"Chasing relentlessly, I still fight and I don't know why…"
Jem can't remember the last time he's been able to frown, and the action takes him by surprise as he turns to see Magnus beside him, the brief glimpse of dark hair tricking his mind into imagining Will in the warlock's place.
Jem tries his best to smile at his old friend, but the disappointment still shines in his eyes and Magnus murmurs a few words about immortality, words that Jem stubbornly ignores to his best ability. Tessa is just in front of them, running among the flock of ducks that peck at the french fries in her hands, and her laughter makes Jem's heart swell with pain.
Someday, he won't be able to hear that melodious sound.
Someday, he'll be frail and weak, just like he was as a teenager, and his old bones will creak with the weight of his body, a weight Tessa will be burdened with.
Someday, should they have children of their own, he will watch as they cry over his deathbed, telling stories about him with a barely there smile, just like when Will was dying.
And someday, Jem will be long faded into ashes, and just as Tessa roams the world of mortals now, she will do so again, alone until the ends of her days, because Will is the half of her heart that she tries to keep alive, while Jem is the other.
Jem thinks he sees Will again, turning from Tessa, and no, it's only Magnus.
The ache in his heart weighs his shoulders down until he can't even manage a smile, shuffling his feet as they try to catch up with Tessa's fast paced walking, and he wants to grab Magnus by the shoulders and chastise him for lecturing about immortality.
Jem wants to scream at the top of his lungs from the tallest building in the world that Magnus should stop trying to console him with his reassuring words that aren't at all reassuring because, Jem wants to shout, he is not immortal.
Please R&R! ;)