbled a sorry.
Khushi let out a sigh. She had come here straight after her class to talk to him about her strange dreams, but when she reached his cabin, she was very nervous to directly talk about it. Vikrant jiju, who she used to call Vikrant Da earlier was always like a brother to her. Of course, all her relations were like this for her, "assumed", she had no memory of shared moments with them, or her growing up around them. Sometimes she wondered what if-
"You were saying something?" Vikrant probed, looking at the sudden seriousness in her expression.
Khushi's thoughts were halted by his voice. And she remembered what she was about to tell him. She mustered up the courage, hoping he wouldn't judge her.
Khushi still looked away for a moment and then spoke in a low voice, "I had a strange dream this time. I saw -I saw Arnav in my dream yesterday." her eyes were downcast by the end.
Vikrant leaned back on his chair, his eyes trained on her, but his brain preparing for a probable uncovering of a bad memory of her past, he asked, "Was it a bad thing?"
