Ragini was back from home after getting her dresses for some more days to stay in hospital. When Ragini reached the bed where her father was lying her eyes widened in shock. Her father was unstable and the nurse was trying to calm him down.

"Baba" Ragini said in distress and reached her father quickly. Her father looked at her while gasping for breath and his eyes had tears. "What happened to my father?" she asked the nurse who was panicking trying to hold the old patient to the bed.

"Looks like his blood pressure fluctuating" the nurse tried to answer. Ragini's eyes started to tear already. She found her father looking at her. For a moment her brain failed to work. She decided not to show her own emotions to her father and smiled a bit and neared his head and started to caress his hair.

"Baba. Relax. Please" she said. Her last word came as mere whisper. Her breath was stuck in her throat and her brain wasn't sending any signals to breath. She felt her voice fail and a lump was stuck in her throat. And she didn't know what she could say to her father.

"I'll get the doctor" the nurse said and rushed leaving a dazed Ragini beside her father. Mr. Rajesh Sharma a man in his sixties never imagined someday he will be in this situation and his daughter would be watching him helplessly.

She needed someone to hold her and calm her down. She needed someone who would help her to reduce her panic. But she stood beside him with her dry throat and clueless eyes which were only tearing up.

He remembered the time when four year old Ragini stood at the ground after being pushed by a bratty kid who wanted her to leave the swing. With her hurt leg which was bleeding and eyes filled with tears, she struggled to say even a word.

And Rajesh that day realized he is vulnerable. He was a man who just was like a bird which had no nest. He never cared about commitments, relations or attachments. He had left behind many attachments in the past and thought he could live on his own.

That day his ego broke. He was not as strong as he thought. For a man who never had a weakness now there was a weakness. It was his daughter. He broke down completely watching her in that state. And that was the day Rajesh realized that he could conquer the whole world but he couldn't bear a tear in his daughter's eyes.

And now he was on the bed as his heart jumped in its cage watched his daughter who was trying hard to suppress her cry. The daughter he nourished whole her life was standing in front of him. Weak, vulnerable. For a moment his mind played a dirty trick and questions started to swirl around his inner self.

"If he didn't survive what will happen to his daughter?" the thought brought chills to his spine. The man who never was scared of anything, now was scared to depart from his daughter. She wasn't ready. She would never be.

But that sharp pain in his gut brought tears to his eyes.

Ragini was already in trauma. It was a few days back that she first time sat inside an ambulance to bring her father to the hospital. And her soul had wretched when she had held her father's hand and tried to calm him while they waited to reach the hospital. When the doctors took her father to the emergency ward she felt as if she was experiencing a nightmare and wished that it all disappeared when she opened her eyes.

But it was reality. The sad bitter reality that her father's life was at risk. He was not going to be with her forever. He might leave her. Those thoughts just suffocated her and she couldn't even bring out a tear to escape the suffocating reality.

Now she stood beside her father trying to form words and bring herself out of the trauma. But she was failing terribly. "Baba" she said softly touching his cheek and trying hard to control her tears.

She was supposed to console her father but it looked like she wanted him to embrace her and say that everything would be fine. Her hands fidgeted as she had no idea what to do.

The doctor came running and started to analyze her father. And all the while she stood there dazed looking at her father praying in her heart to the God she never believed to not let her lose the only person left in her life.

"He needs to be shifted to the ICU" the doctor said and they started to move the bed after de latching its wheels. And Ragini came out of her trance and followed them like they were robbing her off her most precious thing. "Baba" she let out a cry while following them. And she was stopped at the entrance of the ICU. The guard stopped her and she tried to move past him. But the guard did not let her get inside.

It felt like the darkness will consume her in one go. She collapsed on the floor and looked at the ground not knowing what to do. She couldn't comprehend anything around her. She couldn't even feel her breathing at that moment.

"Are you okay?" she heard a distant voice. She couldn't even move her eyes to look at the person who helped her to sit on the chairs in the waiting area.

"Ms. Ragini. Are you okay?" now the voice was familiar and she looked at her right where Vikram was looking back at her worried as he held her by her shoulders. "Baba" she uttered with her broken low voice.

"Baba" she just repeated and Vikram felt a pang hitting the walls of his heart when he saw that her eyes were trying not to tear. And in that process her facial muscles were struggling and hurting. "Where is he?" Vikram asked. She couldn't say anything. "Is he in the Intensive Care?" he asked and Ragini just looked down.

Vikram moved towards the entrance of the ICU and walked inside as the guard did not stop him. He found a few doctors examining Mr. Sharma who was still struggling to keep calm.

"What happened to Mr. Sharma?" Vikram asked one of his colleagues. "Do you know him?" the doctor asked him back. "I just met him yesterday on my rounds" Vikram said in short.

"He was fine till this morning. But looks like his blood pressure is fluctuating" the doctor replied. "Why suddenly?" Vikram asked concerned.

"I think he might have missed a dose of medicine" the doctor tried to give a reason. "But his daughter was making sure that he was taking his medicines" Vikram stated. "Then we have to look into it more precisely later. For the time being we have to stabilize his blood pressure" the doctor said and took an injection and injected the old patient who hissed in pain but relaxed in some time.

The doctor relaxed and so did the nurse and Vikram. "I need to get his check ups done again. Sister. Please get the equipment" he asked the nurse who walked away to get the meters.

"Will he be fine?" Vikram asked worried. "I need some more tests to be conducted. Then only I can say for sure" the doctor said. Vikram took a deep breath. He looked at the unconscious form of the old man. The tears still reflected light from the ceiling lights. But for the time being he looked calm.

Vikram with a confusion in his mind moved towards the exit of the intensive care. He saw Ragini sitting like she was lost somewhere. He neared her and Ragini stood up immediately finding him.

"Is he okay?" Ragini asked trying to gather her hope which had scattered like the pearls after the thread broke.

Vikram didn't know what to tell her. He himself had no idea if Ragini's father was okay. For a moment he felt as if he should give her a hope though it was a false one.

"He seemed fine. They are looking at his vitals" Vikram said trying to maintain the calmness on his face. Ragini's eyebrows twitched in pain. She didn't know how to react to this. "Will he be fine?" she asked with her voice turning low with each passing second.

Vikram looked at her broken state. "Let's hope for the best" he gave her a calm smile. "I have no one but him" she said and Vikram exactly felt how she felt. He had been there. The edge of hopelessness. Where there was nothing but darkness.

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Hope you people liked it.

Love,

Sally