The stars twinkled quietly above the small house where Ram now stayed, nestled within the humble chaos of his friend's neighborhood.
The room was small, barely big enough for a single bed and suitcase,
yet somehow, with Sita sitting beside him, it felt like a palace.
They hadn't spoken much since that tearful reunion at the station.
Words were fragile things now, too weak to carry what their eyes already knew.
Ram would watch her while she smiled at the simplest things a child playing with a paper kite, the smell of roadside chai, or the way pigeons scattered in slow motion with the breeze.
He wanted to freeze it all.
One morning, he asked, "Sita… is this real?"
Sita looked up from her tea. "What do you mean?"
"This… us. No letters. No dreams. Just this sitting beside each other."
She smiled, placing her cup down gently. "For the first time, I think it is."
And strangely, the dreams stopped.
Since they reunited, not once had Ram or Sita drifted into those strange, vivid visions of other lives, other names.
No Noor Jahan. No war-torn flashbacks. Just peaceful sleep, full of breath and warmth.
Ram mentioned it once.
"I don't see you anymore in my dreams."
Sita had whispered, "Maybe that's because I'm finally beside you."
Those words stayed with him.
They traveled to markets together, clicked blurry photos, laughed over stolen snacks, and lived like a couple untouched by destiny's cruel fingers.
But life, like the tide, is never still.
A letter arrived one day stamped and sealed with the emblem of the Indian Army.
His superior officer's handwriting carved across the top.
Sita stood at the doorway, watching him read it.
Ram's shoulders fell. The silence between them was enough.
"You have to go," she said softly.
Ram looked up, guilt swimming in his eyes. "I don't want to. Not now."
She smiled, tears already forming. "That's why I love you. Because you still choose the harder road."
That evening, as he packed,
Sita quietly slid something into his bag a handkerchief embroidered with their names and
a small letter that simply said, "Come back with stories. I'll wait."
At the train station, they didn't speak much.
Just held hands tightly until the horn blew. A final embrace. One more teardrop.
And then, he was gone.
Back to the frontlines. To fire and frost. To duty.
Sita watched the train disappear into the horizon, pressing her fingers to her lips, as if sealing a prayer.
She returned home alone.
But this time, she didn't sleep.
Because when dreams end, longing begins.