Can Never Stop Looking out for You (A HulRat fanfiction)

Viratee

Some random person stopped Rahul before he'd taken a couple of steps.

"Sir, sir...you're with them, aren't you?"

"What?"

"The girl's been born."

"Virat's girl?" said Rahul blankly.

The hospital staff confirmed. Rahul followed him into the room, forgetting all about Virat himself for a while.

Nushkie bhabi smiled up at him wanly, holding a bundle of clothes in her arms.

"Hey, Rah."

Rahul went up to her, concerned to see how white she appeared. "You ok, bhabi?"

"Just a bit tired," said Anushka, still smiling. "Want to hold her?"

Rahul blinked down at the tiny arm waving from the clothes.

"I'll—er—I'm sure to drop her," he said nervously.

"You won't drop your goddaughter, come on..."

"G-g-goddaughter?"

Rahul's brain went pretty much blank as Anushka handed him the bundle. With violently shaking arms, he held the child ultra-carefully and stared at her.

You know the word perfection...?

Well, Viratee beat perfection by a mile.

"Bhabi, she's...she's beautiful," said Rahul, his eyes blurring. "She's just like Virat."

"I know," said Anushka fondly. "That was the first thing that crossed my mind. Now where's Virat got himself to?"

Rahul bowed his head as he slipped into the chair beside Anushka's bed.

"I upset him," he admitted miserably. "He ran off."

"Hmm, let me guess," said Anushka. "He was hyperventilating."

"Yes," said Rahul.

"You told him to shut up."

"Yes."

"He didn't listen to you."

"Yes."

"Then what happened?" asked Anushka. "He doesn't get upset at you, usually. Most of the time it's at Ro."

Exactly that moment, a nurse came up and said in a harried fashion, "A dozen men claiming to be her godfather are demanding to be let in, madam."

Anushka laughed. Rahul jumped up and rushed to the door, still holding Viratee.

Then of course all the godfathers swarmed in, yelling in delight. Viratee joined in valiantly; clearly she had inherited her father's extraordinarily strong pair of lungs.

While everyone was fighting to hold Viratee in his own arms and the nurses were looking on, petrified, Rahul carefully handed her to Rohit, thinking he deserved it first.

Amidst the chaos, Rohit stayed silent as he studied his best friend's daughter, and when he looked up to meet Rahul's eyes, the latter detected the same wetness in Rohit's eyes, too.

Then Yuzi snatched Viratee away, and Hardik lunged at her, and Bhuvi shouted in panic, "You'll drop her, idiots!"

That undefyable tone of Bhuvi's calmed everyone down a bit, and they went to check on Anushka, Jinks holding Viratee.

"Congrats, Anushka!!"

"You ok, bhabi?"

"Where's Virat?"

Rohit pulled Rahul to the side and asked anxiously, "Where the hell is Virat?"

Rahul felt himself going red.

"Wait, I'll fetch him quick."

He darted away before Rohit could ask any more questions.

Here they all were, enjoying the sheer joy of holding the God-send child in their arms, and the poor father must be all by himself somewhere, worried to death.

It took him over ten minutes to scour the floors and come across Virat pacing beside a window, frowning to himself.

"Viratee is here, Virat," said Rahul, his voice choking up. He wondered why it did choke up.

Virat looked up at him blankly.

"Really?" he whispered. "A girl?"

"Yes," whispered back Rahul. "Otherwise we'd be calling him Virato, probably."

Virat laughed. A loud, open hearted Virat-like laugh.

For once Rahul acted on instinct instead of overthinking every action a million times, and flung his arms around Virat and held on stranglingly, half-laughing, half-crying, glad that Virat didn't push him away.

He'd been feeling close to tears the moment he held Viratee.

His goddaughter.

Ok, maybe she was multiple people's goddaughter, but she was his, too.

"Why're you crying, now, Moi?" asked Virat bewildered. "Is something wrong with her? Or--Anu--"

"No, no, no. She's so perfect, Virat," sobbed Rahul. "She's—"

Virat patted Rahul's back in confusion.

"Your daughter, Virat, can you believe it..."

"God, you're barmy," said Virat. "You're completely barmy. Come now, I want to see her."

It struck Rahul that the conversation had sounded remarkably like Rahul's daughter had just been born.

Could he honestly have felt happier than this if it had been his own daughter?

For a while he stood sniffling and wiping his eyes. Virat observed him in awed silence.

Now Virat observing someone in awed silence was not a good sign, so Rahul tried his best to stop. He felt strangely reluctant to let Virat's arm go as they rushed down the stairs.

Up and down the corridor lined with delivery rooms, there was only one room that was making a din fit to raise the dead. A roar greeted them as they pushed into that room.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?"

Virat ignored everyone's yells and made a beeline for his daughter, currently in Kuldeep's arms.

"Took you long enough," he mumbled to Viratee, hugging her to his heart. Then he looked up at his wife and smiled. Anushka smiled back wordlessly.

They might've wanted to spend a couple of moments alone, but with a team as thick skinned as that, there was a pretty slim chance of that.

Not to mention that Virat could remember himself refusing to budge from Sakshi bhabi's room when Zivi was born, too.

But Rohit and Rahul caught each other's eyes and reached a silent agreement, and with Jinks, Bhuvi and Ash's help, managed to herd the rowdier parts of the team out for a few minutes.

Virat turned and winked in their direction. To Rahul it seemed like the wink was directed only at Rohit—and would he be surprised, he wondered flatly.

Virat had been plenty upset with him few minutes ago; all those stuff about that maiden hundred reaction being fake.

How could you ever fake something like that?

"She looks so much like Virat, doesn't she, Rahul?" Rohit said, quite moonily, effectively distracting Rahul from his thoughts.

"Yeah, she does," said Rahul, smiling back, and remembered a sentence uttered by him long ago.

But I'm pretty sure there's only one Virat Kohli in the whole universe.

Well, thought Rahul, about as moonily as Rohit. Now there were two.