Chapter 1

I started playing with a short story of Clary but in the Shadowhunter reality. Please let me know what you think of it. I posted a chapter or two of this already in another fic, but I decided to make this its own fic. This takes place just after the war with Valentine and Sebastian but he never appears, Jace and Clary only find out afterwards that they aren't related.

The moment Clary woke she realised she slept in. She was late. Still plagued by sleep, Clary started getting ready for training as fast as her muscles would let her. She was still sore from her last training session. It was three days ago, but none of the Lightwoods had gone easy on her. After everything with her father and real brother, they wanted to make she sure she was fully prepared for the next threat. She slipped on her black training pants and a black crop. She decided that the loose tee shirts she wore didn't allow her the same movement and would get caught on her blades. She had training with Jace today. That's the last thing she wanted. Out of them all, he trained her the hardest. They still weren't really talking. Since finding out, they were siblings and then finding out that that was a lie everything had become too hard for him to deal with and in classic Jace form he ignored everything and focused on the mission and only the mission putting his feelings and Clary aside.

Clary's mother had argued with her daughter about living at the institute. At the moment Clary could only stay there three nights. It was frustrating moving back and forth between the two rooms, but it was helpful on the days she was there. Unfortunately for Clary today was not one of those days. She raced out the door not bothering with breakfast. She knew she would get an earful when she arrived for being so late already. The one good thing for Clary being up so early meant that there were few people around. Clary raced down the street towards the train station. She did love Luke, but he lived so far away from the institute. As Clary reached the station something or someone must have been on her side as the train just arrived as she got to her platform.

Clary could see the old dilapidated church transform before her. It still took a little longer for her to see through glamours. It was slowly getting better, but sometimes she could tell when the others saw something she couldn't and Clary would have to concentrate much harder to see anything. Some days Clary would go home with a raging headache from pushing too far. She much preferred the headaches to the bruises and sore muscles she got after training. Clary was completely out of breath by the time she reached the front doors. Her legs burned from running and bounding up the stairs. She was definitely not in shape in be a Shadowhunter. She had only been training for just over two weeks. She hoped all this training would become easier.

At first, her mother refused to let Clary train. She still wanted to keep her from this world. After days of arguing and Clary starting to sneak around her mother finally relented. Izzy had begun to train her in small parts of combat and strategy. Alec got on board as well and believed she needed to know how to protect herself. Jace was much like Clary's mother and took a while to convince. He refused to spend time with Clary and if she was ever started to train he would stop and leave the training room. It took Jace a while to come to terms with this new Clary. She had always been stubborn, but this was different. She was passionate and hungry to learn. That died down after Jace started to train with her. She would often try to convince Izzy to train with her instead, but they all knew that Jace was the best fighter out of the three of them and it was agreed to throw Clary into the deep end.

Jace threw himself into teaching Clary. If he was to train her, he wanted her to be the best. Jace wasn't going to half-ass anything. He knew he pushed Clary during their training sessions, but if she ever came up against a demon, it would not go easy on her. Jace cared deeply about Clary, whether she was her brother or not. He couldn't quite deal with those feelings yet but either way, he knew he wanted to protect her and give her the ability to keep herself safe.

Clary waited impatiently as the elevator seemed to move, more slowly than it ever had, to the training room floor. When Clary heard the Ding of the doors opening, she braced herself. She was over an hour late. Clary definitely would pay for this. She quickly made her way towards the double doors that opened onto the training room. As she rounded the corner, she saw him. Standing tall, Jace's blond hair hung in soft curls, his arms were crossed, and he was looking away from her. She knew once he looked at her she would see everything he felt in his eyes. Clary used to love looking into his eyes and being able to read him so easily; now it just made her feel uncomfortable. She felt now that she was invading his personal space, she was somehow violating something unspoken between them. Clary did not know whether he knew how quickly she could read him. It made finding out they weren't related so much worse. She saw how happy he was, to begin with, and then saw that joy move to sadness and turn into confusion and finally into regret.

"I guess you don't want to take any of this training seriously," Jace spoke without looking at Clary. "If you don't want to learn or train don't bother turning up next time, it's better than being late." Jace had turned away from her and walked through the doors. Clary stood stunned for a moment. She had prepared for yelling, for anger for anything but calm and almost detached disappointment. Clary was uncertain what to do. After a moment she pulled herself together and followed Jace into the room.

If Clary thought even for a moment that Jace's words were all she was going to get for being late, she would have never been more wrong. Jace pushed harder than usual. They started with hand to hand combat. Clary's back hit the mat more times than she even got one hit on Jace.

"Again." Jace outstretched his hand for the fifth time to help Clary to her feet. At first, Clary ignored his hand and would lift herself up, but by now Clary was getting tired and reluctantly took his hand. As Jace closed his fingers around Clary's small delicate hand, they both felt a jolt between them. At that moment they both looked at each other. Clary could see in Jace's eyes that he felt the same thing she had.

For weeks neither one of them had touched. Other than training there was no physical contact between them, even during train all contact was during hand to hand. Jace wouldn't even touch Clary to help her adjust her grip on a blade or knife. This was different. Jace looked away quickly and pulled Clary up, letting go the second he knew she was steady on her feet. Jace wanted to move on. He could tell Clary had felt what he had. He tried to ignore it, but he knew if he dwelled on it for even a moment Clary would want to talk about it. Clary had wanted to talk the second they found out they weren't siblings. Jace pushed it away. He now regretted doing that. Jace thought about how it could have helped to talk it through but he like Clary was often too stubborn for his own good.

Clary could tell Jace did not want to talk and instead landed a good kick to his side as he turned away from her. If he didn't want to talk, then she wouldn't either. Knowing he was off guard was her secret asset. If he had been facing her, he would have seen it coming. Jace took a step to the side and curled slightly towards his now sore side. He knew that this was her way of saying she was going to move on and not dwell. It brought a small smile to Jace's face knowing that she knew him so well. As he turned to face Clary, she landed a punch to his cheek. Jace looked at Clary stunned. Where was this energy coming from? Jace could have sworn that she wouldn't have lasted much longer after she hit the mat the fourth time.

Clary felt proud of herself. She hadn't ever landed two hits in a row. Not even on Isabelle who always went easy on her. Clary had this new found energy which allowed her to land several more hits. Both Jace and Clary were out of breath soon after. Jace was getting tired and possibly lazy as Clary was able to land more punches than she ever had before. Clary thought for a moment that Jace was going easy on her. She swept her leg up and prepared to use all the force she had left to land one last kick to his stomach. Unfortunately for her Jace was not planning on going easy nor planning on letting her beat him. He grabbed her leg before she struck him and pulled making Clary fall once again onto her back.

Clary landed with a thud. She had forgotten to use her arms to soften her fall, and her shoulders bared the brunt of her fall. Clary did not want to get up again. She laid stunned for a second on the mat. She felt defeated. She was so confident that she would finally beat Jace. To her surprise, Jace didn't offer her his hand nor tell her to get up to go again. He fell beside her obviously exhausted.

"I think that's enough for today," he said between pants. Their last sparring session went for almost three times as long, and neither one of them could even think about standing let alone sparring again. It took about 10 minutes before Clary had finally caught her breath and felt strong enough to stand. Neither one of them had said anything in that time. They lay their silently. Clary listened as Jace's breathing sounded less and less harsh and returned to normal. She realised that he stayed lying down next to her even though he had caught his breath and could have started another round. Clary enjoyed the feeling of having him so close to her.

Jace knew he should get up and keep training but a small part of him liked lying down next to Clary.