Written for December's fic challenge at the Towers of Alicante forum here (under word count and posted two months late, but hey, no one's perfect). Although I've been roleplaying in the fandom for quite a while now, this is my first Mortal Instruments fanfiction ever, and certainly my first time writing anything Jace-centric. I am full of surprises to myself. (serious face)

Anyway, hope it passes muster — ahead of time, thank you for reading, and please: leave an honest review to help me improve!


'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all

Alfred Lord Tennyson

I wouldn't have given her up for the world — but for her, I would have given up the world. It's as simple as that.

Sometimes I think about her. Like, every minute of every day. To forget even for an hour would be more than dishonorable to her memory. Probably make a lot of people sick of me that way, but generally they respect it, and even though nothing changes the fact that she's gone and it hurts like hell, when that happens it helps.

Anyway, sometimes I wonder what she'd say if she could see me now. I have a feeling she'd tell me to stop brooding and get on with my life or something sensible like that. But how can I? She was my life.

I guess that's why falling in love is never the wisest thing to do.

Tomorrow morning I'll go to her grave. It'll be cold outside, and the road there will be covered with ice. I kind of wish they had buried her where her heart was, in New York, her home. But the Shadowhunters' cemetery her mother chose is really gorgeous. Statues and trees and green grass everywhere. Even Luke approved.

Idris is a beautiful place to be dead in.

So I'll leave some flowers. There will probably still be lots of snow on the ground; in fact, it may still be falling. The kind of picture she would have loved to draw. Pale-haired young man, black coat, white snow and sky, black tombstone. Lots of contrast. Maybe it would've been in charcoal pencil. Something that makes those harsh, abrupt black sketch lines that look like they hurt.

There I'll sit with her, then, for a while. And imagine a few pictures of my own.

I can see her now as the angel she never wanted to think she was: shining in white as unblemished as the snow she lies under now, soaring above the mundane world on wings of light. I can see her the way she would have danced with me at our wedding, trying to pretend she's clumsy and laughing about it with stars in her curly red hair and eyes like the most beautiful diamonds you could ever imagine.

Clary.

I'll love you as long as I live.

And, God willing, beyond.