A Leap in Time ~ An Infernal Devices Fic

Slammed

"It's too late," she said.

"Don't say that." His voice was half a whisper. "I love you, Tessa. I love you."

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Will hadn't talked to his mother or his sister in three days. Well, that is to say, he didn't make or respond to attempts at conversation. He'd accepted a bare minimum of communication and stuck to it, barely saying simple 'good morning's and 'good night's and 'I'll be back by six'. He saw their eyes growing in worry but neither said anything much about it- Though, he didn't give them much of an opening to. Perhaps they assumed he was going through a rough time in his relationship with his girlfriend, or simply out of sorts, or so he hoped. The truth was, he was out of sorts. He felt he knew them, more so than he felt he knew the supposed friends who had called to him in the halls on that day of school. And yet. . . as with the dreams, there was a gap. Will Herondale felt his life was an empty shell, he searched and searched but trying to find meaning in it or in his relationships with those around him just made his head hurt. So he accepted avoidance as the temporary solution. And it worked rather well for dodging pain; that is, until his mother and sister walked directly into the Police Station where he was held.

They'd arrested him after the punch he'd managed to land, but not before he'd put in a hell of a fight. An assault charge. He could only be glad Jem hadn't had the speed or the idiocy to follow him, or he too would be in handcuffs, and as quickly stricken from the emancipated minor list as you could say 'deadmeat'. He could only be glad he was still a minor. So he was vaguely satisfied at at least that. But in truth, it was hard to care about anything. He was, or he made himself be, numb as he sat, handcuffed to a chair, wasting away the hours by staring at the one dusty clock hung on a beige it had been many hours. The clock's hands had verged on one quite a while ago before getting stuck in a continual tap against the 35 second mark. Now, he guessed it was quite late. His mother walked through the door at the 784th stroke of 1:43:35, and the hour, which had been late before, suddenly felt like the point of utter exhaustion. Linette Herondale looked as if she felt the same way.

The bags under her eyes, dark enough that he'd noticed before, even while avoiding her, were now so profound she looked almost ill, the wrinkles along her forehead very distinct indeed. She walked into the police station determinedly but with an expression of one who had grit their teeth in the process of completing an unpleasant task that made Will think she'd spent quite a bit of time outside the station, trying to force herself to walk through it's doors. Try as he might, he couldn't pry his eyes away from her. The look on her face caused him physical pain.

Linette Herondale was a rather short, thin woman, with sallow cheeks, and deep laugh lines. Her eyes darted, tiredly but alert, around the small dead station, before landing on him. For a brief, terrifying moment, he thought for sure she might cry, her blue eyes widening and mouth pursing tight, but she quickly settled back into the slumped look of disappointment she had entered with. Linette did not go to Will, nor did she speak to him, she simply turned her head slightly and held her chin higher.

Cecily followed behind her, allowing him to move his gaze from his mother, though she was not a sight for sore eyes either. Her long, black hair was rather a mess, her eyes (one thing they held identical) red rimmed. She did not look tired nor depressed, but had her lips pursed so tightly they were white, hugging herself, her nails digging into her arms. She did not even glance his way. In the back of his head, he was grateful.

His mother approached the desk, where Will's dear and bosom friend, The Flabby Policeman, as he had lovingly called him for the past three hours, sat slumped in his reclining chair, reading 'People' and chewing halfheartedly on a stale piece of half eaten pizza. He was, clearly to Will, a man of refined taste.