All That Unlikely Jealousy - Mahi Sakshi FF ft ICT

Chapter 1 - Rishabh's Scrapbook&Chaos

A/N- Before we start, please assume the timeline of this story to be around 2014, before Ziva was born. The ICT characters and their ages remain the same as they are currently.

It was a cold morning in Delhi, and all our spidey Rishabh Pant wanted to do was snuggle in his blanket, sleep and be lazy. Unfortunately, laziness is not an option when you live in a desi household, regardless of whether or not you are a renowned international cricketer. Not sooner than 5 minutes after he had climbed into bed he heard his mother screech from downstairs "Rishabh!! Get up now, if I catch you sleeping I'm going to beat you up. How slobby are you, your room is a total mess! Clean it now before noon or u get no lunch." Rishabh groaned in indignation before climbing off the bed and getting to work. He needed his lunch, and he knew his mom would definitely withhold it if he didn't clean up as she was a woman of her word.

He vaccumed the room, put dirty clothes in the laundry, folded the washed clothes and dusted the room furniture while grumbling in annoyance. He then finally settled down to clean his personal shelves consisting of his belongings like trophies, photographs, gifts, books, his childhood toys and drawings, writings and other such stuff. Like for most of the population, this was the most difficult part of cleaning for him- for it brought about pangs of nostalgia about his childhood and the good old days. He looked at the stuff in fond reminiscence and smiled. Pretty soon he had abandoned his cleaning mission and settled down on the floor surrounded by his old stuff, happily going through them and remembering cherished old memories one by one.

School time photographs. His first medal as an U-13 cricketer. His Delhi days. U-19 WC memories with his teammates and Rahul sir. He was happily going through it all when his gaze landed on the old scrapbook he had painstakingly made and titled- MS Dhoni- my hero. He grinned. As a young kid, he had idolised the man growing up and had held such a deep fascination for the long haired guy who came out of nowhere and took India by storm that between 2007-2011, the 2 World cups he had maintained an MS Dhoni scrapbook, filling it with every article and picture he could find about MS Dhoni, about both his personal and professional life. Going through it now, some sections made him relive his childhood days when Mahi Bhai would lead the team from the frontfoot, while others made him proud of himself for how far he had also come to be able to play beside his idol. While flipping the pages, he came across a section that widened his eyes and made him giggle. He couldn't hold back his laughter and doubled over. He decided that he wasn't ashamed of that section, it was a child's hardwork and research and still memories of how life was at a certain moment in time. Sort of like how historians document everything meticulously. With this firm reassurance to himself, he read the book some more but soon found himself laying on the floor and dozing off to sleep, hugging the scrapbook.

Mahi and Sakshi were visiting Delhi for a business event they had to attend. While there, they spontaneously decided to pay Rishabh a visit, like he always visited them. It was with this intention that they landed at his home and rung the doorbell. The door was opened by his mom who was delighted to see the couple. She liked Mahi both as a player and individual and was really thankful for his contribution in Rishabh's life. She warmly greeted them both and invited them in. When they asked about Rishabh she said "Oh he was cleaning his room..let me call him." But when her multiple screams of "Rishabh idhar aa" went unanswered, she facepalmed. "The audacity of this boy..he actually fell asleep again.."  Mahi and Sakshi chuckled and told her to relax, they would go meet him themselves. His mom happily agreed.

And that is how MS and Sakshi ended up at Rishabh's room, only to find the door half ajar, stuff spread everywhere and Rishabh asleep on the floor, hugging a book. They laughed at the site and went to take a closer look. When they saw MS's face and name on the cover, they both looked at each other with a fond and amused smile, shaking their heads at this kid's antics. Mahi made a move to curiously examine the scrapbook as it was about him by trying to pry it out of Rishabh's hands but to his surprise, Rishabh was guarding the book with his life and woke up at once screaming "Ahh bachao, chor chor CHOR!! " only to open his eyes and find Mahi and Sakshi looking at him weirdly as if he was a freak. He blinked, rubbed his eyes and when they still didn't disappear he decided that they were really there. He looked at them wearily. " Bhaiya? Bhabhi? Aap log yahan?" He asked. Mahi smiled at him and said "Hum to tujhe surprise dene aaye the, but tu to already sapno ki duniya mei khoya hua tha." He said pointedly gesturing at the scrapbook Rishabh was now trying to sneak behind his back. Sakshi laughed "Aww how cute Rishu, u r embarassed..it's ok.." Mahi grinned too "Han han sharma mat..tu hai mera fan to hai.. scrapbook pe sign chahiye to de isme koi badi baat nahi it shows how far u hv come. Waise mai bhi to padhu kya likha tha tune mere baare mei"