Hey everyone! So, I know many of you are reading/reviewing/following Institue Prep, and I want to thank you guys for the attention. I recently finished reading John Green's The Fault In Our Stars, which was an amazing book. I would recommend it to anyone. Then I had an idea that went like 'What if this was Tessa and Will?' and wa-lah, this story was born! This is sort of a TID and FOS mash-up, with the plot of FOS but the characters of TID, with some mixing up from yours truly. Enjoy!

And yes, I am going to be working on Institute Prep along with this story. ;)

I cross the street, not bothering to look both ways. I can't hear a single car coming in either direction in this deadbeat neighborhood. Nonetheless, I try to cross quickly, but my oxygen tank begs to differ. I bet you can picture this scene. Some poor teenage girl, who usually receives pitying stares every time she leaves the house because of this monstrosity that I have lug on a cart behind me. But I don't care anymore. After all, I live and let live.

The library is open, as always. The librarian looks up when she sees me wrestling through the door. She smiles and waves, pointing to a room on the second floor. I'm here so often that this signal can mean only one thing; Jem's beat me here, and he's already up in the music room. I mouth a thank you to her as I decide to brave the stairs. There's some sort of finality amongst cancer patients in using the stairs; after all, at the hospital, they ride you up to your death room in the elevator.

I step into the music room after ten minutes of panting up the stairs. When I step into the room, Jem is already seated on a window bench, hounding away at the violin. I walk over to him and set my stuff down next to him.

"Jem" I say. His eyes, or eye rather, are closed and his music is loud enough to drown out any outside noise. "Jem" I say again. No response. "Jem, would you stop that infernal racket!" I shout as I close my hands around the top strings of his violin. He starts and then opens his eye. Once he realizes it's me, his face breaks into a grin. "Tessa" he grinned.

Jem is like me in many ways. He has cancer too, albeit in his eyes instead of his lungs. He tells me the story sometimes, of how he found out about his eye cancer. But that's a story I'll share another time. Anyhow, the cancer infected his left eye so badly that they had to take it out when he was twelve. He didn't let that stop him from continuing his passion for music. His music is his life. He still played the violin and even learned to play the piano after his surgery. This kid is literally a work of art.

"Now that I know that you're not going deaf" I reply sarcastically.

"Sorry T, but you know about my one true love, the violin" he mocked.

"Yeah, you guys are my OTP" I reply, rolling my eyes at him.

"Oh stop it. So how are you doing today?" he asked.

"Just grand. My lungs aren't drowning in fluid, thanks for asking" I said, my voice gentling. "How about you?"
"Meh" he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"What does 'Meh' mean?" I asked, mimicking his movements.

"It means that the doctors did a PET scan on my other eye over the weekend. I have to have my right eye taken out too, because some of the cancer is coming back, and the nerves in that eye are damaged anyways."

"James" I said, reaching out to set a hand on his arm.

"It's okay Tessa. I can already play the piano with my eyes closed, but relearning the violin is going to be trickier."

We stay silent for a minute, lost in our own thoughts.

"Cancer's a bitch" I say, not knowing what else to add.

"Tell me about it."

We sit in silence for a few more minutes, the spring sun slowly setting

"I'll be right back" I say suddenly. "I'm going to go look for a book to read while I keep you company for the next hour or so."

"Okay. Oh, and I hope you don't mind that I invited my friend Will today. We've been neighbors for a while and he's obsessed with libraries and books like you are. I think you guys might get along well."

I rolled my eyes again, but this time when my back was turned away from him. Jem reminded me of my mother sometimes, who insisted that I go out more and try to make friends. She put me in a support group last year for kids with cancer, but that didn't end so well. The guy who ran the program was this snarky old man who had leukemia when he was in his twenties. You would think that someone who had cancer might be able to understand fifteen teenagers who had the same condition, but you couldn't be more wrong. The only good thing that came out of it was Jem, and after a lot of begging to both of our parents, we managed to drop out of the group under their good grace. But in turn, they made us promise to keep meeting up with each other, and that's how our Wednesday meetings came to be. I don't mind; Jem's always good company. He taught me the basics of the piano, and he's read many of the books that I throw at him every few weeks. Well, at least he says he reads them.

Since I have no desire to trek back down to the main floor of the library, I roam the fiction shelves right outside the music room. I walk idly amongst the shelves, but I'm convinced my feet are ahead of my mind, because they pause right in front of the books whose authors' last names begin with D.

Dickens. Of course. There are still a bunch of his novels that I haven't read, but I'm in the mood to re-read something. As I am debating which book to bring back with me, A Tale of Two Cities comes flying out of the shelf. I yelp and back away. There are no more books flying off the shelf, so I slowly look into the spot to see what had caused the book to fly. I'm met with a pair of very blue eyes, which disappear the second I look into them. 'Okayyy' I think, shrugging and bending to pick up the book. I guess I'm re- reading A Tale of Two Cities for what seems like the billionth time. I stand up and turn around, and I nearly run right into a stranger.

For the second time in the span of two minutes, I yelp. The stranger holds my arms so I don't topple over backwards as I crash into him. He looks down onto my face, his voice husky as he says "I'm sorry." He's definitely not from around here are the first words in my mind. There was an accent laced into his already sexy voice, though I couldn't quite place it. But my thoughts come short as I look into his face.

He's tall, for starters, hovering just a few inches over me. He has this black, unkempt hair that feel neatly into his very blue eyes. The same blue eyes that peeked through the bookshelf a minute ago.

"Hey, you're the one responsible for the flying book" I say, slipping out of his grasp.

He smiles before he says "That's why I left that side of the shelf; so I could apologize for nearly molesting you with a book. And then I knock you over again. Some gentleman I am."

I wave him off. "It's cool" I say.

He looks around me at the oxygen tank sitting in the small cart. He raises an eyebrow and before I get a chance to explain, he says "Let me guess, cancer?"

I nod. "Hmmm, very good. I believe that you currently have a -1 point balance in my book. You've redeemed yourself a little with the right guess. But how did you know?"

"Because I'm no different" he says, lifting up the right leg of his jean to reveal a prosthetic limb.

"Oh"

"Yeah, osteosarcoma." He paused. "How rude of me" he added.

"Uh?"

"I didn't introduce myself. I'm William Herondale" he said, holding out his hand.

"I'm Theresa Adele Gray. But call me Tessa."

"Pleased to meet you, Theresa Adele" he said, shaking my hand. William Herondale. Why does that name sound so familiar….

"Wait, are you the same Will that's meeting James Carstairs here today?" I blurted out.

He nodded. "I presume you are the Tessa Gray he insisted that I meet. It's nice to meet you. Shall we?" he finished, gesturing towards the music room.

"I.. uhhh…yeah" I stammer. This is the first (most likely the last) time that someone this beautiful has paid attention to me. I know we usually don't use beautiful to describe boys, but trust me, Will was beautiful. A fictional hero sort of beautiful. I shake my head. There is no way that I am going to fall for a boy when I'm not going to be around long enough to make something out of it. It's harsh, but it is what it is. "What book were you going to read?" I asked, trying to ignite a conversation.

"Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. I've been trying to pick up American Literature, but these authors were just goddamn awful. I prefer European writers."

"Are you European?"

"Yes" he chuckled.

"Where in Europe?"

"Ever heard of Wales?"

"I'm American, not ignorant"

"And the beautiful girl has a sharp edge. I'll have to bear that in mind next time we hang out."

I open my mouth and close it stupidly. How the hell am I supposed to respond to a statement like that? Fortunately, we entered the music room at that point. Jem was at the piano now, playing some melancholic tune.

"Good grief, as if we don't have enough reasons to be melancholy anyways" whispered Will, mirroring my thoughts. I watched as he walked over to Jem and tapped him on the shoulder. Jem stopped playing immediately and stood up, grinning at Will like crazy.

"Oh, so you respond right away when he shows up, but when I arrive, it takes several shouts and a confiscated violin to get you to talk to me. " I say sarcastically.

Now it was Jem's turn to roll his eyes. "I see you've met Will. I wish I could carry the introductions out further, but I actually just got a call from mom, who wants to take me to the mall or something lame like that. My point is, I have to go. Have fun though. Will, are we still up for World War Z tomorrow?"

"Course Jem. Your place at 3?"

"See you then. See you next week Tessa" Jem added before he walked out of the room.

"See you too" I muttered as he left. Will laughed lowly.

"What?"

"You remind me a little of Rose from the Titanic. Bold, brash, pretty and charming."

"Thanks. I guess?"

He looked closely at her face before he said "You've never seen the Titanic, have you?"

I shook my head. I knew it was a classic, but romance movies sickened me.

"We should watch it" he said.

"What?"

"For a girl who has decent taste in literature, you sure do ask a lot of stupid questions. I said that we should watch it."

"You're really going to hang out with some girl you met ten minutes ago?"

"Theresa Adele I am trying to be nice. Don't aggravate me."

I shrugged and gave in. "Okay, when?"

"Like right now. Do you have any place to be?"
I shook my head again. In hindsight, it probably wasn't my smartest decision. There was a chance he could be a serial killer or something like that, albeit that chance was low.

"Excellent. Come on, Theresa Adele. Let me take you to Herondale manor."

Let me know what you think!