A Leap in Time ~ An Infernal Devices Fic

Jem Remembers

(Note: I seriously suggest listening to Iris by the Goo Goo dolls after the flash back if you want to have ze best possible reading experience ~max)

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"We are all the pieces of what we remember. We hold in ourselves the hopes and fears of those who love us. As long as there is love and memory, there is no true loss."

Jem was standing, wandering through a dark fog. He was in London, no- Shanghai- Wales. He'd never been to Wales before, only imagined what it would be like for - what was his name?- growing up there. He must have had a name once.

He was in London. In the rain; a broad rimmed hat caught the droplets from catching his nose. She smiled at him.

C o l d ? No.

Ice filled every orifice of his body. He could feel his toes beginning to turn to ice, his eyes freezing themselves to their lids.

He was barely aware of his brain, an ever malfunctioning typewriter, spitting out wrong words onto his mindscape.

Where was he ?

Suddenly the world became bright, but not warmer. Bright, glowing, and with the glowing a. . . memory.

The music had risen to a crescendo. He was breathing hard, sweat standing out on his forehead and collarbones despite the chill of the evening air. He heard the click of his bedroom door as it opened behind him and relief spilled through him, though he did not stop playing. "Will," he said, after a moment. "Will, is that you?"

There was only silence, uncharacteristic of Will. Perhaps Will was annoyed about something. Jem lowered his bow and turned, frowning. "Will —" he began.But it wasn't Will at all. A girl stood hesitantly in the doorway of his room. A girl in a white nightgown with a dressing-gown thrown over it. Her gray eyes were pale in the moonlight, but calm, as if nothing about his appearance startled her. She was the warlock girl, he realized suddenly; the one Will had told him about earlier, but Will had not mentioned the quality of stillness about her that made Jem feel calm despite his longing for the drug, or the small smile on her lips that lit her face. She must have been there for quite a few moments, listening to him play: the evidence that she had enjoyed it was in her expression, in the dreamy tilt of her head."You're not Will," he said, and immediately realized that this was a terrifically stupid thing to say. As she began to smile, he felt an answering smile beginning on his own lips — for such a long time Will had always been the person he wanted most to see when he was like this, and now, for the first time, he found himself glad not to see his parabatai, but someone else instead.

Another.

"Why can't you sleep?"

Hesitancy.

"I have bad dreams."

"I was dreaming too," she said. "I dreamed about yo u r       m u s i c . . ."

. . . .?

Jem started from the fog; it was fading around him. Suddenly, through the cold, there appeared a speck of warmth, it started in his fingertips. It glowed, a low burn, and he felt, though now he knew his eyes were closed in sleep or, rather, unconsciousness, he could see the light it emitted. His body was ice, but his hand was being thawed. Someone was thawing-

His eyes opened slowly.

The eyes he loved most in the world stared down at him, grey and furiously worried.