At a loss for what to do after his older sister, Ella Herondale had come and gone, Will sat back down on the hill and unrolled the handkerchief parcel she'd left with him before she had moved on. He let the fabric unroll from the present and almost dropped the object in his hand in shock. In his hand was a small, wrought metal pendant that dangled from a thin red ribbon. It wasn't the necklace that really surprised him though, it was what the pendant was. A parabatai rune. His hand closed around it and he sat, staring into the distance for a long time, wondering why Ella had left him this, what he was doing here.
He sat for a long time in reverie, thoughts drifting through his consciousness sometimes, reminding him of moments when he was alive. The exact moment he knew he wanted James Carstairs to become his Parabatai, even though he was dying. Performing the ceremony. The way it had felt when he was suddenly no longer alone, not left to the torture of believing that he could not be loved for fear that his imaginary curse would strike the source down, that he was doomed to a loveless state that he had somehow deserved. Where his soul had been broken, his parabatai's had not been; just as where Jem's body had been broken and Will's was whole, but his soul only a waif of what he could have been. He remembered what it was like to feel almost whole again with Jem.
Will stared at the metal representation of the rune in his hands for what could have been just moments, or perhaps even centuries. Time didn't work the same way when you were dead, he had decided in passing. It was because he was so focused on the symbol in his hand, meditating upon it, wishing to engrave it into his spirit the same way it had been engraved over his heart once upon a time when it was still beating. At some point, he felt a tingling in his hands where the rune met his ghostly skin but didn't know what to make of it. His hand clasped the symbol tightly and he began to imagine what Jem's life without him might've been like. How much of Jem still felt the way Will had about him for the remainder of his life? Would he still want him to be here, waiting for a moment that may not come in the events of earth for a very long time? But ah. Time here didn't matter, and the rune he was staring at, the language of heaven, he'd always been told… It told him that Jem would have always wanted him around, had time and circumstances allowed.
Will was so caught up in his reverie that he didn't hear the footsteps coming towards him or see the lone figure to whom the footsteps belonged coming towards him. He had no idea, so entranced was he, until a slim hand with long, delicate fingers curled over his shoulder from behind. Startled, Will looked up from the rune that rested in his palm, perhaps for the first time in a very long time. His bright blue eyes met dark, earthen eyes, shot through with gold. Confusion ripped through him for just a single, dizzying moment as his eyes moved at a frantic pace over his other features. Raven hair that curled around his face, eyes the shape of almonds set into a face of golden skin, a face who's expression of shock reflected his own, a tall, lean Asian boy who was dressed in trousers and a waistcoat, though in a style that Will was certain hadn't been worn in his era. Jem.
But, this was not the sickly pale James Carstairs that Will had asked to be his parabatai, nor was he Jem the Silent Brother, or Brother Zacharias as he'd been called then. No, this was a Jem whose body was no longer struggling against a drug dependence that had been stealing his life away, who's skin lacked any trace of the scars that would have surely been left behind by the brutal runes engraved into a member of the Silent Brothers. This was the Jem that Will would have given anything to see while he was still alive. It was Jem, whole again. Radiant even, the way he knew they both could only have become in death.
"Jem," Will breathed, softly, a beseechment , a wild hope, a promise even, expressed with that simple sound.
"Will, I…"
"Jem." Will repeated the name once more, rising effortlessly from his sitting position to throw himself at the other boy, embracing him with reckless abandonment; unwilling, unable even, to hold his feelings back. His elation, his confusion, his absolute love for the other expressed in that embrace, as if no time at all had passed since they'd last met, last been able to express everything to the other without the need for words. They stood in their embrace for a very long time, no sound except the muted laughter which came from time to time, which at the same time sounded suspiciously like noises of quiet sobs, though they were not accompanied by tears.
And each felt the sensation of something tracing its way over their chest like a phantom pain, and when finally they were willing to part from each other long enough to look, it was with soundless amazement that their parabatai runes glowed starkly beneath the fabric of their shirts, even though will had been absolutely certain that his was gone, like all of the other marks that had tied him to life. But instead of the charred black color the runes in life had been, these were golden, a mark that spoke of a promise kept. If there is a life after this one, let us meet in it, James Carstairs.
Out of nowhere Will spoke, breaking the silence that had fallen over them, the shock of seeing each other, of being together again, not as broken spirits but as whole, as one being. "I guess you were right," was all he said.
There was already a smile in Jem's face, which widened at that, and he simply replied, "I usually am."
Will snorted and punched Jem's arm playfully, unable to shake the euphoric feeling that had overcome him at the site of his parabatai or the sound of his voice, two things he had taken for granted in his teenaged years and that he knew he'd never see again until the other… died. A little sadness crept back in at that thought. "So, you're dead then. I didn't expect you so soon."
Jem's expression turned into one of surprise as he stared at Will, finally responding after a moment. "Expect me? Soon? Will, I lived for almost two hundred years. The world I left behind is one you would hardly recognize. And to see you here… It seems a hope beyond all hope. I cannot believe you waited for me, Will." A shadow of emotion passed over Jem's features and he looked away from the other boy, seeming a little overcome.
Will's eyebrows furrowed at the things his Parabatai had just told him. "I made a promise to you when I was on earth a long time ago, Jem, although I admit that I have no idea how long it's been because time here is not like time on earth. I never thought I'd be the first of us to leave that place, but I swore I would wait for you, for however long you had left to breathe. I made you an oath, and I have gotten to keep it. Meeting as brothers in death, just as we always wanted. You cannot think I would have forgotten those things in death, Jem. You who were there for me until my very last breath, and who had helped me take my first since I'd suffocated myself with the death of Ella. I owed you my life then, I realized. Even more in a way, than perhaps I owed to Tessa. In your eyes I found grace, Jem. And I never forgot." He felt a warmth come over him when he thought about his wife in life, but a terrible sadness too as he realized now that with both he and his parabatai now gone from the living that she was all alone.
Will's bright blue eyes met Jem's earthen ones, which were suspiciously moist, but Jem managed a smile for Will. Will's hand came up and clasped Jem's as it had so many times before when he was nursing him back to health or offering him comfort, and remembered that the last time he'd done it was as he himself lay dying. Jem couldn't say anything at all, so Will quietly looked out into his dimension of limbo, which he was surprised to find had changed. The still lake had remained, as had the brilliant green grass around it, but the hills on the outside had become different, shifting from the hills of wales into a place Will didn't think he recognized. Trees had sprung up in places where there had been none. Gingkoes, he distantly remembered from a book Jem had once showed Will when he described his home in China where he had emigrated from during their early days together in the institute. This corner of Limbo was no longer just his anymore. Jem's spirit now permeated it, too.
Will led Jem to the shadow of one of the gingko trees and sat, motioning for his Parabatai to do the same. The feeling of being together again was an extraordinary happiness, a reminder that kept flashing through Will's consciousness as the tenor of his thoughts were simply Finally. Finally.And somehow, he knew Jem felt it, too. Turning his eyes to the boy in question, Will smiled and said, "Tell me about your life, Jem." Just as Ella has asked of Will, he wanted the brother of his soul to tell him of all the things he'd faced while on earth as James Carstairs when Will couldn't be there for him.
Jem was thoughtful for a while, looking up through the leaves of the trees above to the eerie sky, processing that he was now dead and in some kind of in-between space with Will Herondale, the boy who had irreparably altered his life as well. Where his world had been shattered by demons and toxins and drugs that has slowly eaten away at his body, Will had become his constant strength and support, treating him as if he were worth something more than gold. Vowing his life over to Jem as parabatai, even though he had believed that he had very little time left to live.
It was that unwavering dedication to Jem from Will that Jem believed had given him a chance to stay alive, to meet their Tessa too, and to want to live instead of just surviving. In their partnership, Jem knew Will had become his strength to survive, the rhyme to Jem's reason and steadiness of soul, which he had offered his Parabatai in return. Where Jem had taught Will that there was goodness in him and kept him on a path of light, Will had given Jem the gift of belonging and survival, the will to continue where the demon responsible for his slow death had left him broken.
He truly hadn't expected to outlive Will Herondale. Jem opened his mouth and told Will as much, to which the other boy's eyes widened a little as he nodded, acknowledging that he'd thought the same thing. The brown-eyed boy at last began the tale of his life from the moment he'd thought he was doomed to leave the world after Tessa had been kidnapped by Mortmain, the evil man who had wished to impress the pain in his heart upon the world of shadowhunters, those who had taken away his beloved adoptive mother and father. He recounted to Will the agony of the decision he'd made to attempt to become a Silent Brother so that he could live long enough for a cure to be found, in hopes that he could still live beside Will and Tessa both instead of wait for them here in sorrow. The same way, he realized, that Will had done instead.
Will had shaken his head and smiled at Jem at that, saying that he could have wanted for nothing more than more time with his Paratai, which he was finally getting now. Jem had shaken his head and felt his eyes burn a little bit with the threat of tears that Will's words had brought to his eyes. Will couldn't know the guilt and pain that had nibbled at him for the rest of his life when he had been freed from brotherhood, experiencing the pain anew every time he saw his faded parabatai rune in the mirror and knowing that he never would have the chance to see Will again in that life. Jem clasped his brother's hand beneath the tree and squeezed before letting go, reassuring himself that they were together again at last.
But he continued his story, his legs pulled up against him and his chin resting on his knees as he spoke. He told Will what being a Silent Brother was like, how he had felt so far removed from humanity that only Will and Tessa could remind him of his former self, and that the moments he shared with them, although they were always far too short, had carried him through his solitude. He remembered with Will the times that he'd performed the protection rituals for each of his children, and how very human he'd felt in the moment when he'd learned that Will and Tessa had a child named after him, a reminder of their love for him that could not be broken by whatever the world had thrown at him.
Jem had swallowed hard when he got to the part where he'd come to Will on his death bed, but plowed on. "Although my pain was dim and hard to place at the time when I was a Silent Brother, you know… Their emotions are dampened by their runes and the way they have to live, and as such, mine had been as well… But it still wasn't enough for me not to understand that I was losing you. And when I was finally restored to my humanity, I suppose I thought it had been fitting for me to feel the pain I must've put you through by choosing to survive as I did, by choosing to destroy the bond between us. There were hardly any more things in my life that caused me as much agony as that." Jem opened his mouth to continue, but Will cut him off.
"James, there was nothing to be done about it. If the parabatai rune was the price to pay for your life so that you could maintain even a chance of having more time to be alive, to someday be healthy again, it was a price I gladly paid. Besides, you were there for me when I needed you most. You risked yourself for me even afterwards, and I didn't need a rune to tell me that you were still the other half of my soul, Jem. I beg you to forget your guilt in that on my behalf. We are here together again at last, and there is not much more I could wish for now. And even still, if you look, it is as if we were never parted." Will gestured to his own chest where his parabatai rune glimmered gold. "The angels have honored our promise to each other, and now we are here. Now come, I want to hear what happened after my death. Tell me about our Tessa and about your lives."
Jem managed a smile for Will, feeling the glimmer of his own rune against his shoulder. Indeed, the angels had honored their bond. Even that in itself was incredible. So he continued through his story, telling Will about the world he'd left behind. About the wars that mankind had waged between themselves, how he'd waited and felt trapped in the body of a silent brother as he wished for a cure. He told Will how he had observed Tessa to be after Will had died, some part of her shattered forever at this loss, and with the knowledge that this was how those around her would leave. She'd met him every year on Blackfriar's bridge just as they had arranged, and even after fifty years had passed, Tessa was still devoted to Will, still remembering, still mourning.
Jem had looked over at Will at some point to see his reaction to what he was saying and Will looked ineffably sad, though he had known that his death would be difficult. Tessa had hinted at her fears every once in a while since their marriage and Will had always remembered the way Magnus had looked, the ancient sadness that sometimes came into his expression when he wasn't all there. It was a feeling Jem had begun to know all too well. Quietly he reached over and squeezed Will's shoulder. "She wouldn't have wanted you to be sad for her, Will."
Will had nodded, and Jem had continued, knowing that there was still sadness in his story to come. He told Will about the moment his cure had come, completely unexpectedly and in part thanks to a descendent of Will and Tessa who had reminded Jem so much of a fair-haired version of Will, it had hurt a little bit to think about. When his cure had come, when he was finally free of the brotherhood and of his frailty and dependence on the Yin Fen that had nearly taken his life away, he told his brother how he could think of nothing but finding Tessa again. He knew that Will would understand him because they had both been in love with her. In the other's situation, they were both sure they would have made the same choices, a fact that only cemented to them that they were nearly of a single mind, a single heart.
He told Will of reacquainting himself with the new world he'd never had much part of, of all the things he'd had to learn about. Contraptions that played music without an instrument for a source, and carriages that no longer required horses to pull them. The rise of buildings that touched the sky, and of contraptions that transported mundanes across the world far faster than the ship Jem had taken to Europe from China when he was a boy. Will was fascinated by Jem's stories, but found that the things Jem had described were very difficult to imagine on his own. Perhaps if they moved into the next life together and Jem was right about their reincarnation, he would learn about these things he was hearing about.
Finally, after a long while of Jem trying to describe the sort of high-tech mundane weaponry Will could have used to rid the world of ducks, he gave up and continued on about his own life. He'd gone to meet Tessa on Blackfriar bridge the year he'd been released from his ailment, hoping beyond all hope that they might have a chance to live the rest of his life together, even though he knew he was perhaps asking too much of her after she had already lost Will. But she had wanted him. Wanted him more than anything else in her life and Jem shared with Will that she had hoped that he could help her really live again after having lost her husband.
And they had. He told Will about the words Tessa had said to him when he asked if she still loved him, that because of who the two boys had been to each other, she couldn't help but love them both equally, the way they had loved each other. He told Will that he had bolted, a rueful smile on his lips as he spoke, mumbling that if he had just had his violin with him, he may have had a chance at the same level of eloquence that Will had displayed in his position. And how he and Tessa had finally created their own life together, though Jem admitted to Will that he had given up on the life of a shadowhunter because Will wasn't there to be his other half anymore and that he couldn't have accepted a life like that.
They had traveled the world together, loved each other, and had kept to themselves, sometimes pretending that Will was with them. In moments when Tessa was sad, Jem had reassured her that Will was somewhere waiting for them, that they would all see each other again someday. And then finally, after almost seventy years more with Tessa thanks to the advancement in healthcare for mankind, Jem's time had finally come, and there was nothing he or Tessa could do about it. He had been dying in her arms and Magnus had been there as well, for Tessa especially because Jem had been the only thing Tessa had really had left besides Magnus as her friend, the only person who would understand her loss.
"Dying wasn't as hard as I imagined, and you know I had imagined it a long time when we were young together. But the hardest part was knowing I was leaving her alone after that, because you had already gone. You know? If there were some way…"
Will, who had been listening pensively to the story, found his gaze falling back on to his parabatai now when he fell silent. He reached out and pulled Jem closer to him, rubbing the boy's back soothingly in hopes of easing some of the tension out of his form. "Well, there's nothing to be done now but wait for her, too."
Jem looked over at Will with a wry smile. "That could be a long time Will, you know that."
"Yes, I do. She may not ever die from old age, but she can still die of mortal wounds, and I know that someday she will come. And we'll be here waiting for her."
"That we will be. In the meantime, I wish I had my old violin to play here. This place is so lovely."
When the desire was given words, the world around them seemed to shift just a little. From beside the two boys, a mist seemed to billow out from beneath the tree. Beside them, when the mist had cleared, a book and a violin case sat together on the hill beside them. With surprise, Will reached for the book. It was The Tale of Two Cities. He gave a start as he realized that there was handwriting in the front of it, the memory of his own from long ago when he was still alive, the same book he'd given to Tessa. Or some kind replica created by the in-between.
Jem, on the other hand, was pouring over his violin with wonder, his slim fingers pulling the instrument from its case and plucking the strings. Both the book and the violin had the same eerie glow as the rest of the objects in the dimension, seeming almost insubstantial at times. But Will had begun to flip through the pages of the book, just as Jem's fingers brushed over the strings, emitting a string of notes that sounded more beautiful here than they had even in life.
Inspired, Jem withdrew the bow from the case and applied the rosin before drawing the instrument up to his chin. He laid the bow upon the strings and began to play, hesitantly at first, then allowing it to grow as he had not since the night Will had died, playing a continuation from that song. The song of Jem alone in the world, the song of being found again, of his life he was able to live with Tessa. And when he had played his whole life out before him on the strings, he began to play for himself and Will, expressing his surprise and joy that here in the in-between just after death and before a new life would begin, he was suspended here with the other part of his being, reunited across the rift of between being dead and alive. He played for their embrace, for their time together, the notes asking questions of what came after this, tying them more closely together in the hope that they would walk into the next life together, and all the ones that would come after that.
Jem played and played, his body never tiring anymore because he was already a spirit here and he had no fear of death. And when he ran out of things to play about himself and of Will, he played for their Tessa instead, played the hope that she had found a way to be happy after them, that she wasn't broken by the unending life she was born into, and that she would someday find her way to them after living to her very fullest. And then he imagined what it would be like for her to finally pass on, perhaps with a little fear but with relief as well that she no longer had to struggle alone. He played his hope and love for her as well, the melody continuing for minutes or eons, and he did not stop until he had heard a thump beside him.
Distracted and relieved from the enchantment he had fallen under as he played, he looked towards Will to find that the thump had been the book falling from his hands and that he was standing, staring away from Jem, Will's shoulders hunched in what Jem could sense was shock. But what could be shocking to his parabatai in death, except perhaps… "Will, what-?" blue eyes met earthen ones in shock momentarily before they both turned to look down the hill again.
"Tessa," the boys breathed at the same time.
Not far away from them, the girl who had captured both of their hearts was walking, her expression pinched with confusion. She wore a dress that was both reminiscent of the time period they had met in on earth, but also speaking of later influences. The fabric was gold, the same as a shadowhunter wedding dress, the same color she'd worn so long ago when she'd promised to marry Jem as he was dying, and again twice after: once when she had wedded Will, the other when she had finally married Jem. She wasn't looking at them, but rather around at the scenery of the in-between which had begun to change again a little bit. A bridge had appeared over the glassy lake in the distance, looking uncannily like Blackfriar's bridge in London. The hue of the scene seemed to shift into more muted colors, unremarkable to the boys in comparison with the girl who stood, looking lost for all the world.
"Tessa," they called to her again together and her head shot up, grey eyes taking in their faces and widening in shock.
"But, it cannot be…" Tessa said aloud, her eyes filling with tears at the sight of them.
Will and Jem looked at each other and nodded once in understanding before they both took off down the hill willy-nilly but as one being, plowing into Tessa and taking her into their embrace. The three of them stood there, a tangle of limbs and not a sound was made except the sobs from Tessa as they reveled in the feeling of all three of them being together again at last.
Finally, after a long period of time of simply holding each other together, a group hug filled with more love than perhaps any other place in the universe just that that moment, the three stood back to regard each other.
"But I still don't understand," Tessa began. "Is this a dream?"
Will and Jem looked at each other for a moment before Jem stepped forward, taking his turn to be the one to explain where they were. Will's hand found its way to Tessa's back to sooth her, while Jem took one of her hands in his. "No, my love. You are dead."
"Dead? But I-," She cut off with a sharp inhale, "Oh…" Her grey eyes became unfocused for a moment then she seemed to recover, looking from Jem to Will. "Have I made it to heaven then?" Her voice was soft, unsure.
"Not yet, Tess," came Will's reply, full of slightly suppressed mirth. "We're in the in-between place, a place where souls come to wait for others. I came here when I died, waiting for Jem. And when he came, we waited for you." His voice was quiet, reverent, and as full of love as Tessa had always remembered, and imagined when remembering had become too hard with the decades, the centuries.
Tessa's eyes filled with tears again. "I cannot believe… but you must have been waiting for so long…! I never imagined… Never… That I would see you both again. I had always h-hoped… Believed that what you had said before,Will, and Jem after you…" Eventually her mumbling became incoherent through her tears as she embraced them both again, forehead resting between Will and Jem partially on either's shoulders as they had moved to allow for, both embracing her with their free arm.
Quietly as Tessa wept, the two led her down towards the bridge over the lake, knowing that this was her place in the in-between and they sat her down on an old concrete bench. Will was sitting on her right and Jem on her left, the two still holding her between them. When she had finally cried herself out, they gently asked her to tell them about her life after their deaths, the same way Ella had done for Will, and Will for Jem. They listened quietly and held her as she told them of life after each of them.
When she had described her life after Will to him from her point of view, his arm had tightened around her and he had kissed her temple, apologizing quietly for having had to leave her. She had shaken her head and told him she knew it wasn't his fault, but it had still been a pain that never went away. But she told him that even though it wasn't the same kind of happiness, Jem had been able to come back to her and make her feel right again. she always missed Will terribly, though.
But after Jem… After Jem, her life had gone dark. She told them both with ashamed sincerity that she had simply existed after Jem had died. Magnus had done his best to pull her through, but she knew she would never love anyone else the way she had loved them and had more or less locked herself away from the world. Eventually, some danger had come and a shadowhunter had come to seek her assistance with the threat and she had come willingly, admittedly hoping that perhaps she could finally give up her life honorably fighting as she had once hoped, and indeed she had. She admitted that when she had come here she was confused, thinking she had wandered back into a dream.
She had dreamt of them together so often, the three of them, that waking up from it had become painful in itself. She assured the two boys at her side that she had tried her best to live after them, but she had simply lost the will after she had faced losing both of them. At that, both boys had embraced her and kissed her temples on either side as one, leaving Tessa with a feeling of warmth that came over her and wrapped around her like a blanket, soundless apologies to each other for the pain that had come, but also expressions of their love and joy at finally, finally being reunited by the very thing that had torn them apart.
They stayed together on the bench on the bridge for a long time, not noticing that slowly the dimension around them had been dissolving, the verdant hills of Will's Wales disappearing and the remnants of the Chinese Gingko trees with them. The mist swallowed all of it until it came to the ends of the bridge, billowing at the edges as if waiting patiently for something. The trio finally roused themselves from their reverie on the bench, rising together as a feeling settled over them. A knowing, an instinct. Tessa looked at Will and Jem, identical expressions of peace coming over them as it swept over her as well. She put her arms around the boys and they around her and each other and they stood, hugging each other until Tessa pressed a kiss to each of their foreheads affectionately as she had done so many times in life, and took a hand in each of hers and they stood together, facing mist that rose above them.
"Time to go," she said softly, her voice echoing back to them in whispers from the mist.
They began to walk slowly together, leisurely almost, and each step brought them closer to the mist that was pressing towards them, seeming to reach for them. Without warning it parted, just as it had done for Ella when Will had watched her leave, and together, not an ounce of hesitation in their step, they crossed into the brilliant golden luminescence on the other side, the gateway to the next life that they had promised to go into together.