||Identity Protected ||

The next morning, the breakfast table looked almost ordinary.

Almost.

Meera was plating sandwich and black coffee when Ekalavya walked in—white coat folded over his arm, hair still damp.

He sat down. Glanced once around the table.

Stopped at the empty chair across from him.

"Ma. Where's Ira?"

Aarav wrapped both hands around his coffee cup. "Still sleeping. She was up late studying."

Ekalavya nodded, but his eyes stayed on the chair a beat longer than necessary.

Meera passed behind him, her hand briefly touching his shoulder. "Mock test tomorrow. Revising till midnight."

"She shouldn't study that late. Exhaustion affects retention."

Aarav set down his cup.

"I heard about your case yesterday. The MI in the ER." He turned the cup once, slow. "Arun called me himself. Said you ran the code clean. Clear commands, no hesitation."

Ekalavya looked up.

"News travels fast."

"It's a hospital." A slight smile. "You did well, Lav. Really well."

Not praise exactly. More like recognition.

Something in that made Ekalavya go still.

"I'm trying to understand how things work here. The systems are different from London."

"You're doing more than adjusting." Aarav held his gaze. "You're doing what you were trained to do. I've always known you had it. Since you were young, that focus. That way of seeing things clearly when everything else is noise."

He picked up his coffee again.

"One day you'll be a better doctor than me."

The words sat in the air between them.

Ekalavya looked down at his plate.

"Thank you, Dad."

Meera's eyes were shining. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to.

They finished breakfast in comfortable quiet.

RIMS — 9:30 AM

Morning rounds moved the way good rounds do, efficiently, without drama, each patient a problem with variables that could be understood and addressed.

Ekalavya worked through them steadily. Checked vitals. Reviewed charts. Answered questions from residents with the particular patience of someone who had once been on the asking end and remembered what it felt like.

By eleven he was back in his cabin, working through a stack of files.

That's when he heard them, two nurses passing in the corridor, unhurried, mid-conversation.

"...can't believe she's performing at the gala. Have you seen her before?"

One of the nurses leaned against the station, her voice a low hum against the sterile quiet of the hall. "Last year's function. She's something else."

"Mrs. Raivansh's favorite, I heard. NGO sponsored her whole education."

Ekalavya's pen stalled mid-sentence, a small blot of ink blooming onto the patient chart. He didn't look up, but his pulse thrummed against the starch of his collar.

"Losing her family so young and still managing to top the class. Can't imagine."

"She never talks about it. Just quiet. Always working. You can see it, something behind her eyes."

Their voices faded down the corridor.

He stayed very still for a moment. Then picked up his pen and kept writing.

3:00 PM — Hospital Cafeteria

Neil dropped into the chair across from him without asking.

"You know normal people actually taste their food."

Ekalavya turned the page of his journal. "I'm tasting it."

"You've been on the same page of that journal for six minutes."

He turned the page deliberately. Neil watched him do it with a flat expression.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing. Adjusting."

"You've been weird since yesterday."

"New hospital. Different rhythms."

Neil accepted this the way he always accepted Ekalavya's deflections, without believing it, but without pushing either. He stole a piece of Ekalavya's bread.

"Gala's on Saturday. You're going."

"I know. Ma told me."

"I'm going too. Moral support." He leaned back. "Apparently the performance is worth seeing. Dr. Sharma was going on about it this morning. Said she performed last year and it stayed with him."

"Dr. Sharma gets emotional about everything."

"True. But still."

Ekalavya turned another page.

"It's just a performance, Neil."

"Sure." Neil stood, pocketing the rest of the bread without shame. "See you in the ER. We've got a consult at four."

7:00 PM — Outpatient Department

He was finishing his last consultation when he saw her again.

At the nurses' station, filling in a form. Same white coat. Hair pulled back the same way. She was talking to an elderly patient beside her, voice low enough that he couldn't make out the words, just the tone. Steady. Unhurried.

The old man said something and she smiled. Not the reflexive kind people give patients. Something that arrived slowly, like she'd decided to mean it.

She helped him to his feet. Turned.

Saw Ekalavya.

A small nod. Polite. Brief.

He nodded back. She walked away down the corridor.

Neil appeared at his shoulder, already pulling on his jacket, talking the way he did when his mind was half somewhere else. "That's her, by the way. The one performing Saturday. Anaya. Second year. Your mom sponsors her."

Ekalavya didn't move.

"Come on, I'm starving. You want to grab something before we—"

"Yeah. Coming."

But he didn't move for another second.

Just looked at the corridor where she'd gone.

Empty now.

Anaya.

He turned and followed Neil toward the exit.

That night — Raivansh dining table

Dinner was dal, rice, something Meera had made from scratch, the way she did when she still had energy left.

Ekalavya ate. Tasted none of it.

Ira was talking a little too fast, the way she did when she was trying not to be nervous, something about mock test prep, about organic chemistry. He listened, answered when needed, asked her one question about her revision that she got right, which made her sit up slightly straighter without noticing she'd done it.

Meera had been watching him since he got home. Quiet. Waiting. He could feel it, that particular quality of maternal attention.

She found her opening after Ira went upstairs.

"Saturday. Six-thirty, we leave from home. Wear the black suit."

"Okay."

She refilled his glass. "You'll enjoy it, beta (son). I've worked hard on this year's program." A pause. "Anaya's piece especially. I've been looking forward to it for months."

He looked at his plate. "How long has she been with the foundation?"

"Since she was young. Eleven, twelve maybe." Her voice went soft the way it did when she talked about the students she was proud of. "She was in a difficult situation when we found her. But she never, not once, asked for more than she needed. Just put her head down and worked."

Ira's voice floated down from upstairs, calling for Meera about something.

"Eat the rest." She was gone before he could say anything else.

He sat at the empty table.

Eleven, twelve maybe.

If she had been eleven when they found her, and the accident had happened eleven years ago, then she had been nine when it happened.

He stopped the calculation.

Picked up his plate and took it to the kitchen.

11:00 PM — His Room

He sat on the edge of the bed for a long time.

Not thinking exactly. More like standing at the edge of something and not stepping forward.

The name was just a name. Common enough. There was no reason to assume anything from a first name and a rough age and the fact that his mother's foundation had been involved. Her foundation supported forty students. There had been hundreds over the years. Loss was not rare. Orphaned children were not rare.

He was doing exactly what exhausted, guilt-carrying minds did, reaching for patterns in noise.

He knew that.

He lay back and looked at the ceiling.

His phone was on the nightstand. He could search. He'd searched before, hundreds of times, in the first years after London swallowed him. He knew what came up. The same articles. The same conclusions.

Drunk driving. Brake failure secondary, inconclusive. Two fatalities. One survivor, minor, identity protected.

Identity protected.

He put his arm over his eyes.

Saturday was three days away. Three days, and he'd see her stand on a stage and perform, and either his mind would finally stop constructing this particular torture out of coincidences, or—

He didn't finish the thought.

Outside, the city made its quiet nighttime sounds.

He didn't sleep.

Because if this wasn't coincidence, it meant the past hadn't let him go.

And this time, it wasn't just memory waiting for him.