Work Text:
Raj rubbed his eyes as he walked down the stairs to get to the front door. He had just started to drift off to sleep when he heard the doorbell, and spotted a hazy Meera on the intercom screen, pacing back and forth on the porch. He had no idea what would have possessed her to come over at this hour. He hoped she had finally agreed to give her blessing for Veer and Ishita’s marriage, but he braced himself for a fight. Ever since they had been thrown back into each other’s lives, Meera had been a pill to be around, to put it lightly. He didn’t know how much more of her antagonising he could take, being the love of his life could only grant her so much leeway.
It was infuriating, the way she scowled whenever she saw him. The way she so callously dismissed Veer when she found out their connection. And then she had broken Raj’s confidence by telling Veer they weren’t blood, that had hurt him more than anything else Meera had done.
Seeing her again had been the happiest he had felt in a long time, but she seemed to feel nothing but contempt towards him. Her indifference destroyed him but he knew he needed to keep it together for Veer, to focus on helping his brother find the kind of happiness that had eluded him.
Even after telling her the whole truth on the beach the other night, he had felt her soften towards him but he couldn’t trust it. She wasn’t the Meera he remembered, the Meera who would have put everything on the line for him; he had to finally accept that that Meera was long gone.
Raj steeled himself and took a deep breath as he unlocked and swung open the door, bring it on.
Confronted with the sight of Meera, teary and distraught on his doorstep, his resolve melted away and all he wanted to do was hold her and tell her whatever it was would be okay. It reminded him of another time Meera had shown up at his home unannounced, how she’d refused to leave until he'd heard her out.
“Kaali!” she choked out as she sobbed and looked up at him, bringing him back to the present.
“Meera? What are you—”
“Kaali! I’m so sorry! I… I talked to Raghav. I knew, I knew what you said on the beach was the truth. I knew you couldn’t have been lying… But I needed Raghav to tell me why Dad did it, what he was thinking… Raghav told me everything! How my father put his stupid feud above my happiness. How he would have rather seen me hurt than with the son of his enemy. He really did hate you more than he loved me, Kaali! I couldn’t believe it!” Meera was rambling now, still crying and she’d started to pace again with a wildness in her eyes he didn’t recognise.
“Meera… Meera, please slow down, don’t work yourself up,” he had never seen her like this and her agitation was making him nervous.
“Kaali,” she stopped her pacing and looked into his eyes.
“I couldn’t see past my rage over losing my father, over feeling betrayed. I’m so sorry, Kaali. My anger, my hurt ruined all of our lives! And now I’m doing it again, punishing your brother because I can’t just work through my emotions like a normal fucking person… I should have believed in you. I should have—”
“Meera, come inside,” he led her over the threshold and shut the door, but as he turned around and before he could say anything else, she was standing right in front of him.
“Please tell me you don’t hate me! Tell me I haven’t ruined everything, even if it's too late for you and me, we can still fix things for Ishu and Veer!”
Raj was stunned silent, he wondered if he had indeed fallen asleep and this was one of his weird dreams that usually ended with him getting shot.
Meera tentatively placed her right hand over where she remembered shooting him all those years ago, she looked at his chest wondering what the scar would look like now under his t-shirt. She took a breath and raised her eyes to look squarely into his. “Please forgive me Kaali, I can’t explain how sorry I am.”
Raj’s eyes welled with tears and he put a hand on her hand, over his heart, “It isn't too late for us, Meera,” he shook his head, “and I couldn't hate you if I tried.”
Meera lurched at him and before he knew it, her lips were on his, her hands grasping at the collar of his shirt. Raj was so stunned it took what felt like minutes for his mind to catch up to what was happening. His hands were up, his eyes open and he was frozen in place. He was having an out of body experience, watching Meera kiss him. He watched all the anguish melt away from her face and the tears stop spilling from her eyes. When he finally reanimated, he took her in his arms and pulled her close. He shut his eyes and kissed her back.
Fifteen years of pain, loneliness, anger, longing, acceptance, fear, hope; all the emotions he’d felt and those he had bottled up, funnelled their way into that kiss. It was almost too much; too hard, too suffocating, too frantic, like he would lose her for another fifteen years if he didn’t hold on as tight as he could.
He walked them over to the nearest wall without breaking the kiss and pressed her body into it, and she instinctively climbed her legs up to encircle his waist. He whispered her name in her ear and began to trail kisses from there down her neck. He noticed for the first time, that she smelled the same, she was wearing the same perfume she had worn years ago. The realisation took his mind back to their first night together, the same night she had set up camp outside his house in the rain. It also brought back memories of everything else, how impulsivity hadn’t done them any favours in the past.
Despite every cell in his body desperately telling him otherwise, he needed to slow things down before they set the their lives on fire again. He backed them away from the wall and put her down. When he looked into her eyes, the crazed look was gone and she looked a little more like Old Meera.
“Are you sure Meera, that this— that I am what you want?”
“Kaali,” she said catching her breath, she gently reached up and cupped his cheek, thumbing away the tear there and running her fingers over his beard. “Even all that time I thought you were dead, I couldn’t forget you. I don’t want to waste any more years regretting. I just want to be with you. Just Meera and Kaali, or Raj, whatever you prefer. Just two people without the weight of a feud that died yeas ago, without our insane history. I have always loved you, Kaali. I just want you.
“I know we can’t go back to the way things were before… but I’ve never been more sure of anything. Ever.
“I’ve had a really long time to think about it,” she said with a sad smile.
It was Raj’s turn to reach for her, with his fears banished, he kissed her like he could kiss her back in time, to when they could start all over again and be just a random young couple having a meet-cute in a park in Sofia. He ran his fingers through her hair and tilted her head back to deepen the already bottomless kiss. He was tender but passionate, like he wished he could have been when she had kissed him.
They couldn't undo their past and all the scars it had left on them, but with this kiss, it felt like they were choosing finally not to let it win.