A/N: Hey guys! First TMI so be nice. To all those reading Stay With Me- HP fic- don't panic, that's still my main focus. I just finished watching the first season of Shadowhunters so HAD to write something. Wasn't that fond of Clary or Jace, to be perfectly honest, but the Malec was adorable, if a bit out of sync, so hopefully they continue.

This one is fairly dark, may be a bit OOC, done in first-person, alternate POV's. Please let me know what you think.

Have fun, say hi, review! Please?

Clary's POV

There are some days when my crappy life isn't so crappy. But there are some days when I pray to get hit by a bus or a train or a freaking meteor just so I can escape the terrors of stepping through my disgustingly false, cheerfully-coloured front door. Today is one of the crappier days.

It's easy to know when a day is going to end with screaming and pain. It's a simple equation: if Mum makes pancakes and Dad eats them while reading the newspaper, there's nothing to worry about. If Mum is crying at the same time as cooking bacon, eggs, toast and sausages while Dad watches her with suspicious, glaring eyes, we're basically screwed.

As I enter into the dining room and mutter a careful 'good morning', I sit down at the table and lower my head, allowing my wild, red hair to cover my face like a curtain, my only protection from what's coming.

The silence is heavy and deafening. I know that something will happen and the bomb will explode. I try to curve in on myself so I'm a smaller target. I know that someone is looking at me, probably Mum, trying to convey some message I've seen too many times: 'Don't say a word, don't do a thing, and don't set him off.'

The silence continues to the point where it's unbearable but still, I don't say a word. My mum walks behind me to place a plate of food in front of me and I start cutting into it numbly, my cutlery scraping lightly against the plate and I quickly try to minimise the noise. Keeping my head down, I peek upwards through my hair at my mother who is carefully spooning out fluffy scrambled eggs onto lightly grilled toast. My eyes shift momentarily over to my father who is looking over at me. Dropping my eyes back to my plate, I shovel more food into my mouth, not tasting it at all.

I can feel the tension like a scolding hot fog as Mum settles the plate of perfect-looking food in front of my father. I hold my breath, my fork frozen half way between the plate and my mouth. Mum quickly moves over to the sink and immediately starts washing the dishes, not eating anything or sitting down at the table with us. There is a split second of silence in which I beg the deity I'm not sure I believe in to please let it be enough, let this one time be quiet and peaceful.

Please, God, don't let him hit me and my mother again.

But then the second shatters into a crash of noise as my father throws the plate of food at the wall with a roar, the plate shattering into jagged pieces of crockery. Mum spins around, her eyes terrified as she stares at my father like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

"What the fuck is this?! Are you trying to kill me, you worthless bitch?!" Dad screams, and I wish I could cover my ears but I know moving will only make it worse.

I look down at my plate, hoping against hope that he will only scream at her. Mum is already sobbing, shaking her head as she moves towards my father.

"I'm sorry, Val, I'm sorry! Please, I didn't-" Mum begs and I wince, knowing now that I can't possibly stop this.

"You useless whore! You think you're so much better than me with your fucking art and your fucking friends and you can't even cook an edible meal! You useless, disgusting, pathetic waste of fucking space!" I need to run, I need to get out of here, but I can't. I'm rooted to the spot.

"Please stop, Val. I'm sorry. I'll try again." I can't bear the defeat in her voice. She believes everything my father says.

"You do not give me orders! I am the man of this house! You will respect me when I talk to you!"

And his hand flies, connecting with her cheek with a sickening snap. A whimper escapes me and I slap my hand over my mouth, hoping to Buddha or Ganesh or dear sweet baby Jesus that my father did not hear me, but then his head whips around and his blazing black eyes connect with mine. I can feel his burning hatred in his glaring eyes as they connect with mine and my head drops again, trying in vain to appease him.

He stalks over to me and grabs a hold of my pyjama top, pulling me out of my seat. He pushes me down to the ground and I fall heavily to the floor, letting out a cry of pain as I feel something in my wrist give way. I don't have time to focus on it though before his foot collides with my stomach and cover my head with my arms, trying not to scream as his kicks land all over my torso.

"You will respect me! You useless pig, you ungrateful little bitch!"

The words hit me worse than his blows. I believe him, every word he says and everything he calls me: useless, stupid, pathetic, worthless, disgusting. Pathetic.

Always pathetic, always useless.

Unwanted. Unloved.

Unlovable.

Sometime after that, I don't know when, it stops. He's gone, left to go do whatever he does, while we are left to pick up the pieces. Mum crawls over to me and carefully hugs me, making sure not to squeeze too hard. She apologises and pleads, telling me it's all going to be okay. I don't believe her.

Looking up into her teary face, I feel oddly and blessedly numb. I close my eyes and stand up, surprised that I can, and move to the bathroom. I check my face and apply makeup to the newly forming bruises blossoming on my face, neck and collarbones. I then go into my room and pick out some jeans, a T-shirt and a high-necked jumper, feeling relieved that the weather warrants it. I make sure I have all my homework in my bag and then head out to the dining room where my mother is still crying on the floor.

"Mum?" I ask softly, knowing I can't help her even if I do stay so there's no point. She looks up at me blankly. "I'm going to school." Mum shakes her head softly and slowly stands up, bending down slightly to hug me again.

"Are you sure?" She asks me seriously, but she already knows the answer. I nod against her neck. "Well, alright then." She replies. Breaking away, she cups my left cheek in her hands, wiping her thumb across my cheekbone. "I love you Clary. Have a good day at school."

I try not to let the words affect me, but in my crappy existence, there is no such thing as a 'good day'. I try my best to paste on a smile, but even without seeing it, I can tell it's more of a grimace. Hitching my backpack higher on my shoulder and ignoring the painful twinges in my ribs for doing so, I step to the door and start walking towards school.

It takes me a little longer than usual to get to school because of how careful I'm walking. I don't want to aggravate my ribs too much. As I walk, I try to assess how much damage I've received. It feels like I've broken my wrist- but that's okay, I've done that before and the wrist that is broken is not my dominant hand so I can hide it- and I've bruised most of the ribs on my left side. The bit that may be difficult to hide is the throbbing in my chest and how difficult it is to breathe. The moment I move my torso, my whole body explodes in fire and it's nearly impossible to draw breath. I make a mental note not to breathe too deeply and I hope with everything that I have that his kicks have not caused my ribs to penetrate my lungs again.

Walking through the school gates, I search again for the smile that is so hard to find these days. It's near impossible but I somehow find a bad copy of it and paste it on, allowing all the people at school who don't give a crap to continue thinking my life is just like theirs. I envy all of them.

Keeping my head down, I walk to my locker and deposit my bag there, grabbing my books for my first class. I hurry down the hall and towards homeroom, sit in through roll call and the morning announcements then rush through to history. I've never been a big fan of this lesson, but today I need to distract myself from the pain pulsing up and down my ribs and chest and right now, anything will do.

I enter the classroom behind a group of pretty girls who pay me no mind and take my seat behind another pretty girl who pays me no mind. The class starts and I jot down unnecessary notes and for five minutes, I'm just boring Clary Morgenstern, the unnoticed, unneeded, boring little redhead no one pays attention to- the girl whose secrets are safe.

But then the classroom door opens and angel boy steps in, effectively starting the upside-down-isation of my life.

Jace's POV

Basically, I don't like history. Never have, never will. It's just not interesting to me. Yes, shit happened, but shit happens all the time. Learn from it, move on, but don't make poor innocent children sit through two hours a week worth of monotonous droning about some event that happened to some person hundreds of years ago. That's just child abuse.

I amble into my first history class at this new school and am not surprised when I see ninety five per cent of the students looking monumentally bored. I clear my throat as I step in, hoping to get the attention of the teacher standing by the white board writing out dates and names in crabby handwriting. The pudgy, balding man in an old, itchy-looking coat and glasses looks irritated to be interrupted, glaring over at me as I try to smile politely, but I don't think it works as the teacher just huffs and gives me a pointed, expectant stare.

"I'm Jace Lightwood; I've just started today." I hint. The teacher's expression clears but he still looks grumpy.

"Ah, yes, Mister Lightwood, I was told you would be in today." He confirms and I fight back a smirk, not wanting to be dubbed as the kid with the bad attitude. Again. "I'm Mr Starkweather. Please take a seat where you can find it and try to catch up." Being dismissed so abruptly stuns me for a second, but then I shrug and turn my attention to the class, trying to find a spot to sit.

There are only a few options, most of which are not appealing. Two of the empty seats are next to bored looking guys who look like they haven't had a shower in a month, one of them is next to a moderately attractive, boring little cliché, gazing over at me with an annoying, flirtatious smirk, and the last spot is next to a demure little redhead who catches my attention and holds it.

Shrugging my bag off while I walk over to my chosen place, I sit down at the chair next to the redhead and pull out my history textbook. Subtly, she pushes her own textbook on an angle so I can see which page we are on. I flip my textbook open to the correct page and grin at the cartoon of an ancient Roman battle printed in the book. The redhead looks over at me, raises one eyebrow at my expression, then rolls her eyes and looks back at the whiteboard. I like her already.

The class passes fairly quietly after that. My eyes unwillingly keep going towards the redhead next to me, but her own guarded, green eyes stay focused on the whiteboard, her right hand quickly jotting down study notes in careful, concise lines of neat script. When the bell goes to signify the end of class, she closes all her books, stacking them all up and placing her small pencil case on top of her stack. Before she starts to leave, I quickly hold out my dominant, left hand and grin at her.

"We didn't have time before so let me introduce myself: I'm Jace Lightwood." I greet. Her green eyes travel from my face to my outstretched hand. She seems to have to summon a certain amount of courage before shaking my hand, wincing painfully as she does so. I frown at her.

"Clary Morgenstern." She replies through slightly gritted teeth.

"You alright?" I inquire. I notice that the smile she tries to give me is entirely bogus.

"Yeah, I just fell over this morning on the way to school. Think I sprained my wrist. Nothing major." Dropping her injured arm to her side, she hoists her books higher on her hip and shakes the hair out of her eyes. "So, you're new?"

"Yeah, my parents move around a lot for work and this is just where we ended up." I shrug non-committedly. "Better than Texas I guess. If we had moved there, I would have felt obligated to buy a chainsaw."

"Whereas here you just need to buy lots and lots of shoes." Clary tells me, just as sarcastic as me.

"First world problems, right?" Rolling her eyes at my tone, she nods wisely.

"What's your next class?" She inquires her eyes still flat and guarded. I look down at the timetable in my stack of books and papers.

"Biology." I state, my tone whiny. "Because apparently, knowing how things are made up of several other things is interesting or something." One side of Clary's mouth turns upwards, an almost smile.

"I'm at chemistry, right across the hall. I'll walk you if you'd like." She offers.

"Sounds great, thanks."

We stop at her locker so she can pick out her chemistry books then continue down the hall, make three rights and a left and find ourselves in the science part of the school. Clary gestures towards one of the rooms on the left hand side of the corridor and I see a door with a sign above the window declaring it the 'biology lab'.

When Clary starts turning towards the chemistry lab on the other side of the hall, I reach out a hand and tap her shoulder. She turns back to look at me, frowning.

"I don't want to sound like a walking cliché or anything but new guy, don't know anybody; do you want to sit with me at lunch?" I track the emotions as they dance across her face: shock, disbelief, wariness and finally settling on grudging amusement.

"If you're so desperate for company you want to hang out with me," She replies in a voice that just drips with guardedness and cynicism. "Sure you can sit with me." I smirk to myself as she turns and heads into class.

Oh yeah: I definitely like this girl.

A/N: So, thoughts? Let me know. Stay With Me will be updated by Sunday. Hopefully. Next season of Game Of Thrones is out in a few days so that might distract me. Anyway, drop me a review if you can.

Love Stormy xoxo