Thanks to my faithful readers and all. Now that it's finally ended, you can get on with your lives and I'll get out of your hairs.

The end of a life is the sum of the love that was lived in it, that whatever you think you have sworn, being here at the end of Jem's life is not what is important. It was being here for every other moment. Since you met him, you have never left him and never not loved him. That is what matters.

-Magnus Bane, Clockwork Princess-

Chapter 12

Two years later found Tessa looking at a squirming bundle of the new Herondale baby.

"He's beautiful," she whispered to the proud parents. A necklace with a locator charm was slipped around his neck. A bracelet with protections was slipped around his ankle. Tessa was not making the mistake she had made when she neglected to do the same and nearly killed all of the Herondale line.

"Will you hang around more?" Jace asked her. He had found the Immortal to be pleasant company in the year that she had spent teaching him about his heritage. When she kept vanishing and only appearing randomly, he couldn't help but feel hurt. Magnus had explained Tessa's difficulty in staying put but it was difficult to understand.

'I'll try, Jace. It gets harder the older you get."

He had a hard time of it, of course. The only death that she ever inflicted on herself was William Herondales and even then she spent it with his children. She was not there when he passed to the next. It must have hurt Will but he had understood and even smiled at her, the last she saw him.

But as promised, she was there for birthdays and Christmas like an absentee aunt. She gave the best gifts though and told the most romantic stories to entertain them.

And when the love story became their own, they sought her for advice.

"He's a werewolf, Auntie. And I'm just going to die if I don't get to marry him," a sixteen year old Charissa said dramatically.

Tessa did her best to be sympathetic, really, and tried not to roll her eyes. After all, she got married at seventeen so she couldn't exactly be hypocritical.

But her turn of phrase…Really, who says, "die if I don't marry," nowadays?

The funnier and more dramatic ones learned to be less so and the moping and depressing ones learned to be not so gloomy. Tessa wasn't the humoring sort and they quickly learned that. And Tessa always entertained the gloomy ones with hot chocolate and told them to remove anything sharp in case the drama got away from them.

Things for more interesting when Jem got cured and the first one to see them having indiscretions was Jace. Tessa found it to be poetic justice for the number of times she walked in on Clary and Jace. She didn't have the need to apologize and Jem placed the appropriate hilarity on the situation by laughing while embarrassed. Jace made it more hilarious by being shocked.

"You're Brother Zachariah?!" he gasped.

Tessa found it immensely funny and had to excuse herself while she got the inexplicable case of the giggles.

It was not all-smooth coasting for Tessa and Jem. They had spent the better part of their married life apart from each other. Sometimes, Tessa would end up in Magnus' apartment and Jem would use his charm to beg off a bed in Simons place, or vice-versa, depending on whom Tessa found more bearable in that moment. When their daughter was born, Tessa found lesser reasons to be annoyed with Jam and Magnus hung around more. The latter made the good-natured Jem scowl, especially since Magnus was teaching the baby about glitter and glue.

Magnus only got back on Jem's good graces when his birthday gift to baby Emma was a bejeweled dagger. One of Emma's more interesting gifts were from her parabatai, Jace's son. They were hairpins that could be thrown at vampires and would inject them with holy water.

When Jem heard of Emma's choice of a parabatai, he hadn't stopped smiling for a day.

"A Carstairs and a Herondale. I hope it doesn't end up a tragedy," he remarked.

Tessa smacked him for jinxing it.

Of course, only time would tell about their bond.

Annual meetings were, of course, still in effect. Even if Tessa occasionally showed herself during birthdays and even stopped by to drop a Christmas gift or two, Magnus still wanted to see her once every year to reassure himself that she hadn't committed suicide due to loneliness.

But with Jem's return, the chance of that happening turned remote. That didn't stop Magnus from worrying so the annual meeting continued for the sake of his sanity.

"How are you Tessa?" Magnus asked.

She raised an eyebrow. It was a fair question. Since his vacation with Alec was cut short due to the Sebastian Emergency, they had resumed it as soon as possible. However, there was still some clean-ups and an engagement party and then a bridal shower and then the wedding preparations…so it took nearly two years for them to resume their vacation. Tessa thought that Alec was delaying it intentionally for Jace. That had the side-effect of Magnus and Alec missing the annual Herondale Christmas party for nearly five years in a row.

"Fine. How was your vacation?" she said.

"Satisfying. Japan was especially wonderful after I coerced Alec to wear a yukata," Magnus said.

He was smiling and combining it with his words had Tessa trying to remove the images conjured in her mind.

"Please don't say things like that. One adjective would have been a sufficient answer," Tessa said.

"Delicious?" Magnus supplied.

Tessa closed her eyes and counted to ten and then did it backwards.

The next year's visit started in a more serious vein. Alec was not in the kitchen eavesdropping and the cat flap that was sealed by magic locked out even Magnus' cat. Blue spars shimmered on the windows, the doors and even the cracks on the walls.

Tessa took note of the precautions and raised her serious brown eyes to Magnus in a questioning look.

"I wanted your opinion," he said. His voice was soft and his cat eyes were blinking softly and slowly with intensity.

"You have all my attention," she said.

"What do you say if I were to turn myself mortal?" he asked.

Tessa did not gasp, nor did she faint. But she did stop breathing for three seconds. She didn't ask if he was serious. The secrecy of things were answer enough.

"I would ask the price you would pay and if you can live with it, just for him," she replied with as much solemnity as she could.

Magnus finally sat down and sighed, running a hand though his glitter-free hair. "The price… Tessa, I would loose my magic. The reward will be Alec."

Here, she frowned. "He is not a thing, or a factor. He is a person. He may change his mind, or you might break-up with him. And I know you. Your heart is fickle, almost callous."

Sparks flashed out of Magnus' hand. He looked downright murderous.

"Don't patronize me, or the love I feel for him. This is the first time I have felt this alive in centuries."

"Then don't just talk to me," she shot back calmly. "This isn't just about you. It involves him too. I personally believe that you should wait until your Nephilim reaches emotional maturity. It would spare you a lot of trouble."

"I am asking for your opinion, as a friend," he finally said. His anger looked drained out of him.

"And I am giving it to you. And anyway, it's a free country. You can't castigate me for what I said."

Magnus scowled.

Tessa left it there and the safety precautions were removed. She did not check if he did as she suggested. What he chose to do with his life was his own and she wasn't nosy, unlike some people.

And then she listened, with some amusement, Clary ranting about the stupidity of men, their break-ups, their drama and their stupid pride.

"Let me get this straight," she interrupted. "Magnus and Alec broke up and now Magnus is spending his nights drunk in the vampires place and Alec is drunk out of his mind as well in yours and Jace's, corrupting your children about alcohol?"

Clary scowled, confirming it without words.

"How much do you bet that they'll be back together by next week?" she asked.

Things dissolved into betting from there.

A lot of drama, break-up and make-ups were what it took for a wedding to happen. When they finally eloped to Vegas, Clary and Tessa exchanged looks of relief, having endured the entire thing with bets and jokes. Tessa nearly always won the betting, much to her surprise.

Magnus did not perform the ritual to make himself mortal until they were in their 5th year of marriage. Tessa expressly approved.

And then he dropped the bomb.

"WHAT?" Tessa gasped.

She found that she surprised herself with her reaction. She didn't even react this much when Magnus asked her about mortality.

"I have to give my magic freely to something or someone. I chose you," he repeated.

Tessa was in a daze.

"I have to talk to Jem," she muttered.

Jem took one look at her expression and settled her in the kitchen with a cup of tea, He told Emma, who was then fourteen years old, to train "Because Mum and Dad need the kitchen for the serious stuff."

"Well," he asked.

"Magnus is giving me his magic," she said bluntly.

He blinked. "Oh, I suppose he has his reasons."

There was a companionable silence. Then…

"You aren't going to worry?" she asked. "It will probably leave a mark on me And cause a whole lot of trouble."

He just smiled. "You're going to be beautiful, no matter what. And we can always deal with whatever comes up."

It warmed her heart that he said, "we." She showed him her gratitude that night with such enthusiasm that she couldn't meet his eyes the next morning.

Jem had passed his calm and intelligent reasoning to his daughter. It became obvious when Tessa told Emma and the girl just shrugged and said, "Alright. When does it happen?"

It was absurd, at least to her, because she was the only one troubled. It amused her so much that she was smiling when she accepted Magnus' offer. So much so that Magnus asked her about her smile and she actually told him.

He laughed and said, "Only that man! Your family is getting bigger. It will stay big when you don't isolate yourself from the world."

Tessa ignored the jab. "Well, to quote my daughter, 'when will this happen?'"

Magnus laughed again.

The magic kept things interesting and life was never dull and boring with Jem. A second child joined them when Emma was seventeen and they named him William. Jem looked at the black-haired baby and wept as he held his first son. That his hands shot out blue sparks to change Jem's hair color was accepted as a gift.

When she next met with Magnus, he already had a small shade of gray hair near his temples.

"Hey Tessa," he greeted first. "Still regretting living so long?"

She smiled at him. "No. I've just realized the perks of being immortal."

Happy it ended and I only have to focus on my other stories. Or probably create new ones that would connect to this one. Suggestions are welcome, just pm me or something. There will be one-shots that would revolve around this verse, so keep an eye for it. Whispers of the Past has already been released, so please try and read that one.

Yours truly,

Lady Hallen