(#6 in Rikara as on 27th March, 2019)
Now I know the title says Rikara FF, but there is going to be quite a bit about other characters from the Oberoi verse, so bear with me.
Also, I'm no writer, this is just something that has been bugging my min...
"We've got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself.... You've got to really look after it and nurture it."
-John Lennon
Gauri had heard about how happily ever after only happened in stories, not in real life. She was never the complaining sort, always accepted everything that fate threw at her, knowing that her Shankarji was looking out for her.
But if she had to be completely honest, she had reached a point in life, where she was living a happily ever after. She didn't like the sound of finality that rung with a 'happily ever after' though, like it was an end to a tale.
She felt 'forever happy' was more her thing. Earlier it was her state of mind, but now it was her reality. She would wake up everyday thanking Shankarji, for blessing her so. Was it unseemly for a person to be so happy?
Gauri hadn't yet outsmarted Omkaraji in the sleeping department. For a late riser like him, ever since their marriage, he would always wake up before her. How much can one admire someone? But he always said the same thing, that he has to wake up early to admire her face.
Sometimes, he would pull her onto his lap, while he was painting or sketching. Gauri, would then, read her books, or stitch a new design. Soon, it had become their favorite work posture. She was so tiny that it wasn't a bother. They would sit together like this, in companionable silence.
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Often, Gauri would rest her forehead on his chest and go off to sleep, and Omkara wouldn't notice until he finished what he was working on. Then he would softly, without waking her up, tuck her in bed, and join her in the world of dreams.
Their nightmares didn't stop altogether. On the good note, Kali Thakur stopped stalking Gauri's dreams after that press conference, but she would still have flashes of her childhood, of losing her father, separating from her sister, the terror of her orphanage, the struggle against her greedy adoptive uncle and aunt, and the world. Omkara still dreamt about his drug-crazed phase, of his mother drowning her sorrows in liquor, of his parents fighting....
In those moments, Gauri would remind him that his mother was her own person again, Om would remind Gauri that she had found her sister again, found her biological uncle, her family, Gauri would remind him that his parents had a much better relationship now, Om would remind her that she doesn't have to fight the world anymore.
They would hold each other, in comfort, because their past cannot be changed, but their future was warm. They were good people, they had suffered enough, they deserved this happiness.
