"The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they had been hours before."

- John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

* * * *

Dedicated to my dear @Olaf789 to whom I apologize for the delay and thank for being the one who kept reminding me and bringing me back here, who's thought stayed in the back of my mind and kept reminding me whenever I lost the concept of time because days have blended in nights and vice versa and I no longer know better...

Thank you for waiting, dear readers, and apologies for the delay!

* * * *

Dr Waltz looked at the young man sitting in front of him with pity and he wished he actually had answers to the questions he was being asked. He sighed loudly and then turned to look at the man sitting next to him, Dr Shah, the one who was looking at the young man sitting in front of them with arrogance; a smirk on his face that represented his superiority because finally, the day has come - the day when he would be proven right and his theories about the young man's mental health valid.

"Manik, your case has been a difficult one to study as my team and I haven't been the ones who had treated you since the start. You have been treated in India, and I must say, the Doctor in the ER that night had done a pretty good job, but it seems she and I have confused the retrograde amnesia with the concussion," Dr Waltz said, trying to find words to make it seem less devastating as he could.

He had dealt with such cases and patients always reacted strongly when they were told their memories were wiped away or at least inaccessible to them for an unterminated period, a normal reaction, but something about the one sitting in front of right now made it felt as if he was sentencing the young man to death. Somehow, the memories of just two years pre-accident were more important to him than his whole life. The reason had been clear to everyone during the course of the stay of the patient that continued to fascinate them with each new development...

"I myself had thought that. Because the way you keep confusing the events of the past few years of your life should mean you are suffering from Post Concussion syndrome. But Doctor Shah after meeting you had insisted otherwise. And I guess your trip back to India has proved him right," he said as he nodded at the old man sitting beside him.

Dr Waltz couldn't help but look at the psychiatrist sitting beside him with disapproval. How could he gloat when the matter was of such a delicate nature? Yes, the young man was a stubborn, willful, and raging creature, someone who had caused him and his team a lot of trouble, but that didn't mean they should make things more difficult for him just to satisfy their wounded egos because the young man had denied their theories and help.

He disapproved of Dr Shah because he was proving to be someone not at all appropriate to be the psychiatrist of the young man. He was too arrogant, too smug about his success. It wasn't the first time he wished he could throw the man out of his cabin.

With a sigh, Dr Waltz shook his head and continued as he ignored the old man even though they were supposed to be on the same side.

"I wish I could tell you that I think Dr Shah's reasoning doesn't sound correct, but the truth is that his hypothesis is our best guess. Human minds are more fascinating and unpredictable than anything else in this universe, we can't say anything about it for sure," he said with an apology in his voice.

"But I remember everything. How can I suffer from amnesia when I do have memories of the past two years? Yes, I can't put them in order, I can't tell what happened before and what after...Something isn't adding up," Manik said with a frustrated sigh, easily angered because of the helplessness he was feeling.

"Let me explain to you in a better way; you are suffering from retrograde amnesia: temporary amnesia following the head injury that begins with memory loss over a period of weeks, months, or years before the injury. In your case, it's the past two years of your life." He concluded and nodded at Dr Shah to take over the explanation.

"The lack of memories and your being in and out of coma must have pushed your mind to come up with its own." Dr Shah said, "or better yet, it must have thought of your desires to have someone - her - in your life as your reality. You must have imagined her before the accident, had her in your life as your imaginary friend, always at the back of your mind, but back then you knew she was just an imagination. But after the accident, your mind has confused the reality with imagination, has placed those scenarios that you imagined as your memories, making you believe them a part of your past and think of her as a real person." Dr Shah concluded.

"Do you mean to say that she isn't real and at one point in time I knew that, but after the accident, I have started to think of her as real?" Manik asked with a frown before suddenly shaking his head, refusing the explanation.

'Ridiculous,' he sneered in disbelief.

It had taken weeks of constant negging from Devansh for him to agree to talk to them. After what had happened with Nyonika and all his doors getting shut, he had roamed around the streets of Mumbai aimlessly, yet hoping in vain to find any familiar place, he had given in only when Devansh had convinced him to come back to London to ask his doctors what had happened to his brain and why there were so many black-holes in his memories. At first, he had tried to find the answers on his own, but somehow any explanation he came up with sounded wrong. Knowing he couldn't have the needed knowledge of his mind on his own, he had decided to fix an appointment with the two Doctors who could have the answers to the questions that he kept asking himself.

And everything said by the Doctors sounded like something that could be a possibility, yet it couldn't be what happened to him, with him. After all, the 'her' and the 'she' they kept talking about was Nandini Murthy. And he may have had always thought that she was too good to be real, too perfect for his world, but she was real, and that was a fact, not his imagination. No one, lest he could deny her of her importance...

Suddenly he stood up, making the chair fall behind him, without a word, he stormed out of Dr Waltz's cabin without looking back as the said doctor could only call out to him to stop.

"Well, that went as expected!" Dr Shah said with a sigh while Dr Waltz could only glare at him before sighing in exasperation...

* * *

She was sitting on the stairs of the second floor of S.P.A.C.E. Trying to control her tears, taking deep breaths to find the strength to not give in. Not today. Nandini couldn't give in today. It was a happy day for her friends, for his family; Fab 5. They were graduating. Their last day as S.P.A.C.E students. Everyone was happy around her, and she was happy too, for them...

Yet she couldn't help but guess how different this day would have been if he was there with her. She kept thinking of how she would have been sad that he won't be around to drag her here or there, away from everyone else for some alone time, but she would have been happy and would have been so proud of him...

With every thought, the need for him to be here, by her side, overwhelmed her. Today, everything felt more than any other day. Much more overwhelming, more intense, and more difficult. She drew a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to block out all the pain and frustration she was feeling.

"You can have my shoulder to cry on if you want to." A voice whispered in her ears.

"Manik," she whispered back.

She slowly opened her eyes and looked at her left, somehow she still had some strength left in her to hope to find him there.

At least this time...

"Manik..." She called him, louder than before. Looking around. She didn't know why she was sure of finding him.

But he wasn't there...

"Manik," her voice shook this time. She couldn't fight it anymore, so closing her eyes, she gave in.

"Why aren't you here, Manik? You were supposed to be here," Nandini said to the Manik who lived within her, hoping the rest of him, wherever it was, will know she was calling him.

"Please come back, Manik, please." She whispered in the air, hoping it would carry with it her plea wherever it went and reach where her plea will be heard, to Manik.

"Please come back. Mere liye, humare liye, for us. Please Manik, please," she sobbed, hiding her face in her hands.

That was how Cabir found her; crying inconsolably, repeating her plea again and again. Trying to control his own tears, he stepped closer to her.

Cabir looked at her again, she was something. Nandini kept surprising him since the day she had punched Manik. Never ever anyone had thought that someone could even touch the air around the monster Manik pretended to be and live long enough to regret it. But she had punched him, in front of everyone, and still had been there, around Manik to fight with him day after day. Now that he thought about it, Cabir was sure his Man-ek never really tried to keep her away from him as he had claimed to desire...

At first, all of them had thought it was because of the punch, but there had been more to it. And after a certain point, not just Fab 5, but everyone had let them just be, because, between Manik and Nandini, no one else had any say over anything. They both had been so protective and possessive over their moments and each other since day one that anyone else's interference hadn't been tolerated by them.

Cabir had always wondered if Manik had fallen in love with Nandini the second she had punched him. He had been, without a doubt, obsessed with her since the start, yet that had only increased after that punch. He could only recall now how possessive Manik had been about her that he hadn't let him or Mukti anywhere near Nandini, let alone make her subject of their usual torture.

Let alone taking revenge in Fab 5 style, Manik hadn't even let any of them defend him. He had always stopped them, had pushed them back, hadn't let them come up with something to trouble her. When it came to Nandini, Manik always had a Don't-you-dare and I-will-deal-with-her-myself attitude.

'Pagal,' Cabir thought to himself, shaking his head, with a sad smile and wet his eyes.

"Nandini," Cabir called her softly.

Nandini wasn't expecting to be found by any of them so soon. She chose to come to the second floor because there was no one present there. Everyone was attending the ceremony that was going on the ground floor, and for once, everyone was actually paying attention to everything that was being said, enjoying their last day of them as college students.

"Cabir," she responded with a nod.

Nandini wiped her tears and looked up to find Cabir coming close to sit near her. For a long time, neither of them talked. Just stared at the space in front of them, their thoughts focused on the same person who was the reason why two of them actually got to know each other.

"Nandini" Cabir started, "There is no need to mask that pain from me. Believe me, each one of our batchmates, in a way or other, is thinking about him."

"Manik started college with us, and he was supposed to finish it with us. His absence is more unbearable today than any other day. So there is no need to mask that pain from us," he tried to make her understand why she didn't have to suffer alone and could share her pain with anyone she wanted, at least today.

"That is exactly the reason why I can't be around them. The looks they have been giving me, be it pity or hurt, I couldn't tolerate them. It feels as if the loss has amplified, so much that it makes me feel as if I am breathing my last breath," she whispered with a shuddering sigh.

Cabir turned to look at the girl who loved Manik more than Fab 5 ever had, more than anyone else could. The girl who was loved by Manik like no one else had been.

"Why isn't he here, Cabir?" He heard her ask.

"Why am I not able to find him anywhere? No matter where I go, no matter how much I try to, I can't find him," she whispered, her voice cracking, grief-stricken as she closed her eyes.

"I don't know why I feel that something bad has happened, otherwise you know Manik, he can't stay away from us that long. He can't stay away from me that long," Nandini whispered, looking at the guy who would become her confidant whenever her mask slipped.

"But the thought of him being somewhere, alone, suffering without any of us by his side, drives me insane," she said, crying.

"I don't want him to be alone anymore, Cabir. Manik has been alone for so long. I am supposed to protect him, he expects me to. But look at me, failing to do the only thing he has ever asked from me," she was sobbing out loud, hiding her face between her hands.

He tried, he really had. He tried so hard to let Manik's Nandini not suffer. To make sure she was fine. Because he owed him. All of them did. Manik had been their protector and caretaker ever since he came into their life. Now when it's his turn to do everything to protect and take care of the most loved and cherished person by Manik, he was failing. He could just not, they all couldn't...

There was only one person who could protect and take care of the child-woman sitting next to him, and that person was Manik. No one, not anyone else was good enough at it.

"He will come back to us, Nandini. He has to...Or we will find him, no matter how many places we have to search to find him, no matter how much time it takes, we will," Cabir promised her, pulling her shaking self into his arms and he patted her hair in comfort as he cried along with her.

* * *

"What's happened?" Devansh asked.

"What?" Manik responded, confused.

"I have been sitting here for the past one hour and we are having a normal conversation which is not your normal. So, I ask you, Manik Malhotra, what the hell has happened?" he asked once again with a frown.

Their trip to India had gone bad, Manik had been deadly silent their way back to London, and when after weeks of his nagging Manik had agreed to meet the doctors, he had thought things would get better yet Manik had refused to meet him for weeks. He had made several attempts to meet and talk to the younger but Manik never responded until last night when he had beaten down his door and hadn't left till the younger man accepted to come along with him to the coffee shop to talk with him over a cup of coffee.

"Nothing," he simply answered.

"Then why are you behaving so calm? No shouting, no thrashing, or throwing things. How come you are not being, what was that? Oh, yea, 'Monster Manik'. Why are you not being a 'Monster Manik'?" Devansh asked him with an amused smile.

When he didn't get any response from the young man sitting in front of him, the smile on his lips slipped away and he sighed.

"I can't understand how you can appear so calm on the outside when there is so much going on on the inside," he said, worried.

"There's no point, anything and everything is so pointless," Manik answered, passively.

"Don't do this, Manik," he sighed in disapproval.

"Don't do what? I am doing nothing..." the younger man responded with a shrug.

"That's my point! You have stopped living. You are so indifferent towards your own present and future that you are doing nothing but wasting your life..." Devansh almost yelled.

"If you knew where your future should lead you and your present isn't leading you there, you stop living. When you know with whom your future lies and everything that doesn't lead you there, to that person, it becomes unimportant. That's the case, Devansh, that's what I feel; indifference," Manik told him calmly.

"You can't stop living, Manik, no matter how important she is to you, don't ignore your present that is going to lead to a future, your future. You can't forget your own existence because you value hers too much," Devansh argued.

"So what can I do? What else can I do, Devansh? Everything seems so meaningless. Nothing matters," he whispered, tired.

"Manik, stop it. Aren't you tired of destroying yourself? Aren't you tired of fighting? Of all this? For the love of God, give yourself a break. Everything that you are doing is hurting no one but you. Stop, just stop," Devansh told him with a concerned frown.

He could understand what the younger was feeling, he had been there once, in the same position, in the same mindset where the younger was right now. And that was why he wanted Manik to know that life has its own way to heal the wounded ones and to lead them where they are meant to be, and that life shouldn't be stopped for anyone because it's meant to be lived for one own self and no one else...

"I can't," Manik whispered, helplessly.

"Why? Even if she is real, this kind of madness is not healthy, it will lead you nowhere but to destruction," he tried to make the younger understand.

"No, Devansh, not finding her will lead me to destruction and madness because there is no moment of clarity without her," Manik whispered.

"You are insane," he said, giving up.

"Believe me, Devansh, insanity would have been a blessing than the reality I am living in," Manik smirk, unamused.

"You have come back to life, Manik," he told him with sadness in his eyes.

"When the person who to me has been a mean of happiness and hopes went missing, the peace ceased to exist. So you see, Devansh. I am no more alive, I have already died in the car accident you and everyone else thinks I have survived."

* * * *

"How are you feeling?" Dr Shah asked the young man sitting in front of him.

It had been four months to the day he had met Manik in the cabin of Dr Waltz and to say the least, he was glad to be proven right, again. He knew Manik would come to him on his own, and he did...

Now that he knew his effort wouldn't go wasted, that he could influence and guide the young man on the right path and help him out, Dr Shah was ready to put his effort into this case. Because this time around it wasn't Mr Malhotra, the young man's father, who had forced the young man to come to meet him, but he had come to him, on his free will. And that was what needed to happen for the progress to be made.

He had told Mr Malhotra that he could only help his son if his son wanted to be helped, and in order to do that, Manik himself had to reach out to him, only then he would be able to help him out. He had told Mr Malhotra that no matter how everyone around Manik wanted to help him to realize that his 'she' wasn't real, they wouldn't be able to help Manik if the said boy wasn't ready to acknowledge and accept that there was no 'she'. He had told Mr Malhotra and even Dr Waltz that Manik had to want his help and only then he would be able to help and he had also assured them that the day would come.

And it did...

"I don't think I can express what I am feeling, Dr Shah," a cold, unpassionate voice answered him.

Dr Shah thought so. Five months ago, when he had met Mr Malhotra, he had suggested to the man that it would be better for Manik if he could go back to India so he would see himself that 'she' had never been there. He had told Mr Malhotra that only then there would be a difference in Manik's attitude towards what he was facing. And he had been right, the results were positive, it didn't matter that Manik hadn't come to him before, he had to make that progress on his own. Now even if he was insisting that Nandini Murthy was real, there was a fear and some doubts, a hesitation in his claims, something that never had been there before...

The result of the trip back home was what they had expected it to be; Manik slowly was starting to come back to real life and was starting to build a new life for him in London. He had been told that in the past few weeks Manik had started taking business management classes and had left behind the music that he had loved so dearly, much to Mr & Mrs Malhotra's pleasure.

When he had been asked why, Manik had simply answered that he wanted to be independent, move away from his father's grip, leave behind everything he was familiar with. After hearing him, Dr Shah had understood that his coping mechanisms were in action and Manik finally was moving towards a healthy mindset. And now, he even came to talk to him, to find a way to get out of the world his mind had imagined while he was in the coma.

"Try!" Dr Shah said to him gently.

"I can't," came a flat answer as the owner of that voice stared at the wall behind him, his eyes unfocused.

"Are you disappointed that you weren't able to find her?" Dr Shah asked with a calm voice.

"I don't think disappointment covers what I feel," Manik answered with a sigh.

He was devastated, as if he suddenly had no reason to live, he was tired, tiredness that went beyond the physical one. There were times when he felt as if all the oxygen in the air had disappeared but he was the only one who felt breathless. He had seen his eyes in the mirror in the mornings, and Devansh was right, he looked like a ghost with dark circles and red glassy eyes. He wished he was one, so he wouldn't be expected to live and breathe when he was deprived of the one person who had made life easy for him.

Was she really not real?

No, no, no, he couldn't believe it...

He wouldn't accept it...

"I think the problem lies in the fact that you can't understand what she is; your imaginary friend or girlfriend. An adult having an imaginary friend, could be due to trauma or isolation and loneliness, etc. And we do know that your childhood hadn't been the one that a child should have. You have lived your life isolated and in loneliness." Dr Shah theorized.

"It occurred because you have been hurt and let down by all the people in your life and so you turn to an imaginary being for comfort and understanding. That's the purpose of having an imaginary being; fill in a void or fulfill a frustrated human need, etc. The need to be understood, validated, comforted, and reassured. And from what you have told me, your Nandini seems to fit the description to perfection, doesn't she?" He asked even though he didn't feel the need to, he knew he was right.

"Yes," Manik whispered as he nodded, his rational mind accepted the explanation, it was his intuition and instinct that urged him to deny the information he was being given. And as rational and calculative as he was, he had always been a being driven by his intuitions because they never have been wrong...

He had developed it very early in his life - or maybe he was born with it - the ability to sense if something was wrong or if something was not adding up. He had been an observer by nature and now, when it came to her, a never-ending fight had been going on within him without a conclusion, the reason why he was now sitting in Dr Shah's studio.

The rational side of him believed in all the evidence and proves that he had come across from the past one year he had spent awake after his coma, while the other side of him, driven by incentive and intuitions, believed that given the power that others had over him during those six months he had spent in and out of the coma, sedated and helpless by the strong painkillers, they had done something that was now rendering him powerless to lead the life the way he wanted to - to find the truth about her.

With frustration and helplessness crossing into his vines, he punched the table in front of him with his freshly bandaged hand, making Dr Shah jump by the sudden movement and look at him with eyes wide open.

As Dr Shah looked down at Manik's hands and saw how the white bandage was slowly turning into red at places, soaking into blood coming out of what must have been fresh wounds that now were open by the force the younger had used into punching the table. Shaking his head, Dr Shah looked up at the young man and he found that the empty eyes were now lit with the fire in them, suddenly he didn't look tired or aged beyond his early twenties, but very much the young man he had met more than a year ago.

"If she is just an illusion, then why does she haunt me? Her voice, her smile, her memories...If they are no memories at all, then why does everything feel so alive, so intense, so real? Why does everything about her haunt me? Why does everything remind me of her as if everything around me is because of her - is her? Why had there been such a strong presence of her in everything in my life, and continues to be, if she does not exist why do I feel that I survived everything that happened to me because I knew she was waiting for me back home? How can she be just my imagination?" Manik ranted. Grief-stricken he closed his eyes, shaking his head before letting out a shuddering sigh.

"Why can't be she real?" He asked in a broken whisper.

"What's her date of birth?" Dr Shah suddenly asked.

"What?" He muttered, snapped out of his misery.

"What is her date of birth, Manik?" Dr Shah asked calmly as he looked after fixing his glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"I-I don't remember," he admitted quietly, after a long silence.

"You know that generally causes a fight between the real couple," Dr Shah told him with a laugh.

"I don't remember the date, but I know how we had spent it," Manik told him as he nodded to himself.

He knew how they had spent her birthday, the tomato cake and the starry night. That night had been full of joy because that had been the night that she had told him that she was in love with him.

He could still hear an echo of her whisper of "hamesha" in his ears even now.

"This is because you haven't imagined her in detail. Can't you see Manik? You have imagined what kind of a day would be perfect for 'her' birthday but never gave importance to the date. But because of your accident, your brain has confused the imaginations with the past, and you have accepted them such as." Dr Shah said.

"But now when asked, your brain can't come up with a date as that was the data it doesn't have. There are loopholes in all of this reality-imagination business. Your brain may have confused your fantasy with reality, but it can't build up the whole story around it," he concluded.

"Tell me about how you have spent her birthday then," Dr Shah asked after a long pause.

"I don't intend to talk about her to you or anyone, Nandini is...Her memories are mine and I will not share them with anyone." Manik told him firmly.

"So much of possessiveness over an imagination, Manik? Why can't you understand? You need help, let me help you." Dr Shah scolded him.

"I don't think you can. You don't understand her importance, Dr Shah. Can't you see my insistence on her existence is an act of survival? I want her to be real not because I have some weird romantic fantasy as you call it. I want her to be here because she is the only one who I want to be here for me. She is the only one who thinks of me as hers. I..." Shaking his head, he gives up in the millesimal attempt to find the right words which could express her importance.

Shaking his head in pity, Dr Shah could see that it would take him ages to convince the boy that 'Nandini' all but his hallucination.

"That is what I am trying to say: you have started to think of her as the means of your survival, the one who has given you what you have leaked all your life; a home, protection, and the sense of belonging. Your mind has projected her in the way that she seems to be everything you need and want." Shah diagnosed him, understanding the pattern of the obsession which the boy seems to have with his imaginary girlfriend.

"You are wrong!" Manik claimed.

No matter how everyone thought he was living in an illusion his wounded mind had created on its own, he knew, she had to be real. Maybe not as perfect as his memories have made her look, sure she had to have her own flaws but that didn't mean he thought of her less perfect for him. She was more than he could ever ask for...

A perfect mirage she was...

* * * *

A/N:- Here is the 21st Chapter, 2nd last of the 'past' chapters. I hope you all liked it and will continue to hang around until the end and will keep enjoying the progress that the story is making...

Manik of this chapter gave a glimpse of the Manik of the present. I am sure many of you while reading the first few chapters have asked where Manik was and why didn't he come back to Nandini, because Manik that we know and love wouldn't have been able to stay away from Nandini for as long as +four years, this chapter and the coming ones would shed light on the different Manik: one of past, present and in between...

I hope you are liking the story so far, please share your thoughts and feelings on the chapter and the story by commenting. Let me know your thoughts... :)

Thank you for your presence and support... Please continue with your support, encouragement, and patience! <3

Thank you, for always showing so much patience and support... :)

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