I do not own The Mortal Instruments or the Characters.
They are all property of Cassandra Clare.
All that I take credit for is the twist in the storyline and any original characters that may pop up.
How can you tell me that you're scared to jump
When you dove head first down the well for luck
And I saved you when you got stuck
You're not as scared with the people you love
The antique metal stairs groaned under Clary's feet as she made her way up the slender spiral staircase that lead to the Green House that rested atop the roof of the Institute. For nearly a month Clarissa had been a guest of the Lightwoods – the ones in charge of the New York Institute, despite their absence the entire time that Clary had been residing within the protective walls – and in that time she had still yet to see every room of the large building. She had spent countless hours inside the large, beautiful library with Hodge and Jace; she had scurried about the kitchen in the early hours of the morning and still of the night with the boys in attempts to avoid Isabelle's cooking; she had been introduced to the training and weapons rooms, as well as Izzy and Jace's bedrooms while wandering about. Still, there were dozens of rooms that she had yet to investigate. Tonight, however, Jace was crossing one of the rooms off of her list. Pushing open the heavy door that brought them to the rooftop patio, Clary's pink lips parted with amazement as she took in her surroundings.
The first thing that hit her was the smell.
The moment that the door had been opened, Clary had been caressed by the sweetest scent that had ever filled her nostrils. The rich, dark smell of earthy fertilizer and the stronger, perfume of night-blooming flowers. The green house that covered the rooftop of the Institute was nothing like Clarissa had ever seen. Large glass windows made up the walls of the green house, all tinted the slightest shade of green. Through the walls of the enclosure, she could see the lights of Manhattan as they burned like embers.
Much like everything else within the institute, the design was immaculate. Everything from the color scheme of the plants to the ceilings arch was perfect. Clary was only the smallest bit aware of the soft chuckle that vibrated from Jace's chest, through their connected hands, and up her arm as her green eyes flitted over the scene before her. Even in the dead of night, only a few moments before midnight, there was a variety of flowers in full bloom.
"Wow," She breathed, turning slowly as she took it all in. "It's so beautiful here at night."
Jace grinned, his golden eyes glowing even in the dim light as he reached out and plucked a strange but beautiful star-shaped flower from a bush before tucking it carefully into the palm of my hand. "And we have it all to ourselves. Alec and Isabelle hate it up here. They have allergies."
Clary couldn't help but laugh as she examined the flower in her hands as Jace moved to remove the contents of his bag and intricately arranged them on the span of tiled floor between them: apples, a bar of fruit and nut chocolate, and a bottle of water.
"Which is good," he continued, sitting two napkin-covered sandwiches in the cleared off spot, "because I didn't make enough cheese sandwiches for a party." Clary tossed him a slightly confused look as he placed one of the sandwiches on her bare knee. "Well, it's not a birthday cake, but hopefully it's better than nothing."
"Nothing is what I was expecting, so thank you." She said, taking a bite of one of the apple section. It was cold as the tang of the green apple washed over her taste buds.
"Nobody should get nothing on their birthday," He said, tossing her a look that she would have given anything to know the reason behind. Jace opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, only for something to catch his eye. She could practically see the words dissolving from his train of thought as the corner of his lips pulled up into a small smile as he pointed to a bush a few feet away, "Watch."
Turning in the direction to which his gaze was fixed, Clary turned her attention to the green shrub that was speckled with slender, silvery buds. "Wait for it," Her breathed, sending a shiver through her body as his breath washed over her shoulder. Very slowly, the tightly closed buds began to quiver and tremble. They swelled to twice their size before finally bursting open – the delicate green sepals opening outwards, releasing the clustered petals inside.
"Oh!" She gasped, looking up to find Jace's golden eyes trained on her. "Do they bloom every night?" She asked, swallowing back to chills that had begun to caress her along with his eyes.
"Only at midnight," He said, his face tilting down to hers and his hold on her eyes never breaking. "Happy birthday, Clarissa Fray."
Then, as gently as the light breeze dusted pollen across the petals of the midnight flowers, Jace's warm lips pressed to hers. Her eyes slowly fluttered closed, the sweet taste of him overwhelming her senses. Suddenly, it wasn't the fragrance of the flowers surrounding her any longer, but the smell of Jace's soap that filled her nostrils; it wasn't the tangy sweetness of the apple that coated her taste buds, but the taste of his breath that subdued her hunger.
Despite her surprise, Clary felt that as if she had been waiting for that moment – that kiss – her entire life. Somewhere, deep, deep inside her subconscious, she knew that this was not what she should be doing.
She should be inside the Institute with Simon and the others, working on some plan to find her mother.
She should be asleep, and comforting her once-again-human best friend who was probably traumatized after being transformed into a rat and nearly killed by vampires.
She shouldn't be on the roof top, the amazingly beautiful and romantic rooftop, with this desperately handsome boy. He shouldn't be kissing her. No matter how uncharacteristically sweet he was being or how she felt when he was around her. And she definitely shouldn't be kissing him back.
But she was.
Clary could feel Jace's warm caress on her cheek; she could smell his natural, intoxicating scent and could hear his musical voice murmuring in her ear. Every night since Clary had left Jace on the rooftop of the demon-blood splattered hotel, she had dreamt about him. Usually, she had nightmares. Visions of him being mauled by hell hounds or his eyes - dark and lifeless – as they had been the night by Lake Lyn when Valentine had shoved the Mortal Sword through his chest clouded her memories.
Every night, Jace was with her.
Every night felt so real that, when she finally awoke, it took her minutes to convince herself that it had only been a dream.
But something about tonight was different.
Clary knew she had been dreaming. The moment that Jace's lips had pressed to hers, she had felt the pull of consciousness that slowly forced her from her slumber as it did every night. Yet she could still feel his touch against her skin. She was still very much aware of his body near hers.
Clary felt the pang of her heart echo throughout her entire frame as she opened her eyes only to find familiar golden orbs staring back at her. She gasped, fighting back a mixture of fear and relief as she pushed herself into a sitting position against her headboard. Wake up, Clary, She scolded herself mentally, This is cruel. Don't do this to yourself. Wake up! "Jace?" She finally managed to squeak, her voice a barely audible whisper.
"I'm here," His voice was rough, as if he hadn't spoken for a long time, but his eyes – those eyes that stared into her soul – they were the same. Slowly, as if worried he might frighten her away, Jace moved the slightest bit closer to where she sat plastered against the headboard. "I'm here, Clary, and I'm not going to leave. Not without you."
It was then that he paused, as if trying to reword and rearrange his thoughts. He looked breathless, as if he'd run for miles, as he opened his mouth to speak again, only to quickly lose all courage to.
Jace Wayland was speechless.
This had to be a dream.
Clary watched through sleep and tear filled eyes as a wide range of emotions played across his magnificent features. Never had she witnessed anything quite like this. Jace was always the one to keep a calm mask firmly in place and to never allow anyone to see him so vulnerable. Yet, here he was: sitting on the edge of her small bed and looking at her as if she were the air that he'd so desperately needed.
"I need you," He finally began, his large hands fisting in his mess of golden hair before dropping to pull her hands into his. "I love you, You know that, don't you?"
Clary was very much aware of her heart as it constricted within the confines of her chest as if it wanted to escape. Out of habit, she closed her eyes and shook her head, her auburn hair falling around her face in a fiery curtain. More than once had she awoke from a dream and felt Jace's presence since he'd disappeared. Each time had felt so real, only to have him torn away from her the second that she dared to blink.
A moment later, her wide, emerald eyes slowly fluttered open as his strong arms pulled her trembling body against his and his hand slowly smoothed over her back. His hands were as they had always been – warm, comforting; his arms just as strong as they had ever been; his heartbeat steady as it pounded against his chest and vibrated through their touch to caress her own.
She couldn't be dreaming, could she?
Her mind couldn't possibly betray her so flawlessly. Though it seemed that her heart and mind were on two vastly different sides most of the time, she couldn't believe that her mind would torture her heart in such a way. Her eyes gradually focused as the smallest of tears danced its way down her rose-colored cheeks and dampened his shirt.
Once again, Clary's heart threatened to give under the intense pressure. She could practically feel it shudder in defeat as he pulled back enough so that they were face to face once again.
"Jace," She finally managed, the war inside of her raging at full force as she finally accepted the fact that Jace was real.
This was not a dream.
She was very much awake and he was very much alive.
Instantly, relief flooded her and took complete control over her actions. Clary wound her arms around his torso and pulled their bodies together once more, hugging him as if he would disappear if she were to loosen her grip. Tucking her head under his chin, she pressed her face into the crook of his neck and breathed him in. "It's really you." She whimpered, her tears staining the fabric of his t-shirt. "I was so scared, Jace. I was so scared I'd never see you again."
He shook his head before letting out a small, barely audible whisper into her hair. "I'd always come back for you, Clary. Always."
Using the back of her hand to wipe the salty moisture from her slightly flushed cheeks, Clary leaned back a bit to allow her eyes to roam him quickly for any sign of injury. She absentmindedly slipped her fingers around his wrist, testing the strength of his pulse, as she made sure that all of his fingers were accounted for.
He was perfect. Not even a single golden hair seemed to be out of his usual just-out-of-bed-styled head.
Pursing her lips, suspicion began to creep up to replace her relief of moments ago. "I saw you, in the institute," She said, her voice a gravelly combination of tiredness and crying. "I saw you and Sebasti-," She stalled slightly, correcting herself "I saw you and Jonathan. How'd you get away?"
"I,- Uh. I wasn't being held prisoner, Clary," he said as his eyes flitted from hers and down to where his hands and taken hold of hers once more.
Once again, Clary felt that awful wrench within herself telling her that something was terribly wrong.
I wasn't being held prisoner.
Five little words were all that it had taken to completely shatter Clary's small sense of relief.
What did he mean he wasn't being held prisoner?
Sebastian had been holding Jace against his will.
He had to have been.
Otherwise, there was no way that Jace would have taken off the way he had on the roof, there wasn't the slightest possibility that he would have just left her without a single word.
No, Jace wouldn't have put her through that worry, pain, and heartache.
He couldn't stand to be apart from her any less than she could stand to be away from him.
He hated Sebastian.
He loved the lightwoods.
He loved her.
He wouldn't betray them all like that.
Would he?
Jace was good. He was strong, and magnificent, and beautiful. He was brilliant, and cunning, and funny. He was passionate and driven and fearless. Jace was a million things, none of which were easily manipulated or weak. Jace was a Shadow Hunter to his core. He would rather die himself than side with Sebastian and put Alec, Izzy, and herself in danger.
He did love them.
He did love her.
At least, the Jace that she knew did.
It was then that her eyes flicked to his chest – the place just above his heart where Lilith's rune had been – and wondered if he was, indeed, her Jace. Lifting her hand to his chest, Clary pressed the palm of her hand to his chest. Feeling the slightly raised skin of the now-unharmed rune beneath his shirt, she felt herself twinge inwardly.
Clarissa could feel her body trembling, his hands on her causing her skin to prickle under the new uncertainty that plagued her mind with his confession. A new wave of anguish was beginning to seep into her bones, her body practically sagging in defeat.
Jace was the strongest person that she knew. If he had joined her brother, if Lilith's rune was still intact, what hope was there?
Her usually vibrant eyes dimmed as the war that was taking place within her began to take toll on her and she just barely heard the words that Jace was quickly saying to her.
"But that's beside the point. I'm here, because I know that it isn't fair to keep you away. I was being selfish to not come for you sooner, but I know I'm being more selfish to ask you to come with me. But I don't care. I want you with me, Clary. I need you with me. And that's why I'm here to ask you to go with me. I will do anything that you ask of me, if you just go with me." He bent his head, so it rested against the crook of her neck before he muffled the last word in a plea against her salty-sweet skin. "Please."
Clary's eyes, which had previously been focused on her hand on his chest, had slowly roamed over his strong shoulders, up the slope of his neck, the strong line of his jaw, before finally meeting his familiar golden orbs. "You want me to go with you?" She asked, confusion coloring her worried expression. She shook her head; a million bad scenarios running through her mind. What did Sebastian want with Jace? Did he know where Jace was? That he was with her? What he was asking her? "Jace, do you have any idea how worried everyone has been? You need to go to the institute. They need to know that you're okay, what's going on. You can't be serious. "
It was obvious by the way that he threw himself into explaining himself that Jace had been prepared for her initial skepticism, but the hurt that flashed in his eyes nearly crippled her. Suddenly, a memory flashed before her eyes – a night in Alicante when Jace's normally brilliant and shining eyes had contained that same sort of lackluster. She had awoken to find him gone, leaving nothing but his ring and a note in his place.
She had memorized everything about the note, from its words, to each curve of the pen, to the weight of the paper. Even now, she could recite it perfectly in her mind:
Clary,
Despite everything, I can't bear the thought of this ring being lost forever, any more then I can bear the thought of leaving you forever. And though I have no choice about the one, at least I can choose about the other. I'm leaving you our family ring because you have as much right to it as I do. I'm writing this watching the sun come up. You're asleep, dreams moving behind your restless eyelids.
I wish I knew what you were thinking.
I wish I could slip into your head and see the world the way you do.
I wish I could see myself the way you do.
But maybe I don't want to see that. Maybe it would make me feel even more than I already do that I'm perpetuating some kind of Great Lie on you, and I couldn't stand that. I belong to you. You could do anything you wanted with me and I would let you. You could ask anything of me and I'd break myself trying to make you happy. My heart tells me this is the best and greatest feeling I have ever had. But my mind knows the difference between wanting what you can't have and wanting what you shouldn't want.
And I shouldn't want you.
All night I've watched you sleeping, watched the moonlight come and go, casting its shadows across your face in black and white. I've never seen anything more beautiful. I think of the life we could have had if things were different, a life where this night is not a singular event, separate from everything else that's real, but every night. But things aren't different, and I can't look at you without feeling like I've tricked you into loving me.
The truth no one is willing to say out loud is that no one has a shot against Valentine but me. I can get close to him like no one else can. I can pretend I want to join him and he'll believe me, up until that last moment where I end it all, one way or another. I have something of Sebastian's; I can track him to where my father's hiding, and that's what I'm going to do. So I lied to you last night. I said I just wanted one night with you. But I want every night with you. And that's why I have to slip out of your window now, like a coward.
Because if I had to tell you this to your face, I couldn't make myself go.
I don't blame you if you hate me, I wish you would.
As long as I can still dream, I will dream of you.
- Jace.
"Please," Jace was repeating, his hands dropping hers only to slide upward to cup her face, forcing her from her memories. "Please, Clary. Sebastian-" he shook his head as he corrected himself, "Jonathan and I, we're bound together. He can hurt me without hurting himself and vice versa. He's not a danger to us. I would never let anyone hurt you. You have to know that."
There it was again. That look full of pleading and hope for understanding. That look that went straight to Clary's heart and treated it as if it were a punching bag. She would do anything to make that look go away, to bring back his warm and cocky grin.
Clary sniffed, her voice shaking ever so slightly with the tears that she was fighting tooth and nail. "O-of course." She managed, sucking in her lower lip before tracing the perfectly drawn rune on his chest with her fingertips. Jace would go through hell to keep her safe – he had on a few occasions – how could she abandon him now? "I'll go with you."
As soon as the words left Clary's mouth, she knew that she would grow to regret them. Jonathan was unpredictable and extremely lethal, and every part of her told her how bad of an idea it was to put herself in a situation where he was involved. But, how could she not when it was Jace asking her to do so.
Her Jace. The Jace that had saved her life so many times - that she loved with her whole heart, and that loved her in return.
She couldn't lose him.
Not again.
"You will?" His golden features took on a confused expression, as if she'd caught him by surprise.
She nodded gently, her teeth gnawing at the inside of her cheek as she did so, and moved her eyes down to their intertwined hands. Her thumb traced over the slightly raised, pale scars of the runes that have long since healed. She could feel the eye-shaped symbol that was so much like her own – the one that all Shadow Hunter's possessed that allowed them to see past glamour's.
"I will," she promised, meeting his eyes once more and reading his expression, "Not what you were expecting?"
"Nothing is what I was expecting," He admitted, repeating almost exactly the words she'd spoken in her dream. He smirked as if he had read her mind and leaned forward, pressing his lips ever so gently to hers.
"Well, I hate to interrupt, but..."
Clary jumped and took in a quick gasp, her green eyes widening substantially as Jonathan seemed to appear out of thin air.
"If you were hoping to get out of here without giving mother dearest a fright, we need to leave before she wakes up." Sebastian's voice matched him entirely, all cold and calculated. He stood by her bedroom door, his back straight and his jaw tight. He was the picture of calm confidence.
Until Clary met his eyes.
His dark eyes, nearly completely black in the shadows of her dark bedroom, looked as if there was a war taking place within them – like he was torn between ripping the two of them apart and needing Jace to bring her along.
When neither Jace nor Clary replied or made a point to move, he raised a eyebrow and turned towards the door and placing his hand on the doorknob. "Or shall I go say hello?"
"No!" She gasped, jerking forward and into a standing position, nearly knocking Jace over in the process. "Stay away from my mother." Clary could hardly recognize her voice in that moment; it was so close to a growl.
Jonathan's grin only grew, it becoming more menacing with every second, "Whatever you say. Sister." He motioned to the open window as Jace rose to his feet as well. "After you."
