Six months earlier – Leh Military Base, Kashmir
The mountains didn't scare her. It was the silence that did.
Dr. Kavya Malhotra adjusted the frayed scarf around her neck as the wind whipped through the base camp like it had a personal vendetta. Her boots sank into the slush of melting snow outside the makeshift medical tent, breath misting in the glacial air. The soldiers around her moved like clockwork—stoic, fast, and always a step away from the next disaster.
This was her first deployment workshop. A two-week psychological readiness program for soldiers returning from and heading toward live zones. Siachen was less than two hundred kilometers away. Death was closer.
She was used to the clinical detachment of hospitals, the sterile quiet of therapy rooms, the familiar rhythm of grief in war widows' clinics. But this—this harshness, this brutal air, this ever-hovering dread—this was new.
"Dr. Malhotra?"
Kavya turned. Captain Daiwik Khanna, DK to most, jogged toward her, stethoscope flapping against his khaki windcheater. His glasses were fogged up, his cheeks pink from the cold. He looked out of place, like a librarian shoved into a battlefield.
"We're set up inside the main hall," he said, catching his breath. "About twenty officers attending. Mostly medical staff, a few from infantry, and... one special guest."
Kavya narrowed her eyes. "Special guest?"
DK hesitated. "Major Shashwat Rajput."
The name struck her like a slap—sharp, unexpected, cold.
"The Lion?" she said dryly, adjusting her gloves. "Great. Just what a civilian psychologist dreams of—being devoured alive."
DK laughed. "He's not as terrifying as the stories say. Just... very quiet. Very blunt."
"I've met blunt," Kavya muttered, recalling her ex-fiancé, IAF Squadron Leader Neel Singh—brilliant, disciplined, emotionally unavailable. He had died without a single goodbye, his plane lost over the Northeast frontier. His last text had read, "Fuel low. Can't talk. Will land and call." He never did.
DK offered her a coffee from the thermos slung over his shoulder. She declined with a soft shake of her head.
"Let's get this over with," she said.
Inside the Hall
The room was warmer, but not by much. Chairs were set in two uneven rows. Soldiers lounged with wary expressions, eyes flicking between Kavya and the whiteboard that read:
WORKSHOP: PRE-DEPLOYMENT EMOTIONAL READINESS
By Dr. Kavya Malhotra, Clinical Psychologist
Kavya swallowed. These weren't her usual clients—no nervous war widows, no guilt-ridden medics, no reluctant teenage recruits. These men were hardened. Older. Fewer words, more scars.
Then she saw him.
Seated at the very back, legs apart, elbows resting on his knees, head slightly bowed. His uniform was regulation-perfect, but the scarf around his neck was faded and hand-knit—like something a mother would make. He didn't speak. Didn't move. His gray eyes met hers only once—stormy, unreadable.
That was Major Shashwat Rajput.
She'd read his file. Son of Colonel Vikram Rajput. Elder brother martyred in the '98 infiltration near Kargil. Decorated. Feared. Called "Lion" not for how he roared, but for how he endured. A survivor of Siachen frostbite. Refused psychiatric evaluations. Carried a silver coin in his right pocket, believed to have saved him during a shelling.
And he hated civilian interventions.
Perfect.
Kavya cleared her throat and began.
"I'm not here to fix you," she said plainly. "I'm here to remind you that your minds are part of your armor. And like any weapon, they can jam."
That earned her a few glances. DK sat near the front, offering an encouraging nod.
"I know what it's like to love someone who never came home," she continued. "I know what it's like to feel like a ghost in your own life. You may think ignoring pain is strength—but numbing isn't the same as healing."
One officer in the front row—a young man named Arjun Mehta, according to his badge—raised his hand.
"What if healing feels like betrayal?" he asked. "Like if we let go, we forget them."
Kavya smiled gently. "You don't let go. You carry them better."
She felt the room shift. Not dramatically, but subtly. Shoulders loosened. Arms uncrossed.
Except one man remained still.
Major Shashwat Rajput sat with his arms folded now, his coin glinting faintly as it caught the light. When she asked them to write something they feared, his paper remained blank.
After the session, most officers lingered to thank her or chat. DK stayed back to help pack. Shashwat remained seated, staring at the whiteboard.
Kavya approached him slowly, unsure what she hoped to achieve.
"You didn't write anything," she said softly.
He looked up. Up close, his face bore faint pink scars along the right cheekbone—frostbite, likely. His beard was neatly trimmed, but the fatigue in his eyes wasn't something sleep could cure.
"I don't fear much," he said.
She crossed her arms. "Everyone fears something."
"I used to," he replied. "But then I learned fear can't stop loss."
Their eyes met.
"Do you think feeling makes you weak?" she asked.
"No." A pause. "It makes you a liability."
Kavya nodded slowly. "So you chose numbness."
"I chose survival."
She studied him—this man carved out of Himalayan stone.
"Major, numbness isn't survival. It's hibernation."
He smirked, the barest twitch of a mouth unaccustomed to softness. "And your job is to wake the lions?"
Her heart thudded at the challenge. "No. My job is to make sure they know they don't have to roar all the time."
A silence stretched between them like a taut wire.
Then he stood. Taller than she expected. He looked down at her like a mountain deciding whether to avalanche.
"You talk well, Dr. Malhotra."
"You listen well, Major Rajput."
He nodded once and walked away, boots thudding softly over wooden floorboards.
That Night – Base Quarters
Snow fell in gentle waves outside the window of Kavya's room. She sat cross-legged on the bed, reading through journals of previous deployments. Her notebook sat open beside her—filled with her own trauma notes. At the bottom of the page, she had written:
Patient #27 – Shashwat Rajput
Extreme emotional inhibition
Frostbite scar tissue; symbolic of detachment
Uses sarcasm as a shield
Possible poetic soul hiding in steel
She shut the book with a sigh.
Across the hall, DK knocked and entered.
"I got you something," he said, placing a hot water bottle and a tin of chocolate-covered raisins on her desk.
Kavya smiled. "You're the only person I've met who thinks trauma and sugar therapy go together."
He shrugged. "They do."
He hesitated, then added, "Shashwat asked me if you were staying long."
Her brows rose. "Why would he ask that?"
DK looked unsure. "I think you got under his skin. In a good way."
"I doubt he lets anything under his skin."
DK chuckled. "You'd be surprised. He writes poetry. Doesn't show it to anyone, though. Found one torn-up page in the barracks once. It was in Hindi. Very raw."
Kavya's heart stirred.
"He writes poetry?"
DK nodded. "But denies it."
She imagined it—his storm-gray eyes hunched over paper, pen bleeding ink that he'd never speak aloud. The image unnerved her. She wasn't here to feel. She was here to treat.
But even then, as she curled beneath the covers and stared at the ceiling, the thought of Major Shashwat Rajput whispering verses to frostbitten mountains wouldn't leave her alone.
Next Morning – Supply Canteen
Kavya walked in for her morning coffee and found herself behind him in line.
Shashwat.
He didn't look back, but he knew. Somehow, he always knew.
When the server handed him two cups, he turned and held one out to her without a word.
Kavya blinked. "You think you know how I take it?"
"Double shot, no sugar," he said, already sipping his own.
"How?"
"Observation."
She took it. Warm. Fragrant. Infuriatingly perfect.
"Thank you," she muttered.
He shrugged. "Not everything's a battle, doctor."
Kavya met his gaze. "No. Some things are just worth surrendering to."
Something in his eyes flickered. Then he turned and walked toward the benches outside.
She followed him without thinking.
Two people. Two mugs. And a silence that wasn't hostile anymore.
The wind had calmed. The Himalayas stood sentinel in the distance.
She looked at him sideways. "You ever think of leaving?"
"Army?"
She nodded.
He exhaled slowly. "Sometimes. But I don't know who I'd be without this."
"You'd still be you."
He shook his head. "Out there... I'm just another broken man with medals."
"Here, too," she said softly. "But the difference is—you're allowed to admit the brokenness."
He was quiet for a long moment. Then, "You always talk like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like your words are trying to stitch things together."
Kavya smiled, surprised by how much the compliment affected her. "Only with people who deserve it."
He didn't smile. But she swore his shoulders relaxed.
"Will you come back?" he asked.
"To the base?"
He nodded.
"I don't know. Depends if there's anyone worth coming back for."
He looked at her then. Full. Raw. Unhidden.
The wind stirred. Her pendant touched the inside of her collarbone, and she shivered.
Something had shifted.
Not loudly. Not suddenly.
But irrevocably.