AN: as requested: shipping notes: this is a total Jessa chapter
Tessa had a plan but she looked up from the page where it was written out when Jem brushed his shoulder against her's. Jem's hand was warm when he reached out and took the piece of paper with the hotels and maps and transit routes all written out on it. She watched as he folded it and then tucked it into the pocket of his jeans. Every once in awhile she found herself surprised that he wore jeans and running shoes. He'd been a very proper gentleman once and in her mind's eye she still saw him in starched collars and jackets not yellow t-shirts.
"Or we go that way," he pointed past her shoulder at a high arched stone bridge that crossed the canal in front of the train station. There were stops for the water buses lined up along the edge of the water with their maps and their routes in bright colours. Modern ticket machines and vendors selling masks and trinkets completed the circus around the station. It marred the view of the little shops and restaurants across the water. The practicalities of the modern world getting in the way of the photo opportunity.
"I have to meet Nat at four," she said.
"That's," he paused to check his watch and his hair fell into his eyes for a moment. She pushed it back, running the streak of silver between her fingers as he said, "Three hours. Three hours to go that way. Let's get lost."
Tessa was worried about Nat's project, worried about working with the type of warlocks Nat might have found, worried about all the things she didn't know. He didn't give any hint that he could tell but here he was giving her exactly the kind of distraction she needed. Without saying it, he was telling her to let the work wait and take the time for something fun. Her smile got wider.
"You lead," she said leaning close enough to bump her shoulder against his. He grinned back and pulled her forward and into the warren of twisting streets and little shops. They stopped at the top of the bridge and Jem leaned over to look at the canal below as the water bus they were meant to be on pulled into the stop. The water was opaque and greenish with little bits of trash floating by. It wasn't quite the magic of a brochure.
Bridges always made her think of Jem. In a hundred and thirty six years, she hadn't crossed a bridge without a flicker of thought turning to him. He turned back to her about to say something and she met whatever comment he was about to make with a kiss.
They'd come down from where the portal let them out just outside the Idris border by train. Tessa would be using magic to summon their luggage down later so for a few hours they had nothing but time and each other. Jem laced his fingers with hers and pulled her forward.
Tessa sat with her back to the sunshine and drank her coffee very slowly. Jem was talking about the strange mix of modernity and history in the city as he idly watched the people walking by. His tone of voice told her that he liked the city a lot.
He had his feet and their battered blue sneakers stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He had worn those shoes on five continents so far. He was all long angles and Tessa caught other people looking. She didn't blame them. She watched him more than anyone else did and didn't think she'd ever tire of it.
He was kinetic today, sometimes he got so still it reminded her of his years as a Silent Brother but today he was all motion. He talked with his hands and his face was animated as he told her about a story he'd heard of a London shop that had been in the same place for more than 500 years.
She watched his eyes get drawn away and then they snapped back to her and she raised her eyebrows as she saw long legs and very short shorts pass them. She tilted her head to watch and the woman looked back briefly before she turned a corner with her friends.
"I think she liked you," Tessa said leaning over the table like it was a secret to be whispered between school girls. Jem shook his head and waved it off. Just the hint of a blush. He never noticed. Ever.
The runes across his cheeks that he was so self conscious about did little to deter admirers and probably caught him just a touch more attention than he might otherwise find himself with. She wondered sometimes how many people had fallen in love with him while he wasn't paying attention. Sophie had and there was a man who worked at the medical clinic where Jem volunteered who watched him in a way that wasn't just curiosity at having an ex-Silent Brother helping with diagnoses. When they'd met, Tessa had been the one who hadn't noticed. She'd fallen hard and fast but had been so distracted by Will that she hadn't even seen it.
"No, really, she did. Do you think I should get shorts like that?" she asked. She was teasing him and couldn't keep the smile off her face and it ruined her attempt at a serious tone.
Above them a breeze ruffled the awning they sat beneath and Jem was cast in shadow for a moment while he tried to decide what to say to that comment. As the awning fell back into place and he sat in sunshine, he considered her with a much better serious expression. He steepled his fingers and looked at her over them.
"You can wear anything you like," he said.
"Oh, I know, Mr. Politician," she said still teasing. "I'm looking for an opinion not permission."
"Then yes, in my opinion you should get shorts like that, though maybe not in such bright green," he said and she laughed and added that detail to a mental list.
They left the coffee shop not long after that. Hand in hand, they wound back towards St. Marks square to walk by the Doge's Palace. The crowds got thicker and the languages mixed into that strange Tower of Babel drone that swirled around tourist sites. Tessa picked out German and English, French and Japanese, Arabic and Spanish, and of course Italian. A tour guide with a gaudy flower on a long pole trooped by leading a pack of teenagers in matching t-shirts declaring them members of some exchange program. June in St. Mark's square was not particularly restful.
Jem stopped in the flow of the traffic.
The man behind him knocked his shoulder and muttered a curse in a language that Tessa didn't catch. She grabbed Jem's elbow and pulled him to the side. He blinked slowly at her. They stood in front of a shop selling Murano glass figurines that twinkled in a riot of colours beneath tiny spotlights. The crowd wove on around them, oblivious now that they were out of the flow.
"Jem?" she asked.
He had fallen still. All of his animation and energy drained away leaving him a statue. His eyes moved back and forth as though he were reading something confusing. She put a hand on his chest in part to get his attention and in part because the stillness was so complete it scared her. His heartbeat was fast but steady under her palm and he was warm. He felt normal. Her tension didn't ease. The expression on his face wasn't normal.
"Jem?" she asked again.
"I don't feel right," he said.
"What do you need?" she asked.
He covered her hand with his own. She never thought of her hands as small until he had them in his. He brought their hands higher to rest at his collarbone. She found the place by touch and spread her palm against it and waited for him to calm.
The mixture of sadness and relief that washed through her was dizzying. Jem's memories took him over sometimes. A memory would ricochet off of some tiny detail in a crowd or a shop window and suddenly he'd be swimming in things he hadn't known he'd forgotten. He explained it sometimes once it had passed: the flashbacks and the emotions that overpowered the present moment with a rush of things long gone. The magics of the Silent Brothers had buried so much that even years after leaving them it could still take him over.
Beneath their hands was his parabatai rune. Grey and faded but never gone. Something had brought Will back to him with enough force to stagger him. She cupped his face with her other hand and he leaned towards her. She whispered to him, nothing important, just words to guide him back through his own memories to her. Little shared memories of the three of them. They stood like that as he came back to himself.
"That wasn't normal," he said in a low voice.
"Tell me," she hadn't let go of him yet and she wouldn't until she was sure that he was feeling better.
"It felt right," he said, "I don't usually remember it like that. It's usually not so physical. I felt it."
She wrapped her arms around him and he stood in her embrace awkwardly for a moment before he returned it, looping his arms around her and holding on.
Later, when she left him at the hotel, he was still quiet. He was himself but not happy. Leaving him alone when he was like that was difficult but she'd promised Natasha that she wouldn't be late.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he assured her that he was fine but there was something lost and empty about him. Against the bland colours and generic art of the hotel room, he seemed less like himself than an artist's rendition of him. A rendition done by an artist who had never met him. She wanted to stay until the sparkling, joking Jem was back again but he insisted over and over that it wasn't necessary.
He almost had to push push her out the door but in the end she left him alone to disappear into his own memories. Her last glimpse of him before she closed the door was of him rubbing that gray mark with his palm.