Recovery

Drawing

Tim

Tim blinked. He had been lying in bed with Urdu in his arms, Sam having left for a few moments of rest, a half day of being out of the house with her friend Meri. He had zoned out, as he often did while feeling her pull a constant trickle of strength from his energy, her breathing lulling his mind into a half-aware haze.

Urdu had been back with them for a little over a month now, and as she healed physically, Tim knew that he would eventually have to start going back to work, that Knight Corp was managing without him but at a limping pace.

There was still so much still to do.

He had been thinking about her, about the fact that although most of the physical wounds covering Urdu were now gone, her horns had barely grown half an inch and she still hadn't spoken. Though she had been waking more frequently, long enough to eat ravenously, submit to a shower, and then curl back up in bed.

Tim could tell when she was sleeping. Then there were hours when Urdu was merely laying there on her side, awake but unmoving. He didn't know if it was part of healing for her or if it was something else, a sign that things were irreparably broken.

Sometimes Sam and him would give Urdu a few moment's space, but whenever they rejoined her she would latch onto them. At least Urdu believed that they were real now, that this was real.

But now, Tim was suddenly painfully aware that he was alone in bed. He panicked for a moment, sitting up quickly and reaching out for Urdu with his mind, fearing she was gone. Fearing that she had left again or that someone had taken her.

That it had been a mere dream and that she wasn't back.

The smell of her wafted into his awareness, pulling him up onto his feet and out the door and straight into Sam's room where Urdu sat at the desk, scribbling on a piece of paper. Tim grinned for a moment, opening his mouth to comment on the fact that she had regained her eyesight. For a split second, he thought that the one last piece of her which needed to heal had done so.

Then he noticed she had pulled a bandage back over her eyes. There were no wounds, nothing to keep wrapped, other than her blank, unseeing silver eyes.

She was drawing without seeing, and though the sketches spread out on the desk before her didn't have the finished quality her work used to have, they weren't flawed. They looked nearly perfect aside from the fact that she was sketching scenes of people she knew with dark expressions which weren't their own.

Tim frowned as he bent down, picking up an image of Sam with an expression that he could only describe as evil.

"What are you drawing, Urdu?" He whispered softly, shuddering and gathering up the papers then stacking them and putting them to the side. Immediately, Urdu froze and tilted her head towards him.

"Probably nonsense." Urdu's voice was soft, low, and hoarse from disuse as she stopped, putting down the pencil without making a sound. "You were sleeping..."

"I don't sleep, love. I zoned out." Tim took a step closer, and when she leaned her body towards him, he slid his hand to her face, cupping her cheek. "And the art is actually really good...but...everyone looks..."

"It's not them. Sometimes it would fool me. Sometimes I believed...but now, remembering it. I know it was never them." Urdu shrugged and turned to press her face into him, nuzzling him just above his hip.

"How about you draw Sam? Real Sam?" Tim whispered, running his fingers through her hair.

Urdu was silent for a long while before shaking her head. "I can't see, Timothy. How am I supposed to draw her?"