Dhaagey: The Ties that Bind Us

44. murtasim

Author's Note: Hello, hi! I just want to start by saying thank you -- truly. The fact that so many of you came back to Dhaagey after the hiatus means the world to me. Seeing your reactions, your excitement, and the way you're connecting the dots between the newer chapters and the earlier ones makes me so giddy! Every time someone says, "Oh my god, this ties back to XYZ!" I cackle because that was always the plan!

These recent chapters were plotted from the very beginning. The fluff and smut along the way were more spontaneous (and fun, let's be honest!), but this arc was always meant to happen. Some things never got closure in the earlier chapters -- how could I let Malik go free after hinting at his involvement in Meerab's kidnapping (albeit indirectly), telling you that women were disappearing from the village, and that the land for Meerab's haq mehr was disputed?! They were always going to resurface, it's so nice to see so many of you making that link, thank you for that!

At its heart, Dhaagey was always meant to be both a "feel good" love story for MeerAsim and a story that gave Meerab a space to get it -- to grow, to understand the world she's in, and to understand Murtasim too. And for Murtasim to truly understand Meerab and stand by her side through everything, learning to accept the things that show Murtasim "disliked" about her.

Anyways, we're heading into a part of the story many of us have been waiting for!See you on the other side! This chapter -- like my author's note -- is very long!

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The morning was deceptively soft.

A breeze stirred the curtains of the small private waiting area just outside Murtasim's hospital room, brushing across Meerab's forearm like a question she had no answer for. Outside, the trees stood utterly still, their leaves unmoving in the syrupy air, the sky above pale and cloudless – the kind of sky that mocked with its calm, its unbothered blue. The corridor was quiet, cloaked in the sterile scent of antiseptic, but underneath it hung something else – chai, brewing somewhere close, and the faintest trace of roses from her own shawl. The combination reminded her of home. Or perhaps the idea of it.

But nothing inside her felt like home.

Inside her, everything was pulled tight – like a wire strung across too many anchors, moments from snapping. She stood at the window, her arms wrapped tightly around her midsection, not as comfort but restraint. Her gaze swept the street below without truly seeing it – the children kicking a flattened bottle cap into a gutter, the woman bargaining for oranges at the corner stall, a cyclist swerving past a goat asleep in the middle of the road. It was the same as every day, the same as the last. But her mind... her mind was moving fast, too fast, turning over details with surgical precision, calculating everything she had done, everything she had yet to do.

Behind her, the door creaked open.

She didn't turn. She didn't need to.

She had been expecting him.

Bhaktu's footsteps were always deliberate, weighty, like every decision he made came with its own ledger of consequence.

"Well?" she asked, her voice even, her back still to him.

"It doesn't seem like he's said anything..." Bhaktu paused, then continued, his tone lower, warier. "That he even remembers running into you."

Meerab turned then – not sharply, but with intent – her eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "They're calm, then?"

"Too calm," he said, shifting on his feet. "Zubair Malik isn't the sort to sit idle. And Ammar Khan..." He trailed off, the name tasting like rust. "There's too much at stake. Their hands should be moving. But they're still."