#herondales are practically known for loving the hardest

[wikitpowers]

“Herondales were always flames... They loved and suffered as if they would burn away with the sheer force of their own fire."

[visander]

Changes

Charlotte reflects on everything after finding out about Will’s secret. She realizes something she hadn't before and something in her heart breaks. 

Read on Archive Instead. 

Charlotte realized something, just a bit too late. Everything about Will had fallen into place when she’d heard about what had happened. Will had been a mystery since the moment he’d stepped into their Institute with watery eyes and a cold hard, exterior that didn't match his childlike face. She’d always known that there was something wrong with Will, that he had some secret he felt like he could never tell anyone else.

She remembered when his parents had come to try and talk to him. She remembered how bad her heart had hurt, sending them away. She remembered thinking that there must be something else, they must have done something to make their child run away at the sight of them in the doorway and then, she’d walked upstairs and caught the sight of Will hiding in bed, crying, heartbroken.

She’d wondered about it for the first time then. She’d wondered what could have possibly happened to make this little boy leave his family and refuse to see them but cry in bed and mourn their presence. She’d wondered for the first time what had happened to Will Herondale.

Then, there was James. She’d been there the first time they’d met. Will had walked into the room with hard, unforgiving eyes. He looked at James like he’d looked at all of them since he’d gotten there. A second of soft intrigue and then nothing but forceful anger. He spat words like he wanted them to recoil and run from him. He was cruel even though there was something behind his eyes that weep sadness and regret.

She had watched him snap at James and something in her had weakened. She remembered thinking for the first time that maybe Will truly was just a cold-hearted child and then, James had explained to Will that he was dying and in a second, everything about him had changed.

Will had stared at him for a moment, that angry expression practically melting off of his face. “Really?” He’d asked softly, almost pleading.

She never understood that, not for years to come. They’d stayed in the training room practically all day. Charlotte kept looking in, expecting to see that something had changed, expecting to see that Will had gone back to himself again, expecting to see James upset. He wasn’t though. Will hadn't. He never did, when it was just he and James. He never tried to make himself unlovable, when it was just them.

She remembered looking in one of the last times that she had checked and seeing Will and James sitting next to each other against one of the walls, both out of breath. They were talking quietly and Charlotte couldn’t hear the words but she probably wouldn’t have been able to focus on them anyway even if she could because Will was smiling for the first time that she had seen.

She remembered thinking that they both just looked like children then. For a moment, James didn’t look like he was dying. He didn’t look like a tortured, scared child. Will didn’t look angry. He didn’t have that cold expression that made him look a million time his age. They both just looked like children, tired out of breath children.

She’d wondered why exactly James Carstairs had that effect on Will Herondale. She never stopped wondering that, not until she found out. Will never looked as happy, as free, as unburdened as he looked when he was with James.

She was happy that they had found each other but she never understood.

She also always knew that Will pretended. He pretended so often. He pretended that he did not care. He pretended that he was selfish. He pretended that he was cruel and he was very convincing. Most of the people who flowed through their Institute left cursing the name ‘Will Herondale’. There were even moments when she thought that she was wrong. When she saw WIll do something particularly awful and she had to pause and stare for a moment and wonder if maybe there was nothing else behind Will’s actions, that maybe he was simply cruel to be so.

She felt bad for those moments now, as few and far between as they were but how was she to know? Will was a good actor. She thought that sometimes he must even have fooled himself.

She had wondered why. Why did he put in so much effort to make the world think he was so awful? Why did he try to make everyone hate him and why did he do so when he always looked so sad after, when he thought no one was watching him?

And above all, why was James exempt from all of it? Why was Will nice to him? Why did he love James and let James love him in return while he pushed away everyone else that cared about him?

Charlotte hadn’t been surprised when she’s heard that Will had thought that he was cursed. She had always known that it was something. Nothing about Will had ever made sense. He was kind-hearted. He was sweet. He was caring. She had always known that there was something that made him act otherwise and in the lieu of everything else that had happened in the past week, she hadn’t had a lot of time to think about it.

She did now though. She sat against the window in her and Henry’s room and looked down at the dark courtyard and for the first time since she’d found out, she took a moment to really think about it.

How had Will gone so long without realizing that the curse wasn’t real? How had he not realized when years went by and her and Henry were fine? How had he not realized with every day that passed and they continued to breathe, despite loving Will? How had he not realized that the curse must not be real?

Then, it had hit her.

Will hadn’t known that they loved him. The whole time, he thought that he had fooled them. He woke up every morning and he truly thought that the only person in the world who loved him was James. He went through each year, he met them every morning for breakfast, he celebrated every holiday with them and he truly thought that they had not come to love him, he went through each day and he actually believed that everything he had done had stopped them from caring for him.

The past week had been hard, for all of them. There was a void in the Institute without James there. Soft violin music no longer flowed through the halls in the morning. There was no one sitting in the library by the fire at night. Charlotte no longer came across Will and James, stretched out in the soft morning light, curled together like they thought that no one could see them.

That was the hardest part, seeing Will without him. Every time he came around the corner, Charlotte's eyes fluttered behind him, waiting to see James' following him. Every time she didn’t see him, she always felt a flash of worry. She opened her mouth to ask if he was still in bed, if he wasn’t feeling well today and then she remembered.

It had been hard for everyone. Charlotte hadn’t thought that her heart could feel worse but as she sat there, alone in the solitude of night, she found herself thinking about a little boy who had come to her so long ago. She found herself thinking about how lonely he must have felt. She found herself wondering what else she could have done to make sure he knew how much he meant to them. She found herself thinking about a little boy, hiding in his room as his parents cried on the steps of the Institute and begged to see him. She thought of a little boy with a soft heart and a hard expression, pushing everyone away.

And she wept. She went for the first time in a long time and she wept for all of it. She wept for Jessamine, dying on the steps of the home they’d made. She wept for James, so far away from them. She wept for Will and the years he’d suffered so alone. She wept for the mark on his skin that had faded and vanished when they’d taken James from them.

She wept for the children that had become hers. Her beautiful girl, buried somewhere cold. Her fragile boy with his lips sewn shut and her cursed one, left behind.

Charlotte had never wanted children, especially not so young but the world had given her some anyway. Her beautiful, broken children. She found herself weeping for how much she had failed them. How had she failed so much that Jessamine had needed to betray them, to escape? How had she failed them so much that Will had spent his entire life not knowing that he was loved? How had she failed them so much that James’ had been taken from them, so easily?

Henry found her resting in the window sile of their bedroom. He didn’t say anything. Charlotte wondered if he knew why she was crying or if he simply didn’t know what to say. He wrapped his arms around her and for the first time in a long time, Charlotte let herself find solace in her husband's arms. She let him bear the weight of her worries and her fears, at least some of them, for just a moment.

She had failed to save Jessamine and James but it was not too late for Will. She thought that the next day, she would find him and she would tell him how much she loved him and how much she always had. She would make sure that he knew before it was too late for him too.

She fell asleep in the crook of Henry’s neck, her face wet from tears that had yet to dry. She woke up in their bed the next morning, curled against him like she hadn’t remembered doing for years.

She had Will and she had Henry and now, they had Tessa. She supposed they had James too, for he was not dead and gone. Their family was incomplete. It was fractured and there were large chunks missing, pieces that they would never be able to get back but together, they would rebuild.

She hadn’t felt this close to her husband in years. She hadn’t seen Will this open, even as heartbroken as he was... Ever and now, Tessa had joined their family. James was still there as well. Even if he was far away from them, even if he would become something they did not recognize, he was alive, somewhere and that had to be enough.

They would all be okay, even if their lives had shifted in ways that they couldn’t understand yet. Even if everything they had known had crumbled. They would all be okay.

Charlotte watched the sunlight slowly peek over the city and through their windows, casting her and Henry in hues of gold. He snored softly above her and Charlotte found her mouth twitching in a smile.

They would be okay. Even Will. Even James. Even her and Henry. Even Tessa. They would all be okay.

Charlotte hoped.