Disclaimer: I do not own any facet of The Mortal Instruments. All I own is my imagination and a computer. Oh, and a really awesome phone.
This one-shot is part of Project PULL, which was created by Bookaholic711. For more information about Project PULLyou can either visit my profile or her"s.
Word count: 1,032 (Edited)
Prompt: Thunderstorms
Pairing: Slight Jace/Clary
Summary: As a thunderstorm rages outside, Clary wrestles with her fears of her own life and its consequences. Set during City of Ashes. Spoilers if you haven't read the book.
Clary stood by the window, one hand on the curtain, one hand on the windowpane, staring out at the storm raging over New York. She'd been standing there for quite some time, just looking out over the city, watching cars whiz by in the thickening rain. Lightning flashed, and it illuminated her features for a second, her eyes burning with a strange light. The hand holding the curtain tightened its grip, nearly tearing a hole in the white sheet.
The door to Clary's room at the Institute slowly creaked open, but she didn't even blink. She finally took her hand off of the windowpane, her fingers numb.
"Clary?" a voice from behind her called. She didn't need to turn around to know who it was. Jace. Upon hearing his voice, all of the breath hissed from her mouth and her eyes dilated with the streak of lightning that flashed across the sky.
A hand suddenly appeared on her shoulder, warm and comforting, but she shook it off. "Clary?" Jace asked again, staring at her reflection in the window.
She turned her heads towards him, her eyes never really leaving the storm outside. "What?" She sounded weary and very exhausted, the growing dark circles shadowing her eyes not much of a surprise, since it was almost two in the morning.
The reflection of Jace in the glass looked worried as he stared at Clary, trying to decipher the look on her face, eyes scanning her every detail and drinking her in. "I wanted to check in and make sure you were alright. You didn't come down to dinner..." Jace sounded almost vulnerable, but there was an edge to his voice, one of protectiveness for his sister. It was there, that word, everywhere they went; brother, too. Brother and sister. The words hung heavy in the atmosphere, though neither acknowledged them.
After a few minutes of tense silence, Clary abruptly turned around to face him."Did you know that my mom and I always loved thunderstorms?" Jace stood stock still, not even daring to blink. His eyes searched her face, looking for any signs that there was something wrong with her. "We used to just sit by the window and play card games, all wrapped up in blankets to keep us warm. Did you know that?" Her voice had thickened with emotion, and she clutched at the curtain, her knuckles turning white.
"No," Jace said, so quietly that it was almost drowned out by the crackle of thunder that had erupted. "No, I didn't know that." She searched his eyes, for what he wasn't sure, and she turned back around to the window, swallowing hard.
"It's not fair," she ground out between her teeth, looking like she was about to take a swing at the window, "it's not fair that I'm here and she's not. She's lost in some stupid coma while I have to live in the real world without her!" Her voice was desperate and raw and with a violent tug, she ripped the curtain away from the window and let it flutter down behind her. The metal rings that had held the curtain up clanged down on to the wood floor, echoing strangely and causing a ruckus that neither of the teens acknowledged.
Clary didn't even flinch at the loud noise, her mouth pressed into a grim line, both of her hands now pressed up against the windowpane. Jace stood there, watching her, at a complete loss to what he should do. How in the world could he comfort her when she was like this?
He reached out for her and said, "It'll be alright, Clary -" He stopped though, when she whirled around to face him, fury blazing in her eyes. He quickly withdrew his hand and backed up a step. Clary moved with him though, and the fire in her eyes intensified.
"It's going to be alright?" she asked in a deadly whisper. "Did you seriously just tell me that? It's going to be alright? My mother is in a magically induced comatose and we have no clue how to wake her up! My biological father, the bastard, is running rampant with his insane ideas, trying to take over the Shadowhunting world! And to top it all off, we've found out that you're my brother, of all things! Tell me, for God's sake, how the hell anything is going to be alright!" Clary was screaming by the time she reached the end of her tirade, and when she stopped abruptly, a tense silence fill the air. Clary was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling rapidly. She started to shake, her eyes filling with tears she'd been holding back since she'd entered this strange world.
Jace just stared, his eyes locked on something in the distance. Long after Clary's tears had spilled over, he spoke. "I don't know for certain that we'll make it through this, Clary, but if I know anything about you, you won't stop trying. You won't stop looking for the antidote for your mom, won't stop trying to get rid of Valentine. You'll keep going and going until you're dead tired and want nothing more than to stop, and then you'll go some more, pushing through your weariness and your defeat. It's because you care so much Clary, so much, and you'd do anything for those you love."
Clary's tears had stopped by the end of his speech, and she quickly wiped at her cheeks before looking at him. "Really?" she asked, trying to swallow a new wave of tears. "Do you really think that?"
Jace focused back on her, and gave her a strange look as if to say, why wouldn't I mean it? Jace timidly reached out for Clary, afraid of her rejection again; but when his hand curled around her shoulder, she almost literally threw herself at him, hugging around the waist with all of her might.
They stood there the rest of the night, appreciating the silence of thunderstorms.
[A/N]: Well, I hope you enjoyed this one! It's been a really long while since I wrote a Mortal Instruments story (actually, my only other story was my fisrt one!), and i hope I did a good job with it. Reviews are appreciated, especially if it's a little more thoughtful than, "OMG THAT WAS GREAT!", though I do love reviews in any form. Thank you for reading!
~Icelyn
PS: If anyone wants to contact me, the best way would be to either a) PM me, or b) find me on livejournal. My username is timegoesbyfast.