Recovery

Pathways

Sam

Sam looked at the constellation that Daryl had sketched on his sketch pad, frowning down at it for a long while. Her heart ached with that emptiness that she knew that Tim and her both felt while missing their mate. But it also ached with the pain and fury at the remembrance of the anger and pain Urdu had knowingly caused them. The tears in her eyes blurred the image, and she felt Tim's hands cover hers, taking the sketch book out of her grasp before pulling her into his arms while she sobbed.

Sammy had no idea how to feel. All she knew was that it hurt. Everything about it hurt.

"I'm so angry at her Timmy." Sam's breath hitched as she clung to him, shaking her head and pressing her face into his shirt. "Sometimes I am so angry I want her to stay gone."

"Me too." Tim nodded and kissed the top of her head, rubbing her back gently, "And I'm not going to force her to be anywhere she doesn't want to be, but I don't think I can take it if we do find her and she doesn't come home with us."

Sam nodded and continued crying, gripping his shirt and letting out a yell of frustration into his chest as she held him close. She knew he was as fragile as she was. Timmy was strong, but he hurt just as much as she did, and Sam felt guilty for every moment she leaned on him. But, she needed his strength, needed him to hold her and love her like she loved him.

After a few minutes, her crying calmed down, and a thought slowly came to her. "If Urdu left us a way to find her, maybe she didn't want this. Didn't want to leave, Timmy."

"Sam." Tim's voice was raw with pain, though he did let her pull back from him. When she did, she saw that his gaze was focused on the sketchbook resting where he had tossed it onto the couch, "Mates don't always work out. Even when there aren't oaths to fallen angels, differences in species, and half a universe in your way... Here on Earth, sometimes even though your mate completes you, it just doesn't always work out. We shouldn't hope so easily, sweetheart."

Sam frowned at him for a long moment as she processed his words before whispering. "Do you think Lucifer knew what we were? That... that we were gods, Timmy?"

Tim stilled then, his jaw setting stubbornly before he turned his eyes to her, and Sam saw both the man she loved and the God who was awake in him staring back. "No. Or he would have caused issue before this. Lucifer hates us, and if he knew, then that means Urdu knew, too."

Tim was right. Even if Lucifer had not wanted to make waves, with Urdu, his general, the fallen angel would not have been able to hide his distaste for the ancient ones. He despised their kind, and a small part of her heart clung to the small hope that Urdu had not wanted to leave, that she had been forced to by the man who hated them.

And with that thought, she felt the Goddess within her tremble with a new kind of fury. "I'm going to make him let her go. Then she can choose on her own whether she wants to be with us."

Tim paused, watching Sam carefully before speaking. "First, we have to find them before we decide what to do."

"I've seen this map before." Sam whispered and nodded as she picked up the sketch book once more, staring at it hard, trying to picture it in the stars in her mind that Ishtar was struggling to place.

She had never pictured the stars or maps before when going places. As a witch, Sam had always just instinctively followed existing paths to where she wanted to go. But the place she wanted to go wasn't where it needed to be. There was no path because they'd all been destroyed. So she needed a map to find this place, but even then, there wasn't a path.

Sam had never not had a path.

Then the idea hit her.

Now that Ishtar had a physical presence, she and the rest of the gods travelled like Sam had before by following existing paths because that was what was easiest and most convenient. But the gods... they knew how to build their own paths through the realms. Ishtar knew, and so did Shamash.