"The Angels Return"
Chapter 1: Tessa
I cried even more when he left after everything was more at peace. I never told Will because I wanted to spare his feelings. I knew that he was as broken up about Jem leaving to become a Silent Brother as I was. I missed him. In a way I felt that this was worse than him dying. Just knowing he is alive but never getting to see him but once a year. On the Blackfriars Bridge. That one day is just a fortnight away. It would be the first time I saw him since he left after everything that happened, with Mortmain and his automatons, and Jem's new Silent Brotherhood. I was excited to see him, but a part of me still feared that I would not like what he had become. He wasn't Jem anymore. He was Zachariah. Although, still knowing he was alive brought me some comfort.
It was afternoon and everyone was about to gather for lunch. I stepped out of my room in my evening dress, while trying my hardest to avoid looking towards Jem's old room. I swiftly made my way to Will's room to see whether or not he had already gone to the dining room. I softly knocked on the door and pushed it open gently. He was there, sitting on his bed reading a book, "Romeo and Juliet."
"Shakespeare never seemed to me to be your preferred choice of literature," I said.
His head jerked up, his face held an expression of mock surprise.
"Tis tis, I thought you'd know be better than that by now Tess, being my fiancé' and all." he said.
"I do know you better." I said. I walked over to him and plopped down beside him. "Which is why I am curious to know why your reading it."
"Well if you insist on distracting me then I guess I must tell you."
"Please do." I said. Loving the chance for a distraction. Will was my biggest one. He could make me laugh like no one else could. And make me forget, even if just for a moment, all of the thoughts that constantly tugged at my mind.
"Okay. but don't say I didn't warn you." He stood up and faced me, straightening his back and clearing his throat. As he gathered himself, I took him in. Looking him up and down. He was wearing his usual dress, a suit, dark gray that brought out his stunning blue eyes. He was flashing a smile and was lifting his hand to move some strands of hair from over his eyes.
I quickly stood up and beat him to it, and he flashed one of his heart warming smiles. I smiled back, kissed him lightly on the cheek and sat back down.
He stood there for a second, looking me up and down lovingly. Then he cleared his throat and started to speak very dramatically, as if he were beginning to narrate a play.
"Romeo and Juliet is a classic Shakespearean tale that introduced the world to the theory of "love at first sight." he said. "I will admit that the first time I read it, I thought that it was a simple love tragedy, that Shakespeare wrote simply to contradict the fairytale endings of "happily ever after" because of his tragic love for men over women. He paused for a moment, and looked as if he was momentarily in deep thought. After a few seconds of silence had passed, he continued. "Then I met you."
"Are you trying to say that I led you to the love of men over women?" I said teasingly. "If so I think we need to have a very detailed discussion."
"No Tess, I am very sure that I am more suited to women, but only on one do I choose to rest my eye."
"I am afraid that I do not have the slightest idea of whom you are referring Will." I said with even more playfulness in my voice. Will smiled with a hint of mischief in his eyes. He took a step closer and got on his knees in front of me, taking both of my hands in his own..
"I do believe that you know exactly to whom I am referring to Tess." he said. And then all the playfulness left his expression and he became very serious. "I love you Tess, and I don't know whether or not "love at first sight" really exists, but I do know that I love when I see your face or your face in a book, when I kiss your lips and never want to stop. I love your laugh and your smile, I might have fallen in love with you the first time I saw you, or the second. But I know that I love everything last thing about you. I guess in a way I can relate to the book, because just like Romeo I couldn't live without my Juliet."
I sat there for a moment, half surprised and half entranced. Here was Will one of the boys I loved most, sitting her telling me how much he loved me and that I was his Juliet. My heart swelled and at that moment I wanted nothing more than to be close to him, in every way possible. I couldn't even find the words to respond. So I just took his face in my hands and bent down to kiss him.
His lips were warm and full of passion. He started to kiss me with more force, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled us both to our feet. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him as if I was never going to stop. Then there was a firm knock on the door. We both jumped and pulled apart as Sophie peeked into the room.
"Oh, sorry to interrupted." she said.
"No Sophie it's fine," I said
"Speak for yourself," Will spoke softly into my ear. I let out a little soft breath of laughter.
Sophie, after taking a second to observe them spoke and said, "I was just coming to tell Will to come and join everyone for lunch. Seeing as you were not in your room Tessa, I assumed you were already on your way."
"We are both going to make are way to joining everyone in just a moment Sophie." I said.
"Alright, make it hasty, Charlotte wants to speak to everyone." She said. With that, she looked at us quizzically one more time and then left and shut the door.
"Finally, shall we continue where we left off?," Said Will while bending down to kiss me again. I put my index finger on his lips, blocking his way because I knew that if we continued we would never make it to lunch.
"I think we should hit the pause button on this, at least until after lunch."
"Fine, but you are going to regret missing out on Will time." he said.
"How could I not?" I responded, a grin on my face. "We should really head to the dining room, we still have to tell everyone about the engagement."
"Do you think we should wait a little while?"
"Why?"
"I'm just a little nervous." He responded. "About how they will react, after you were already engaged to Jem." I felt like he immediately saw the pained look on my face and scrambled for the right words. "I...um...I just mean that...everything is starting to feel like its falling back into place, except for the absents of Jem and some others and I don't know if surprising everyone with this news is going to help that."
"So you think that are engagement is going to bring everyone down not make them happy?" I said. "I thought they would be thrilled to have some more good news after everything."
"I know and it is good news, but I think that everyone is still grieving the loss of Jem and I don't think that telling everyone that his fiancé is now engaged again to his parabatai is a very good idea."
"You are making it seem like I'm some dreadful girl who never really was in love with Jem at all!" I said in a raised voice. "And when did this stop you from proposing to me, or declaring your love for me? huh? If you really felt this bad about it you would not have done any of those things! And you know that Jem gave us his blessing and that he wanted us to be together!"
"I do know that" Will responded calmly, but I feel that even though I love you and want to be with you for the rest of my life and that Jem said it was okay, that it is not fair to everyone else to throw this on them as if we have forgotten about him. All I am saying is that I want to give it some time and at least see how everyone is dealing with it. Can you at least do that for me please?" He asked. "It would really ease my mind."
"Fine." I said under my breath. In a way I understood, it did seem like we were just acting as if we have forgotten Jem. It was only about a year since he left, and a year was not long enough to get over someone like Jem. And there was a part of me that felt a little guilty for being with Will like this, but the rest was comforted by the fact the Jem gave us his blessing. It was also not as if me and him could be together, not while he was a Silent Brother. So I made a silent agreement with Will to myself that I would wait.
"I 'm going to join the others for lunch." I said quietly. I got on my tiptoes kissed him lightly on the cheek, and walked out of the room without looking back, and made my way into the dining room.