The screams were jagged and cut through the Institute like a blade.
At the first, Will was wrenched from sleep in a sickening instant. He lay there until his uncontrollable shaking became too much to bear, and he slid onto the cold wooden floor.
The screams continued, and he pressed his palms to the floor, pushing against it with all his strength. The futile gesture seemed ironic to him in his helplessness, and he fought the urge to throw his fist against the wall until something, anything, shattered. A sob spilled into one of the screams, and he grabbed at his hair, shuddering against the bed as his chest grew even tighter.
Jem, he thought as a course of instinct, and found that the ache deep inside grew bloody with the word. Jem was gone. Jem couldn't run his cool hands over Tessa's hair and soothe her, coax her into herself with music. Will couldn't either, but he didn't have death as an excuse. He had tried in the first nights, struggling to hold onto her hands and she rippled through different forms and screamed at him to leave. Jem is gone, she would moan, I can't do this to Jem. Thus, Will had left, because he couldn't do that to Jem either. Eventually, he had stopped coming at all. In the light of day, Tessa would smile weakly at him as she passed him in, touch his shoulder in sorrow, and turn away. He would find Sophie at night as she was finishing her chores, silently lending a hand and listening to her halting report on her patient. Tessa wasn't eating. Tessa wasn't sleeping. Tessa was sitting in front of the fire, stroking the violin with her fingertips and watching the flames. The screams came most nights, after Sophie had begun to drug Tessa to sleep. There was no peace in the sleep, but Henry insisted that without it, Tessa would not live.
Will opened his eyes to find his hands bleeding. Crescent shaped punctures sat across his palms. Mechanically, he stood and walked to the basin, cleaning the cuts in the icy water. Awkwardly, he tried to wind a strip of cloth around his hands. He had never bandaged his own injuries, and the wrappings were loose and clumsy. He needed Jem, his parabatai, who would have laughed and started over, fixing Will's hands with a practiced touch.
In a moment, he was dressed and armed, shrugging on a winter jacket and boots. The hallways were empty of everything but the endless screams. By the time he had opened the door and ventured out into the night, the howls of the wind seemed as agonized as Tessa's screams. He shoved his hands into his pockets, head down as he waded through the icy snow on the streets. London was asleep, and the chill of the air seemed only to stifle every inch of life. By the time he reached the graveyard, he was numb.
The London Common Church Cemetery was lined with a fresh blanket of snow, cloaking the rocky ground. Will found it strangely beautiful, a welcome change from the bitterly cold and icy cracked ground of the preceding weeks. He wandered down to the end of the row, where he knew Jem's stone to be. Every marker was covered in snow, just ripples in the white field. He knelt, knees wet and cold, and brushed his fingers along the top of one of these ripples. The stone was not Jem's, it was that of a fifteen-year-old boy who had died in a factory fire. The stone was hand-hewn and barely legible, the last gift of some grieving mother who had probably bankrupted herself with this meager memorial. Will sat back, breathing on his fingers to warm them, and contemplated the stone. It disturbed him, somehow, and he found himself scooping up more snow to recover it, to leave the boy safe under this peaceful blanket.
Jem's stone was several ripples down, a silver-laced granite monument with his name and years, covered in delicate, barely visible runes. Will's eyes rested on the one he himself had carved, the parabatai rune. He scrubbed his face with his hands, trying to hold back the hot tears. With a few deep breaths, he had forced them deep down again, where the pain lingered in his chest instead of leaking out his eyes. He blinked, eyes clearing, and laid his hand on the parabatai rune. The memories of Jem in his last days flashed through him, images of the Silent Brothers leaving, the coughing, the blood, the girl sitting beside him for hours, he himself tearing through the streets to try and track down just a little more opium... The last morning. The quiet as they all sat around his bed and said goodbye, when they stopped trying to heal him and just stayed as he struggled for his last hours of life, and then let go. His eyes on Will, clearly saying one last thing: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Will tried to fight away the memories, pressing his hand harder onto the stone. He felt the rune cutting into his skin, and pressed harder.
"Will."
The voice startled him enough to drop his hand and leap to his feet before he registered that it was only Charlotte. He dropped his gaze to the parabatai mark now imprinted on his palm, not meeting her eyes. He felt her hand on his arm, and hunched his shoulders.
"What are you doing here, Charlotte?"
She took his hands and rubbed them between hers, and he finally looked up at her, wrapped in a scarf and a hat, warm eyes fixed on him.
"I couldn't sleep, so I went to find you, but your rooms were empty. I knew you'd come here."
She lifted a hand to his face, brushing away the tears that had broken through at last and were sliding down his cheeks. He brushed at them angrily with the sleeve of his coat.
Charlotte dropped her arms, and looked down at Jem's stone. She bit her lip, and spoke so quietly that Will could barely hear her.
"We're all going to be alright, you know."
Will sagged, his voice rough, "I promised him I'd take care of her. I swore we'd get by, get better. By the Angel, Charlotte, he wasn't supposed to die. I was supposed to go out first, in some dramatic rooftop chase. He was the one who was to stay behind and pick up the pieces, sew everyone back together. I'm no good at this, Charlotte. I don't know- I don't -"
His voice broke he wrapped his arms around himself. Charlotte hovered, unsure what to do.
"What would Jem have wanted?"
Will let out a slow breath, carefully keeping his voice steady, "I don't know. I think... I think he'd want me to sit with her, and tell her comforting things, be kind and gentle... Charlotte, I'm no good at those things."
She held his eyes, "You think that Jem doesn't know that? Jem wouldn't want you to be him. Will, you never could be him. Jem is gone-" her breath caught, but she continued, "The world will never have another Jem. Don't deprive the world of a Will as well."
"Tessa doesn't need a Will." His voice was numb.
She grabbed his chin, making him look at her, "She doesn't need the boy who loves author's words and other worlds? The boy who fights till the very end for those he loves? The one who rescued her from Mortmain at his own peril?"
He nodded slowly, soaking in her words.
Charlotte wrapped her arms around him and embraced him fiercely, murmuring into his ear, "He'd want you to try."
As she stepped back, he looked at her again.
"Charlotte! You can't be out like this!"
She looked startled, then laid her hands on her belly, "Oh, him? He doesn't mind."
Will took her arm and began dragging him toward the gate, "You'll freeze! Henry will put me through hell if anything happens to either of you."
Charlotte laughed, and the sound seemed to break something in the moonlit graveyard, "On the contrary, I have heat enough for two. Besides, Henry doesn't do anything I tell him not to do."
Will groaned, eyes falling on the single uncovered stone one last time, and walked her back to the Institute.
Will hovered by the door of Tessa's room, watching Sophie gently shake the unconscious girl awake. She was coated with a sheen of sweat, her face twisted in horror even in her dreams. He swallowed, and Sophie turned toward him with a sorrowful smile. Tessa struggled as Sophie continued to shake her, thrashing and moaning, years running down her cheeks. Sophie cradled her face, trying to pull her up. Tessa's eyelids fluttered, and she fought her way to consciousness.
"Jem…" she groaned, her voice ragged and rasping. Her eyes focused, and she locked eyes with Sophie. The realization came every time she woke - that Jem was truly gone and truly never coming back. Will saw the grief transform her face for an instant, and felt a stab of pain in his chest. He shifted on his feet, and the floorboards creaked. Tessa's head snapped toward him, and her face crumbled. She hates you, Will thought, she can't even look you in the eyes. He wanted to step away, to spar, to run, but his eyes flicked to Sophie, who nodded encouragingly.
"Tess…" He tried, stepping forward. She turned away, burying her face in her hands. He stepped closer, voice imploring, "Tessa. Tess - I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
She looked up between her fingers, stifling a sob, "It's not… why are you sorry, Will? It's not your fault. You didn't do anything."
He sank beside her on the bed, both of them staring at the icy window, "Exactly! I didn't do anything. I could have looked further, robbed Mortmain… by the Angel, I could have traveled to China to get it - I could have-"
She interrupted him, her voice louder and rougher, "I didn't mean that. Stop, Will."
He fell silent, but his face was still agonized, and he rubbed his hand on the back of his neck violently.
"Stop!"
She forced the last word out so hard her voice broke, and she winced in pain. He looked at her, at her sweaty, tangled hair, her feverish cheeks, the hollowness in her eyes. Her legs were still tangled in the sheets, and she was turning thin in all the wrong places. His hand hovered in the air, about to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes. She pulled away, eyes falling to the floor.
"You did enough, Will. You did what Jem wanted. But, you have to understand, I can't be around you."
He tried to break in, to meet her eyes, to break out of this shell of grief and numbness.
"Tess..."
"You need to leave." Her voice was low but clear and sure.
Will looked up at Sophie, whose forehead was creased. She lifted her shoulders helplessly.
"I'll show him to the door," She said quietly, and touched Will's shoulder. He stood up, not looking at her as Sophie walked him to the door. Will waited just outside it, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders stiff. She shifted in the doorway and bit her lip, then slowly closed the door and turned away.