The movie 50 First Dates inspired this fanfic for me. Clary had a traumatic brain injury which prohibits her from remembering anything after her accident. Jace meets her one day and they hit it off wonderfully and he is enraptured by her. They make plans for the next day, all the while, Jace doesn't know about her memory problem, and when he shows up, she has no memory of him. This is a story of how he has to get her to fall in love with him every day and the struggles they face with her family and his and the jealousy of her best friend.
There will be small differences in this story from the movie though. I hope that you enjoy reading this!
"Hurry up Simon!" Clary yells out of the window of the cab. She watches as Simon juggles the new Manga comic that he bought yesterday and a large bad that he has swung over one shoulder. The new comic came out yesterday and he had picked them up and promised that they would read it together. "This cab is costing me a fortune!"
Simon reaches the cab then and Clary scoots all of the way over in the back seat to make room for him. The moment he shuts the door, the cab takes off. "Why did you get a cab?" Simon asks as he adjusts the comic and backpack to sit comfortably in his lap.
"I don't know. I just felt like it." she replies with a shrug. "You had better not have read any of that." Clary says as she points to the Manga in his lap. "I want to be surprised and if you have already read it, your facial expressions will ruin it. Just like that one time."
Simon rolls his eyes and then looks over at her. "You are never going to let that go, are you?"
"Nope. I can read you like the back of my hand. Your face always gives you away."
The cab driver suddenly swerves heavily to the right and curses in some foreign language as his hand flies up to shoot a bird at the person who pulled out in front of him. "Jeez." Simon says with wide eyes. "I thought that guy was going to hit us."
"Nah." Clary says easily as she leans back against the seat and looks out of the window. "You are probably more likely to be hit by a car crossing the street on foot in New York."
"Maybe." Simon replies. It is quiet for a couple of minutes as Clary scrolls through her social media on her phone and then she holds it up to Simon's face. "Kirk and Eric are at Java Jones. Do you still want to go?" Simon looks down at her phone and sees a picture of the two boys with stupid smiles on their faces as they point to a girl's butt right behind them and give each other high fives with their other hands.
"No. Eric is still mad at me for saying his girlfriend, Jayda, sounded like a mouse. Her voice is so squeaky."
Clary lets out a loud laugh. "That's because he knows it's true." she says when her laughing quiets. Clary leans forward and hits the partition with the palm of her hand. "Hey!" she shouts, gaining the driver's attention. "Change of plans. Take us to Fort Greene Park."
The driver mutters something under his breath and then suddenly swerves to the left to take the next corner. Clary is thrown against Simon and as he raises his arms to catch her, she looks out of his window and sees a car coming right for them. "Simon!" she yells loudly as the oncoming car crashes into them. Clary is thrown across the cab and hits her head, hard, against the pillar in between the front and back car doors. The grinding of metal against metal and muffled grunts and screams are the last thing that Clary hears just before everything goes dark.
One week later...
"Ms. Fairchild?" Jocelyn turns around to the sound of her name being called. She sees the neurosurgeon that performed Clary's brain surgery standing in the door of her hospital room. "Can I speak with you for a moment?" he asks softly after seeing that Clary is asleep.
Jocelyn leans down and brings Clary's hand that she has been holding for the past hour to her lips and kisses it before letting go and following the doctor out of the room. She pulls the door shut behind her and crosses her arms across her chest. "What is it?" she asks him. She can see how serious he is and it worries her.
He swallows roughly and fidgets a little with the papers he is holding. "The results from the MRI came back...and they aren't what we hoped for." he says somberly.
A rush of panic runs through Jocelyn and she furrows her brows at the doctor. "What is that supposed to mean?" she asks in a demanding tone. "You said that the surgery went beautifully. That it was a success."
"It did and it was." he says raising one hand in a calming manor. "But the fact that Clary has woken up two days in a row and not remembered anything from the day before, it concerned us. That is why we took her for an MRI this morning." Jocelyn takes a deep and calming breath as he continues. "We discussed that memory loss could be a problem because of where she hit her head. And after looking at the film from the scan, I am afraid that that possibility has become a reality. It will take a few more days to confirm what I suspect but I am ninety percent sure that her brain after such a traumatic blow, has lost the ability to turn short term memories into long term ones when she goes to sleep at night. It's like her brain reboots everyday and loses all of the information from the previous day."
"No." Jocelyn says firmly as tears begin to sting behind her eyes. "That can't be what's happening. There has to be something else...some sort of other explanation."
"What's going on?" she hears a familiar voice say. She turns around to see that Simon has wheeled himself to her room for his daily visit with Clary. His femur and a few ribs are broken from the accident and he has to get around in a wheelchair for the time being.
Jocelyn reaches up to her face as the first tear escapes her eyes and wipes it away. "Simon..." she starts to say but can't seem to get anything else out. She sucks in a hiccuping breath as a small sob breaks out of her lips.
His face turns deadly serious as he looks over to the surgeon. "Tell me what's going on." he demands just as Jocelyn turns and rushes back into her daughter's room.
Exactly one year later...
Jace Herondale is a man that has always gotten everything he ever wanted. His father was a successful real estate developer and was grooming him to take over the business one day. He was incredibly handsome and had the sex life that most men his age only dreamed about. Being a rich and handsome twenty year old meant that he was definitely living the good life.
The only problem was, he didn't want to take over his father's business. Jace wanted to travel the world photograph every inch of it. He has always been drawn to everything beautiful since he was a little boy. He loved going to the park with his mother and look at the flowers and he would always wake up early to see how each sunrise looked different from the one the day before. There were so many beautiful places on earth and he didn't want to waste his life by not seeing them and trying his best to capture their beauty with his camera.
That is why when he walked into a quaint coffee shop on a corner in Brooklyn, the first thing he noticed was the beautiful red head in the corner of the room. Her hair was falling around her face and framing it perfectly as she held some sort of comic in her hands. Her small hand reached up slowly and tucked one side of her hair behind her ear and then a smile tipped up one corner of her mouth as if she just read something entertaining. Jace had never seen someone with such bright green eyes as hers and his fingers started to twitch, wishing that he had brought his camera. He wanted to capture the enraptured look on her face as she read and the way her legs were pulled up in front of her. She looked so...
"Excuse me?" a feminine voice calls out. Jace is pulled from his daze and looks in front of him to see the brown headed barista looking expectantly at him. "Are you going to order something?"
Jace clears his throat and takes one last glance over at the girl before stepping up to the counter. His eyes dart down to the woman's name tag to see that it reads 'Maia' and he looks back up to her and offers her his signature smirk that makes women weak in the knees. "Sorry, Maia. I was lost in thought for a moment."
Maia smiles up at him and gives a tiny chuckle as she tucks some of her curly hair behind her ears. "That's okay." she says tells him and then regains her composure after shyly looking to the ground. "What can I get for you?"
"Just a medium mocha cappuccino." he tells her and she quickly turns to make it. He swipes his card and pays for it and Maia hands him his drink. "Thanks." he tells her and then looks back over to the red head after glancing down at his watch. He is already late to take a look at the progress on a restoration that he is overseeing but he decides to go and sit next to her anyway. He doesn't want to risk not seeing her again even though he will be on this side of town for probably another two months working.
He walks over to her, his eyes never leaving her face. Jace sits down at the table in front of the plush brown couch she is curled up on and sets down his drink and faces her. She still hasn't looked up from that comic she is reading. He then tries to gain her attention by letting out a loud cough. After practically choking himself, her eyes never leave the pages she is reading.
He furrows his brows in frustration. Usually girls seemed to have a radar for him. Their heads would immediately snap up and look at him as he approached but he was surely not getting that reaction from her. He then tries to take another approach. He picks up his phone and looks down at it and pretends to see something funny. He lets out a loud laugh that makes most of the people in the coffee shop turn to look at him. But not her.
Jace then laughs again, a little louder this time, but she still doesn't look up from than damn comic. What the hell could be so interesting about that comic?
He then decides to call his best friend Alec. Maybe having a slightly loud conversation right in front of her will work. Five minutes later when she doesn't budge, even though he managed to keep his very un-talkative friend on the phone and talk about soccer, which they both hate, he starts to question his methods. Surely she should have noticed him by now.
He takes a deep breath and then waves his hand over to Maia to signal that he wants a refill and she gives him a nod. She hurries over with a fresh cup and he thanks her and gives her a tip before she turns and leaves. Jace looks at the red head again and furrows his brows as he tries to think of a way to get her to notice him. Usually, he would just approach a woman if he was interested, but she just looks so beautiful with the way her face looks with how interested she is in what she is reading. He doesn't think that she would appreciate being interrupted to be hit on. So, his strategy is still to try to get her to notice him and then he can make eye contact and start a conversation.
He takes a slow sip of his cappuccino as he studies her. An idea comes to mind and he sets his cup down. Jace looks away from the table and his elbow comes out like he is trying to reach for something in his pocket and he knocks over his drink. "Oh crap." he says loudly as the liquid starts to splash onto the table top and then the floor. He immediately stands up, pushing the chair he was sitting in away and screeching it against the floor, and grabs some napkins from a table next to him and starts to try and soak up the mess.
"Maia!" he calls out. When she looks over at him and sees the mess, she sighs heavily and grabs the mop and makes her way over to him. "I'm so sorry, Maia." he tells her as he scoots around the table. He glances at the girl and sees that she still hasn't looked up. He curses himself and then pushes the excess liquid off of the table with his napkin filled hand. "I don't know what happened. I guess I was just not paying attention."
"I'm sure that's what it was." she says sarcastically with a glance in the red head's direction and he swears he hears a tiny laugh come from the direction of the girl. He jerks his head over to her and he is almost sure that he sees her wipe a smile off of her lips the moment his eyes landed on her. But by the time he gets a good look at her, he is sure he is mistaken. Her eyes are still completely trained on that damn comic.
Maia finishes cleaning up the mess as Jace apologizes again and asks for another drink. He plops back down in his seat and purses his lips. He is starting to run out of ideas. Maia brings over his new drink and he hands her a large tip as she starts to walk away.
"Hey, Maia?" Jace's head snaps up to the sound of the red heads feminine voice. It sounds like fucking wind chimes. "Can you bring me another coffee?"
"Black?" Maia asks with a smile. The red head smiles back and then says, "Like my soul." lowly and then the two of them share a small laugh and Maia walks away. How could the barista get her attention but he couldn't? They clearly were familiar with each other. Before he can attempt to make eye contact with her, she looks back down at her comic and regains that engrossed look on her face.
Dammit. That's it. He has no more ideas.
He looks down at his watch again and then looks back up at her. He really should be going. If the red head and the barista are on a first name basis and have their own inside jokes, then she surely comes here a lot. Maybe he can keep coming back until he sees her again. Surely she can't be reading every time she comes here.
He takes a deep breath and then grabs his coffee and looks at her one last time before he starts to stand. He runs a hand through his hair and just as he is turning to walk away, he hears her voice again. "Giving up so easily?" she says with her tone playful and curious.
He snaps his head back around to see her smiling up at him with a mischievous smile on her lips. It lights up her face beautifully and his breath catches a little in his throat. "Excuse me?" he says in a questioning tone.
"After all of the effort you put in to get my attention, you are just going to walk away?" she asks him as she furrows her brows slightly with a small smile still on her lips.
"I...uh..." Jace stammers. He has never had trouble knowing exactly what to say to a woman until now. He feels like a fumbling idiot under the heavy gaze of her beautiful green eyes. "I..."
"You did all of that and you didn't plan out what you were going to say to me?" she asks him questioningly again and then her smile gets bigger when he still says nothing.
Jace furrows his brows at her and narrows his eyes playfully at her. He thinks he has successfully found his tongue after a few more seconds so he tries to speak again. "You knew I was trying to get your attention the whole time?" he asks her. She lets out a tiny laugh and gives him a small nod. "I can't believe it." Jace says with a scoff and a laugh. "I thought I was losing my touch. I have never tried so hard to get anyone's attention in my life."
He freezes for a fraction of a second when he admits that to her but she seems to find it charming. Her smile gets wider and a slight blush tints her cheeks. "I couldn't let you off the hook so easily. I wanted to make you work for it." she says and he can't help but smile widely at her. She then shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly and tips her head to the side just a little as she says, "But...if you just wanted to give up..."
"No. No." Jace says hurriedly. "I've got time." He then steps closer to her and stretches out his hand. She places her feet on the ground from where they were tucked against her on the couch and holds out her hand for him. "I'm Jace." he says with a smile and her face lights up as they quickly shake hands.
"I'm Clary." she replies and motions to the spot next to her on the couch. "Why don't you sit here?" she says and he doesn't hesitate for one second before taking her up on her offer.
Tell me what you think! I will put up two new chapters in the next weeek if the response is good.