Hey everyone! So I'm back and this is my new story! I really hope you enjoy it and please let me know what you think by leaving a review! To those who might know me from my other story, Regrettable Decisions, I just wanted to touch base on that and say that I'm really making an effort to get back into it, but I only just got access back to this account after over a year so please be patient with me and in the mean time, enjoy this! And if you're new to my writing, then welcome :)

The heart monitor beeped rhythmically in the corner of Celine Herondale's hospital room. The beats were slow and steady, Jace's breathing shallow and ragged. He sat crippled over in a visitor's chair next to the bed which Celine lay on, her eyes closed, her complexion pale, her hand cold in his. He'd been sitting in that same position for over an hour now, just staring at his mother's face. It looked the same as it had for the past four years. Ghostly, expressionless, with a nasal cannula pushing oxygen inter her lungs and horrifying burn marks covering half of her face. If you were to look down past her face, you would be able to see that the burns continued down her neck, growing onto her left shoulder, all the way down to her fingertips where her nails had been burnt off. The doctors and nurses kept telling him that she was lucky. That it could have been so much worse, if Jace hadn't pulled her out of the car in time. But he wondered how much worse it could be than being stuck in a coma with severe head trauma, brain damage, and no feeling or movement on her left side.

Jace's phone vibrated from the side table he'd placed it on, the screen lighting up with the words 'NY Police Department' in the Caller ID bubble. The boy sighed and slid his finger across the screen before holding the phone up to his ear.

"This is Officer Herondale," he announced into the microphone.

"Jace, it's me," a familiar voice greeted him on the other end of the line.

"Oh, hey Rober – Officer Lightwood," Jace corrected himself quickly. He knew how much his adoptive father hated being called by his first name when he was working.

"There's been a call, officers are needed on Fifteenth Avenue. Are you still on patrol in Liberty?"

"Sure am, pulled three guys over in the span of half an hour," he lied smoothly. If Robert knew he was skipping his duty to spend time with his mother… He didn't want to imagine the consequences. The Lightwoods had been amazing, paying all Celine's hospital fees and for any scans or tests she needed done - unlike his previous foster homes where he'd been having to work long hours every day to cover the expensive bills that seemed to keep rolling in - but Robert took his work very seriously and put it before anything and everything else. Jace wasn't sure if that was a good thing entirely.

"Excellent. Well then, you can make your way over to the alleyway next to the German café. We got a call from a very shaken up lady who lives in the apartment block in front of it. A dead body's been dumped there. We're sending Officer Kyle to meet you there. The forensic team should be arriving the same time as you."

And then a long beep signalled that the call was over.

Jace was passing the front desk and stepping into the elevator before the door to Celine's room had time to swing shut behind him. Robert's words buzzed in his ears, making his veins feel as if they were going to burst from all the adrenaline that he'd suddenly obtained. A body, a dead body. It was disgusting that that was what police officers got off on, what excited them, but Jace couldn't help it. Finally, he could focus on something other than how many miles over the speed limit people were going and which children were riding bicycles without helmets.

Jace arrived at the crime scene at the exact same time that his partner, Jordan Kyle, pulled up. They walked at a hurried place to the back of Kuchen, the German café, where the side street met with a back alleyway. Immediately, their eyes were drawn to what they saw lying on the ground only ten meters or so in front of them. The body of a girl. She looked like an angel. If it weren't for her being so skinny that you could see her hollow cheek bones, her bony arms, her protruding collarbones, and the bruises and cuts that were all over her body, she would have been beautiful. She had perfect, porcelain doll skin under the black and blue and brown marks. Her hair was as red as a blazing fire, splayed around her face. Her arms hung limply at her sides.

"Jesus Christ," Jordan let out a breath and froze on the spot. His eyes were wide with shock, and his hands shook slightly as her brushed a hand through his hair.

Jace cleared his throat and forced himself to keep on walking forward. "What? It's not like you've never seen a dead body before."

The dark haired boy lifted his head up and nodded. "Right, you're right," he said, in a voice Jace guessed was supposed to sound brave, but failed because of the tremble in it.

Jace immediately cringed, feeling like a complete ass. He wanted to apologise, to say that it was okay to be frightened, but his attention was brought back to the girl. Or more so, the girl's chest. The way it was still slightly rising and falling. "Hell, Kyle. Get the ambulance on the phone. Now." He picked up the girl's wrist gently and pressed two of his fingers to the inside of it. Yep, there it was. A heartbeat. Slow, and skipping, and unstable, but it was there.

"But the forensic team will be here any seco – " Jordan pushed his brows together in confusion.

"Yes, and they're not going to be any use. They're coming to study a dead body, and this girl… this girl is not dead, not yet. But if you wait any longer to call a damn ambulance, her lungs are going to give in and then the forensic team will have a reason to be here," Jace snapped. Behind him, he could hear Jordan dialling the number, but his eyes never left the girl. Not for a second. If you focused on her fluttering eyelids and her pouty lips and just forgot about all the wounds on her body, you could think she was just sleeping peacefully. He held onto her hand gently, sliding his thumb up and down her palm. "It's okay, you're going to be okay. I promise. We're getting you help. Just please, please hang in there. Please be alright, for me," and he continued to sit there, whispering to her, until the paramedics swarmed her, pushing Jace away. And he continued to stand in the ally, staring at her, until he lost sight of her after she was pushed on a stretcher into the back of the ambulance.

∞§∞

Clarissa Morgenstern, her name was.

Jace stared down at the manila folder he held in his hands. It contained her entire file. She was only seventeen years old, three years younger than Jace. Clipped to the page that held her hometown, her allergies and the rest of the basics, was a photograph of her. She was smiling, her arms around a tall, gangly boy with brown hair and glasses. She had her fiery red hair tied in two braids. Jace barely recognised her. What intrigued him most were her eyes. They had been closed when he'd found her, but in this photo you could see the bright emerald colour they were. One word kept spiralling around in Jace's mind. Beautiful. He took a deep breath and prepared himself as he turned the page. As he read the first few lines, he let out a strangled sound that made many people in the hospital waiting room look his way.

Clarissa Morgenstern. Taken the night of July 26th, 2012, when she was 13 years old. Her family claims they were asleep and only realised she was gone when they found her bed empty the next morning. Assumed dead in February 2013.

Jace let out another noise. "Four years ago. Jesus, only thirteen years old," he shook his head. This is why he'd joined the police force. For cases like these. To help bring in these sons of bitches that hurt people like Clarissa.

"Officer Herondale?"

He brought his head up from the paperwork splayed across his lap and turned his attention to the nurse that stood in front of him. "That's me," he said. He'd gone back to the Lightwoods' to get changed into a fresh, plain white t-shirt and a pair of jeans, so he pulled his badge out of his pocket as proof of identity.

"The patient, Miss Morgenstern, is stable and we haven't found any injuries that would make us think she won't have a thorough recovery once the damage has been healed," the nurse, Jenny, smiled.

"How much damage are we talking about?"

"Three kicked in and crushed ribs, all of the bruises that you saw on her arms continue all the way down her body, multiple cuts and lash marks on her back and stomach, malnourished, and minor head trauma that could possible cause her not to remember certain things. But we're almost certain that if some memories can't be reached, they will come back on their own with time."

"So she's been tortured and beaten for the past four years, and then dumped and left for dead?" Jace guessed.

"I'm no criminal genius like you and the rest of your team, but yes, that's our assumption."

"Has her family been contacted?"

Jenny nodded. "Her father is on a plane back from a business trip as we speak and her mother and step father are on their way."

"Can I see her?"

"We don't think it would be wise to interrogate her so soon, not before she's rested and seen her family. That's why we sent Officers Lightwood and Kyle home."

Jace shook his head. "I'm not going to ask her any questions, I promise. I just want to… to look at her," he winced. That came out totally creepy. But the nurse must not have thought anything of it, because she smiled understandingly and ushered him up the hall and into a small, private room that looked just like the one his mother was in.

"Family should really be the only ones seeing her so early on, so don't stay too long," Jenny said gently before shutting the door closed behind her.

As soon as the sounds of chatter from outside were gone, and he was standing awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, no idea what to do now, he felt like an idiot. He'd just felt so desperate to lay eyes on her again, to check that she was still breathing.

A nasal cannula was attached into her nose and she had several different needles going into the inside of her elbows and the tops of her hands, pumping her full of hydrating fluid. The scene was sickeningly familiar to Jace, and it was all too much. He'd spent enough time waiting in his own mother's hospital room to last him the rest of his life, and the same pulse monitor machine with the same rhythm made his head spin so fast that he had no choice but to fall into the chair that was set next to the girl's bed. Only one level up and a few rooms north, Celine lay. But Jace wasn't there with her; instead he continued to sit next to Clarissa Morgernstern, urging her silently to open her eyes so he could see them for himself.

After half an hour, Jace realized she probably wasn't going to wake up anytime soon. He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it ever so gently. "Please be okay, please just wake up soon." He scolded himself on how pathetic and needy he sounded. But then, as if she'd heard his voice, her eyelids fluttered open and Jace's heart skipped a beat.

∞§∞

For the first half a moment after Clary opened her eyes, she was in bliss. In that moment, she lay on the hospital bed completely unaware of her surroundings, of the past four years of her life, and all she did was breathe. In that moment, she was no one. She just was. But at some point in the moments that followed, everything slowly flooded back into her mind. And she was terrified. At least, until she realized where she was. IT wasn't like the room she'd been in for the last four years. It was white and clean and smelt like a hospital. And that's when she made the connection. It slowed down her racing pulse just a little bit to realize that she was in a safe environment, but that didn't stop the physical pain that was demanding to be felt. With every breath she took, her lungs felt as if they were on fire. Lying on her back made her wounds scream in agony. There was no room in her mind to be scared, though, because all the space in it was taken up with confusion. It was like there were holes in her brain. She tried to force herself to remember how she'd managed to get to the hospital but she just couldn't. She turned her head to the side, ignoring the pain that shot through her spine, to reach for the button on the side of the bed that would signal the nurses, but a pair of golden eyes stopped her. They stared right into hers, full of surprise and amazement. The boy's lips were parted slightly; his blonde curls tumbling over his face. He looked like an angel. Her very own angel.

Clary looked at the angel in awe. "Who are you?" it came out as a strangled whisper.

It took him a few seconds to prepare his words. "Um, I – I'm Jace, Jace Herondale," he reached to pull something out of his pocket just as the door opened and a gust of wind came through the entry way.

Then the cries started.

First it was Jocelyn. She looked so much older than Clary remembered her. Her face was wrinkled, with purple bags under her eyes and tearstains saturating her face. She dropped the bag she clutched in her hands as her eyes fell on Clary. "Oh god, my Clary, my baby," she rushed over to embrace her daughter before thinking better of it and stopping herself, taking her hand instead. She completely ignored the boy who was sitting right behind her, or more likely, she just didn't notice him. Clary wondered how that was possible, because it took her all she had to rip her eyes of her angel and look at her mother.

Next came in a tall, broad shouldered man that Clary recognised as Jocelyn's closest friend and her practically-uncle, Luke Garroway. He looked the same as he had when Clary was thirteen, except the fact that he'd let his beard grow out more. He looked at Clary like she was the most precious thing in the world, like she was his daughter.

She expected Valentine to follow Luke in, but he seemed to be outside the door on the phone. He was pacing the hallway, obviously agitated.

Instead of letting herself think about her father, she turned to look back at the last person who stood in the doorway. She swore that her heart stopped for a second. He'd changed the most out of all of them in the four years she'd been gone, but there was no mistaking him for anyone else. The glasses, the bug eyes, his goofy smile. There was only one Simon Lewis. Clary could tell how much he was trying not to cry, because he knew how much Clary hated crying, but she could see how much she he was struggling not to.

There was the sound of someone clearing their throat, and then her angel boy with the golden eyes and face that seemed like it should be accompanied by a halo, Jace, stood up from his seat and walked out of the room, sneaking a glance back at her. He almost looked as if he were in pain. Clary's eyes only came back to the room full of her family once he was completely out of sight. Valentine had ended his call and now stood with Jocelyn, Luke and Simon at the end of Clary's bed. Unlike the rest of them, his face was completely expressionless, if not disinterested.

"Hi," she said weakly, forcing a small smile.

That's all it took for Jocelyn and Simon to burst into tears once more.

Jocelyn reached her hand towards Clary's face, and in a moment Clary was over to the other side of the bed so far she was almost falling off. She had no idea how she even moved so fast. She hadn't meant to; she knew her mother was no threat. But the thought of someone putting a hand to her face had made her instincts kick in so fast she hadn't even realized what was happening. There was a look of shock and pain in Jocelyn's eyes as her own daughter pushed herself away from her, but it was quickly replaced with the realization of what had just happened. "Oh god, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry baby. I didn't think. I just – I wasn't thinking," she rambled on, her hands in her hair as she shook her head from side to side. It made Clary so furious that Jocelyn was the one who was getting so upset about this whole situation.

"Jesus Christ, Jocelyn, stop babbling like an idiot," Valentine snapped. He checked his watch impatiently. "How long does it take for one of these nurses to make an evaluation on one person?" he muttered.

The next few minutes passed by with Clary being hugged gently by everyone except her father, and having to tell them how she was feeling, if she was in pain. No one wanted to talk about what Clary knew they were all thinking. Did she know who had taken her? What had happened to her for the past five years? There was so much she could them, but she'd seen the clipboard next to her that read 'May experience memory loss,' and she took advantage of that, because she wasn't ready to talk about anything that had happened to her in the last four years of her life.

Jocelyn's blabbering continued to fill the otherwise silent room. Her hands covered her heart, displaying a wedding ring that wasn't the one Valentine had given her before Clary had been born. Glancing to her father's hand, she noticed that his ring finger was bare. But Luke's wasn't. She didn't have the energy to even open her mouth to ask, and in that moment, she didn't care.

"Can I talk to Simon? By himself?" She didn't bother looking at her mother, because she knew the look of offense and hurt that would be written all over her face. Slowly though, everyone except Simon left the room. Finally, it was only the two of them left. Her best friend lowered himself into the seat next to her bed and sat there silently, searching for something to say.

"I missed you," she said. "I didn't really miss my dad, and I did miss mom, and even Luke. But I missed you the most."

"I missed you too, Clare Bear," he said. Clary smiled at his old nickname for her. "Every single day. Everyone was asking me where you'd gone, what had happened, like I knew. And I hated not knowing. Not knowing if your body would be found in a gutter somewhere, or if the police would find who had taken you and bring you back to safety. Every morning I'd say to myself, 'maybe today's the day'. And then your mom called me this morning and I couldn't move. I couldn't believe it. Four years and then, what? Whoever kidnapped you just decided to let you go?"

"Si, I can't talk about it. I don't want to think about it. Not now, not yet," Clary sighed.

"No, I get it. I just wish I knew so I could kill whoever it was who hurt you," he said it so seriously and darkly that Clary had no doubt in her mind that if he did find out, he would do it.

"You look different," she commented abruptly.

Simon smiled his geeky, crooked smile. Okay, maybe not that different, Clary thought.

"So do you. Four years does that to a person. You actually have boobs now."

Clary looked down at her chest that was covered by a thin hospital gown and scoffed. "Barely."

Simon laughed.

"Do you have your phone with you?"

He nodded.

"Can I use it?"

He nodded again and retrieved it from his pocket, leaning over to hand it to her. She frowned and studied the phone in her hand, turning it around in her hands. "What is it?"

Simon burst out in laughter at Clary's confusion over the iPhone. "Oh, you have so much catching up to do."

"You can fill me in on who the president is and all that stuff once you show me how to open the camera on this thing."

Simon smirked and swiped the screen up and onto the camera app before handing the phone back to Clary. "It's Obama, by the way."

Clary raised her eyebrows so high up it felt as if they had reached her hairline and shot a look of amazement at her best friend, who was still having trouble containing his laughter. She turned her attention back to the phone screen and almost dropped it as she saw her reflection staring right back at her. She lifted a hand to her face and touched her cheeks, her lips, her chin.

"If it makes you feel any better, I think you've gotten hotter," Simon said as she passed his phone back to him.

Clary laughed before she caught a glimpse of Simon's worried look. "What's up?"

"It's just… I mean… There was no mirror or windows or anything where you were?"

"No, Si, there wasn't," Clary sighed.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up."

Clary shrugged. "For now, I'm just happy to be safe and here with you. I don't want, or need, to think about anything else right now."

"Yeah, I know. But just know that when you decide you do want to talk about it, don't go to one of those shitty counsellor people, because I'm willing to listen to you for a much cheaper price."

"I'll keep that in mind," she smiled.

∞§∞

Jace stood on the other side of the glass that looked into Clarissa's, or Clary as her family had called her, room. She'd fallen asleep the instant her friend, Simon Lewis, had left the room. He'd been outside the door the entire time, just listening to her joke around with the boy. It had made him smile to himself. Her laugh was so angelic and harmonious, like a melody, that he couldn't help himself. Now he stood in a circle with Jocelyn Fairchild, Valentine Morgenstern, Luke Garroway, Simon Lewis, Robert Lightwood, Jordan Kyle and Jenny, the nurse from earlier. She had been explaining the injuries to Clary's family.

"And when can she get out of here? What happens to her when she's ready to leave?" Valentine tapped his foot against the tiled door.

"Well she'll come home with me, obviously," Jocelyn replied.

"Why don't we stop skipping to assumptions and listen to the nurse, Jocelyn?" the white haired man said sourly.

Jenny cleared her throat. "After looking at her scans and evaluating her responses, I discussed it with the doctors and we decided that it would be best for her recovery if she was admitted to an inpatient centre. She needs to in an environment surrounded by professionals who understand what she is going through and can be there to help her 24/7. It's clear that she is going to have Post Traumatic Stress, and for her to gain her memories back, she needs to be able to have someone to talk to whenever she wants. We think that she'd find it helpful to be with other people her age that share similar past experiences. It'll be a while until she feels safe to interact with other people again and to let them touch her, but there's an amazing institute only an hour away that I highly recommend. They also have physiotherapists that can help her recover from her injuries. The doctors believe that the outside world will just be too much for her at this point in time."

"Institutes are for crazy people," Simon argued. "Clary isn't crazy. She's perfectly fine. I was just talking to her."

"On the outside, maybe," Jenny agreed, "but after what she'd been through we can expect nightmares, fits, behavioural change," she ticked off the symptoms on her fingers.

"I think it's an excellent idea, do you have the paperwork for us to sign?" Valentine said, still tapping his foot and checking his watch.

"Hang on a moment!" Jocelyn exclaimed. "We don't have to make the decision right now, do we?"

Jenny shook her head. "No, of course not. Although we recommend it, the choice is ultimately up to you as her parents and whatever you consider best for your daughter. She's not going to be ready to leave the hospital for at least six days, but the institute needs two days notice to get a room and schedule ready for her, so you have a few days to decide," she turned to Robert. "I can wake her up if you'd like to ask her some questions now," she offered reluctantly.

Robert opened his mouth to speak but Jace stepped forward before he could. "I don't think that's a good idea. I heard what she said to her friend," he indicated to Simon, "and she doesn't want to talk about it. It's too soon."

"It doesn't make any difference whether she wants to talk about it or not. We need to know what she knows so we can put a case together and get a team ready to find whoever did this to her," Robert said firmly.

Jace looked around to find that everyone's eyes were on his. "Uh, can you all give us a minute please?"

Valentine sighed, exasperated and stormed off in the direction of the waiting room. The rest of them followed until Jace was left alone with Robert.

"Since when do you think that just because you're my son, you get to question my authority and the procedure?" the older man hissed.

"Since I realized that the procedure isn't always the right way to go about things," Jace shot back. "That girl has woken up in a hospital after four years of torture. She's overwhelmed and in pain. IF that was Isabelle, would you want her being surrounded by police officers she didn't know, being interrogated, pushed to think of things that she didn't want to think about?"

Something in Robert's eyes changed at the mention of his daughter, but the flicker of understanding was gone in a moment and his face became stern and expressionless again. "So what do you suggest, Herondale? We wait a few days, just to be told that she still isn't ready to talk about it? Then sit around for a month, and then another one, again being told she just can't handle talking about it? And by then the case is too old to be started. You know the law; the report has to be filed within three months of the incident happening or else it's too late."

Jace couldn't believe the words that came out of his mouth next. "Send me to the institute. I know what goes on in them; I went there after everything to my father and then my mother before I was put in foster care. You sit around in groups and talk about your experiences. Bake cookies, talk about your fears," he waved a hand. "It's a lot more comfortable than being bombarded with questions by police. I can get her to open up, trust me."

"You're telling me… That you want to go undercover, at a psych ward, to extract information from a victim?"

"If that's the way you want to put it, then sure," Jace shrugged carelessly. He needed to make Robert think that doing his job was all it was about. Nothing else. Not that for some reason that was beyond him, he felt a pull towards the girl, to protect her and take care of her.

"Are you forgetting the part where you were just stood in a hallway and announced yourself as a police officer to her entire family?"

"A tiny issue," Jace waved it off, "they can only visit once every so often for 'family days', I'll just find a way to excuse myself from those and then there won't be a problem. She doesn't know anything about me except for my name. And if anything comes up… well, I'll find a way around it. It's what we're trained to do." Jace bit on his lip and had to stop himself from rocking back and forth on his heels, trying not to seem like a toddler begging for a lolly.

Robert sighed and shook his head, scratching the back of his neck. "I'll talk to the boss about it tomorrow. You better hope this works, kid. Because otherwise I'm not going to have any other choice than to pull her into an interrogation room myself."

Jace felt as if a tonne of weight had been lifted off his shoulders before he realized what he'd just arranged. This meant toying with Clary's feelings, using her as a tool to catch another criminal. Making her trust him, open up to him.

"You sure she doesn't know you're a cop?" Robert checked.

"I'm sure. Lucky though. I was about to pull out my badge when her family barged into the room."

"Good timing."

"Extremely good," Jace agreed.

"Admitting you to this inpatient facility, it means you're going to have to pretend to be a troubled guy with a lot of problems. You're going to have to seem messed up. They don't let just anyone into these centers."

It won't be that hard, he thought. "I'm a good actor," he said.

"Good, because that's what it's going to come down to."

Jace leant his back against the wall of the hospital hallway and slid down til he was sitting on the floor as Robert marched away. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath in. Please don't feel anything for me, Clary. Please don't fall for me. Don't let me break your heart.

Okay, phew. So that's the first chapter over. I hoped you enjoyed it and please remember to review :) I'm sorry about how long and drawn out this chapter might have felt, but I had to add in everything that needed mentioning to get it over and done with so we can move on to the real start of the journey!

Xxxx