Chapter Two

She watched as a look of recognition dawned on his face. She noticed the slight movement of his thumb as he caressed his daughter's hand. Their daughter. Shraddha.

She was about to ask him to go outside and wait when the doctor entered the room.

"Are you here for the test?" he asked Randhir, who seemed to break out of a trance.

Randhir nodded.

"Follow me," the doctor said, and Randhir walked away without saying a word.

As he reached the doorway, he stopped before glancing back at Sanyukta then at Shraddha with pained eyes. She pulled her daughter towards her, hiding her face with her hands, shielding her from the man who walked away.

Randhir then turned around and disappeared.

"Mommy," Shraddha said, looking up at her. "That was Daddy right?"

Shraddha took her hands in her tiny ones and smiled widely at her. Sanyukta didn't understand how everything in her life seemed to fit together so perfectly, even if it was painful - Shraddha truly lived up to her name. Shraddha meant attention to detail and Sanyukta couldn't think she could have given her daughter a more perfect name.

"How do you know sweetie?" Sanyukta asked with a sad smile, not having it in her to lie to her daughter.

Shraddha looked up into her eyes with hers. Even though her eyes were sunken at such a young age, they were lit up with hope.

"His hands," she said simply, once again. "They're like mine."

Sanyukta glanced down at her daughter's hands and felt her heart ache. Shraddha truly did have Randhir's hands. Not just that, but she had Randhir's nose, his ears, even his intelligence. Shraddha was so similar to Randhir that it hurt sometimes. The only thing that seemed to belong to her was her eyes.

"He's the one in the picture right mommy?" Shraddha said, interrupting Sanyukta from her thoughts.

"What picture honey?" Sanyukta asked her, and kissed the top of her daughter's head.

"The one you used to hug at night," Shraddha said. "You never showed me."

She thought back to the picture that was resting at the bottom of her closet right now. The picture of her and Randhir. She remembered that day during their third year of college, when they took the picture.

--

Flashback:

"One kiss, come on babe," Randhir said with a smirk.

"Shut up Randhir," Sanyukta said apprehensively as he squeezed her arm, pulling her closer to him. "People will see."

"It'll be quick," he told her, placing his hand on her knee, causing goosebumps to erupt all over her body.

She grabbed his hands with hers and pushed it off.

"Leave me!" she said angrily.

Except she wasn't actually angry. She was just way too shy to kiss him in public, especially since nobody knew about their relationship yet.

They had confessed their love to each other two months ago, and they were still seeing each other behind everyone else's backs, trying to pretend that they were simply friends. Sanyukta already knew that Kaustuki, her best friend, was starting to see that something was fishy.

"Why don't we just tell everyone then," he whispered into her ear.

She fearfully looked around the canteen. There were a few people. Parth and Vidhushi were sitting with Jiggy at a table not far away from theirs. Surprisingly, they didn't seem to notice that Randhir and Sanyukta were in the same room.

"No!" Sanyukta refused as his lips brushed over her earlobe. "Imagine the kinds of things they'd say."

"Hmm, like what?" he asked, his breath caressing her ear. "That my beautiful engineer girlfriend is mine?"

"Randhiiir," she whined. "Why do you want to announce it?"

"Okay, kiss me and I'll shut up," he negotiated.

She turned around and glared at him before she pushed her lips on his really quickly and pulled away, looking around the canteen again. Nobody seemed to notice. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"That wasn't a kiss Sanyukta," he teased, and slid his arm around her waist, his fingers caressing her back ever so gently.

"That was," she said stubbornly.

"A proper kiss," he said, smirking.

"Do you want me to break up with you?" she threatened, narrowing her eyes at him.

"You wouldn't," he said, his free hand moving up her thigh.

"You're challenging me?" she questioned.

"Nah I'm just being truthful," he smirked, leaning towards her.

She felt her heart rate increase as his lips moved closer and closer to hers. She closed her eyes, anticipating his kiss, but it didn't come. She opened them to see Randhir smirking. He waved around his hand in front of her face which held the sandwich that had been on her plate.

"I was hungry," he said, with a huge smile.

She balled her fists in anger and stood up. Grabbing her bag, she stormed out of the canteen. She wasn't worried whether he'd follow her or not - she knew he would. But she needed to show him some attitude so he knew not to mess with her like this.

Just as she had known, he followed her to the empty classroom that she walked into. He closed the door behind him and she pretended like he didn't exist. He grabbed her wrist and turned her around.

"What do you want?" she snapped.

"Mad at me?" he asked her, trying to keep a straight face.

The idiot. He looked like he was going to laugh. He couldn't even pretend to be genuinely sorry.

"Don't talk to me!" she replied angrily.

"Going to break up with me?" he asked, sounding amused.

She turned around from him and crossed her arms. He wrapped one of his arms around her waist from behind and held his phone over her face with the other one, the camera on.

"See how bad you look while you're angry?" he asked with a smirk.

Her nostrils flared and Randhir pressed his fingers on her navel, pulling her body closer against his. He hit the click button with his finger and grinned widely.

"Caught it!" he said laughing.

Her mouth dropped open. He had guts. She turned around and tried to grab his phone from him.

"Randhir, I will kill you!" she said angrily.

"I'm all yours sweetheart," he said, smirking.

"In a few months, we'll be going to our placements and then you'll miss me like crazy," Sanyukta warned, still trying to grab the phone from him. "Watch!"

"We'll see that then," he replied, holding the phone high over his head, away from her reach. "Either way, I thought you were breaking up with me. What happened sweetheart?"

She frowned and gave up, frustrated.

"Fine, keep the photo!" she said angrily.

"I'll print a copy and send it to you," he said, chuckling.

"You're going to pay for this," she threatened.

"Hmm how so?" Randhir asked, taking a step towards her. She stepped back.

He continued to walk towards her, and she continued to step back until her back hit the wall. He blocked her escape route by placing both of his hands on either side of her body.

He brought his lips behind her ear and traced her jawline with them as she shuddered.

"One day I'll run away from you so quickly, that you won't even have time to tease me about it," she said, feeling herself smirk.

"That'll have to be the day I let you go right?" he asked, his lips hovering over hers.

"You will have no choice," she whispered as his lips met hers in a gentle kiss.

Her hands held on to his neck and pulled him closer to her, allowing him to deepen the kiss.

"I won't leave you," she murmured, breathing contentedly. "If you continue to kiss me like this."

"Oh, you might want to rethink Sanyukta," he said, smiling against her lips, "Now I'm tempted to leave you."

She smacked his chest and kissed him with more force as his hands roughly pulled her body against his.

--

Words which had once seemed like a joke, now held a bitter reality in them. When she looked back at their memories, along with a sense of satisfaction, she could see him pulling away. Each and every time.

"Baby," Sanyukta said to her daughter with a small smile, avoiding her earlier question about the photograph. "I want you to rest now okay? We'll go home once the doctor is done your checkup."

Shraddha nodded and lay down on her mother's lap. It wasn't long before she dozed off. Sanyukta looked at her daughter, as she felt a stinging sensation in her heart.

She was so afraid that something would happen to her daughter while she was sleeping. The doctor told her that that they were hopeful, but the mother in her was terrified at the prospect of losing her daughter. What if one day death snatched her daughter away with no warning? She would be all alone, shattered, torn to pieces.

She heard footsteps approach the room as Randhir walked in with the doctor.

"Sorry Miss Agarwal, It doesn't match," the doctor said.

She felt her heart drop once again as tears invaded her eyes. She wiped her eyes with her fingers and gently took Shraddha off her lap and rested her head on the bed. She pulled the covers up to her daughter's chin before walking up to the doctor and Randhir.

"Follow me to my office. We'll discuss our options," the doctor told her with a sad smile.

Ignoring Randhir, she walked past him and followed the doctor to the cabin. She was about to close the door behind her when Randhir stopped it from closing and invited himself in the room.

"Thank you for your help Randh... Mr. Shekhawat, but you aren't needed anymore. You may leave now," she said coldly.

He ignored her and took a seat in front of the doctor's desk. Sanyukta could not believe the guts on him. She took a deep breath and sat down next to him. Right now Shraddha was her priority, not Randhir.

"Mr. Shekhawat, Miss Agarwal," the doctor said looking at them both, "We have two options right now. One would be to wait until we get a matching marrow, which can bevery risky. Shraddha has up to two years of her life right now if we look at it optimistically. You would be leaving it up to luck if you pursued this option. Now the next option might be hard..."

Sanyukta knew what the next option was. The doctor had already confided in her that this was a possibility, and with medical technology, everything could go smoothly and she wouldn't need to do anything she didn't feel comfortable doing. But Sanyukta had already made up her mind that if she pursued this option, she would do it properly.

"There is a one in four chance of a bone marrow matching a brother or sister, the highest chance," the doctor informed. "If you two conceive again, you can improve the chances of eliminating Shraddha's cancer."

--
Don't look for logic in the medical scenario... I did some research (such as the 1 in 4 thing) but all of the medical-related information here may be wrong and I'm not trying to pass it off as right.