A/N: Sorry, you all, it took way longer than I hoped... Here goes...

Tessa felt the softness of the sheets under her cheek and sighed, rolling over. A loud thump sounded from off to her left, and a very masculine cry followed. Tessa sat up and peered over the edge of the bed. "Will?"

Will stared up at her, wide eyed. "Tessa? What are you doing here?" He looked around the room quickly and, seeming to realize where he was, snapped his head back to look at her. "Were you here all night? Tessa, you know I don't- you shouldn't- I-"

"Will," Tessa interrupted, but he continued.

"What happened last night, Tessa? Why are you here?"

"A-After we got back from the Ifrit Den, Will, I- I shouldn't have. It was wrong, and I know it, but I had to know-"

"What?" Will's voice was dangerous. "Tessa, what did you do?"

She lowered her eyes, unable to look at him. If this was how angry he was without even knowing what she had done... What would he do when she told him? "I Changed, Will. Into you." He said nothing, so she looked up at him. He just stared at her, not seeming to understand. "I Changed into you, Will," she repeated, "I saw your memories." When he still didn't respond, she took a deep breath and steeled herself.

"I know about Ella. And the Curse."

Will flinched. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. "How?"

"Pardon?"

"How? How did you Change into me?"

Tessa leaned across the bed to the nightstand. Gingerly, she plucked the handkerchief, the blood now dried and turned almost brown, and showed it to Will. He looked at it skeptically, then looked at her with his head tilted. "It was Cyril's, but he must not have used it much before he let you use it to mop up the blood."

"Blood?" Will sounded almost interested.

"Yes, from where Jem hit you."

Will blinked. "Jem hit me? Jemhit me? Are you completely sure?" He shook his head, even as Tessa nodded. "He did, Will. He was angry, you seemed to be mocking his... condition."

Will snorted. "Mocking it, indeed. He's not the only one with troubles." He realized that he had brought them back to the topic of his Curse, and flinched, his face paling visibly. He gulped. "Tessa, you shouldn't have done that."

They both knew what he was talking about.

"Why didn't you tell anyone? All those years, trying to make people hate you... How did you do it without breaking? How did you survive? I saw all the times you looked into the Thames and wanted to jump in, all the times you considered jumping off the Institute roof... Will, didn't you know you could never really make us hate you?" Tessa slid down off the bed and onto the floor beside him.

He sighed, a broken sigh, full of desire and pain and wishful dreams. She remembered the emotions she had felt when she broke into his mind and past the walls he had built to try to keep others out. "So last night wasn't a dream, then?"

Tessa started. "You remember that?"

"If by 'that', you mean you kissing me, then yes, I do remember that. I thought it might have been a dream. A pleasant one, at that."

"The other you would have made a mean comment about that." Tessa wasn't sure why she said it, but it was true. The other Will would have said something mean about her kissing abilities, or possibly insulted her honor. Not, of course, that he didn't have completely noble intentions when he did that, it had only been to protect her after all.

In a last-ditch attempt to regain the last fragments of his carefully built-up shield, Will made a particularly Will-ish remark. "What makes you think I'm not still the 'other Will'?" He tried to glare, but it was too much effort.

"Will," Tessa said, gently, reaching out to stroke his cheek. He shied away like a wounded animal. "Will, I've seen your mind, I've seen you memories and felt your feelings. I know the real you, the old you is still in there, waiting until it's allowed to come out."

"It never will be. The old Will is gone, and he'll never come back, Tessa. He can't." Will shook his head.

Tessa scooted closer to him and reached a hand out to caress his cheek gently. This time she didn't pull her hand away when he tried to move away. "Will, being this angry, hostile version of yourself doesn't stop us from loving you. It may have stopped Jessamine, but the rest of us can still see through you, you know. We know there's more to you than meets the eye. Even the others can, and I haven't even told them what I know. And I won't, I promise, not if you don't want me to," she said, answering his worried look.

There was a pause. Then, "Thank you, Tessa."

Tessa stared at Will, noticing the vaguely unhealthy look of the flush in his cheeks and the way his usually so blue eyes looked almost gray in the dim light shining through the window of his room. When he raised his eyes to meet hers, she searched them to find a sign of the Will she'd seen in Will's mind. What she saw was not the laughing boy in his early memories, but the lost boy she'd seen at age twelve, walking the long road from Wales to England and hiding in his room crying at the sound of his mother and father calling his name.

"Why don't you call me Tess any more, Will?" Tessa asked. There had been something strange about the way he had been talking to her, and now she realized, he hadn't been calling her by his special nickname for her. No one called her Tess, except Will, and, on occasion, Jem. But it was never the same. It didn't hold the same thrill, the same excitement, the same meaning. When Will called her Tess, she thought of the kiss in the attic. She thought of the kiss on the roof. She thought of the first time she had seen him and how she had thought he was the most beautiful boy she had ever seen.

He still was the most beautiful boy she had ever seen, but sitting there in front of her on the floor of his room with a confused expression on his face, he wasn't just beautiful. He was tragic.

"I- I don't know." Will paused and took a breath. "Tessa- Tess," his voice broke, "I can't, you know that. I can't let myself love you, because when I do, I can't push you away."

"But I don't want you to push me away!" Tessa cried. "Will, I love you. When you push me away, it breaks my heart, but it doesn't make me stop loving you. I'll never stop loving you, Will. No matter how many time you try to make me."

"Tess, I have to protect you. If you love me, you'll die, just like- just like Ella." Tears began to roll down Will's face. He brushed at them angrily. It had been so long since he had cried in front of anyone.

Tessa leaned forward. "Will," she whispered. "I haven't died yet. And if I do, I want to have loved you first." Gently, with her thumb, she wiped a tear from Will's cheek and took his hand in hers. "Please. Let me."

Will looked away, but Tessa turned his face back to her. When she kissed him, he tried to pull away, but was stopped by the wall at his back. She brought her other hand up to his chest and leaned against him. One hand tangled in his hair, playing with the curls, the other ran down his neck to his shoulder. Will, almost without meaning to, but only almost, brought a hand to the back of her neck. He lifted his other to her back, and pressed her against him. Tessa felt him relaxing against her, and thought how ironic it was that, when they had kissed so passionately before, she had been the one to relax into him, the one to be reluctant at first. She remembered how he had pushed her from him both times and how hollow she had felt after feeling so complete... But now she knew why. All the hollowness and pain had been filled instead with pity and love for Will.

When they broke apart, it was only because a sharp knock on the door alerted them to the existence of the world around them.

"Master Will?" It was Sophie. "Master Will? It's breakfast time! Mrs. Branwell says if you don't get up now, you won't get any food."

Will looked into Tessa's wide eyes as he said, "Alright, Sophie. I'll get up."

"And Miss Tessa, if you want me to help you dress, I can wait in your room until you're ready."

Tessa and Will gasped in unison. "Bu-But," spluttered Tessa, "How in the world did you know I was in here, Sophie?"

They heard Sophie chuckle. "You weren't in your room, and this was the most logical place for you you to be, Miss Tessa." She paused. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone"

Tessa felt relief surge through her. She wasn't sure that the Institute was quite that much different than the outside world in respects to scandal. "Thank you, Sophie. I will be there in just a few minutes."

"No need to rush." The amusement in Sophie's voice was barely masked by politeness. Her footsteps retreated down the corridor.

Will pulled Tessa to him and kissed her hard on the lips, crushing her body against his. Tessa gasped in surprise, but folded herself into his arms happily. Eventually she had to break away. "We should go to breakfast," she said reluctantly. Her skirt was crushed from sleeping in it and sitting on the floor in it, and she tried futilely to smooth out the wrinkles when she stood. Will remained on the floor. He looked up at her though his thick dark eyelashes, then grinned widely. This was the boy she had first met, but was it the Will of old, Tessa wondered, smiling back down at him.

"I don't want to let you out of my sight," Will said, "Even for just a moment."

"I'm afraid that, if we want to avoid too much suspicion, you must," Tessa said wryly. "I'll see you at breakfast. Do change your shirt. It's wrinkled and it has blood on it."

Will looked down at it with interest and said, "Do you think it makes me look handsomely disheveled? Does that look suit me?" His eyes twinkled, something she had rarely seen them do.

Tessa felt a strange exhilaration overcome her. "Most things make you look handsomely disheveled and almost any look suits you," she told him. Taking a breath and knowing she sounded flirty (and, for once, not really caring), she added, "And you always look handsome."

In a blur of movement, Will was on his feet and pinning her to the door. He pressed against her and whispered into her lips, "I'm so glad you think so." Tessa smiled as he kissed her. She forced him away gently and said, "Alright. Now I really have to go."

Sighing theatrically, Will said, "If you must."

"I must."

"Till we meet again, my lady," Will murmured, kissing her hand. Tessa giggled and retrieved her hand from his grasp. Opening the door, she slid into the corridor. She turned to look at him and was rewarded by his violet-blue eyes gazing back at her. She smiled at him and turned.

"I love you, Tess."

Tessa halted. She turned back to him and looked him directly in the eyes. With conviction, she said, "I know, Will."

A/N: *sits back and sighs contentedly* Well, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. IT'S MY FIRST MULTI-CHAPTER STORY THAT I'VE FINISHED! I'm so proud :) I'll miss my Tessa/Will universe *sniff*, but I guess I'll just have to write more!

Till next time...