The sunrise was especially magnificent today.
Golden rays grazed the skyscrapers of New York, creating the illusion as if they glowed from behind. It reflected back from the hundreds of cars that called the canyons between the buildings their home, like thousands fireflies searching for their way. The light also shone on the Hudson, breaking in the shallow waves like a sea made of diamonds.
For a few tranquil seconds New York almost appeared at peace. Content with itself. But this was the city that never slept. Always striving to be more, to be different. There was no quiet to be found on Times Square, Wall Street or Broadway. Cars honking, human cursing on their phones, the sight of the many billboards that promised whatever a human being could wish for; gluttony, greed, apathy.
The stressed businessman, the harried looking mother with her buggy, the tired blue collar worker coming from his nightshift – they were all threading the streets of the city so ignorant of what lied behind the facades of steel, glass and concrete.
Simon had once been like them as well. Bright-eyed, smiling, with his small circle of friends, making his way through life like all of them. But then the lights went out, the curtains fell and the hidden world behind had reared its ugly head.
Without mercy it had snatched Simon with its claws and dragged him deeper into the darkness, never lessening its grip on him, unimpressed by his screams as it methodically tore away the mundane boy he had been and replaced it with a monster that always threatened to take over if he wasn't careful enough.
The monster that had taken everything: his family, his life and even his death.
Immortality wasn't meant for humans.
Seventy years had passed since that fateful night at Pandemonium. 2.555 days. 61.320 hours. And when Simon looked into the mirror (it was a lie that vampires had no reflection; how else could Raphael have compiled his outfits?) he saw the same boy looking back at him that he had been when it all had started.
No, Simon thought, not the same. His skin, never really tanned or something like that, had taken on the shade of a ghostly white. Like a porcelain doll, lifeless, death and so delicate. No blemish – not a single scar, no moles, not a single freckle – just white as freshly fallen snow. He couldn't even blame it on the lack of sun, not since the day he had become the Daylighter.
His eyes weren't the same anymore as well. They were still the same expressive brown orbs, but now they held the pain, the grief and the tiredness that only a life in the Shadow World could inflict upon a soul. If he even possessed one anymore. Clary certainly had thought so; Raphael didn't. He would probably never find out.
Last one standing. Simon had never thought that this term would one day apply to him. Not the clumsy mundane who couldn't even handle a kitchen knife without others having to worry about him. But he wasn't mundane, anymore, was he? Hadn't been for nearly six decades.
"I thought I´d find you here." Simon didn't need to turn around in order to identify the person talking to him. There was only one friend left to him in this world, after all. He listened to the quiet sounds of steps slowly nearing to where he was standing. Not a single moment of hesitation, just a silent underlying determination.
Magnus had always been one to keep going.
"When I still was a vampire," Simon replied, "imprisoned by every single day, I promised myself that if I ever had the chance to see the sun rise again I´d take the chance whenever I could." Magnus didn't say anything for a while. They just stood there, the Warlock and the Vampire, staring into the sun and basking in each other´s presence. Sometimes the best words were those you didn't speak. Sometimes silence conveyed more than a thousand words could.
"Do you regret it?" Magnus disrupted their silence after a while.
"Do I regret what?" Simon asked.
"Everything," Magnus shrugged. "Everything and nothing."
Simon thought about it. Did he regret it? Regret following Clary into a world that would have nothing of him, standing by her side through all the adversity? Did he regret the pain, the grief, the death, the deceit and the lies? Did he regret the smiles, the banter, the friendships forged into the heat of the battles, the quiet evenings of doing nothing but being grateful for being alive, the companionship and – finally – did he regret those precious few moments of love that he had found beneath the carnage of what his life had become, that he had needed to steal in-between the constant crisis and fights?
"No, I don't think so," Simon answered. "Every single moment of happiness was worth it."
"I envy you of your certainty," Magnus said and when Simon looked at him he was taken back by the raw pain that shone through from behind those yellow-green orbs. "It´s his death day."
Simon didn't say anything. Words were too shallow to express what he wanted to say. What was there to say to alleviate the pain that he knew couldn't be tempered? So, he just laid one hand on his friend´s shoulder and didn't say anything.
Their immortality had taken away their deaths. And death had taken away their friends.
Izzy and Lydia died as they had lived. Together.
They found them in an abandoned warehouse near the harbour. Around them the corpses of Valentine´s Shadowhunters, the husks of Forsaken and the charred dust of what had once been demons. But not even Izzy and Lydia could have prevailed against the numeral superiority they were forced to face.
The first crack in Simon´s heart.
There had never been anything between Simon and Izzy. Maybe there could have been; once before he had been turned and the war had consumed their life. But Izzy found Lydia and Simon…Simon found his happiness elsewhere. What remained was their friendship, a bond nearly as strong as that between himself and Clary.
They fought, they laughed and they cried together. And when the Silent Brothers had taken her to be buried with her people so that a new generation may find strength through her, Simon had laid on single blue rose atop her casket and smiled.
Izzy would know.
On that night, when a knock echoed through his door and Simon opened it, it was Maryse standing on the other side.
"You were her friend, weren´t you?" she asked, barely above a whisper. In her eyes Simon saw the grief of a mother that had recognized too late that her daughter had been someone worth to be proud of. The regret of a parent that had left all the things unsaid that she should have told her child when she still had the chance.
Simon didn't suffer the illusion that Maryse liked him. But Alec was too consumed by grief, too estranged from her by years of silent disapproval, Jace had taken off to go after some demons – the only way he knew to take care of his grief – and her husband had taken to the bottle to drown his feelings. He was the only one left to talk to.
Their relationship was non-existent most of the time and icy when they had to interact with each other, but right now they weren't the Ex-Circle-Member and the Downworlder; they were just two persons that had lost someone dear to their hearts.
"I was," Simon replied. "I am."
"I know that I was never the mother she deserved," Maryse admitted. "I´m aware that in the end I didn't know the person she had become. And I know that I´ll regret that until my last breath."
"She was like fire," Simon said and with a sad smile he added – because he and Izzy had just finished the fifth season: "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken." Of course, the reference flew right over the grieving woman´s head.
"Tell me how she burned," Maryse demanded and even now she was too strong – too proud – to shed a single tear. "Tell me about the girl I was too foolish to be proud of."
So Simon told her.
Jace died and Simon didn't even know until Clary stood in his doorway, tears flowing down her cheeks and sobs wracking her body.
Jace and Simon had never gotten along. In some aspects they were just too similar, always edging on each other, sarcasm and insults their only way of communicating. But they had fought and bled together, saved each other´s lives more than they could count and it had been Jace´s blood that had made him a Daylighter. That was a bond that would have always tethered them together, no matter what.
And now it had been sundered and Simon hadn't even noticed.
So he grieved with Clary for a man that could have made her happy; for a man who broke through the chains of his blood, his upbringing and his traditions for the family he had made for himself. He grieved for the person that had shown Simon that family truly was where your heart was, not your blood.
When Clary died she took Valentine with her.
It was their final stand. The last chance of ending Valentine and with him his army of Shadowhunters, Forsaken and demons. Clary, Simon, Alec and Magnus and all the allies they could still call upon. They fought with the desperation of those that had nothing to lose anymore.
It was fierce, it was bloody, it was agony and pain and suffering and it was all because of the hate of one single man. So when Clary´s seraph blade pierced through her father´s heart it was for Izzy and Lydia and Jace; for Luke who had truly been their father and even for Maryse who in the end freed herself from her prejudices and laid down her life so that the Warlock children could escape Valentine´s murderous hordes.
Yet even in death Valentine´s vileness knew no bounds.
A blood curse, woven by demons powerful beyond anything they could hope to match, that latched itself onto Clary and seeped away her life, bit by bit by bit.
There were short periods of lucidness between the screams, the pain and the suffering, where Simon could talk to the old Clary before the curse took over again. He was powerless as he sat beside Clary, holding her down as she trashed around and screamed.
"Please…Simon…please," Clary begged of him and Simon knew exactly what she demanded of him.
"I…can´t," he cried as he ran his fingers through her red hair. "I can´t."
"Please, Simon," Clary sobbed. "I thought I´d be strong enough until the end, but I´m not. I can´t bear this any longer. I beg you, please." Her gaze was filled with desperation and pain that Simon would have stopped breathing if he still had the need to. "Please." It was such a weak, fragile, pathetic sound and Simon couldn't stand hearing the strongest, purest person he knew sounding like that.
He looked at Clary. He nodded.
"Thank you," Clary whispered. "Thank you, Simon."
"You´ll see them again," Simon assured her. "Jace, Izzy, Lydia, Luke…your mother."
"Remember me like I was," Clary said. "I love you, Simon." He could see it in her eyes; the curse was coming back, the pain about to wreck through her body again.
"I love you, too," Simon sobbed. Then he took the pillow and pressed it down.
He screamed. He screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed.
He screamed.
Raphael´s death was the last one.
Even today, Simon didn't know what happened. He just remembered standing in Magnus' living room and suddenly only pain pain pain pain pain that tore through his heart. He clutched his chest and went down, writhing in agony so unimaginable. In these short moment Simon had understood why Clary had begged for death.
He didn't know how, but he instinctively knew that it had been Raphael. His sire, his clan leader and Simon cried with the unfairness of it all.
They were just patching up what Simon´s betrayal had destroyed. They were sliding back into their snark and sarcasm routine. Raphael had started to smile again at Simon´s antics. He had started to smile and it made Simon´s whole world shine bright again. Simon had found love in a hopeless place and he had hoped that maybe one day Raphael would find it, too.
They never found his remains.
Each year on the same day Simon would buy the most expensive jacket he could get his hands on and bury it somewhere different, so that – no matter where Raphael had died – he would find the rest he deserved.
Alec was the only one whose death came to him at old age.
Simon remembered the last talk they had with each other with the clarity as if it just happened yesterday. Remembered the faint sunlight that streamed through the wide windows, the smell of the various herbs Magnus always stored in his lair, the peaceful atmosphere that had hung over them like a comfy blanket under which you could hide from the outside world and nothing could get at you.
He remembered Alec sitting on the couch in front of him, his once black hair white and his face furrowed. But beneath the body that slowly succumbed more and more to the passing of time there was still the friend Simon knew; the logical, calculating archer who always managed to remain calm even when faced with obstacles that would have made others wail in despair. Who would have your back no matter what.
"This isn´t just a curtesy call, is it?" Simon asked. He had that hunch ever since Alec had called him and asked for him to come over when Magnus wouldn't be there. There wouldn't be any reason for him to do that if it wasn't about something that he couldn't talk with Magnus about.
"No, it isn´t," Alec nodded. "I asked you to come over because there are some things that I want to tell you. Things…things that I can´t talk about with Magnus because he´d just deny them, change the topic or flee into his workshop."
"You´re bringing your affairs in order," Simon stated. It didn't surprise him. He had seen the changes in Alec over the last few months; how it had become more difficult for him to move around, to stay awake or to concentrate. His body was slowly shutting down and Alec knew it as well.
The Shadowhunter just smiled at him, full of acceptance and melancholy.
"Magnus would just deny it," he said, "or try to help me." He swallowed. "But sometimes there isn't anything you can do. Sometimes it´s just time to let go. I´ve lived my life to its fullest, but now I´m old and I long to see my family again. Izzy, Jace, Clary, my parents. They´re calling for me." He sighed. "I have some things that I want Magnus to know, but he isn't ready to hear them yet. Could you…could you tell him…when….when…"
"I will," Simon said and the gaze Alec send him was so filled with gratitude that it made Simons heart ache.
"Tell him," Alec began, "tell him, that not even once, not even for a single second in my life did I regret any of the choices that led us together. That I´d do everything just the same just so that we could be together again. Tell him that every day that I woke up and fell asleep next to him was the most precious thing that he could have ever given to me and that he was the only reason why I found the will to live again after the war. He was my all and everything. And one day I want him to find happiness again. Even if he thinks that he doesn't deserve it. Because he does. He deserves everything."
If Simon could have cried, he would. But through Alec´s speech his face stayed blank as he imprinted every single word onto his memory. These words where the most precious things that he had ever held and his fingers had once grasped the Mortal Cup. He felt like an intruder, an outsider. What had been said should have stayed between Alec and Magnus, but like always Alec was right: Magnus wasn't ready yet to hear these words.
"I´ll tell him when he´s ready to hear," Simon croaked, his throat suddenly feeling so dry. "Tell Clary and Izzy…and even Jace…tell them that there isn´t one day where I don´t miss them with all of my heart. And maybe…maybe you could look for Raphael?"
"I will," Alec replied. "I don´t think I ever said it, but I´m glad I got to know you. I´m glad for you and Clary and Magnus and all the other people that I met just because of that single night at Pandemonium. To think what I´d have become otherwise; a sad and broken man, mourning for the possibilities he never had. You were a true friend, Simon, a true friend through it all."
Simon bridged the little distance between them in a heartbeat and then he had the other man engulfed in a fierce embrace.
"It´s me who´s been honoured to know you, Alexander Gideon Lightwood," he whispered. He could feel the mortal men´s warmth seeping through his skin and once again Simon longed for being mortal again so that he didn't need to live through this pain. Another good-bye. Another loved one moving on, leaving him behind; the Daylighter, unmovable, unchanging, untiring. Soldier keep on marching on. And for one short moment Simon hated them all; hated them for dying, for making him feel all these emotions, for being the ones that he loved with all of his heart.
Simon felt the little tremors surging through the Shadowhunter´s body and he realized Alec was crying. So he just kept on embracing his last mortal friend.
Three days later Alec passed away in his sleep.
And then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life.
It took one year before Simon told Magnus of Alec´s last words.
The sun had finally risen completely.
And as Simon stood there – hand on the shoulder of his last remaining friend – he liked to think that Clary, Izzy, Alec, Jace and Raphael were looking down upon them with smiles on their faces.