He was walking towards his own room when he noticed quiet sobs coming from his sister's room. He frowned and walked over to her room and knocked a few times. Behind the doors emerged his sister, with her cheeks stained by tears and in her hand their was the photo album clutched close.

He didn't need for her to word out what was wrong.

He immediately pulled her in hug and resolve broke and she sobbed into his arms freely. He walked her to her bed and sat down beside her. At times like this, he found himself helpless, he knew no matter how much efforts that would put in he could not erase the scar that was given to his family.

To him. And because of him.

Shivaansh's hands held his sister close. "It's okay to cry you know?" She mumbled quietly in his nighshirt.

"I will always be there to hold you, champ."

Why did his father lie? He knew it was not right to blame him for that. But he couldn't help it. He longed to be in the hold of his parents. He longed to have those nights where they would stay up playing games and reading stories.

He closed his eyes breathing through his mouth as he suppressed the sobs that threatened to escape him, he had managed all these years. He can do it now as well.

"You can cry, bhaiya." Shivani urged as she clasped her brother's trembling hands in hers. Despite her own tears, she is strong enough to be the pillar when her brother needed. Though he would never say it, now was one of the moments that he needed her.

"I am okay." He said, pressing a kiss over his sister's hair. She sighed, if everything than her PN had told her then she could say, he was just like their father.

"Do you know, I sometimes wonder, are they watching us?" He stiffened at question. "Like a star? From the skies? Like all the books and movies?" She asked softly.

"I don't know." He said. He really didn't.

She looked up with teary eyes, "I don't know either." She chuckled, before wiping her tears but the new ones formed soon enough cascading down her cheeks.

"But sometimes, I'd like to think they do." She said. He looked at her quizzically. "Maybe——" she choked, "It makes me feel that—maybe they are here. With us."

He couldn't control his own tears at that. These things shouldn't have happened, they were never meant to. But they did. They happened because of him.

His hold tightened over his sister, pulling her close trying to comfort her. "Sometimes I wonder, if they laugh at our stupidities or cry proudly at our achievements. I don't remember them clearly, I was too little, but the way you, PD and PN talk about them, make me feel like I have known them my whole life. But somehow it's not the same."

He sniffled at that, remembering how much he had missed them on the day of his graduation, he had cried all night calling their names. He wanted them by his side, their side.

He never wanted to grow up alone.

He never wanted his sister to grow up orphan, she was just a toddler. She didn't even have a proper memory of them. He could live their memories, but what about her? She couldn't even know her own parents.

He tried his best to give her snippets of how their parents used to be, from the faint memories that he had of them and they were his most cherished ones. He had written each one in his journal, in case——which he knew won't be possible. But, if there was one memory that he could never voice out, it was that.

The glass shattering.

The gun shot.

He visibly shuddered and Shivani hugged him tightly. "It was not your fault you know." She spoke resting her chin over his arm.

"It was Vani..." He croaked through the tears. His sobs clogged up his throat but he couldn't let them out. For years he had blamed himself, sometimes he couldn't even considered him deserving enough to mourn.

"They would have been here." He spoke through the tears.

"Do you know how much it hurts when everyone tells me, that I have my father's eyes, my mother's nose, my—" he couldn't continue, the wounds still remained fresh even after a decade. They can never fade. He had lost the happiest moments of his life that day. And they aren't coming back again.

"Do you know what's worse?" She asked quietly after a while, "Maasi says that my voice resembles my mother's. I don't even remember her—"

"I'm sorry." She cried pressing her face into her brother's shoulder. Hugging him tightly.

"Why can't they come back?" She asked in childlike innocence, desperation clear in her tone. "Why can't they see that we need them?" She cried and he agreed with each and every word of hers.

"I want her to dress me up like her, braid my hair——I know Maasi does that to me too——but whenever I see Radhika and Maasi, I can't help but yearn her love." She admitted.

"It's not fair that I have to be jealous of my own sister for motherly love."

He simply brushed her hair soothingly, hoping that it calm her down like it has always did. But, this time even that failed.

"I hate that person—" Shivani spoke suddenly. "The person who stole him away from us." She nearly growled, he looked at her properly, he could see the mirror of his mother. And tears flew freely at that.

What was their fault? Why were they paying for someone's sin. Why their parents were stolen away from them?

"You know, the last memory I have of her is saying bye to us, as we sat inside the car, she was smiling so brightly, waving to us——" he stopped when he felt her getting tense in his hold, he didn't blame her, he rarely opened about his childhood.

"If I had known——slightest idea of the dirty trick that fate was going to play on us." He shook his head. "I would never waved her goodbye, I would have never let him give in to my tantrums. Hell, i wouldn't even have wished for icecream."

He roughly wiped his tears.

"Look at it, dad should never have gone with us. Radhika shouldn't have. I ended up ruining many lives because of my stubbornness." He whispered to himself, his voice cracking at different places. He wiped his face with the back of his sleeves. Sniffling quietly he turned to look at the family portrait that was kept on the table.

Shivaay, Annika, five-year-old Shivaansh and baby Shivani, they all were cooing at the newborn, and in the picture next to it, they were smiling brightly looking into the camera.

"Beautiful people they are." He admitted. As his hands picked up the photograph, his hands grazing his parents pictures. Shivani gave out a melancholic smile, "khidkitod." She whispered causing her brother to chuckle despite his tears.

"They would have been so proud of you." She said as she placed her hand on top of the portrait. Shivaansh stiffened.

"They would have?" He asked. She turned to face her brother, before nodding vigorously. "Of course."

"You are bestest elder brother, nephew, grandson, and son—"

Son.

He was—is their son.

"Do you know how cool is that? Our parents are the Shivaay Singh Oberoi and Annika Trivedi, the coolest people I would have known." For some reason the last part of her sentence gave him a cold feeling.

The coolest person she could had ever known.

She could never get to live her childhood with them unlike him, who remembered bits and pieces.

"You already know them." He spoke after a while.

She turned to look at him with a frown. "What do you mean?" She asked.

"They are our parents, Ani." He spoke softly, near to his father's croon when he tried to pacify him. It made him tear up again, he thought he had already cried himself dry tonight, but that was not the case.

"They can never leave our side. Mom, dad, they love us too much to leave us alone. They are here. Maybe it's just us who can't see them, the essence of their love is still with us."

Shivani shook her at those words.

"Do you think parents can ever part from their children?" He asked softly. She shook her head.

"They are here, maybe. They had always been there." He assured her. What else he could do? He to console himself the same way that he was doing now.

The tears didn't stop.

The pain was still there and so were the tears. And they will be always, till his dying breath. Tormenting his each memory what happened because of him, what could have been prevented had he kept quiet longer.

His father would have been here. So did his mother.

"Maybe they are." She spoke after a while. He nodded at her words. Repeating them.

"I love you, bhaiya." She spoke, her eyes dropping shut. He smiled softly. Her nose still scrunched up like a baby whenever she was sleepy.

He brushed her hair as he pulled the duvet over her. "Love you too, bachhe." He pressed a kiss to her forehead, he wiped his own tears and got up to leave, when her voice made her halt.

"Love you, mom, dad." She spoke and he stood frozen at the words before a small smile took upon his feature.

"I love you too, dad. Mom. If possible please forgive your son." He spoke quietly at the photograph that was hung by the entrance. If there was one thing that was common in his and his sister's room, it was this, the walls of their room was covered by their pictures, so in some way they could be assured that——

He shook his head.

History always repeated itself, like it had done now.

.

Also, this is me totally not me tearing up, crying while writing the chapter. I never thought music would trigger such kind of ideas.
Yeah, so I love torturing myself.

In redux, from what I could gather, neither Shivaay nor Annika had the best childhood and they decided to repeat the same to their children? That's not fair. I mean they could have given them a happy ending but they decided to give them the worst one. I agree that for Shivaansh and Shivani the whole family was there. But parents? They are the most important ones in a child's life and I don't think anyone could erase Shivaansh's trauma seeing his father getting shot in front of his own eyes. Please they deserved a happy ending. 😭😭😭

Feedback would be very much appreciated on this one.