“Hey mishta, ya got shome candy for meee?”

The childish lisp cut through the sterile hush of the hospital room. An adorable little girl in a Belle costume stood in the doorway, grinning at Dr. Dev Mahesh.

Dev’s chest caved as the words struck him like a blow. His knees buckled against the rail, as he staggered to Rose’s bedside, clutching her cold hand gasping for breath.

Nurse Jenkins hurried forward, cheeks flaming, tugging her daughter away. “I’m so sorry doctor. She got away from me.” Her scrubs had a witch’s hat pinned crookedly to the pocket. She guided the little Belle past a row of orange-and-black streamers, murmuring apologies as they vanished into the corridor.

Dev’s children stared after him, stunned. They had never seen their father cry. Not once. Not through their mother’s long coma. Not when the dynamic duo of Dr. Dev and Dr. Rose - inseparable through every day of their lives including this very hospital - had finally been separated by something even they could not overcome.

Life.

Dr. Bryan lingered inside the room, the chart loose in his hands. He had known Dev and Rose for decades as trusted colleagues and best friends. They were pretty much family in all but blood. He had watched his friend wither over the past year, spending every hour here: tending his patients or tending his wife. He hadn’t been home in months.

“Dev ... buddy,” Bryan said softly, his voice catching. “She is my friend too. But it’s been a year, Dev. A year. Maybe it’s time to let go.”

“You don’t know that,” Dev hissed, kissing Rose’s knuckles. His tears dripped onto the wires and tubes snaking from her still body. “She promised me forever. She doesn’t break promises.”

His thumb traced the back of her hand, over faint scars he knew too well. He’d memorized every one during those first weeks after the crash - reminders of a lifetime of hiding pain behind her smile. He had missed so much back then. The way her laughter had dimmed, the way she’d worn long sleeves in summer.

Bryan’s shoulders slumped. He turned to his now grown up god-children. “You need to make a call soon. This ... this isn’t healthy for them. Let me know.”

“Thanks, Uncle Bryan,” one of them murmured.

When the doctor left, silence pressed in. The children turned to their father, faces drawn with grief.

“Dad ... you heard Uncle Bryan. This ... this is becoming an obsession now. This isn’t healthy,” his daughter whispered. “Are you keeping her alive because you believe she’ll wake up - or because you can’t let go?”

Dev’s voice was hoarse, but steady. “I believe in her. She will come back to me.”

“Dad,” his son said, pained, “are you sure this is what Mom would want for you? Look at yourself. You never cried once in your life - and a little kid asking for candy broke you.”

His daughter’s voice cracked. “We don’t want to lose you too. We love you dad.”

Dev lifted his head, eyes rimmed with red, and looked from their stricken faces to Rose’s still form. His thumb brushed across her knuckles.

“They don’t know, my darling,” he whispered. “They don’t know why that little girl’s words crushed me. Do you remember? How we gave our children their names?”

“Hey mishta ... ya got shome candy for meee?”

The lisping squeak rang again, not from the hospital corridor this time, but from memory - sharp and sweet as the smell of autumn leaves.

“Oh my, what a costume!” Mrs. Mahesh exclaimed, ushering a gap-toothed little girl in a Belle gown up the front steps. “Rose, you are the most beautiful princess in the whole town.”

Dev’s small breath hitched. Six years old, dressed in his makeshift Arjun costume - bow and quiver stitched by his thrifty Amma’s careful hands - he had never seen anyone so dazzling. Rose glowed like a porcelain doll from the expensive shop downtown, even though everyone knew Mrs. Fernandez had picked up the costume from the Dollar Store bargain rack.

“Oh, she’s adorable, Sharada! And ooh look at the handsome prince!” Fran cooed, eyes sparkling.

“I am the mighty Arjun,” Dev declared, chin raised, striking a dramatic pose with his toy bow. In his head he looked magnificent.

Fran clapped her hands. “Ooh, so mighty and strong! Like one of those Greek statues, diba?”

Sharada chuckled, locking the door. “Ready, Fran? These children have been begging me all week for this ... this...” she struggled for the word.

“Tricking and tweeting?” Fran suggested.

“Trick-a-treating,” Sharada corrected, mangling it just as badly. “Still, I don’t know how giving so much sugar to children became a holiday.”

“Strange American custom, grabe,” Fran muttered, looping her arm through her friend’s. “But if this is how we fit in, we’ll do it together, no?”

“Children, hold hands,” Sharada ordered, her no-nonsense voice cutting through the cool night. “Or we go straight home.”

“Don’ wanna go with a nashty boy,” Rose wrinkled her nose.

Dev folded his arms. “I don’t wanna go with a snotty girl.”

The two mothers shared an amused glance, then gave them the sort of stern look that could silence a room full of kindergarteners. Sulking, the children clasped hands and waddled down the lane.

Behind them, the mothers giggled. For all the protests, the pair looked unbearably cute together.

Neighbors gushed over the costumes - though Sharada grew tired of explaining who Arjun was. “No, no, not Robin Hood. Arjun, the warrior prince from Mahabharata. Epic story only!”

The mothers whispered to each other between doorsteps, gossiping about whose lawn was neat, whose pumpkin carvings were crooked. The children darted from porch to porch, bags filled with candy.

But not everyone was friendly. Some neighbors looked too long at them, a couple asked them to go back to where they came from or yet others called them names under their breath while they smiled at them. The mothers held their heads high, but their smiles tightened.

The trouble began at a house where a group of local boys were playing in the yard. They stopped to stare as the princess and the bow-and-arrow boy approached.

“And what are you supposed to be?” Bryan asked, wrinkling his nose. “A poor Robin Hood?”

“Robin Hood was poor, you doofus,” his older brother Tom corrected.

“Don’t call me a doofus, doofus.”

“So what are you then? Tarzan boy?” Bryan pressed, more curious now.

Tom sneered. “Your mom too cheap to buy you a real costume, freak?”

“Don’ call him tha-” Rose burst out, stamping her tiny slippered foot. Her lisp thickened as she shouted, “He’sh not Robin Hood! He’sh Ar-jun! A noble printhce!”

The boys cackled. “Aw, look at the pwithy pwincess! The pwincess and the fweak!” Tom sang, wagging his tongue.

Rose’s face crumpled. It was the first time anyone had ever mocked her lisp, and the sting sent tears spilling down her cheeks.

Dev’s stomach lurched. “Don’t call her that, you butthead! She’s a real princess!”

Tom shoved closer, sneering. “What are you gonna do about it, freak?” He yanked Rose’s bag, spilling candy onto the ground. She wailed.

Dev didn’t think. He just squared his skinny shoulders and swung his fist. Tom toppled backward with a howl. Bryan froze, wide-eyed. He wanted to comfort the crying girl, but he was too afraid to defy his brother.

Before Tom could get up, Rose snatched Dev’s hand and pulled him away. Her Belle skirts swished as they ran back to the safety of their mothers. Tom sat on the curb, red-faced, waving Rose’s candy bag like a trophy. Rose’s tears spilled faster.

The mothers hurried to gather them close, horrified at what had happened. Sharada muttered in Tamil, “Paavam, kanna...” while Fran fussed in Tagalog, “Anak, don’t cry, anak...” Their voices were soft shields, though their eyes burned.

When Rose sobbed that her candy was gone, Dev hugged her clumsily. “Thanks for saving me, Rose. You’re a real princess.” He pressed his own bag of candy into her hands.

The mothers blinked hard, suddenly quiet.

“You’re a good boy, kanna,” Sharada whispered.

Fran leaned down and kissed his head. “You really are a mighty prince, anak.”

Dev blushed crimson, but Rose clung to his candy bag, sniffling through her tears.

That was the night the mighty prince and the little princess became inseparable.

That night, as the children sat curled up on the living room rug, still sticky-faced from candy, the mothers traded quiet sighs.

“It’s hard, Sharada,” Fran admitted, folding away Rose’s crumpled Belle gown. “Some people look at us like we don’t belong. Like we’re ... intruders.”

Sharada’s eyes softened. “We do belong, Fran. Maybe not in their eyes but we do in each other’s.”

From that Halloween on, the Maheshes and the Fernandezes were inseparable. They carpooled to Saint Mercy together, traded overnight shifts, swapped tiffins of sambar and adobo in the staff lounge, laughed at the way Americans wrinkled their noses at the smell of fish curry or tamarind rice. When one family was tired, the other picked up the slack. They were each other’s armor.

And their children, their children were the proof that life here could be sweet.

Dev took to his new role as Rose’s protector like he’d been born for it. Whenever bigger kids teased her lisp or yanked her braid, he squared his small shoulders and glared them down. Rose, dainty as a doll with her big eyes and pretty dresses, clung to his hand like it was a lifeline. Everyone in town whispered about how inseparable they were - the Indian boy with the glare and the surprising right hook and the Filipino princess with the lisp.

Halloween became their day. Every year, Rose would whisper with that mischievous grin, “Hey mishta ... ya got shome candy for meee?” and Dev would solemnly offer her the choicest piece from his bag. It was their secret ritual, their private joke.

One evening, as the children lay on the rug giggling, Rose declared grandly, “When I grow up, I will marry Dev.”

Sharada and Fran froze mid-sentence, then exchanged startled, delighted looks.

“Oh-ho,” Fran laughed, clasping Sharada’s hand. “Did you hear that? Your son and my daughter, eh? A match made already!”

“Castle in the air, Fran,” Sharada teased, though her smile lingered. “But what a lovely castle.”

Rose’s eyes gleamed. “And when we have babies, their names will be Arjun if it’s a boy and Belle if it’s a girl.”

The parents burst into laughter.

“Paavam kanna,” Sharada said, ruffling Dev’s hair. “See how your princess has already written your destiny.”

Dev blushed crimson, hiding his face. Rose just held his hand tighter, triumphant.

A cardboard skeleton grinned above the doorway, its joints clicking when the HVAC kicked on. Outside, a costumed orderly wheeled a patient past, cape dragging. Down the hall, nurses in witch hats handed out candy to patients’ kids. Someone had strung paper pumpkins over the nurses’ desk, their shadows bobbing like ghosts whenever a door opened.

Dev’s children sat huddled close now, eyes wet, cheeks shining. They had never heard this story before - never known how far back their parents’ love reached, how it had been stitched into the very fabric of their childhoods.

Belle swallowed hard. “Dad ... was it really a match made in heaven? You found the love of your life when you were six years old?”

Dev nodded slowly, brushing his thumb over Rose’s limp knuckles. His voice was quiet but sure.

“Yes. And that’s why we named you Arjun and Belle.” He chuckled, “I told you your mother always keeps her promises. But our life together? It wasn’t that simple. Life never makes it that easy, does it, my darling?”

He turned his face toward Rose as though she could still hear him. Then he sighed, gaze drifting back into the shadows of memory.

After that day, the Mahesh and Fernandez kids seemed inseparable. School projects, birthday parties, holidays - if Rose was there, Dev was close by. Teachers joked that the two families ought to move into one house.

But things changed when high school began.

Rose grew into her looks early, and everyone noticed. The gap-toothed Belle with the lisp was gone; in her place was a girl with straightened hair, lip gloss, and the confidence that came with the cheerleading uniform. She learned how to fill a silence before anyone else could - laughing louder, smiling quicker, saying yes before she had time to think no.

She liked the way people turned when she walked in, the rush of being wanted. Sometimes she’d catch Dev watching from the hallway and pretend not to see him, just to prove to herself she didn’t need him.

Each time, it left her emptier, but she never admitted it.

Dev, on the other hand, was serious, buried in books. He was the kid who raised his hand to correct the teacher, the one who stayed late in the lab to finish an experiment nobody else cared about. Teachers adored him; classmates rolled their eyes. He didn’t mind, or told himself he didn’t.

Rose still talked to him - sometimes. She’d pluck a pencil from his shirt pocket, click it twice, hand it back with a grin. “Hey, Professor,” she’d tease, before running off to join her friends. Dev would smile stiffly, but the moment would stick with him all day. She liked proving she could still make him flustered. It was a quiet kind of power, and she used it too often.

His pride kept him from chasing her. If she wanted to drift into that glittering crowd, fine. He wouldn’t beg. But the distance grew, brick by brick until it threatened to become a wall.

In the hospital, his son leaned forward. “You just ... let her go like that?”

Dev gave a small, sad smile. “I told myself I was being dignified. Really, I was being stubborn. I wanted her to come back to me without me asking. It took you long enough to ask Jessica out, didn’t it?”

“Well I thought Uncle Bryan would kill me if I did ... but point taken.”

Belle frowned. “Mom could be ... kind of mean, couldn’t she?”

Dev chuckled, though his eyes were wet. “My love could be flighty and careless with feelings. But she was never mean on purpose. She liked being wanted. And I...” He shook his head. “I made sure she knew I wouldn’t compete for her. That was my pride. Both of us were wrong.”

Dev’s kids leaned closer, waiting as Dev sighed. “Life got ... complicated. High school does that. You two know.”

Belle raised an eyebrow. “Complicated how?”

Dev glanced at Rose’s still face, then back at his daughter. “Well, let’s just say your Uncle Bryan and his brother Tom happened.”