AN : Sorry for being late, I was dealing with few things.

||•||

Coming out of the airport, Khwaab firstly took her phone out to message and inform her father who must be waiting for her call but she couldn't call him because he must be in the hospital.

So she typed him a message instead.

"Dad, I've landed safely, and yes I remember all your instructions. Call me when you're free. Love you and take care of yourself, please." Pressing the sent button she was about to keep her phone inside when her phone started ringing.

Her face turned into a huge horror as she looked at the name flashing on the screen.

It was her dear best friend who must have called to visually kill her from the other side of the phone.

"Good save me pleaseeee" she prayed to God and answered the phone.

"Hello" she answered in a meek voice.

"Wow, so great of you to pick my call, Khwaab Malik. I feel so honored you know." Sarcasm and anger were dripping from his tone as he spoke to her.

"Shaheer listen to me please!" She was interrupted before she could even explain her self.

"What should I listen haan? You do things that you feel like doing and also force uncle to follow your instructions. You always play your card and get things done." he scolded her and she didn't utter a word.

"This is really not done Khwaab. How can you go to an unknown place all alone? How can you be so reckless? You didn't even care to inform me. I just went to London for a week and you started hiding things from your best friend and breaking our golden rule. Do you even know how to take care of yourself? NO! Yet you left for Kashmir all alone." He finished his entire speech which Khwaab wasn't even paying attention to because her eyes and mind were occupied by the beauty of Kashmir.

Srinagar airport was located in one of the most beautiful locations in Srinagar. It was surrounded by gorgeous mountains covered with the snow and the little greenery added more to its beauty.

It wasn't that cold since it was the month of June. The weather was rather rainy and made the city look more appealing.

"Hello!! Khwaab are you even listening?" Shaheer asked breaking her trance after getting no response from her side.

"Of course I'm. You're overreacting. I'll be fine and I'll take care of myself. You don't have to worry about that." Khwaab assured her idiotic friend who treated her like a small kid forgetting that she's twenty-five and can very well take care of herself.

"Acha sun, Dad is there at the IAF station. You can go and meet him." Khwaab's lips broke into a beautiful smile on hearing about Shaheer's dad.

"Oh my God!! Papa is there? But didn't he just retired three months back? Then why suddenly he came here?" Khwaab called Shaheer's Dad as Papa.

Her father and his father were best friends since college days and so these two have been around each other since childhood days.

"Well yeah, but there was something important to check over there as the station has shifted to Srinagar recently. He is there since last week. Uncle didn't tell you?" Khwaab had no idea about his Papa already being in Kashmir. Her dad didn't inform her or maybe she should rather say that he could not inform her because she was too busy with her projects.

"No, he couldn't inform me. Last week I was really busy for I had to wind up the work to come here. Okay, my car is here I should be going okay. I will talk to you once I reach the hotel." She informed him and moved towards the car which just came from the hotel that she has booked her room in.

There was too much rush outside the airport and suddenly there was a change in the weather in a few minutes.

The slow breeze passing by smoothly turned out into uncontrolled winds making the sight of people blurry.

Khwaab tried to go towards the car but instead, she ran into someone.

"I'm sorry" she apologized when two pairs of firm hands caught her on time and made her steady.

Someone held her by the arms detaching her from his body.

She by the roughness of the hands could guess that it was a man.

What a start in Kashmir!! She wondered.

"It's okay." Her eyes were closed due to the dust and she could just hear the deep husky voice.

She freed her self from his hands and moved ahead nodding her head at the person. She got settled in her car quickly and she looked outside the window, she found no one.

He was gone, just like the winds.

The driver started the engine and they left for the hotel.

||•||

Aahnik left the campus of the station around four-thirty only because being punctual wasn't a need but a trait of his.

He didn't have to travel much. The station is just situated on the airport campus.

The Srinagar International airport comes under the Indian Air Force Authorities so he just had to walk few meters.

He was standing near the airport terminal when he felt something soft like cloth around one of his hands.

As he raised his right hand he saw a scarf stuck to his watch.

It was a white scarf with cherry blossoms painted so beautifully on it and with such minute details.

Whose scarf is this? How did this get stuck to his watch?

He questioned himself and then realized that it may belong to the person that he bumped into today.

He didn't remember much but he remembered two soft pair of hands on his broad chest and that lavender fragrance in the air which enveloped him from all the sides.

He did felt something new and something different but he didn't know what. He wasn't even going to pay attention to that stranger.

"Let this stranger be a stranger only." He told his mind and erased all the wild questions that his mind was throwing at him.

He took the scarf out and was folding it when he saw something written on it.

"AM" these initials were beautifully hand-stitched at one corner of the scarf.

He was going to throw it away but his heart didn't let him after looking at the initials of someone's name.

He folded it and kept the silk smooth soft piece of cloth in his trousers pocket.

He thought he'll handle this scarf of Miss. Stranger later on once his duty is over.

||•||

Khwaab reached the hotel and checked in her room. She has booked the best hotel in Srinagar and she was really happy about it because it was her hard-earned money.

Unlocking her gate, she enters the room. It was a beautiful room in brown and black giving palace vibes.

Khwaab was awestruck when she looked at the scene in front of her eyes. Her room had a king-size bed and just in front of that lay the beauty of Srinagar.

She could pay millions for this one view and finally, she was witnessing it today.

The most beautiful view of Srinagar lay in front of her eyes captivating her like a prisoner by its beauty.

Her father being a doctor could hardly take her on vacation and not that she cares much about it because she is proud of her father who always keeps his patients before his own family.

"I should change now and take a nap then I'll go for a walk." She talked with herself and moved to her suitcase to take out her clothes and kept them on the bed.

Removing her watch and other accessories, her hand automatically went to her neck to unwrap her scarf which she always wraps around her neck but she couldn't hold anything now.

Now she realized that her scarf was missing.

Her eyes started pooling as she crazily searched for the scarf. She needs to find it at all costs. How could she be so careless and lose the scarf?

It wasn't a freaking scarf but her goddamn world. Her mother's last memory was left with her and which her father gave her on her tenth birthday.

She had it with her since that time and she lost it today.

Shaheer was right she could not do anything properly on her own.

She was still searching for the scarf when her phone started ringing.

It was her father. She wondered how her father always called her at the right moment, at that time when she needed him the most.

"Hello, Dad" she replied in a meek voice and tried to suppress her sob because she knew her father would start panicking.

"Princess, what happened? Why do you sound low?" Khwaab wasn't surprised to hear her father asking this question”

She knew that she can ever hide her feelings from her father. He knew her inside out just like a mother knows her daughter.

"Dad...." She breathed and burst into tears crying. She heard her father calling her name from the other side in a panicked voice.

She can't trouble her father for her mistake.

"I lost mom's scarf, I'm sorry." She told him suppressing her hiccups.

There was a silence on the other end for a few seconds before her father replied.

"So what are you exactly worried about? The fact that you lost your mother's scarf or the fact that she'll not be with you anymore always?" Khwaab got confused at her father's question.

"Dad I didn't get you." She accepted not understanding what her father said.

"Listen, princess, what I'm trying to tell you is that it was just a scarf. A scarf that your mother used to love and wear. A scarf that I gave you so that her memories are always close to you but you're taking it all wrong now. It was just a scarf, a piece of cloth if you think so." Khwaab was shocked after listening to her father, he never talked of her mother's belongings this way but she didn't say a word and kept on listening.

"That cloth is gone and not your mother. She resides in your heart. She's there with you inside your soul, your goodness, your innocence. She's around you every second and losing that scarf won't snatch away your mother from you my child." Khwaab finally smiled softly listening to her father's word. Her guilt and sadness reduced to a great extent.

"Dad!!! You're my savior. What will I do with you?" Her reply made her father laugh and even she chuckled.

She wasn't joking even but it was true that after she lost her mother when she was two years in a car accident, her father became her mother and father both. He never left her under servants or even her grandmother who loved her a lot

Her father was always there for her, as a mother, like a best friend, and as an advisor too.

She can't do anything without him for he is her strength in all senses.

"So my princes stop crying and you said what would you do without me? Then why did you go to Kashmir leaving me here?" She giggled at her father's child like a question.

Yes, he was no less than a kid but only in front of his loved ones.

"DAD!!!!!" She burst out laughing making him laugh as well.

"Keep smiling always my princess." She heard her father's voice in between their laughing session and she kept the call after bidding him bye.

"Okay, Khwaab focus on what Dad said yet you can't ignore the scarf. You need to find it." She promised herself in determination and started thinking about the possibilities when suddenly her running mind stopped at a point somewhere.

"Airport!!!!" She spoke loudly and realized about the storm which took place when she landed.

"I'll go to the airport tonight." muttering to herself, she left to change her clothes.

||•||

Do vote and comment.