As always, this was my Christmas gift to my beautiful friend, Cassie 3 I hope that the rest of you can enjoy it as well! It was meant to be a little one-shot of how I imagine the aftermath of the Council meeting in Lord of Shadows would be. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ LORD OF SHADOWS YET, DO NOT READ THIS! MAJOR SPOILERS! I can't wait until Queen of Air and Darkness comes out so I can see just how incorrect everything in this fic is! But, since there's still a few months until that happens, please enjoy my predictions!
The first thing that Magnus noticed after floating slowly back into consciousness was a vice-like grip on his right hand. He wasn't coherent enough yet to open his eyes or to even recognize his surroundings, but there was something familiar about the force that was casually grinding the bones in his hand together. It wasn't until Magnus instinctively squeezed his own hand in response to the pressure that he realized what it was.
Alec.
Magnus thought he felt a little bit of the tension leave the other man's hand, but a slight tremor still beat a sporadic tune against his palm. It hurt Magnus to think of Alec being in pain in any way, and it hurt even more to know that he was the cause of that pain even if he knew that the sickness he was experiencing was out of his control. He wasn't in a rush to open his eyes, to see the look he knew would be on Alec's face – his brilliant blue eyes burning and his lips tightened ever so slightly in a thinly disguised look of worry. Magnus sighed, a small release of his breath through his nose, and lifted his heavy eyelids only to pause when his gaze reached Alec's face. That wasn't the look he had been expecting.
Alec sat on the floor next to the couch where Magnus had been laid. A quick scan of the room told Magnus that they were alone, but he didn't waste time on the drab decorations and instead focused solely on the man in front of him. The Shadowhunter's eyes weren't burning but instead stared straight at the floor across the room, not actually taking in any images, as if nothing in his sight was real. His eyebrows pinched together in the middle of his forehead in an expression of startled confusion. The tightness Magnus expected around his boyfriend's mouth was there, but it was much more intense. A frown shaped his lips in a harsh line like the beginnings of a letter being cut into the trunk of a tree. Where Magnus's hand was trapped in Alec's, he could still feel the younger man shaking ever so slightly. Everything in Alec's expression sent sharp tendrils of concern through Magnus's still groggy mind.
"Alexander?"
Magnus hadn't expected the name to come out as a question, but his voice sounded strong which was more than he could have hoped for considering how drained he felt. He reached his hand out with his voice and placed it lightly on Alec's cheek. Alec's face transformed fast enough to give Magnus whiplash. His blue eyes widened in surprise as he glanced down at Magnus and then softened into a flash flood of relief that seemed to flush whatever else he had been worrying about out of his mind. Alec let out the breath he was holding and leaned towards Magnus, reaching his own hand out to touch Magnus in the same way.
The sight sent a shock through Magnus. He sat up so abruptly that the two of them almost bumped foreheads. The world spun around him and he cursed whatever was making him sick, but he didn't have time for that; he was looking at Alec. He had grasped the Shadowhunter's wrist with reflexes that would put even Jace to shame and was staring intently at Alec's hand where it had frozen on its path to his face.
There it was. Just as he thought he had seen. There was blood on Alec's hand. A lot of it. Magnus tightened his grip on the scarred warrior's hand before him and looked up into the Shadowhunter's face once more.
"Alec. What happened? Are you hurt? Whose blood is this?"
The questions came out fast, but Magnus's body was incredibly still as he waited for Alec to respond. He watched as the momentary relief that had found purchase on Alec's face disappeared and was replaced by the same look of startled confusion he had worn only seconds before. He was staring down at the blood on his hand. There was a dense pause and the air seemed to weigh heavy on Magnus in the silence. He would have cursed himself for the sudden outburst that destroyed his love's temporarily found peace, but he found his head was filled with too many grim images of whose blood might be staining Alec's callused fingers to linger too long on the thought. Magnus had just decided that the silence had gone on long enough when Alec finally spoke.
"My father."
The words were quiet, but Magnus heard them clearly.
"Your father?"
"It's my father's blood."
Magnus flinched back. He could only assume that his expression matched the one he saw staring back at him on Alec's face. Surprise. Confusion. He leaned in closer, dizziness be damned, and gripped his boyfriend's shoulders both in urgency and in an attempt at comfort.
"What happened?" He could hear the tension in his own voice. None of this made any sense. It was just a Council meeting; why would anyone have gotten hurt? Had the Cohort done something? But surely even those fanatics would know better than to spill blood in the Accords Hall. Magnus had seen Shadowhunters do unheard of things in pursuit of what they perceived as holy missions, but he couldn't imagine a group that was so hell-bent on preserving the "good old days" of the Clave when everything was "pure" disregarding the sanctity of the Accords Hall.
Then again, he also hadn't thought that they would be so cruel as to force mere children to withstand trial by the Mortal Sword, so maybe he didn't understand Shadowhunters as well as he thought he did.
In that uncanny way unique to Alec, he started the story in the perfect place for maximum efficiency.
"Kit brought me in here when you collapsed, and we stayed in here as the meeting started. It wasn't too long before we heard shouts in the Hall. It was more than just a disagreement; there were screams." Magnus's hands tightened on Alec's shoulders at that, but he refused to interrupt. "I told Kit to stay here, and I ran. The Hall was in chaos. Annabel had the Mortal Sword and she was fighting with it, swinging it at anyone who came close to her."
Alec paused in his telling to take a breath. It was a steadying breath reminiscent of those Magnus had seen him take before making a difficult shot with his bow. He looked up from his bloodied hand and straight into Magnus's eyes.
"I found my father lying against the wall. He was dead before I even got to him. She had stabbed him straight through the ribs."
From where their gazes met, Magnus could see Alec's eyes darkened to a deep blue and intense shadows in his pale face. Saying the words aloud must have done something that reliving the scene in his head hadn't been able to. It solidified the story into reality. Confusion no longer lingered in their blue depths. When Magnus looked down at him, he saw only grief.
"Alec, I'm so sorry." There was a time when saying those words would mean lying for Magnus, but things had changed once he met Alec. His past with Robert Lightwood was rocky to say the least, but the man had been working hard with a ferocity known only to the Angel's children to be better for his son. To be better for his grandsons. Magnus pulled Alec in by his shoulders and wrapped his arms around the Shadowhunter's sweater clad back. The softness of the worn wool against his arms drove home the unexpectedness of this tragedy.
Shadowhunters expected to die young; it was a risk of the occupation they found themselves in. This, however, had not been a battle. It had not been a war. It was meant to be a time of discussion and democracy, yet death had found them regardless. No gear existed here to protect body or heart, only a fading sweater now with one more hole and many more stains.
Alec's arms clasped around Magnus's middle and he rested his cheek against the flat panes of Magnus's chest. They stayed wrapped like that, comforting each other until the quakes that wracked Alec's body subsided with one final shiver. Even after the shaking finished, Magnus felt slow tears wetting his shirt from where the younger man's face rested. Their moment of solace, which seemed incredibly too short to Magnus, ended when Alec spoke again, pulling back from their embrace.
"It wasn't just Dad."
The dread in Magnus's gut only worsened as Alec told the tale. He told of how Annabel raged through the Accords Hall, stopping at nothing. How the Mortal Sword was shattered. How everyone in the Hall was reminded that even shattered swords were lethal. About LIvvy Blackthorn and the Unseelie King.
When the story was over, he could think of only one thing to say.
"I should have been there."
Alec's reddened eyes widened slightly at the profession. "Magnus, it's not your fault. Even if you had been there, you would likely have been too depleted to stop any of it. You've done so much these past few days."
Magnus leaned forward and touched his forehead to his boyfriend's, closing his eyes half-way. "I know. And I know by now that playing the 'what-if' game never fixes anything, but no matter how long you live you can never teach yourself not to regret." He closed his eyes the rest of the way and sighed, "I just hate that something preventable became inevitable because of a damn sickness."
With his head finally clearing of fogginess, a sudden thought struck Magnus, and his eyes flew open. "You didn't mention. Where are the kids?"
The grieved look that still haunted Alec's eyes lessened slightly at the mention of the children. "Mom has them. Someone went to go tell her what happened, though, so I'm sure she'll be coming here soon."
Magnus wasn't surprised to hear that. Maryse and Robert Lightwood may have had a rough divorce, but their grandchildren had brought them back together at least a little. They bonded over their mutual love for the tiny warlock and his new Shadowhunter brother in a way that Magnus expected they hadn't bonded in years. She would surely be just as shocked and hurt to hear about the death as her children.
Sure enough, when Maryse showed up ten minutes later, children in tow, she looked completely wrecked. Rafael let go of his grandmother's hand and walked over to Magnus stiffly. He glanced backwards at his grandmother as he went, as though he knew something was wrong but didn't know what it could possibly be. As though he was too scared to ask. He finally made his way over to Magnus who could tell at a glance that despite how keyed up the young Shadowhunter was by the tense atmosphere he had been placed in, he was incredibly tired. Magnus deftly placed the tiny boy in his lap and rubbed circles into his back in an attempt to ease his mind. It took a few minutes for the discomfort to fade, but eventually his drowsiness took over and Rafe rested his head on Magnus and went to sleep.
Alec had stood up and was standing by to his mother, whispering what Magnus could only assume were directions to wherever they had placed Robert's body. He took Max out of his mother's arms, kissed her on the cheek, and slowly sat back down on the floor next to the couch as she left the room. Max wriggled in Alec's arms once he settled himself back against the couch. The baby tugged on the Shadowhunter's collar, babbling sleepily.
"Bye bye, Gramma," he mumbled, the tiny fist that wasn't clung tight to Alec's worn out sweater waving slightly at the door before he turned back to Alec, "Da! Hi Da!"
As Max continued saying hello to various people and items in the room, something he had been fond of doing ever since he said his first words, Magnus shifted his attention back to Alec. Magnus couldn't tell if it was seeing his mother's shocked and horrified face, or holding his own son in his arms, but he was sure that Alec looked even more grief stricken than before. The pain of his loss gaining strength from the faces of more loved ones to bowl the Shadowhunter over with increased force. He looked down at Max as though seeing him for the first time. Or maybe as though imagining seeing him for the last. Either way, the look on Alec's face broke Magnus's heart. He once again regretted that he could do nothing to prevent this pain. The Shadowhunter's arms tightened around the gibbering blue baby as the words slowed and his blinking became owlish. Once Max finally fell asleep, Alec bowed his head over the small form. Black hair hung down, blocking the blue from Magnus's sight. A barrier to protect Max from anything and everything that might want to hurt him. Magnus heard nothing in the room except for the heavy breaths Rafael let out in his sleep and the sound of his own heartbeat. And then he heard something else. A whisper. Words spoken, but much too quiet to make out.
Magnus slid off the couch and onto the ground, Rafael still in his arms. He leaned up against Alec. He was sturdy despite all the shock that he had been through, a fact that didn't surprise Magnus in the slightest. It was the reason that one of his favorite places to be was by Alec's side. Magnus cradled Rafe in one arm, placing comforting pats on the boy's back and taking comfort from being surrounded by those most important to him. He laid his own head directly on Alec's broad, attempting to forget about the dark cloud of grief that hovered close by. From this position, he could finally hear the words that Alec whispered like a secret prayer into the dark blue curls on Max's tiny head.
"I'll never leave you. I promise I'll never leave you."
Magnus's whole being felt drawn towards Alec in response to hearing the words. Words that he knew Alec had no way of guaranteeing. He sent out his own silent prayer to whoever or whatever would listen.
Please. Don't ever make him break that promise.