A/N: I've had a generally good reception from the first chapter so I'd like to thank you all! It did bring a smile to my face when I was notified of a new follower/favourite/review. :) So here is chapter two...
After reading over the last chapter I've just realised I've made a small mistake. Had a dazed moment and said Clary and Simon were sixteen. For the purposes of this story they're eighteen and so are Isabelle, Maia and Aline. Jace and Jordan are nineteen, while Magnus, Alec and Helen are twenty. This means that the Climon friendship has been going on for twelve years and Clary and Jace were about ten, eleven when the incident occurred. I hope I've cleared that up!
After multiple pinches and slaps across the face, Clary reluctantly admitted defeat. She definitely wasn't in a nightmare; she had been partnered up with Jace. Luke knew what had happened eight years ago, and he'd agreed to put her with that stuck-up brat over her best friend? It didn't make sense.
As soon as everyone had found out their forever partner, Clary had retired to her room with complaints of a migraine, but it was really to stop herself from throttling Jace or Luke. She was beyond fuming about the whole situation.
A soft tap on the door brought her back to reality. "Are you still playing the dying swan in there?"
Oh great. "Don't you have anything better to do rather than pestering me, Herondale? Maybe pick up a few chicks?"
"C'mon Shortcake, just open the door." Clary could literally feel him smirking on the other side. "You missed the briefing for tomorrow, so Luke asked my wonderful self to explain what our duties include."
Clary sighed and sat on the end of her bed, not in the mood to fight. "Hurry up, then."
Jace swung the door open and leaned against the door frame, glancing at her expectantly. "Are you going to invite me in, then?"
"I did. Get your ears tested." Clary snapped.
"You told me to hurry up, not come in," he pointed out nonchalantly, narrowing his eyes at her. "You're oddly grumpy today. Period?"
Clary wanted to kill him, but she could feel a flush creeping onto her freckled face. "Just get in, close the door and take a seat."
Shockingly he obeyed her without a cocky remark, slumping down on the wooden chair next to the window where she tended to sit while drawing. The remnants of the sunset were flooding into her room anyway, slightly illuminating parts of Jace's angular face that was currently fully distorted by his trademark smirk. For the first time in eight years, Clary decided to put her anger at him aside and study him intently. He'd grown up so much since the incident; it agonized Clary to realise that if anything he was more attractive than before. Rather than having a child's body, he'd morphed into his fully grown state, which was muscular as a result of intense physical training but still very lean. His hair had grown to the point where the curled ends just brushed the tops of his shoulders, but it still remained a silky tangle of straw coloured curls that looked like gold in the light. His fair eyelashes had grown out a fair bit, casting shadows beneath. The only thing that remained of the boy she once knew were his eyes - they still remained their unique shade of gold. Looking at him now made it even harder to believe that he'd once befriended a dumpy girl with hair like Raggedy Ann and a face full of freckles. Nonetheless, his appearance was beautiful, but his soul was not.
"So in the morning we as a pair have training time. I think we should run a few fights just to test skill in case something happens, though it should be okay. After lunch we're heading to question someone who was attacked by The Circle for being caught eavesdropping to see if we can get a vague idea on what they're planning. Then we're wanted to do a quick patrol around that area for suspicious activity before getting takeout for everyone, then in the evenings as always it's free time unless there's a call." Jace explained the entire thing effortlessly which just made Clary more frustrated with him. "Thanks. Now leave."
He narrowed his eyes again, rising up from the chair suddenly. "Got enough tampons, Shortcake?" he queried.
"I'm not on, you stupid twit," Clary snarled, clenching her fists tightly to stop herself punching him. "You're an ass with an ego larger than the entire North American continent."
"Only that? I was expecting something far larger," Jace remarked with a crooked grin. "But in all seriousness, are you okay? Have you taken anything for the migraine?"
First he came in insulting her, now he was concerned? Nuh-uh, Clary wasn't falling for that. "Just leave me be, Jace. I don't want to talk to you."
He sighed ruefully and headed to the door, turning as he went to close it behind him. "Meet me at nine in the training room. If you want to hang out downstairs we're playing a very intense game of MarioKart which I'm winning, obviously."
Once he left, Clary cried out in frustration and flopped back onto her bed, face first into her pillows. A sob racked her tiny body as she allowed everything to spill out. She was sick and tired of absolutely everything in her life right now, and worst of all, she actually missed Jace. He'd always been nice to her before the incident, and if she was honest losing him scarred her emotionally. She wasn't the same; less open, more secretive.
An hour passed and she'd recovered, so she got changed into a baby pink camisole and white shorts before retreating under the covers with her sketchbook in hand. Turning on the bedside light, she flipped open the sketchbook to a drawing she'd started yesterday. Using a picture as reference, she was drawing the group picture they'd had after 'graduating' a few weeks ago. They'd all had dinner at a fancy restaurant with Luke who'd taken the picture for them just outside it after eating. Everyone had a cheesy grin painted on their face as they all stood in formal wear and anticipated when they'd get their partners. So many jokes had come out of that night as people recalled memories of training and made hilarious comments about some possible partner pairings.
From left to right the order in the picture was Alec, Jace, Isabelle, Clary, Simon, Aline, Maia, Jordan, Helen and Magnus. The boys had all dressed up in black and white suits as requested by Luke (though Magnus had insisted on having glitter in his hair still, he couldn't have glitter on his suit), while the girls got a choice on dresses. They'd all brought dresses and gotten ready together, though Isabelle had most of the say in what they'd wore. Helen had her pale white-gold hair up in an elegant bun and wore a short white dress with long sleeves, lace embroidered across the chest and white heels. She'd always been so pretty in Clary's eyes and had adopted a motherly role in the group, being the second oldest behind Magnus. Aline wore a dress somewhat similar to Helen's but it was longer and in peach, plus she wore matching plain flats rather than heels. Her short black hair had been curled. With Isabelle being Isabelle, she'd struggled to get past Luke's rule of 'no looking like a hooker', but she still looked stunning in a flowing sleeveless red cocktail dress that exposed her slender calves, insanely high black high heels that allowed her to tower nearly everyone and her ink black hair scraped back into a French braid with red flowers clipped in parts of the braid. Maia had worn a short sleeveless gold dress with a sequined bust line and sequined gold heels to match, not to mention the huge gold flower clipped onto the left side of her straightened golden-brown hair. Clary had reluctantly agreed to let Isabelle pick a dress for her and the girl had actually done okay, having picked out a tea length green vintage cocktail dress and plain silver heels. Her carrot coloured curls had been left to cascade down her back much to Isabelle's despair, but Clary had never been a fan of putting her hair up.
She was focused on drawing Alec's messy black hair - she'd drawn the basic outlines of everyone yesterday - when she decided to call it a night.
Clary had gotten dressed into a white camisole, black leggings, red converse and tied her hair up in a low messy bun in the morning, making her way to the training room at nine sharp. As much as she would have liked to been late to spite him, training was important to her and she wouldn't miss it, even if it was with Jace.
When she entered the room, Jace was already in there beating the absolute life out of a punching bag. Well, if they had lives, anyway.
"Right, I'm here," Clary announced nonchalantly, throwing her hands up. "What do you want to do?"
Jace froze abruptly, turning his head to smirk at Clary. "Hello to you too, Shortcake," he said, his gaze resting on her shoes. "Training is more effective with socks or barefoot. You should know that by now."
She did know that, but in the rush of the moment she'd forgotten. Whoops.
Once she'd removed her shoes to remain in white socks, she stood on the safety mat and rose her clenched fists. "Fight me, then. I didn't get up to stand around watching you show off."
Jace turned fully from the punching bag and crossed the room in a white t-shirt, black shorts and no socks. On stepping onto the safety mat, he lifted his gold gaze to meet Clary's green eyes. "You can make the first move." he offered.
Clary shook her head adamantly. "The enemy won't give you the first move. They'll either lunge at you or circle around until they or you go for it."
"As you wish."
The two circled each other with observant eyes until Clary decided to just take the first move, landing a punch to his throat. He gagged for air for a moment, allowing her to knee him in the stomach, but he kicked the ankle she was still standing on so she toppled to the ground. He kicked her straight in the ribs several times until she rolled away from his beating, springing up to her feet and punching him in the face.
They continued their intense duel for probably five minutes more until Jace had knocked Clary to the floor for the sixth or seventh time, causing her to smack her head to the safety mat with a force so strong she could had sworn she could have broken her skull. It hurt to move it from where she was, so she had to surrender. "Stop, stop! I'm done!" she cried, breathing heavily and squeezing her eyes shut to stop her crying. She refused to cry in front of the asshole who'd caused the pain.
Jace chuckled in mild amusement. "Not bad, Shortie. I think you might have got that if I didn't just knock you down."
"For the love of God, will you please stop calling me that-" Clary broke off as a surge of pain suddenly hit her, making her grit her teeth in agony. "Fuck, I can't get up."
She couldn't see, but she felt a large callused hand on her forehead. "You're burning up. Are you okay?"
"What do you think, dickhead?" Clary snapped. "I hit my head when you knocked me down!"
The hand on her head tensed. "Can you open your eyes?"
She suddenly felt nauseous and dizzy. "I feel faint..."
"Right, I'm going to find someone, but I think Luke's out." Jace removed his hand and stood up, but Clary had this strange feeling wash over her of not wanting to be alone. "No. Stay, please."
She felt him sit beside her and heave a sigh, pulling her over to him with a grunt so her throbbing head rested in his lap. The pain was excruciating; she lost the battle to kill her tears and her eyes flung open.
Jace wiped away some tears from her cheeks with his thumb like he would have done when they were still friends. "Hey, shhhh. I'm sorry." he murmured softly.
That was the last thing she heard before slipping into a sea of darkness.
Dun dun dunnnn... you'll learn more about the plot next chapter, promise!
Just to give you an idea, there are pictures of the dresses the girls wore to the graduation meal on my profile.