Dhaagey: The Ties that Bind Us

45. the first thread back

Author's Note: Hellllooooo! Thank you for all the love for the last chapter -- so glad that so many of you enjoyed it! Without further ado, we move onto the next chapter! See y'all on the other side!

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"Murtasim," she breathed.

The name fell from her lips as if it had been waiting, pressed beneath her ribs all this time, hidden in the silence and the pleading and the prayers she had whispered into the dimness of this room for weeks. She could not say if he heard it – or if he was answering her with that first flicker of his brow, that faint pull of his lashes against his cheeks – but his eyes moved again. Slowly. As though lifting them was a task that required oceans of strength.

They found hers.

Unfocused, glassy, slow. But there.

His lips shifted, dry and uncertain. She watched the struggle bloom across his face, the effort, the confusion, the ache of return. And then, again, the sound broke free. A rasp, little more than breath, louder than before.

"Meerab." He said again.

The world stilled.

She forgot how to breathe. Her lungs locked tight as though her body could not contain the enormity of what she had just heard.

A sound tore loose from her, strange and sharp and wild. Not quite a sob. Not quite laughter. Something in between, too cracked to be one, too full to be the other. It echoed in the stillness, the first true sound that had come from her soul in what felt like years.

Murtasim was awake.

She stared at him, unblinking, the words in her throat scattered like marbles spilled across marble floors. She didn't dare move, didn't dare think – afraid that if she blinked too long, the spell would break, and the miracle would vanish like mist at sunrise.

But her hand moved before her mind could stop it. It reached behind him, trembling, fumbling for the call button at the head of the bed. Her fingers struck plastic and found the switch. The click was soft, barely audible. And yet it filled the room like thunder.

Within moments, the door at the end of the hall creaked open. A nurse stepped into the threshold, clipboard in hand, mid-yawn.

Meerab turned to her, voice cracking apart. "He's awake," she said.

The nurse's face sharpened at once. Her sleep vanished. She ran back, calling for the attending as her shoes squeaked against the tile.

And suddenly, Meerab was scrambling.

She pulled her body from the bed, tried to shove her bed backward like she had seen the nurses do so many times. It screeched faintly across the floor, heavy and stubborn.

But she couldn't move it far.

Because Murtasim would not let go of her hand.

She looked down, gasping softly at the sight of his fingers still curled around hers, faint but firm, trembling but determined. Finally.

And she didn't have it in her to let go first.

Not now. Not when he had just come back.

Her foot fumbled with the wheel lock. The bed moved another inch. She shoved again with her knee, the metal frame resisting her in ways her limbs could no longer fight against. Her body felt hollowed, overstretched, full of a lightness that bordered on vertigo.

Behind her, doors opened wide.

Footsteps. Voices. The rush of rubber soles and clipped instructions filled the hall.