So, um, I was feeling angsty, and. . . this was born. Sorry not sorry.
SPOILERS FOR LORD OF SHADOWS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Shadowhunter Chronicles; they belong to Cassandra Clare.
Clary's prophetic dreams had come true.
Emma had attended Clary's funeral with the rest of the Blackthorns - it had been on Alec and Magnus's insistence, claiming that Clary would've wanted them to be there. It was a tragic affair, and Emma knew that it destroyed Julian to see Jocelyn weep the way she did, like her heart would never be whole again - after all, he had been the parent figure to Livvy, and Livvy. . .
Julian, Julian carry me. . .
She wanted to leave, to go back to exile as soon as possible, so as to outrun the homesickness that infected her when she laid eyes on the Blackthorns from across the pyre. She'd only been allowed to return for the funeral, but now she wanted to leave, to get back to Mexico, back to Cristina, back to emotions that were far, far away-
But she couldn't. She'd promised Clary that she'd tell Jace about the dreams, and Angel damn her if she held out any longer.
So now she was tracking through the New York Institute trying to find him.
"He's probably in the greenhouse," Isabelle had told her when she'd looked in the kitchen. The woman's eyes were large and sorrowful. "But, Emma, you might not want to talk to him, he hasn't been himself since Clary."
Emma had ignored her advice, thanked her, and immediately headed for the greenhouse.
The greenhouse was warm with sunlight, and it didn't take her long to identify the glinting gold head a little way into the foliage. She trekked towards him, and Jace didn't so much as look up at her approach.
"Jace?" she said uncertainly. Maybe she shouldn't have come. He didn't respond.
She felt her fingers curl against the edge of her gear. She really shouldn't have come.
You promised Clary. You promised. She trusted you with this, and she trusted you to keep fighting.
She cleared her throat. "Jace." No reply. "Clary gave me a message to give you."
A catch in his breath; he was listening now, Emma was sure of it.
"She told me to tell you she knew she was going to die."
He tensed up at that, but he didn't turn. "What?" He asked, not appearing to believe her. "No. You're lying. You're lying."
Clary had told her that Jace used to hide his pain with sarcasm and insults. Emma wondered if he'd changed that much in the past years that he no longer did that, or if he was withholding the sharp remarks for the sake of his girlfriend's memory. If he was refraining from being cruel because he knew Clary would've scolded him for it.
"I'm not." Her voice choked in her throat, and she didn't know if she should approach, but without meaning to she'd moved her feet and was kneeling next to him in front of the flowers. "When you two were at the LA Institute, before you went off to the Faerie Lands, I was on the roof, and Clary came up to talk to me. She told me that you'd asked her to marry you."
He sucked in his breath through his nose, and finally dragged his gaze to hers. Pain - such pain and sorrow and torment resided in those blazing eyes, that always seemed to burn with an emotion ten times the intensity a normal human, or even a Shadowhunter, would feel. "How- How did you know? Not even Alec knew. How would you have known that if. . ." He trailed off, but she knew what he'd been trying to say. How would you have known that if you were lying?
"She told me," Emma went on, and she realised she'd unconsciously adopted the voice Julian used when he had to break some bad news to Tavvy. The soft voice that was logical and quiet and permeated the ears of all who heard it, whether they were listening or not. "We were on the roof of the Institute, and she told me that when the angel Ithuriel was alive, she'd had dreams."
"Dreams?" His brow furrowed, then cleared again. "They were-"
"Prophetic dreams," she finished for him. His eyes were still fixed on the buds in front of him. She recognised them to be the ones she remembered Clary telling her about, that only bloomed every night at midnight. Knowing the story behind them, she couldn't blame him for staring. "The angel sent her prophetic dreams, that stopped once it died, and after the Dark War.
"But she said that in the six months leading up to your trip to Faerieland, she started having them again. She said they weren't as clear as they used to be, but that she somehow knew, intrinsically, that there was a great darkness coming. Not quite like the Dark War, but. . . similar. She described it as 'a shadow that spreads out over the world and blots out everything'."
She saw Jace shiver, though whether it was at the promise of what was to come, or hearing words that was so very Clary coming out of another's mouth days and weeks after she died.
"She kept having nightmares," he said dully. "She refused to talk about it. I never thought- never thought that-"
"She said that along with the visions of the shadow, there came a sort of knowledge. She said she couldn't explain how she knew it, just that she did. She was going to die. And it wouldn't be long before she did.
"She said," and now Emma was choking, and she felt hot tears stream down her face, and she didn't understand how Jace wasn't crying. The boy never cried again. "She said that she wasn't afraid of death, but. . . she was afraid of leaving. She was afraid of leaving you."
A half-strangled noise flew out of his throat; he shoved his fist into his mouth and bit down hard. Emma thought she saw the glint of blood on his white, white teeth.
"She said that marriage. . . marriage was a promise. A promise to stay with that person. And she said she didn't want to make that promise when she knew she might not be able to keep it. And she knew that being married might change things between you, and that it would only make it worse if you were married."
"Nothing could be worse," was all he said, the words forced through bloodstained teeth. She tried not to think about the truth of that statement. Of what it might feel like if it had been her and Julian.
"For what it's worth," she said softly instead, but it sounded wrong, everything sounded wrong, and she wanted to shout it to the skies, tell God he'd been wrong in taking Clary, that he'd taken the wrong person, wrong, wrong, wrong. "She told me that she had no doubts about whether or not she wanted to marry you. She said that you were the only one for her, the only one who would ever be for her, and that she just knew it with certainty, that there would never been anyone else."
It didn't seem to help. His eyes were now suspiciously bright in the way Clary's eyes had been bright when she'd passed on the message, when she'd mentioned Simon and Jace, and how they might react.
"Why didn't she just tell us?" His voice was hoarse.
"She didn't think you'd believe her." She saw the truth of that statement hit him like a blow. "She said Simon would suggest she see a therapist, and she didn't say specifically why for anyone else, but I got the sense it was for similar reasons. She just wanted me to tell you that she knew she was going to die, and. . . she wasn't scared. She wasn't scared. That was what she wanted you to know. She didn't die in fear."
"No," Jace murmured, and his eyes lit up in a feverish way that made Emma suspect he was replaying the events that had led to her death in his head. "She didn't."
A part of Emma wanted to ask how it had happened, but the rational part of her knew she might never recover.
"Why?" He asked suddenly. His head jerked up, and he fixed her with a blinding stare. "Why choose you to tell me this? She was the only one who knew you well. The rest of us were simply passing acquaintances." Not quite true, and it hurt a little, but she brushed it off. He was hurting more.
"Because she told me she trusted me," she whispered. She wasn't even sure Jace heard her. "She said that in her dreams, she saw me with Cortana in my hand, ready to strike. She said she trusted me to-" She choked up, and her vision went blurry. "She said she trusted me to keep fighting."
A heavy silence fell, and Emma debated leaving there and then, when Jace asked, "Did she- Did she want the others to know?" The others. The Lightwoods and Magnus and Simon and Jocelyn and Luke and everyone else who'd loved and mourned her-
"She didn't say. Just that I had to tell you."
Jace pursed his lips, and stood up. "I'll tell them. I'll tell them what happened, too. I need to. . ." His chin wobbled. She'd never imagined the great Jace Herondale brought so low. "I need to get it out, and I assume you don't want to hear it." She shook her head. "Didn't think so, but. . . she wouldn't have wanted me to keep it in. Clary wouldn't have wanted me to keep it in."
He made to leave, but before he did, he paused and said, "Thank you." Then he marched away.
Emma was left alone with the closed buds. And as she looked at the plants, she wondered what they must look like at midnight, the colour of a white lie, dusted with gold and glowing like a blessing come to life.