Come Home

Alternative version of when Arnav pays the rent for Buaji's house and then takes it back so she has 24 hours to pay the rent.

 

Khushi considers extreme measures to pay Buaji's rent while Arnav fixates on taking her back to Shantivan

Come Home

“Don’t you dare.”

He’d received a call from Mohan to say Khushi had asked to be taken to a pawnbroker and had immediately made his way to the same shop. She was so stubborn, the fact that she would rather pawn some of her jewellery to a stranger than accept any money from him galled him. On his way over he had tried to think what she could possibly be pawning and the thought that she might give away her mother’s payals had quickened his pace.

He never found out what her original intention was because instead he had walked in to find the sleazy sales associate asking Khushi if the diamonds in her mangalsutra were real. On a primal level Arnav knew she would never even consider it, her respect for Devi Maiyya was too consuming. And yet when her hands reached up to her neck, he saw red.

The exclamation drew her attention and Khushi’s eyes flew up to meet his. He didn’t even acknowledge the man, simply grabbed her wrist and pulled her towards the door. He ignored all her protestations until they reached the car at which point she stood defiantly with her hands on her waist when he opened the door for her.

“What do you think of yourself? I told you I was going to get that money and then you…”

“Khushi, don’t test my patience. Get in the car, now.” The glitter in his eyes and gritted teeth must have made his feelings clear because for once she didn’t protest and got into the car – although she did slam the door behind her.

When he got into the driving seat, she began to say something, but he cut her off “I’ve released the cheque, the rent is paid. Enough. It’s done.” She didn't need to know that there had been no stop, instead he was putting through the paperwork to buy the house outright.

Arnav started the car and there was a brief silence and he could see Khushi wringing her hands in her lap out of the corner of his eye.

Finally, she spoke. “Thank you, I’ll pay you back in one…”

“You don’t need to thank me Khushi,” he snarled in frustration and put the car back into neutral so he could turn to look at her properly. “That’s the whole point. I wasn’t doing you a favour. You’re my wife, it’s your right.”

Khushi’s face changed in an instant. He wasn’t sure what he had said that had affected her so much but her eyes were suddenly brimming with tears and her face looked pained almost as if he’d struck her. “Khushi?”

She flinched away from his hand and plastered herself against the door, getting as far away as it was physically possible to within the confines of his car. “I just want to go home. Please.”

Rubbing a hand across his face in frustration, almost as if to wipe away any phantom tears of his own, he sighed and started the car again. Everything he was doing was going wrong. All he wanted was for Khushi to come home. To his home, their home. He was under no delusions about which ‘home’ she wanted to go to right now. The thought of just driving to Shantivan crossed his mind, but she still looked on the verge of tears and he couldn’t bear to be the cause of any more of her tears than he already had been.

They hadn’t spoken during the journey to Buaji’s house but she spoke quietly as she pulled the handle to open the car door. “hum jaate hai”

Arnav held her hand and stopped her “aati ho.”

Khushi looked at him in confusion, “ji?”

“Don’t you always say you should say ‘I’m coming’ instead of ‘I’m going’? Isn’t it bad luck or something.” He caressed her fingers as he spoke and Khushi snatched her hand back quickly.

“Hum… aate hai,” she corrected.

He lowered his hand after waving her off and examined it. Khushi’s ring finger had been bare, just as his own was. It felt empty now in a way it never had before. He had never thought to buy Khushi a ring, but now he wanted to. He wanted one for himself too, a symbol to prove to Khushi - and the world - that he belonged to her too. As soon as she returned home, he would fix that. They’d go shopping and choose each other’s rings.

He looked at Khushi’s bright dress with tassels swinging off it as she walked into the house and tempered his idea with a smile. Maybe he’d shortlist a few options first, subtle and understated, and she could choose her favourite from them.

He had always laughed at Di and her obsession with her mangalsutra and sindoor but the sight of Khushi with hands poised to take off her mangalsutra had flooded his insides with ice water. He had never before contemplated how marked she was by their marriage. The sindoor, the mangalsutra, even his mother’s kangans, they all signalled to the world that she was married, she belonged to someone, she belonged to him.

He wanted her to wear as many symbols as possible that would tell the world that she was Mrs Arnav Singh Raizada. He’d get it tattooed on her forehead if he thought she would agree, and if it wouldn’t mar her perfect face.

The scene in the pawnbroker’s shop had given him a newfound awareness of how easily Khushi could remove all the adornments if she wished and he found himself horrified at the thought that she might one day take them off and sever any connection they had, legal, physical, and emotional.

He needed to make sure that never happened, and the first step to achieving that was taking her home.

---

Khushi stepped into the house and thanked Devi Maiyya silently that no one was in the living room. She rushed into her room and locked the door behind her.

“You’re my wife, it’s your right” he had said. She didn’t understand how he could be so cruel. Did he never think about the words he had said to her on their supposed wedding day? “You’ll only be my wife in public, I’ll never accept you as my wife or give you the respect of a wife.”

She however, never stopped thinking about those words, especially this past week with the end of their contract looming over her head. When the pawnbroker’s had mentioned her mangalsutra her hands had gone up instinctively to protect it from his lecherous gaze.

She hadn’t had time to examine her feelings with Arnav’s arrival in the shop but now she looked at herself in the mirror. Soon, she would have to take off this mangalsutra, this sindoor, his kangans. The tears that fell were just as involuntary.

She didn’t know what would happen in a week’s time, what she would say to her parents, to Buaji. But now that she had secured the rent for another month, she at least had the possibility of a home to live in when everything came crashing to an end.

That’s all it was though, a possibility. She remembered their anger when the marriage had happened six months ago, she couldn’t even imagine what they would say this time. Maybe they would kick her out completely and then where would she call home?