There is something enticing about watching Clary get dressed in the morning…the stretch of pliant leather across her lean, feminine legs, the image of her sheathing the heavy seraph blade across her back, its glass hilt gleaming over her shoulder. Her wild, auburn hair, the color outlined in gold by the summer sun streaming through the Institute's windows, pulled away from her face into a long braid. She Marks herself deftly, and Jace feels a sudden thrill when the early morning light catches the unfaded lines of the curved, delicate Union rune. But he frowns at the runes of protection, of healing, of strength and sure-footedness; all are unwelcome reminders that she isn't safe unless she is with him.

From their bed, Jace observes her with an intense curiosity, though he's seen her in fighting gear a thousand times before. Clary's stele- she has finally been given her own, one made specifically for her- glints in her hand, and fighting knives are strapped to her hips. He'd be lying if he said it wasn't attractive, because underneath his fears for her safety he is fully aware that his wife is one of the most capable Shadowhunters he has ever encountered. "Going somewhere?" he asks lightly, careful not to let his voice waver.

"Alec just got a call…a demon colony at Astor Place," Clary replies, pulling on a worn, dark leather jacket to cover her runes. Her eyes rake over his form appreciatively, and she crawls over him, her mouth hovering inches above his own. "Bad timing."

He reaches up to drag his thumb across her jawline, his eyes lingering on the dusting of light freckles across her nose. "And you didn't think to ask me to come along?"

"I thought I'd let you get some sleep," Clary murmurs, her eyes indecipherable, and Jace groans involuntarily when her lips touch his. His hand moves to her hair, deepening the kiss and opening her mouth to his. The kiss is slow, languid, and as she trails her hands down to the waistband of his sleep pants, he realizes that she is teasing him. Her nails trace his fading runes lightly and her tongue slips inside his mouth mockingly, but she is already dressed, and has no intention of following through with her current trajectory.

She chuckles against his mouth, her hand nowhere near where he wants it, and Jace curses himself internally. He's taught her too well. In the early days of their marriage, Clary had been hesitant and unsure, allowing him to show her how her body worked. Now, she uses his tactics against him, leaving him breathless and on edge with hardly any effort at all.

As if satisfied with her own work, Clary leans back on her knees to survey her husband. His golden hair in disarray from sleep, his pupils dilated so that she can hardly see any gold in them. There's no pretending he's not already hard, and her eyes trail down his lithe form.

"And you were going to let me get some sleep," he says irritably.

She kisses him once, lightly. "Be back soon."

When Jace finally makes his way to the kitchen for breakfast, it's nearly eleven o'clock. He makes himself oatmeal, waiting for it to heat up in the microwave, and stirs in some brown sugar to negate the bland taste. They must be out of cereal, he notes with childlike disappointment.

The whole place is quiet: Isabelle must be at Simon's, and Maryse and Robert are on Clave business. So when Alec steps almost soundlessly into the kitchen, grabs an apple off the table, and directs a "hey" toward his parabatai's back, Jace nearly jumps out of his skin and drops his bowl.

"By the Angel, Alec! You scared the shit out of me!"

Alec swallows the bite of apple guiltily. "Sorry?" he offers.

"I thought you were out," Jace mutters irritably. "Don't…do that."

"Why would you think I was out?" Alec asks, confused.

Jace looks at him strangely. Demon nest. Astor Place, he wants to say, but Alec's blank stare gives him pause. Jace feels a sudden tension in his shoulders, a knot in his abdomen that has become all-too-familiar over the past several weeks. "No reason," he responds mildly, controlling his voice. He doesn't want Alec's concern until it's warranted. "Have you seen Clary this morning?"

"She went out earlier." Alec shrugs.

"You let her respond to a call alone?"

"No," Alec says, blue eyes narrowing, his accent delicate and smooth as he goes on. "We haven't got any calls. It's been quiet."

Something is pounding behind Jace's eyelids, something that stings of betrayal. Clary lied to me. She lied, again. Somehow, although his throat abruptly feels tight, he manages to say, "Oh. She must have gone for coffee."

Alec's questioning eyes tell Jace that he's not buying it, but thankfully he doesn't pry.

When Clary returns, hours later, he searches for ichor or blood or nicks on her blades and finds nothing. Nothing to suggest she'd come from a demon nest, but the truth is Jace isn't expecting to find a scratch on her. In fact, she is beautiful, more beautiful than how she'd left him that morning, if such a thing were possible. Her hair cascades down her back, loosed from its braid, her clothes outline the faint curve of her body, and Jace is struck with an unjustified jealousy.

Something about it isn't right. When she kisses him, his hands are unsteady and he wants to shake her. She'd been gone for hours, she'd lied to him about where she was. The question hovers in his mind insistently: Where were you? And then it grows bigger, now a two-headed demon rearing its ugly heads, mocking him: Who were you with?

The second question almost cripples him, tainting the taste of her mouth. Her hands sift through his hair, and he hears the small catch of her breath in her chest, but it doesn't give him the pleasure it once did. Are you faking this, Clarissa? He draws away slowly.

"I missed you," she says, and her voice is lovely, like air, and he fights the burning desire to kiss her again, to catch whatever she's about to say next, certain that it will alleviate the feeling of suffocation, the weight on his ribcage.

He's almost trembling with fear now. "I missed you, too." The words feel empty, hollow, his mind is too busy mapping out the past six months of their marriage, and the years before spent fighting to be with each other. Surely after everything, she wouldn't just throw it away for…he can't even think it. It's impossible. It would kill him. "How was hunting?" he manages to ask.

"Gross. I washed up at Luke's place." Jace's mind torments him, knowing already that she's lying…she wasn't hunting, and he also suspects that she wasn't at Luke's. Luke lives all the way in Brooklyn for god's sake, and her hair isn't damp from a shower.

"You okay?" she asks him, her eyes widening imperceptibly, innocently.

Jace doesn't trust himself to speak. It's not the first time she's lied to him. It's simply the first time he's been able to prove it.

When she draws him down to make love to her that night, he gives away nothing. But the quiet, internal fear makes his movements harsh. He wants to be in control, wants to keep her here with him, wants to erase the touch of anyone else's hands on her skin…but he can't bring himself to accuse her outright. She is his wife, she belongs to him, and he to her…

She moans as he takes her delicate wrists in his strong, calloused hands, pressing them into the mattress above her head. His teeth tear at her skin viscerally, just enough to sting but not enough to bleed, biting at her hip, at the inside of her thigh, and her eyes flutter open. Good, Jace thinks. I have your attention. Her breathing is heavy, he watches her bare breasts move with her short, deep breaths. She watches him curiously, eyes dark with arousal.

He wonders if this is somehow his fault. Has he neglected her? Has he failed to satisfy her in some way? He'd always thought that they were perfectly matched for each other, in this way and in every other, and to think that she might have been faking her physical responses to him is hurtful, more spiteful than if she had just confessed that something wasn't working.

He masks his vulnerability with roughness, and he marks her with his teeth in places he normally wouldn't. Unmistakable places, places more intimate than her neck or shoulder. Her thighs bear the soft red marks of his ownership. He wants to write on her skin that she belongs to him.

God knows he belongs to her.

Perhaps that's what plagues him most. What Shadowhunter wouldn't stop at the sight of a Union rune? Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm, Jace recites to himself, as he enters Clary without pretext. For love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. No Shadowhunter would touch another man's wife, no Shadowhunter would violate his brother in such a way. The Law condemned any man who would.

Even angry and hurt as he is, he cannot bring himself to hurt her in return, to cause her any pain that doesn't also bring with it pleasure. The sharpness of his thrusts is followed with the gentleness of his hands on her hips. She draws him closer, their bodies aligned, and sighs against his shoulder contentedly, but he doesn't want content. Doesn't want quiet. He wants her to plead with him, to say his name.

He thrusts harder, harder than she's used to, feeling her body bend under his, pliant and open. She is tight around him, and he feels her core struggle to accommodate his relentlessness. Clary gasps his name, a question: "Jace?" Then again: "Jace…God, Jace, that's so good…" When his fingers find her clit, pressing against it harshly, she takes in a jagged breath. She is past the point of coherency now, her body struggling to cope with the assault of his deep, uneven thrusts, his name coarse on her lips.

She tells him how good it feels, how full she is, begs and pleads…but when she comes he refuses to give in to his own need. He waits just long enough for her breathing to even out. And starts again, never having left her. Her eyes are fixed on his face, and he stares into them accusingly. She must misinterpret something in his own eyes, because she pushes him away, onto his back. She lifts herself up, and her body seems to clench around him in some desperate attempt to keep them joined. She whimpers at the loss of his length inside her, and he grabs her hips roughly, trying to bring her back to him. She fights him with newfound strength, and instead trails her mouth down his torso. Her eyes are uncertain, she is trying to please him, but she's missing the point.

Before she can put her lips around him, his hand is in her hair. "No," he says simply. "That's not what I want." Don't do to me what you've done for him.

Jace pulls her up to him, leans over her predatorily, spreading her body out before him. He grasps the small part of her waist with his hands, pressing his lips to her vulnerable, soft stomach. He lingers there for a moment, his fingers trailing runes of devotion and faithfulness, of commitment, of everything he fears she's violated in the smooth skin around her navel. Suddenly she goes completely still, every muscle in her body clenched. She knows the runes better than anyone, and perhaps she knows the accusation behind them.

He can see fear in her eyes as he continues his path towards her center. It isn't as though he's never done this for her. In fact, the taste of her is addictive to him. So why is she trembling? Jace decides he doesn't care. If she's feeling guilty, so much the better. He decides that her brief reprieve is over, and pushes two fingers inside her unforgivingly, just where she likes them, his mouth working on her clit harshly as he adds another. He knows it's probably too intense, he hasn't given her enough time, but she's screaming his name and he doesn't care if the whole goddamned Institute hears her. Her mantra falls on his ears, so familiar, but the words send a cold chill through him, because after today he no longer trusts that they are the truth. "Jace…please, please…I..I love you…I only want you…Jace, please…"

He doesn't let up until she rides through her second orgasm, drawing it out until her throat goes raw and her walls clamp around his fingers, fluttering against them. Her hands are in his hair, holding him to her, and he can hear her desperate pleas from above him as she arches her back. Clary, my love. Why won't you just tell me?

When she begs him to enter her, to take care of his own need, he gives in. He doesn't know if it is out of weakness, or desperation, or because he simply can't deny her anything even now. She cries out at his ruthlessness, at the adamant pace he sets as he pushes into her body, but she doesn't tell him to stop. Her small frame trembles around his, and he is suddenly very aware that he could in fact hurt her, but he ignores the soft whimpers in his ear as he climaxes inside her. After, he pulls her trembling, weak body in close to him. She is spent, and her body is tense…she doesn't relax into him as she had done that morning, when things had been simpler.

This time, he knew she had lied to him. There could be no more pretending between them.

He thinks she might be crying against his shoulder, but fixes his eyes on the wall until her shaking subsides and she falls asleep. I'll still love you, he wants to tell her. I don't care who he is. I don't care what you did with him.

I'll still love you.

Clary barely speaks to him, and avoids the Institute except to sleep. He knows it's not because of the sex. Though admittedly rare, he had taken her roughly before…hell, she'd once clawed his back so viciously that Alec blushed to see the raw, red gashes that were revealed after discarding their sweaty training clothes.

"Clary did that?" Jace remembers Alec sputtering, recalling the faint pride that came with the evidence left behind by his wife.

But this time, his roughness had been born of anger, not passion. And Clary must have noticed, because the next night, she strips out of her gear mechanically, lying down in bed with her back to him, careful not to touch him.

"I think she might be having an affair," he confesses to Alec.

Alec doesn't say anything for a moment. "That's a serious accusation, Jace."

"Which is why I haven't asked her about it," mutters his adoptive brother, slamming his drink down on the table. "Do you remember, the other morning…I asked you if you'd seen Clary, if there was a call to the Institute?"

"I remember."

"She said she was with you. She said there was a demon colony, that…no, you know what, it doesn't matter what she said because none of it was true. She's been lying to me, for weeks, Alec."

"And you think there's someone else?" Alec muses, tracing the edge of his glass with a long, scarred finger. "How long has this been going on?"

"She pretended…we both did…for a while. But I couldn't pretend anymore, not when I knew she was lying."

"Where do you think she goes?"

"You mean when she uses her friends- and my parabatai- as a shield to hide that she's lying to me?" Jace swallows hard. "I don't know. But after last night…she knows I know, and she's distant. Alec, she doesn't touch me, hell, she doesn't even look at me."

"And you thought everything was fine? I mean with…" Alec clears his throat, waving his hand mutely. "You know…"

"It was fine."

"Because sometimes people don't want to, um, talk about that…it can be…awkward…"

"Alec, the sex was fine. This conversation is awkward."

"Just fine?"

"Alec, please move on."

"No, you're right," Alec says practically, as if from memory. "Usually affairs aren't because of sex. It's about the emotional attachment."

"Is this supposed to help me? Because it's really not."

"The thing is," Alec presses on. "The two of you have never seemed lacking in terms of an emotional connection. Do you still love her?"

"I can't believe you just asked me that."

"Do you think she still loves you?"

"I don't know. Yes. But there's something else. Some other thing, something she's not telling me. She's afraid of me. And…"

"And what?"

"Nothing. Just a gut feeling."

"What?" Alec insists.

"She's protecting someone else. Protecting him from me. And whatever I did the night before yesterday, it clued her in. She knows that I know about him."

"That sounds like Clary," Alec says quietly. "And she's right. If she's seeing someone else, I can't say I envy the guy when you find him."

"What do I do?" Jace asks finally.

Alec considers him. "What can you do, except love her as much as you can, for as long as you can?"

"Did you think of that just now?"

Alec laughs, but there's pain in his eyes. "No. It's something Magnus says when he gets philosophical."

But that night, Clary doesn't come home at all, and he worries. The following night, he becomes frantic, calling everyone he knows. Magnus. Simon. Luke and Jocelyn. He gets Maia and Kyle's joint answering machine. He knows they all can hear the desperation in his voice, but he doesn't care. Magnus offers a tracing spell, but Jace turns him down. He's not going to be the sort of person to track down his wife and drag her home against her will. She'll come back when she wants. If she wants. He sits next to the phone in the library until four in the morning, and when it rings he doesn't bother with semantics. "Clary!"

"No, Jace, it's Jocelyn." Her voice is heavy. She sounds so much like Clary on the phone.

"Is she…is she there?"

"Yes."

"I'm coming over-"

"Jace, just listen to me for just a moment. I don't think-"

"Let me talk to her."

"Jace…" Jocelyn's voice is tentative, trying to make him complacent.

"I said," Jace says through clenched teeth, fighting to remain civil. "Let me talk to my wife."

Jocelyn is quiet on the other end of the line. When she finally does talk to him, she speaks in a rushed whisper, as if worried that her daughter will overhear. "Jace, I think she's very distraught. I don't know if it's something you did, a fight maybe-"

Something he did? Jace is shaking now. He slides down to crumple at the bottom of Robert Lightwood's desk. The cord of the old-fashioned phone is twisted around his arm. The phone is still pressed to his ear though, and he is forced to listen to the onslaught of Jocelyn's words, trying to black them out. "-give her a little time, she'll come back when she's ready. There's something she's not telling me… I'll look after her for a while."

I'm her husband. There's something she's not telling me. We look after each other. He wants to shout at Jocelyn that Clary never, never lies to him. She never keeps things from him. This is wrong, so wrong…this isn't the Clary he knows. "Jocelyn. Jocelyn, please…If I could just see her, just for a minute…"

"She doesn't want to talk to you, Jace. I'm sorry. I'll call you if anything changes."

Jocelyn hangs up on him.

Jocelyn doesn't call him to tell him that something has changed. Instead, she lets her daughter show up on the doorstep of the Institute soaking wet with rainwater. "Clary," Jace breathes, but he doesn't like the look on her face. "Clary, I-"

"Can I come in?" she says abruptly.

"Yes," he says blankly, not understanding why she would even ask. This is our home.

She steps in, and he sees that she's wearing the green traveling cloak Luke had bought for her first journey to Idris, when they were younger. It still fits her perfectly, and he wonders if they could just go back there, just be those two people again…two people who wanted nothing but to go to sleep and wake up together, just once. Her red hair drips water onto the floor of the foyer. Her arms are wrapped tightly around herself. Jace doesn't try to touch her.

When her shoulders shake, Jace realizes that her face is not only damp with rainwater, but also with tears. "Clary…" he murmurs, taking a step towards her.

She holds out a hand in front of her protectively, stopping him and shaking her head, unable to speak. Then she stares down at her hand like it's a foreign object. "I'm sorry…God, I don't know what's wrong with me…"

She withdraws her hand, pressing it to her mouth to stifle her own sobs. The other is wrapped defensively around her torso, and Jace wants so badly to take her in his arms, to make her feel safe…but how can he, when she doesn't want him to? "I'm so, so sorry, Jace…I…please, please don't be angry…"

It's an invitation, and he's next to her in an instant, using his palms to wipe away tears from her eyes. "Shh…Clary, I'm not angry, I'm not angry…" He pulls her to him, and she buries her face in his chest. His hand rests splayed across her lower band and he cradles the back of her head in the other. He's reminded of the first time they met, her fear of the demon in her mother's apartment, the first time he'd put his arms around her small, vulnerable form. It must be bad, he realizes with a new horror. There is a hollow emptiness inside him, her desperate sobs confirming his own worst fears. There was someone else. And it must be bad, for her to be this scared…

They stand that way for a long time, until her breath is hot and even against him. "I have to tell you something," she says into the hollow between his shoulder and his neck. He feels the brush of her lips against his skin there.

He resolves to tell her what he should have so much earlier. "It doesn't matter, do you hear? I don't care, Clary, I'll still love you. I'll love you until I die…" He tilts her head up, seeking out her green eyes. The words hang unspoken between them. And if there's a life after this one…

"You don't even know what it is yet," she says, laughing, but it's an exhausted, defeated sort of laugh. He leans down and kisses her anyway, cupping her face with his hands, and it feels so good, even though her lips are dry and her arms are still wrapped around her torso, separating them. One of her hands reaches up and touches his jaw, and that small contact seems to steady her.

"Doesn't matter," he whispers, touching his forehead to hers. "Just come back to me."

"Jace, I'm…I'm pregnant."

God, no. Please no.

"I don't know what happened."

You slept with someone else. You're having someone else's child.

"I know…I know you don't want…"

You're with him. And I still love you, still want you.

"…that when we talked about it you said…"

Talked about what?

Suddenly Jace feels numb, like Clary's on her cell phone talking to someone else, and he's only getting half the story. He realizes that there's a very pertinent piece of information he's not received.

"Who's the father?" Jace says sharply.

Clary stops speaking. Then her voice turns cold. "Excuse me?"

Jace realizes suddenly that he is on very, very dangerous ground.

"Who the hell do you think…?" Suddenly she sucks in a breath. Her eyes go wide, searching his. Jace realizes that this is the first time he's voiced his fear aloud. "What is this about?"

"You've been lying to me," Jace hears himself say hoarsely, from lack of sleep. "And not just the other day, that was just the first time I knew for sure."

"The other day," Clary repeats slowly. "When I said I was with Alec."

"But you weren't. He told me. And I thought…"

"You thought I was being unfaithful to you?" Clary asks incredulously. "Jace, I was seeing a doctor. The first time he told me to be patient, that it was too early, to wait and take a pregnancy test…and then, to come and see him, if…"

"If it was positive," Jace finishes for her.

"It was positive," Clary says simply.

"How long have you known?"

"I suspected, for a while. It was too early," she repeats, her voice a whisper. "I didn't know for sure until seven weeks ago."

"And you didn't think I'd want to know about this?" Jace asks angrily, even though really he's relieved, but the relief doesn't lessen his anger, so he goes on. "I've been dying, for seven weeks, thinking that there's someone else…someone worth lying to me about, sneaking around…"

"There was someone else."

"You could have told me! I've been in hell, Clary."

"I couldn't, Jace. You told me you didn't want…" She looks down at her feet, and realization stabs him brutally.

"I told you that I didn't want children," he whispers, remembering. "We talked about it. I remember. And I said I never wanted children."

"I was okay with that," she whispers. "I mean…I knew it was what you wanted." She pleads with her eyes. "I was so careful, Jace, I don't…I don't know what happened."

"Maybe you drew the rune wrong?" Jace offers cleverly.

"That isn't funny, Jace."

"You have to admit that it's slightly amusing."

She shakes her head, tiredly, and says, "The other night, when…when we were…"

"Having sex," Jace says without hesitation, eyes burning golden.

Clary rolls her eyes. "I thought you'd figured it out. You were so…" She trails off thoughtfully.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be…" Jace feels a sudden tightness in his chest. Guilt. "I was angry, and God, Clary, you…you didn't deserve that."

"What?" Clary asks, flustered. "Oh, that? Actually, that was…actually I thought it was quite…"

Jace raises an eyebrow. "It was quite what, exactly?"

"I liked it," she says finally, not meeting his eyes.

"Did you?" he murmurs, moving in closer. She shivers in the cold of the Institute, still soaked through with rain water. "And what, pray tell, about my actions that night made you think that I somehow knew you were pregnant? Because believe me, Clary, had I known, I would have treated you like glass."

"The runes. You stopped, just for a moment, and you traced…" Jace stiffens, remembering tracing his fingers along her stomach as an accusation. "…I thought you knew, and you were angry about it, and I got so scared. I thought you were going to tell me we couldn't…" Clary's eyes are wet now, and she brushes away the tears stubbornly.

Somehow, he manages to concentrate long enough to realize what she's talking about. And when he understands, he's crippled by her words, on his knees in front of her, aware for the first time of the implications of what she's telling him. That there is a child inside her, living, with his blood and her blood…he reaches out his hand…the ghost of the runes in his mind…Devotion. Faithfulness. Commitment.…The runes he had drawn out of instinct, without thinking…

"Jace?" Her gaze is a question, but he just shakes his head.

"You thought I wouldn't want you to keep it." His hand is an inch away from the fabric of her shirt, hovering over the place where their child is. He shuts his eyes tightly, feeling sick. "So you hid from me."

Clary stands still.

He gets up off the ground without touching her, his face ashen. "You hid from me…" Like Jocelyn hid from Valentine. Because she thought he was going to destroy her child. And suddenly Jace is angrier than he's ever been with her. "God damn it, Clary! Did you think I wouldn't love my own…?" He stops short, suddenly aware of what he's just admitted to himself. By the Angel, I already love this child.

"No, that's the thing. The more I thought about it, the more I realized you couldn't not love your child. That's what brought me back. It was because I knew what kind of father you'll be."

I don't, Jace wants to say. I don't know what kind of father I'll be.

He puts her by the fire in the library, not sure if she has enough blankets…is she still cold, still shivering? Her hair seems dry now, and there's color in her cheeks. Jace puts a hand against her forehead, and she doesn't seem feverish.

"God, Jace. I'm pregnant, I'm not dying."

He knows he's hovering, but he can't help it. "I'm pretty sure traipsing through the freezing rain and Manhattan pollution is against doctor's orders."

"It's August, Jace. The rain was lukewarm at worst. And as far as major cities go, New York's pollution isn't really as bad as-"

He kisses her. "Could you just…let me be like this?"

"What, all protective and whatnot?"

"Yeah."

She looks at him curiously. "No. It's stupid. I am literally twelve weeks pregnant. I could probably ride a rollercoaster and everything would still be fine."

She almost laughs at the horrified look that passes over his face. He clenches his jaw. "No. Rollercoasters. Clarissa."

Then, he's fussing over tea, and he gives some to her. "It's decaf."

"Oh my god."

"It's a boy," Clary tells him quietly, pressing her lips to the place just above the collar of his shirt. She rests her forehead between his shoulder blades, feeling his breath catch in his chest.

"Mundane doctors can tell that?" His voice is hesitant, but there's something there…a tenderness she's never heard in it before.

Clary smiles against him, resting there for a moment, feeling the hard plane of his lower back with her hands. "No. Not until much later. It was Magnus who told me. He and Alec came by earlier."

"I thought you didn't want to know."

"I didn't. Magnus yelled, 'Spoilers: It's a boy!' and then he and Alec talked for like four hours about whether we should paint his room blue-"

"-conforming to typical gender patterns-"

"-or maybe a nice gender-neutral yellow," Clary concludes.

Jace pauses for a moment. "Hang on. Magnus just told you it was going to be a boy?"

"I know," Clary says angrily. "He just blurted it out like it was the weather forecast or-"

"So it's a girl," Jace states with certainty.

"No, come on, Magnus wouldn't lie about…" But suddenly she isn't so sure.

"He would so totally lie about something like that, and you know it."

"Maybe I knew you knew I would lie about it," Magnus says, cat's eyes glinting wildly in the florescent hospital lights. "Did you ever think about that, Jace Lightwood?"

"Really, Magnus?" Alec rolls his eyes, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He glares at a maternity ward nurse as she passes by. "When do you think they'll let us hold him?"

"Probably when Clary's awake again. He's so small," mutters Isabelle, nudging Jace. His hand presses against the glass panel separating himself from his son, and he can't seem to tear his eyes away.

"Yeah. Yeah, he is," Jace says quietly. He is suddenly very aware that he is still dressed in battle gear, that he didn't even stop to change on the way to the hospital.

"Got a name in mind?" asks Simon.

"Do I need to prepare a few words?" Magnus says, clearing his throat, as if readying himself for an awards acceptance speech.

"Good lord, they're not going to call him Magnus, for crying out-" Alec laughs.

"Alec," Jace says quietly.

"Sorry."

"No, we want to call him Alec."

The hallway gets quiet aside from the sound of machinery from inside the maternity ward, the broken little cries of infants filtering through the glass. Alec suddenly looks away, like the light is hurting his eyes, blinking. "Oh, come on, Alec," Jace laughs, pulling him into a hug. "We're parabatai. It can't be that much of a shock…"

"No, I'm…I'm just really…god, I just can't believe you, Jace." He pushes his younger brother away, and wipes his eyes on the corner of his navy sweater. "That's really not fair."

"Alec just gets really emotional around babies," Magnus says. "Or toddlers, really. I swear, I can't take him to any playgrounds…it's embarrassing."

"Do you like him?" Clary asks him, fingers gently touching Jace's face. He remembers someone telling him that new moms always cut their hair, and whoever that person was had it right. But the thing is, they'd made it sound like a bad thing, but Clary's hair falls in curls just above her shoulders, and at this length the shape of her face is made endearingly feminine.

"Jace?" she prompts, bringing him out of his musings.

Jace considers. "I guess he can stay."

Clary snorts. "You guess…" Her eyes are fighting to stay open. She's beautiful, just like this, tired and just on the cusp of sleep. He kisses her lazily, and she protests sleepily, sighing against his lips as she slips deeper into half-consciousness. He waits until her breathing is even before he touches her again, fingers playing with her shortened hair.

He stiffens, hearing a soft cry from the nursery. He gets out of bed quietly, praying to whatever deities exist that Clary can get just a few hours of sleep. She'd just fed him, so there is no way he could be hungry. For a moment, standing just inside the nursery doorframe, Jace isn't sure if Alec actually needs anything at all, because his son abruptly stops crying as if he senses Jace in the room. But the silence is broken by renewed wailing, and Jace worriedly picks him up out of the cradle.

He knows full well that Alec is not old enough to understand him at all, but he knows that when Max was really little Maryse would sing or tell stories, even though he couldn't understand the words. He doesn't remember any songs, any fairytales from his own childhood, and he never paid enough attention to Max's bedtime rituals.

"Here's the thing, kid. I suck at singing. Really, I'm just going to spare you that nightmare and you can get Izzy or someone to fill that childhood quota."

Jace realizes that Alec is lighter than any weapon he's ever wielded, and yet he's absurdly afraid of dropping him. His eyes stare up at Jace, blue…but something tells him they'll darken to Clary's own green. But he's stricken when he sees something of himself in the tiny, delicate face…the same shape of lips, the dusting of white-blond hair that will darken to gold with age. It's fascinating. He can feel each breath enter the tiny body as Alec gives little, unhappy half-sobs, ridiculously upset for someone who doesn't really have to worry about anything yet.

"So a story, then?" Jace says. "I've read tons of good ones. Somehow I don't think you're a fan of Milton yet, though…"

Jace suddenly draws a blank on every mundane childhood story he's every known. He vaguely recalls Maryse reading something called The Fox Goes to Sleep to Max, a Shadowhunter story, but he can't remember…he groans in frustration. What kind of father can't tell his son a bedtime story? he thinks angrily. Something long-buried tugs at the corners of his mind.

Then, almost automatically, Jace recites simply.

"Once there was a boy."

Please, please review!

All recognizable quotes and characters belong to Cassandra Clare.

Author's Note: Writing stories about parenthood is really hard, and I'll probably never do it again. Seriously, is there any good way to have one member of your otp tell the other that they are pregnant? The answer is no.