"H-h-how are you a couple million years old and...still be in one piece, Tess?" Will asked uncertainly, staring at her...with what she thought was fear in his eyes. Tessa sprang from the bed with lightening speed, and gave Will a clean punch on the bridge of his nose, with such a force that he was expounded backwards, and rolled off the other side of the bed.
"Ah," Will groaned, pulling a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket, putting the handkerchief over his nose, and tilting his head back. "You have a most darling set of knuckles, is of which you must know Tess."
Tessa saw Jem close his mouth, having been staring open-mouthed; at the smack his fiancée had just delivered to his parabatai.
"Will, are you all right?"
"Mm."
Tessa started as Jem put his hand, the one of the arm that had been around her shoulder, on her left, and tilted his head, nearer to hers, till they were almost touching.
"I take it, that that demonstration that you have just presented is how you have survived for so long?"
"Dear Jem, no, I lived with another man, we were-are good friends, we watched each other's backs. Besides, that was a light punch, that's my skin whispering over his skin virtually for me. I never needed training by the Lightwoods. In fact, they got so much in their own teaching wrong that I wanted to thump some sense into them. The day that Sophie slapped Gabriel...if it had been me, and it nearly was, he would have been thrown through the nearest window." Tessa laughed again, her gray eyes crinkling at the corners, Will joining in with her en tune'.
"I take it, that you went back there for an hour or so, thus the clothing?" Jem asked, his eyebrows raised, a blush seeping into his cheeks.
At that time, it was considered to be able to see the shape of a woman's upper legs, buttocks and breasts, through her gown as...rather like you or me walking down the main street in a pair of jeans, that were two sizes too small for your actual size. It brought one the image of looking like a worker of prostitution through the eyes of the people of that era.
"Yes, I do go back for an hour. I went to see everyone, and see last night's The Paul O'Grady Show. I went to get the letters that Harry had sent me. He had sent 174 letters in the time that I have been in London. 174 letters. Sometimes, we joke about the bonfire we could create with all the paper. I..." Tessa trailed off, staring at her hands, now scrunching and un-scrunching her skirt with panic.
"Jem, I know fully well that you keep a vintage comet 66 in your desk. Go find a double pint sized mug, and fill it to the brim." Said will hurriedly, thoroughly alarmed at Tessa's present self.
"Your wife-to-be is having a panic attack," said Will, gesturing with his hands. "Move lively."
Jem sped out of the room, slamming the door on his way. "Christ Tessa. I think you've really stumped him. Stumped enough to forget his has a vintage comet 66 in his desk...and for me to be bossing him around..."
Will sat on the bed beside Tessa, forgetting everything he had told himself not to do, to avoid her, to be a continual barstard to her...he forgot instantaneously from the glance of gray that caught his eyes.
He pulled Tessa into a tight hug, rocking her back and forth slightly, as silent tears ran down her face, running a trail across her cheeks, across her jaw-line, going down her neck and disappearing into her bodice.
