"Gauri."

A second's demand was what he needed before Veer's hands flew over and gripped Gauri's shoulders. Pulling her closer and supporting her, he let his eyes wander over her face.

His right hand cradled her face while the left one still remained where it was, holding her in a tight grip.

"Gauri," he whispered.
"Gauri, look here... hey..."

Veer's eyebrows drew together, noticing the ghastly grimness and deathly pallor of her face. Her shivering hands held onto his arm which had been her only support at the moment in front of the temple's doorsteps.

Veer did not falter in his motive to pull her out of whatever-godforsaken trance she was in. Strangely and out-of-blue, he fleetingly realised that if her radiating innocence and pure cheerfulness had been suffocating enough as if someone was strangling him, then her frightful plight was heavily precarious.

And the mere thought had had him shaken to his boots.

He patted her cheek that had lost the natural rosiness, suddenly.

He spared a glance at the fallen phone that had slipped past her grip after conveying a, what he considered, grave news.

"Gauri, look at me."

Gauri's fazed out eyes moved up, staring at him, blankly. His lips were moving in a distorted fashion, or that was what she saw through her blurry vision. She strained her ears, dilated her pupils; failed attempts on her part to make out his jumbled words. She could not hear a thing except the dreaded words spoken to her a few seconds ago.

Her Mami sa's agonized cries in between her mother's broken syllables.

"Gauri," Savitri gasped lightly.
"Your Mamo sa met with an accident. W-we are in the hospital..."

The next few words: details of the hospital, the severity of the accident, her mother's anguished call for her to come; everything was noted inside Gauri's brain intuitively.

A moment, a single second of reconsideration urged her to question; 'what did happen?' Everything was good.

Good, when she had given her Mamo sa his morning tea, exactly like he demanded to be made by his sweet niece. Good, when she had run and given him the important file that he had left so forgetfully on the living room's table. Good, when she had asked him sternly to wear the seat belt properly and he had joked about not having an encounter with an accident.

What did happen? To her Mamo sa? To her father?

A tear escaped the oppressive confinements of her eye, followed by two. And before she knew, she had already been sobbing, clutching onto Veer's arm.

"Gauri, speak to me. Oh god!" Veer spoke frantically, witnessing her breakdown.

What was so heart-wrenching in her tears that had squeezed his heart painfully. Who was she to him? A no one.
Yet, her bout of emotional breakdown was...

"Stop it," he almost whispered before gaining his composure.

"What happened?"

Gauri flinched, abruptly pulled out of the unreasonable moment. She did not have time for tears. She had to reach the hospital as soon as possible.

"I need to reach the h-hospital... Y-yeah," she murmured, slightly deluded.

She walked, freeing herself from Veer's wise grip, and unbothered to even add the comfort of footwears to her feet.

She tried to remember the means of her transport, looking around for a rickshaw like a crazy woman.

Veer rushed behind her without a moment's delay.

"I can help. Tell me," he offered calmly.

Someone was in the hospital; he had gathered as much from her murmurs.

He almost felt like an insensitive jerk on admitting the reward of the situation to himself. Almost. What would be a better way to take a step towards his destination by offering to help in a moment of grief?

As he liked, one step at a time.

"Mamo sa... A-accident. T-take me to the hospital?" Gauri rambled incoherently.

"Do not worry," he comforted as he signalled his guards.

.
.
.

Gauri had nearly run into the hospital after the car halted.

Veer, though willing to follow her, stopped short in his steps. His legs stiffened to the point where they seemed to be carved out of ice.

Taking support of his car, he exhaled deeply.

How did he miss it? In his blind rush to get to his goal, he had neglected an important part.

That Gauri was a kind of women, he would think twice before associating with.

.
.
.

Gauri managed to spew the details somehow to a compounder. She blindly followed the directions given by him.

The sole of her feet burnt against the cold marble floor.

Nearly running into a ward boy, she apologized and rushed towards the elevator.

The doors were on the point of shutting.

"W-wait! Please," she yelled.

The doors had almost been shut, given that an immaculately polished black-shoe had stopped the motive of the dreadful doors, forcing them to retreat back in defeat and giving way to her.

"Thank you," Gauri gasped out.

The man nodded at her, his eyes hidden behind a pair of aviators.

Gauri panted heavily and raised her gaze, biting a shriek of panic as her eyes met with the tip of a Heckler and Koch MP5.

"Is that even legal to carry around?" Gauri screamed inside her mind.
"Unless the person standing with me is a VIP..."

She looked at the man.
Dressed in a hand-woven crème coloured kurta, paired by a waistcoat of a darker shade and pure cotton trousers of a lighter shade. A pair of fine leather shoes covered his feet. A lush moustache graced his face, flattering and matching the colour of his aviator and jet-black hair.

Everything about this man screamed power... and politics, as if the two burly bodyguards standing behind him with taut expression and raised ammunitions hadn't already given away that much.

"Money and status did buy a lot of things."

Gauri shifted uncomfortably in her place. Her brain chimed in remembrance but she could not quite put a finger on his identity. However, she knew that she had seen him somewhere. Where? She could not recall.

The man clearly noticed her discomfort, his smile and words evidently cleared her doubts, if she had any.

"Don't worry, they are my personal guards."

Gauri gave him a weary smile, feeling worn out of tension.

The man cleared his throat in an attempt to break the awkward silence.
"Ill relative?"

"No, family," Gauri answered, wiping a sheen of perspiration.

"He will be fine," he said.

"I hope so."

"I know so."

Gauri frowned at the man and mumbled a 'thank you'. She quickly got out of the elevator as soon as the door opened and rushed into the informed room.

She cried out in relief as she saw Rajveer consoling his wife and mother. Savitri stood near the couch, clasping her hands together in a prayer.

Gauri's tears knew no bounds. Her Mamo sa was safe, not sound; his head wrapped with a gauze, his cuts tucked out of view under the adhesive bandages, a crepe bandage ran around his wrist. He was injured but alive, and very much in front of her eyes, talking and conscious.

"My goodness! You all are behaving like I have landed in a coma. I just suffered a mild concussion and had a few shards sticking here and there, for God's sake," Rajveer exasperated.

"Mamo sa," Gauri fumed.
"You have an extremely terrible sense of humour and jinxy too."

"You informed her also?"

"Yes. Any problems, Mr. Singh?"
Gauri was in a full mood to give an earful to her uncle. How did he even think of not letting her know?

Rajveer raised his bandage-free hand in the air, showing his sign of surrender.
"I am bedridden for now, miss. I plead mercy."

Gauri let out a choked laugh before hugging him, careful of his wounds.

Settling down for a moment and letting the relief take over her features, she questioned,
"Everything's alright?"

"The windshield, including the glasses of two of the front windows had been reduced to fragments. The bumper and bonnet are almost unrecognizable. My car, m-my first and only car... I had completed the loan payments just five years ago and this..." Rajveer mourned over his car.

Soumya shot him a look which was enough to scare Gauri out of her wits. If only looks could kill, Gauri did not even want to visualise the consequence. One near stroke to her young heart was fair enough for a day.

"Nothing that the insurance can't cover," she rolled her eyes at him and asked her mother, "Tell me what doctor said?"

"Same. Mild concussion and shallow cuts. The doctor also gave him shots to settle his shot-up blood pressure," Savitri informed.

"Did anyone file an FIR?" Gauri quizzed.

"Of course, it was an accident case. The doctor wouldn't have treated him otherwise. But it had been filed against anonymous. We have no details about who did this," Savitri added with a thoughtful look.

"We were very lucky, it wasn't anything serious," Moti Kunwar conceded.

"Indeed, Maata Ji." A strong masculine voice shrilled through the air of the chamber.

Gauri pivoted on her heels on hearing the familiarity of the voice.

The man, earlier from the lift, walked into the room. A guard entered the room and placed a bouquet of white daisies on the table near the couch and walked out, shutting the door.

"A gift for your wellness," he said, waving a hand towards the flowers.

Gauri studied the flowers, then turned her gaze to her uncle whose jaws were clenched together. Suddenly, the bouquet did not hold any sense of wellness to her.

"Khamma Ghani, Maata Ji," the man said, sliding the aviator down his straight nose and throwing it on the table unceremoniously.

He joined his hands together and did a deep courtesy for Moti Kunwar. Gauri was hardly able to digest the exaggerated show of respect, as it had appeared.

"Ghani khamma," Moti Kunwar mumbled absent-mindedly.

"Sir," Rajveer bit out distastefully.
"I did not expect your audience here."

The man laughed bitingly, ignoring Rajveer's statement. He walked towards Moti Kunwar, hands still joined and eyes hooded with mirth.

"Jaswant Singh Shekhawat," he chuckled.
"My name. I hope you are familiar with it."

Gauri's eyes widened. Who wouldn't?
The head of the main opposition party at the State Assembly and one of the powerful royal families in the country, the Shekhawats. Almost everyone knew about them as much as they knew their rivals, the Rathores.

The man, standing in front of her, was the director of the opposition party at 47. He was considered a near rival to Vijayendra Pratap Rathore, not quite, though. The king and home minister was unmatchable as of now.

However, the rumours dangerously girded around his enigmatic elder brother who had taken a break from politics.

It nowhere meant that Jaswant was any less. The gods above knew, this man's shrewdness and tainted political and royal secrets that had never reached any landmarks of law. He was known to eliminate his enemies silently in the darkness of night irrespective of their status. If he willed his mind against anyone, the dawn's rays would not even have the grace to bless their dead bodies.

Gauri could not understand the presence of such an influential man in the medical chamber of a normal government officer. Something was inkling her that she should hold herself together for another thunder-striking confession.

"Sir," Rajveer growled out, causing Gauri to flinch.

"Rajveer," Jaswant, though a whole twelve years younger than Rajveer, called his name with a warning laced with it. The smile did not falter from his face, nor did his gaze that was stuck on Moti Kunwar.

"Maata Ji," he drawled.
"You were indeed right with your ages-experienced thought. Your dear and, if I am not wrong, only son was very lucky."

Jaswant took a seat on the couch, raising his ankle to rest upon the knee of another leg. The regal posture emitted tons of power, ironically grave.

"Just for your knowledge, I am a firm believer of Chanakya's theories, especially the four wheels to win over one's opponent."

"Generally, a very calm and collected person by heart, Maata Ji," he said, resting a hand over his heart.
"I first like to negotiate peacefully. Don't I, Rajveer?" He asked with a smile, his unwavering gaze settled upon Moti Kunwar.

"Then comes the offer, money, but," he paused.

For the first time since his arrival, he let his eyes rove over the rest of the occupants, coming to rest upon Gauri.

Her throat suddenly parched with an encapsulating-terror and she did not even know the reason. Yet.

"Adding a price tag to the matter of negotiation would taint its honour and dignity. Wouldn't it, Rajveer?"

Rajveer's eyes filled up with a murderous rage. A soft but firm grip on his shoulder broke his stare. It was Gauri's.

"Next in the line is my most favourite and easiest part, rip off my object of fascination from all the connections that are keeping it away from me; painfully and possibly eliminating the connections," he smirked.
"...forever."

"What do I say, Maata Ji? The fourth one never comes to use. Usually, everything gets cleared till the third one," he added with a fake remorse.

"You are the most experienced here, unlike your impulsive son. Tell him, should a man stand against me? And for what? A very silly hard-headed decision. I call a bullsh*t!" He laughed merrily.

"A proposal. A marriage proposal. A marriage proposal from a powerful royalty," he stressed each part.

"The man has a problem with the age-gap. Isn't it, Rajveer? But, Maata Ji, age is mere numbers, hindering the inevitable," he clucked.
"...unproductively."

"Speak, Maata Ji. Put that tongue into use. Explain your son, wouldn't you get the bride married to me, Jaswant Singh Shekhawat?"

"...even if she is your granddaughter."

His piercing gaze made Gauri recoil in repulsion, disgust and immeasurable fury which was portrayed on each and every member of the family.

"Maata Ji," Jaswant joined his hands and smiled. His voice dropped to a whisper, sounding inarguably like a threat.

"Explain to him, cajole him with love. Buy him candies. Don't worry about money, you can always turn to your would-be grandson-in-law," he chuckled at the last phrase as if he had just cracked a world-famous joke.

"I'll take my leave now," he turned towards the exit.

"Oh! And," he retreated.

"Next time 'you all wouldn't be so lucky," he stated in a downcast manner, air-quoting the phrase.

He spared a glance to each member, lasting a little more on Gauri who had been shaking in anger. After all, she was his priority, rest could go and die for all he cared.

"Bye, love!" He exclaimed cheekily and walked out of the room, picking and twirling his aviator glasses.

His guard shut the door.

"I've connected my heart with you by falling in love with you," he hummed and sang, laughing jovially before walking away.