Fallen Hero

"Your body can stand almost anything. It is your mind that you have to convince."

-Anonymous

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Gauhar's POV

"Now that I think about it, my coffee did taste a bit weird." I mused as I poured some of the the coffee into into my cup, my eyes following the wisps of vapour that emanated from it in facination. As the wisps disappeared into the air, I realised that all beautiful things were like that....delicate.

Temporary.

"That's why I have been acting weird all this time, I should have known that the coffee was wonky." I reasoned, narrowing my eyes at him to elicit a feeling of guilt in him, although he hadn't done anything. I knew full well that my madness wasn't the result of the effects of any measly drug.

My insanity was inherent, and I was sure no matter how potent any drug was. It could not damage someone as much as I already was.

I expected or rather hoped that my accusation made him get flustered, but I was incredibly disappointed when I saw that he wasn't even slightly effected by it.

I watched him in irritation as he calmly poured coffee into his cup. He looked up at me and gave me a cool smile that made me realise why he was the general manager of father's company at his age "That Miss Siddique, is where you are wrong....not that I can give you credit of being right most of the time. But in my humble opinion, you absolutely don't need anything to be added to your coffee to make you behave weirdly. It's all a part of your natural charm."

I was taken aback, not expecting such a reply from him. Who was this witty man and where did he hide our shy Mr Mishra?

"Wow Mr. Mishra you've learnt so much about me, I'm impressed. What's even more scary is that this is the first time we're sitting together to drink coffee. Generally we'd just meet at the office for work. I'm amazed you worked out so much about me." I exclaimed in my most 'fake' enthusiastic voice. Awarding his clearly sharp wit with an equally sharp smile that hoped to rip his collected demeanor.

Bloody hell I needed to calm down, reasoning was shaking her head condescendingly. Apparently not happy with how anger was trying to take over, though the situation didn't even justify her appearance. Anger was pretty dumb really.

"It's not hard Gauhar, you're pretty easy to read." He pointed out as we walked back to our table. Making me take a double take, did he just say I was easy to read?

It was becoming increasingly difficult to reign in my irritation. And by the looks of it Dev seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. Dammit how I wish I were mysterious, with a face like a serial killer which didn't give off anything except what I wanted.

"Gee that's absolutely spiffing. Who wouldn't like to be read like an open book." I rolled my eyes at him as sat I down on my chair.

"Well to be fair, being working as the general manager of your father's company has taught me how to read people, so maybe it's all on me."

Damn boy, where was he hiding this self confidence? He sure had me fooled in the first half with his flustered shy boy act. This man knew what he was doing, and he was owning it. Maybe I needed to be wary of him.

"Ohhh look at you praising yourself, who are you and what have you done to our shy little Dev?" I raised my eyebrows at him, covering my face with my hands as I gasped dramatically "Don't tell me! You were an imposter all along."

"No Gauhar, absolutely not." He replied, his eyes glittering in amusement at my behaviour.

I cleared my throat and straightened my back, assuming the most serious expression that I could muster, I placed my hands in front of myself to imitate Dev's stiff posture "The problem is not you Miss Siddique, the problem lies with me."

I bowed my head down and sniffed dramatically, trying to emulate my best 'Mr. Mishra' voice "I'm just too amazing to be true. Please don't fret yourself about it. Look into my eyes ladies, get ready to drown in their depths." I fanned myself, flustered by my own hotness...so this was how it was to be him, I thought to myself.

The loud peal of laughter coming from in front of me caused a satisfied smile to form on my face. Dev had thrown his head back and was laughing heartily.

I placed a finger on my lips, looking around warily to check if there were any angry doctors staring at us "Shhh you idiot, you wanna get us thrown out of here?"

That instantly calmed him down, he cleared his throat and attempted to assume his usual serious expression. But it didn't have the desired effect as I could see his blue eyes still glittering in mirth "Was that supposed to be an imitation of me? If yes then congratulations it was awful."

"Oh please." I scoffed waving a hand at him, knowing very well that he was bluffing "Tone it down a bit would you? You wouldn't recognize it was you I was imitating if I weren't a good actor." I pointed out to him, brandishing my cup of coffee at his face.

He chuckled as he acceded his defeat. I smiled to myself as I sipped the awful but delightfully hot coffee, this second time around it didn't taste as awful. Maybe my taste in coffee was changing…Mrs. Abercrombie would be extremely disappointed.

I'd make sure she never knew that this thought ever occurred to me.

As I let the warm liquid coat my tongue, I tried to concentrate on its familiar bitterness. It was strange how despite this anxiety that I was feeling I could still smile. Should I be ashamed of laughing at a time like this, when I should be worried about my father?

I watch the steam from my cup swirl delicately as I felt guilty for smiling, for laughing…for letting the thought of my father escape from mind even for a brief moment. What was I doing?

"You alright Gauhar?" Dev asked, looking at me with concern.

"Yeah I'm alright." I lied, forcing a smile on my face. He didn't look convinced but he stayed silent.

"Dev…I want to know- well, I want to know everything about what had happened to my father." I blurted out, tracing the rim of the cup with my finger, not wanting to look at him in the eyes as I felt the familiar stinging of tears "My father, he is the strongest man that I know, then how-" I stopped, unable to continue any farther as my voice cracked.

Dev looked at me warmly, his piercing blue softening "Mr. Siddique is also the strongest man that I know, I've looked up to him since I had joined the company as a trainee. He never discriminated between anyone, no matter what job you did. He made us feel as we were a part of a family, and his dedication to honesty always held me spellbound. You have no idea how shaken up I was when I found him on the floor clutching at his chest."

I sucked in a sharp breath as the agonizing image formed in my mind, I didn't want to see it. But it was as if it were branded into my conscious.

"You don't know how scared I was then…." He took in a deep breath, his eyes had glazed over in what appeared to be pain but his voice was firm as he continued "But I HAD to do something, so I ran up to him, he was trying to tell me something. It took me some time to understand that he was taking your name Gauhar." His eyes bore into me as he continued "He was calling out to you…and he was saying that he was sorry."

His gaze was unsettling, I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but it felt as if he had suddenly turned into a stranger.

I closed my eyes to stop the tears from flowing. I was glad that Dev didn't stop to ask me how I was, he understood my distress. But more than that he understood my need to know what had happened.

"I called the ambulance before doing anything, because I knew that he needed medical help as soon as possible. Once he had been handed over to medical professionals, I dialed up your number but as I said you didn't answer."

I wrapped my hands tightly around my cup to stop my fingers from shaking "Thank you Dev, I am truly grateful for what you have done. And especially thank you for bringing me here. What I don't understand is what actually brought about this sudden attack."

He looked at me gravely as he took a sip "I don't think it was sudden at all. In fact he has been worried for quite a while now."

"I know about that." I replied, looking at the lights that reflected off the dark brown liquid inside the white ceramic cup "I knew he was worried that the company was incurring losses, especially after the loss from those clients that asked for the refund."

Dev suddenly started coughing, I got up to help him but he waved me down wiping his eyes as he looked at me strangely "You know about that?" he asked, disbelief clear in his voice.

I nodded my head silently. He cleared his throat and sipped at his coffee before speaking again "So yeah, after that loss our company was in serious crisis. Especially after the massive turnover this year, we didn't want to lose any more employees. And we didn't have money to pay for their salaries, so Mr. Siddique was advised to pay from his personal savings account, and I think that was what had shaken him up the most. He agreed to the advice because it was reasonable but I know it was eating him up from inside."

I furrowed my brows at this piece of information, what account was he talking about? What was this that managed to elicit such a strong reaction from Father?

"I think we should head back now." He said, pushing away his empty cup of coffee and standing up. I nodded watching the leftover dark liquid within my cup move as I stood up from the table, all my appetite for it to have seemingly vanished.