Chapter 7: Things Always Happen For a Reason

A/N: Hey there everyone! :D Thank you all for the lovely reviews and views, there were really encouraging! :D There is only one more chapter left in the story now, and seeing my speed in updating I think I may update it by the end of this week. ;)

kkkloveu: Your review was truly inspiring and encouraging dear! :D The motivation I was lacking had now returned with double the force with just your review. ;) ;) And as long as you are liking my story, I'm really happy. :D

rukmani: Thank you soooo much dear! :* And I am happy ki you have been enjoying what I've bee writing.

Krittika: Thank you so much dear! :D And sorry, you will have to wait for the nect chapter to see Daya's reaction on the whole, though I have given a sneak peek of how it's going to start. (Spolier alert. :P)

Naina Mallik: Thank you sooo much sweetheart! :D I'm really glad that you have been liking my work so far. :D

Khalsa: Thabk you sooo much. :D

Aditi: Thank you very much dear. :D Ending ke liye toh you will have to wait and see. :)

Khushi: Thank you soooo much sweety! :D

Not keeping you'll for long,

Happy Reading! :D

The blue light disappeared from around Abhijeet and he found himself now standing in front of his father-figure's house. And with it came a feeling of foreboding. Freddy believing what he had to say was a different story, but ACP Pradyuman was a different story all together. ACP Pradyuman survived and did everything and believed everything that could be proved by logic. And what had happened in these few hours had no possible logic at all.

But if Jay had wanted him to come here, there must have been a reason for it. He could not for the love of it think about how was he supposed to go about with things with his boss, but now he felt desperate to explain his actions to everyone so that he could let them know why what had happened was a mistake and was an accident, nothing more.

Taking unsure steps initially, Abhijeet strengthened his resolve to see things through properly and walked up to the front door of the house and rang the bell. This time, Abhijeet had to wait for some time as the light were put on all of a sudden, which meant that his boss must have been asleep.

Opening the front door, ACP Pradyuman's look of genuine curiosity turned into one of shock and loathing.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Abhijeet."

"Who Abhijeet?"

"How many ABhijeets do you know who have the exact same face!" Abhijeet lost his cool. He didn't know why, but he felt very irritated.

"Don't try to act smart with me or else"

"Or else what, sir?"

ACP Pradyuman pointed a gun at him which he had been hiding behind his back. Abhijeet had a reflex reaction and produced a similar service gun from inside his coat pocket. ACP Pradyuman had a smirk on his face.

"If you are really Abhijeet then why are you holding a gun at me?"

Abhijeet turned red and lowered his gun while returning it to its original place. He now looked at his father figure with a strange numbness. He was tired. He wanted to sleep. He didn't want to do this anymore. He found his new found resolve crumble as soon as it had formed.

Abhijeet caught hold of ACP Pradyuman's hand which had the gun in it and pointed it straight at his head, so that the gun was now placed on a point-blank range.

"If you want to kill me, alright. Go ahead. But just once, just once, look into my eyes. If you can't see your Abhijeet in them, you are free to shoot me. I won't even pt up a fight."

ACP Pradyuman stared at him hard for a several moments. It were more than several times when his hand twitched over the trigger, but he decided against it.

Finally making his mind up, he removed his gun from Abhijeet's head.

"Come in."

It was an order, not a request, so Abhijeet quickly entered the house before there could be any change of mind. His boss' house like Freddy's, was exactly the same as he remembered it. Apparently, not everything had changed in this one year.

Abhijeet quietly stood beside ACP Pradyuman.

"Why are you still standing? SIt." It was not spoken in an unkind tone, yet it had a very foreign feel about it. Abhijeet seated himself down almost too eagerly, as his back was now giving him a very hard time. He could not understand why his back had started hurting so much after 3 weeks, but he realized almost immediately that he had exerted himself enough to trigger the pain.

A relaxed sigh of pain left Abhijeet's throat as his back came in contact with the soft backrest of the sofa. He felt like going to sleep then and there, but he knew that was not an option. He however, shut his eyes for a few moments before snapping them open, remembering where he was seated. Abhijeet however saw ACP Pradyuman staring at him with a very undecipherable expression on his face.

"What's wrong with your back?"

"Nothing, sir, I-" ACP Pradyuman smiled.

"You haven't changed a bit."

"No sir, I"

"I know that you were electrocuted during the time you were kidnapped. I saw the wounds. I was the one who cremated you."

Abhijeet looked stunned. Hearing all this made the entire scenario extremely surreal to him. To be alive and yet to be spoken about being cremated was a very uneasy experience. And yet, he was more than convinced now that everything that had happened in the past few hours were real and had really taken place.

Sighing, Abhijeet looked at his father-figure. Even though in retirement, Abhijeet was happy to say that ACP Pradyuman had maintained himself excellently. On the contrary he looked much fitter and in shape than during his hectic work hours. As though ACP Pradyuman had read his mind, he spoke.

"I know how to live life, Abhijeet. After so many years so loneliness, you eventually get accustomed to it."

"Why did you take your retirement then?" Many people would have considered this question a bit bold considering the circumstances that Abhijeet was in, but he felt otherwise, and so did ACP Pradyuman.

"You break the strength of my back and then have the temerity to ask me this?" Abhijeet felt tears fighting their way up to his eyes. He turned his face away. He could not face this man anymore. "Abhijeet, I'm asking you something. Will you not even meet my eyes now?"

Abhijeet looked at him even though he did not meet his gaze. Looking at his lap, where tears had already started to drop, Abhijeet spoke in a hoarse voice.

"You won't believe me, sir."

"Abhijeet, I shouldn't even be believing that you're alive and sitting right on his couch, not when we all saw you-" ACP Pradyuman left the sentence midway, as the weight of the sentence was too much to bear. Taking deep breaths, ACP Pradyuman continued.

"Tell me, Abhijeet. I'm waiting." His tone had finally now taken the fatherly voice that Abhijeet so needed to hear, that would finally be a ray of light in his lost, dark and winding path.

Abhijeet looked at his father-figure, trying to make up his mind about something. Realising that he hadn't spoken anything for 5 minutes, he quickly took a deep breath and told him everything, this time not leaving out any details at all.

When Abhijeet recalling his tale, he thought that he would be relieving himself of all the forebodings and ill-feelings he was having regarding the whole situation, but he was wrong.

Now that he had voiced out every single thought running in his mind, he did not feel any better. On the contrary, he felt his minf going into a frenzy. He felt like running and shouting and getting rid of all the things that were eating his mind out and causing him so much distress, but instead it seemed to implode inside him, making him feel severely nauseous.

ACP Pradyuman looked at Abhijeet deep in thought for several minutes, before he finally spoke.

"If anyone else were to tell me all this, there is no way on Earth that I would even give it a shred of thought. But I also know that apart from myself, if there is anyone who does not believe in things like that, it's you."

Abhijeet could see his boss's mind running quickly. He knew that his boss himself was having a very hard time in believing everything that was just told to him. Finally making his mind up, he spoke in an unsure voice.

"Show me your left knee." Abhijeet looked taken aback for a moment, before he realized what his boss wanted.

Pulling his pant upto his knee level, ACP Pradyuman looked at his knee where a very badly healed scar could be seen. Looking satisfied finally, he nodded at Abhijeet, who quickly covered his scar away.

"Is this wound always this bad?"

"Yes, sir. This wound reminds me each day of what I have lost in life, and what I am to save."

Giving a meaningful look at his boss who understood what Abhijeet was trying to imply, the latter looked at him steadily, a defiance finally erupting within him that provided a proper justification for his actions.

"There are a lot of ways to save your loved ones, Abhijeet. You've lost everyone in spite of all the hell you went through. And Daya-" ACP Pradyuman shut his eyes, "-you've killed him just like that. He walks around like an empty shell, a shell who believes that he's respobsible for your death. He will never be able to trust anyone again, Abhijeet, never."

Abhijeet looked at his boss. He knew what he was saying was absolutely right, but he needed someone to understand his intentions.

"But sir, I never meant to-"

"I know that, Abhijeet, but you don't have any idea about what you've done. Abhijeet, things happen for a reason in our life, a reason that's for our own good. We don't always understand the reason behind it but it's always for the greater good. Remember that."

"You are correct, sir. We are so involved in seeing the wrongs that have happened to us that we fail to see the reason behind them as well. I was an idiot to believe that I could change the past for our betterment, to think that I could make decisions better than the Almighty. I was insane, sir, insane."

Now that he had finally accepted his mistake and his misjudgement, a strange calm was overcoming him, obliterating everything from his mind. His eyes shut without consciously doing so, and he felt himself drift away in a peacefull bliss.

Abhijeet felt his body vibrating and at the same time something tapping his face simultaneously. On opening his eyes, he realised that his head had rolled off to one side of his shoulder amd the thing tapping his face was ACP Pradyuman.

Getting him gently on his feet, ACP Pradyuman asked him, concern loaded in it.

"Abhijeet? Are you alright?"

"Yes… Yes, sir. I don't know what happened, I just..." Feeling disoriented from his surroundings, he felt the same vibration course through his body.

Finding the source of the vibration, that happened to be the pocket-watch vibrating angrily and impatiently, he quickly snapped it open to see the last blue orb shining powerfully. Setting the stopper on the desired result, he looked at ACP Pradyuman, who gave him a look that shared a thousand thoughts and emotions. Nodding his head in understanding, he shut the stopper and was once again consumed whole by the whole light.

Abhijeet opened his eyes, and now found himself standing at the last stop of his journey. For the third time that night, Abhijeet walked forward without thinking anything. Only two hours were remaining and time was going as fast as slipping sand. He rang the door bell quickly, hoping that he could quickly get away from this twisted future, where nothing seemed right at all.

The door opened within a matter of seconds. However, Abhijeet put his hands over his head as Daya opened the door with his gun pointed straight at him. Daya's eyes widened in shock while Abhijeet gasped in surprise. Daya's reaction had taken him off guard.

But Daya did not loosen the grip from his gun. Instead he took several steps inside the house, his gun in the same position. Abhijeet felt annoyed. He did not have time for games. Time was passing by way too fast and he needed to correct the timeline as soon as he could. Without thinking anything about what Daya would say or do, Abhijeet entered the house and shut the door behind him and walked up to where Daya was standing.

The shutting of the door seemed to snap Daya out from his shock. He now had a murderous look on his face. Throwing his gun aside, he asked in as cold a voice as he could.

"Who are you?" Abhijeet was fed up of hearing this question for the third time now. At first, the question hit him like an arrow in his heart, but now that the question was repeated every single time he went to his loved one's house, he felt thoroughly disgruntled and irritated.

"Daya, it's me, Abhijeet. I-" But before Abhijeet could proceed any further, he felt Daya's hand hit his face with such force, he was knocked off his feet and fell straight on the floor, his head and back making a very crude and painful contact with the floor.

Abhijeet felt the breath knocked out from his lungs, while he could see stars dancing in front of his eyes. In that moment, Abhijeet truly knew what it meant standing on the opposite side of a very angry Daya. He would always make fun of the fact that criminals would bow their heads against their will and confess their crimes just by a slap from Daya, and in a way would be very proud about it. But now that he was on the receiving end of it, he actually appreciated the magnitude.

He felt something trickling down his cheek, which he knew must have undoubtedly been blood, while the part where Daya's hand had made contact with his cheek was burning and paining. Abhijeet only managed to see a blurry silhouette of Daya hovering above him, before darkness engulfed him once more.

Lo! :D I think this will be a suitable cliffhangar for now? What will happen next? Will abhjeet manage to get out from this unscathed? Will he manhe to re-alter the timeline before it's too late? Will he manage to sort out the mess he has gotten into?

Well to find out your answers, stay tuned to What If? ;) ;)

Sorry for the typos and constructive criticism will be more than welcome. :D