Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. They belong to Cassandra Clare and I wouldn't have it any other way!
Summary: The New York Institute has been compromised, and Sebastian and Valentine are in the wind. The High Inquisitor is out for blood, and her wrath has zeroed-in on the current head of the Institute; Alexander Lightwood. She decides to make an example out of him, but will her punishment take things too far?
Hurt!Alec and Protective!Jace/Magnus/Izzy. Takes place at the end of s02e18.
Alec tried to focus on the conversation happening around him.
He knew Jace, Izzy, and Clary were discussing something important, and as he was still the head of the New York Institute, any final decisions concerning its safety would have to be passed by him first.
But the talk he had just had with Magnus outside of Max's hospital room kept replaying in his mind, thoroughly distracting him.
Alec had just been getting used to the idea of being in a relationship. It was a brand-new concept for him, and one that was equal parts exciting, terrifying, and- as he had only recently discovered- cripplingly painful.
There was still so much he wanted to experience, so much he still had to learn, and so much he wanted to share with Magnus, but now it seemed he'd never get that chance.
Magnus had broken up with him.
If only Alec had just been honest with him about the Soul Sword being missing, maybe none of this would've…
"Alec!"
Alec jumped slightly at the close proximity of the voice. He had forgotten for a moment that he wasn't alone in the room. "Huh?"
He blinked to clear his head, then glanced over at Jace who was leaning back against Alec's office desk, staring at him with a look of concern on his face.
"You alright, buddy?" Jace asked, his voice soft. Empathetic.
He probably thought Alec was still worrying about Max. God, Max… Did everything really have to fall apart all at once?
Alec let out a slow, steadying breath, then nodded, studiously ignoring Izzy's suddenly frown as she turned to look at him too. "Yeah, sorry. Uh… What were you saying?"
"Just tryin' to put a little perspective on things," Jace replied. "Maybe it'll help us figure out Jonathan's next step. Any ideas?"
Alec was grateful for the distraction, but now that he was outside of his own head again, he was starting to feel the effects of the day.
There was a sharp ache pulsing just behind his puffy eyes, a dull throbbing in the center of his chest that had nothing to do with heartburn and everything to do with Magnus, and he couldn't get his exhausted mind to focus.
More than anything, he just wanted to escape to the quiet solitude of his room, curl up on his bed, and let someone else handle the tough decisions for a while.
Realizing Jace was still watching him and waiting for an answer, Alec merely shook his head. Truth be told, he was just too damned tired to come up with an intelligent response.
Jace nodded glumly, then went back to staring at the floor as an uncomfortable silence fell over the room once again. Isabelle was the first to break it this time, her guilt eating away at her soul.
"Saving me from Azazel… It must've been part of Jonathan's plan."
They had all been thinking it, but no one had dared to say it aloud. Jonathan was just as manipulative as his father. Just as ruthless too, if not worse. He had found a weakness in the Institute's chain, and he had targeted it. Targeted her.
The plan had worked flawlessly, and as repayment for saving Izzy from the Greater Demon, "Sebastian" had been welcomed into the Institute with open arms.
And now the Shadowhunters were left scrambling to pick up the pieces.
Izzy bowed her head, the responsibility weighing heavily on her shoulders. Maybe if she hadn't been so weak, if she hadn't been so desperate for a hit of yin fen…
"I was the one to bring him to the Institute, and…"
Alec was moving towards her before she could finish her next sentence.
His big brother senses were on high alert, especially since Max had been attacked, and he knew his sister was blaming herself for everything that had transpired lately.
But Izzy wasn't solely at fault. They had all been fooled by Jonathan.
He squeezed her shoulder gently in comfort. "Don't. We're all responsible for this."
"At least now we know that Valentine can never get the Mirror and raise the Angel," Clary added, trying to lighten the mood a bit.
Jace shook his head, never the one to lean towards optimism when realism is what had kept him alive all these years.
"I'm not so sure. Look, even with our pure Angel blood, doesn't it seem strange that Clary's runes would be powerful enough to destroy a Mortal Instrument? And why didn't it destroy the Sword?"
Alec's brain instinctively filled with scathing remarks about how Clary probably didn't do it right since she was still relatively new to their world and was clueless when it came to controlling her angelic abilities.
But for the sake of his tentative friendship with her and his love for his Parabatai, he managed to bite his tongue and keep his mouth shut.
Sometimes it was just smarter to stay quiet and listen.
Clary slowly rose to her feet from her perched position on the lamp table by the door, her eyes widening as comprehension suddenly dawned on her.
"What if the mirror I destroyed wasn't the Mortal Mirror?"
Jace looked even more confused by the proposal.
"Then why would your mom give it to the warlocks to protect?"
"Maybe she thought it was. We all did."
Alec watched with a raised eyebrow as Clary made her way to the other side of his office, seemingly transfixed by one of the paintings hanging on the far wall. A painting of Idris.
"Maybe whoever made it wanted it that way," she finished.
"To distract people from finding the real one," Izzy supplied, nodding her head in understanding as she too connected the dots.
Jace cast his mind back, trying to recall any details he could from the stories he used to hear about the Mortal Mirror when he was a child.
"Well, the legend says the mirror's meant to not easily be found. That the Angels hold the key."
"…The water," Clary stated out of the blue, earning three equal looks of confusion from her friends. "It's a reflection."
Jace frowned at her like he was afraid for her sanity.
"What water? What are you talking about?"
"I didn't destroy the Mirror," Clary quickly explained. "These visions I've been having, they're a message from the Angel. The Mirror is Lake Lynn."
"And you're sure about this?" Alec pressed, trying to follow the line of logic himself.
"It's the only thing that makes sense."
"She's right, Alec," Jace confirmed, having thought it through a bit more. "We need to get Idris locked down. We've got the upper hand for now, but Valentine will figure it out eventually. We need to be ready when that happens."
Finally, some intel Alec could work with. "Agreed."
He strode behind his desk and opened his laptop, intending to reach out to the High Inquisitor, Imogen Herondale. She needed to be apprised of the situation, and there wasn't a moment to lose.
Jace, Isabelle, and Clary quickly circled around him, preparing to offer help in any way they could.
But before Alec could send the connection request, there was a brisk knock on the door, and in walked the very woman with whom he wanted to speak, surrounded by an entourage of Clave underlings.
Alec quickly stood back up to face her, respectfully.
"Madame Inquisitor… I was just about to contact you with some new information regarding the Mortal Instruments."
Inquisitor Herondale looked down her nose at their small group, her sharp, condescending eyes locking on Alec's and giving him the distinct impression that he had done something wrong.
He shifted uncomfortably but refused to break eye contact.
"By all means, Mr. Lightwood. Enlighten me," she responded dryly.
"It seems Valentine and Jonathan believe that the New York Institute is in possession of the Mortal Mirror, and they won't be leaving the city without it."
"Thank the Angel he wasn't able to find it here while under the guise of Sebastian Verlac. To think that Jonathan Morgenstern has been practically living within these walls for weeks… There's no telling how much internal information he could've passed on to Valentine behind our backs."
"There is one piece of information we know they don't have yet," Jace stated, stepping forward to align himself with Alec. "The Mirror isn't in the Institute. It's in Idris."
Imogen's attention immediately shifted over to Jace, momentarily letting Alec off the hook. "I beg your pardon?"
"The Mirror is Lake Lynn," Clary chimed in. "My connection with the Angel led us to it."
The Inquisitor paled considerably at the news.
"That's the very same water that Raziel first rose from. Who else knows about this?"
"Unfortunately, the number of people we can trust is getting smaller by the day," Jace replied solemnly. "We thought it best to tell you first. We would like to officially request soldiers from the Guard to be placed in the surrounding woods around the lake. It may only be a matter of time before Valentine realizes he's been had."
Imogen beamed at him, looking smug as ever.
"And that, my dear boy, is why you should still be running this Institute. Clearly, you've managed to keep your priorities straight, unlike some of your friends."
The scathing look she shot at Alec immediately put Jace on the defensive. He straightened up to his fullest height, challenging Imogen's authority.
"It's thanks to Alec's intuitive distrust of the guy that Sebastian didn't end up as part of the Guard protecting the supposed mirror. If Jonathan had left here with it, you can rest assured that Valentine would've discovered that it was a fake by now. He could've already been on his way to Idris and we'd still be sitting around, non-the-wiser."
"In short," Izzy added as she stood and took up position on her brother's other side, "Alec gave us our only tactical advantage."
Imogen had to fight the urge to roll her eyes.
"Maybe, and maybe not. We could discuss potential outcomes till we're blue in the face, but that doesn't change the reason I've come here today."
"Which is?" Jace demanded as politely as he could.
"Mr. Lightwood has crossed too many lines of late to continue to go unpunished for his actions."
Jace scoffed at the ludicrous statement.
"You can't be serious…"
"I'm afraid I am. The High Counsel has already reviewed the case at my behest and they've agreed with me whole-heartedly, so I'm simply here as a formality to make sure the proceedings are justly carried out."
"What proceedings? And on what grounds?"
"Jace," Alec warned, before returning his attention to Imogen. "If I have failed the Clave when it comes to leading this Institute, then I will of course accept any punishment you deem worthy of my indiscretions, Madame Inquisitor."
Imogen nodded her approval.
"I'm glad to hear it, Mr. Lightwood. And as to the grounds, Jonathan, the list has grown quite extensive, I assure you."
"Name one," Jace demanded, crossing his arms over his chest and giving off a threatening vibe.
Alec would've trodden on his foot had there been a subtle way of doing so. The last thing he wanted was for his Parabatai to share in his punishment simply because of his insubordination.
"I hardly know where to begin," Imogen responded, then rounded on Alec. "For starters, losing Valentine during his transfer to Idris."
"That wasn't Alec's fault," Jace practically growled. "One of the guards was either on Valentine's payroll, or Valentine threatened him into submission. Either way, it was beyond Alec's control."
"Beyond his control? He chose the guard personally, did he not?"
In truth, Alec had been stretched too thinly at the time between his Institute duties and worrying about Magnus that he had allowed Izzy, his most loyal soldier, to hand-pick the transfer team instead.
Izzy shifted forward to admit as much to Imogen, but Alec gripped her wrist and held her back. His sister was already on thin ice with the High Inquisitor as it was.
"Yes. I did appoint the guard," Alec lied smoothly, "but I realize now that I should've walked Valentine through that portal myself. He was a high-priority prisoner and allowing Duncan to be part of the transfer team when he had a wife and two children who could be used against him as leverage was a huge oversight on my behalf."
"That it was," Imogen agreed coldly.
Izzy dropped her gaze to the floor. She knew her brother's self-incriminating words weren't meant for her, but they still stung. He had entrusted her with an important task and she had failed him. Now he was the one suffering the consequences.
"Such an obvious show of your poor leadership skills," Imogen continued. "I should've forced you to step down as Head of Institute right there and then, but against my better judgment, I allowed your father to convince me that you deserved a second chance."
Alec, of course, knew the real reason behind Imogen's falsely portrayed moment of compassion, and he bit the inside of his cheek to hold back his own retort.
His father, Robert, had essentially blackmailed her into letting Alec keep his position once he had discovered that the Clave was lying about being in possession of the Soul Sword.
But now that the truth was out, Imogen had no reason to fear Robert's reprisals anymore.
She could act as high and mighty as she wanted, but Alec understood that this was nothing more than a petty power play. She didn't like being up-staged, and now she was going to take her revenge out on Alec.
"And if that weren't bad enough, you've now gone and lost Jonathan as well, and your little pet project to unite the Shadow World has put all of us at risk. The Downworlders are in a revolt against the Clave, no doubt spurred on by your reckless relationship with the High Warlock of Brooklyn, not to mention your little display of juvenile delinquency at your own wedding which has undermined everything that the Clave stands for…"
"You can't punish someone for falling in love!" Izzy retorted furiously.
"I've barely scratched the surface here, Ms. Lightwood. I've only recently caught up on Victor Aldertree's reports on this institute, and I'm sorry to say that I found his allegations to be quite alarming."
"I'm sure they were, considering Victor couldn't tell his own head from his ass on a good day," Jace growled, then grunted when Alec elbowed him in the ribs. Subtlety be damned.
"Then, of course, there was the unfortunate murder of Jocelyn Fairchild."
Alec swallowed hard at the memory, struggling to reign in his emotions as the horrible events of that fateful day played out in his mind as clear as if it had happened just yesterday.
This time, it was Clary who stepped up to Alec's defense, and he found himself grateful that he hadn't said those cruel things about her earlier.
"That's not fair! Alec was possessed by a Greater Demon at the time of the attack. He can't be held responsible for what happened to my mother. He didn't…"
Imogen held up a hand and brought Clary's rant to a halt.
"I understand that Mr. Lightwood was under a demon's influence when he removed Jocelyn's heart from her chest, but that does not change the fact that a Shadowhunter is responsible for the death of another Shadowhunter within the walls of this institute.
"Typically, a crime that heinous in nature would've instantly resulted in de-runing and expulsion from the Shadow World. Luckily for you, Mr. Lightwood, there were enough eye-witnesses and visual evidence to protect you from such a fate."
Jace's gaze immediately darkened. "I've heard enough of this. If you want to sink this ship by removing Alec from the helm, then that's your mistake to make. But in the meantime, we've got fugitives to track down. Come on, Alec."
Jace took hold of his Parabatai's upper arm and started leading him towards the door and away from the woman who was out for his blood, but Imogen's next words brought them both to an abrupt halt.
"Take one more step, Mr. Lightwood, and de-runing will be back on the table. Your life as a Shadowhunter will be over."
Alec tilted his head to the right slightly but didn't dare turn back around to face the horrid woman. "And the alternative?" he forced out through clenched teeth, his hands balling into fists at his sides to keep them from visibly shaking.
"You will endure twelve hours with the Agony rune, non-negotiable. After that, we'll discuss whether or not you will be allowed to uphold your position as Head of Institute."
TBC
Poor Alec… Please review if you think this story is worth continuing!