Anyway, I have MOVED this story COMPLETELY to another site. You can find this STORY and all its subsequent UPDATES here, remove spaces and stars: h*t*t*p :*/*/ archiveofourown. o*r*g /works/1012238

I have the same penname there as I do here: ParadiseAvenger

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Summary: Jace always replants the Institute's garden each year. This year, Clary volunteers to help him.

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When Clary looked back on this moment as an old woman (the angel willing that she even lived that long), the perfume of the roses would evoke a memory stronger than any photograph. Scents were the keys to memories, after all. So many writers and poets had said so, weaving words like the honeysuckle that needed to be trimmed back from the doorway. Clary would love to draw the greenhouse as it was that day, but she didn't have the time to capture the moment perfectly. Instead, she breathed deeply and would remember in the future.

She would remember not smelling the stink of New York City for once, but instead recall the sweet perfume of the Shadowhunters' native homeland. She would remember the sweet fragrance of the roses hanging in the warm still air of the greenhouse. She would remember the smell of the fresh earth and sunlight through the glass, the coconut aroma of the lotion she had put on her shoulders, and the faint whisper of laundry soap and leather. But most of all, she would remember the scent of Jace's skin and hair.

Jace was kneeling beside her, wearing jeans and a t-shirt fresh out of the dryer. He had sunk up to his wrists in freshly-tilled soil as he planted several stalks of silvery irises that would bloom next spring. There were countless other small plants waiting in the cart behind him, patient and watchful like tiny angels.

Clary was beside him, digging with a small trowel, enjoying that she could finally take a break and just be with her boyfriend for a little while. She picked out small stones and roots, adding them to a bucket nearby. She flicked aside a few rolling pill-bugs so that she could dig a small hole for Jace to plant another iris in the flowerbed. His large hands cupped the plant tenderly, placing it into the hole Clary had created, and he packed dirt over it.

His shoulder brushed against hers, warm and strong, and she breathed in again. He smelled wonderful even though he never wore cologne. There were rose petals in his hair and on his shoulders, dirt beneath his fingernails, and the sunlight was lying on him like a blanket. His hair was too long, curling over his ears and against the back of his neck. He was beautiful and Clary breathed him in.

"Clary?" Jace said, closing his hand over hers.

She looked at him and his eyes were like gold flowers, opening only to her. "Yeah?"

"You're trying to dig into the concrete."

With a jolt, Clary realized that she had been so busy mooning at Jace that she hadn't noticed they had reached the end of the available earth in this flowerbed. She had been rather insistently digging the trowel into the stone path that wove throughout the garden, as if it would give way and reveal the path to China on the other side of the world.

"Oh," she gasped and felt the blood rush to her face with embarrassment.

Jace smiled cheekily and brushed his hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand. "What were you looking at?"

"The flowers," Clary lied.

He grinned at her and leaned in, stirring the stretching tendrils of the reaching honeysuckle that needed to be trimmed back with the top of his head. "Really now? Which ones?"

Clary averted her eyes. Jace was wonderful and she loved him dearly, but he could be such an egomaniac. Sometimes, she wished she had the sharp wit that Isabelle did to puncture a hole in that perfect ego and take him down a few pegs. But Clary had no such ability. Even now, Jace leaned in and the scent of his skin made her want nothing more than to lean in and kiss him.

"Which flowers, Clary?" he continued.

They were so close now that their foreheads were almost touching and Clary didn't bother to answer. Instead, she leaned in and accepted the kiss he was offering. His strong arms coiled around her back, pulling her closer through the curtain of flowers. There was no taste to his lips, but the scent of him all around her made up for it tenfold. Clary breathed through her nose, soaking in the scent of his body and the perfume of the flowers all around. He deepened the kiss, his fingers tangling in her hair.

Rose petals showered down on them and Clary broke away when one landed on her forehead and slid down between their faces. Jace chuckled and brushed the mess of petals from the top of her head. Then, he gave himself a shake all over in the same way a dog would and was rid of the petals that covered him. Clary only wished she could be that graceful.

Jace brushed his earthy hands on his jeans and then pulled her to her feet.

"What's next?" Clary asked him.

"Well, we planted all the new flowers," Jace said. "Now, it's time to trim back the older ones that grew wild. Then, we'll give everything a good dose of fertilizer in the water and we're done."

Clary nodded and followed him across the greenhouse. They might as well start with the overgrown honeysuckle vines that were blocking the door and had started this entire adventure. Jace handed Clary a pair of trimmers and shower her where to trim so that it would be most beneficial for the growth of the plant. They trimmed in silence, mostly because the honeysuckle was overwhelming, but the vines were finally tamed back. Jace sighed and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving a long dirty smudge.

Clary giggled.

"What?" he asked.

"You've got dirt all over your face," she said.

"So do you." He stuck his tongue out at her and she flicked a stray flower at him.

They worked their way through the garden, trimming back the rose bushes and a few of the larger flowering hedges that ringed the perimeter of the greenhouse. They were standing under a large white angel's trumpet that had grown into a veritable tree when Jace kissed her again. His kiss was deep and powerful. His hands pressed into the small of her back, pulling her flush against his body. Clary dropped the trimmers in her haste to cling to him, opening her mouth.

When they broke apart, Jace plucked down a single white trumpet and tucked it behind her ear. "You're beautiful," he whispered, "more beautiful than any flower."

Clary flushed, holding his shoulders lightly.

He drew her close, tucking his nose into her hair. "You smell like coconuts."

She buried her face against his chest, breathing in deeply. Then, she mumbled something into his shirt.

"What?" he asked.

Clary put a little space between her mouth and the fabric of his t-shirt. For a moment, embarrassment froze her tongue, but Jace's hands were so warm and soft on her back that it melted away her anxiety. She forced herself to plow on ahead. "Let's do it here," she murmured, "in the garden."

Jace's hands stilled and the garden was quiet in the wake of her statement.

"Only if you want," Clary stumbled out, her voice sputtering like an engine that wouldn't quite start. "Jace—"

But he folded his mouth over hers and swallowed any further self-conscious protests. His hands slid down her back, cupping her behind through her jeans and giving a firm squeeze that made her yelp in surprise. He kissed her deeply until there was no way she couldn't be certain that he didn't want her more than anything else in the world. When he finally broke the kiss, Clary gasped for breath like a drowned rat, inhaling petals and the wonderful scent of her boyfriend.

"Jace," she began.

"I thought you'd never ask," he said with a cheeky grin.

She stared at him, open-mouthed. "You could have said something!"

"I didn't want to push you into anything," he said. "Besides, it was my idea to do it in the shower after training."

Clary's cheeks flamed at the memories of his soft slippery skin, the feeling of the water pouring over her most intimate areas, and the way his breath sounded against the hollow walls as she stroked him. She waved her hand around, stirring loose petals from the flowering tree overhead and dispersing those naughty thoughts. "Jace," she said sternly, but then he was kissing her and she forgot what exactly she was going to yell at him for—maybe it was not taking his clothes off fast enough.

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And I removed the original mature content that continued from that point due to the trolls. Or read this story and all its updates in its original version on Archive of Our Own. There's a LINK in the author's note at the top of the chapter!

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