A/n:- Dear readers, kindly keep your formalities till yourself. I don't want any comment regarding "sooner updates" as I think I'm giving regular updates except for a few days inbetween. So if you're out of words or confused regarding what to comment then please have a break, have KitKat.

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Mr. Karthik carried a sleeping Karan to his room while I fetched Mr. Dushyant upstairs. He was only acquainted with me and needed time to get friendly with Mr. Karthik. One of the guest rooms was arranged for him and he was staring at everything attentively, startled by the archaic view of the Luthra's bungalow.

"I have been here before, doctor. I have spend many days here." He clutched my palms and yelled on the top of his voice.

"This is your home Mr. Dushyant. I promised you I would take you to your family. I kept my promise," I told him with a smile, brushing my right palm against his.

"You are such a nice woman. Are you also staying in this house? Has my family brought you here? Are you married to my son?" He asked me out of sheer curiosity.

"Your son?"

"Yes Sameer," he replied in a gentle tone, giving me indifferent vibes.

He had a son named Sameer who must be Karan's cousin. I thought if I fetched Mr. Dushyant to Karan's bungalow, he would feel at home. It was a strange discovery that he had a son and used to live in the same house. I didn't know the whereabouts of Karan's parents or any of his siblings, but his uncle's family was revealed before us.

"No I am... I am your doctor and am going to stay here. Take ample of rest and wait for your family to approach you anytime. I kept my promise of bringing you home, I'll even keep the other promises too," I assured him, patting his shoulder.

"I know you will bring them to me, doctor," He said and lied down on the cushioned bed in the room.

"I have an uncle whose name is Mr. Karthik, he will be looking after you. He is a nice person and kind of doctor too." I made up stories to convince him to stay with Mr. Karthik while arranging his belongings into the cupboard.

"Won't you be there?" He asked, shaking his head reluctantly.

"I will come by to see you the whole day but he's the one who will stay with you. I am a doctor and I have many duties, isn't it?" I said raising my eyebrow and his eyes seemed getting convinced. "Look over there, there are so many books for you to read them in your leisure."

I saw him nodding his head while gazing at the bookshelves. "I will, doctor. I've met your uncle today. He is definitely a nice person. He drove us all the way here."

"I will inform my uncle to join you for the dinner." I declared before leaving the room, hurrying all my way to Karan's room.

The effect of sleeping pills on Karan's body would expire anytime and he would wake up at a glance. It would be worse if he failed to find me next to him and would pester Mr. Karthik with all his rude remarks.

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I heard Mr. Karthik's loud voice from outside Karan's room, and when I barged inside, I found Mr. Karthik trying to pacify Karan. He had already woken up from sleep and was seated on the bed with crossed legs, his elbows resting on the pillow over his lap.

The moment Karan heard my footsteps, he looked in my direction at once, pulling me towards the edge of the bed and gripping my wrist. "Where have you been, Preeta? How can you leave me alone when you promised to always be by my side?"

"I'm sorry, Karan. I went out for some urgent work. Mr. Karthik was there with you." I said while Mr. Karthik glanced at me before moving out of the room and locking the door behind us. He definitely left for Mr. Dushyant's room where he was supposed to stay for the next few days.

Karan crawled up next to me on the bed, snuggling into the folds of my elbow. I raked his hair when he encircled his arms around my waist, his head slanting against the surface of my belly. His childish behavior was so innocent that I hated to withdraw myself from his closeness, wishing to care for him for time immemorial.

"Don't you know that I need you beside me because you've become my habit?" Karan mumbled, tightly holding my waist and endearingly smiling like a butterfly.

The more I threaded his hair, the quicker his nerves were tranquilizing and he was returning to normalcy. He was still unaware that we had fetched his uncle with us. After all, Mr. Dushyant also needed love and care from his family.

"Karan, if you really trust me that you are safe with me, why were you feeling scared at the centre? I was all the time beside you but you were afraid." I asked him, coldness in my voice.

He took two minutes to think before answering, "I'm sorry Preeta, I was foolish to behave like that. I shouldn't have felt horrified to such an extent when I had my guardian angel with me!"

He and his flattering speeches even under normal conditions always succeeded to make me blush. He loved raining praises on me but I didn't approve much of the downpour. I knew I had to leave him and his house one day, I'd have to drop the affinity of taking care of him after he was fully cured and I would have to restore living my original life without him as my only family member.

"Stop praising me and answer me a few things. Promise me that you won't hide anything because we need to solve the case. Won't you help me?" I pleaded him in the most convincing voice I could.

"I won't lie to you Preeta, because I understand the importance of truthful evidences in solving a case. I have been doing the same thing of collecting evidences for Mr. Karthik since so many years..." He told me with an authentic gesture and sat upright facing me. "Tell me what you want to know."

I grabbed a pillow and settled it lazily on my lap. "Sorry if I'm being too straightforward... Why did you visit the rehabilitation centre on that unfortunate day?"

He dropped his jaws, averted his eyes and pinched his lips together. Sensing him to be too stubborn to disclose the truth, I widened my eyes with little portrayal of an unsatisfactory emotions. As soon as he realised the hint of rage I was shooting at him, he murmured in a feeble voice, "I was there for some work."

"What sort of work?"

"It's something personal."

"What personal work can you have at the rehabilitation centre which you can't share with me?  As far as Mr. Karthik informed me, you weren't there for any case." I was concerningly adamant to know the truth.

"I said it was personal and not related to any case." He was still reluctant to disclose anything and I was turning impatient with time.

"So you won't even tell me?" I wanted to tease him the way he always teased me. My ultimate focus was to reach to the truth to solve the case for him. "I was all this time under the impression that you considered me as your closest companion, your pain uplifter and your guardian angel. But now I realise that I was so wrong. I was never as important to you as I've thought."

He lifted his drooping head the moment my words poured into his ears, capturing my vivacious image into those chocolaty brown colored eyeballs of his and I was the one purposefully drifting along with the voyage again. His intoxicating effect was always prompt enough to work on my consciousness, engraving the art of cold romanticism deep in my heart.

He drew his face closer to me faster than my realisation and I shut my eyes hastily, highly sensing of his next passionate move. He sent unexpected surprises to my frozen nerves out of the blue when he lightly pecked my left cheek, leaving me dumbfounded.

I softly muttered under my breath. "Ka-ra-n."

"Why have you shut your eyes, Preeta? Is there anything to be so shy about? It's just a kiss on the cheek to prove that you are important to me." His gentle words melted my brewing anger and locked heart, both at the same time.

I was expecting a romantic kiss somewhere else but he couldn't really anticipate the reason for which I had closed my eyes. I wonder if a kiss on a cheek for him meant I was important to him, a kiss on forehead meant gratitude to him, then a kiss on lips... would mean what?

"Why are you trying to deviate the topic?" I snapped at him, detaching his hold on my wrist and moved out of the bed.

"I did not deviate anything, Preeta. I was just trying to prove that you blamed me unnecessarily. You are my life saviour, my guardian angel and my wife..." He pursed his lips for blurting out the last word in a trance and set his eyes on mine to examine if I would mind it.

"Please tell me why were you there at the centre, Karan?" I was turning extremely impatient. "I can't keep seeing you in pain and fear for endless number of days."

"I didn't only go there specially on that particular day but I used to visit there almost every week before the mishap took place." He disclosed in a dampened voice, spreading a moment of silence between us.

"Why were you used to doing that?" I asked breaking the silence in a stern voice and he quietly strode away, leaning against the window sill soon after.

It was already pitch dark outside and the birds had retired to their nests. The night cool breeze of the spring began beating against our lukewarm faces as I followed him, taking a wilful stand beside.

He continued while I glanced at the dark view outside. "I have my uncle over there, Preeta. He is suffering from a very terrible disease. I used to visit him every week to collect news of his improvement but I'm not able to do it now due to this attack. I have been doing it for the past fifteen years."

The moon began showing up on the star-spangled firmament, a pleasant eye soothing visual perception. I was witnessing a sparkling night sky with someone for the first time in my life since the death of my parents. I wasn't alone while watching the stars but I had an another lonely companion with me, the reason of his loneliness embedded deeper into his chest.

It was true that two lonely figures could give rise to a companionship together, erasing their loneliness forever. We both were only trying to figure out our compatibility while sharing our pains with each other.

The moment I shivered against the cool breeze, he shifted closer to me, aligning the length of his stature to touch mine literally. Wrapping his warm muscular arm around my shoulders, he let the heat of his sleek skin percolate into my tender body.

"Why didn't you tell us earlier about it?" I said and he held one of my palms with his other free hand.

I was not feeling the urge to escape from him, fatigued over the entire day's hectic journey. He was imparting to me a comfort that was so tempting, alluring and enticing, it could easily bring peace of mind to the one entwined to him. He became my companion in the lonely hours of the night when I generally preferred to spend some personal moments with my own self.

I relaxed my head against his shoulder and he didn't seem to refuse. Instead, he intertwined our fingers together before responding, "I never wanted to narrate my dark secrets to anyone because I was scared. If I shared my horrendous secrets with people closer to me, they would leave me and I would die from the pain. It would rather hurt me in the process, Preeta."

"Don't speak of dying, please. You've promised me earlier." I shushed his lips with the tip of my forefinger. "Is your past that horrible? Can't you even share us? You should know that neither Mr. Karthik nor I would leave you ever."

He tightened his hold on my shoulders when heard me. I could clearly read the expression in his eyes, the hesitation in those brown beads declining with the passage of each second. Rubbing his palm against my shoulder, he agreed. "You both are the most trusted people in my life and I can easily tell you all of it. But... I'm afraid you'll leave me after listening to it. I can't see you hating me."

"You just now said that you trust us and in the next minute you think we'll hate you. Then where is the faith on us?" I tried to move away from him but he held my shoulders in place, realising that he had hurt me emotionally.

"Please don't show this indifference to me, Preeta. I will tell you all of it but please don't hate me." He pleaded, pecking the top of my forehead. I knew he was showing his respect for me with the forehead kiss and was ready to share his terrible truth.

My limbs trembled this time, tensed a little to face any sort of horrible truth. I wondered if I could provide him the encouragement he needed to disclose certain dangerous things to me?

I was needed to be strong enough to face the reality. I was supposed to be tougher than his pains to lend him a support worthy of trust. I was entrusted to help him out of any worst trauma in his life. I was his guardian angel and he required that confinement in me.

He buckled himself up to narrate everything, keeping his glazing eyes fixed outside the window. His grip on me was not losing its ground at all, deepening our unnamed relationship more than ever. He was preparing to entrust me with his heinous truth, the painful past which was inflicting him for so many years and he was coping up with them in every way possible.

I leaned my head into the impassioned touch of his shoulder while my eyes gazed at the twinkling stars far away. The entire full moon was now sailing in the vast night sky, peeking and smiling brightly at the two entwined figures!

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To be continued...