The baby was far too small to possibly be a person. That was Will's first thought. People were larger than that. They had to be. She was small enough she very nearly fit in his hands. He was terrified to hold her like that. He was slightly terrified to hold her at all but he was getting better at supporting and cradling her when Tessa passed her over. She was days old. She wasn't even old enough that you could count it in weeks. Her tiny bit of hair was dark and seemed to grow in all directions at once. He reached down to touch it with just his finger tips. Fine and soft and barely there.
Tessa claimed she wasn't as fragile as she looked but even so, she looked insubstantial, a dream of a person and even if she wasn't that fragile that didn't mean she wasn't vulnerable and precious and breakable. Jem looked up at him without moving. She lay on her stomach against his chest, her tiny hands curled into a fist and her cheek pressed against his breast bone. Jem's hand lying over her back gave credit to Will's suspicion that she could be held in one hand if you were careful. His hand was almost a blanket.
Will worried and fussed and Jem stared at her like she was the one true miracle of the universe. It was how they'd been for the past four days. It was like being trapped under a spell that he never wanted to break.
"Do you need anything?" Will asked and it came out as a whisper.
"No," Jem said just barely shaking his head, his eyes falling back to watch her though she did nothing but sleep, "Sit down."
"Not a blanket?" Will asked.
"Sit with me," Jem said and Will sat down beside him, carefully so he didn't jostle them and Jem used his free hand to pull him. They settled together, shoulder to shoulder and Will slid down a little to match Jem's half slouch that allowed him to balance a baby on his chest. Without looking away from her, Jem leaned his head against Will's. Will let some of his anxiety go as the baby opened her mouth in a half yawn before falling still again. He touched her cheek and she barely stirred. The saying 'sleep like a baby' was a cruel joke on new parents except for moments like this.
She wasn't always so quiet. She was expressive and demanding and for all that Will thought she was too small to seem like a person, she was full of personality. She didn't know that she was little or new or fragile as glass. She wanted to be fed or changed or held, always held. Tessa joked that she wasn't going to learn how to walk until she was seven if they didn't start learning to put her down.
Not that Tessa was any better. Tessa held her close and talked to her about anything and everything. Walking her in slow circles around the house while she wrapped her up in words like they were knit blankets. Right now, Tessa was sleeping. Sleep had become a sort of mad thing that happened at all hours of the day whenever it could be fit in. Will didn't really care. There were worse reasons to be sleep deprived.
"She's definitely yours," Will spoke with his lips against Jem's cheek and he still whispered though it didn't seem to matter once she was asleep.
Jem leaned into him a little bit harder, "Ours."
"I know, that's not what I meant," Will said.
"Ours," Jem repeated leaning his head back and kissing the side of Will's face, almost at his ear.
The little girl had dark brown hair and chocolate brown eyes with a star burst of gold ringing her iris that the nurse had claimed would fade as she got older but both Tessa and Jem maintained was a souvenir of a complicated heritage with too many types of magic in it. She had Jem's colours and Tessa's features but Will understood what he meant when he said, "Ours," in that tone.
"Ours," he conceded and kissed the side of Jem's mouth. He wasn't looking at what he was doing because they were both still watching the baby. Will cuddled in a little closer and ran his fingers over her hair again. He'd never fallen so instantly and painfully in love with another person as he had when she'd blinked those huge strange eyes up at him for the first time. Protective was a word that touched on the sensation in his chest but it didn't come close to matching the magnitude of it. Jem was right, what he had meant about genetics and blood lines didn't matter.
She was his daughter regardless of whose eyes she had inherited.
"Tell me I can be someone's father," Will said turning his face into Jem's neck again.
"I know that you can be someone's father," Jem said.
"I've never been so delightfully terrified in my entire life," Will said, "I can't even find the right piece of poetry for this feeling. I know there is one. Some poet somewhere has managed to put this into words but I don't think I ever will be able to."
Tessa appeared in the doorway and smiled at them. She leaned her head against the door frame and her hair was mussed from her nap and her eyes still had that soft look about them like she wasn't all the way awake. She crossed the room before Will could get up and give her the spot closer to the baby.
She dropped down on his far side and leaned across him to touch her nose to the baby's. Will had thought his heart had melted down as far as it could but that wasn't true. The little girl shifted and wrinkled her nose and forehead while Tessa silently laughed and stayed nose to nose with her for a moment before she retreated a little bit and lay against Will's side to watch as she settled back into sleep.
"Ella," she said and Will blinked a few times and looked at Tessa who said, "She needs a name. Ella is a name for a young woman and a hero and it's something that won't get her laughed out of school," she half laughed and then sobered and said, "If you want."
Tessa watched him with eyes like spring mornings and his mind brought up unbidden memories of his sister's violent last day on Earth but as he closed his eyes that memory was drowned out by all the years before that day. He opened his eyes and slid a little lower down between Tessa and Jem to look at the baby's face and tried to imagine calling her by that name.
He imagined her bigger than she was with friends calling her Ellie and Magnus pretending her didn't know her name and calling her Elanor and Eloise until she crossed her arms and glared. He had a startlingly vivid image of teaching her how to write those letters until she could spell her name on her own with a pencil held in chubby fingers. He imagined tucking her into a giant armchair like Ella had done with him and Cecily and telling her stories.
He looked up at Jem who was gently patting her back while she slept and Jem said, "I like Ella."
"Ella Herondale-Carstairs," he said.
"Ke Xinyi," Jem added. They'd chosen her Chinese name far faster than her English name. It had taken Will a moment to translate it the first time Jem had said it but it meant Joyful Heart and he couldn't think of a better wish for a child to carry through her life. It was a lot of name for such a small person but he had no doubt that she would grow into it.
"She's our daughter," Will said again because he liked the way it sounded.
AN:
I imagine this as being a part of the continuity started by Full Circle but it's context-free enough that you can fit in whatever scenario makes your heart happy.
Ella and gathering her siblings into the armchair (and my general sense of Ella Herondale as a person worthy of naming a baby after) is straight out of smoochiepooh's But I Have Drunk Enough of Life ( s/11125110/1/But-I-Have-Drunk-Enough-of-Life-For-Ella-Herondale) which I recommend if you want to fall in love with a character you've never considered caring about before.
Ke Xinyi is written in characters as 柯心怡 and is pronounced Keh Sin-Yee: Ke is Jem's family name then Heart and Joyful/Happy.
I have been obsessing over Jessa baby names for awhile and in a situation where it is just the two of them her English name would have been Willa not Ella for what I think are obvious reasons. Willa rather than Willow (which I have seen suggested before) because Willow is a very modern name and Willa Cather is an author that Tessa has probably read and I imagine that is where she got the inspiration for a feminine version of William.