"Suman!" Without thinking, Savitri rushed to him. Even though he wasn't chained, Suman collapsed to the ground with his head hanging. He had small rocks stuck in his skin, forever bleeding, forever wounded. Just like Satyavan, he looked just as he had looked when he was alive, and yet the ominous glow around him alerted Savitri that he was no longer alive.

"How did this happen?" Savitri cupped his face and brought his gaze up. His eyes were translucent and void of emotion, and Suman didn't look like the Suman that she knew. Her heart ached and warned her mind that it would burst if she kept looking at him, but she couldn't turn away either. She wanted to hold him, to pull him, to bring him back to his old self.

"Savitri," his voice was gravelly and choked, and her name was the only thing out of his dry lips that she could understand. His Adam's apple bobbed and wispy tears slipped down his dirt-covered cheeks.

"The tunnel..." Savitri found the answer to her own question. Her thin, dainty fingers brushed the rocks that obtrude from Suman's smooth skin. "You didn't...you didn't get out?"

Suman shook his head miserably. "No," he said quietly. "But I wanted to make sure that you got out safely. I knew I wouldn't get out. The exit was too far away."

"So you just accepted your fate?" Anger swelled like a nasty bruise inside Savitri. "How could you do that, Suman? Why would you do that?"

"I would think that it was quite obvious," Suman's tone bittered. "But I suppose I wasn't very clear with how I felt."

"How you felt?" Savitri clenched and unclenched her hands in agitation. "What are you saying? I don't understand?"

"I'm speaking Hindi," Suman said, clipped. "Perhaps I should try a different language for you?"

"You don't know any other language."

"Who says?"

"Suman!" Savitri stomped her foot and Suman pulled himself to his feet. He seemed to be leaving; accepting his disastrous fate, and Savitri grabbed his wrist. Like an obedient child, he stopped, facing Dharmaraj and Satyavan, but Savitri ignored the both of them and turned Suman by his shoulders to face her again. He winced and brushed her hand away gently.

"Don't touch me there," he whispered. "It's not...it doesn't make me very pretty."

"Well, I think that you're beautiful," Savitri murmured while inspecting his ghostly face for any other signs of injury. She touched the back of his head, and when she removed her hand, a gooey, slimy substance that resembled blood in everything but the name and touch.

"Rocks fell on my head." Suman laughed sheepishly.

"Is that how you died?"

"No," Dharmaraj spoke. "He fell off my cliff."

Suman took a shivering breath.

"That was cruel," Savitri spat. "To let him die like that! You tricked us!"

"You should have known that I would try to send you back." Dharmaraj shrugged. "My intention was not to kill him, it was just a happenstance that he died."

"Leave it, Savitri," Suman said. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Go. You've waited so long for this."

"But you..."

"I'm okay!" Suman tried to give her his infectious, comforting grin, but by the twitch of his eye, he was struggling. "Go, please."

Savitri pursed her lips. She studied Suman a moment longer, taking him in as if it would be the last time that she ever saw him, and after a long few weeks of fighting, walking, and witnessing more deaths than she could count, Savitri rushed into Satyavan's open arms, hugging him in an embrace so tight that it could rival Suman's hugs. It was different now, hugging the soul of her husband instead of his actual warm body, but it was still nice. Comforting, even. And yet...it was also different.

She didn't fit into the crooked S of his body anymore. His body temperature was cold, which wasn't a problem before, but now it felt odd on her warm skin. Their hug was passionate but also awkward - wonky. They hadn't done it in a while.

"You're okay." Satyavan murmured. His voice was like he was breathing - the words struggled to make sense, but Savitri managed to understand.

"Yes, I'm fine." She was cordial, too cordial. She put an unusually large gap between them. "How are you? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Savitri," Satyavan assured her. A quick glance at his hands told Savitri that he was still chained to the black balls - why, she had no idea, but it was apparent that Satyavan didn't know either. He rubbed the chains as if willing them to be removed, but Dharmaraj just watched him, unmoved.

"Good...good." She found that she kept trying to look at Suman, who stood dejectedly in the corner of the room by one of the cylindrical, obsidian pillars. Lonely, that's what he was. All his life, that was all that he had been. Lonely.

"You cannot stay in the underworld for long, Savitri," Dharmaraj's voice commanded through the fog that had breached her mind. "You must pick one."

"Pick one?" Savitri tilted her head. "Pick one what?"

"Not what." Dharmaraj smiled. "Who."

"Who?"

"Yes, who?" He gestured between the two men before her. "Satyavan or Suman. Your first love or your last?"

"Last?" Savitri's neck burned. "What do you mean last...do you mean Suman?" She laughed, a hysterical, little laugh. "You are not serious, are you?"

"Am I the one laughing?" Dharmaraj asked calmly.

"No! No...no you aren't!" Savitri continued to laugh, then wheezed. "Suman? You really think...him? And me? No...no, we're just friends!"

"Savitri..." Satyavan began hesitantly.

"No. No!" Desperation seized her body. "Not Suman, definitely not. I-I mean him? With me? He could never...he would never..." her voice faded. "No." This time, it wasn't a whisper of denial. It wasn't a command, a threat, or a moment of confusion. It was a soft acceptance. A realization of how deep of a hole that she had dug herself into, and the ladder was too far up to escape. This feeling, this idea that she had rejected so many times, subconsciously, she had fed. She had soaked it up and fell right into its trap. Love had fooled her once again. Love had blinded her, mindlessly used her.

And hopelessly, she was in love with Suman.

There was no denying it anymore. There was no more hiding. No more pretending. No more faking feelings just to get by - to complete her mission. Her mission was done. Her goal was complete. The temporary walls she had created? They crumbled - toppled with every labored breath that she took.

Then, she began to cry.

At first, it was a sniffle. Then, a choke. Then a sob. Then, the waterworks came. The dam had broken just as her walls had fallen. Uncontrollably, she began to cry. Cry and cry and cry. The tears didn't stop. They couldn't stop. They had been pushed away and neglected for so long. This was their torture, their vengeance.

Two arms wrapped around her shoulders as Savitri crippled to the ground, her face buried in her hands, hoping to become invisible. Another pair of arms came next, this one warmer than the last, and together, Satyavan and Suman created a small arch above Savitri, like a shelter.

Finally, she stopped crying. The tears subsided and her mind calmed for the first time in days, allowing her to think and say what she wanted. The nasally voice was gone - it seemed to have been killed in the rage of emotions that swept turbulently through her.

"I...I have made my choice." She refused to look Suman in the eye. "I know who I want...who I need."

"Very well." Dharmaraj didn't seem bothered by the dramatic display that had unfolded in front of him. "Make your decision."

Savitri stood. She walked to the pillar that Suman had been standing by and dropped on her bottom. She stretched her legs out and looked up, meeting Satyavan's eyes fearlessly.

Silently, he understood. Both Dharmaraj and Suman watched, curiously, quietly, as Satyavan walked over to Savitri and laid his head on her lap. Without speaking, Savitri began to comb his hair while Satyavan stared up at the ceiling. He didn't look at her; she didn't look at him.

"I can't see the stars," he murmured, shifting so that one of his chains wouldn't touch her. "Are they bright today?"

"Every day, they are bright," Savitri murmured. "As bright as the sun touching water. As bright as the jewels that the gods wear."

"As bright as the smile of a lovely young woman," Satyavan added, smiling. He closed his eyes, briefly flinching when Savitri touched his chained arm, but then, he relaxed. He opened his eyes and sighed. "Goodbye, Savitri."

Savitri's chest burned. Her eyes became teary again, but her heart was light. Her mind was free and the annoying voice was gone. She smiled, but didn't look at Satyavan. Instead, she stared at the pool of black water. Drip, drip, drip. The water continued to fall, no matter the shaking of the ground or the splitting of the earth. It continued its job.

She took a heavy breath. "Goodbye, Satyavan."

And she kept looking straight, at the stalactites, at the water, listening to the drip, drip, drip as the weight on her lap lifted, as the chains snapped and broke, and as the one that she had once loved drifted away from her, up, up, up...and away.

It was not even seconds later when she was up on her feet, and Suman was back into his body. Not a ghost, not a soul, and not even blue with sticky blood on his head. A human. And he held her, warmly, snugly against him until she was ready to go. Dharmaraj had left them by then, muttering about a job he had to do in the northwest for someone who had hit one of his henchmen over the head and stuffed him under the bed. He didn't leave with a small smile, though, rare for a god who personified death.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Savitri pulled herself away from Suman to be able to tilt her head up to look him in the eye. His half-lidded gaze met hers, and slowly, Savitri smiled.

"You picked me," he murmured.

"I did." She laughed, then sighed. "Yes, I did."

"Why?" Suman ran a hand through his hair. "Why me? After everything that we went through...?"

Savitri shrugged. "Because I love you," she said. "That's why."

Suman was silent, then, he gave a huffing laugh. "Oh, well, in that case...I love you too."

"Even with my bossiness? And my resistance to your pet spider?"

"Hey, if you can put up with my monkeying around, I can live with your bossy self," Suman said.

"Oh bhagwan, I forgot about that," Savitri groaned, but even she couldn't contain her laughter. She pushed Suman's side gently, then let her hand slide down his arm and intertwine with his fingers. "Come on," she said. "Let's go home."