Yeah, I know I had it under 'Complete', but the reviews were awesome...
I still don't know how to freakin put the chapter with 'Time flys when you're gone'... so it's in stories...
BTW, I'm determined to make this have a GOOD ENDING, because a totally hot guy asked me out yesterday, and he looks like JACE. I'm so happy right now...
Jace stared at his sister, feeling sick. No no no no no, he wanted to yell. This CANNOT be happening.
Clary must've caught the horror and disgust on his face, because her own face dropped, her eyes sad.
Jace's breath caught in his throat, because he knew that even when she was old enough to be his grandmother, he still loved her.
"Clary," Jace said, clearing his throat uncomfortably. "What-what happened to you?"
Her face grew sad, her eyes downcast, as if she was afraid to look him in the eye. But when she looked back up, he realized that she had a faint smile on her face. "I got old, Jace," she said in her soft, creaky voice.
Jace wanted to stand up and hug his baby-older sister and erase that sad smile, but his legs wouldn't cooperate.
"Where's Simon?"
Clary noticed the sketchpad in his hand and she went still.
"Clary..."
She frowned slightly at him. "Jace," she said with much force. "I drew those when I was twenty-three."
Then Jace, like the idiot he was, asked her the rudest question to ask a grown woman. "So, how old are you? Seventy?"
Clary cracked her hand across the back of his head. 'No," she said in that angry, impatient tone that he recognized as her usual tone with him when she was younger. "I'm only sixty-five."
Jace raised an eyebrow. "Only?" he mocked.
Clary rolled her eyes and sat down on the bed next to him. Unself-conciously, Jace began running his fingers down her soft silvery hair.
Clary closed her eyes. "He's with Isabelle," she murmured. Jace nodded. "Hmm."
"Jace?"
His eyes snapped open. He'd lost his train his thought the moment the contact of her hair was in in his hands.
"Yeah?"
"Did you hear a word I just said?" she demanded. He shook his head. "Not really."
Clary rested her head on his shoulder softly, lost in the feeling of his hands in her hair. You are married, Clary, she scolded herself. Married with children and grandchildren.
"He's with Izzy," she repeated.
Jace stiffened. "What about Alec and Max?" he asked tightly.
He felt Clary tense in his arms, as though he'd brought up a subject that she didn't want to talk about.
"Well," she said softly. "A year after you left, Max was killed in a hit-and-run."
Jace felt as if he was drowning in thick, heavy water.
"And Alec was killed by a demon on one of our hunts when he was twenty-eight."
The water was heavier and thicker, and Jace could feel it pressing down on him. But there was no way to tread water when it wasn't real.
When Jace spoke, it was blank and unemotional. "Who was his parabati?"
Clary watched him carefully as she replied, as if she knew the answer would upset him. "He refused to het another one after you left," she said quietly.
Her words stabbed at his gut, for it was his fault that Alec was dead. Parabati's didn't leave eachother. And if the other died, it was autimatically the surviving parabati's fault.
Clary pulled hesitantly away from him, thinking that he'd want to be alone.
Jace was more shocked than her when he grabbed her hand gently but firmly and pulled her back to him.
"Don't go," he whispered. "Please."
Since Jace never said please, Clary stayed.
Jace heard the Institute's front door open softly, and then a pair of boots stomping in as someone-Isabelle most likely- walked in. "Clary?" called Jace's adopted sister. "Cla-ary! We're back."
Jace shot Clary a confuse look, and she touched his hand lightly, sending shivers down his body. "They were at Alec, and Max's graves."
Jace stared at her. "Did Magnus died?"
Clary's face twisted in grief. "We kept out of touch after Alec died" was all that she would say.
Jace closed his eyes, struggling to control his facial emotions.
"Jace?"
He opened his eyes to see a tall, beautiful woman with pearl white hair and onyx eyes. She was about Clary's age, but seemed to look ageless.
"Izzy?"
A man appeared from behind Clary. Tall with gray hair and brown eyes. He was a dullish handsome, with a slump in his shoulders. But when he looked at his wife, he seemed straighter, prouder.
Jace hated him.
"Simon," he said in a dead voice.
"Jace," Simon replied with the same monotone.
"OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!"
Isabelle was across the room in seconds, throwing herself on Jace and hugging him.
"Jace Lightwood," she squealed. "I AM GOING TO KILL YOOUUU."
Jace stared at her angrily. "Lightwood?" he asked with a sneer. "It's Morgenstern. As you all know."
Clary flushed and looked down at her soft, artistic hands.
Jace remembered how the hands had once felt in his hair. He shook off the memory, not once letting his angry mask slip.
Isabelle's face froze.
Then she whirled to look at Clary, her face angry. "How could you not have told him?" she demanded.
Jace's eyes flickered from her to Isabelle, and back to Clary again.
"Tell me what?"
Izzy turned back to look at him, still fuming.
"That you and Clary aren't brother and sister," She said, her face lighting up.
Jace felt his heart stop.
"What?"
Simon cleared his throat. The three looked at him.
"Not," he said defensively. "That it matters, of course. Clary's married to me; she's already over you."
Shut up, Simon, Clary wanted to scream. He was making her feel guilty, because of course she hadn't gotten over Jace.
She remembered those numerous nights that she'd pretended that itt was Jace sleeping next to her, that it was Jace soothing her when she cried, that it was Jace who held her when she felt scared and alone.
"Right, Clary?"
She didn't look at him, because she knew that she would cry if she did.
"Clary?"
To Be Continued...