Authors Note:
Disclaimer: I do not own The Infernal Devices.
Tessa Gray walked through the smoggy streets of New York with her head hung low; her beige, Sherlock Holmes looking coat hung loosely from her shoulders. Cars zoomed past her; a faint mist of dirty city water splashed the bottoms of her dark jeans. She sighed, pulling out the small IPod that she kept in her pocket for moments like this; moments when she couldn't bear life. She slipped the headphones into her ears and continued to walk. Jem was expecting her to be back any moment now. After they had found each other again the two had traveled to New York; they were now currently residing in Tessa's apartment. She smiled woefully at the thought.
She loved Jem; had they been married she would've loved him more than anything in the world. Seeing him after all these years should have been a god send for her; yet, it wasn't. It was strange, the more she saw Jem, the more she missed her Will. The Will who read her to sleep from their favorite novels, the Will who ran from the ducks in Hyde Park, and tucked their children into bed every night, muttering his love and good wishes for them. She missed the Will who was there on their wedding day, swearing his eternal love for her, promising to never so much as glance at another woman; the Will who had stayed true to his promise by mockingly not looked at a single woman the rest of that day.
"Will! Will! I am speaking to you Will! Look at me!" Cecily exclaimed, throwing her fists against her hips angrily.
Tessa laughed quietly. She missed him, she knew that she always would, and no matter if she loved Jem or not, he could never replace Will; they shared too much. Fifty-eight years of happiness, children, memories, and love that could never be replaced. She sniffled, letting a single tear drip from her dreary gray eyes; gray eyes that Will used to say reminded him of his childhood in Wales.
She rounded the corner to her shared apartment, rubbing her damp feet on the welcome mat at the bottom of the staircase, she hastily stomped up the wicker stairs two at a time. Reaching the door she jabbed her key into the knob and twisted it. The room was simple, nothing too extraordinary, except of course for the couch, it was a vintage bright orange, she had purchased it in the 70's when she was trying to be 'groovy,' like Magnus. She giggled, remembering Magnus and herself in those days, they had just returned to New York after traveling the world together. Magnus had always been able to simply blend straight in to the new eras, unlike her, who was still tragically stuck in her Victorian romance. Tessa dropped her key on the tiny side table that stood by the door.
"Jem," she called, "Jem are you here?" There was no reply. Sadly, she waltzed into the kitchen for a snack, as she reached the fridge, she caught sight of a small yellow sticky note with Jem's spirally 19th century handwriting on it:
Magnus called with an emergency, I should be back before dark.
~J
Tessa wadded the note up and tossed it in the waste bin, not wondering what Magnus' emergency was, so many times it was simply that he was out of hair gel, or glitter on a really terrible day. She opened the fridge to see what they had. As the door swung open, and a slight breeze of the frosty air tickled her nose Tessa instantly lost her appetite. She pulled the box out slowly, they were Jem's obviously, and she knew he hadn't meant for it to hurt. Chocolate covered Peeps. Tiny, little, chocolate covered duck-things. It was the last straw; she burst into tears. The salty water dripped down her cheeks and chin, the coolness settling on her collarbone.
It took her a moment to regain her self-control, but when she did, she silently slipped the box back into the fridge and exited the kitchen. She ambled to the bedroom, dropping down to her knees so that she could reach under the bed. Throwing her hands under she felt around until she found a thick, fabricated book; she pulled it out, letting out a long breath. She had never let anyone, even Magnus see this in ages. Cautiously, she lifted the front cover open, revealing a sepia photo of Will, James, Lucie and herself, posing happily as a family for the photo. James was only around ten in the picture, pinning Lucie to be barely five. Tessa smiled, more blue tears beginning to trickle from her eyes. Hesitantly, she reached out a shaking hand, and ran it down the picture of Will, a handsome smirk was plastered across his gallant face.
"I miss you my love," she whispered, before falling on top of the picture, immersed in her sorrow and sobbing.
1938
She hadn't yet opened her eyes, she knew what she would see if she did though. The dark blue canopy of Will and her own marriage bed would be hung high above her; and if she turned only slightly onto her side, her beautiful husband would be laying asleep, his long black lashes curled to perfection. She knew what day it was; somehow she could always feel it. How many years was it today? That was one thing she always seemed to lose track of.
Fifty-nine, she thought suddenly. Fifty-nine wonderful years, she could feel herself smile. She knew what she would do when she got up as well; the same thing she had done every year before. She would get up quietly, careful not to wake Will, and slink swiftly down the stairs to the kitchen. Every year she baked a chocolate cake, even though she hated the dessert herself, it had always been one of Will's favorites; one that he always insisted he would get her to like. She knew that while the cake was baking she would run out into the garden and pick a bouquet of dark-violet pansies and place them in a vase. Then, after she had pulled the cake from the oven, she would wait for him to come down; when he finally did, the two would share the terrible cake, and spend the rest of the day wrapped in each other's arms, happy.
She blinked open her eyes; the dark blue canopy did not hand over her head, and Will was not laying asleep beside her. She lay curled up on her mattress in Magnus' loft in Paris, and Will was dead. This was her first wedding anniversary in fifty-nine years without him. Slowly, she pulled herself up, her heart aching in her chest. Her eyes threatened to tear up; when had she begun to cry so much? She remembered when she first met Will, how she never cried at all; now it was like breathing. She didn't know what possessed her, but she walked quietly into the kitchen, and began to pull the ingredients for a chocolate cake from Magnus' magical cupboards that always seemed to have exactly what you needed, exactly when you needed them. She mixed the cake batter with tears in her eyes, the salty droplets falling into the deep, brown batter. She poured it into a pan and set it in the oven to bake. Slowly, she pulled a coat over her shoulders, and raced down from the apartment to the little flower stand outside Magnus' apartment. She bought a bouquet of those dark-violet pansies Will loved so much; thanking the pudgy seller, she raced back up to the loft, her face buried in the scentless flowers. With still blurry eyes, she placed the flowers in a vase. Then she pulled the cake from the oven and set it at the table.
She cut the cake, setting a large triangle on her plate, and silently cut it with the side of her fork, shoveling it into her mouth. She did not taste the disgusting chocolate taste she had every year; no, she tasted heartbreak, a million of her own salty tears. She tasted her first anniversary without Will. She tasted the first in fifty-nine years.
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