Dhaagey: The Ties that Bind Us

47. home

Author's Note: Hi all, apologies for the delay! Life got super busy - I went on vacation, things happened in the world, I came back and had tons of work to do. Thank you to everyone for the wonderful comments on the last chapter; perhaps a last one that many people will read in light of recent events. But for people sticking around, thank you! I plan to stick around and finish Dhaagey. Without further adieu, onto the chapter -- super long(13K words), filled with lots of fluff, hehe. See you on the other end!

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The sun shone like it hadn't in weeks.

Golden light filtered through the windows of the white Land Cruiser, catching in the dust motes that drifted lazily in the cabin and pooling warmly across the contours of the man seated beside her. Meerab turned her head slightly, gaze drawn – irresistibly, involuntarily – to him.

Murtasim sat quiet and still in the back seat, his body angled toward the window, but his hand was firmly entwined with hers, their joined fingers resting on the fabric of his shalwar. The familiar weight of his palm under hers was grounding, anchoring, perfect. Her eyes moved slowly, greedily across him. Because how could she not look?

He was wearing a dark-brown shalwar kameez, the cotton soft and pressed, clinging to the breadth of his shoulders and the strength of his recovering frame. His beard had grown back, neat and proud, just the way he liked it. His moustache was trimmed sharp at the edges. His face had filled out again, no longer drawn tight with pain and weightlessness.

He looked...like her Murtasim.

It had been seven weeks. Seven long, aching, bruised and breathless weeks since the night she had driven away from the Khan haveli, heart in her throat, the bitter taste of fear coating her tongue.

Seven weeks since the world had splintered beneath her feet.

25 days of hospital rooms and too-white linens, of watching and waiting, of praying to every power she had ever believed in.

24 days of mending. Of steady breath and slow laughter. Of watching him come back to life, one whispered "Meerab" at a time.

And now here they were. His hand in hers, their car easing into the driveway of the haveli.

Home. Finally.

She could feel it before she saw it: the shift in Murtasim's body beside her. Not a movement, exactly, but a quiet energy, an almost imperceptible hum that passed through him and found its way into her bones. Joy. Relief. The tender weight of return.

She knew the feeling. She had felt it herself not too long ago, when she had come home from Karachi, law school finished, pulling up the familiar driveway. Just months ago. She remembered the scent of the courtyard, the particular creak of the haveli gates, the soft echo of her own footsteps on marble. She had missed it then.

She had missed it now.

But more than the bricks and archways, more than the dusty sunshine slanting through latticework, what she had missed most sat right beside her. The way he looked at the house, with a faint smile tugging at his mouth, made her heart twist sweetly in her chest.

Home.

Not just the building. Not just the city. Him. Here.

Murtasim turned toward her then, his eyes catching the sunlight and reflecting something older than memory, something gentler than speech.

His fingers squeezed hers.

Her throat caught.

From the front seat, Arsalan's voice broke the silence, cheerful and warm. "Welcome home."