When they reached the Rajput estate, the whole family was waiting, and the moment Kiara stepped through the gate, the courtyard broke into something between celebration and disbelief.

Meera reached her first, unable to hold anything back she'd spent five years believing her daughter was gone, had grieved her the way only a mother can, and now that same daughter was standing right in front of her, alive, breathing, real. She pulled Kiara into her arms and simply sobbed, no attempt at composure left in her at all.

"My baby," she kept saying, over and over, hands moving over Kiara's face like she needed to keep confirming it wasn't a trick of grief. "My baby, you're here, you're really here."

Kiara held onto her mother, crying too now, though hers were quieter, still tangled with the strange weight of not fully remembering the woman she was crying with and yet feeling, in her chest, exactly what this moment demanded of her anyway.

Dadi Sa came next, moving slower than the others but no less overcome, pulling Kiara into a trembling embrace and pressing kisses to the top of her head the way she must have done a hundred times when Kiara was a child.

Kavya was there too, and when she finally reached Kiara, something in her seemed to collapse with relief. She'd spent five years carrying a guilt no one had ever asked her to carry the belief that she should have protected Kiara, should have seen what was happening before it was too late, should have done something, anything, differently.

She'd left her in-laws' home in Italy over it, unable to stay somewhere she associated with losing her niece, unable to forgive a family she blamed for everything. Standing here now, holding Kiara in her arms, alive and whole, felt like some enormous weight finally sliding off her chest after years of carrying it silently.

"I'm so sorry," Kavya whispered into her hair. "I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you."

"You don't have anything to apologize for," Kiara said, though she didn't fully understand yet what Kavya meant only that the guilt in her aunt's voice was real, and that some instinct told her to hold her tighter because of it.

Aria stood a little apart from all of this, pressed against Donato's leg, watching the wave of emotion wash over people she didn't know yet with wide, cautious eyes. So many strangers, so much crying, so many hands reaching toward her mother it was a lot for a four-year-old to take in all at once, and for a while she simply observed, quiet in a way that wasn't like her at all.

It was only once the first wave had passed, once Kiara had settled into a chair with her mother's hand still gripped tightly in her own, laughing at something Krish had said, relaxed enough that her guard had visibly come down, that Aria finally let go of Donato's leg and edged closer.

Meera noticed her first. "And who is this cute girl?" She crouched down slowly, careful not to startle her, though her eyes were already shining with fresh tears at the sight of the small girl.
Aria studied her for a moment, then glanced back at her mother for reassurance. Kiara smiled and nodded, and that was all it took Aria's shyness cracked open in an instant, replaced by the same easy warmth she'd offered everyone in Scanno.

"Hii I'm Aria," she said, extending her hand the way she'd learned to. "I'm mama's and daddy's daughter. I have green eyes, like my daddy."

Meera let out a small, disbelieving laugh, tears spilling over freely now as she took Aria's hand in both of hers. "Yes. I can see that."

The rest of the family gathered closer, and within minutes Aria was the center of everyone's attention, answering questions rapid-fire, describing her school in Scanno, her friends, Bunny the one-eared rabbit left behind for Granny to look after, the flight, the birds she'd seen out the window.

She talked with her hands the way she always did, utterly unbothered now by the size of the crowd around her, delighted by all the new faces hanging on her every word.

Meera watched her, something in her expression shifting from simple joy into something closer to wonder, and after a while she turned to Kiara, voice thick.

"Do you know," she said quietly, "she is exactly like you were, at that age. That same way of talking, hands moving the whole time, asking a hundred questions before anyone can answer the first one." She reached out and touched Aria's cheek gently.

"She don't look like you much, not really. She has a donato look. But watching her talk it's like watching you again. Five years old, all over again."

Kiara felt something tighten in her throat at that, watching her daughter mid-sentence, explaining to a rapt audience exactly why bees don't like flour, and for the first time since landing, she let herself simply feel it the strange, quiet joy of being handed back a family she couldn't remember, through the eyes of a daughter who carried pieces of that same family without ever having met them.
_____

The family settled around the dining table, plates being laid out one after another, more food arriving than any single meal usually called for clearly a spread put together in celebration rather than routine. Aria, perched on her father's lap, surveyed the whole scene with wide, delighted eyes, taking in the sheer number of dishes and the sheer number of people crowded around the table.

"Wow, Daddy." She said it with total sincerity. "It looks like the whole village is eating together."

Donato choked slightly on his water, coughing into his fist while shooting an apologetic, sheepish smile toward the table, most of whom had already turned to look at the source of the comment.

"Like a village, huh?" Krish grinned, delighted. "I mean, she's not wrong. We do kind of look like a whole district right now, not just a family." He laughed at his own observation. "Aria, is this how your villagers used to eat? All together like this?"

Aria didn't catch half of what he'd said some of it slipping past her in the mix of Hindi and English but she laughed anyway, mostly because her new favorite uncle was laughing, and that seemed reason enough.

"Yes, Uncle Krish. In Scanno, when we have festivals, all the villagers eat like this. Lots and lots of food, and everyone eats together." She gestured proudly at the table in front of her, apparently satisfied she'd made an accurate comparison.

Kiara felt her face heat with embarrassment and nudged Donato's leg under the table, silently begging him to redirect his daughter before she compared the entire Rajput family to a village festival one more time. Donato cleared his throat, fighting his own laughter.

"Baby, they're not villagers. This is your family."

"You're right, Daddy." Aria nodded seriously, taking this correction in stride. "Mama has a really, really big family. Aria never saw a family this big before."

She turned to him with sudden curiosity, tearing off a piece of roti from the plate in front of them without waiting for permission she'd never seen bread quite like this before, nothing like the crusty loaves back home and held it out toward his mouth. "Does Daddy have a big family too?"

"Not quite this big," Donato said, accepting the offered bite, "but yes, Daddy has a decent-sized family too. In Italy."

Aria nodded, satisfied, then held up the torn piece of roti again, frowning at it. "Daddy, why is this bread so thin? And round?"

"It's Indian bread, baby." He took the piece from her hand gently, tore off a smaller bit, and dipped it into the gravy sitting nearby. "You're supposed to dip it in this, like this, and then eat it." He held it up for her to try.

She took the bite carefully, chewed, and her eyes went wide with delight. "Mmm--wow, Daddy, it's so good! Aria likes this food!"
Then, with the sudden gravity of someone twice her age, she turned toward Meera and the row of aunts seated nearby.

"Granny, Aunties, thank you for the food. It's very tasty. Aria likes it a lot." In her mind, this followed the same pattern she knew from home her mother and Granny always did the cooking, so naturally here, her new granny and aunts must have done the same.

Kavya smiled, charmed. "Thank you, sweetheart, but you should really thank the staff they're the ones who actually cooked all of this." She gestured toward the household workers standing quietly near the doorway, still moving between dishes.

"Ohh, they're the ones who cooked it?" Aria's eyes lit up with fresh interest. Kavya nodded, amused. Aria turned to Donato immediately. "Daddy, help Aria get down on the other side."

Donato obliged, setting her down, and the whole table watched with mild confusion as she marched purposefully around the table toward the two staff members. She stopped in front of them, gave a small, careful bow, and said, "Thank you, Auntie, thank you, Uncle. The food is very tasty."

Both workers broke into wide, startled smiles, clearly not used to being addressed so formally, and certainly not by four-year-old. Satisfied, Aria trotted back to the table and climbed straight back onto Donato's lap, ignoring Kiara's attempt to seat her in the empty chair between them.

The whole table watched her, charmed and slightly stunned all at once this small girl, not yet five, carrying more warmth and instinctive kindness in her than most adults managed to hold onto their whole lives. Fierce when she needed to be, and yet somehow perfectly mannered underneath all of it.

Meera turned to Kiara, squeezing her hand gently. "You did a wonderful job, my baby. I already know you're the best mother."
Somehow, despite the low volume and the distance across the table, Aria caught the tail end of it.

"Yes, Granny, Mama is a supermama." She said it with total conviction, nodding along. "Mama taught Aria the whole alphabet, A to Z. And a hundred numbers. And how to write everyone's name. Aria already learned to write Daddy's name." She paused, thinking. "Aria's going to learn how to write everyone's name here too."

Then she looked around the table once more, taking in the sheer number of new faces still watching her, and shook her head with the exaggerated exasperation of someone thoroughly overwhelmed. "No, that's too many people."

The whole table burst out laughing at that, the sound rolling easily around the room, and even Kiara, still faintly mortified, found herself laughing along with everyone else.
_____

After dinner, once the family had settled into the open living room, Donato stood and said he needed to head out. He understood the silence that followed exactly for what it was. The Rajputs hadn't turned him away, hadn't been anything but civil since he'd walked in beside Kiara but civility wasn't the same as forgiveness.

Nobody had said a word about the past since he'd arrived, and he knew that wasn't an accident. Kiara might have come back, alive and whole, but nobody at this table had forgotten what the Romanos, what he himself, had done to get her here in the first place. That debt hadn't been settled just because she'd walked through the door again.

The moment he said he was leaving, Aria was already up and holding his hand. "Let's go, Daddy." He crouched down to her level. "Baby, you're going to stay here with Mama tonight. Daddy's going to a different house it's only half an hour away, though."

"Why do you have to leave?" Her face fell immediately. "Granny's house is so big, you can just stay here."

"No, baby, Daddy has his own house, and he's going to sleep there tonight. I'll come back tomorrow to see you, I promise."

"But why, Daddy? You could just stay. Or-her grip tightened on his hand "if you're going, then Aria's coming too."

Kiara stepped in before Donato had to figure out how to answer that himself, gently taking Aria's other hand. "Baby, Daddy can't stay here right now. Let him go, he'll come back tomorrow." Her voice stayed light, easy, careful not to let any of what she was actually feeling bleed into it.

The truth sat underneath it, unspoken she wasn't ready. She couldn't have Donato staying under this roof with her, playing at husband and wife, not when she still didn't remember being his wife at all. She needed time.

Time with her own family, time to let whatever pieces of memory kept surfacing continue surfacing on their own, without the added pressure of sharing a house with a man she was still, in every real sense, meeting for the first time. Whatever came after that--whatever she eventually decided she wanted-- she couldn't get there without this space first.

To everyone's mild surprise, Aria didn't push back once Kiara told her he'd be back tomorrow. She simply accepted it, the way she'd learned to accept most things from her mother without much argument.

"Okay, Daddy. Come back soon. Aria will miss you." She pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.

Donato kissed her back and pulled her into a tight hug, murmuring against her hair, "Daddy will miss you too, baby." Then, quieter, mostly to himself, something only he needed to hear. don't worry, baby. I'll fix everything soon. Then it'll be you, me, and your mama, all together. I promise.

Before he left, he looked over at Kiara. She met his gaze, but didn't say anything, her expression unreadable in the low evening light.

He exhaled and offered the only thing he could, for now. "Take care of yourself. And Aria." A pause. "I'll come back tomorrow. and will Take you both out somewhere."

Kiara simply nodded, and Donato turned, said his goodbyes to the rest of the room, and let himself be shown to the door, leaving the weight of everything unsaid behind him for the night.
_______

Once Donato had gone, the mood in the living room eased into something lighter the kind of settling-in that happens once the biggest emotional hurdle of the day has passed and everyone's just left with each other and the rest of the evening to fill.

Krish dropped down onto the floor cushions near the low table, stretching his legs out with a groan, and Aria wandered over, studying him with the same open curiosity she'd studied everyone with today.

"Uncle Krish."

"That's me."

"How old are you?"

He raised an eyebrow. "That's a very forward question for someone who just met me a few hours ago."

"Aria is four. Almost five." She held up four fingers, then hesitated and added a thumb, apparently deciding that counted as "almost." "How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

Aria's face scrunched up in serious calculation, the kind that involved counting silently on her fingers for a solid five seconds before she gave up entirely. "That's a lot of numbers."

"It is," Krish agreed solemnly.

"So you're basically Mama's age?"

Across the room, Kiara, mid-conversation with her mother, glanced over sharply. "Aria."

"What? I'm just asking."

"I'm not Mama's age," Krish said, grinning now, clearly enjoying himself. "I'm younger than your mama, actually. She's the older, wiser one. I'm just the favorite."
"You're eight years younger," Kiara called over, not looking up from her conversation. "Don't let him fool you, baby."

"Slander," Krish said, pressing a hand to his chest. "In my own house. In front of a child."

Aria looked between them, clearly delighted by the bickering, and decided to press her advantage. "So if Uncle Krish is younger than Mama... is Uncle Krish actually a baby too?"

Krish blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Like Aria. A baby, but a big one."

"I am twenty-two years old. I have a job. I pay rent." He counted these off on his fingers with mock seriousness.

"But you cried at the airport," Aria pointed out, entirely without malice, just stating a fact as she'd observed it. "Babies cry a lot too." The room went up in laughter, Ayush nearly choking on the tea he was drinking, and Krish sat there for a second, utterly betrayed by a four-year-old he'd known for less than a day.

"Okay." He pointed a finger at her. "That's low. That's a low blow, Aria."

"Aria's just saying what she saw," she said, shrugging, entirely unbothered, already climbing up onto the cushion beside him like the matter was settled.

"You know what," Krish said, recovering, "since you think you're so clever--I bet I know something you don't know how to do."

"Aria knows lots of things. Aria knows the alphabet, and one hundred numbers, and-

"Can you do this?" He held up his hand and wiggled just his ring finger on its own, the rest curled into his palm, a party trick he'd clearly had since he was a kid himself.

Aria's whole face went intent with focus. She held up her own hand, stared at it like it had personally wronged her, and attempted to wiggle a single finger. All four came up at once, her whole hand flapping like she was waving.

"That's not just the one," Krish said, laughing. "It is the one. It's just enthusiastic."

"Enthusiastic," he repeated, delighted by the word choice. "Where did you even learn that word."

"Mama says it when Aria gets too excited about things."

"Accurate," Kiara called from across the room, still not looking up, though she was smiling now.

Aria tried again, tongue poking out the side of her mouth in concentration, and failed spectacularly a second time, the whole hand flapping open again. She huffed, glaring at her own fingers like they'd personally betrayed her.

"It's okay," Krish said, still grinning. "Took me until I was like nine to get it. You've got time."

"Nine is so old," Aria said, matter-of-fact, and Krish clutched his chest again, wounded for the second time in five minutes. "I'm going to remember this," he told her. "Every single insult. I'm keeping a list."

"Okay." Aria nodded, entirely unbothered, already reaching for his hand to examine his fingers up close, trying to figure out the mechanics of the wiggle for herself. "Uncle Krish, teach Aria properly. Not just showing. Aria needs the secret."

"There's no secret, you just have to-

"The secret," she said again, more firmly, in the exact tone of someone who suspected she was being lied to.

Krish looked over at Kiara, half-laughing, half-helpless. "Your daughter thinks I'm hiding trade secrets from her."

"She gets that suspicion from her father," Kiara said dryly, and something in the easy, half-teasing way she said it made her own eyes widen slightly afterward, like she hadn't quite expected herself to say it that naturally.

Nobody else seemed to notice. Krish had already gone back to patiently demonstrating his finger-wiggle for the fourth time, and Aria was watching his hand with the fierce concentration of someone determined not to be bested by a twenty-two-year-old uncle before bedtime.

_______

After everyone had gone to bed, Kiara wrestled Aria into sleep it took longer than usual, her daughter clearly too wound up from the day's excitement to settle easily, full of questions about tomorrow, about Krish's finger trick, about whether Bunny was missing her back in Scanno. Eventually the questions slowed, then stopped, and Kiara sat with her a little longer than necessary just to be sure before slipping out.

She found herself drawn to the open balcony rather than her own bed, restless in a way sleep wasn't going to fix. The night air was warm, thick with the smell of something blooming somewhere in the garden below, and she stood at the railing for a while before finally sitting down on the small bench pushed against the wall.

Since she'd arrived at the haveli, wherever she walked, something kept catching at her a doorway that felt too familiar, a staircase her feet seemed to know without being told, the particular slant of evening light through a certain window that made her chest tighten with no explanation attached.

It wasn't memory exactly, nothing concrete enough to hold onto, but it was something. A sense that she'd spent years of her life inside these walls, that whole stretches of her childhood were folded somewhere in this house, waiting.

Kavya found her there a little later, two cups of coffee in hand, and sat down beside her without asking, handing one over. "So." Kavya settled back against the wall. "How does it feel, being here?"

Kiara wrapped both hands around the warm cup. "Like I've genuinely come back somewhere--Somewhere with a lot of memories in it. Even if I can't reach most of them yet."

"That's a good sign," Kavya said gently. "You'll remember, slowly. Don't push yourself to force it."

Kiara nodded, and for a while neither of them said anything, the quiet comfortable enough to sit in. Eventually, Kiara broke it. "Aunt. You were there, weren't you. Five years ago. When all of it happened."

Kavya's face shifted, something careful settling over it. She nodded.

"Can you tell me everything? In detail. What happened to me back then. To the old Kiara."

Kavya was quiet for a moment, like she was deciding how much of this Kiara actually needed to hear tonight, and then, gently, she started. Much of it matched what Donato had already told her the accusations, the family's reaction, Rose's role in turning everyone against her. But hearing it from Kavya's side felt entirely different.

Kavya had been the one physically present through the worst of it, the one who'd sat beside her in a locked library for a full week while Kiara was kept inside, cut off from everyone, waiting for someone anyone to come and actually listen to her.

Kavya described what kiara went through on that librery, how she had begged, over and over, just for one chance to explain herself, how nobody had come. How the hope in her voice had slowly worn down to something quieter, more resigned, as the days passed and nobody arrived.

And then the hospital. Kavya told her about that too how Kiara had believed, right up until the moment the car actually stopped, that Donato was finally coming to take her home. How that hope had cracked apart entirely once she understood where she'd actually been brought instead.

Instead of taking her home how donato send her mental hospital in the name of test and false report that rose plan. Yeah donato was also a victim but he should have listened to kiara but he didnt he just bleave what he saw.

Kiara felt something inside her fracture with every sentence, like old bones breaking that she hadn't known were still holding weight. Tears slid down freely now, and across from her, Kavya wasn't holding hers back either, the two of them crying together over a version of Kiara neither of them could fully touch anymore - one gone, one just beginning to understand what had been done to her.

By the time Kavya finished, something had settled into place in Kiara's understanding, cold and clear. The Kiara from five years ago had endured all of that the accusations, the isolation, the hospital and still, through all of it, she'd kept waiting for Donato. Still hoping he'd come. Still holding onto him even as everyone around her tore her life apart in his name.

How weak was I, she thought, something bitter twisting through the grief. To still wait for him, after all of that. Her head began to throb, sharp and sudden, memories crowding forward all at once without organizing themselves into anything coherent flashes, feelings, faces without names attached, too much arriving too fast.

Kavya felt her tense and pulled her into a tight hug immediately. "Shh. It's okay. Don't force it, don't push your mind so hard right now."

Kiara let herself be held, her breathing slowly evening out again, the sharp pain in her head easing back into something more manageable. But even as the panic settled, one thing stayed lodged firmly in her chest, undisturbed by anything Kavya said to soothe her. She hadn't deserved any of what happened to her five years ago. Not one moment of it.

__________

Morning arrived gently over the Rajput haveli, a quiet that had been missing from the house for five years finally settling back into its walls. Tonight was the first night in a long time the people here had actually slept properly slept, without the low hum of grief sitting under everything and this morning the house woke into something that used to be ordinary once, back before it had been lost.

Everyone stirred around six, the halls filling with the familiar rhythm of a house waking up footsteps, doors, someone's voice calling down a corridor, the clatter of the kitchen starting the day.

Kiara woke to all of it, and took a slow breath before pulling herself out of bed. She crossed to the window and pushed it open, letting the cool morning air spill in, and for the first time since arriving, something in her simply settled the quiet, certain feeling that she was exactly where she was meant to be.

She smiled to herself and went to wash up. When she came back out, Aria was already awake too, rubbing at her eyes, hair sticking up in every direction from sleep.

"Mama," she mumbled.

Kiara crossed the room to her immediately. "There's my baby up already." She kissed her cheek.

"Did Daddy come?" It was the very first thing out of her mouth.
Kiara's smile faltered slightly for a moment waking up in this house in the pull of everything happening around her, she'd genuinely forgotten to think of Donato at all. She caught herself and smiled again.

"No, baby, it's still early morning. Daddy will come in a little while. Let's get you ready for the day first."

She led Aria off to the bathroom, and by the time they came back out, freshly dressed and hair brushed into place, Krish was already waiting on the sofa in the next room.

The moment Aria spotted him, she took off running. "Uncle Krish!" He scooped her straight up into his arms. "Come on, Aria. We're going somewhere."

"Where, Uncle?" Her eyes were already wide with anticipation.

"You haven't seen the whole haveli yet, have you? Come on, I'll show you everything." He was already walking toward the door with her balanced on his hip, but he paused at the threshold and turned back to Kiara. "Dii, Mumma's calling you. She's in the living room."

Kiara nodded. "Go on, then. Come back soon after you've shown her around Aria, you still need to eat breakfast."

"Okay, Mama!" Aria shouted back, already being carried off down the hallway, craning her neck to keep talking to Krish about all the things she wanted to see first.
_______

Krish carried Aria through the haveli, room by room, corridor by corridor, and Aria took in every inch of it with the same intense, unfiltered focus she gave everything new.

"This is the main hall," Krish said, gesturing broadly as they crossed a wide marble floor lined with tall pillars. "Family gatherings happen here. Big ones."

Aria's mouth fell open, craning her neck up at the high, carved ceiling. "Uncle Krish. This whole hall is bigger than the whole café."

"Probably, yeah."

"My whole village could fit in here." She said it with total conviction, arms spreading wide as if to demonstrate the scale of her claim. "Everyone. Signor Marco, and Mira, and the fountain lady, and Grandpa's whole shop. All of it."

Krish laughed. "That's a lot of people for one hall."

"It's a big hall," she said reasonably.

He carried her out into the courtyard next, where an old stone fountain sat quiet in the center, water trickling softly from a carved lion's mouth. "This fountain's older than your grandpa. Older than his grandpa, probably."

Aria leaned dangerously far over his arm to peer into the water. "Does it grant wishes? The one in my village grants wishes. I wished for my dad here last year and it worked."

"I don't know if this one grants wishes," Krish said, amused, "but I wouldn't rule it out. This family's had some strange luck over the years."

They moved on to the long gallery lined with old portraits, and Aria studied each face they passed with total seriousness, occasionally pointing and asking who someone was, nodding solemnly at each answer like she was committing it to some internal record. When they reached the library, she gasped audibly.

"So many books." She twisted in his arms to look up at the shelves rising nearly to the ceiling. "Does Mama read all of these?"

Something flickered briefly across Krish's face a shadow of something he didn't explain before he answered, lighter than he felt. "She used to spend a lot of time in here, yeah."

"Aria wants to read all of them too. When Aria learns bigger words."

"I believe you will."

They passed the stables next, empty now but for a pair of horses being brushed down by a groundskeeper, and Aria insisted on being let down so she could pet one, giggling wildly when it huffed warm air against her palm.

By the time they'd wound their way past the garden, the kitchens, and what felt like a dozen more rooms Aria had strong opinions about "this room is too empty," "this room smells like Grandma's soap," "this one has the best window" a full hour had passed.

They came back just as breakfast was being laid out, everyone gathering around the table. Krish set Aria down, and she took off running the second she spotted her mother.

"Mama, Dad hasn't come yet." It was the first thing out of her mouth, breathless from the run.

Kiara smiled, pulling her up into the seat beside her. "He'll come soon, baby. Sit down first, let's eat."

They settled into breakfast together, the table full and easy, conversation flowing around Aria's occasional interjections about everything Krish had shown her. Kiara sat quietly through most of it, letting the warmth of the room wash over her.

Something in her had already started to shift these past two days not full memories, nothing she could grab onto and hold, but glimpses. A flicker of herself as a girl, running down that same long gallery Krish had just walked Aria through.

A feeling of belonging to that library full of books before she'd even set foot back inside it. Small, wordless pieces of a life she couldn't fully see yet, surfacing quietly around the edges of every room in this house, as though the haveli itself was slowly, patiently, handing her back to herself.
______

It was ten when Donato arrived at the Rajput haveli.

Aria was in the garden, playing with her cousins, when she spotted her father coming through the gate, and her whole face lit up before she'd even fully registered him until she noticed the small figure walking beside him, hand in his, and behind them, a man nearly the same height as Donato, clearly following at an easy pace.

She ran toward him anyway, the flicker of confusion not enough to slow her down. Donato let go of the little girl's hand Albert and Kavya's daughter, who'd arrived at the gate holding onto him for the short walk in and scooped Aria up the moment she reached him, spinning her once before pulling her into a proper hug. She giggled, arms wrapping tight around his neck.

"Daddy, I missed you."

"Daddy missed his princess too, baby." He kissed her cheek, and she immediately copied the gesture back, pressing a wet kiss to his cheek in return.

Behind them, the smaller girl had retreated slightly, peeking out from behind Albert's leg, watching Aria with open curiosity.

Albert had already explained to her, on the walk in, that she was about to meet a sister one about a year older than her. Aria was closer to five now; his own daughter closer to four, still shy in the way small children often are around someone new, her wide, doe-eyed gaze fixed on Aria without quite working up the nerve to approach.

Aria noticed her too, tilting her head. "Daddy, who is this girl?"

Donato set Aria back down on her feet. "Meet your younger sister, baby."

Aria's whole face exploded into delight. "Wow! Aria has a younger sister too!" She practically bounced on the spot, and something about her excitement seemed to loosen the shyness in the smaller girl too she peeked further out from behind Albert's leg, a small smile breaking through, letting out a soft giggle of her own.

"That's right, baby." Donato smiled. "She's your Kavya aunty's daughter Elora." He gestured toward Albert. "And this is your Uncle Albert. My brother."

Aria turned and gave a small, formal bow, the same one she'd apparently decided was appropriate for meeting new adults. Albert laughed, delighted, and reached down to ruffle her hair which she immediately fixed with both hands, patting it back into place before extending her hand properly.

"Hi, I'm Aria," she announced, in the exact tone she'd used on every stranger since Scanno. "I have green eyes. Like my daddy."

She turned the same greeting on the smaller girl next, hand extended with the same seriousness, and then added, entirely on her own authority, "I'm your older sister. So you have to listen to me." Her voice dropped into something far more solemn than the moment strictly required. "And I'll protect you."

Albert, fighting a laugh, nodded along with mock gravity, matching her tone exactly, which only seemed to satisfy Aria further. Both Donato and Albert burst out laughing at the display, unable to hold it in any longer.

"Baby, where's your mama?" Donato asked, once the laughter settled.

Aria thought about it for a second, brow furrowed in concentration. "When Aria saw Mama last, she was with Kavya Aunty and the other aunties, at the back of the haveli."
"Ah." Donato nodded.

Aria turned to her new sister and took her small hand without hesitation. "Sisi, let's go play with our other cousins." The two of them took off together, already fast friends, leaving the two brothers standing alone in the garden.

Donato let out a slow breath, something easing in his chest at the sight of it. "Come on, brother. Let's go find our wives."
Albert nodded, and together they made their way toward the back of the haveli.
________

Donato and Albert made their way around to the back of the haveli, where the garden opened into a shaded courtyard, and there they found their wives Kavya and Kiara sitting together on a low stone bench, Kavya pointing something out across the garden, clearly walking Kiara through some piece of the estate's history.

Kiara looked entirely at ease in a way Donato hadn't quite seen since finding her in Scanno leaning slightly toward whatever Kavya was telling her, nodding along, something in her posture suggesting the place itself was speaking to her even where words couldn't. It didn't surprise him.

He'd noticed it the moment they'd arrived how she moved through the haveli's halls like her feet already knew the way, how her hand had trailed along a particular railing on the stairs like it was a familiar habit rather than a first encounter.

Kiara felt him before she saw him, some instinct pulling her attention toward the archway, and when their eyes met, everything else in the courtyard seemed to fall quiet for a beat.

He was struck still. She was in a Rajasthani outfit today deep red, gold thread catching the morning light along the hem, a dupatta draped loosely over one shoulder, her hair left down the way he hadn't seen it in five years. It was the first time since finding her that he'd seen her in anything but the simple, practical clothes of a woman running a café in a mountain village.

Kiara had always looked beautiful to him, in anything, in everything but standing here now, dressed like this, in the house she'd grown up in, something in his chest tightened so hard it nearly hurt to breathe. He stood there for a moment too long, simply looking, unable to make his feet move any further into the courtyard.

Kiara, for her part, felt her own thoughts scatter the moment she saw him not toward anything he'd done, not toward the ache of memories she still didn't have, but straight back to what Kavya had told her the night before, all of it rushing forward at once now that he was standing in front of her.

Kavya hadn't only told her what had been done to her. She'd told her what had happened after how, once the truth came out, Donato hadn't simply moved on with his life the way everyone had assumed the family would, once they'd all quietly accepted that Kiara was gone.

He made Rose pay for what she'd done. And more than that he never actually accepted that Kiara was dead, not really, not the way everyone else around him had. Every single person in both families had grieved her, buried her in their hearts, moved forward as best they could. But Donato hadn't. He spent five years still looking, still refusing the ending everyone else had already written for her.

Kiara turned all of it over in her mind now, watching him standing frozen at the edge of the courtyard. What am I supposed to do with any of this, she thought. If the old Kiara did something wrong, then so did he. He never gave me the chance to explain myself.

That's what led to everything after. the hospital, the accident, five years of a life I don't remember living, a daughter who grew up without her father because of what he chose not to do. I'm willing to forgive it. But forgiving isn't the same as knowing what to do next. Should I forgive him and then move on and live my own life like i was living for five years? or should I give him another chance?

What would she have done. The Kiara from five years ago. Would she have run to him right now, forgiven everything on the spot, folded herself back into his arms like none of it happened?

Kiara didn't have an answer to that, and some part of her understood she didn't need one because she wasn't that Kiara anymore, whatever pieces of her were slowly coming back.

I'll wait, she decided, holding his gaze steadily across the courtyard, something calm settling over the turmoil underneath. Until my memory comes back properly. Until I actually know, for myself, what I want not what I think I'm supposed to want, not what the old version of me might have chosen. Only then will I decide anything.

She held that thought like an anchor, and when Donato finally crossed the courtyard toward her, she rose to meet him with a small, careful smile not distant, not cold, but not yet fully open either. Somewhere in between, exactly where she currently stood with everything else in her life.

I AM BACKKKKK FINALYYYY.🫡 and I've missed you all so much and missed writing too. But but but I don't know if I'll be able to update consistently because my brother's wedding is next month. And I have a lot of preparations to do, so updates might be a bit late, but I will try my best to finish this story soon.

Thank you so much for being so patient with me. I love you all. Bye bye Take care☺️🫀🫂