Recovery

Patience

Tim lay in bed ruminating over his thoughts as he held his broken mate in his arms, his fingers laced with Sam's, who lay on the other side of the demon.

It had taken a couple of days of being drained nearly completely by their mate, but Tim had noticed that even as much as they wanted to. They couldn't spend their entire time with Urdu, or none of them would walk away from this. Because of the power stores of the ancient ones, they didn't need very many breaks, but she was absorbing their power like a sponge, making it necessary for them to crawl out of bed and feed and rest for a little while before returning.

Even walking down the hall was torture. Even stepping through the door to the bedroom and closing it behind him, even just slipping out of bed. Every movement away from her was an exercise in control that rubbed Tim raw.

She was back.

But she wasn't.

Just as surely as he was entirely changed and Sam was completely different, their demon was no longer the awe-inspiring General that they had seen walk out of their lives. He had raged about it for so long after she had broken his heart and he had realized that she had severed every part of her from their lives, he had wondered if he could or would ever want to go find her again.

In a last scream of her life, she hadn't been able to stop from reaching out for them and Tim could barely remember how they had found her. They just had. They reached for her and made their own damned paths. He would have ripped apart any world that stood in his way if he'd had to, and he was certain that it was only her stubborn loyalty to that egotistical, small-minded angel that had prevented him from outright murdering Lucifer.

But Urdu was more important than his rage.

Urdu, who had been willing to give them up, to die, in order to keep those she cared about safe. In order to be a loyal minion to the fallen one, who had convinced her that her life was a worthy sacrifice for anyone else.

Tim was a soldier. He understood it. He understood that selflessness.

But he could not accept it from Urdu.

She had paid such a terrible cost for all of it, and there was no divine intervention for her, nothing that would come down and make her better. She had been an acceptable loss to everyone but Sam and himself.

There was still so much he did not know, though he was beginning to piece it together from the nightmares that woke her up screaming in pain, shifting into Lucifer, wings dismembered, eyes still unseeing.

And aside from those nightmares and the first day they had found her and brought her home, she hadn't said a word. It had been a week, and she had barely made any progress in healing. Urdu's right arm was still shattered under that cast, her body covered in bruises and scars. He suspected that her lack of healing and general deficit of power had to do with the fact that her horns were gone. Just broken shards of bone where her source of power had once curved over her ears.

Sam had climbed back into bed several hours ago, each one of them on one of Urdu's sides, laying with her. Tim brought himself out of his own thoughts and found her watching him with a sad expression on her face. "Urdie is going to be alright, right?"

"Yes Sammy." Tim sighed softly, reaching out to rub her shoulder, just holding all three of them together for a long moment. "She's home now. We'll figure it all out."

"You need a break now, Tim. I have her." Sam nodded and pressed her face into Urdu's hair, which was so much shorter than it had been. Tim didn't even think they could get it in a braid if they wanted to, the white hair only about chin length on the demon. It was a jagged cut, looking like they had done it out of quick necessity. It bothered Tim to realize that he wasn't sure if the braid had meaning to Urdu, if growing her hair was a sign of strength. Or if she had just preferred it long. It bothered him to know how much he didn't know about his mate. Like something as simple as taking care of her, and if they were doing it right.