Chapter Thirty Six

"What is it that he has that I don't?" Abhimanyu had asked Aalekh once musingly, caught by a sudden jealousy. "Why do they love him so much, listen to his every word? Why would they lay down their lives for him?"

Aalekh had smiled slightly, that small smile he sometimes gave when he felt that the answer was obvious and that the other person simply did not want to see it.

"We love him because he has won our trust, because he has proved himself to us, been there for us when we needed him." Aalekh had replied, thinking that it was better in this case to say more than less. "You can't win by competing with him, Sir. You need to be patient, you need to make your own place in our hearts."

Years later, Abhimanyu had wished that he'd listened to that advice, that instead of competing with Raj he had cooperated with him, helped him. But competing had been an old habit, difficult to let go of, and he had always wondered how things could've turned out differently if he had.

Would Raj have trusted him enough to take him along that day? Would his friend have lived instead of died, growing old with him and laughing over their past follies?

Abhimanyu had surely lived… but it had always been a life of regret.

/

Hearing the knock on his door, Abhimanyu calls out a short 'come in', wondering who it could be at this hour. He smiles as he sees Aalekh peer around the door, realizing that his friend must have come to tell him about the engagement.

"Come in, Aalekh." He tells him, and then freezes suddenly as he sees Dhiraj walk in after him, because no matter how many times he sees the young man there will always be that shock, that pang of regret about everything that should have been and wasn't. "Dhiraj, come in, no need to stand on ceremony after hours." Abhimanyu tells him lightly, trying to hide the grief that threatens to come to the surface.

The young man steps inside the room and Aalekh closes the door after him, but neither of them speak. Dhiraj instead stares at Abhimanyu almost measuringly, examining him closely as if after a long time and that look of recognition is almost… but no, Abhimanyu is letting his hopes give him delusions that…

Abhimanyu is about to break the silence when Dhiraj finally speaks, a wry smile on his face.

"Have you grown so old, Chauhan Saheb…" he tells him, "That you no longer recognize your best friend?"

Abhimanyu stares at him, because that nickname, that tone of voice and the inflection in the way that he says it, the casual way in which he stands, it is all Raj and Raj…

Has finally returned to him.

"Raj?" he asks almost in a whisper and his friend's one nod is all he needs to step forward, one step and two and then three until they are finally face to face. Abhimanyu throws his arms around his friend, hugging him tightly, afraid of the moment when he will have to let go, because after twenty five long years of regret and pain he never wants to let Raj go again.

"How? When?" he asks, finally stepping back and holding Raj at arm's length to examine him properly. It is not just the light in Raj's eyes that convinces him of the truth, it is that old knowing look he has always had, that quiet wisdom that Abhi had never quite been able to understand.

Because Raj had always had help and advice for anybody who needed it, had always known exactly what to do.

It had only been himself that he was never able to help.

"After the engagement," Raj replies to him, "For a long time now I have been feeling it, realizing it, probably from the very first moment that I saw her… I would remember small things and then not know how, confusing myself over strange thoughts that came into my head. Then last night everybody was there in front of me and Naina…" he stops abruptly, because some things…

"You remembered me once," Abhi tells him with a sad smile, "After they'd brought you back injured. You were on heavy medication and you remembered me… if only for a few moments." He shakes his head as if to clear it of the memory, "Has Naina remembered as well?"

"No," Raj told him, "I think last night is the closest that she's come to remembering, because she remembered my death and I…" he stops, becoming emotional and unable to continue and Abhimanyu, who has been holding back tears suddenly can not do so anymore and breaks down, holding onto his friend. He remembers Raj's death too… remembers seeing him lying on the road in Naina's lap, his eyes lifeless and a pool of blood beneath him… oh god he remembers and he has never been able to wipe that image from his mind no matter how many years it has been.

When none of them have ever been able to forget Raj's death it is inevitable that Naina, whom it had affected the worst, would one day remember too.

"But when she doesn't remember…" Abhimanyu begins to say but Raj cuts him off with a shake of his head.

"I'll be with her any way that I can." He announces without an iota of doubt, "Does it really matter whether she thinks of herself Naina or Asha? Does it matter whether she calls me Rajveer or Dhiraj? Whatever name is used, we're the same people. I have faith that eventually she will remember."

"Before I saw you again that first time I had lost my faith." Abhimanyu tells him, "For so many years I blamed myself, I have so many regrets about the way I acted, about how I behaved with you."

Raj laughs shortly, "It was never your fault, Chauhan. It was my destiny, all of us played the part that we were meant to."

"So now what will you do?" Abhimanyu asks.

"Whatever was left incomplete in the last lifetime I'll complete in this one." Raj replies. "I'll continue to protect my country, I'll marry Naina, have children with her, and bring them up well. I'll be happy and content and hopefully live to old age."

Abhimanyu smiles at his friend's certainty and at his determination. "You will, my friend. We will all see to it."

"And now…" Raj addresses them both and Aalekh steps forward from where he has been standing, waiting for the reunion to be completed. "I want to know what happened after my death, everything that I've missed from all of your lives, but first I need to know about Naina… How did she… what happened to her after my death and how did she die?"

"I think that Aalekh can tell you best," Abhimanyu replies, as they sit down, "Because he was the one that saw most of it, the one that was there in the end."

"Naina did try to keep living after your death," Aalekh begins, "Perhaps she didn't try that hard, because she didn't see any point to stay alive, but she certainly didn't give up immediately. She tried to fulfill the promises she made to you; she had your killers punished, she became a good soldier… but she was never happy, she couldn't bring herself to be. She took mission after mission in the hope that it would end easily, after her parents died it became much worse. It took four long years but finally Naina achieved what she wanted. She died a hero, and she died… believing that she would see you again."

Raj is silent, taking it all in, because the pain and the torment that she suffered as a result of his death is almost too much to think about.

He can only try to make it up to her now, to give her every happiness in this lifetime that she missed out in the last one, give her everything that she could ever want.

Finally he nods, accepting the truth. "Then tell me about my cadets, tell me about my friends. Tell me everything I missed."

"It will take a long time," Abhimanyu tells him, "Maybe even longer than tonight."

"It's alright," Raj replies with a smile, "I've got an entire lifetime."

/

Raj returns to his room in the early hours of the morning, careful to try to not to wake Samir, whom he assumes must be sleeping.

But as soon as he opens the door, Samir switches on the bedside lamp, regarding him in the dim light.

"Something has changed, hasn't it?" Samir asks him. "You've been acting differently from the moment you walked into breakfast this morning."

"You know me too well, Samir." Raj tells him with a small smile, "You've always been able to tell these things."

"But Dhiraj…" Samir begins to say before suddenly stopping, his eyes widening. "You've remembered, haven't you?"

"I have," Raj confirms, "At first things were quite hazy and confusing and in a way they still are…"

Samir looks at him with an expression of sympathy and perhaps a little bit of fear, of losing his best friend now that he has regained his memory. "It must be damn confusing," he comments, "Two lives and two sets of memories… but what do I call you now? How much has changed?"

"I'm still a bit confused over it," Raj admits, "Am I Dhiraj or Rajveer? Do I belong to this life or that one? The memories are so raw and somehow the two lives have to fit together, have to make sense as one…" he crosses over to Samir's bed, sitting beside him. "You can call me whatever you want, but I'm still your friend Dhiraj, who attended the academy with you and who has laughed with you and fought alongside you, none of that has changed."

Samir gives him a lopsided smile, wondering how Dhiraj… Raj…. Could've guessed his fears so perfectly, but apparently that was something that he'd always been able to do in both his lifetimes.

"And Asha?" Samir asks.

"Is still Asha." Raj replies. "She'll remember when she's ready to, I think that it's only a matter of time, that perhaps she only needs a trigger. She remembers some things, has dreams of the past."

Raj shakes his head slightly as if to clear it, "It's so strange," he tells Samir, "Everyone I knew has grown older, they have children who are almost my age, have lived full lives… now even my old cadets are higher than me in rank and between us we can't figure out who should be saluting whom."

Samir laughs, "Dhiraj, my friend, that will take some time to get used to. For now I think you'd better get some sleep, you need a clear head to deal with all this in the morning."

Dhiraj nods and after changing his clothes, lies down in bed as Samir turns out the light.

He is going to have to be careful because it is not going to be easy to balance the two halves of the whole.

And finally that is what he was… whole.