Bhabra

22. fragile

"It wasn't a suicide mission, I went to see Sunanda, tell her of what her husband had done." She took in the way half his face was shadowed while the other half glowed blue from the lights as he brought the cigarette to his mouth for another drag, making sure to avoid blowing its smoke in her face. For some reason, she had a sudden urge to pick up her long-abandoned sketchbook again.

"You knowingly went to his house? Alone?"

"I had to find her."

"I was already doing that."

"Yeah? And how did that go? Did you get to show off your awesome combat skills? She wasn't hiding behind a tree, was she? She was taken by the same men who have attacked her in the past as well, taking Sunanda's help was the most logical first step."

"Logical, not safe," he snapped, voice shaking. It was then that Madhu realised just how on edge he was. His shoulders were tense as he threw the cigarette butt on the ground, stepping on it before turning to face her fully. "Do you have any idea what it was like? To return home and realise you had disappeared in a village that is unknown to you? In a situation with no street lights and with pot holes all around you, where, in the best case scenario, you would've fallen down a ditch and in the worst case, smuggled in the dark like goddamn cattle that goes missing every day, with no one to hear your cries? They almost got you once and that was when they didn't even know who you were. What do you think would've happened if they had found you outside their house?"

He moved closer with every word and she soon found herself caged between the railing and him, the gravity of his fears dawning upon her for the first time since she had gained consciousness in Vishal's dingy granary. "Those were exactly my thoughts when you were out alone too. I just wanted to help, and I guess sitting in the kitchen didn't feel like the best way to do that." Taking his hand, she continued, "I got lucky, yes, but hey, today, the best-case scenario was that both Champa and I are safe and not in a ditch."

"Yeah about that." He took a step back, brows furrowed. "What happened exactly?"

"Sunanda guessed that they might be in that granary they rent out to people and she was right." Madhu told him everything, or almost everything, leaving out the whole choking part. "Then he left with Sunanda. Nakul, I think he...I don't know, it was just odd how subservient Sunanda acts around him, and he basically molested his own wife in front of all of us. I tried to stop them but he--"

--almost strangled me to death.

"Well he didn't stop. And then they just left, leaving me and Champa alone and--"

"How did you get these then?" Nakul interrupted quietly; eyes zeroed on the marks at the side of her neck as he traced them with his knuckles. "Thought I didn't see them?"

"Leave it, please, I'm okay now and he was drunk."

He didn't seem very happy about that proposition, but he chose to drop it for the time being. "Let's get you to bed then, it's been a long day."

Her lips turned into a sly smile.

Nakul cleared his throat. "To sleep, that's all I meant, not to..."

Her smile turned wider at his flustered state.

"Oh shut up."

Unable to help herself, she rose to her toes and kissed his cheek, still smiling like an idiot when he gazed at her, earth brown eyes soft and affectionate, before pulling him to the stairs.

Nakul changed back into his nightclothes and for one insane moment Madhu thought of returning back to her room, for Champa's sake more than anyone else's, but the idea of being alone was unbearable and she soon found herself in his room, being held by him.

It was impossible to go to sleep, her mind was still racing from all that had happened that day, when something hit her and she tapped Nakul's arm around her waist to gain his attention, turning around and meeting his sleepy eyes which gave her a questioning look.

"You said...on the roof...that I'm your woman?"

A small smirk appeared on his face. "I did."

"Did you mean it?"

He shifted a bit, pulling her more snugly against himself and making a wave of heat rush down her body. "Would you like to be?"

"Sure. Provided it's mutual though."

Those words earned her one his rare smiles, the one that made his eyes crinkle at the corners and regard her endearingly, that warmed her insides and blanked her brain so that she was incapable of doing anything but imitate him with her own silly grin. "Yes, I'll be your woman too, don't worry."

A laugh escaped her. She tilted her head to capture his lips, kissing him softly, delicately, hoping to convey all that she couldn't quite put into words and getting a feeling that he was trying to do the same. She felt his fingers in her hair, brush against her face, tracing down her spine, then back in her hair.

Madhu nuzzled his throat when they broke apart, sighing contentedly as he pressed a kiss against her forehead, whispering a quiet, "Good night."

It had been a long night--one of the worst she'd ever lived through--but right then she was far, far away from the rest of the world. She was with Nakul.

Safe.