A/N: I hate that last chapter...TigerWarrior09, here's your Sunil! I'm not entirely sure that I did him justice, but I hope I did! It's a pretty short chapter, and the next one is shorter, but then Chapter 8 will be longer :) R&R!
Two weeks later, after lunch, I approach Ren with the idea that it is time to go see Phet.
When I broach the subject, he shuts down quickly. "Are you sure?" he asks dubiously.
"Yes," I say surely. "I feel fine physically and much better emotionally. I need to talk to Kishan about it, but I have a feeling that he will agree with me," I point out.
"Yeah," Ren says looking down with a frown. "I just wish that you hadn't gotten pregnant yet…" he says softly.
Tears well up in my eyes, but I quickly stem the flow. I place my hand on his cheek, and he looks back up at me. "I do, too, but there isn't anything we can do about it now."
"I know," my ethereal husband says miserably. "Kells, with the exception of you, I would have loved that baby more than anything. I just…don't understand," he says, tortured.
I fight the urge to gasp, suddenly realizing why Ren has been so withdrawn from me these past two weeks. He is grieving, which I knew before, obviously, but never to this extent. Ren looks like a man burning at the stake.
"Oh, Ren," I whisper roughly, and wrap my arms around his waist. "I am so, so sorry that I didn't see you hurting this badly before. I am so sorry that I didn't even think to see of you were okay. I am so sorry that you felt like you had to pretend to not be hurting for me. I am so sorry that I didn't do what I should have when…it…happened, and comforted you. I am so sorry that I didn't-"
"No, Kelsey. It's not your fault. You were grieving too," he says, stopping his tears and stroking my hair. "I was dealing with it, until you wanted to go out to see Phet again. I'll be okay." I start crying again at the realization that our roles are suddenly flipped. I was comforting him not two minutes ago, and now I am ruining his shirt with my tears.
Ren quickly realizes that I'm not going to be able to get my sobs under control here, so he cradles me in my arms, and gently carries me up the stairs. He lays me on the bed and crawls in next to me, and then I slip into unconsciousness while pillowing my head on my husband's chest.
~TR~
When I wake up again, Ren is curled into himself, facing away from me. The clock on my nightstand says that it is four o'clock in the morning, but I know I won't be able to fall back asleep. After four years of waking up at six to make Ren's breakfast, going to bed at seven, apparently, doesn't help with sleeping in.
I carefully slither off of our bed to go downstairs and make a small snack. I quietly check on Nik, who is sleeping soundly. I feel a pang of regret, knowing that I have neglected my son in the past few weeks, and though I know that no one will blame me for it, I blame myself.
I shut the door quietly, and pad down the hallway to the stairs. As I make my way down to the kitchen, I become more cautious, because the light is already on, and I know that no one leaves the lights on.
I take silent, deep breaths to calm myself and look around for a weapon. The closest I can get is a book lying on the side table by the couch, so I grab it and raise it to prepare myself.
When I enter the kitchen, I nearly knock Sunil out with the book when he speaks.
"Gah!" I sputter, after he says hello. I drop the book, and try to control my blush. "Sorry, Sunil. I wasn't expecting to see you."
"I can see that," he says with a cooked grin, gesturing his coffee mug at the fallen book.
"Yeah, well, living in a constant fairytale for two years changes you a bit."
"I couldn't agree more," he says with another smile. "So, Kelsey, how are you?" I know we haven't had much chance to talk this time around, with Kishan showing up and…" He trails off, I assume because he is afraid of setting me off. I got quite the reputation for hormonal pregnant lady when I came over here while I was carrying Anik.
"It's okay, Sunil. I'm going to have to get over it at some point, might as well start now," I shrug nonchalantly.
He gets up suddenly. "Can I get you anything to drink?" he says, deftly changing the subject.
I smile, and let him. "Some cocoa would be nice, thank you," I answer him.
He swiftly pours milk into a saucepan, and finds chocolate powder. I watch him in wonder. The last time I was here, he still couldn't figure out how getting "icy cubes" worked. He notices me watching him, and jokes, "Now that I have a better excuse to hang around Nilima more, I've been picking up more things around the kitchen."
He brings me mug of steaming hot chocolate with a cookie from Nilima's secret stash. I wrap my hands around it and inhale the sweet smell of the rich chocolate.
"So, Kells," he says, leaning forward. "Anything?" he asks, because he knows that I confide in him quite a bit.
I take a deep breath. I tell Sunil things that I don't tell Ren, just because Ren overreacts, or blames himself for me thinking them. "Sunil, I'm scared. I can't tell Ren, because he would take that to mean that we shouldn't go see Phet and help your sister, but I know that we need to, and I know it's the right thing to do. But there were so many times that they needed to be tigers, otherwise we might not have survived, and I need my fire power, and then if one of us dies, Nik won't have a parent or an uncle, and I'm just so, I don't know, worried." I finish, and I realize that I am crying again. "I'm sorry, Sunil. I didn't mean to start crying."
Sunil gets out of his chair, and wraps his arms around me. If it was anyone other than him, I would have been worried about him misunderstanding my clinging to him, but I've seen him around Nilima, and I know that he is just as in love with her as I am with Ren.
"Shh, Kells, it's okay. If I know my sister, and I do, well, even though I haven't seen her for a few years, she will take care of you. Remember how she called you 'little sister'?" After I nod, he continues. "She always wanted a sister, and she never called anyone else sister. She cared for you, Kelsey, very deeply. And I'm sure that she still does," he reassures me, retaining a certain quality to his voice, like Mr. Kadam, Ren, and Kishan, that could only have been acquired in a different century.
"But, Sunil, she has tried to protect us before, and just hasn't looked at the unrelated ramifications. Like when she took Ren's memories of me, she didn't think about the fact that I was heartbroken for months, and then I was torn between Ren and Kishan because I had time to think about Kishan like that while Ren was trying to stay away from me. I can't ignore that she might mean best, but doesn't do best," I moan, anguished, being able to finally give voice to my fears.
"Kelsey," Sunil says shortly. "Look at me."
I eventually turn my face up to his. He holds my chin in place and says, "If you hadn't gone through that whole rigmarole with Kishan," he says slightly proudly, because he used a little known English word, even if no one but me uses it now. "If you hadn't tried to forget Ren and be with Kishan, how would you know that it is Ren that you are supposed to be with?" I open my mouth to say something, but he resumes talking before I can make a sound.
"If you had never considered the idea that Kishan might be better for you, where would you be now? You would always be able to wonder if you would have been happier with Kishan than you are with Ren. And the question still remains that Ren may have stayed with my sister if he thought that was best for you, and would keep you safe, because he had never tried to live without you, or you without him."
I stay silent at his unassailable logic. I ponder his words for a moment, and then stand up. "Thank you, Sunil. I needed that. I have been getting mad at her for awhile, and I need someone to put it in perspective for me, and Ren can't do it because he is madder at her than I am," I say with a wry smile. "By the way, what are you doing up so early?"
He shrugs, "Oh, when I was in the army, we were trained to wake at the slightest sound, and it was really windy, so I couldn't go back to sleep. What about you?"
I laugh. "Ren and I cried together for a bit, and then he put me in bed, then left. That was at about seven, and I normally go to bed at nine and wake up at six, so I got my nine hours. I'm going to try to stay up until nine today, so I don't start waking up this early every day," I laugh.
Sunil laughs with me, and we chat about nothing for another twenty minutes, and then I store my mug on the dishwasher, and go back to bed.