The sound of a piercing scream jolted Magnus awake. Dressed in just flannel pyjama bottoms, he leapt out of bed and dashed into the living room to determine the origin of the sound.

Tessa was curled up on the mattress he had provided for her by the window. Dressed in just a nightgown, she looked smaller than ever, her hands fisted around the thin blanket she had brought with her. Her eyes were still shut, but tears streamed down her face in rivers, she writhed back in forth as though she was in agony, tossing her head back and forth. From her lips came another scream, but this time it was a word: Will.

Magnus dropped to his knees as the scream broke off into bitter sobbing, and shook Tessa awake. "Tessa, Tessa," he murmured. "Please wake up."

It took a while, but eventually Tessa opened her eyes to reveal grey-blue orbs swimming with tears. "M-Magnus?" she stammered.

"Shhh," Magnus soothed.

Tessa's eyes slid shut again, and deep sobs began to wrack her body. "Will," she whispered.

Magnus' arms went around her, and he held her close to him as she wept, her tears wetting his bare chest.

"The first one is always the hardest," he murmured.

It was some time before Tessa was able to form coherent words again. "The first?"

"The first one you love who dies. It gets easier, after."

Tessa broke down sobbing again, and looked up at him. "I can't," she whispered. "I can't even imagine continuing after this. It hurts so much – "

"It always does." Magnus' hands stroked her hair gently, and he began to rock her back and forth. "It will always hurt. But life continues."

"Not normal life!" With a sudden flare of fiery temper, Tessa shook herself free of Magnus' arms, her voice rising. "Not an ordinary life! Human lives end, and put them out of their misery! But I am not human! I will carry this pain until the end of time!" She suddenly stopped, and whispered, "I am never going to change."

Magnus watched her as she broke down again, the sudden burst of temper gone. There was no easy way of realizing it: the terrible burden of immortality. The realization that everything you saw, touched, loved, every last person, tree, and creature would die, and you would not, and just keep existing, untouched by the years, as the world around you morphed and transformed. Everything would change and become unrecognizable, and there you would be, just there, continuing, enduring, forever. And as that forever continued, as you watched the world tear itself down and build itself up again, the memory of those you had loved who were lost to you would endure too, constantly a source of pain.

Some mortals opined that Magnus was possessed of a very special gift. Magnus would not have wished it on his worst enemy.

His arms went around her again. "It gets easier," he promised. "It gets better, if only you carry on."

Tessa clung to him, sobbing into his neck. "I am seventy-six years old," she stammered. "I look like I am twenty-one. I am unnatural." She sounded almost bewildered through her pain. "But that never mattered to me. I was able to accept the way I was, to know that I wasn't like everyone else, just as long as – he – was next to me."

Magnus knew how she felt. He remembered his first love, back in the 18th century. He remembered how they had laughed and loved, remembered their kisses, a memory grown sweet with time. He remembered how his love had died. It had taken decades to build his heart back up again until it was whole. And he had never really been the same afterwards.

"Such is the curse of being immortal," he whispered into her ear.

"I don't want it." Her voice was muffled. "What is there to continue on for?"

"There is Jem."

At the sound of his name, she stiffened. Magnus continued to hold her close.

"Jem, too, is continuing," he murmured to her. "The world changes, Tessa, and it leaves those who are mortal behind. But you must continue, for him, and for yourself."

"Jem," she whispered. That one word contained so much emotion, so much love, that it made Magnus ache.

"You will see him," he whispered. "Again and again. You must continue."

Tessa's sobs gradually subsided. "Don't leave me," she whispered.

Magnus would not have dreamed of it. They slid sideways, still holding each other close, and fell asleep on the mattress by the window. The last thing Magnus saw before he fell asleep was the stars in the Paris night – cold, unfeeling, and forever.