The Mortal Instruments
The Wayland Name.
Clary Fray sat on the coach in Luke's apartment in utter silence. She had all the information she needed, and nothing more to lose. Simon- who had said he loved her- had abandoned her, though, she supposed that was selfish, Simon had stuck with her, still loved her even when he knew how she felt about Jace. Yet, she hurt him further by dragging him into the dark world which had always been her home, and she just hadn't known it. Her father, she had discovered, was alive but also a psychotic lunatic, hellbent on destroying the clave, all down worlders and any other person who got in his way. Even his own children. Her mother was in a self-induced comma as it appeared, and she, Clary, had lost the last person she loved. Perhaps more than all of the other people in her life put together. Isabelle, Alec, Simon, her mother, Luke, Maia, Magnus. Above all of them stood Jace, like an angel standing on the bones of man, ready to bring the wrath of God upon the unworthy. Jace.
Her brother.
She bit her lip, fiddling idly with her fingers and the blanket around her. She was alone. Luke had gone to visit Jocelyn in the hospital, and Simon was around if she needed him. She did, but Clary knew this was something she needed to do on her own. To wake her mother would bring back, at least a piece, of her life. Though, what would her mother say when she discovered that her first child, her son, Jonathan Christopher -Jace- was alive and that he and Clary loved each other? How much more could she hurt the people she loved? She wasn't sure, but she was fairly certain she would find a way. It was the Valentine in her. The piece that all it touched-destroyed.
Her phone rang ,and she picked it up, wondering if it was Simon. It wasn't. She looked at the caller display telling her Jace was calling and she set the phone aside again. She didn't want to- couldn't- talk to Jace at the moment. Screening his calls had now become a painful habit.
----
Jace scowled. Clary wasn't answering her phone again. He would have been worried, but Clary had ignored his phone calls before. He wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve it though. He told her what she wanted to hear all along, and yet, she hadn't seemed happy about it. Well, any happier than he was. Though Clary, he knew, was hard to figure out and he would give her time. She was probably with Simon. Damn the mundane- he caught his thoughts-vampire.
"I love you, Jace" the words came from the other side of the room and Jace looked up. Confused. It was Clary's voice, but how was she in his room at the institute without his knowledge? It wasn't possible. Yet, he willed it to be. With all of his being. That was not what a brother would do.
"Clary?" he asked, as the figure stepped forwards to meet him. She was very pale, and she looked thinner than he remembered, but it was still Clary. Still his Clary. But. She was still his sister. She looked at him, with her big, bright eyes and didn't move any closer. Jace moved to go to her, but she suddenly doubled up, her hands wrapping themselves around her stomach as she cried out in pain. "Clary!" he yelled, running to her side. She parted her fingers, and under them thick, red blood snaked steadily from a wound, soaking into her dress and pooling on the floor around her. "Clary!" Jace pleaded, and then he saw the knife. The kahdija. The instant he saw it, he recognised it. It was his.
"I love you, Jace" whispered Clary, as she lay in his arms.
"I love--I love you too, Clary" Jace cried as Clary's eyes drifted shut, and she died.
Jace sat up in bed, drenched in sweat, his hair was plastered to his forehead and his shirt clung stickily to his back. It had been a dream. Clary was not dead. He clutched at his chest where his heart was under the thin material. It hurt more than he thought. It hurt so much just from the thought of losing Clary forever. He loved her too much. More than a brother. And he hated himself for it.
-----
Sometimes, Simon dreamed that Clary had never met Jace Wayland- Jace Morgenstern, Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern or whatever name he went by- and that he and Clary had never known anything about the down worlders. He himself now one of them, wished he'd never become a vampire, he wished with all his heart that Clary Fray was his. That she loved him the way he'd loved her for ten years. But, he had to remind himself that if Jace hadn't appeared, maybe he would have never even kissed Clary. The fact that Jace was her brother, didn't seem to be able to stop the way the two of them felt about each other -as hard as they might try.
"Maia?" he called as she entered the room, smiling.
"Yes?" he grinned, he couldn't help but like her, and, in a way-although nowhere near as much as Clary- love her. Perhaps, he thought, it was simple human nature. Someone liked you, you loved someone, they loved their brother...pretty normal...
Ha. As if! Nothing like that happened often-well, not that often.
It really just was that he must be unlucky. Unlucky to love Clary Frey, after all, after years of being friends how long did it take her to fall for Jace? A few weeks. Maybe, all that waiting around had made him so much a part of her life that she no longer really noticed him.
How many times has he wished now? On stars, in his heart, in his daydreams-that someone big, ugly and evil would come and devour that idiot Jace. If only...
----
However many times Alec told himself this, it was always the same. No, he didn't love Jace Wayland. After all, Jace like Clary...that made him shudder-it was like the idea of him making out with Isabelle...and not being gay. Years he had lived with Jace and never had he thought that the guy would end up liking incest...well, maybe that was a bit too much like Jace than even he wanted to admit. But, when there had been a time that Jace had no siblings it hadn't been the sort of thing that Alec had ever considered. He supposed that was probably why he hates Clary sometimes. Jace loved her, and not him.
He sighed, leaning back against the sofa. It didn't matter. It didn't matter. He had Magnus and, well, he was pretty happy to be with Magnus...even if he did dress scarily like the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He was a warlock though, so what did Alec expect?
Magnus prodded him in the side thoughtfully.
"What?" Alec asked, startled from his considerations. Magnus smiled.
"You didn't happen to be thinking about a certain Shadow Hunter now, were you?" he pulled his arm around Alec's shoulders and he grinned.
"Not anymore..." Magnus chuckled throatily.
"Oh, tell me more..." he purred.
---
"Stupid, Jace!" Isabelle screamed, hurling her whip across the room at him and catching him on the side of the temple.
"Isabelle!" Jace yelled back, feeling his forehead as blood trickled down and into his eyes.
"You're a selfish, arrogant, bastard, Jace Wayland!" they were both hurling insults across her bedroom now. She from her bedside table and Jace from the door way-he was too wary to enter...knowing Isabelle she might have some trap set up for just such an occasion.
"Well, I already knew that!" she howled with rage and picking up a stiletto heel flung it across the bedroom aiming from his eyes. He ducked.
"Izzy! Stop It!" he pleaded, dodging the shoe, but still feeling it graze his arm painfully. Only Isabelle Lightwood would use a stiletto as a weapon...
"Get out Jace!"
"I'm not even in your room!"
"Go and apologise to her!"
"Why should I, you cheerleader!" he retorted
"I'm not a cheerleader!"
"Same intelligence level..." he taunted.
"Oh yeah?" she quired, an evil smile playing across her pretty face as she moved to her dresser and retrieved four shining blades. "How many cheerleaders have perfect aim with these?" she asked, flipping them over in her fingers.
"Oh, didn't you know-Claire Bennett from Heroes!" she hissed menacingly at him and raised her arm to throw the knifes.
Jace swung the door shut just in time to her four thuds as the blade embedded themselves into the thick wood paneling. He gulped. Maybe he'd do as she said before things escalated...
Or not-after all, this was Isabelle. No one listened to her.