I'm sorry it's been so long since I uploaded, I'm really busy with college and when I'm off I'm just so exhausted all I want to do is watch t.v. shows all day.

However, I will try my hardest to finish this series and the next generation one, well start it and finish it, same goes for Raising Jace, it most likely is a standalone story but I am going to finish it.

So I've decided to not do an Epilogue for the Beginning and dive straight into this story, I hope you enjoy it! It's set a year and a half later! This story may consist of time skips and will be a little different to what I've written before.

Also, just to let you know, though it was never mentioned, in this series, before Clary met Jace or the Lightwoods, Alec was engaged to Lydia, it was an arranged marriage, he broke up with her shortly after meeting Clary and she left for Idris. He never told anyone else about it and made Jace, Izzy, etc., promise not to tell either. He eventually told Magnus but not Clary or Simon. Tessa and Jem knew but they never told Clary or Simon or anyone like that either.

Tale As Old As Time.

Chapter 1.

*Tessa's P.O.V.*

"Mama?" I hear a voice I'd recognize anywhere in the world, calling me. I lower my book to see Esther standing in front of me with a hairbrush in her hand. I smile at the sight of my beautiful little girl, her black curly hair sitting neatly for once, her grey eyes shining with hope, happiness and curiosity.

"You want me to brush your hair?" I ask.

Esther pauses for a moment, as she normally does before talking, and then says

"Yeah!"

I lift her onto my lap and start to gently brush her beautiful dark locks. She loves getting her hair brushed, it relaxes her greatly for some reason.

Esther looks at my phone, on the arm of the couch, and her eyes light up when she sees the picture of Jem, Emma, her and me, at her first birthday eight months ago. Esther is a total daddy's girl as we both predicted and she adores Emma too, she idolizes her in fact.

"Daddy!" Esther exclaims, pointing to the picture.

"That's right, that's you, me, daddy and Emma." I say, tying her hair off into two little pigtails which make her look even more adorable than she already is.

"Where daddy?" She asks. Jem is teaching at the shadowhunter academy for the next few weeks, he's working with the older children, the 16-18 age group. He's happy to portal to and from Idris every day, I did say Esther and I could go with him, we could stay in the Herondale Manor, Jace wouldn't mind at all. But Jem insisted we stay in New York, since Esther goes to nursery 2 days a week here and is starting to really enjoy it and make friends. He didn't want to exhaust her by taking her to and from Idris to here by portal and we didn't' want her missing any days at nursery either, so we decided to stay here.

"Daddy's at work baby, he'll be home soon though."

Just as the words leave my mouth, there's a rattle of keys in the door and a few moments later, Jem comes in, followed by Emma who is hand in hand with Mark.

"Daddy!" Esther exclaims, jumping up and bouncing up and down on the sofa.

Jem smiles widely and lifts Esther into his arms, kissing her cheek.

"Hello my little star! I missed you so much today!" He says. She wraps her arms around his neck and cuddles into him.

Jem and I share a smile before he leans in and greets me with a kiss.

Emma hangs her bag up by the door, smiles at me and says

"I'll be back in a few hours, Tessa , if you want me to watch Esther for a while."

"No it's alright Emma, thank you though." I say.

"Okay see you later." She says, kissing Esther on the cheek.

"How was Esther today?" Jem asks me, once Emma and Mark have left.

"She was fine, she woke up about 9, then she watched some Curious George on my phone for a bit, then after breakfast we want over to Magnus' for a bit, which Esther obviously adored." I tell Jem. Esther adores her Uncle Magnus, almost as much as she loves Jem, and he loves her right back, he's wonderful with her and I couldn't have asked for a better Godfather for her.

"Did you do anything else exciting?" Jem lightly asks.

Before I can answer, a wave of nausea hits me.

Jem instantly knows something isn't right.

"Tess what's wrong?" He asks. Before I can answer I feel the bile rising in my throat, I clamp my hand over my mouth and run for the bathroom. I barely make it on time, hunching over the toilet and emptying the contents of my stomach.

As I throw up, I realize, this is fourth time this week, I was sick this morning too, and I've been having all they symptoms I had when I got pregnant with Esther. Jem and I have only been trying for 2 months, it took over two years to conceive Esther, could it really have happened so fast this time?

"Are you alright love?" Jem asks, coming in and setting Esther down.

"Yeah I'm fine, but I do have to run to the pharmacy really quickly." I say, not wanting to tell Jem that I could be pregnant, I don't want to get his hopes up and it turns out to be a false alarm.

"Couldn't you just make an anti-nausea potion?" Jem asks, as Esther hugs me, clearly worried for my well-being. I'm glad he doesn't seem to suspect pregnancy, not yet anyway.

"I could but it's faster and easier to take some tablets, I'll only be a few minutes."

*20 minutes later*

I can't believe my eyes when I stare down at four positive pregnancy tests. I'm pregnant, there's no doubt about it. I'm two months pregnant, which means we conceived even faster than I thought. This is amazing! We're going to have another baby; Esther is going to be a big sister!

I go to the bathroom door, open it and see Jem and Emma tidying up after dinner, while Mark tosses Esther in the air and catches her again, causing her to laugh herself silly.

"James, can I talk to you for a moment?" I ask, hardly able to contain my excitement.

When he comes over to me, I take his hand and lead him to the sink where the pregnancy tests are. "Look." I say. He stares at the tests in disbelief, just like I did, before a huge smile spreads across his face.

"We're going to have another baby!" He exclaims, embracing me tightly.

"I love you." I tell him.

"I love you too, should we go tell Emma, Mark and Esther?" Jem says.

"I'd love to." I say, placing my hand in his and heading toward the kitchen to share the wonderful, wonderful news.

*ALI'S P.O.V.*

"Ali she is so tall, how old is she again?" Catarina asks, as she helps Maddey scramble onto the couch in Magnus' living room, beside Magnus himself.

Eric, Maddey and I have been here practically all day, Catarina called around a few hours ago to see Magnus and now Maddey is obsessed with her, she wants to be a nurse just like her and thinks she has the coolest hair ever.

"One and a half, she'll be two in June." I say, as Maddey cuddles into Magnus. She absolutely adores Magnus and Alec, they are two of her favorite people without a doubt and she loves spending time with them and Sophie, Will and Addie so much.

"And Addie's the same age, is that right?" Catarina asks, lifting Addie into her arms.

"Yes that's right, Addie's only a few weeks older than Maddey." Magnus says. Addie is a very mischievous, daring little girl, very like her brother Will. She's not afraid of anything and is always up to something, but she's not a bad little girl at all, she's very well behaved. Magnus and Alec have been happier than ever since they adopted her, she really completed their family.

Just then Eric sits beside me and quietly says

"Should we tell them?"

A few weeks ago, I went to get a new prescription for my birth control and get a blood test, since I was so tired all the time I thought I had an iron deficiency. Turns out I'm pregnant. But since I have a history of complicated pregnancies, we decided to keep this one quiet for a while. When we found out I was about 2 months pregnant, now I'm four and I think it's safe to start telling people. We haven't even told Maddey, in case something happens.

I was hoping to keep it totally under wraps until after my ultrasound tomorrow, but I'm sure if something were to go wrong we'd know by now.

"You know what I think we should." I say. "Maddey, come over here a second sweetheart." I say. She jumps off the couch and runs over to me.

I take a deep breath and push up my flowy top to reveal my baby bump. Since I've been pregnant three times now, I'm fairly big for four months, but it wasn't too hard to hide the bump, the shirt I'm wearing today just makes me look as though I gained a few pounds, not as though I'm pregnant.

I take Maddey's little hand and place it on my belly where I can feel the baby moving.

"Feel that?" I ask. Her eyes widen and she nods, totally mesmerized.

"That's your little sister!"

I really hope you liked it and didn't mind that I split it between Tessa and Ali, I wanted to reveal both pregnancies in this chapter but in different ways. I hope you liked the change and didn't mind that we didn't get to see Ali finding you she's pregnant.

Please let me know what you thought!

Thanks for reading.