Dhurandhar-centric

The train lurched into motion with a metallic groan that vibrated through the carriage, and only then did she become aware of the elderly man seated directly across from her. At first glance he appeared simply old, but the longer she looked the more she realised that age alone was not what drew her attention toward him. There was still strength lingering in the broad structure of his shoulders and something dignified in the way he sat upright despite the walking stick resting between his knees, yet time had carved deep lines into his face and hollowed him in ways that had nothing to do with physical decline. His beard was entirely white, his hands remained motionless upon the handle of his cane, and his gaze stayed fixed beyond the train window with such unwavering stillness that he seemed detached from everything happening around him.

What struck her most, however, was the sadness resting upon him with the familiarity of an old companion. Yalina found herself watching him longer than politeness probably allowed because there was something painfully lonely about the sight of him sitting there surrounded by people yet somehow appearing entirely alone.

The man did not acknowledge her attention, though she could not tell whether he genuinely failed to notice or simply lacked the energy to care. His eyes remained fixed outside while the scenery blurred past, and something about that distant expression tightened unexpectedly inside her chest. She had always possessed an unfortunate weakness for lonely elderly people, a weakness that frequently resulted in conversations with strangers and occasional lectures from Hamza about talking to everyone she met.

"Uncle?" she called gently after several moments.

The old man blinked as though surfacing from somewhere very far away, then slowly turned his head toward her. The instant his eyes landed upon her face something changed in his expression, and for several seconds he simply stared without speaking. It was not an uncomfortable stare nor a rude one, yet there was something strangely intense about it, as though he had encountered something entirely unexpected and needed a moment to understand what he was seeing.

Yalina offered an awkward smile and shifted slightly in her seat.

"Ji... uncle?"

The old man seemed to return abruptly to the present.

"Haan beta."

His voice emerged rough and worn, carrying the unmistakable texture of someone who spent long stretches of time without speaking.

"You looked uncomfortable," she said while holding out her water bottle. "Would you like some water?"

His gaze dropped to the bottle before returning to her face, and for a brief moment an unreadable emotion crossed his features so quickly that she could not identify it.

"Thank you."

His fingers trembled faintly as he accepted the bottle, and Yalina immediately felt vindicated in her assessment of the situation. The poor man looked exactly like someone who had not enjoyed a proper conversation in far too long, and she felt a surge of sympathy.

For several minutes silence settled comfortably between them while the train continued rattling along its route, but eventually the old man's attention drifted toward the phone resting in her hands. The lockscreen displayed a photograph of Zayan attempting to eat a crayon with complete confidence in his decision, and the corner of the old man's mouth twitched upward.

"Your son?"

That simple question was all the encouragement Yalina required because discussing Zayan ranked among her favourite activities and she rarely needed much invitation.

"Ji, my son," she replied immediately while turning the screen toward him. "His name is Zayan, and this photograph was taken last week. He is rather mischievous. Probably got it from his father, he certainly didn't get it from me! ."

The old man looked at the picture carefully rather than offering the brief polite glance most strangers gave when shown photographs of children. His gaze lingered upon the image while his fingers tightened subtly around the water bottle.

"He looks sweet, and very clever too."

The words emerged quietly, carrying a sincerity that made her smile widen instantly.

"I know. And he is far too clever for his own good. Or my husband's and mine!"

The old man laughed unexpectedly, and the sound seemed to surprise him almost as much as it surprised her. It was a genuine laugh, small but warm, and something about hearing it encouraged her further.

"Oh, wait until you see this one," she said while scrolling enthusiastically through her gallery. "This was three months ago when he discovered puddles and immediately decided that he must try and drink from every single one he sees. Aur majaal ho ki koi usse roke! I am the villain if I try to stop him from getting his way. Do you know why he cried day before yesterday? It was because I wouldn't let him put his finger in a socket! But he is sweet. My husband says he has the personality of a fungus. He grows on you and before you know it, you will lose the ability to say no to him"

The old man's eyes softened noticeably.

"Sounds familiar."

"You have children?"

The question escaped naturally before she considered whether it might be too personal. And honestly, it felt dumb too, someone this old would not just have children, but grandchildren too.

His smile faltered almost imperceptibly.

"Had."

The answer felt strange in a way she could not explain, and she felt that pang of strange devastation return to her chest. She knew that it was not her place to ask of his story, but she did not wish to end a conversation on such a sad note, so she ploughed on, hoping that her motherly babbling will pull the man out of his melancholy for some brief time.

"Will you see more pictures? He is in his teething phase, and honestly, uncle, Allah ki qasam, he nearly drives me insane. He bites absolutely everything within reach, including furniture, blankets, my hands, and his father too. And he cries ceaselessly, and with how difficult it is to calm him, I cry with him too, and so does Hamza, my husband."

The old man's eyes crinkled with amusement.

"Clove oil."

"Hain?"

"A little clove oil on the gums helps considerably."

The certainty with which he offered the advice made her blink before immediately opening her notes application.

"Why did nobody tell me this before?"

The old man chuckled softly, and this time the sound lingered longer.

"He'll grow out of it eventually."

"And isn't that the bittersweet constant of motherhood, every phase is a menace until they grow out of it. Did I tell you about how he peed on my mother the first time she held him? That was the day I knew I would be proud of my son no matter what he did— "

She continued scrolling through photographs while speaking almost continuously because restraint had never been one of her strengths whenever the topic involved her child. Every image carried a story attached to it, and every story seemed worth sharing.

"Abhi chalna seekha hai," she said while opening a video.

The screen filled with footage of Zayan wobbling determinedly across the living room in pursuit of Hamza.

"He follows his father everywhere," she explained fondly while watching the video herself. "If Hamza stands up then Zayan stands up immediately, and if Hamza leaves the room then he starts crying as though all hell has broken lose. Sometimes I genuinely wonder whether I am necessary at all."

The old man's attention fixed completely upon the screen. His expression changed subtly, and she noticed a suspicious brightness gathering within his eyes.

"Uncle?"

He blinked rapidly and cleared his throat.

"No, no. Continue."

So she did, because she assumed perhaps the video had simply reminded him of his own children.

"This one is my favourite."

She opened another photograph showing Zayan asleep across Hamza's chest while both father and son drooled with equal enthusiasm.

The old man's lips parted slightly before closing again.

For a brief moment he looked overwhelmed by something she could not identify.

"His father loves him very much."

The words sounded less like observation and more like a statement, but she understood his implication, for all her father's love, her father had been a rather uninvolved parent, watching Hamza hover over their son every moment he could had changed her perspective on fatherhood. Perhaps he came from the age where fatherhood had merely demanded money and a roof over the head.

"Of course he does," she replied with a proud smile. "Hamza spoils him completely."

The old man lowered his gaze, and something about his expression made her chest ache unexpectedly. It looked as though she had unknowingly brushed against an old wound hidden beneath years of silence. Yet whenever she continued speaking he listened with such focused attention that stopping felt impossible.

"He talks nonstop now."

"Oh?"

"Well, talks might be an exaggeration because most of it remains incomprehensible." She rolled her eyes dramatically. "He knows maybe ten actual words."

The old man smiled. "That's a start. Before you know it, these kids will be talking your ear off"

"Do you know his favourite word?"

The smile deepened slightly. "What?"

Yalina pointed accusingly toward a photograph.

"No."

The old man blinked before laughing loudly enough to startle both of them.

"Exactly," she said triumphantly. "Everything is no. Eat your food? No. Take a bath? No. Stop putting dirt into your mouth? No."

The old man laughed harder, and genuine tears appeared in his eyes.

For reasons she could not explain, the sight unsettled her slightly because the laughter seemed entirely real yet the tears seemed real as well. It was only then that she became aware of the unusual intensity with which he listened whenever she spoke about Zayan. He was not watching her so much as absorbing every story she told, treating each insignificant anecdote with a seriousness that made them feel strangely important. It was almost as though he were trying to memorise every detail she offered, storing away each description and each memory with desperate care.

The train continued its journey while station announcements echoed intermittently through the carriage and passengers gradually began collecting bags in preparation for upcoming stops. Neither of them paid much attention because Yalina had already reached photograph number eighty-seven and the old man had listened patiently to every single story attached to every single image.

Eventually the train slowed, and she glanced outside only to realise her station had arrived.

"Oh."

Reluctantly she began gathering her belongings while feeling oddly disappointed that the conversation was ending. Rarely did she find such attentive listeners to her cuteness aggression towards her own child. Her father's eyes would become glassy with faraway looks of 'no longer listening' and her mother would cut in about it being nothing special. Her friends had encouraging expressions but would whip out their own phones with their kids too, and she had to be polite and look at them while internally feeling like a judgmental aunty because she did not find any of them as cute as her Zayan. It was usually just Hamza humoring her. So the old man had felt strangely like a friend, during the course of the conversation

The old man nodded slowly. Almost sadly.

"It was nice meeting you, uncle."

"It was nice meeting you too."

She smiled before hesitating briefly.

"Your children must be very lucky."

The old man looked at her for a long moment, and the noise of the station seemed strangely distant during the silence that followed. Then he smiled, and the sadness contained within that smile was so profound that years later she would still remember it without understanding why.

"I hope they think so"

Something tightened unexpectedly inside her chest. Why did his grief feel so personal?

Before she could examine the feeling further the train had stopped completely and passengers were already moving toward the exits. She rose from her seat and stepped onto the platform while the old man followed behind her. For a brief moment they stood side by side amid the crowd, then a porter passed between them followed by a family carrying luggage and several other passengers moving in different directions.

Only a few seconds passed before she turned back intending to wave goodbye.

The old man was gone.

Not walking away through the crowd and not disappearing into the distance. Simply gone.

She remained standing there for several moments while scanning the platform in confusion because she could not understand how someone so noticeable had vanished so quickly. Strange, she thought. Very strange.

Her phone buzzed in her hand with an incoming message from Hamza.

Where are you, jaan? Zayan is throwing a tantrum and refuses to nap. If you love your dear husband's luscious locks, please come home fast, otherwise I will go bald with frustration.

A laugh escaped her immediately. She shook her head. Hamza was a dramatic ass.

The strange old man slipped to the back of her mind as quickly as he had appeared, and she hurried away through the station with a smile already forming at the thought of seeing her family again.

On a different platform, in a different station, an old man stood with tears in his eyes, but a faint smile on his face. For a few stolen hours he had not been mourning what he had lost.

He had simply been a father again. A husband too.

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Yalina had boarded the train with every intention of never looking back.

It sounded dramatic when phrased like that, and perhaps if someone had told her a month ago that she would one day sit alone in a train compartment with her son while contemplating leaving her husband, she would have laughed in their face and called them mad. Yet here she was, staring through the dusty window while the city blurred past outside, feeling as though someone had reached into her chest and rearranged everything she thought she knew about her life.

Her husband was a liar, and the thought returned with exhausting persistence no matter how fiercely she tried to push it away. She would focus on the passing buildings, on the vendors moving through the train, on Zayan's endless questions, and somehow her mind always circled back to the same terrible truth.

The worst part was not even the lie itself. The worst part was that despite everything she had learned, despite the anger burning inside her, a stubborn part of her still loved him.

That realization disgusted her almost as much as it hurt.

If she hated Hamza completely, then leaving would have been simple. She could have packed her bags, taken her son, and walked away carrying nothing except righteous anger. Instead she carried memories that refused to die, and every memory seemed determined to argue against her decision.

She remembered rainy evenings spent entangled in each other's arms. She remembered laughing so hard at one of his terrible jokes that she had snorted her badam doodh out of her nose. She remembered waking up in the middle of the night and finding him asleep with one arm wrapped protectively around Zayan after the child had crawled into their bed.

Those memories felt real. They were real. That was what made everything so unbearable.

Hatred would have given her certainty, but love poisoned by betrayal left her trapped between two versions of the same man. One version was the husband she knew, the father who adored their son and remembered exactly how she liked her tea. The other version was an Indian spy who had hidden his identity from her for years.

Both versions existed simultaneously, and she no longer knew which one was the truth.

Hamza was a liar. Hamza was not even truly Hamza.

Hamza was a spy.

Even now the words felt absurd inside her head. Whenever she repeated them silently, she expected reality to correct itself somehow. Instead the truth remained stubbornly unchanged, forcing her to question every chapter of their life together.

Every memory now carried an uncomfortable shadow. Every smile seemed suspicious. Every promise demanded reexamination. Every "jaan" carried uncertainty. Every "trust me" echoed with painful irony.

She lowered her gaze toward Zayan and felt her chest tighten again. Her son was not asleep as she had initially hoped he would be. He had spent the fifteen minutes they had spent waiting for the train alternating between asking questions about everything he saw and inventing elaborate stories about strangers on the platform.

At that moment he was kneeling on the seat beside her, his chin resting against the window frame while he watched the passing scenery with endless fascination.

How was she supposed to explain any of this to him when she barely understood it herself? How could she look into those trusting eyes and tell him that the father he adored had hidden an entire identity from them?

The questions twisted inside her stomach until she felt physically sick.

She pressed her lips together and forced herself to breathe slowly because panic would solve nothing. Right now she needed enough strength simply to survive the next hour without falling apart in front of her son.

The rhythmic clatter of the train wheels at the platform of the stationary train filled the compartment while passengers drifted in and out of conversations around her. For several minutes she sat silently, trapped between thinking too much and trying desperately not to think at all.

She failed at both.

Eventually she became aware that someone was speaking to Zayan, and what caught her attention was not the stranger's voice but the fact that her son was already deeply engaged in conversation. Zayan had inherited many qualities from her, and unfortunately his willingness to befriend complete strangers within minutes was one of them.

Yalina looked up.

A young man sat across from them, though calling him a man felt slightly inaccurate because he looked barely older than seventeen or eighteen. He was tall for his age, broad-shouldered, and carried himself with the effortless confidence that belonged only to teenagers who still believed the world was a little oyster they could conquer in a fortnight.

His hair was cropped short, almost in the style of the military, his expressions animated, and his eyes sparkled while he described some disaster involving a cricket match, a shattered window, and an enraged mathematics teacher.

There was an openness about him that immediately drew attention. He spoke with his hands, laughed easily, and seemed completely unconcerned with how loudly he occupied the space around him.

Zayan listened with complete fascination, his small body leaning forward so far that Yalina worried he might tumble right off the seat if the train jolted unexpectedly. The boy had somehow earned her son's trust within minutes, and watching them together stirred an unexpected ache inside her because it reminded her painfully of Hamza.

Hamza had always encouraged every ridiculous story Zayan invented. He too would come up with neigh improbable stories that held an always restless Zayan captive.

"Phir kya hua?" Zayan demanded eagerly, his eyes shining with the same curiosity that always appeared whenever someone told him a story.

The boy grinned with obvious satisfaction at having such an attentive audience.

"Phir kya hona tha? Mujhe punishment diya gaya."

"Kya punishment?"

"Poore 50 sit-ups karne pade, woh bhi assembly mein, sabke saamne!." Zayan gasped dramatically and clutched the edge of the seat.

"No!"

"Bilkul."

"Aap jhoot bol rahe ho. Koi itna bura kaise ho sakta hai? Sabke saamne sit ups karwaya?"

The boy pressed a hand against his chest as though deeply wounded by the accusation, though the amusement dancing in his eyes ruined the performance completely.

"Dekha? aap ko bhi yeh heavy punishment lagi na? Maine bhi apne papa se shikayat kar di, main bola, main ek fauji ka beta hoon, main kyun aise logon se maafi maangu, mere desh ki fauj ko bhala bura toh uss student ne bola tha!"

Zayan nodded with absolute seriousness, completely moved by the theatrical outrage.

"Aise bacchon ko dus ande khaane ki saza milni chahiye", he replied sagely, like a juror passing a verdict.

The boy laughed, and the sound struck Yalina like a physical blow she had not been prepared for.

Something inside her went completely still, while everything around her seemed to continue moving normally. The train rattled onward, passengers talked among themselves, vendors passed through the aisle, yet she felt trapped inside a single suspended moment.

She stared at him properly for the first time.

Until now she had only paid half attention to him because her mind had been drowning beneath anger, confusion, and exhaustion. Now she noticed details she wished she had never noticed at all.

The shape of his eyes caught her attention first, the colour hidden within them was that impossible blue-green shade she knew better than her own reflection, because she had spent countless evenings watching those eyes soften with affection, narrow with amusement, and occasionally darken with worries he never fully shared.

The curve of the boy's smile, even the way his eyebrows lifted whenever he laughed felt painfully familiar, as though someone had taken a younger version of her husband and placed him casually in front of her.

Her heartbeat stumbled painfully against her ribs as realization slowly settled over her.

Those blue-green eyes were not merely similar to Hamza's eyes, nor were they vaguely familiar in the way strangers sometimes resembled people from one's past. What if?

Then reason returned and she forced herself to breathe slowly, reminding herself that grief, anger, and confusion could make the mind see connections where none existed. Ever since discovering the truth about Hamza, she had begun doubting her own instincts almost as much as she doubted him. That loss of certainty hurt more than she liked admitting, because she had always trusted her ability to understand people. Now she looked back at years of marriage and wondered how many signs she had missed, how many questions she had never thought to ask, and whether love had made her blind or simply willing to believe what made her happy.

Hamza was thirty-two years old, while the teenager sitting across from her could not have been older than seventeen.

Yet the resemblance remained undeniable, and what disturbed her most was the strange certainty growing inside her that this encounter meant something. She hated that feeling because it sounded irrational, and she had always considered herself a practical woman who trusted facts more than intuition. Still, every instinct inside her refused to dismiss what she was seeing, and that stubborn feeling lingered like a hand resting lightly against her shoulder.

A memory surfaced suddenly. She remembered the old Sikh man she had met on the train, the one with the same attentive way of listening. She remembered how patiently he had listened while she talked about Zayan, as though every story mattered and every detail deserved to be treasured. He had blue-green eyes. Just like her husband. Just like this boy. Just like her son.

Her throat went dry as she watched the boy continue talking animatedly with Zayan, completely unaware of the storm gathering inside her mind. He laughed easily and gestured with his hands while telling another ridiculous story, and Yalina felt as though the ground beneath her understanding of reality had shifted slightly out of place.

Before she could stop herself, she spoke because she needed something concrete to hold onto.

"Which station are you going to?"

The question interrupted both of them, and the boy blinked before looking at her with mild surprise, as though only now realizing that Zayan's mother had been sitting there all along.

"Huh?"

"Which station?" she repeated, trying to keep her voice steady.

He frowned briefly, then shrugged with complete casualness.

"Chakkiwara."

Immediately he turned back toward Zayan.

"So phir maine usko bola—"

The rest disappeared into background noise because Yalina's mind had locked onto a single word.

Chakkiwara.

There was no railway station called Chakkiwara, not on this route atleast. This train went to her Nanihal, a place Hamza wouldn't even think to look, and she had travelled on this train every summer since she had been 10. She knew its route like the back of her hand.

A cold sensation travelled slowly down her spine as several disconnected memories suddenly began pressing against one another. The old man, the impossible disappearance, the blue-green eyes, the resemblance, and now this strange answer all seemed to belong to the same puzzle.

One by one the pieces aligned inside her mind until she felt almost dizzy from the effort of trying to make sense of them. Logic told her that none of this proved anything meaningful because coincidences happened every day and strangers often resembled one another. Unfortunately, logic had been losing arguments inside her head ever since she discovered that her husband had been living a double life.

The same slope of the nose. The same sharp cheekbones. The same shape of the jaw beneath youthful fat.

Even the way he smiled carried an infuriating familiarity that made her chest tighten painfully. Looking at him was like looking at a younger version of Hamza before adulthood had hardened the edges of his face and before the beard had hidden so much of it. For one disorienting moment she could almost imagine her husband sitting there seventeen years young, laughing with Zayan.

Her gaze lingered on the boy, and then her thoughts drifted unwillingly toward the old Sikh man she had met on the train.

The came the realisation. The train. The inexplicable feeling of familiarity. The strange comfort she had felt around him despite never having met him before.

The way he had disappeared.

A knot formed in her throat as a frightening possibility took shape inside her mind. What if she had not merely met two strangers who resembled one another. What if she had somehow met two versions of the same man. Looking at the teenager now, she found herself remembering the old man's face with startling clarity, and for the first time she could see the bridge connecting them.

The boy sitting before her. The old man from the train. And between them, her husband.

The thought should have sounded absurd, yet it settled inside her with an unsettling sense of certainty.

She remembered the old man's shoulders. How tired they had seemed. How they had slumped beneath an invisible weight that years had never allowed him to put down. She remembered the loneliness surrounding him like a second skin, the quiet sadness in his eyes whenever he spoke about his children, and the aching tenderness with which he had listened to her talk about Zayan.

Was that the future waiting for Hamza? Would he one day become a man who carried entire lifetimes of grief behind his eyes? Would he spend his old age haunted by memories and sacrifices nobody else could understand? Would he sit alone on trains listening to strangers talk about their families because it reminded him of his own?

The thought hurt far more than she wanted it to.

Because despite everything, despite the lies and the deception and the betrayal that still felt raw enough to bleed, she loved him.

The admission came reluctantly. She loved him.

That love had been wounded, shaken, and buried beneath layers of anger, yet it had not disappeared. She wished it had because life would have been infinitely simpler if she could hate him without reservation. Instead she found herself staring at a boy who looked like her husband and remembering an old man who might become him, and all she felt was sorrow.

For the first time since learning the truth, she tried to imagine things from Hamza's perspective.

Not as the man who had lied to her. Not as the spy.

Simply as Hamza.

How had life brought him here. She had fallen for his carefully crafted stories in the beginning, and she could admit that now without embarrassment. Yet she had never been blind. There had always been moments when something ancient and melancholic surfaced in him without warning. Certain days of the year transformed him into a quieter version of himself, and she would catch him staring into nothing with an expression of longing so profound that it unsettled her.

Whenever she asked, he always smiled and changed the subject. She had never pushed. Partly because she respected boundaries, and partly because she genuinely believed that people deserved the right to leave painful histories buried. She had chosen to love the man standing before her rather than interrogate the ghosts standing behind him.

Now she wondered what those ghosts looked like. How much loss had he already endured before entering her life? How many people had he buried? How many impossible choices had he been forced to make?

Her thoughts drifted to Aalam Chacha.

The memory made her stomach twist.

Hamza had killed him after he had been accused of being an Indian spy. Now she knew enough to understand the horrifying complexity hidden beneath that event. The affection Hamza held for the old juice shop owner had been real. She knew that with absolute certainty. She had seen it in countless small interactions that could not be faked.

How much had that decision hurt him? How much of himself had he sacrificed in that moment? How many other impossible decisions had he already made throughout his life? How many times had duty demanded something from him that his heart desperately wanted to refuse?

How many pieces of his soul had he surrendered one by one until only the man she knew remained?

The questions disturbed her because they transformed him from a villain into something far more simple being.

A human being. A flawed one. But still human.

She felt horrible for sympathising with him.

Part of her wanted to reject every compassionate thought the moment it appeared. He had lied to her face for years. He had manipulated her trust. He had built their marriage upon secrets she never would have accepted had she known the truth from the beginning.

She had every right to be angry. Every right to feel betrayed. Every right to walk away.

Yet none of those truths erased another truth she knew deep inside herself.

Hamza was a good man. Not a perfect man. Not an innocent man.

But a good man.

The certainty of that belief frustrated her more than anything else because it refused to disappear no matter how hard she tried. She had seen too much kindness from him to dismiss it as an act. She had watched him comfort strangers, protect friends, care for neighbours, and love their son with a devotion so genuine that it could never have been fabricated.

The lies were real. The betrayal was real. But so was the love.

And sitting there between the memory of an old man and the sight of a teenage boy who looked uncannily like her husband, Yalina found herself wondering what tragedy had brought him to Rehman Bhai's gang in the first place.

Perhaps the greater tragedy was everything that had happened to him long before he ever met her.

Meanwhile the boy and Zayan had moved on to counting train compartments. The debate made absolutely no sense, yet both participants defended their positions with remarkable conviction and complete seriousness.

Despite everything weighing on her mind, Yalina found herself watching them with reluctant fascination.

The boy listened carefully, encouraged every ridiculous theory, and treated each absurd statement as though it deserved thoughtful consideration. Most adults would have dismissed Zayan's nonsense within seconds, but this boy seemed genuinely entertained by it and genuinely interested in what he had to say.

It was exactly how Hamza spoke to their son. Some of her happiest memories involved watching those two together while pretending not to watch at all. She remembered evenings when she would stand in the kitchen doorway listening to their laughter and feeling quietly grateful for the life they had built together.

The old Sikh man had listened to stories about Zayan with that same attentiveness, as though every detail mattered and every memory was precious. A strange ache spread through her as she watched the boy laugh at something Zayan said.

Different ages, different faces, and different versions of what felt like the same person somehow stood before her memory. Yet she sensed the same constant thread running through all of them, and that thread felt impossible to ignore.

It was simply the deep human capacity to care about another person with complete sincerity. That quality had always been one of the reasons she loved Hamza, and realizing that made her look away for a moment because the admission hurt.

The train began slowing as the next station approached, and Yalina felt a decision forming inside her before she consciously understood it. Without fully realizing why, she stood because something inside her had already chosen a direction. She was just one station away from home. Yes, home. Where Hamza was, probably sitting alone in that palatial monstrosity of a mansion, alone to the ghost sounds of memories. Home.

The decision felt sudden, yet deep inside she knew it had been building ever since she heard that familiar laugh. She was not ready to forgive Hamza, and she was nowhere near ready to trust him again.

She was not prepared to hear explanations or excuses, and part of her still wanted to scream at him until her throat gave out. But she was no longer certain she wanted to run away either.

Not after seeing the old man, not after meeting this boy, and not after feeling as though life itself kept placing fragments of the same mystery before her like it was trying to tell her something.

"Come on, Zayan."

The child blinked in confusion.

"Huh?"

"We're getting off."

"But—"

"Now."

She gathered their belongings while Zayan reluctantly obeyed, shooting disappointed looks toward his new friend. The boy looked surprised for a moment before smiling warmly.

The expression was so much like Hamza's that it hurt in a way she could not adequately describe. It was the kind of smile that had once made her feel safe, and now it only reminded her how complicated love could become. She hated that her heart still reacted to traces of him even when her mind remained furious.

Yalina stepped onto the platform with Zayan following behind her, then immediately turned around because she refused to let the same thing happen twice. This time she would get answers, and this time she would not lose sight of him.

The compartment was full of strangers going about their ordinary lives without concern for the questions consuming her. Families sat together, students checked their phones, vendors moved through the aisle, and office workers stared out windows with tired expressions.

The boy was gone.

Her heart sank heavily as she searched every face, scanning desperately for blue-green eyes or a familiar smile. She found nothing.

The train whistle sounded while passengers brushed past her, and still she stood there trying to understand how someone could disappear so completely. Was it all a trick of her mind? A part of her wondered whether grief and exhaustion were finally affecting her judgment, because the alternative explanation seemed impossible. That her mind had deemed her current reality so bleak, her hopelessly in love heart was so desperate to find normalcy that it was making up scenarios to give Hamza a second chance.

Another part knew exactly what she had seen and refused to dismiss it. That stubborn certainty frightened her almost as much as the mystery itself. She felt caught between two realities, one demanding rational explanations and the other whispering that some experiences could not be measured by logic alone.

Her attention remained fixed on the train.

"AMMI!"

She jumped. "What?"

Zayan pointed proudly at himself with complete confidence.

"I'm going to join the Indian Army." What?

A nearby woman nearly choked, an elderly man stared openly, and several passengers turned around at once.

Completely oblivious to the reactions around him, Zayan continued enthusiastically. "And then I'll make my motherland proud, just like that bhaiyya on the train. Did you know, he is gonna join the NDA? I want to grow up and go there to! I will be a fauji too, just like bhaiyya!"

Yalina slapped a hand over his mouth so quickly that she nearly knocked him sideways. "Chup!"

The child blinked in confusion.

"But—" "No." "But Mama—" "No."

She glanced around nervously and discovered that the suspicious looks had only intensified.

Wonderful.

Exactly what she needed today when her emotions were already stretched beyond endurance.

Her husband was secretly an Indian spy, some weird phenomenon had his younger and older versions coming to her, and now her son had chosen a crowded railway platform to announce his future military ambitions in favour of a nation the Pakistanis considered as their mortal enemies. If someone had described this day to her a month ago, she would have assumed they were telling a badly written joke. The absurdity of it all was so overwhelming that she almost wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

With a groan she pulled out her phone and called Khaleel.

The call connected almost immediately.

"Khaleel bhai?"

"Yalina Bibi?"

"Please come pick us up. I will send you the location. I know Hamza sent you to follow us."

There was a brief pause.

"How do you— should I tell Hamz—"

"Just come pick us up." Another pause followed before understanding entered his voice.

"Ji."

The call ended.

Yalina looked down at her son and then back toward the departing train carrying questions she still could not answer. Somewhere between frustration, confusion, grief, and reluctant amusement, she suddenly realized something that made her laugh despite herself.

After everything she had witnessed and everything she desperately wanted to understand, she had forgotten to ask the boy the simplest question of all. An answer she had demanded from Hamza, but she had only received silence. She would have had better luck with his younger version, she reckons, but she had lost the chance.

She had never asked his name.

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Yalina's grandmother was sick.

The thought had lingered heavily at the back of her mind for weeks now, stubborn and impossible to ignore no matter how many distractions life threw at her. Her mother was occupied, as always, with her father's political ambitions, campaign appearances, charity galas, and the endless parade of people who seemed convinced that Jameel Jamali's attention was the solution to all of Pakistan's problems. Yalina had neither the patience nor the temperament for any of it, and when she heard that her nani's health had taken a turn for the worse, she had packed a small bag almost immediately and announced that she would be staying with her grandmother for a few days.

Her nani had always been a balm to her soul, a respite amidst all of the shine and spotlight of her father's showmanship, the one place in the world where nobody expected her to be anybody except Waheeda ji's poti. She had always loved her grandmother's house too. It was strangely tranquil, the sprawling estate of a wealthy woman possessing the peace and quiet of a hermit's abode, tucked away from the bustle and recognition of the city, where conversations happened slowly, afternoons stretched lazily, and nobody cared about headlines, appearances, or carefully maintained reputations.

Life had become a tiring mummer's play.

She pretended and pretended and pretended until she feared that one day she would begin believing her own lies.

She pretended with her parents that her marriage was just as happy and well-to-do as it had been in the beginning. She pretended with her son that everything was fine. She pretended with her husband's men that the name they served was not a mask. She pretended with her husband that living with him, his lies, and his growing mountain of facades did not feel like a burden threatening to break her.

And her greatest facade was the one she maintained for herself. The one that pretended she was not still just as desperately in love with a man who had lied about everything.

Some days she felt disgust for herself.

Have you no spine? A younger, simpler, less complicated version of herself, she thinks, would question her. And Yalina would answer honestly that perhaps she did not. Or perhaps she had enough spine to carry her secrets and her husband's too.

She simply did not possess the strength necessary to destroy the fragile thing they had built together, half by Hamza on his own and half with her help.

Because she still craved him in ways that made her feel weak, foolish, and painfully human whenever she tried to examine her own heart honestly. She still craved his presence beside her at night, his voice filling the quiet spaces of their home, his touch finding hers without thought, his affection in small moments that nobody else noticed, and his love in all the complicated forms it chose to take.

But his lies came bundled with everything else he was, and she had leant to embrace the thorns for the rose, because she no longer knew how to separate the man she loved from the secrets he carried.

Now everything felt like a ticking bomb hidden beneath the ordinary rhythm of their lives. Now that she knew the truth, every time he stepped outside the house she felt fear settle heavily inside her stomach and remain there until he returned. Before, she had worried about rival gangs, political enemies, police raids, and the countless dangers that naturally followed a man like Hamza, but those fears seemed almost simple compared to what she knew now.

Now she knew that every day he walked into a battlefield she could not even see, a battlefield that stretched far beyond Karachi, beyond Pakistan, beyond anything she had ever imagined. It was not merely petty gangsters that could hurt him or criminals seeking revenge for old grudges. It was the army too, intelligence agencies, borders, governments, and entire nations whose interests could crush ordinary people without hesitation. Once she had finally seen the truth, the threat hanging over his head became impossible to ignore, and every goodbye felt heavier than the one before it.

Some days she felt like a widow whose widowhood had not yet been acknowledged by the world. The feeling frightened her. How much time did she actually have left with the man she had sworn to spend a lifetime with, and was there any way of knowing before that time suddenly ran out?

Would that time end with him in the ground, buried beneath soil while she stood beside a grave trying to remember the sound of his laughter? Or would it end with him across a border she could never cross, alive but forever beyond her reach? Was there any reality where she got to grow old beside him instead of losing him to one cause or another?

Sometimes she would imagine his shoulders bowing beneath age instead of responsibility, and the image felt so precious that it almost hurt. She imagined her own hair becoming white like her Nani's, imagined evenings spent together in comfortable silence, her head resting against his shoulder while his hand remained settled upon her knee. They were such ordinary dreams, embarrassingly ordinary compared to the lives they actually lived, yet they felt more impossible than anything else.

Would she ever watch Hamza become an old man, or would she only ever know this guilty, broken, battered man? Would she ever see him become the old Sikh she had met all those years ago?

She had never spoken about them to Hamza or to anyone else, partly because she did not know how to explain them and partly because half the time she was not even certain they had truly happened. They felt real when she remembered them, yet impossible whenever she tried to examine them logically.

Zayan no longer remembered the stranger from the train, though even now he still insisted that one day he would join the army. Hamza usually looked stricken whenever their son said it, a strange expression crossing his face before disappearing almost immediately. Yet the one time Zayan had proudly declared that it was the Indian Army he wanted to join, her husband had not corrected him or laughed it away.

He had only looked at him, and there had been pride in his eyes.

Then she remembered something else. The train.

Both encounters had happened on trains, specifically on journeys to her nanihaal. The realization had lingered in the back of her mind for months now, never fully forming until this moment. The last few visits had been family affairs, her father's extravagance insisting upon a fully equipped RV instead of the much cheaper train ride, and perhaps because of that she had stopped thinking about it.

Until now.

Now curiosity stirred again despite herself. Would she see him again if she took the train? Would she meet another version of him? Would the world grant her another impossible glimpse of the man who owned her heart while guarding so many secrets within his own?

Her answer arrived sooner than expected.

The first thing she noticed was the uniform. Khaki, but not Pakistani police. Those uniforms were different in colour, cut, and insignia, and recognition came almost immediately once she looked closely.

Punjab Police.

Not exactly the same as what she had seen in photographs, yet close enough that she knew what she was looking at.

Three officers entered her compartment, and between them walked a young man.

For one brief moment her heart forgot how to beat.

This time she recognized him instantly. There was no confusion, no uncertainty, and no gradual realization creeping into place. She knew him the moment she saw him.

Though his demeanor had changed completely, his face remained unmistakable. The same sharp features, the same eyes, and the same impossible familiarity remained untouched by time. Yet everything else was different in ways that made her chest ache.

His eyes looked like flint instead of sunlight. His jaw remained clenched so tightly that she wondered if he was grinding his teeth. The expression reminded her painfully of Hamza whenever he was furious and trying not to show it. There was that familiar curl of contempt resting at the edge of his mouth and that same furrow between his brows she used to smooth away with her thumb while teasing him.

He could not have been much older than twenty or twenty-one, yet he looked infinitely older than the laughing teenager she had met before. Whatever life had done to him, it had carved itself deeply into his face.

The officers noticed her immediately, and one gave a polite nod before they pushed the young prisoner down into the seat opposite her.

Finally his eyes lifted and recognition struck.

His eyes widened with shock, recognition, and disbelief before something else followed close behind. Before she could even process it, shame swept across his face so visibly that it startled her. His gaze dropped immediately and refused to rise again.

Yalina stared at him.

Something inside her twisted painfully at the sight. She remembered the bright-eyed boy eager to become a soldier, the boy who laughed too loudly and happily entertained Zayan's nonsense without a trace of impatience. That boy had seemed so alive, so hopeful, and so certain of the future waiting for him.

And now here sat a prisoner.

Handcuffed, silent, and looking as though the weight of the world rested upon his shoulders. She had been certain that her husband had been an army officer undercover, that is all. But clearly, that was not the case. She knew enough of such things that the boy in this prisoner's uniform would never wear a soldier's garb even if he completed his sentence. He had worn the striped clothes of prison and forever lost the honour to don a soldier's uniform.

What had happened to him?

From eager teenager to a convict, from excited schoolboy to a young man escorted by armed police, the transformation felt too severe to comprehend. She found herself searching his face for answers and finding only exhaustion, anger, and something that looked suspiciously like grief.

The silence stretched between them because he clearly had no intention of speaking or even acknowledging her presence. Yet habits were difficult things to abandon, and Yalina was unfortunately accustomed to trying to soothe that familiar frown, that tension, and that stubborn silence whenever she encountered it.

So she asked quietly,

"Kya maine aapko pehle kahin dekha hai?"

The boy stiffened immediately. His shoulders tightened, and for a moment she thought he might actually answer. Yet he remained silent, and if anything he turned away from her even further while the shame settled heavier upon him.

One of the officers snorted.

"Haan, dekha dekha sa lagta hoga. Abhi kuch mahinon pehle Punjab ke har news mein iski photo thi. Baarah aadmiyon ko akele maar daala hai isne. Aur ek boond afsos nahi hai iss qaatil ko."

Something changed instantly. The boy was no longer turning away in shame. The shame did not disappear completely, but it retreated beneath something harder. In its place came defiance. His shoulders straightened. His jaw tightened further. His eyes lifted just enough to fix themselves upon the officer.

There was nothing fearful in that look and nothing apologetic either. There was only anger, mutiny, and a fury so controlled that it seemed to vibrate beneath his skin. Yet he remained silent, and somehow that silence felt louder than any argument he could have made.

Yalina felt another pang in her chest.

The earlier version would never have remained quiet. That boy had talked endlessly, argued enthusiastically, and laughed freely whenever the opportunity presented itself. But her husband had mastered silence over the years. He had learned to lock entire wars behind his eyes without speaking a word, and looking at this young prisoner she realized she was witnessing the beginning of that transformation.

The making of that silence.

She wanted to ask more because she wanted to understand. She wanted to know what could possibly drive someone so young toward twelve deaths and leave him looking like this afterward.

The contradiction disturbed her deeply because she could not reconcile the boy she remembered with the young man sitting before her.

Before she could ask another question, a tea vendor appeared beside her window. "Chai, baji?"

Distracted, she turned. "Haan, do dena."

The exchange took perhaps twenty seconds, thirty at most. She handed over the money, collected the cups, and turned back toward her seat.

The seat opposite her was empty. The officers were gone. The boy was gone. All of them had vanished as though they had never been there at all.

The second cup of tea suddenly felt ridiculous in her hands.

Yalina stared at the empty seat for several moments before letting out a slow sigh. Missed again. And somehow this encounter had left her with even more questions than answers.

The cooling tea became an anchor between her palms while her thoughts churned relentlessly. The twelve deaths did not frighten her because her husband had killed more, and Lyari itself had consumed more lives than she could count.

No.

What disturbed her was the journey.

How had the bright, excitable boy become this young man? What had happened between those versions of him? What pain, loss, betrayal, or sacrifice had carved away the softness she remembered?

And sitting there with a cup of cooling tea, Yalina found herself wondering whether every version of Hamza she encountered was simply showing her a different scar.

The old man had shown her loss. The teenager had shown her hope. This young prisoner had shown her rage.

And somehow all three felt heartbreakingly familiar because all three still felt like him. Like the universe was showing her every layer of the person her husband already was, giving her time to weigh and listen to every one of them because it found her lacking for not seeing the amalgamation of them all in the shadows that already haunted her husband.

The questions continued swirling through her head long after the train resumed moving. Eventually she stopped fighting them because she knew she would never find complete answers. She could not change anything, and she could not understand everything.

By now she had resigned herself to learning only whatever fragments these strange encounters chose to reveal. The rest would remain hidden, just like Hamza, just like the truth, and just like all the things she loved about him but would perhaps never fully understand.

She still did not think she would tell her husband about any of this. This felt like a secret between her and the man beneath the mask of Hamza. And she wanted it to stay that way.

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By forty-five, Yalina had learned that grief was not the thing people promised it would be.

It did not stay sharp forever. It dulled. It settled. It became reaching for a second cup while making tea before remembering there was nobody to drink it. It became hearing a joke and thinking Hamza would have laughed before the thought disappeared as quickly as it arrived. The worst part was not the pain.

The worst part was discovering you could survive it.

Nearly ten years had passed since he left. Ten years of raising Zayan alone. Ten years of birthdays, report cards, football matches, university applications, broken bones, heartbreaks, and ordinary Tuesdays that arrived whether her heart was broken or not.

For a long time she had been angry.

She had rehearsed arguments while washing dishes. Imagined confrontations while lying awake at night. Built entire conversations inside her head where Hamza finally understood what he had done to her, where his guilt become something that soothed her hurts instead of a reminder that nothing would change.

But real life was never as cooperative as fantasy. Then life happened, as it always did.

Zayan grew up before she was ready for him to.

One day he was small enough to fit against her chest when he fell asleep, and the next he was taller than she was and speaking about a future that no longer required her permission. University applications appeared on the kitchen table. School matches needed attending. Broken bones needed worrying over. Teenage heartbreaks needed surviving.

And somewhere between all those ordinary milestones, between parent-teacher meetings and late-night conversations and watching her son become his own person, she realized that entire weeks had passed without thinking about Hamza. The realization should have felt like a victory, but instead it felt strangely sad. She had spent so many years carrying her anger that she no longer knew who she was without it. Yet life kept moving anyway, pulling her forward one day at a time until eventually she found herself standing in a future she had once been certain she would never have to be alone in.

Her father passed. It had nearly taken her down, his loss. In her youth, he had not been the best father. Watching Hamza with their son, for whatever amount of time he had with them, had taught her that. But he became her rock later. When Hamza left, her father had been the one to catch her when she fell. He insisted on hovering over her, dragging her out of bed, speaking to her even when she had no words to respond, embracing her more in a week than he had in a lifetime. Holding her hand, being her crutch until she could finally stand again, find the will to live again. He had been the only one who had known that Hamza was alive. He had pulled many connections to get him out, and then had kneeled at her feet and apologized that while he had saved him, he could not let her leave with him. It would be a death sentence for them, he had said, and she had accepted it, and her father had looked at her with such guilt, that he spent the next 8 years making up for it. And then he was lost to her too.

Her mother softened with age too, becoming gentler in ways Yalina had once believed were impossible. The sharp edges that had defined so much of her childhood seemed to wear down year by year, and there were moments when Yalina looked at her and wondered where this version of her mother had been all along. It felt unfair sometimes. She had spent decades wishing for this woman and received her only after she no longer needed her in quite the same way.

The world continued spinning whether she was ready for it or not, and every year seemed to pull her a little farther away from the woman she had been when Hamza left.

And somewhere along the way, her anger became exhausted.

That was why when she saw him sitting across from her, she did not feel rage.

She felt sadness.

The man could not have been older than thirty-five. Yet she knew immediately which version of him this was. This was after the truth. After the arguments. After the distance began creeping between them.

She remembered him from those months.

She remembered watching him move through their home as though he no longer knew where he belonged there. It had been painful to witness because the house had once fit him so naturally. He used to fill every room without effort, used to make even ordinary evenings feel warm and familiar. Then something changed, and suddenly he seemed uncertain inside his own life. He lingered in doorways as though he wasn't sure he was welcome. He hesitated before speaking, as though every sentence needed careful consideration. He looked at her when he thought she wasn't paying attention, and there had been something heartbreaking about those looks because they always felt like a goodbye he wasn't ready to say.

At the time, she had been too angry to fully understand what she was seeing. He had not seen him then, and now all she could do was see the things she had missed the last time. It was so apparent now. Her words spat in anger felt blind now. How could she accuse him of not loving her, when he sat here, looking like a man aged twenty years by the despondence of his circumstances? She could see it in the stubborn set of his jaw.

He was trying.

That was the tragedy.

He was trying, and she already knew it wouldn't be enough.

Ten years had passed since he left. Entire chapters of her life had unfolded without him. She had learned how to make decisions without asking what he thought. She had learned how to celebrate milestones without expecting him beside her. She had learned how to survive the absence he left behind, even when surviving it felt unfair. Yet some part of her still knew him instinctively. She knew the tension in his shoulders meant he was carrying too much. She knew the set of his jaw meant he was trying not to say something. She knew the sadness in his eyes because she had spent years loving the man who wore it.

An emotion bloomed in her chest, that she had not quite expected.

It wasn't anger, although she had carried enough of that for years to fill entire seasons of her life. It wasn't resentment either, despite all the nights she had spent replaying old conversations and imagining different endings. It wasn't even grief, because grief had long ago settled into something quieter and more familiar.

It was pity.

Not for herself.

For him.

The feeling surprised her because she had spent so many years believing that if she ever saw him again, she would want answers. She thought she would want explanations, apologies, some acknowledgment of everything that had been broken between them. Instead, sitting across from him now, all she could think was how young he looked. Not young in age, but young in certainty. Young in the way of hopefulness. His final days with them had had none of this hope. His very soul had seemed resigned to fate.

Age had given her something youth never could. Perspective.

Because she knew how the story ended and he didn't. She knew that one day he would leave. She knew that one day he would lose everything.

She knew that one day he would become an old man listening to stories about his son because stories were all he had left.

And she knew that the young man sitting across from her was still hoping love would save him. It wouldn't.

Looking at him now, she felt an ache she hadn't expected. There was something unbearably sad about watching someone stand at the beginning of a heartbreak you already knew by heart. He was still fighting for a future she knew would slip through his fingers. He was still carrying hope she knew would eventually exhaust itself. She wondered, if the old Sikh man had felt the same pity for her when he had seen the exuberance of her youth, or had he envied her carefree naivete. Well, nobody would accuse her husband of naivete, that was for sure. The tensing of his shoulders told her that she had been seen. She felt at ease with this version of her husband. She had loved this version of him, had given herself- mind, body and soul to this man. She knew him, perhaps even better than he knew himself.

"Hello", she decided to start the conversation, hoping her voice sounded steadier than it felt.

He looked stunned. Like he did not expect that she would look at him with kindness. Ah, then this was right after the reveal.

"She still loves you, you know. Your version of Yalina. I still love you, and I have had far more to hate you for than she does."

His face seemed to crumple. Like hearing her voice had been the thing that broke the last tether that held him. He hid his face in his hands and began to sob, like Zaayan did when he was younger. Even now, she couldn't help but marvel at how similar the two were. She had never thought she would hear that noise from her 'always tough as brass nails' husband. His shoulders shook, his hands trembling as he knelt at Yalina's feet. He joined his hands, as if in supplication, tears still streaming down his face. "I am sorry. I am so sorry, meri jaan. I have destroyed your life. I am sorry, I was selfish. I-I was a fool. Mujhe maaf kar do, Leena. Muhe maaf kardo."

How long had she imagined this? Him asking for forgiveness? And in all those fantasies, she would push him away in righteous anger. He would be left in the dust, feeling the same abandonment as she had. But now that her broken heart looked at this broken man, all she could do was raise her own trembling hand to cup his wet cheek. She knew that she was crying too, and she did not care much for it. She encouraged him to tilt his chin, his teary eyes meeting her own, teary too, no doubt. Before she could do much else, her husband, now ten years younger than her, laid his head upon her lap, sobbing like a heartbroken child, she could feel the hot,wet gasps that he tried to hide in the cloth of her suit, the desperation in the way he clutched at her hands, and she couldn't help superimpose Zayan, so much like his father, over this lost man.

Her hands rose automatically to gently run through his hair, like she had done that night after he had returned from killing Rehman bhai. Caressing and patting with one hand, as the other clutched at the shoulder of his thick coat like she was afraid to let go, pretending that he was the only one being comforted. It took them a few minutes, of this moment of vulnerability, before he calmed, and she felt a strange tranquility wash over her. She was a fool to think she could stop loving him. That just because the anger had faded, so too had the love. She had threatened to burn him if he betrayed her, but the truth was that she had always been too enthralled by him, she had burned for him long before being burned by him. He was, for better or worse, the flame of her soul.

"Do you want to know what Zayan is upto these days? He plays for football for his university now." They both knew the unspoken rule of this little gift from the powers that be. Nothing would change. Nothing could be changed. This rested on the unspoken understanding that the one from the future would divulge nothing to the one from the past, that could change the outcome of things. So chose neutral ground.

"Accha?", he murmured, muffled by her kameez.

"Hmm. And likes to keep his hair long, even though it has none of your hair's lusciousness and he looks a little homeless. But its alright. He likes it."

"Mmhm?"

"He also plays a bunch of instruments you know. But his favourite is the keyboard. He likes to remix old bollywood songs."

"Does he still make a fuss about eating meat and eggs"

"Hmm. These days there is this trend of eating only foods that don't come from animals. He claims he is following that, and is saving the animals. But we all know its because he doesn't like meat"

He snorted in laughter. "What else does he do?"

"Oh he draws now. That's his degree. You have to see his pieces, dear, they look like photographs! Its amazing."

"He wants to be an artist? It doesn't pay very well, does it?"

"Well, with the amount of inheritance he is set to get, woh toh kya, uske do pushte aaram se baith ke kha sakte hain. He too, is a burger baccha", she chuckled at that thought.

If someone had told her even half an hour ago, that the next time she came face to face with her husband, it would be the most cathartic thing, with the both of them talking about Zayan and nothing else, she would have laughed them out of the room. She had imagined that talking to Ham—no, Jaskirat—would be awkward. That there would be too much history between them. But talking to him felt as easy as it had been all those years ago. It had felt like coming home. But she had a feeling, that her time with her husband was nearly up.

"Ab mera station aa gya hai Hamza, mujhe utarna hoga. And you too, have some place to be, don't you?"

He raised his head from her lap, his eyes so despondent, that she almost gave in and pulled him back, perhaps, a little because of her own reluctance to let him go after she had him so close to her. But their lives were at different paths and this was just a stolen moment. He had a life to live and so did she. These few moments they had shared made it easy to forget what waited for them outside this compartment, that this version of her husband belonged to her younger self. But for just a moment, she could almost forget everything else.

When she met his gaze again, the vulnerability in his eyes almost brought her to a halt. For years she had imagined that when Hamza left, he chose something else over them. His duty, his mission. But sitting here now, looking at the devastation hidden behind his eyes, she finally understood that choosing one thing did not always mean wanting it more.

Sometimes it just meant losing. Losing one thing to keep another. Losing anyway. Her epiphany did not change a thing. It would not excuse his role in the droll tragedy her life had become. But he wasn't the villain in it anymore. Seeing his eyes reminded her of why she had never held him responsible of abandonment in the first few years before the exhaustion of lonely life had turned her bitter. He was just a man. A man who loved his wife and son. A man who would, one day, lose both. And for the first time in nearly ten years, Yalina found that she did not want to punish him for it anymore.

As she stood, meeting his gaze for the last time, she spoke," Agar mann kabhi bhar aye, toh apni biwi ko apna asli naam bata dijiye. Taaki jab uska mann bhar aye, toh woh aapko aapke asli naam se yaad kar sake, Jaskirat ji."

She did not wait to see his reaction. It did not matter.

She stepped onto the platform, knowing that if she turned back, the train would no longer be the one she had travelled in and that her co-passenger would be gone.

She did not blame him anymore. She just wished things had been different and she wouldn't be stuck telling anecdotes of a son to his father, when he should have been in those anecdotes all along.

She wished her husband had been given a chance to be a father to their son.

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By the time Yalina turned seventy, she no longer came to the railway station because she had somewhere to go.

The destination had stopped mattering years ago.

The station had become a habit first, then a ritual, and finally something far more intimate than either. It had become a place where possibility still existed, where the world occasionally loosened its grip on logic and allowed impossible things to happen. She had spent nearly twenty-five years returning to these platforms, sometimes hopeful, sometimes foolish, sometimes angry at herself for believing, and sometimes simply tired enough to sit on a bench and listen to the trains come and go while pretending she was waiting for nothing in particular.

Life had continued in the meantime.

Life always did.

Zayan had a life of his own now. He had married a Punjabi woman whose laughter reminded Yalina vaguely of springtime, and together they had given her two grandchildren, Jasleen and Jasmine, whose photographs occupied every available surface in her home. He lived in the United Kingdom now, a decision she understood even if she did not entirely like it. He called often, visited whenever he could, and carried his love for her with the same stubborn devotion he had inherited from both his parents, but his life was elsewhere now. His children spoke with strange accents. His worries belonged to another country. His future was no longer tied to Karachi.

Yalina did not begrudge him that. Children were supposed to leave. That was the entire point. But she was old enough now to admit that understanding something and liking it were two entirely different things.

Zayan had begged her to move. He had shown her photographs of houses, neighbourhoods, parks where his daughters played, hospitals with excellent facilities, and entire communities of people who would welcome her. He worried about her living alone. He worried about her age. He worried because he was a good son.

But Yalina always found an excuse.

The weather would not suit her. The food would be different. She was too old to start over. The truth was simpler than all of those reasons.

She was not sure she would find her husband at a railway station in the United Kingdom.

And if there remained even the smallest possibility that she might find him here, then she could not bring herself to leave.

So she stayed. She was a frequent visitor here.

Enough that the station staff recognized her face. Enough that the tea vendor stopped asking what she wanted and simply handed her the same cup every time. Enough that she could admit, at least to herself, that she was no longer waiting for a train.

She was waiting for him.

That morning she moved slower than she once had. Her knees protested every staircase. Her fingers ached when the weather changed. The age spots on her hands reminded her painfully of her advancing age, and every mirror she encountered seemed determined to introduce her to another unfamiliar wrinkle.

The last time she had truly seen Hamza had been nearly twenty-five years ago.

A part of her wondered whether he would recognize her at all, because the woman boarding this train bore little resemblance to any version of herself he had previously known. She no longer looked like the young bride he had married, nor the furious wife who had demanded explanations from a world determined to deny them both. She no longer resembled the grieving woman who had spent years waiting for a husband who never returned, measuring entire seasons through absence and unanswered longing. Age had settled upon her thoroughly now.

Still, she climbed aboard the train.

A ticket to her nanihaal—her estate now, a fact that remained faintly unreal despite years of ownership—rested between her fingers as she moved carefully through the compartment. She was not expecting anything, because expectation had long ago taught her the cost of demanding miracles from indifferent circumstances. That was the lesson she had learned through decades of returning here: the station offered nothing to those who arrived insisting upon answers.

Then she looked up.

And there he was.

For a moment she simply stood motionless in the aisle, after years of missed chances, unfinished conversations, and impossible reunions, she had finally received the one thing she had secretly wanted all along.

Her old man. Her Hamza. Her Jaskirat.

His beard had turned completely white beneath a neatly tied pink turban. Spectacles rested upon his nose, while time had settled visibly into the lines around his eyes and softened the sharp certainty of his younger features. He looked older, undeniably tired, and more profoundly real than any version she had encountered before.

Then his eyes lifted to meet hers.

Recognition appeared instantly within them, immediate and unquestionable, carrying the effortless certainty that only decades of loving the same person could produce. A smile touched his face, neither the reckless grin of the gangster she had met nor the guarded expression of the soldier she had mourned. It was not the devastated face of the man who had once been losing her in slow motion. It was simply a smile, quiet and certain, carrying the unmistakable feeling of home.

"You look dignified now," she said, like she was simply continuing a conversation rather than seeing her dearest wish brought to life, because after fifty years of loving him she could not imagine beginning any other way. "Those spectacles suit you."

His smile widened immediately.

"And your radiance grows each day, my dear."

The answer arrived so naturally that she laughed aloud, producing a sound she had not expected from herself, her husband had always been a shameless rake. It was what had made her fall head over heels for him in the first place. The sparkle in his eyes looked familiar . It felt like home. It felt as though no time had passed between them. It felt as though every lonely year had folded inward and quietly disappeared.

Yalina wasted no time.

She no longer trusted whatever strange force governed these encounters, because every previous meeting had taught her how quickly impossible gifts could vanish. Conversations ended abruptly. Entire lives slipped through her fingers before she fully understood what she had been shown.

So she crossed the compartment immediately.

She sat beside him and reached for him without hesitation, her fingers wrapping around his blazer-covered elbow with embarrassing desperation. The gesture carried the irrational fear that loosening her grip even slightly might cause him to vanish like every other impossible version before him.

He did not vanish.

Instead he reached for her free hand and enclosed it within his own. His grip felt firm, warm, and reassuringly certain. Then he settled her hand upon his knee and covered it gently, transforming an ordinary gesture into something that nearly overwhelmed her.

It was such a small thing. Such an ordinary thing. Yet tears burned unexpectedly behind her eyes because after nearly four decades she finally had somewhere to rest again.

Carefully, almost reverently, she lowered her head onto his shoulder.

The shoulder beneath her cheek felt exactly as she remembered despite the years that had passed between them. It was older perhaps, slightly narrower and more fragile than before, yet unmistakably his. It remained familiar enough that something deep inside her immediately relaxed.

They remained like that for a long time. Minutes perhaps. Hours perhaps. Time had always behaved strangely whenever he appeared.

Neither of them spoke because neither of them needed to. They had already spent lifetimes speaking, arguing, loving, and missing one another across distances that should have been impossible to survive. What remained to be said after all that?

Eventually her gaze drifted across the compartment.

A newlywed couple sat opposite them, the young woman resting her head upon her husband's shoulder while he absent-mindedly played with her fingers. The sight filled her chest with unexpected warmth because it felt strangely familiar.

She felt Jaskirat shift slightly beside her. Then his head came gently to rest against hers. The tenderness of the gesture nearly undid her.

Yalina closed her eyes.

She was tired, like someone who had not allowed herself to feel tired for years finally tasting the privilege of being allowed to feel tired. It was the kind of tiredness that transformed rest into a gift rather than an interruption.

A strange certainty settled over her. She did not think she would wake if she allowed herself to fall asleep.

If this was a dream, then it was an unusually kind one. If this was a wish turned memory, then it was a generous one. If this was magic, then it had finally chosen mercy after decades of cruelty. And if this was merely the wishful imagining of an old woman sitting alone upon a train, she discovered she did not particularly care.

His hand remained wrapped around hers. His shoulder remained beneath her cheek. For the first time in decades she no longer felt adrift.

The train continued moving steadily onward while stations arrived and disappeared beyond the windows. Announcements echoed faintly through the compartment, and somewhere nearby people laughed, talked, and planned ordinary futures for themselves. Yalina paid none of it any attention.

She simply remained where she was. Beside her husband. Finally.

Whether she was falling asleep, dreaming, remembering, or borrowing one final impossible moment from a universe that had taken so much from both of them, she found she no longer required an explanation. Peace, she realized at the very end, did not always arrive through certainty or understanding. Sometimes it arrived as a familiar shoulder beneath your cheek, a warm hand wrapped around your own, and the quiet knowledge that after a lifetime spent searching for home, you had finally found it again.

And so she rested. And the train carried them onward. To where, neither of them seemed particularly concerned with knowing.

======================xXx=========================

Masterlist

A/N: I hope you liked it, you guys, I have no idea what I was writing, this is a very new genre to me. I had a few more pitstops, but I felt this had gone on long enough, so here you go! This was an absolute joy to write and such a unique concept too! Anyway, have a great day you guys, this is a scheduled post and so will the next two posts be, I think.

And I will repeat this from the roof tops, that Second Chance is my baby, like zero tension, chill plot baby. And I get that it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but every time I see a mention of my readers liking it or something, it absolutely makes my day, because I think it's one of my lesser loved fics. In fact, based on the 10 likes per chapter thing I know it has going on, I can probably even deduce who you are lol. I have been told by pre-dhurandhar writing feedback, that I tend to focus too much on a few central characters and tend to sideline other characters to non existence, so I am happy that my efforts at improving Jassi and Yalina's rapport with their respective friends was visible enough.

And thank you so much for the wishes babes. You don't know how much I needed this pick-me-up right now. My workplace is being a bih about my exams and one of the job interviews I was hoping to get into has its interview on the same day as one of my exams and I will have to skip it and lose the job and I was about to throw myself dramatically on my bed and wheeze like Ameesha Patel in unimaginable grief and then I saw this and I was like it's a sign from the universe, and I am doing something right, so I thought 'Jo hota hai bhale ke liye hota hai, kya pata mujhe sasuma jaise manager mil jaati wahan par' so yeah. Sorry for ranting on here you guys, dher sara pyaar to anon and all of you too❣️

Have a great day, folks!

Cheerios

I actually have two separate fic idea/request on here along similar lines. One is that Hamza has already completed the mission and left for India, discovers that Yalina had a miscarriage after he left from a file many years later and feels powerless(hurt no comfort).

Second one, is in line with the backstory of my fic Second Chance, where, while Hamza is building his empire, Yalina has three back to back miscarriages and he decides to insist to stop trying after the third one. In this, there are three, well ..stages. The first loss would have been surprising, she would be numb and actively trying to seek reassurance(her mom isn't such a hater in that one. She is just insensitive af). Second one she blames herself and you see her actively spiralling. Third one, she becomes mildly suicidal which scares Hamza and which is why he throws the towel in, apart from the health concerns, of course.(All three of these are, of course, hurt/comfort)

So which one do you want? Since I know whom I am speaking to,@carmenred28 ji , just make a choice in the comments and I will edit this post and give you a drabble according to your choice🤗

G'day to you!

Cheerios

In case you haven't realised it yet peeps, sure, I love both Hamza and Yalina, but as a writer, Yalina is a better blank canvas. She has less restrictions. As such, I have built my own version of her in my head, and hence, I love her a tad bit more.

Yep, as of now, 'Two Halves of a Lie' is the placeholder name for the series. If a better name comes up, I will replace it.

As for the lovers to enemies thing..well. mixed results I have received from poll, but if I do write it(I am assuming it is the angst ka mahasagar one and not the drabble I already posted), it will probably be a two shot or at best three shot. Maybe even a oneshot of I can manage hehe.

I am so happy to share my love for the characters with you and I am honoured to know that my writing has resonated with you soo much. Love you all dearly pa!

Hope you have a great day ❣️😊

Cheerios