A/N- Hi again! So sorry it's been so long but it's really been hectic. My attempts at finding a beta have finally proven successful, and kathleensmiles has come to my rescue. Thank you again to all my reviewers, they really do help a lot, and a huge, special thanks to kathleensmiles, I'm really looking forward to working with you with this story! Okay, Happy Reading guys!

Sophie felt the crisp pillow and smooth sheets before opening her eyes. Her head was pounding, her muscles sore and her face felt as if she hadn't moved it for days. Slowly opening her eyes, not without effort, she tried to make sense of her surroundings through the fog clouding her vision. Sophie was familiar with this room, she'd attended to people in it many a time. She was in the Institute's infirmary. Her neck hurt as she moved it to the left, but a sigh had alerted her. In the small, white bed next to her, lay Gideon, looking too big for the bed he'd been placed on. Her vision cleared instantly as she gazed upon him. Images of the last time she had seen him flashed in her mind. How happy she had been when he'd proposed, how blissfully they'd kissed, but along with those came other, not so cheerful, memories. The automatons. Sophie faintly remembered killing two of them, but couldn't remember anything after, what had happened?

"Gideon?", her voice scratched her throat as she spoke, making it come out as little more than a whisper, Sophie cleared her throat and tried again,

"Gideon, wake up,", her voice came out much clearer this time. Gideon stirred, causing his sheets to move off his body. Sophie gasped. He had scratches on his face a thick bruise on his jaw. He was shirtless, there were bloody bandages wrapped around his chest and right shoulder. She hadn't known he had so many runes. They covered his chest and arms, they were black and bold, but beautiful. He had scratches on his face and a thick bruise on his jaw.
Painfully, Sophie slowly swung one leg after another over the bed, righting herself carefully despite her throbbing head. Steadily making her way to where Gideon was sleeping and sitting at the edge of his bed, careful not to jostle him. She touched his cheek and wiped the clammy, sandy-blonde hair off his forehead, then placed a soft kiss right in the middle of it. His eyes fluttered open, and it took a while for the green orbs to adjust,

"Sophie?", he asked, "Oh, Sophie you're okay!", his voice was hoarse but loud, as he sat up, wincing, to kiss her dry lips. She smiled at him,

"I'm fine darling, but what happened to you?", she said, fingering his bandages,

He looked at her for a few seconds, dazed, then shook his head and began to talk, "After I got rid of those two automatons,", he spat the word as if it were a curse. "I went looking for you, you weren't in the carriage which,", he added, "scared me half to death, so I went around the park, you were hard to find,", he stopped to kiss her hand, then lifted it to place it right on his heart, it calmed her to feel the steady pulse under her palm, "When I finally found you, you were unconscious on the ground, in the thickest cluster of trees of the whole park, with one of the disgusting things writhing on top of you. I carried you and that parasol to the carriage, but I think I must have blanked out on the way here, we probably gave Cyril a good fright." Sophie was amazed at how courageous he'd been, where she had panicked and stumbled, he'd been level headed and dauntless. It pleased her to hear him sound whole, even chuckling at the end. Without thinking, she leaned forwards and kissed him.
He kissed her back, first in shock, but then more fiercely, his hands touching every part of her they could find, as if he could never get enough. The feel of his hands on her skin made Sophie dizzy. The sky outside was dark, she guessed it very late at night, there was not a star to be seen through the clouds, and the freezing air blowing through the window closest to them sent them shivering, but she didn't care, it somehow added thrill. Soon enough, she was lying down on the small bed, Gideon on top of her. Sophie had never felt like this before, passion and strenght were rolling off him in waves, she could never get enough of him, the closer they got, the closer she wanted to be; the warm kisses on her neck, although wonderfully pleasing, weren't enough. They broke apart suddenly, Gideon still on top of her. Sophie felt a stiffness against her thigh, and shivered deliciously as she realised what it was. She wanted him, more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life, and he was looking at her as if he did too.

"Are you sure?", he whispered, he was on the same wavelenght as she. Suddenly, although she had never thought much about this subject, Sophie knew that she wanted to feel him, to be as close as two human beings could get, to belong to the man she never wanted to be without. They weren't married, but they were going to be, and Sophie knew she loved him, more than life itself. She wanted this.

"Yes,", she sighed.

Tessa hesitantly closed the frayed novel that sat in her lap. She was in the vast Institute library, sitting on the comfortable window seat. The brown haired girl rolled her head back to rest on the wall and turned to face outside. The window itself was spotless, not a smudge nor a fingerprint in sight, so it was easy to imagine flying above the green grass outside. She closed her eyes and imagined feeling the cool London fog caressing her skin and blowing her hair as she glided gently through the air. Tessa felt peaceful and calm, but something was missing. She was oddly lonely up in the sky by herself, aching for the warm touch of another person. Tilting her eyes down to the lushiously glossy grass far beneath her, she spotted a figure. It was hard to make out who they were through the fog, but Tessa could tell it was a man by the short hair and wide, muscular shoulders. She couldn't see any colour whatsoever. Not the colour of his clothes or even the shade of his hair. There was something almost, forlorn, about his posture. The stranger was sitting cross legged in the middle of the big stretch of land, head and back tilted down, almost slouching, but it was stiffer than that, head rolled too close to his chin to see his face. Tessa slowly descended through the thin air, her full skirts billowing out around her.
She sighed as her bare feet came into contact with the desirable grass, it was even softer than she could've imagined. She felt completely weightless as she slowly and gracefully bent her knees to sit on the green grassy pillow, mirroring the posture of the stranger boy sitting right in front of her. He hadn't moved at all. Tessa tried to get a look at his face, but he was almost unreal, as still as he was. She lifted her hand and reached for his chin, and where she thought she might find empty air, or maybe the stone of a statue, she felt his incredibly soft and even translucent, but almost glowing skin. It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever felt, the smoothness of this mysterious person's skin was fascinating. Tessa rolled her thumb up to graze his lower lip. They felt like the lips of an angel. They were full and rich red, as if fresh blood would stain her skin where she touched them. She longed to kiss these lips, to feel their softness against her own. As her eyes travelled slowly up the angelic face, she realised this boy was not a stranger at all, but a man she had known for seemingly ever, a man whom she'd loved ever since the first time they'd met, but just hadn't known it.
She looked into his perfect eyes. They were the infamous blue she'd become familiar with, but which one could never famliarise with. She felt as if this was the first time she'd ever looked into them, and right now, in this foggy weather, and samely foggy state of mind, they held more meaning than they ever had. They were glossy and deep, she could see everything she'd ever wanted in them. Tessa saw the best person she could be when she looked into those endless orbs of sparkling ocean. But the ocean was overflowing. There was too much silvery water to be held. She didn't move, nor make a single sound as one lonesome, shining tear escaped from Will's eye and rolled down his cheek, leaving a trail of beautiful sadness behind, until, finally, it reached his strong chin, and dropped in one smooth, slow motion, to blend in with the delicate, crispy dew on that dreamlike grass between them.
Tessa felt her daydream slip away, but didn't open her eyes. She lifted her hand to her cheek, and was surprised when she found it to be wet. She'd been crying and hadn't noticed.

Will didn't dare move. A while earlier, the blue-eyed boy had been slowly pacing the Institute library's shelved aisles, with a certain beautiful girl clinging to the edges of his mind. He figured that reading might be able to take his mind off her, so he grabbed a book, any book from the shelf closest to him and started walking to his favourite spot, the window seat in the corner of the library most infrequently visited. Trying to think of something to distract him, he forced the previous night's events to take centre stage in his mind. Cyril had brought Gideon and Sophie back looking like they'd been attacked by a pair of savage wolves. When he'd left the infirmary along with everyone else, neither of them had awoken for any explanations, and Cyril had none to spare either. Will had been dying to know what happened out there and was extremely worried because-
Tessa.
The whisper rose to his lips but didn't quite make it out. In front of him, not too far away, was Tessa sitting in his favourite spot, as if he had conjured her out of no-where just by thinking of her. Without knowing why he was doing it, Will lightly stepped behind one of the bookshelves close to him, and stopped to look at her. In that moment, she didn't look real. Nothing so perfect could be real, could it? She sat with a novel in her lap, completely still, except for her fingers which were tracing the edges of the pages, seemingly unconsciously. Before he knew it, Will was sitting on the floor. It was quite an uncomfortable position because he had to make sure she didn't see him, but he wanted to continue looking at her. He couldn't tear his eyes away from Tessa's. They always stunned him, the most subtly beautiful eyes he'd ever seen, the kind that should be made a big deal about, framed in thick, dark eyelases the lenght of his thumbnail. The memory of having those soft lashes brush his own cheekbones as they kissed sent shivers down his back.
He didn't know how long it had been when Tessa closed the book, but she didn't get up and walk away like he had expected, she just rolled her head back and looked outside. The look on her face should be made into a statue and shared with the world. It could be considered a crime for something so beautiful to be kept in one place.
It could have been seconds or hours, he didn't know. She hadn't moved, but a sparkle on her cheek had caught his eye. She was crying. This simple fact tore Will's inside's apart. He was overcome with a vicious protectiveness, to destroy and watch burn whatever it was that was making this girl cry. But yet he did not move. Transfixed, he watched the single tear roll down her smooth face and make its suicide drop. He watched as Tessa opened her eyes, and batted her damp eyelashes a few times. He watched as she lifted her long, graceful fingers to her cheek. He stood as she pulled them away, and began to walk as her face changed into an expression of utter surprise. Her face impossibly filled with more suprise when she turned her head towards him, and he shivered as her desirable lips whispered his name, but didn't wait a second longer before taking her delicate face into his strong hands and finally touching those lips with his own, as he'd been aching to do for such a long time.