In the two years since he'd first reunited with Tessa on the bridge, Jem had tried to grow more accustomed to all the modern ways of living, and he was nothing if not adaptable. Yet, there was one modern convenience he just couldn't quite master: breakfast-even more specifically, omelets. He'd tried (and failed) before to make the perfect omelet, but today was an exceptional day that brought with it a new chance for victory, and he took the opportunity. After all the practice he'd obtained from his previous failed efforts, making the perfect omelet required a little more than three frustrated, quiet attempts, and when he finally had it on the plate, he proudly poured a glass of milk and set everything on a tray, pulling the legs out and silently padding through his and Tessa's apartment to their bedroom.
Gently, he passed through the doorway and stopped at her bedside, where she slept soundly, dark hair tangled and sticking up in odd places from where she'd let it air dry after her shower the night before. Smiling, he slowly sat on the edge of the mattress, hoping it wouldn't dip too much and wake her, and laid the tray in his lap, content to sit and watch her for a long while as her chest rose and fell with deep, even breaths. It was still a miraculous thing to him, that they'd managed to make a life after so many years apart, that he'd been freed from the Brotherhood at all. Such things were unheard of. Then again, he'd always belonged to a miraculous group of people.
The omelet didn't last long. He'd reluctantly woke her only when he'd known the food wasn't scalding hot, and Tessa had seemed to welcome the interruption of her slumber, offering a lopsided, groggy smile as she'd sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. She'd eaten the eggs with a hunger he hadn't truly witnessed since he'd last seen Charlotte at the dinner table, over a century ago, and Jem tried desperately to ignore the image of the woman and that familiar pang of grief that wormed its way into his happy morning, into this happy moment, into a quirky little memory he'd look back on when days got bad. He tried focusing on Tessa, on her eyes and her smile and the way her hand rested over her abdomen in that way she'd naturally adopted; that made him remember the night before and the conversation they'd had.
The grief pushed farther and demanded to be felt and Jem knew one day soon he'd succumb to it like he always did, for at least an entire day or two, for at least a few solid hours of tears and memories and tight embraces that held Tessa's scent and warmth and kindness. He'd feel it, but she'd help him through it, just as he would always do for her. The sorrow wouldn't overtake him today, though. He felt too much joy for it to be so easily overridden.
Tenderly, he laid his palm over her rounded stomach, lovingly running the pad of his thumb back and forth over the thin material of her shirt, stretched over the firm skin there; Tessa brought a hand up and absently traced a faded rune on his arm.
"It's a good name," she murmured, and in the silence that befell the room he felt a rush of emotion that he suspected he'd always feel, for the rest of his life. But this moment didn't belong to his grief, or his memories, or to the ghosts that lived in his dreams. And so he mustered up the courage to laugh, despite the tears in his eyes, and he swallowed thickly, nodding at her.
"It is," he whispered hoarsely, and she squeezed his hand comfortingly, reassuringly, "William is a great name."
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