"You're back home," her father addressed her presence as she entered the house.

"Yes, I'm trying to catch up on what I lost at college and see if I can manage to not fail the subjects," Mishti answered quietly. Most of the subjects she studied in Kolkata were arts related, all of them requiring her to blossom her creativity. It was going to be a long journey to get used to the many objective subjects Pragati took. She had no idea of what financial maths was but she was going to do her best to keep up her sister's impressive grades.

"That's nice of you," he nodded quietly.

"I also met Ritwik," she added with uncertainty. She felt like she was a slut, betraying her sister but the main objective of her pretending to be Pragati was to marry Ritwik Noon, so she would have to get used to it sooner rather than later. She still loved Ruhaan. She didn't believe she had broken up with him and left her mother and friends to help her father save his business. It felt surreal and bizarre but above all, just plain weird.

She couldn't find her place in the house, at college, or with Pragati's acquaintances as she soon learned her sister had no friends. She felt like she didn't belong there, in the spotlight, attending events she once dreamed of being a part of - but that now felt foreign. Of course, those things shouldn't be familiar to her but she thought she would enjoy it more. She didn't. She missed everything about Kolkata and she missed her mother above all. Nandini would make it much easier for Mishti but her mother still didn't approve of her decision to help her father.

"How did it go?" Kunal asked alert all of a sudden. For the past four days, he had been looking at the girl in front of him, who looked exactly like his daughter but who still wasn't Pragati at all. It wasn't because he knew Mishti was taking Pragati's place. They could look the same but their personalities couldn't be more different. Mishti reminded him of Mauli… and that was a hard thought to have. Mauli wasn't blood-related to the girls in any way and Pragati was the only one who had had contact with his late wife. Briefly, the six years Mauli had been around left her mark on Pragati's life. His daughter, even at such a tender age, changed a lot since she lost her mother but not in a good way. He used to see more of Mauli in Pragati but the hint of her mother's personality had vanished as Mauli died. But Mishti, who had never been in contact with Mauli, reminded him of his wife in more than one way. Maybe he was going crazy but even the way she moved around reminded him of Mauli. The calm with which she talked, the sweetness in her eyes, the kindness that was so inherent to the only woman he loved in his life was present in his estranged daughter. And he learned that very soon as the first of Mishti's concerns when she moved into the house was to comfort him about Pragati. She didn't ask any questions about their agreement, she didn't present any conditions, and she didn't complain or seem to resent him for all the years he ignored her existence. No, the first thing Mishti Khanna did was to try to be there for him.

"Hi," she said shyly as she entered the house after the driver brought her from the airport.

"Let's go to the study," Kunal simply answered as he led the way, not before asking one of the house staff to take Mishti's small baggage upstairs. She didn't have much with her as she knew she was supposed to wear Pragati's clothes, shoes, perfume, and everything else she possibly could do to make people believe she was indeed Pragati.

Once they entered the room, he closed the door behind her and moved to the desk across the large room.

"Thank you for coming," he addressed, not knowing exactly what to say. Should he apologize for never being around? Should he say that he planned to keep both of the girls but Mauli didn't want to completely steal motherhood from Nandini? Should he talk about their nonexistent relationship at all?

"How is she?" Mishti showed in her features the genuine concern behind those words and Kunal's walls immediately fell. Who was this girl in front of him? And how could she with just a few words make his heart shrink in his chest out of guilt, out of regret, out of love?

"The doctors aren't hopeful. They don't say it clearly or maybe they do and I just can't listen but I suppose she's never going to wake up. She may die of any infection or complication at any moment," Kunal looked away, tearing up, sadness and pain hurt all over his face.

"I'm so sorry about it, Mr. Khanna," Mishti moved from her position and reached for her father's hand, squeezing it and feeling her own eyes tearing up.

"I'm not ready to let her go," he cried in front of someone for the first time since Mauli died. That was something he only did around his late wife. Not even Pragati had seen her father crying as he remained collected during Mauli's funeral service and every day after it. But in the solitude of his bedroom, the bedroom he shared with the woman he loved for fourteen years, he desperately cried. He sobbed yelled, broke furniture, and did everything he could while his daughter was at school.

"Then don't. I'm sure she's not ready to let you go either," Mishti moved her fingers around in his hand and was now stroking his forehand.

"But she's in pain. Which father would do that to their child?" he asked, tortured by the pain of not only losing his daughter but causing her pain because couldn't bring himself to turn the machines off.

"There must be some powerful painkillers they can give her."

"It's just… it's so hard. Pragati was an excellent driver and the accident was her whole fault. They didn't find anything else that could have caused it. But the damage was so extensive. Her body can barely take the medicine that is helping to heal what can be healed," he looked at the young woman comforting him. The compassion and sorrow in her eyes were so evident. She seemed to be so pure and loving. Just like Mauli used to be.

"Well, let's not talk about it now. I'm sure you'll make the best decision for Pragati. Why don't you try to get some sleep? I could make you tea to help you relax," she let go of his hands, not knowing what to do or what to say. She buried her hands in her jeans pockets and hoped she didn't make it worse by suggesting he let the subject go for now. Mishti couldn't help who she was. She had always been compassionate and she had always had a friendly and comforting word to offer to someone who was hurting. As much as the man in front of her was a stranger or someone she maybe should hate or resent, all she could see now was a father who was losing his only daughter.

"I'm sorry I dragged you into this. I suppose this is a bad idea, I don't know what I was thinking. I was so desperate, Mishti. I have no rights but Pragati was everything I had. Mauli would never approve of it, but I need some days. I… am not ready," he sighed and Mishti could see how conflicted, hurt, desperate but especially lost Kunal was.

"Or maybe she would. Those thoughts are only going to eat you from the inside. I'm already here, the damage is already done. It was my choice. I could have said no, Mumma isn't happy that I said yes, but it's done now," she showed him the same determination he used to see in his daughter and he held his gaze at Mishti for a little longer.

"Why are you doing this, Mishti?" he asked, curious to know what her reasons were. He didn't blackmail them because, no matter what happened, he wouldn't break his promise to Mauli to take care of Mishti financially for the rest of his life. He even created a trust fund for her for when he died. He pleaded and begged amidst his desperation and pain. He insisted and even used his pain to reach Mishti's heart and it seemed to have worked just fine. But she could have said no. She should have said no, but still, she said yes.

"Because you're my father. Although you were never there with me, you've always been there for me and my mother through everything we needed in the only way you could. Because you could have taken me from her and left her alone in the world, but you gave her me and you gave me her," Mishti explained and once again she was tearing up. Not because of the words but because of the many feelings behind them.

She was thankful for having spent the last twenty-one years with Nandini. She was happy that her mother wasn't left miserable after giving birth to his daughters, although she knew she was hurting until the present day for not having Pragati around, for never meeting her, for not being allowed – or welcomed, for that matter – to be part of her daughter's life. But there was the other side of the coin. When she wondered how her father, and sister, had been able to completely ignore her existence. There had never been any attempt to contact her, to ask about her life, about her at all. She felt unloved and the disdain, despite which reasons it came from, was something very hard for her to understand but mainly to accept.

But she couldn't hold grudges against the part of the family that never considered her family. It was a choice her mother made and it included a high price to pay. She wondered a few times how it was to be in Kunal and Pragati's positions. Maybe it wasn't only a lack of love towards her but a little bit of self-preservation too. But whatever it was, the moment her father called her she was willing to ignore their situation. Out of thankfulness for the life support he sent every month, out of curiosity but mainly as a desperate attempt to prove that if the circumstances were different her father would have loved her as much as he loved Pragati and her sister would be happy to have a sibling.

"That decision was the hardest of my life, Mishti. I want you to know that and the only reason why I was able to go with it was because of my late wife, Mauli. She put herself in your mother's shoes and her kindness and humanity were the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life and upon such extraordinary traits I couldn't say no to her wish," Kunal tried to offer a few words that while wouldn't justify his actions for so many years would at least give her some explanation, even if vaguely, about how hard it was for him to let her go.

"It doesn't matter now. Maybe someday we could have that conversation. Right now you should rest and I should start studying maths, business, marketing and all those complicated things a business student does. Good night, Mr. Khanna," she offered and excused herself, she left the room with her father behind her, surprised, shocked, and confused but mainly touched by the young woman that just left his study.

"I guess it went well," Mishti answered her father after assessing her first meeting with her sister's fiancé. Pragati wasn't a daily presence in Ritwik's life. He was four years older and was taking over most of his father's activities in the family business, meaning he didn't go to the same places she did during the day and he was overly busy, including some nights.

"Did he ask about your absence during the weekend?" Kunal questioned. They had agreed that only privately in one of the rooms and with low voice tones they would address her as Mishti and about anything that would lead anyone to be suspicious about the plan.

"Yes, but I explained to him that I had last-minute plans and had to leave town," she explained briefly.

"Wasn't he suspicious? Pra… you don't have any friends to travel the weekend with and you aren't taking care of any business in the company out of the city," Kunal showed some slight concern.

"I charmed him around it. He knows I'm quite independent and I explained how I had lost my cell phone during the trip, which was the reason why I couldn't answer his calls and texts," Mishti added. She hoped she had charmed Ritwik into believing in her. He was so surprised by her call to have lunch with him in the office if it meant he could make it. And then he was exultant about seeing her after nearly fifteen days. The last time Ritwik had seen Pragati was when she came over to his place and on her way back home she had been involved in a serious car accident that led her to be in a vegetative state from which the doctors didn't expect her to awake.

"I'm sure he couldn't resist your charming, Pragati. You're a lovely and enchanting young girl. Ritwik Noon is lucky to have you as his fiancée," he offered a smile to his daughter, and turning on his heels he walked away.

Mishti remained in her position and she didn't know if her father meant her or her sister. The look in his eyes seemed sincere and addressed to her, but how couldn't it be? She was the only person he was talking with. Maybe she should ask him to give her a pet name to refer to herself and only call her Pragati when he meant her sibling. There were so many things she didn't know how to handle. There were many things they should probably talk about but for the last four days, all he did was give her time and space to get used to her new life. They never talked about all the implications it would bring. Would Pragati die as Mishti when she finally died? Would she pretend to be her sister while Pragati stayed in a comatose state during Mishti's whole life? What they were doing was a crime with many implications. But that was a conversation she would have any other time. Now all she wanted was a long shower, preferably a bath, and her bed. Or the bed she'd been sleeping in the past few days.

"So I heard Pragati showed up in the company today," Vijaypath commented as he sat at the table to have dinner with both of his sons.

"She's been MIA for a few days and she decided that she would surprise me and make up for her uninformed absence," Ritwik explained as he sipped some rum. His favorite. In Punjabi families, the best drinks would always be present. It didn't matter if it was dinner or lunch or what the menu for the day was. Normally they would have the meal around the drink of choice for the day, not the other way around. That was how much all the Noon men enjoyed their drinks.

"That's… uncharacteristic," Rishabh remarked. The younger brother knew his soon-to-be sister-in-law well. They attended the same school, though they were taking different degrees. He was a senior and that was his last year at JBIMS but somehow he and Pragati were part of the same circle of friends. For a while, he even suspected that she had some feelings for him that were more than friends but that suspicion soon wore down as she started dating his brother no longer after it.

"I guess she's finally warming up to the idea of marriage. Losing her mother while she was so young led Pragati to be so collected and uptight but I knew sooner or later she would loosen up," Ritwik justified his fiancée's behavior while he savored the chole bhature their maid prepared. Malti also hailed from Delhi and had been with the family for years. She was like a second mother to both Noon boys. They both loved her but especially Ritwik.

"This is good, puttar. Your mother and I have always been very close to her family. I really appreciate Kunal and it would be a shame if things didn't work out between you and his daughter and it somehow strained the families' relationship," Vijaypath pondered and his son knew how important and cherished Kunal was to their family. He had been the closest friend to them when Mamta died. He had offered his honest and genuine feelings to the three Noon men and more than once a week he came to check on Vijaypath and give him company.

"It's nice to see her being more caring. But I would change everything in the world if she just didn't always look so sad. She seems to be more positive, caring, and thoughtful now but she still holds the same sadness in her eyes. I wish I could be the one who finally swept it away from her gaze but I guess I'll have to work a little bit more on that," Ritwik put both of his utensils on the table as he thought about how sad Pragati had always looked. It was his main goal in life to make her happy, absolutely happy, until there was only joy and happiness in her beautiful doe eyes.

"With time, beta. With time," Vijaypath offered, seeing how it affected his son. He loved Pragati, ever since she was a little girl. The many times he and Mamta went to visit the Khannas with their boys, Vijaypath always spent time with his friend's daughter. He was enchanted by her fierce personality even as a child. Pragati was a strong and determined woman and when she and Ritwik announced they were dating, he was happy. He wanted someone like Pragati by Ritwik's side. His son deserved as much. But as time passed both father and son realized that the wounds the loss of her mother imprinted in her heart had never healed. Pragati wasn't joyful and she was very collected about her feelings. Vijaypath encouraged Ritwik and he knew Mamta had shared their story with their older son on more than one occasion. He didn't want to compare both situations because he knew Ritwik was dreaming about having such a happy marriage as he and Mamta had and he couldn't forgive himself if he led his son to a bad one. The woman Ritwik chose to be his wife would be his decision alone. But he always said to Ritwik that someday Pragati would warm up to and finally let Mauli's death be just a sad memory in her heart instead of what kept the young woman so distant and sometimes even cold.