Hello, this is my first one-shot and i just had to write this as it was always in the back of my mind.
I'd always wondered what it'd be like if Clary had died during Valentine's attack
instead of Jace and what Jace would be like. I wrote this just to
put it out there and i was dying to write an angst. Tell me how i did with a review please because it'd mean so much
Thank you.
The first thing he'd noticed was the hole on her coat sleeve.
Not the blood, that came later.
Not the way her chest was still and that her eyes were open but un-seeing. No. That came when he had actually registered the situation.
It was the hole in her coat sleeve, in the exact place where he knew she'd always pull fabric around her wrist and wipe at something, or cover her nose if she sneezed. Her sneeze, the one that scrunched her nose and rocked her head forward causing curls to bounce everywhere.
The hole in her coat sleeve. Then the blood. Then the stillness. Then the eyes.
Her eyes. Her eyes that always held a passion, whether it was raw and angry, or fierce and consuming, or loving and inviting, they were never so...blank. Her eyes. That rich green that was so rare a colour for someone. The green that shone and twinkled like hidden emeralds and the gold that faded and strengthened like the suns haze reflecting off of leaves. The deep rich amber like his own eyes, hidden behind her pupils and peeking out from behind their black depths. Her eyes, so exquisite and innocent, extending into her head and filling her body with the light they held. Eyes that were like a beautiful meadow hidden deep in a valley of trees. Eyes that were now...blank.
And glassy.
Eyes that were no longer a fresh summer breeze of relief when he needed it, but the thing he dreaded the most.
He found himself touching her cheeks and stroking back her hair. But he didn't dare listen for a heartbeat. Didn't dare feel for even the slightest breath. Didn't check to see if she was alive because she might have been...dead...
He'd just sat there, on the beach next to her tiny still form and waited, staring at her beauty, her lips, her hair, her body, until help finally arrived. That's when he noticed the blood. When her body had been ripped away from his arms. The blood that seeped into the earth and turned it a dark brown. Blood that coated his hands, his fingers, his mind.
Blood he could never, would never, focus on for it left questions and doubts.
It was weird, watching other shadowhunters grasp her bloody form to their chest and carry her away. Weird watching someone's mouth move and not hear it. Jace couldn't hear anything. It was like the world was quite, and dead. Blank. Like her.
And yet he still couldn't find himself to believe she was dead. He still had hope. And when he felt hands around his arms, when he finally registered what those other shadowhunters had said, he'd clung to that hope. Even when he rode back to the Infirmary in Alicante with a weeping ISabelle, he'd clung to that hope.
He'd stared at the crisp white walls for hours, just...waiting. It was as if he was on hold, his brain had shut down, because he couldn't think. Didn't want to. That's when the silent brothers had filed out of the doors and Magnus ran to Alec, weeping into his chest. Maryse stepped out of the room as well. Her eyes were red-rimmed and tight. The skin around her lips were white and she turned and whispered something to Isabelle. Jace had faintly heard Isabelle's gasp and saw her slender form run from the room. Jace swallowed hard, his adams apple bobbing up and down.
They acted as if she was dead, but she couldn't be dead. It could never be true.
She was supposed to live forever.
"Tell me she's alive." His voice was barely a whisper. The words tinged with sorrow so bright it was unreal. "Tell me Maryse! Don't tell me she's gone. You can't tell me, it can't be true!" He couldn't feel the tears flowing steadily down his cheeks now.
It wasn't true.
It couldn't be.
They weren't brother and sister. They were supposed to live happily ever after. They'd live in big house, Jace'd run the Institute from the newly built Herondale Manor, and they'd get married. They'd go to every continent in the world, visit Paris, and Venice, and any place she wanted to go. He'd build her a sunroom so she could paint all day long and they'd have two or three children, she wouldn't be able to decide. And she would live forever. He'd die before she did, protecting her from some demon. He'd make her live.
And yet seeing the apologetic look on Maryse's face, Jace realized it was true. Absolutely and utterly true. She was gone.
He walked slowly towards the door of the room, placing his hand on the brass knob and twisting.
"Jace," Maryse started but one look at the boy and she let him go. He was reck. Inside and out and yet- Jace felt that until he saw her corpse he wouldn't break. He moved thoroughly the now open door, and looked at her still body. Her flat dull hair. Her overtly pale skin. And the hole in her coat.
he moved towards the steel bed frame and white sterile sheets. And as if captured only in movie frames Jace felt himself do the action of placing his head on her chest. He waited. And waited some more. But he didn't feel any movement. And that's what broke him. Not being able to hear that steady heartbeat. Not feeling the rise and fall of a chest that was supposed to never stop moving. Jace fell to the ground with an agonizing scream as his heart was torn out of his chest. he wailed on and on, not stopping, not wanting to. Because without her, his life, his love. Clary. Without her he was nothing. And nothing didn't exist in the real world.
In a haze Jace moved sluggishly upwards. First into a crouch and then painfully into a standing position. He felt nauseous as he gazed upon the love of his life. No, not just the love but his life in actuality. And Jace laid beside her, kissing her cool lips and clasping her cold hands in his own. His final tears fell onto the sheets around them, leaving gray stained on the clean fabric. With a final breath he closed his eyes and let the pain envelope him, knowing that he would not wake if he did. Slowly his heart stopped beating and his hands stopped shaking. Slowly his tears stopped flowing. And together they rest, Clarissa and Jonathon, eternally. Forever would be the boy with a broken heart and the girl with the hole on the sleeve of her coat.