Author's Note: Thank you for the reviews! Please enjoy this chapter! Remember, I own none of these characters!

Chapter 12

The rest of the day at the Institute was spent on wedding preparations. The ceremony would be held in the sanctuary, and so Will was charged with the task of placing candles on every available surface of the room. When he was finished, he slipped out of the front door of the Institute and spent the day walking around town, returning just before dinner. No one said anything about the fact that he had been gone most of the day, although he saw Tessa looking over him from across the table, studying him, as they ate. She had to know how he felt, how he couldn't bear the thought her of marrying Jem. When their fingers touched as he passed a basket of rolls to her, he felt a shock go through his body so intensely, it took everything he had within him not to drop the rolls, stand up, and walk away… forever.

But he would see this through. He owed Tessa and Jem that.

When dinner was finished, Jem pulled Tessa down the hallway to the library and Will went upstairs to his room to find that someone had cared enough to collect his dress gear and ready it for the wedding tomorrow. Tomorrow. Yes. By this time tomorrow night, Jem would be married to Tessa.

The mere thought was enough to nearly unravel Will, and so he climbed into bed and pulled the covers up. After a little while he heard Jem walk into his bedroom across the hall and begin to play his violin, filling the hallway with the quiet notes of a love song. While Jem wasn't spending the night with Tessa and wouldn't see her until the wedding, Will knew, he was playing for her.

Despite the awful thoughts in his mind, Will drifted off to sleep quickly, waking up only when the door to his room creaked open.

"Will?" Jem asked. Will rolled onto his side to see Jem standing at the door, dressed in white pajamas, looking like a ghost. "William?"

"Yes?" Will asked. He sat up, letting the blankets fall away as Jem crossed the room. Jem set a glass of something on the bedside table, and climbed into the bed, holding another glass. He took a sip of whatever was in the glass, and then pressed it to Will's lips. Will took a drink as well, swallowing quickly, feeling heat in his throat. Brandy. Straight.

"I'm getting married tomorrow," Jem said lethargically. "You're my best man. It's customary for you to have a drink and spend the night with me before the wedding." Will retrieved the glass from his bedside table, drank it in one swig, then lay down on his back. Jem did the same with his glass and crawled beneath the covers, lying on his side with his hips against Will's left hip. He moved his hand under the covers and rested it on Will's waist, beneath his night shirt. Skin on skin, with nothing between them.

"Congratulations," Will said. Jem smiled and leaned down, pressing his lips against Will's, so soft, sweet, and gentle.

"You'll always be my first love," Jem whispered. "You'll always be my first of a lot of things." His eyes looked dark in the moonlight, so dark, Will could almost pretend they were blue, and if he could pretend that, he could pretend that Jem didn't reek of his drug, like he had taken far more than necessary just to keep himself alive long enough to marry the girl he loved. Will could pretend that Jem was going to live a very long time, and not die long before he should have otherwise.

"I don't want to do this," Will said. "You aren't leaving me. You're just getting married."

"I'm doing more than that. Give me some credit, William. I know I'm doing more than just marrying her," Jem said. He ran his and through Will's hair and kissed him once more, then lay down on his back beside him. Their hands found one another and joined together, palm to palm, wrist to wrist, rune to rune. Jem took a breath that sounded strained and let it out slowly. "Am I being selfish?"

"Selfish?" Will asked.

"She would be better off with someone… healthy. Someone who would give her thirty good years, over a few good months," Jem replied. "I'm going to die and she is going to live with the burden of having loved and lost. Am I being selfish in making myself happy?" Jem's palm felt hot in Will's. His whole body seemed to radiate warmth.

"You are so many things," Will said, "but selfish is not one of them. She loves you, so marry her."

"I love you," Jem whispered. "I'll always love you, Will. You must know that."

"I know," Will said, and Jem pressed his lips to Will's once more.

Will knew he should beg Jem to be good to Tessa but that was a mote point. Jem would be perfect to Tessa. He would be everything to Tessa that Will could not be. He would be her husband, and the man, who, no matter what, she would always see in only a favorable light.

"Thank you," Jem whispered. "Thank you, Will." Will didn't ask why Jem was thanking him. He already knew.

Will and Jem woke up together the next morning and dressed separately before going downstairs to breakfast. At some point, Jem mentioned that the girls were having breakfast together, and so it was only Henry and Gideon who joined Will and Jem for a quiet breakfast in the dining room. They made small talk as they ate, the topics ranging from the weather to Jessamine's betrayal, before Jem tossed down his napkin and cleared his throat.

"Tessa has a trunk in her old room. I was hoping you would help move it into our room," Jem said carefully. "I don't think I'm strong enough to move it, and… I don't want her to be worried." He looked at Will first, then at Henry and Gideon. Our room. Of course, he and Tessa would be sharing a room and a bed after their wedding. They were going to be married in the eyes of everyone in the Institute, and would be treated as such.

"I'll move it," Gideon said.

"Thank you, Gideon," Jem said. The clock chimed ten and Jem looked up at the mantel. "We should go start to get ready, William." Will recalled that the wedding was going to start at noon because Tessa and Jem wanted to get married when both hands on the clock were pointing upwards.

Jem walked out of the dining room under his own power, then reached out and took Will's hand. They went upstairs together and separated, each going into their own rooms to bathe and dress. When that was finished, all that would be left was to wait.

Will laid in his bathtub for a long while, looking up at the ceiling, picturing far off places he would rather be, until he finally got out of the bath tub, dried off, and dressed in his gear. When that was finished, he crossed the hall and knocked on Jem's door.

"Come in," Jem called. Will opened the door and walked in to find Jem already dressed in his pants, but struggling to put each button on his shirt through their corresponding button hole while his hands shook. Will brushed Jem's fingers aside and took over for him while Jem took several shallow breathes.

"You're nervous," Will said.

"It's not every day that a man marries a pretty girl," Jem said. "I've got a right to be nervous, and-"

"She loves you," Will said. He reached the second to the last button from the top and threaded it through the button hole before smoothing the shirt across Jem's thin shoulders. Will stepped over to the bed and retrieved Jem's jacket, which he helped Jem into. Then Jem sat on the bed and Will laced his boots up for him.

"Of course she does," Jem said. "She loves me. And I am to ignore the passion and fire you had with her? I see how you look at her, William. Like she is the ending you have been looking for all along."

"She loves you," Will said.

"But not I alone," Jem said. He gave Will a frown that turned into a small smile. Will shrugged and finished tying Jem's boots, then stood up, as did Jem. The silver haired boy crossed the room and went to his jewelry box, where he retrieved a tiny velvet pouch he brought over to Will. "You're going to need these." He opened the pouch and dropped two gold rings into Will's hand.

"Wedding rings," Will said. He turned the rings over in his hand, studying them from all angles. They were so small, so insignificant. Shadowhunters drew runes on one another's bodies to symbolize their marriage. In the case that someone died or the marriage fell apart, the runes were disfigured, but they never went away, they always remained within the person's skin. By comparison, rings didn't seem nearly as permanent. A marriage was about a test of time; there was no way two gold bands could survive that.

"They're the best we can do," Jem said. He put the rings back into the bag, and tucked them into the upper breast pocket of Will's jacket. "Do you have anything to say to me?" He smiled at Will so earnestly; Will could only shake his head and push the thoughts that invaded his mind to the side. There were so many things he longed to tell Jem, and yet he did not. Down in the drawing room, the clock chimed a quarter to noon.

"We have a wedding to get to," Will said. Jem smiled, got his cane, and offered Will his arm.

"We most certainly do," he said.

The sanctuary was glowing with candles and witch light when Jem walked in with Will. Charlotte was already sitting while Gideon stood at the front of the room, looking over notes and talking quietly with Henry.

"Are we ready?" Charlotte asked. Jem looked at Will and smiled.

"We are," he said.

In the end, Charlotte and Henry sat in the front row of chairs and held hands as Will and Jem stood at the front of the room. Sophie walked in first, dressed in a light brown dress and carrying peach colored roses. Tessa walked in after her, dressed in a light gold gown made of lace. Jem took a shuddering breath and covered his mouth with his hand as his eyes filled with tears, prompting Will to step closer to him, touching his arm, but Jem only shook his head and held a hand out to Tessa. She looked at Will and gave him a nod before taking Jem's hand and stepping to her place beside him.

The wedding went by in a blur of words. Gideon read a love poem, and had Jem and Tessa repeat vows after him. They weren't the vows that were part of a normal Shadowhunter wedding, and yet they promised all of the same things- to love one another in sickness and in health, until death took either from this world. Before Will knew it he was handing Jem a ring and Jem was slipping it onto Tessa's ring finger. Tessa slid a ring onto Jem's finger as well and Jem looked down at it, smiling as it glowed in the candlelight.

"I now pronounce you husband and wife," Gideon said. "James, you may kiss your bride."

Jem smiled and touched Tessa gently on the cheek before he closed her eyes and kissed her on the lips. He whispered something to her in a different language, something she understood and so did Will, and that was when Will knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he had lost Tessa forever.

They regrouped in the ballroom, where a table had been set up with china and linens. They had lunch and spent the rest of the day eating sweets and drinking champagne. After dinner, Jem finally yawned and suggested that he and Tessa retire to their room for the night. Tessa merely blushed and accepted Jem's hand, and together they walked out of the ballroom. Just before they turned the corner Will saw Tessa look back at him and nod once more, telling him this was how it had to be, as if he didn't already know that she was Mrs. James Carstairs now.

Charlotte gave Henry a serious nod, concern on her face for the first time all day, though it had always been there surrounding the whole event. Will knew why she was concerned, not that it needed to be mentioned. Sophie sighed and closed her eyes as Gideon poured her another glass of champagne. He poured Will another glass and Will drank it down before standing up.

"I'm going out for a little while," Will said, and before anyone could stop him he crossed the ballroom and ran out the door. He pounded up a hallway, all the day to the front door of the Institute and burst out into the crisp night air. He took several breathes, more gasps than anything, as he cast one last long look up at the place he considered his home for the last five years. Then he picked a direction, and started to run.

Author's Note: So would you kill me if I ended it here? Just kidding. There is a little more. Please review! Thanks for reading!