Reunion

As soon as she had bid him goodbye, two voices echoed along with the cold breeze of the mountains.

The first voice was saying in an exasperated tone, "You truly are too impulsive sometimes! I have been telling you, Amélie...why can't you understand that it's our destiny and we also have to return to it!"

While the second one said in a soothing whisper "Why are you still worried, sister? You are not alone this time, I am also there and I remember everything as well!"

Amélie smiled after hearing their voices, she knew what's going to happen next. She smiled and turned back to face the first guy. She looked at him for a moment, trying to take in all of his presence at once, as if she had been starved of it. She then said "Zacharie...do you really think you will be able to make everything alright, after knowing the future? Tell me one thing, have you ever been able to change it? And you know that they have already gone through enough this time, it will break them down so hard that they will not be able to stand again! We are going to have everything repeat over; it is time for history to repeat itself. The incidents might happen differently, but the result will be the same. So please don't encourage them further. Let them live their happy lives all alone and apart from each other, as they are only going to be hurt after knowing each other!"

"Just shut up, Amélie, you always end up with this statement because you know how much I love you! But let me tell you, you can't impose your fears on them. They too have lives and brains of their own to make decisions! And I am going now, don't follow me. I will be coming back to you when your love for mountains will be over; for today, I can't stay in this place any longer!" Zacharie replied to her accusations, hiding his fear and pain under a layer of mock anger. As he turned his back towards her, a tear rolled down from his left eye, after which the trail of tears continued to flow, out of the pain promised in their future. But the thing hurting him the most was that even after knowing everything, he had not been able to change a thing yet, and Amélie was right- this was the time when history was going to repeat its brutal self again. He walked away as fast as he could, knowing that she must already have guessed about him crying and would be crying as well.

After Zacharie left, the second person standing there stepped towards Amélie. He wiped her tears with his hands, saying "Sis! You really don't have to worry this time, I know you are afraid that this is the point from where on, everything will happen the same way as it did earlier. But look, this time I am with Zacharie, I am assuring you that nothing will be going wrong, I won't let it happen again- I promise."

Amélie smiled through her tears, she knew for a fact that her brother loved her the most despite being younger than her. And she was also aware how he was also struggling with the problems in her life; being relegated to the second lead of his own life, not caring about anything else. She looked in the eyes of her brother, her affection mixed with pain. These feelings had been the two constant emotions in her mind, as she loved them so much; but she was hurting daily, knowing their respective destinies.

She tried to dismiss her pain with a smile and said "This is my fight, Aldrick. You can't take the sword on my behalf and fight the battle; and even if you do, the results of my destiny won't change either, as we all have to fight our battles by ourselves. But can you do me a favor? Go and search for Rénee as she is the only one who can calm Zacharie, just like only you can calm me!" She left, without even listening to the reply of the person standing in front of her.

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"Hospital?" Nitya tried to put the puzzle pieces together, but everything was too jumbled up. "Aren't we in the jungle? Then when and how did I end up in the hospital?" She was struggling to accumulate her thoughts and form the correct statements for the questions coming up one-by-one in her own brain, when she noticed prof. Ruchi standing beside Naveen Bhaiya and Veer.

She panicked, and frantically tried to remove her brother's hands from her face, almost shouting, "Good morning ma'am! I don't know Professor Mehul personally, he must be here due to Naveen Bhaiya or Veer as they are my brothers!"

Naveen and Veer caught on immediately to what she was doing, and without wasting a second, they confirmed her statement in chorus. "Yes ma'am, she is right. She is our sister and Mehul sir is here just because of us, he really is a great human-"

Mehul was shocked, that what exactly had happened just after he had joined his sister's college as a guest professor along with Ruchi- she had started ignoring him in public and actively tried to hide their relationship from people in common circles. But he remembered how his sister had always been proud of him, and wanted to be like him- that was the reason behind her choosing Humanities after high school, despite excelling in the sciences. He felt something tug at his heart; he was not able to decipher if it had been due to the serious condition of her sister, or his baby sister being ashamed of accepting their relation in public. A drop fell down from his eyes again, and before he could have composed himself to say anything, he heard Ruchi's voice.

"Whom are you guys trying to fool? I was your professor in undergrad as well; and Naveen, Veer and Nitya- you guys don't even share the same surname or residential city! Nitya, let me tell you that Mehul was the one to call me after you had fainted due to high fever, crying! How could you feel ashamed of accepting him as your elder brother in front of his colleagues?"

Nitya looked at her brother, her eyes brimming with tears- she didn't know that all this while, she had been hurting her brother unknowingly! This was the first time someone had brought her face-to-face with his perspective on something that was almost an impulse on her part. She felt guilty and tried to find the words to talk to him, but right as she was about to ask everyone to leave, Professor Ruchi announced, "Everyone please leave us for sometime, I need to ask Nitya something."

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