First fanfic, please be gentle. I'm still working out the system.

I do not own Mortal Instruments, I just love the characters.

Exhaustion, that was the key, Alexander Lightwood thought. Push your body to the point of exhaustion, tip it over the edge, and your mind had no choice but to shut down. Train, hunt, sleep, repeat, don't think. It was easier that way.

Nights were the hardest. At night you found out if you had pushed hard enough. Lately, that point had become even more difficult to find. With a huff, he rolled onto his side, trying to find a more comfortable position. Automatically he folded one of his pillows into his chest and curved his back into the one behind him. Alec had always had a tendency to burrow himself into a cocoon when he slept. It had been one of the things he had tried to hide until Magnus had proclaimed it adorable - Stop it! Alec thumped his head against the pillow, hard, hoping that the momentary pain would clear his head. Don't think about that. Please, anything but that.

It was no use though. How could he not think about that? It was suddenly difficult to breathe. He could feel a sensation of squeezing, of constriction in his chest, his throat. He couldn't draw a full breath and the few he could draw were hard bought; each exhalation leaving him in ragged gasps. Alec heard and odd sound. It didn't sound human, not really. More like an animal, a dog maybe. One in pain.

He practically threw himself out of bed, catching himself on one of the bedposts and nearly falling again anyway as blood rushed back into his head. He needed to get out. Out of this room, out of the Institute, hell, out of this city were every corner and street was a memory. A reminder.

Wrenching open the door of his wardrobe he grabbed a pair of jeans and dragged them on and then dropped to his knees to search for his boots. He didn't bother changing his black t-shirt but his hand reached without conscious thought, for one of his seraph blades and... He stoped. His witchlight lay beside the angel blade, innocent and dull. A series of half formed expletives left his lips in a low, harsh stream. Alec grabbed the seraph blade and shoved it roughly into his belt and turned away. As he exited his room, his foot caught on a kink in the hallway carpet and he tripped, his leg twisting unnaturally. He gasped, the shock of the fall bringing him back to reality, back to reality, back into the moment. Blearily, he wondered if he had twisted his ankle. Dragging himself over to the wall and sitting up, he flexes and points his foot and then rolls it. It hurts and the joint feels over stretched, but he can still move it.

"What the hell are you doing, Lightwood?" he whispered. Alec closed his eyes, letting his head tilt back until it rested against the wall. What are you doing?

"Mreow?" The unexpected noise nearly makes him jump out of his skin, his eyes snapping open, his right hand falling to his belt. His eyes are already adjusted to the darkness so it takes him only a second to see the cat.

"Are you kidding me?" Alec groaned. Some shadowhunter. Tripping over his own feet and getting the hell scared out of him by a damn cat. As bad as his mood was through, he wasn't so far gone as to take it out on Church. In any case, they had all learned long ago that anyone stupid enough to mess with the irritable Persian was unlikely to end up with a mangled hand.

Alec remembered reading once how petting animals was supposed to lower your blood pressure and reduce stress. He wondered if that applied to grumpy, hundred year-old tom cats, as he cautiously rubbed his fingers through Church's soft fur. The cat arched his back into Alec's hand, brushed against his leg and then padded down the hall. Rolling his eyes Alec stood, wincing. his ankles throbs a little but seemed otherwise undamaged. Nothing an iratze couldn't fix if it continued to hurt.

"Mreow."

He looked up. The cat had stopped only a few feet away and was looking back at him, twitching his tail and waiting.

"What is it?" Alec asked.

The cat seemed to give a huff, walked forward for another two feet and then stopped to glare back at him impatiently. He sighed. Unless he was leading you to the kitchen where Isabelle was 'cooking', it was generally a good idea to fallow Church. In any case, it wasn't as if he had anything else to do.