Hello there! Thanks for clicking on this story :) I have read all of the Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices, but this is my first fan fiction for one of them. It just kinda popped into my head. So, yeah. Hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, as I am not Cassandra Clare. Didn't see that one coming! I also edited an image I found online to use as the cover.
Tessa had always hated deja vu. The sense in the back of her mind that she had been there, done that, witnessed the event before. And it was almost always a bad sense associated with a bad memory.
This time, the memory revolved around an old man with blue eyes on his deathbed. She had her head on his shoulder in the simplest show of affection as a silent figure in parchment robes broke the silence with his violin. She remembered the old man closing his blue eyes for the last time. How a hand had closed around her heart and she had fled, seeking solace from her terrors.
One by one, everyone she knew and loved began to fade and leave, Tessa helpless as to only watch as generations of her family left before she did. It never got easier. At least, with the Iron Sisters, she could make her life mean something again.
Until she found Jem, her life was monotonous. When they were reintroduced, it were as if someone had set a fire under her heart. As the years went by, the thought in the back of her mind grew. The thought that he was now mortal, and she would lose him just like everyone else.
She was losing him too soon. Not to a fatal wound, but to cancer. The disease that has no complete cure.
Tessa had sat beside his bed through many nights, hoping, praying that he would pull through. He always did.
But this time, the third bout of lung cancer had taken its toll. She could see it in his eyes. He knew this time was different.
Tessa was still working on believing it.
Now, the deja vu was back, hitting her over and over as she watched his frail lungs take air in and out in a slow pattern. She remained unchanged on the outside, but on the inside, her soul was weary. Her heart was about to break, shattering what was left of her resolve, with no one left to pick up the pieces. For him, however, she remained strong.
A man with silver hair lay in the hospital bed in front of her. A cannula wrapped around his nose and head, a monitor keeping track of his slowing heartbeat. A white sheet was pulled up to his chest.
Tessa remembered one night when the white sheet was spotted with blood. The way the black haired, blue eyed boy had held his silver haired brother's shoulders as coughs wracked his slim frame.
His hair was just as silver now as it had been before. His wrinkled hand was wrapped carefully around her soft one, his fingers still long and slender after the passing time. She was the only one with him in the stark white room.
It was night outside, stars shining faintly above the glow of the city lights. The hospital was relatively quiet, leaving the young woman and the old man together in the silence.
"Tess." His soft voice awoke her from her memories.
"Hi," she whispered, clutching his hand with both of hers. His silver eyes glittered in the white light. The once black marks, faded with time, seemed to dance on his skin. "How are you feeling?"
He shrugged his shoulders, rustling the starchy hospital gown. "I've got you and Will. I'm alright."
Tessa sucked in a breath. "It's just me, James."
James shook his head slightly. "He's here. Standing in the corner. Stupid grin and all, just like at our wedding."
Tessa looked to the corner of the room, swearing she saw the air change, but nothing was there. She longed to see the blue eyed, black haired boy that had held her entire heart. Will had appeared for a moment at her and Jem's wedding, but maybe now, he only wanted to be there for his waning brother.
"Yeah, I see him," she lied softly, turning her attention back to Jem.
His eyes were affixed to the corner of the room, as if he were having a conversation with Will through his gaze. Perhaps he was. Perhaps he was just imagining that Will was there out of need for comfort. Wither way, Tessa had no idea.
He smiled slightly and turned his head towards Tessa. "He's not happy about my going, but he understands that there is nothing to be done."
Tessa bowed her head as tears filled her eyes.
"Tess," he said quietly and gently lifted up her chin with his long fingers.
"Sorry," she replied and wiped tears from her eyes. "Sorry. I'll be alright."
"Exactly. You will be. Over a century is longer than any couple gets. And I have been grateful for every single moment that I have spent with you in my life."
She took a deep breath. "As have I," were the words that flowed from her mouth.
Jem grinned and grabbed something that lie in the bed next to him. He pressed a small Ipod into her hands, which she looked at confused.
"Before I got sick, I recorded a few songs for you in case there came a day where I could no longer play," he explained.
She opened the device and clicked the music icon, staring blankly at the three unnamed songs that were listed.
"I love you," he whispered to her as her fingers hovered over the play button.
"I love you too. Now and forever, James Carstairs." She hit the play button.
At first it was quiet. Then Jem's violin broke through, filling the room with a beautiful melody. It slowly crescendoed until it hit the climax of the piece, long, yet fast in a minor key. Tessa closed her eyes and listened as the climax ended and the song began to drop off, as quietly as it started. The next piece was upbeat and faster, making her smile. The gesture pressed tears out of her closed eyes.
The last piece was slow and quiet the whole way through. She could hear the passion in every note he played, as if every single one was a letter, spelling out how much he loved her. In time, that piece ended as well, returning the room to its unbearable silence.
Tessa turned off the Ipod and sat motionless in the chair. But it was too quiet. She took a moment to figure out why it was so deafeningly quiet, so lonely in the room. When she realized it, a wave crashed over her.
The monitor had flatlined, no longer beating with Jem's pulse. He lay motionless in the bed, his hand still intertwined with hers.
She was struggling to feel, to breathe, to blink. She was numb.
When the nurses rushed frantically into the room, Tessa was staring blankly at the wall.
They tried to pull her away from his frozen form, but his hand was clamped onto hers.
He would not let her go.
She did not want him to.
When they did finally tug his stiff hand away, she could feel the break in her heart as more silent tears rolled down her cheeks. It was now she that was struggling to breathe, as if the shattered pieces of her heart had pierced her lungs.
A nurse escorted her down the hall with soothing words and handed her a cup of water.
She remembered staring at the water and the small ripples it made in the paper cup as her hand shook when she brought it up to her lips. Tessa tried to calm her breathing, to mentally put her shattered heart back together. An image of Jem's body with a white sheet over it crossed her mind and she knew that she would not be able to handle a second funeral. It would be the end of her.
Instead, she set down the cup and walked out of the hospital, bound for the Clave.
A week and a half later, Tessa stood on Blackfriar's Bridge with an urn in her cold palms. It was made of a dark green jade and sat comfortably against her chest. She did not want to think too much about what was in it.
Since he was no longer technically a member of the world of shadows, the Clave had let Jem be cremated, Tessa keeping his ashes to do with as she pleased. The family had been notified and all came for a final goodbye before the flames engulfed Jem's body. There were many tears that day, none of them shed by Tessa. She felt guilty for not acting like she should have been, but she simply couldn't. She was still numb, still silent. It took the urn being placed in her hands to finally get closure and unlock the barred gates to her heart.
That night, she wept as if she never had before in the safety of her own home. Church was the only witness to her crumbling and rebuilding after she realized that she had to go on with her life.
Tessa opened the lid to the urn and placed it on an old stone bench that sat beside her. Her eyes scanned over the bridge. The connection across that water that had let her and Jem connect themselves for so many years.
"We are dust and shadows," Tessa whispered, gray eyes turning down to the grayish black powder in the urn. "I will be forever yours, James Carstairs." With those words, each struck like a chisel into the rock inside her chest, she lifted the urn over the side of the bridge and tipped it.
The gray particles flitted like snowflakes over the bridge, past the red and white paint, disappearing into the River Thames below.
Tessa stared at the water for a matter of minutes before pulling the urn back over and sitting down on the bench beside her. She was concealed from normal human view as she recapped the urn and placed it next to her. The cold stone from the bench seeped into Tessa's jeans as she reached into her pocket for the I-pod.
Once again, she let Jem's violin fill her weary soul with hope and love. Across the way, she caught sight of a young couple walking down the bridge, hand in hand. Tessa wondered if she and Jem had ever looked like that. The sight brought a small smile, tugging incessantly at the corners of her mouth.
Gradually, the music ended. And then it was silent.
I hope you guys liked it :) I do ship Wessa, but only a little less than Jessa. If you could, please leave a review. I need to know if I wrote this okay and if I should attempt writing more TID stuff in the future. Thanks for reading!