The sunlight filtered through the sheer curtains of the guest room, painting long, pale stripes across the bed where Arya lay wide awake. She hadn't slept much. How could she? The wall separating her room from Laksh’s felt less like wood and more like a vibrating circuit. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt the phantom weight of his hand against her chest, the way his heart had thrummed under her palm during his panic attack.

She had borrowed a simple, soft cotton kurti from Ananya’s closet. It smelled like jasmine and home, a far cry from the stiff, expensive suits she wore to command her firm. It made her feel younger. Vulnerable.

When she stepped into the kitchen, the scent of fresh cardamom and brewing coffee greeted her. She expected to see Ananya, but the kitchen was quiet. A small note sat on the marble island:

“Running to the local market for some fresh supplies. Vivek is at an early board meeting. Sandwitches are on the counter. — Ananya.”

Arya crumpled the note in her hand. Trapped. Ananya Rao was a master at social engineering.

She turned around and found Laksh standing by the window. He was wearing grey lounge pants and a black t-shirt that fit loosely over his lean frame drinking coffee. His dark hair was messy, a few curls falling over his forehead. He wasn’t the "Hero" on the news or the "Ice King" from Oxford. He just looked like a man who was exhausted by his own thoughts.

"My mother is very transparent with her intentions, isn't she?" Laksh asked, his voice a low, morning rasp.

Arya walked to the counter, keeping the kitchen island between them. "She's efficient. Why waste time when you can force two people into a room together?"

Laksh turned toward her. Without his glasses, his eyes were devastatingly focused. He didn't have that shield of glass anymore, and it made the air in the room feel thinner. He walked toward her, picking up a kettle.

His gaze trailing from her shoulders down to the hem of the kurti. "you look different Director Rathore. Much more... like home."

Arya felt her pulse jump. "Home? It’s just a cotton shirt, Laksh."

Laksh smirked, that faint, ghost of a dimple appearing on his right cheek. He leaned his hip against the counter, just inches from where she was standing. "I have only seen you in official blazers since I am back, but right now? You look exactly like the girl who used to steal my mangoes in Jaipur."

"That girl died in a rainstorm in England," Arya snapped, her sarcasm returning as a shield. "I don't steal mangoes; I buy the entire orchard."

Laksh let out a soft, huffed laugh. He reached out to grab a mug behind her, and for a second, he boxed her in, his arm brushing her sleeve. The heat coming off him was intense, grounding.

"Is that right?" he whispered, his face close to hers. "Then why were you whispering 'Lucky' to my door at four in the morning?"

Arya froze. Her face turned a brilliant, humiliated red. "I... I was not, you must have heard it wrong. She was indeed whispering, just trying to check if he was still having a PTSD."

"You always were a terrible liar," Laksh murmured. He didn't pull back. Instead, he watched her, his eyes moving over her face with a longing so deep it was almost painful to witness. He looked at her eyes, her long hair, and then settled on her lips.

The flirtatious energy vanished, replaced by a heavy, suffocating silence. The 2 AM alarm from the night before felt like a loud echo in the quiet room.

"I thought about this kitchen a lot," Laksh said suddenly. His voice had lost its playful edge; it was raw and small.

"Which part? The marble counters?" Arya asked, her voice shaking despite her best efforts.

"No," Laksh whispered, looking out at the sky again. "I thought about the silence. In space... the silence isn't peaceful. It's heavy. It feels like it's trying to crush you. Every night, I would close my eyes and try to remember the sound of your laugh. Not the fake one you use for Leo. The real one."

He looked back at her, his jaw clenching.

"Arya," he said, and her name sounded like a prayer. "I did a lot of math before I left. I calculated the fuel, the radiation, the stress. I calculated my chances of ever standing in this kitchen again."

He took a step closer, until their toes were almost touching.

"The probability of me surviving was very less," he said, his voice trembling with a truth he hadn't spoken to anyone. "And most of that required luck I wasn't sure I had."

Arya’s heart felt like it was being squeezed by a giant hand. The sarcasm died. The anger faltered. She looked at his sharp cheekbones and the dark circles under his eyes, and she finally saw the weight he had carried alone.

"I didn't think I would come back," Laksh whispered, the words finally escaping the lead box he had kept them in. "That's why I did it. I thought it was better for you to hate the memory of a man than to spend the rest of your life mourning a dead one."

The air in the kitchen went perfectly still. Arya stared at him, her eyes filling with tears she had been holding back for three long years. He didn't apologize. He didn't beg for forgiveness. He just stated the raw, ugly reality of his logic.

I didn't think I would come back.

The weight of those words shattered what was left of Arya's resolve. She looked at him—this brilliant, foolish, self-sacrificing man—and for a heartbeat, she wanted to reach out and hit him. And then, she just wanted to hold him until the shadows left his eyes.

She didn't do either. She couldn't. Not yet.

"Your math was wrong, Laksh," Arya said, her voice a fragile, broken thread. "You forgot one variable."

"Which one?" he breathed.

"Me," she whispered.

She turned away before she could fall apart in front of him, her heels clicking a rhythmic, frantic retreat toward the hallway.

Laksh didn't follow her. He stayed in the sunlight, leaning against the counter, his heart finally synchronizing with the gravity of Earth. For the first time in three years, they weren't talking about systems or science.

They were finally talking about the truth.