A/N: Thank you to those who have reviewed Only two more chapters to go after this one!
Chapter Thirty Eight
Naina had known for a long time that she would die. She had not known when or how, but she had always known that she would not live to an old age, that she would die young, violently, most likely in combat. Perhaps it was not true that she had always known, no not always… but ever since…
Her breaths shuddered through her as she struggled to remain conscious, her soldiers lifting her off the ground, screaming at her to stay awake, trying to apply pressure to her wounds to stop the bleeding.
There were too many bullets in her, and Naina knew that she would not survive the night, but she had to hold on just a few hours more, until Aalekh could make it, until she could tell him everything she needed to say before… before she left them all behind.
Naina did not fear death, it was a long time since she had feared it, but she regretted… oh god how she regretted the life that she had not been able to have. If things had been different, oh if they only had been different…
If she had been faster that day, if she had reached him on time before he was shot… if she had just realised sooner, if she could've told him her feelings, if she could have said the words then would it have made a difference? Would he have hesitated before going?
Even now those words choked her, the words that she could never say, even now as she breathed past the pain, she had left so much undone in this life, and so much unsaid.
And impossible as it was, Naina wished that she could have another lifetime to correct it all.
/
Naina did not stop to think before she jumped down. She did not stop to think that she would be leaving a gap in the defences. She did not stop to think that she might injure herself if she did not land properly.
As she hit the ground she began to run towards him, panic filling her, because it was not meant to be like this, not him too. After everything that she had lost she couldn't lose Aalekh as well… oh god, why couldn't it have been her, when she had nothing left to lose…
"Aalekh!" she screams on reaching him, "Aalekh open your eyes, don't you dare do this! Don't you dare! Damn it, open your eyes, think about Neelu and the children!"
The medics come running then and she steps back to allow them to do their work as they check his spine for injuries while applying a pressure bandage to his head.
"Aalekh…" Naina continues desperately.
He opens his eyes and the look on his face when he sees her is one of such shock that she can not understand it.
"Naina?' he asks, as if in a dream.
"Yes, you idiot. What did you think, that you can risk your life and I won't come and check you're okay? Thank god… what would I have told Neelu if you'd died? She'd kill me too." Naina tries to joke, but she has been shaken, because if Aalekh were to die too then what would she have left? "Take him to the medical wing." She instructs the medics who nod, shifting him to the stretcher and beginning to carry him away.
Reassured that Aalekh will be fine, Naina turns back to the barricades, quickly climbing the stairs and finding her place among the other soldiers. The situation is bad but the enemy has not yet gained the upper hand, if they can just hold out until reinforcements can arrive.
She turns to her left, intending to ask the soldier there how many he estimates them to be, and stops, unable to say anything more.
Because it is… "Rajveer Sir?" she whispers, her voice breaking as she looks at him, even as he stares at her almost in wonderment. Her mind is telling her that this is impossible because her Rajveer Sir is dead, this couldn't be him but… Dhiraj? It was…
As a bullet whizzes close by over their heads, Raj is broken from his daze. He grabs her by her shoulders, gaining her attention.
"Naina, I know this is hard…" he tells her, "I know at the moment you're confused and I'll explain everything later but right now, we have to fight. We have to save our base."
Realising that he is right, Naina nods and with one last longing look at him she turns back to the task at hand. Because he is her Rajveer Sir… and after an age he has returned, how could she ever refuse to fight by his side?
/
The battle is nearly lost more than once and their side suffers both injuries and casualties. The medics rush between them, patching up wounds and taking away those too injured to continue, even as the remaining soldiers continue to fight. Finally two hours after the battle has begun they hear the sound of helicopters in the distance, their backup arriving. They've been told that there's been a coordinated attack against many of the bases on the border which is why nobody nearby has been able to come to their aid. The soldiers have had to be sent from other marshaling spots and as Raj sees them arrive he sighs with relief, knowing that the battle can now be won.
As if sensing that defeat is near, the Chinese soldiers signal a retreat, but it is too late as the newly arrived soldiers begin their attack from the air, pursuing the retreating force.
Raj slumps against the wall, exhausted from the fight, and looks over to where Naina stands, her attention completely focused upon him now that it is all over. He knows how she must be feeling, the confusion as she tries to reconcile two parts of a whole. With one arm he reaches out towards her, grabbing her arm and pulling her closer.
She comes willingly, collapsing against his chest and sobbing as he winds both arms around her. He kisses her hair, murmuring soothing words into her ear, and begins to cry himself, because finally after an age, after so many years he has his Naina back.
"Rajveer Sir, I…" she finally says when she has pulled herself together, "You're… but you…"
"Try to sort through it, Naina. Try to remember, remember Asha and Dhiraj, remember what you're doing here."
Naina blinks, and at his words her memories came rushing back, and she is Asha and this, this is not Rajveer Sir it is Dhiraj, who she loves more than anything, but yet it is also… and he should be dead and she should be dead but they aren't, and Aalekh… but Aalekh had been so much older and she…
"Asha! Dhiraj! Thank god you're both alright!" she hears a familiar voice call out and turns around to see Samir coming towards them, supporting a limping Amiya.
"We're fine," Raj reassures them, "Just a little bit shaken up. What happened to you, Amiya?"
"Oh I'm okay, an explosion just caused me to fall a little too heavily on my ankle, I'll be fine in no time." Amiya tells him, "I'm just glad that it's over."
"And Hussein? And Riti?" Raj asks, worry coming into his voice, let them be fine… let them be fine…
"Riti took a bullet." Samir tells him grimly, "She was lucky it only hit her in the upper arm and exited properly, she was taken to the medical wing, Hussein has gone there now to check on her."
"Thank god…" Raj breathes, turning to look down at Naina as she stares at Samir and Amiya, a look of recognition coming into her eyes.
Suddenly she is Asha again as she steps forward and throws her arms around Amiya, "Stop being so clumsy!" she scolds her jokingly, "And Samir what were you doing while she was falling the wrong way?"
"Unfortunately I was on another section of the wall or I would've been able to stop her," Samir answers perfectly seriously, not realising that Asha had been joking.
Just as suddenly Naina puts her hand to her head because it aches, it aches with trying to figure out who she is and all of these people that Naina didn't know but Asha…
"Rajveer, I…" she says desperately, turning around to look at him.
Samir and Amiya look at her in shock, processing the word that she's just said, because if she'd called him Rajveer then it meant only one thing.
"I think we all need to go get cleaned up." Raj announced, "We'll take you back to your room and you can shower and then… then maybe it will all be a bit clearer."
Naina just nods, because right now she desperately needs some clarity.
/
Half an hour later they all sat in the girls' quarters, Hussein had joined them as well, having satisfied himself that Riti will be alright.
Naina remains quiet as they tell her the story, about how Hussein had known from the moment he saw them, about how Amiya and Samir had found out later. The part of her that is Asha realises that it all makes sense, everything. The strong pull she had felt towards Dhiraj from the moment she saw him, the knowledge that she had somehow instinctively felt.
"And you're Ali and Pooja's son," Naina says with a smile as she looks at Hussein because while she had known, she had never really known.
"Ammi and Abu will be so happy to find out that you've remembered." Hussein tells her, "They've been waiting for this day for so long, everybody has. Ever since we knew about you, ever since we knew that you were alive again."
Naina turns to look at Raj, and all she really wants is to reach out and touch him, to remain connected to him in some way. She never wants to let him out of her sight again, never wants to be separated from him.
As they stare at each other, Amiya makes a discrete sign to the boys that they should leave and they both nod.
"We'll leave you two to discuss things," Samir announces, "I'm sure that you both have a lot you'll need to talk about."
They make their way out quietly, intending to visit Aalekh and check how he's recovering.
For a moment, Raj and Naina can only look at each other, he knows that she will need time, time to make sense of all this and regain her equilibrium.
"I never told you that I loved you." She finally says, startling him with the suddenness of her declaration. "All of those years after you died that was one of the things I regretted the most, that even in the end I couldn't bring myself to say the words, to tell you…"
"Oh Naina…" Raj says, almost as a sigh. "There were so many things, so many things that I regretted, that I would've gone back and changed. I never allowed myself to tell you, never allowed myself to love you for fear of the consequences and yet…"
"I tried to tell myself that maybe I had been wrong, that you hadn't loved me at all. I tried to convince myself that it had been a silly girl's fantasy. Yet I knew… I lived with the knowledge for four long years." Naina tells him, beginning to cry.
He reaches out and holds her, knowing that there is nothing he can say to make it better. They have both suffered so much, she in particular. Was that suffering finally coming to an end? Had they finally reached full circle to a point where all of the wrongs would be made into rights?
"Whatever has happened in the past is over," he tells her, "However much we suffered… what tragedies there were… that belongs to a different time. Somehow fate knew that injustice was done to us, and it's given us another chance. Everything that we lost has been returned to us; our friends, our careers, our love. Whatever happens, I'm not going to waste this lifetime."
He leans forward, cupping her face with his hands. "I love you, Naina. Maybe I could never tell you in the last lifetime, but I'll spend the rest of this one telling you. I loved you from the first moment I saw you as Asha, although it took me awhile to admit it. So I'm asking you now to marry me, marry me as soon as we can get leave because I don't want to waste any more time."
Naina half laughs and half cries, leaning forward to kiss him. "Do you even need to ask? Don't you know what my answer will be, that it couldn't be anything else." He laughs at this also, kissing her face again and again, hugging her.
"I don't want to ever be parted from you," he tells her, "Never be far from me, stay by my side today."
She nods, clutching his hand tightly. "We'll go and see Aalekh." She tells him, "And the rest of our friends… I need to call them, to tell them that I'm back, that I remember them, that I remember everything."
"Then we'll go and do that straight away." Raj agrees. When so much time has been wasted already, he doesn't want to waste a minute more.
/
"You really need to be more careful, Uncle Aalekh." Hussein is telling him as Naina and Raj walk in, "Do you think your daughter will still agree to get married to me if I let anything happen to her father?"
Aalekh laughs at this, before looking up to see the new arrivals, a look of hope spread across his face as his eyes lock on Naina, because he is sure that…
"What did you think?" Naina asks him, "That this was the best way to get my attention? It might have worked but you'd better damn well never do it again. I don't want to have spent all this time finding you just to lose you again."
The others make space so that she can sit beside his bed, reaching out to take his hand.
"Naina, you're really…" he begins to say, unable to finish the sentence.
"Didn't I tell you that it wasn't the end," she says, tears coming to her eyes, "That we would see each other again?"
He reaches forward to hug her and they embrace each other tightly.
"You have no idea how much we all missed you," Aalekh tells her, "Both of you. It was like there was a hole in our lives… we could never have hoped that…"
"Nobody could have hoped for this." Naina trembles as she says it, still unable to believe the chance that she has been given, "And still, I'm trying to work it all out. You've all grown older, had children who are roughly the same age as me, and I'm just beginning my life again. If we hadn't died then perhaps we would be in your position now… honestly I don't know whether I should regret our deaths or not. So much suffering was caused because of them and yet in this life we've received everything back. Not only our old friends, but new ones as well."
Saying this she looks over at Amiya, Samir and Hussein, smiling at them, and Amiya impulsively hugs her, beginning to cry.
"There's no use regretting anything now." Aalekh tells her, "What has happened has happened. We just need to be thankful for what we have now, that we're all together again."
Abhimanyu comes forward to hug her. "It's good to have you back, Naina. I feel like we're finally the old team again."
"I need to call the others." Naina announces, "I need to tell them…"
She is interrupted by a booming cheerful voice as HJ enters the room grinning, one arm around Riti's waist as if to support her.
"I bet you were all missing me!" he declares, "Luckily I was one of the soldiers sent for back up and no sooner do I arrive than I find my sweetheart has been injured."
"I keep telling him that it's my arm that's injured and not my leg and I don't need help walking but he's not really listening to me." Riti remarks dryly, shaking her head as they walk into the room.
"Naina has remembered." Hussein tells both of them, and HJ's face breaks into a huge grin.
"Daddy will be so happy!" he declares, "All of them will be, oh balle balle, this is wonderful news! Here, call from my phone right now."
He hands it across and checking his address book, Naina dials the first number, waiting for the hello on the other end.
"Pooja… your Naina has come back into network." She announces, a smile on her face.
The phone doesn't even need to be on speaker, Pooja's happy shriek can be heard across the entire room anyway.
/
Naina continues to speak to her old friends one by one, talking to Ali after Pooja. He is still quiet and extremely polite but has relaxed over the years, happiness and warmth are evident in his voice. Yudi cries as he talked to her, babbling about the past and about how he wants to come see her as soon as possible, Naina tells him that she is waiting to meet his daughters. Finally she speaks to Huda, knowing that out of all of them he had blamed himself the most for both of their deaths.
"What is it, HJ?" Huda says as he picks up the phone, having seen the familiar number. "I heard you were deployed to Tawang, is everyone there fine?"
"Huda… it's Naina." She tells him quietly, "Your Phoolan."
There is a sharp intake of breath on the other end before he speaks again, "Naina, you've really remembered? You're…"
"Yes, Huda, I've remembered everything. Now just tell me, when are you coming to see us both? When will we all be together again?"
"You tell me, Phoolan." Huda replies, his voice thick with unshed tears. "Just tell me and I'll be there… to see you both again and know that you remember me… I'll come as soon as possible. After everything that I did…"
"You never did anything, Huda." She tells him sincerely, "I know that you thought you did, but it was never your fault. I know you never meant any of it, and I know that if anybody has wished for our happiness most of all then it's you."
"Then when are you going to make me truly happy?" he asks, "When are you two going to get married."
"Very soon," she promises him. "As soon as possible, when everybody is able to get leave then we'll get married."
"Then it had better be soon, because this Jat can't wait to dance in your wedding." He tells her, "So hurry up and set a date."
Naina laughs at this, and asking him to come see them as soon as possible ends the call.
"It really is real, isn't it?" she asks, almost as if talking to herself. "Everything really has all worked out."
"And it will remain this way," Raj tells her, "We'll be happy, I know we will. We've all waited long enough for it."
Naina smiles, because right then with her whole future in front of her she knows that he is right.