-1-

There was something really rational in all Alec's attempts to hide himself behind the terribly-looking clothes, Magnus Bane thought, standing in front of the Institute's door. His black coat was faded and all buttons done up, his long hair was made in a tail instead of the usual hairstyle, and he had hands in dark gloves, legs in dark jeans, face without any make-up.

"Who is—", screamed Isabelle, opening the door, but then she saw him and her eyes widened. "Magnus. Thank God, you came. Please, come in."

She was pale much more than usual, and the sharpen cheek-bones were about to make a holes in her skin. Her redden eyes and swollen eyelids told Magnus that Izzy had been crying for very long time, and, maybe, it was exactly the reason why she said nothing about his unusual look.

But, maybe, she just didn't care.

It would be very logical, considering the fact that he had crossed out himself from they lives. Taking a sober view on what happened, Magnus realized he was overacting especially with 'pet warlock' and 'don't want to see any of you anymore', and he really missed his Team Good, but… He was 800 years old. He was strong. He was able to live through this. He had to get over.

"Show me where to go," said Magnus grimly, his hands smoothing his hair at the temples. "Did he regain consciousness?"

Isabelle shuddered. She turned and strode forward dark corridors into the depth of the Institute. Her answer was very slow. "A few times," she said, embracing herself, "the last one was about three days ago."

"Well."

"Well? What do you mean 'well'?" her voice sounded without any color, but a three month ago there would've already been a golden whip around Magnus's neck.

"I mean, I understand what you're saying. Did you ask for help someone else?"

"Sure," Isabelle nodded, her tangled hair leaped up and down on her back. "We asked the Silent Brothers and some warlocks. Tessa Grey was here," she started to call another names, but Magnus didn't hear anymore.

Oh Angel. Tessa.

Her recent visit was the last straw of his patience.

-2-

Tessa didn't charge with how cruel he was, she just appeared on his doorstep, picked Chairman Meow and started to scratch him until he purred. Looking anywhere but not in Magnus's face, Tessa said, "I've heard, Lightwood's son is really bad. They fought a Greater demon and he was hurt. Reckless youth," she sighed. "I was in the Institute today morning, but I couldn't do anything to help. They need someone more powerful."

"I told you, I'm not working on it anymore," Magnus answered wheezy.

Of course, he knew all she said – about the recklessness of the youth, about a Greater demon – again, about how bad Lightwood's son really is. Lightwood's son, truth be told, in these three month killed more demons than in all his days.

Against his own will, Magnus was proud of him.

"Magnus, I know, but—you love him."

"I did."

"No. You do."

It would be stupid to argue, because they both knew he does. So Magnus just raised his eyebrows. "It doesn't change anything", he shook his head.

"Every time you became such a—" Tessa paused.

"Every time I – what?"

"You're overacting. You went too far. Listen, I don't know, why you two decided to break up, but how can you let him die if you love him?" There was a genuine pain in her voice, and Magnus did understand this.

But it couldn't make the situation easier for him. Or better. Or something. Nothing changed.

"According to your logic," he leaned his elbow to the jamb, just to show he didn't want to talk about this anymore, "I must save everyone I've slept with."

"Everyone you love."

Magnus shrugged. He tried so hard to tell himself this "love" means nothing at all and now he wasn't going to give up easily. It meant nothing. It changed nothing. At all. Period.

It wasn't necessary for Tessa to know he was about two steps from hanging out the white flag. It wasn't necessary even for him.

He was strong. Or maybe he just tried to think he was strong.

"Well, you were always free to do what you want," Tessa signed as she turned to go. "I just hope now you really understand what you're doing. And I hope you wouldn't blame yourself when he'll die from these wounds. It's just the matter of time, and I thought you should know this."

So she left.

And when Isabelle Lightwood gave him a call, Magnus answered despite the fact he had no reason to do it.

Obviously he decided the white flag will suit the shadows under his eyes very well.

-3-

When they walked through the living-room, Magnus raised his head with arrogance. He didn't want to see nobody greets him.

Pet warlock come again, for the first invitation, was the whisper inside his head, but Magnus had something to say against it. It wasn't the first invitation. It wasn't even the second. There were about 70 missed calls from Isabelle on his cell phone, a little less from Simon and Clary, about 10 fire messages…

He didn't want to talk to them, even when he got to know what had happened.

If you're a Shadowhunter, your life is a war anyway. It's an endless fight, so you must be very careful. And if you don't, you must be ready to pay for it. Quite simple. And using bonuses like a warlock's help isn't a fair game to play because not every Nephilim has such a powerful warlock to hand.

Actually, now no Nephilim has such a powerful warlock – neither to hand nor under the blanket.

Magnus shook his head.

"Here," Isabelle stood. "The Silent brothers slowed down the poison, and Tessa was able to stop his pain for a while, but—" She raised her head, trying not let the tears fall down. "No one can help him but you. And—He is delirious, don't be scared, okay?"

He gave her a nod.

"Isabelle," Magnus said softly when she was going to leave, "aren't you all ready to death? Aren't you all okay with the thought you may die every second?"

With no answer she ran down off the corridor. There was only rustling of sneakers instead of her usual heels' clatter, and Magnus seemed to understand what had happened to her. To them. They all took a look on a different world. The world of Clary and Simon. The world where nobody had to be ready to die every second.

Or, maybe, Nephilims were really okay with the idea there could be no returning from the battle, but when you have to see your brother die every day for a little – it's not something you can be okay with.

Magnus didn't know. He has never had a brother.

He turned a door-knob and slowly slid into the room. Everything here breathed sickness: the curtains were tightly drawn, so the sunlight couldn't come in, and the stale air smelled of despair and someone else's magic – strong ozone aroma. But the most terrible thing in this room was the bed with the motionless body under the deathly light blankets.

First of all Magnus opened the curtains. Actually he just waved his hand, and these heavy fabrics felt on the floor with a quit muffled sound. The room has got brighten, and Magnus smiled, but then shivers run down to his spine. A Greater Demon's poison was very difficult thing to heal, and it meant he mustn't waste his strength on such foolish activities.

So he opened the window by hand.

"Hello", he heard a weak voice from the bed when he ended.

Magnus turned. "Hello." He couldn't say anything else.

"You— Emm, you are so—"

"What?"

"So—common today," Alec swallowed hard. "Not sparkle. Your hair—By the way," his voice dropped to hardly audible whisper, "last time your T-shirt was so cool—I just—forgot to say."

"Last time?" asked Magnus carefully, stepping away from the window.

"Yes. It was—purple—with sparkling stars. But—it was two days ago. You haven't visited me for so long."

It was hard to disagree with, but obviously they had very different notions about this 'long'. For Magnus it was about three months, but in Alec's world they seemed to meet much more often.

How sweet. Alec saw him in his ravings.

But Magnus saw him without any delirium. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night just because of ghostly sound of Alec's familiar steps or the ghostly sliding of familiar hand on his shoulder.

"So here I am." He slowly sank into the chair at the head of the bed.

With a face wrinkled of pain Alec leaned forward and took Magnus's hand. Despite of all attempts to forget it was still familiar warmth which made his heart skip the heartbeat. Magnus shuddered.

"I look like shit, didn't I?" asked Alec with a weak smile. His blue eyes under black fringe looked almost limpid, and there was no trace of the color Magnus loved, but he still thought them were beautiful.

"You do," Magnus smiled wryly. "I'll heal you. Again. A kind of déjà vu, if you ask me."

"Maybe." Alec warped. "Have you met Izzy today?"

Magnus nodded. "Yes, she leaded me here. What's happened with her sense of fashion, can you tell me?"

Alec gave no ear to this joke, just frowned. "She doesn't believe me."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean she doesn't believe you visit me here."

She was right in her disbelief, but Magnus didn't want to admit it. Stroking Alec's fingers, he said, his voice tender, "She's probably joking. Mad at me or something like that." This time Magnus hoped Alec had not only delirium, but also a kind of amnesia. Magnus hoped he didn't remember what could Izzy be mad about, and that cold subway station, and the conversation they had in.

But Alec remembered.

"Is she angry because you said you don't want to see us ever again?"

Fuck. It was such a good idea with amnesia. It was such a pity the universe didn't listen to.

"Emm," Magnus said, "sometimes I—overact, you know." Alec nodded, his eyes narrowed, and Magnus felt an unbearable desire to change the topic. "Well, let's start."

"Okay." Alec unclasped his fingers, letting Magnus's hand go.

Throwing the blanket away, Magnus held his breath. It was almost impossible to bring himself to take Alec's T-shirt off. Well, he was alive about 800 years, he has damn heaps of experience – both love and wound-healing, but now he was afraid all the same.

Memories made him drunk as the strongest of the all cocktails he had ever drunk on his parties. It was the memories about the first time he healed Alec – the same terrible wound, the same deathly pallor. It was the memories about the scars on his skin – the long, white lines reminded of previous battles. It was the memories about the others 'battles' when this skin felt so warm under Magnus's kisses.

It was their memories, and everything in the world became meaningless when they come to his mind.

"Oh Angel," Magnus sighed as he saw what was hidden under the brown, faded T-shirt.

"Is it so bad?"

"I'm pretty sure you know the answer, don't you?"

"Uh—I kind of—" whispered Alec, voice sounded guilty, "Well, it hurts me every second, so I don't know is it 'so bad' or simply 'bad' or something else."

Magnus gently run his fingers over the pale hollow stomach from one hipbone to another, up to ribs, outlining the edges of a terrible wound which, by the way, was about to rot. It smelled like hell, really.

"I'm not even surprised nobody tried to bathe it," Magnus muttered under his breath.

"Your hands are cold."

"I'm sorry, darling," this word escaped his lips before he realized what he's saying.

"No, no, it's okay. You don't need to worry."

He had seen more terrible wounds. He had dealt with more serious damages. After all, he was the High Warlock of Brooklyn – and not for nothing, right? There was no reason to worry.

But he worried.

"Listen," Alec said when he finished his checkup, "So many times I wanted to apologize, but you didn't want to talk about it—"

"Apologize for what?" Magnus shake his fingers with the familiar sense of magic between them.

"I always asked you for—No," Alec bit his lip. "I'm so sorry you felt like we need you only for help. We didn't mean it. All of us fought for one thing, and if you were a pet warlock for me, Jace would be a pet Nephilim for Clary. But you weren't—" His voice was low and it was obviously hard to speak for him, but Magnus couldn't do anything to stop his revelations. "I'm ashamed if it looked like we use you. No one of us thought about you this way."

"I catch it", Magnus said. He didn't want to discuss it. He didn't want to admit his own mistakes. He didn't want to do it aloud because he spent too many time doing it on his own.

Tessa was right, he really went too far. He wasn't perfect himself. He told nothing about his past. He wanted Alec to trust him, but didn't give enough reasons to do it. There couldn't be only one person to blame, they both were totally guilty.

A couple weeks ago Magnus put himself in Alec's shoes and it really rooted him to the ground.

"I would never do the things Camille wanted me to do," Alec said stubbornly, closing his eyes and leaning back on the pillow. "I know you consider that—that it was quite enough I was just thinking about this, but—You did the same, too. You were thinking about make yourself mortal, and you said nothing to me."

Right in the bull's eye.

Magnus felt the cold blue flames dancing on his fingertips. He was ready to start, but Alec wasn't going to stop.

"Camille was the only one who knew how to love you and how to be loved by you," Alec said. "Nobody else could tell me what I should do to make this lasts as long as it's possible."

Magnus was taken aback by these words.

"Actually," he snorted, "it didn't last for a long with Camille, so she couldn't say anything useful. She knew nothing about me of today. If you want to know about my loving back, you should ask yourself, Alexander."

"I—I didn't know. I thought she could tell me about your past—" it sounded too quit, and Magnus felt the alert.

"Okay, Alec, stop it. She couldn't and we don't need to talk about it right now. I guess, we have more important things to do," he said, raising his hands. The edges of the wound spread, showing a pus and blood terribly mixed over the darkened, poisoned flesh. It was the damage on the Alec's body, but Magnus felt the same wound inside his own soul. Every spoken word made the edges of his memory spread, bleeding and screaming. "Be ready. Magnificent Magnus Bane is going to fix you."

"You always say so, but there's still no avail."

Magnus shook his head. Was it feeling of doom in Alec's voice? Was it? Did he think Magnus would let him die? For God's sake! Of course, Magnus wouldn't. He'd do everything he had enough power to – and even more, and it isn't his blame if 'Magnus from Alec's delirium' couldn't help him.

"This time it will be all alright, baby, I promise." Magnus stood up, and the blue flame on his fingers was ready to heal.

-4-

It came out much more exhausting than at the first time. Somehow Magnus fell back on his chair and stretched. He almost didn't feel his legs, it looked like fatigue dissolved all bones in them, and Magnus knew this feeling was a sure sign of overstrain.

He remembered his overstrain on the ship – when Alec offered him to take Alec's strength, and the battle with the dark Nephilim of Sebastian came to his memory, too. 'I always need your strength' he said to Alec when he did his offer again. But now… Now there was nothing to offer, they both were exhausted.

With a quit moan Magnus buried his face into the palms. He didn't know what to do.

"Hey," Alec called him, voice too weak.

"I'm here."

"How did it go?"

"Brilliant, as everything I do," Magnus answered, still looking down. It wasn't a lie. The wound was gone, and only scars reminded of it being here. The huge, ugly scars, nothing more. And what about 'ugly'… As for Magnus, he could endlessly kiss it.

But he was sure Alec wouldn't let him. No chances Alec would even want him to be here as he comes to his senses.

"Thank you," Alec sighed with a quit whistle. "Magnus—Emm, would you stay?"

'What?"

"Why do you always leave? Why don't you stay for night? Please."

-5-

Taking his shoes off, Magnus thought that Alec's imaginary Magnus was a pretty prudent person at all. Because if only Alec's imaginary Magnus stayed here for night – even just for one night, real Magnus would kill him.

"Good night," whispered Alec when Magnus slid under the blanket. It was white, as white as the flag he hung out just only.

Magnus seemed to know what to do.

No longer be an idiot, for example. Never. 'I still love you, but it doesn't change anything' was a wrong thing to say. The only right answer sounded like 'I still love you, and nothing else matters'.

"Good night, love," Magnus said, listening to the familiar heartbeat.

This time it will be all alright, baby, I promise.