I don't own TSC, all these books belong to Cassandra Clare. Title from "Quarter Past Midnight" by Bastille.

Theoretically, you could either read Clary's part first or Jace's. Since I had to post them in an order, I did it in the order I wrote them (Clary first and then Jace).

Clary

Clary hates sleeping alone. She wakes up reaching across the bed for Simon but he's not there. He will never be there again because he doesn't remember her and never will again. She wants him back, her world feels off balance and wrong without him.

In the absence of Simon she wants Jace to come and share a bed with her but that is also not possible because she and Jace are sixteen and the parental figures of sixteen-year-olds generally do not allow their children to share beds with their significant others. Of course, Maryse is used to Jace and Isabelle's escapades and doesn't care what Clary and Jace do as long as it doesn't involve getting eaten by demons. Jocelyn and Luke are the ones who made the rules that say that Jace can't stay over at Luke's and Clary can't stay over at the Institute and a dozen more that she doesn't bother to remember.

She can have other friends stay the night of course, so she has Isabelle or Maia over and sometimes both of them at once, but their companionship is not what she needs. Alec theoretically could stay over, but he's living full-time with Magnus now and has a life of his own so Clary doesn't even bother to ask. Anyway, she knows he's not what she needs either.

She wants Jace. Or Simon. But one is impossible and the other she doesn't get in all the ways she wants.

Instead she sleeps fitfully, tossing and turning and fighting her way through mazes of dark and terrible dreams. Valentine holds a dying Jace in his arms, Jocelyn lies in a coma, Luke is stabbed and soaked in blood, Sebastian bears down on her leering like a demon, Simon forgets her over and over and over again. In the morning she drags herself heavily out of bed and is out the door often before Jocelyn and Luke wake up.

She used to hate early morning training and complained constantly about it, but now it's the only reason she bothers to get up. She lives for the crisp mornings when she, Jace and Isabelle run through their morning training and practice for the lives of blood and death their birthrights as Nephilim have forced onto them. Before, there had been a time when they would get all their training done and then have the rest of the day to themselves, but now they now have lessons too. Maryse finally got around to demanding a new tutor when Jocelyn threatened to send Clary back to mundane high school if the more academic portions of her education weren't seen to.

The Clave sends Elijah Highsong, a soft-faced man in his early twenties who is bookish but a very bad teacher. He tries to take over their physical training for a grand total of one morning until first Jace and then Isabelle lay him out on the training room floor with their hands behind their backs. Clary might be able to take him too, if only because any compunctions she might have had about fighting dirty had died sometime after her evil brother was raised from the dead.

"He's only here to get out of being sent on patrol," Isabelle speculates one night while she, Clary and Jace are out for dinner with Alec and Magnus at some Italian place Magnus likes. "He's young and able-bodied and with the numbers so down, he probably would have been assigned to another city as an active-duty Shadowhunter and have to actually-angel forbid-fight demons," her voice drips with sarcasm. "As our tutor he'll still have to patrol every once and a while but not anywhere near as often. He's trying to avoid having to do the very job he's training us for. Coward."

Still whatever their theories about Elijah Highsong, Clary has to put up with the soul-crushingly boring academic lessons with him because she doesn't think she could stand going back to her old high school and seeing Simon everyday without him knowing who she is. She is surprised when Jace and Isabelle put up with the lessons too in silent solidarity.

"It's only until we turn eighteen," Jace says when she asks him why. "Then we can all wash our hands of him."

And so the days go by. Clary lives for days spent at the Institute with Jace and dreads the long nights spent alone.

One day in late January, Jocelyn and Luke plan to go out of town just the two of them. Magnus offers to have Clary spend the night at his and Alec's so she doesn't have to be alone. Clary starts to protest that she is not a child and does not need babysitting, but Magnus shoots her a look that clearly says to play along so she shuts up.

When Jocelyn and Luke drop Clary off at the apartment, just Magnus and Alec are in the living room petting Chairman Meow. Clary blushes her way through the long list of instructions Jocelyn prattles off feeling like she's about five. She wants to point out that she saved the world not once but twice in the last year, but Magnus keeps looking at her in a way that clearly begs not to rock the boat.

Finally, Jocelyn and Luke are gone. Magnus peaks out the front window just to make sure then calls, "Alright you two, its safe to come out!"

Jace and Isabelle emerge from one of the spare bedrooms grinning like fiends. "When I heard your parental units were going to be out of town I thought it was the perfect time for a sleepover," Magnus tells Clary and she throws her arms around him in thanks.

They have a nice evening full of games and pizza and movies. Everyone tries to ignore the Simon-shaped hole in their group, but no one quite manages it. When people finally start making noises about going to bed, Clary glances at Jace and she can tell that he is also contemplating just how long they'll have to play at sleeping in separate bedrooms before they can sneak into the same bed together.

Magnus just looks at them. "I can see what you're thinking. Go pick out a bedroom," he says flicking his fingers at them. "I don't care what you two do so long as Jocelyn doesn't figure out about it. Okay?"

But they don't actually end up doing much. They kiss for a while, but it quickly becomes obvious that neither of them is in the mood. Jace hasn't been sleeping well either, so he's as exhausted as she is. Eventually they just curl up together and try to sleep.

Clary wakes from a nightmare several hours later to Jace shaking her. "Nightmare?" he asks, the moonlight washing the color out of his hair and eyes. She nods slowly. "Me too," he says. "Do you want to go for a run?"

And that's how she and Jace end up going for a run through New York City at two in the morning. They let themselves out of the window in their room and climb down the side the building to the ground and then they just run. Technically, given that demons are active at night, this is pretty dangerous, but Clary has never felt more safe. She has a knife down her boot and her stele and a seraph blade hidden in her coat and Jace is probably better armed than she is. Anything that tries to hurt them it will be met with quite the surprise.

Eventually they end up somewhere in Brooklyn and Clary has to stop to catch her breath. Jace is barely winded but he's the fastest Shadowhunter alive so that's not surprising. Clary will probably never be able to match him in speed and endurance; she has her sights set on Isabelle and Alec instead.

She's bent over, catching her breath when she hears a familiar laugh. She jerks up and looks around. They're just outside of a movie theater that's doing a late-night movie marathon. It must have just gotten out because people are pouring out onto the street. Amongst the crowd is a lanky boy with brown hair and glasses. Simon is laughing with Matt and Kirk and Eric and looking completely normal.

Clary isn't breathing. This is not the first time she's seen Simon since he gave away his memories in Edom, but this is the closest she's been to him. She straightens up and waits for him to look her direction. He has to look at her. It's Simon, even with memory loss he has to recognize her on some level. He has to.

Simon's eyes pass right over her.

If she didn't know better she would have thought that she and Jace were glamoured, but that's not true. They put on no runes before leaving Magnus's and the usual collection of girls and boys are definitely noticing Jace. She isn't even important enough for Simon to notice her anymore.

She turns and runs. She runs for several blocks until the happy sounds of the mundane world that Simon has seamlessly slid back into have faded then she drops to the ground and cries. She's glad that Simon is alive; she'd rather he was alive and didn't remember her than for him to be dead, but it hurts. She doesn't remember a world where Simon wasn't right there next to her and she hates that this is the kind of world she lives in now.

A hand settles gently on her shoulder and Jace kneels down next to her. He's so much faster than her that she knows the only reason she's had these few minutes to break down alone is because he chose to let her have some time alone. He doesn't say that everything will be okay or any of the other myriad platitudes she's heard far too many of recently, he simply wraps his arms around her and holds her while she cries.

The sun is rising by the time they make it back to Magnus and Alec's apartment. They've had maybe three hours of sleep between them and they're both the sort of tired where you kind of want to melt into a puddle on the ground and never move again. They don't bother climbing back in the window and instead pound on the front door until Magnus answers. He's wearing a purple bathrobe and his alien slippers and looks at them with a strange, concerned, borderline parental expression that somehow makes him look his real age. "Shower and try to rest a little," he finally says, stepping back to let them in. "We're going to be making pancakes in a couple hours."

Clary and Jace nod and head for the bathroom. They shower together, leaning numbly against each other while the hot water pours down on them. If any more tears are shed, no one needs to know.