Ok, this is a one-shot, in a way. Please please please R&R! Even if only to say "yay" or "nay"! I LOVE to hear that people are reading and enjoy reading your comments even more so...R&R R&R R&R!

Alternative COB…What if…

Clary hadn't seen Jace that night at Pandemonium? What if they'd met…differently?

PREFACE: "I'm not going to hurt you." Said the figure. She was right in thinking it was a boy. He had a soft, beautiful and persuasive voice, nothing like the creature she'd just encountered. Where was it? Had this boy killed it? Clary peeked out from under her wild red hair. The boy was looking at her. She could faintly see his face in the dim light. What she saw was nothing monstrous, quite the opposite, he was beautiful. "My name is Jace Wayland." He said softly, still not risking extending his hand again. Clary let another whimper escape her lips. This seemed to alert some urgency in the boy in front of her. "What's your name?" he asked. Clary didn't say anything, couldn't say anything. He nodded. "Will you let me help you? He asked. He didn't seem to be getting impatient, he seemed worried.

Clary ran from the coffee shop. She'd seen nine missed calls, all from her mother, flashing from the screen of her phone as though they were bright and flashing warning lights. Something must be wrong, she thought. Her mother would have normally let her calm down from the fight and let her come home by herself. Why had she called so much? And why had she stopped so suddenly? The phone said that in five minutes her mother had called her nine times, then…nothing. For an hour now she'd had no calls. From the moments Simon had told her how he felt, she'd put her phone on silent, dealing with one thing at a time, she told herself. The next hour had dissolved into smiles and stolen kisses. But once she'd checked her phone, it felt as though someone had started playing Hungry Hippos in her stomach. Something must be wrong, she told herself.

Slamming her phone shut on the network woman's voice declaring that her mother's phone was 'currently unavailable', she rounded the corner that led to their apartment and realized that her assumptions had been right. She thought she was prepared for it. She thought she knew that there was something wrong. But no. The feelings she got when she stared at the flashing lights of the police cars was proof enough that she hadn't really known. Her entire body went cold, her hair standing on end. Her stomach dropped and she started to convulse in panicky shivers. What was going on?

After a moment of standing still, taking in the scene in front of her, the cars and armed police officers, she ran forward, pushing through them, tearing through the flashy yellow tapes and ran up the stairs, two at a time.

Pushing through people became more difficult when she reached the top of the stairs. She didn't look at the people that were restraining her. She just shook them off roughly and proceeded towards the door. There she had to stop. She stood behind the tape that covered the door and stared uncomprehendingly at the state her home was in. Everything was either ripped, broken or littering the floor. Feathers from the sofa cushions layered over the floor that was dotted with paintings, shoes and other objects that had been standing on the now either broken or upturned tables and cupboards. But that was not what made Clary scream. She already knew something had happened to her mother. As much as it crushed her, she knew her mother was in danger. What made Clary scream was the disgusting creature that lied on the floor in the middle of the room. It was disgusting and smelly and looked like nothing Clary had ever seen. Its disfigured green body turned to look at her and she saw its many layers of yellow sharp teeth, in between which shone acidic yellow saliva, and snarled at her. She felt a hand on her shoulders tugging her back, just as she saw a forensic walk right by it. Didn't he see the creature? She was whimpering as she was led – or rather carried as she wasn't able to make her legs move. Finally she was out in the open air which felt good on her feverish skin. What was going on? Her mother was gone, taken by force by the looks of it. There were creepy disfigured monsters in her home that other people weren't able to see! Was this some sort of dream? A very, very bad dream?

She was distracted then by the discomfort in her back. She could feel it, an odd pain as though she was standing against something sharp. She felt it then in her shoulders, she squirmed and the hard sharp objects contracted to squeeze her shoulders painfully. She looked around and it took all of her concentration to see through the tears in her eyes and see the police officer holding her, or, she realized, the thing wearing police officer clothes that was holding her. She screamed again as the disgusting figure with dead gray skin and yellow cat-like eyes stared down at her. He didn't seem to have real flesh; it was too thin and hanging off his face. Its skin was more like a thin sheet of paper covering its head, which was completely bald and the fingers that were holding her shoulders felt like skeletal hands. She screamed again, trying to squirm from the creature's grasp and failing miserably, she whimpered and stared around desperately. The sight she saw next was beyond screaming. She saw the police officers, some climbing out of the cars, some walking around, to and from the front doors, and some talking loudly into their walkie-talkies, but only about half of them were human. Others were like the ones that clutched her now, although some had horns and some had a lot of hair. Some were green others were oozing yellow. All had ugly pustiles and angry red rashes covering their unhealthy skin. All of them were monsters.

Screaming madly and squirming, she broke free of the monster's hands and ran through the crowd. She ran and ran until she was almost out of the clearing in front of her building where the officers were gathered when she ran into someone, or something, near a dark alley.

She didn't scream as the form was not skeletal or fat. Her thoughts jumped immediately to Luke. Where was he? She thought distantly. She needed to call him.

Her hope quickly evaporated as she took in who was holding her. It was even more gruesome than any she had left behind her with huge bloodshot eyes that took up most of his ugly bone-white head. It was human form, though his face was very alien. His mouth dominating his face, not because of it's vastness but because of the sharpness of his teeth. She saw blood dropping from the two sharpest, the two on either side of the middle ones on the top. She stayed perfectly still in it's arms as it gathered her to him and stared at her, planning her escape route – she found none. The creature didn't try to kill her, strait away anyway. It looked at her for a long time while she stood there, petrified. It then leaned close to her and sniffed her neck.

"Delicious." It muttered, it's voice husky and ragged. She could hear a rattle in his throat. It grabbed her at her body, gently to begin with, then roughly. "I'm going to enjoy this, devouring you.". She couldn't move. She was stuck and petrified while the thing moved his human-like hands up her body and started to tug at her clothes.

"No, please, NO" She shouted. The thing pushed her to the floor and straddled her, punching her in her face to shut her up. It worked; she didn't know what to shout and didn't see the point. No one was coming to her rescue. The thing was atop of her, clawing at her clothes and leaving burning sore bruises where his hard fingers pressed roughly. Tears leaked down Clary's face as she tried to register what was happening. It was too overwhelming. She couldn't think, not coherently but at all. It was as though her mind had taken too many blows already and was now locking all the horror out. But she couldn't keep the panic and fear at bay, not even close and as the creature tugged at her jeans, causing the top button to fly off, she had to scream again, her throat raw and aching.

All of a sudden, the weight and he clawing hands were ripped from her as the creature was hurled off her. It was too dark in the alley for her to be able to see what was going on. All she could make out was that someone had pulled him off her and was now rolling around in a fight. The ripping and grunting noises soon turned into white noise to Clary as she dragged herself to a nearby wall and curled up in a protective ball, still feeling incredibly breakable and broken. Sobs escaped her lips and caused heaving breaths to be dragged to her lungs, she was hyperventilating. Suddenly, there were hands on her shoulders, she jerked away with a whimper. No more, she couldn't take any more. The hands immediately went away, Clary opened her eyes.

A figure was crouched in front of her, his hand which he'd just reached out to her was on the floor, far enough not to harm her, not far enough for Clary. She shifted away from it, the figure didn't follow. What game was this? Then she remembered that something had pulled the creature off her, but immediately dismissed the thought, scared of hoping.

"I'm not going to hurt you." Said the figure. She was right in thinking it was a boy. He had a soft, beautiful and persuasive voice, nothing like the creature she'd just encountered. Where was it? Had this boy killed it? Clary peeked out from under her wild red hair. The boy was looking at her. She could faintly see his face in the dim light. What she saw was nothing monotonous, quite the opposite, he was beautiful. "My name is Jace Wayland." He said softly, still not risking extending his hand again. Clary let another whimper escape her lips. This seemed to alert some urgency in the boy in front of her. "What's your name?" he asked. Clary didn't say anything, couldn't say anything. He nodded. "Will you let me help you? He asked. He didn't seem to be getting impatient, he seemed worried.

"I'm scared." Clary said so quietly that she was shocked to see him nod, having heard what she'd said. Then, everything pushed it's self to the front of her mind as though the wall protecting her from the awful happenings around her fell into a heap, muck like Clary did. She slid down the wall where she'd been in a sitting position against the wall and expected to fall on the cold floor but instead found herself being cradled in strong arms. The boy had taken a chance and was pulling her to his lap and crushing her to his chest as she sobbed loudly.

Her mother was gone, she'd been taken somewhere. Then she realized that she hadn't heard what had happened to her mother. Maybe she'd been killed! Horror crashed down on her.

"My mother." She gasped between loud sobs. The boy – Jace – rocked her lightly, muttering into her hair. "She's gone somewhere, we found no blood or body." He said, knowing what Clary must be thinking. "She may have been able to flee." He was trying to make her feel better, she realized, and was shocked to see that she was able to think a little more coherently. She pushed her mother out of her mind. It's too big, she decided. So she thought of the monsters she'd encountered tonight.

"The officers." She said in a gasp, she sat up in Jace's arms; he was looking at her shocked.

"The officers?" he asked.

"They were monsters, skeletal beasts." She said, her voice breaking twice.

"You saw them?" He asked in a stunned tone. She still couldn't see well enough through the tears and darkness to see his features properly and so guessed with his tone that his eyebrows had shot strait up. She nodded and buried her face in his shoulder. She didn't know exactly why, but she felt safe with this Jace. She wondered distantly if it was the fact that he'd rescued her, but felt deep down that it was deeper than that. She didn't really think about it though because her mind was pretty filled with stuff right now. Mainly fear, terror and monsters. Was she going mad, seeing these things?

"You can't have." Jace said. Clary didn't know what he meant and so didn't answer.

"What are they?" She asked. "What are they and why are they here? What are they doing in my home, in my apartment?" Jace pulled back, reaching for her face and pulled her chin up so that she was looking at him.

"In your apartment?" He asked.

"Yes, is it that that did something to my mother? That wrecked the place?" her voice was shaking and she could feel fresh sobs coming on. She buried her face back in his chest and he let her, stroking her hair. He was breathing hard.

"How can you-" he began.

"Jace, you down there?" Came another male voice, I stiffened in Jace's arms, he pulled her hair back and stroked my cheek.

"I'm here." He called back. I whimpered.

"Someone with you?" He asked.

"Yeah." Was all Jace said.

"Hold on." Said the other male. There was a sound of moving fabric as he seemed to fiddle with something maybe in his pocket and then Clary could see red behind her eyelids indicating that the alley was not filled with light. She opened her eyes slowly and blinked against the sudden light. She took in the people around her.