Two months later...

Her fingers drummed softly on the wooden table her knee bopping to the drums. A soft breeze blew strands of her hair across her face, she brushed them away hastily, her eyes darting across the pages as she bent down scratching furiously into her notes. Have to stay occupied.

The drums in her ears grew louder and her fingers drummed harder, knee jerking faster. And faster. And fast- "Anika!" her earphones were ripped out of her ear, silencing the drums abruptly.

Her eyes snapped up angrily only to soften as they fell on her friend peering worriedly at her.

"I have been calling you since the last hour! Why aren't you picking up!?"

Anika smiled, running her hands through her tangled hair "Hey Ritu" she tugged a chair for her friend to sit "just catching up on my studies"

Her friend frowned, ignoring the chair "Studying?"

Anika nodded, checking her phone, avoiding eye contact.

She raised her brows "seven missed calls?" pursing her lips at her phone "Did your water break or something?" she chuckled looking at Ritu's huge tummy.

Ritu rolled her eyes placing a hand protectively over her baby bump "You know am not due yet."

"common lets go" she sighed grabbing her bag, Anika shook her head "I've got my shift soon, so am gonna hang in here for a while" she flipped her pages, trying to look busy.

"your shift has eight more hours to begin" Ritu narrowed her eyes.

Anika opened her mouth firing another excuse at her when Ritu held up her finger "Do you realize its been 49 hours since you've left the hospital?"

Just 49 hours?

Anika turned away flipping pages more urgently, as if she could find an excuse written, to throw her friend off her back, but Ritu knew her better " I've watched you take up every shift possible and even volunteering to take other peoples shifts and when you don't find any more work to do, you've taken up hoarding yourself in piles of books with music blasting in your ears as if you don't give a dam about this world"

If only that was possible.

Anika sighed "that's..not true" she argued. It sounded fake even to her.

Ritu crossed her arms "either you pack your bags and let me drop you home this instant or god help me woman...." She leaned in close "you don't want to get a pregnant woman mad"

Anika chuckled raising her hands in surrender.

"alright I'll meet you out front" Ritu grinned, dropping her angry act and heading out the door.

"wait" Anika called out frantically stuffing her things into her bag " I'll come with you" she breathed, jogging up to her. If her friend had found her actions odd, she did a good job in hiding it beneath a small smile.

Through the way to the parking lot Ritu babbled on and about how she and her husband were preparing the new baby room and how her mother-in-law was giving her a hard time with weird recipes that were supposed to be good for the baby.

Anika nodded and smiled occasionally. She hung onto every word uttered by her friend. She was used to it by now. She had managed to train her mind into focusing on anything useless. Anything unimportant. Anything that would make her not think about things. Things that gave her sleepless nights.

"Wait for me here?" Ritu asked, halting suddenly in front of a pathological laboratory "am gonna just, haul my workaholic husband out of his lab" she giggled like a teenager.

Anika shuffled her feet hesitantly. She couldn't follow her in there, so giving her a tight nod she continued walking.

She wished she could ask Ritu to not leave her alone, to tell her to keep talking about random, unimportant stuff, even if she wasn't listening to a word of it, but she needed that buzz. She needed that presence of someone beside her to keep her from falling.

Because the second she was alone, all she wanted to do was fall. Fall into the dark hole of emptiness that seemed to call out to her, every time her mind was vacant.

A endless hole that promised her comfort to curl up and cry to her hearts content. Where she didn't have to get up every morning plastering a fake smile in front of dadi and Jhanavi aunty and spurting lies about...about their son who was probably dead. Her heart squeezed at the thought. Dead because she had left him to die. Cause she wasn't strong enough to make him come with her.

A small trickle of water fell on her cheek. Anika blinked suddenly finding herself stranded in middle of a deserted parking lot. A drop was followed by another and soon it was pouring down on her. Cold droplets hammered down on her, chilling her to the bone. She shuddered clutching her bag tightly and shuffled onward slowly with no intention to get out of it.

The cold seeped through her clothes chilling her to the core but it didn't seem bothered by her, she was used to it by now, the cold and numbness inside her, like someone had reached in and pulled out whatever light she had in her, leaving behind a corpse.

She shivered again, the cold nagging at her mind making her think about things that were going to cause her pain. She didn't want to remember him.

She squeezed her eyes shut. But even flinching away from the images, she could feel her eyes welling up, and the aching begin around the edges of the hole in her heart. She breathed a ragged breath, wrapping her arm around her torso to hold it in one piece.

She had to hold it in. Or else there was no way she could go home and face his family. No way would she be able to lie any more.

She girted her teeth, pushing her legs to walk. She had to make it stop.

Anika his voice whispered. It resounded in her head, pounding against her skull, like sharp needles She halted, her hands trembling as she pressed them against her ears, and pressing her lips in a tight line.

Images flashed faster behind her lids. The bombs, the gunshots, the blood, his eyes- her breathes came out in gasps as the images rushed in.

She clamped down her teeth "stopstopstop" The dance, her name on his lips...his lips. she shook her head hard, trying to shake them away, she needed them to stop.

Anika his voice echoed in her mind and a cry tore through her, her knees buckled and she fell down, the cold gravel cocooning her into its cold hard surface.

She wondered how much of this pain she could take until her heart finally stopped beating. That was how it felt. How his absence and the guilt felt. Like they were going to be the end of her. Like- A loud horn blasted into the shrill silence, interrupting her torture. Ritu's alarmed voice was lost against the voices in her own head.

"Anika!" she screamt, waving her hand awkwardly from her car window "Anika! What's wrong!?" and just like that she straightened, pulling herself up and raising her hand "am fine!" she yelled.

No she wasn't.

"nothings wrong." Everything was.

She turned around and made her way slowly to her friend's car and got in, smiling casually at Ritu's petrified face. She tried pushing her drenched hair away from her face, trying not to look wrecked.

It amazed her, how fast she managed to act normal in front of everyone, she didn't know from where her body conquered that strength. "just dropped my keys" she lied easily.

Ritu smiled but Anika could sense the uneasiness behind it.

She placed her hand on Anika's shoulder " whatever it is Anika" she said softly " whatever you are going through...it's going to be ok" she said.

No. It wasn't going to be ok.

Anika nodded and looked out the window, grateful for the rain that had drenched her. Glad that no one could see the tears streaming down her wet face.

************************************

The huge door closed softly behind her. She frowned looking around, it was never this quiet where was everyone?

Before she called out to dadi a maid came hurrying out of the kitchen "Mam everyone has left for the art exhibition..." she trailed away her eyes darting worriedly over Anika's wet state "shall I get you a towel mam?"

"ah." Anika shooed her offer away " I was going for a hot shower anyway" she said "what exhibition by the way?"

"Umm. Omkara sir had announced the opening of his exhibition mam" the maid replied.

Anika slapped her forehead "shit that was today?!" the maid nodded.

"any luck I can still make it?" she asked her hurriedly.

"uhh......" the maid pursed her lips at Anika's wet hair and clothes " maybe I could make you a hot cup of coffee mam, they will be home in a few minutes anyway" Anika slouched and sighed " yeah coffee sounds great, thank you"

She rubbed her forehead angrily, how did Om's exhibition slip out of her mind.

She walked slowly up the huge spiral stairs, and fell with a sigh into her soft bed. Sinking happily onto its comforting folds.

Her eyes fluttered shut and just like that she was back to that day. The day which kept repeating itself in her mind like a broken tape. The same tape which she now knew by heart.

It always began at the same place, always at the exact moment when Shivaay's hand had slipped away from hers.

The sardar had hauled her out of the place, shielding her body with his as he slashed and pushed his way through the rumbles and smoke and whoever dared to get in his way.

In an hour she was sitting in a plane watching the sandy dunes of Dubai grow farther and farther away.

She was glad the sardar didn't indulge in any sort of conversation with her, but she had desperately wished he would provide comfort by promising that Shivaay would be back. But in the short time of their togetherness Anika knew that the sardar was not the man of fake promises.

Shivaay said he had everything planned, and Anika knew the important parts of the plan where she was involved. Shivaay had always made sure she knew what to say and how to act before they entered the scene, but what he never planned for was what would happen if one of them didn't make it back. He hadn't told her what to do if that happened, and how badly she wished that he had.

As their plane landed in Mumbai, terror had gripped her chest. She had reached out then, gripping the sardar's hand tightly and the words that had been gripping her throat till then came tumbling out in a terrified whisper "what will we tell his family?" she had looked at him then for the first time in their journey.

"we've been given orders madam" he had answered solemnly.

She had stared at him her chest swelling up with hope "What about me?" she had probed "Did he say anything about me? Did he say something that he wants me to do?" maybe there was some secret person Shivaay would've want her to meet who would suddenly show her a way to save him, the Shivaay she knew always had backup plans.

But her hope gradually died as she watched the sardar slowly shake his head.

"This is how far we go madam" he had said after a minute as their car rolled to a stop in front of the mansion and Anika had nodded stepping gingerly down the safety of her car, her legs had felt numb and her head light.

"and madam" she looked back at the sardar his huge turbaned head leaning out the window "Have faith madam" she had nodded "good bye"

And with that, the car had roared away leaving her alone at the foot step of the mansion. But nothing had happened how she had feared.

No one came rushing at her with tears demanding where Shivaay was and how had she been so cruel to leave him at that place. Instead, everyone was as cheerful as any other day.

It was only after did she learn that Shivaay had already sent in the word that his expedition would take longer. The Oberoi's were used to him being absent for long periods on his business trips, and suspected nothing.

Anika had realized that these were the orders he had sent out. She almost wanted to punch him, for playing with his family's emotions for his own use, but anger was the last thing on her mind.

She had hoped that Shivaay would show up the next day unscathed and unharmed, just like he had promised.

But days turned into weeks. And soon her hope was turning into despair. She stopped getting up in the morning and racing down, hoping she would see him sipping his coffee as usual without a care in the world.

And soon her despair turned into sleepless nights of nightmares that always left her pillows drenched in tears and sweat.

When she couldn't stand it anymore she had started to make calls to his office or the hotel they had stayed anything that she could find in her memory to get hold of any link that would give her some answers. But every time she had only ended up at a dead end.

Of course no one knew anything about any sort of heist where hostages or a Mumbai based business man was involved in. It almost felt like all of it didn't exist. Like it was all made up in her mind, a fragment of her imagination.

"am not crazy" she breathed, opening her eyes, her lashes moist. She wasn't. she couldn't be. Every minute she had spent with him were etched to perfection in her mind. Every. Small. Detail. There was no way she had hallucinated all of it.

But the nightmares were real, and there was no denying the physical evidence that stared back her every morning from the mirror. Her face swallow, pale except for the dark circles that the nightmares had left under her eyes, her hair dull and in need of a proper wash, her sharp cheekbones were proof of her deteriorating weight. Maybe she looked normal from afar, but up close she could probably pass for a zombie.

She worked like a zombie too. The only way to stop the nightmares and panic attacks were if she didn't give her mind the time to think about it, so she had plunged herself into tireless shifts at her hospital and if those were not enough, she volunteered to take up other peoples shifts, and when that was completed she would drown herself in music and books, anything and everything to stop herself from accepting the bitter reality. Reality that Shivaay might just not be coming back.

She sat up straight, shivering, the wet clothes clinging to her like second skin. She was going to catch a cold if she didn't get out of them soon.

Minutes later she trudged lazily from the kitchen, with a hot cup in her hand. Just as she was settling down into a couch the door bell rung loudly.

She sighed getting up grumbling. She turned around to see if anyone got to the door before her when she heard a click and the doors swung open, She squinted as the evening sunlight from the main door streamed in. she raised her hand shielding her eyes. and through the gaps of her fingers she made out a figure.

A dark shadow of a man. Her throat went dry and her hand trembled as it dropped to her side, streaks of golden light slipped through his dark hair, his broad shoulders dressed in a black suit. And more than anything it was his eyes which made it hard for her to breath. Electrifying blue eyes clashed with her's, and then her cup dropped to the floor shattering into a million pieces.

************************************
A/N:

Hey guys,
All your wait is over. Here's presenting you the very first part of 'Beintehaan The conclusion'

For all our new readers, please read our part 1 Beintehaan before reading this.

Keep the love coming!
Btw it's really good to be back here

Yours
Trushnamallipudi