"Whatever you wish," said Hardik.

Under other circumstances, Rohit might have found the idea of Hardik being meek funny. Now that it was happening, it was not in the least funny.

"Maybe we can start at the start," said Rohit bracingly. "Jayawardene contacted me around two weeks before our team met for the first warm up match and suggested the trade, keeping in mind the future of MI. Since you're captain of GT, it's only fair you become captain of MI as well if you're to switch teams, and he asked me if I'd step down, and I said I would. Did they talk to you before?"

"Yes, I--I guess so," said Hardik. "Three weeks before the World Cup. Initially, they didn't say anything about captaincy, they asked if I'd switch at the same salary--I said I'm the captain of GT as well--"

Then he sunk back into the depths of the unicorn plushie, burying his face in his hands, shoulders shaking.

"--but I didn't say--and I didn't mean anything about MI's captaincy at all. I don't even know why I said it, just to negotiate, maybe--I didn't think, I never think, Rohit bhaiya, I should just have said yes then and there--"

"Since when do you call be Rohit bhaiya?" Rohit pulled Hardik's hands away from his face. "You didn't make a grave mistake putting in you're captain of GT. Not in my eyes, at least, though I do see to some people, we players should, ah, be loyal to our oldest IPL teams to walk back to them at whatever we're offered, even if they were unable to retain us a couple of years back."

 If Rohit had hoped for a smile, he was disappointed, because Hardik was crying again.

"I know at this point no one's going to believe this, but these last two years, all I've wanted is to go back to MI. So that offer felt like--a bit of a dream. Of course I didn't know how it was about to turn out," Hardik said bitterly. "But never mind, since no one's going to believe it, I'm going to pretend I didn't have any loyalty towards our team."

Before Rohit could interrupt, Hardik was talking again.

"They said that yes, there should be some compensation for the captaincy thing--and then later when they called, they straightaway asked if I'd captain MI--they said you had said you'd step down if the trade was successful--"

"Which I did say," put in Rohit.

"Why did you?" asked Hardik unexpectedly.

"I don't know," said Rohit. "They asked, and it seemed the right thing to do. I didn't mind stepping down for you to settle into the role a couple of years in advance..."

"But if they hadn't asked? Was stepping down in your mind, like Virat did?"

"I'm not going to lie to you, Hardik," said Rohit cautiously. "No, it was not on my mind...not right now, at least."

"Then why did you? You could've just said no--or you could have just talked to me--" Hardik sounded wild. "There--I'm still blaming you when none of it is your fault, Rohit--none of this would have happened if I'd just said yes or no to the offer, instead of--instead of mentioning the word--"

"None of it is your fault either!" Rohit had to raise his voice to make himself heard and taken seriously. "Far from it being your fault, now that it has happened, I can see how it's good for MI's future, as they said--when I retire, I'd like to leave MI in safe hands--"

Wrong word.

Hardik flung himself down on the dew-soaked soil and bawled his eyes out.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry--" Rohit tried in vain to get him to sit up, or at least lie face down on the plushie instead of the ground. "That was not what I meant, Hardik, all I meant was that I'm not at all upset about the new set up--it's all our old bunch again, we can work brilliantly together next season, you and me and Jassi and SKY--"

"They all hate me," sobbed Hardik. "Jassi hates me. You--"

"If you dare say again I hate you, it's not going to end well, you know," said Rohit.

Hardik sat up (or swung up) and said quickly, albeit tearfully and with a dubious amount of truth, "I was about to say you're the only one who doesn't, because you're too nice."

"I'm not being too nice here," said Rohit impatiently. "No one hates you. If Jassi is acting like he hates you, it must be his way of showing he's upset. You know how he hates change. He'd do anything to keep things the way they were."

"But I've never heard him sound like that to anyone except people he absolutely hates."

Something about Hardik's forlorn monotone went straight to Rohit's heart.

He stared down the lizard (the real lizard) slithering on the merry go round and said firmly, "If you trust me, don't worry about Jassi, Hardik. That's one thing I can definitely fix."

"He's flying to South Africa tomorrow for a month. I thought of flying to his place, but I can't get there in time."

"Come upstairs," Rohit said, catching hold of Hardik's arm. "You look a complete mess, Harry. You can't go to the airport this way."

"The what?"

"The airport," said Rohit. "We leave from the Mumbai airport, and Jassi will have at least a couple of hours after the checks. We'll sneak you in, and we can talk."

Hardik's face brightened the first time that day. Rohit smiled to himself.

________________

They didn't end up getting any sleep that night. After Ritika had gotten Hardik to take a shower, change out of his dowdy clothes and have a bite, and after Hardik finished swinging Samaira up and down the banisters as Sammy's bedtime came, Hardik stuck to Rohit's side like a typical Hardik-leech, talking and talking and talking in a typical Hardik-way where you couldn't get in a word edgewise unless you are agreeing.

Rohit didn't have the heart to suggest maybe they could catch a couple of hours' sleep. If he did sleep, he'd probably miss the flight next morning, so...

Moreover, in the middle of the conversation, every so often Hardik would pull away from snuggling into Rohit and say something like, "You're really good at pretending apathy, Rohit. You're not, right? You're not actually upset with me and hiding it, right?"

"No, Harry," Rohit kept answering patiently, till he got the idea of saying, "I swear on my sleep I'm not upset with you."

Then Hardik took a new line of fretting.

"Jassi is really closed up even when he's not mad. Two hours won't be enough to convince them of...anything."

"Then fly with us to Dubai," said Rohit, blinking sleep out of his eyes and patting Hardik's back absently. "We have a rather long layover."

A corner of Hardik's mouth lifted.

Rohit felt so proud of himself his sleepiness vanished like magic.

"I was joking," he said warily. (Or maybe not.) "Since we're not sleeping, d'you mind if we assemble the cheetah treehouse for Sam's birthday? She'd want the gift ready soon after we return from South Africa."

Hardik sat upright, his tiny yes-no smile widening into a proper one. Rohit almost found himself starting to plan the scolding Jassi deserved for venting his emotions the worst way and snatching away this smile from his best friend.

__________________

Unfortunately, Jassi's flight from Ahmedabad was delayed so much that he barely reached the Mumbai airport in time for immigration.

Hardik had spent the waiting time trying to blend into the shadows, barely responding to the greetings of the team members who were travelling to South Africa that day. To Rohit, no one amongst them at least seemed to share Jassi's views on the matter. If they did, they hid it well. At any rate, Hardik didn't give them the chance to even bring up a discussion of that sort.

When Jassi entered the waiting lounge, their flight was being called for boarding.

"Should I go to Dubai?" Hardik whispered to Rohit uncertainly.

Rohit wasn't sure he was supposed to encourage such whims.

"Rohit, should I--"

Jassi turned to smile a greeting at Rohit and froze almost comically, because he went completely still, like a tiger waiting to pounce on a prey.

Rohit was glad he'd only thought that analogy. Hardik looked petrified enough without that.

Then Jassi unfroze and strode over to them.

"What's he doing here?" he asked Rohit. "Did someone offer him Test captaincy and his ankle miraculously recover?"

Rohit was too appalled to speak.

"No," said Hardik. "I came to talk to you, actually. To make it clear that whatever you've been thinking isn't what happened, and--"

The announcer repeated the boarding of their flight.

"Sorry," said Jassi icily. "I have a flight to catch."

He turned on his heel and stomped away.

"Jassi!" Hardik went after him and grabbed his elbow. "Listen to me for five minutes--"

"I'll listen to your story after we come back from South Africa," said Jassi. "I don't want to look at you right now. And by that time, you'll also have framed it better, so it's a win-win."

By the time Rohit had caught up with them, Jassi was practically sprinting away. Hardik's lips were tightly clamped; he was clearly trying his best not to burst into tears.

"Get onto the flight to Dubai," Rohit said quietly. "I'll see what I can do."