To Fly Away

Chapter song: Wings by Birdy

Idris, 2001

Jonathan stood with his father at one of the windows in the little cottage they lived in, watching a nine year old Clary doing her best to climb a tree just outside. He smiled to himself when she finally dragged herself up onto a large, low hanging branch, but the faint smile was quickly wiped away when she lost her grip and went crashing onto the grass. With his enhanced hearing he heard her gasp of pain quite clearly,and made a move to run to her, when he was stopped by his father's hand on his back.

"Leave her be, Jonathan," Valentine ordered. Jonathan fought back a wince as the hand on his back aggravated the demon metal scars there. "Seraphina is strong enough to take care of herself."

He could have torn himself from his father's grip, but the words rang true. He surveyed the man through narrowed eyes. "Is that why you beat me and not her? Because she's already strong?" Valentine's excuse for the whippings was that they made his son stronger.

"No," came the calculated answer. "You are far stronger than her."

"Then why?" He didn't want to bring down the whip on his little sister, but he was curious. Besides, if he knew why Valentine would hurt her, he might be able to protect her better.

Valentine sighed, and made the motion for Jonathan to walk with him. He did. "You are a demon Jonathan," he said bluntly. The boy in question grit his teeth and brought Clary's insistent words to the front of his mind. You are not a monster. He wished he could believe them. "Both you and your sister could leave at any time if you really wanted to, but I know that with you, no matter how hard I push, you will not abandon your place here."

"What makes you so sure?" He bit back in defiance. Valentine casually swatted away his attempt aside like it was barely a mild encumbrance.

"Because this is the only place you will ever find where you are accepted for who you are." His father answered blatantly. "Anywhere else, and they would try to kill you without a second thought."

Jonathan swallowed against the truth of that statement.

"But Seraphina," his father continued. "Could do anything. Be anyone. She is an angel, the angel who keeps you grounded, therefore is too good for this world, therefore she will have a place anywhere she wants. She chooses to reside in this hated community out of love. If I were to beat her, that love would curdle to hate, and she would fly away on those white feathered wings of hers. She would be gone before the next morning light."

Jonathan - who was never scared of anything - was almost scared to ask whether he loved Clary the way he knew his father loved the Angel boy, if he was even capable of love. After all, both had Ithuriel's blood, and were as sweet and loving as each other (or so his sister claimed about their brother; Jonathan loathed him and never wanted to lay eyes upon the kid). He momentarily wondered whether his father would love him if he weren't a demon. But Valentine had wanted a demon son, hadn't he?

The man continued, oblivious to the child next to him's conflict. "And that would ruin everything."

London, 2004

The rough ground of the multiple story car park glistened in the harsh streetlight, a remnant of the rain from earlier that night. Even at three in the morning, when not a hint of sunlight caressed the sky, a few cars were occupying various spaces on this floor. Only one person, however, was in sight.

This person didn't need a remnant of the torrential rain; she remembered it well enough. Her crimson hair still hung in damp clumps and tangles, and her black leather clothes that had drawn distrust from ever pedestrian she'd passed were soaked, making her shiver and her teeth rattle like beads in a jar. Her eyelashes clung together, and an observer might think that the droplet that rolled down her smooth cheek was a raindrop. Her pale arms were bare, her skin unmarried by age but scarred with dozens of white scars and swirling black Marks. Other than the scars which seemed like they would be more at home on a much older person, she seemed to be barely a teenager, maybe twelve or thirteen, with sides as straight as twigs and flat breasts.

She looked around with a bleak hopelessness on her face, then trudged towards where an illuminated sign proclaimed the exit.

She paused when someone cleared their throat behind her. As the teenager turned, hair swinging behind her, she could make out a tall, oriental man with glitter in his spiked hair studying her intently. Magnus Bane, the not-quite-a-man she'd been looking for.

He narrowed his gold-green cat eyes. "I know you're not one of the London Enclave, Shadowhunter," he said finally. "So as to why you're here eludes me."

He was lying, that much she knew. She didn't even need to discern the all-too-evident telltale signs like her father had taught her; she just knew.

She straightened her back, and tilted her head back to look the tall warlock in the eye. She saw him gasp and take a step back as he finally processed the resemblance. "I am here because I fled my home, Magnus Bane." She stated. "And I sought out you."

Magnus tightened his lips. He took a step forwards. "And why might you do that, Shadowhunter?" He countered, but she saw him register her lack of insulting nickname, and take note of it. "Do you not have more important business to be getting on with? Such as slaughtering the demons that haunt us all?"

The redhead swallowed. "There are many of my kind doing that as we speak. I can afford to pursue a different type of emergency in the meantime."

It was Magnus' turn to swallow. "And what might this emergency require you to do?" He was playing with her, trying to test her loyalties.

She gave a tremulous smile. "I'm looking," she made sure to enunciate clearly, although she was certain he caught the faintest tremble in her voice, "for Jocelyn Fairchild."

Jocelyn Fairchild - or, as she now called herself, Fray - had done many controversial things in her lifetime, even more so when she had still called herself Jocelyn Morgenstern, Valentine's wife. She had engineered the Uprising and mercilessly watched dozens of her old friends slaughtered in their righteous conquest. She had allowed Valentine to keep giving her the strange elixirs spiked with ichor when she was pregnant for a second time, despite the horrible way her son had turned out because of them. She had lay down and accepted the lie her husband had fed her regarding the state of his parabatai, and had allowed herself to fall into depression due to it.

But the only one of the necessary things she had ever done that she genuinely regretted was leaving her sweet angelic daughter at the mercy of her brother and father.

So when Magnus Bane sent her a fire message telling her to head to his temporary residence, and saying that a girl with red hair, calling herself Clarissa Fairchild had turned up in the car park for his building, she got over there as fast as she could.

On the way there she took in the blocks of concrete flats that surrounded Magnus' place. It was very... subdued, for him. She loved London, it was bursting with history, but she was looking forward to the imminent move to New York she had arranged. After twelve and a half years she'd heard from her old friend Luke, saying he was living comfortably there as the Alpha Wolf in the Manhattan pack, and that he missed her.

She reached Magnus' block of flats and took the stairs two at a time, too impatient to wait for the lift to arrive. By the time she lifted a hand to knock on Magnus' mahogany door, her heart was hammering in her throat, from either physical exertion or nerves.

Two decisive knocks rang out.

The door swung open almost immediately to reveal the attention-catching Asian man she owed her disappearance to. He was looking much more plain today; no eyeliner, no glitter, and his usually spiked hair looked tousled, like he'd fun his hand through it multiple times.

His tired eyes lit up slightly when they landed on her. "Jocelyn, you're here." He ushered her in. "Clary's just in the shower. The nutter showed up at three am last night, soaked from the downpour. She looked near dead from cold."

Jocelyn raised an eyebrow. "Clary?"

Magnus shrugged. "She says 'Clarissa' is too formal. She calls herself Clary, like the herb, clary sage."

Jocelyn nodded, greedily absorbing every little piece of information about her long lost daughter. It warmed her heart to think she still remembered her nickname for her after all these years.

"She should-" he was cut off by the bathroom door opening. Jocelyn's heart sped up again as she laid eyes on the twelve year old who stepped out.

Clary had clearly borrowed clothes from Magnus: she wore a pair of faded, artfully ripped jeans that were a few sizes too big for her, and a tank top that looked ever so slightly tight around the chest that proclaimed in glinting rhinestones THINK GLITTER! Her scarlet hair curled violently as it dried, forming a cascade of copper ringlets going halfway down her back. Her bright eyes are alert and wary, with a touch of longing, as they surveyed Jocelyn. She held out her palms in the universal gesture to show she carried no weapons.

Jocelyn held her hand to her mouth. "Clary?" She whispered. She felt tears brimming in her eyes.

Something sparked in her daughter's eyes then: a cheeky wickedness she'd missed so much. She stuck her hand in her pockets. "Hey, Mum," she said with a lopsided grin.

Jocelyn rushed forwards to hug her smaller double, barely containing the sob that shook her chest. Clarissa was all skin and bones and muscle; not a square millimetre of fat burdened her fragile frame, giving her body an unyielding hardness. It made Joceyn want to tremble with pride for her daughter, the dedicated Shadowhunter, but at the same time weep, because she was no longer the soft baby she'd sung lullabies to. She'd sacrificed her right to watch the transformation from soft to hard, and it broke her heart.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, still clutching the child in a death hug, but pulling back so she could see her face.

"I ran away," the redhead replied neutrally.

"Why?" A darkness flashed in Clary's eyes, a darkness Jocelyn knew all too well. She found she suddenly didn't want to know. "It doesn't matter; you're here. You're here." She murmured instead, brushing back a wet curl that had been plastered to her daughter's freckled cheek.

"I came to ask..." She trailed off, but Jocelyn understood what she was going to say.

"Of course you can stay with me. I wanted to take you with me when I left." Now she had her daughter back, she was never letting go.

And with unused facial muscles, Clary smiled.