It was night when he finally picked himself off the floor and left Magnus' apartment. The city had lost its shimmer, its glamour. Now, it just seemed like a useless collection of gray buildings. The bright signs were just annoying, not dazzling. Alec could barely pick up his feet for each step, but somehow he kept walking. And walking and walking and walking. As if he could outwalk all his problems. Outwalk the fact that he was lying nearly dead in his own apartment. Even thinking his name hurt, so he tried his best not to.
I should have stayed there with him, thought Alec. I shouldn't have left him all alone like that. But just the thought of staying in that apartment, knowing that he probably wasn't going to be able to save him, it was too much for Alec. So he tried instead to put it out of his mind, at least just for a little while, before it became his every waking thought like he knew it would. But it was so hard, especially now that New York City was no longer the dazzling and distracting place he had grown used to. He had nothing to keep his mind off of what he was trying so hard not to think about except for the pain in his chest. It's funny how emotions will do that to a person, manifest themselves as a physical feeling, as pain, as lightheadedness, as a heaviness that seems to weigh down your very bones. He stopped walking and leaned against a decrepit brick wall. He closed his eyes and waited for the tears to come, but they never did. He left his eyes closed anyway. Maybe this way he could pretend it was all just a bad dream.

A group of young girls fell out of a club door a little while later, laughing and clearly drunk. Alec opened his eyes and looked at them, just to have something to look at. They were maybe in their early twenties. They could barely walk and their sky-high heels weren't helping at all. One girl ended up on the ground. Once, Alec would have laughed at the stupidity of getting so drunk you could barely walk, but now he barely noticed at all. The girl on the ground noticed him staring and winked at him. All her friends giggled at this. She turned back to face them and when she turned back, Alec was gone. He couldn't be bothered to stay around. And what if they came over and started talking to him? At this point, he didn't even know if he was capable of speech anymore.

He had walked out of Brooklyn a long time ago. Every corner had held another memory, another Band-Aid to rip off. Every blink revealed a fresh horror of remembrance. So he walked back to the city. Central Park was such big feature of the city that it should have occurred to Alec that he'd end up there at some point. The sun wasn't up yet, but the sky was just starting to brighten up. Dawn was not far away and Alec knew he should head back to the Institute. But then he would face the questions. Because Izzy would take one look at him and immediately know that something was wrong, and Jace had seen him force Clary to make a Portal in a panic. He couldn't hide his feelings from them, he never could. So he couldn't go back. Somewhere deep down he knew that that idea was problematic but he couldn't remember why and it probably wasn't worth worrying about right now anyway.

Izzy would come for him. He knew that. He was in the middle of the Ramble and he hoped that he was lost. He wasn't the praying type, but if he was he would have prayed to be lost, begged to be lost. He knew he was being selfish. He knew he shouldn't have left him all alone, millimeters from death. But he accepted his selfish nature because he knew if he hadn't run from his problems they would have swallowed him whole. Maybe they already had? He couldn't really tell. He would give anything to be lost and he would give anything to not have to tell Izzy and Jace and Clary and everyone what had happened. He didn't even think he had the words to tell them anyway. Nothing but empty sounds would come out. But, of course, he wasn't lost. The universe has a way of playing sick jokes on people.

The sun was fully up now. Soon, people would start coming in to walk their dogs and do their morning runs. Alec still wasn't lost. He still knew how to get home from where he was. Both of my homes, thought Alec. The thought brought with it a fresh wave of pain. Lamenting the fact that he knew very well where he was, he moved to a glamoured clearing nearby. It would make finding him easier for his family, but at least he'd be shielded from random well-meaning passerby.

Izzy had probably sent him a multitude of texts already. He could visualize exactly what they would say. It'd start with Where are you? then progress to When are you coming back? and then the obvious question, Are you coming back at all tonight? then Alec! And then finally Are you at Magnus'? Alec barely realized that he had failed at his own self-imposed rule of not thinking his name before the pain threatened to take over as his knees buckled and he fell to the ground. He didn't bother to get up. What was the point, in a world where Magnus might soon cease to exist?

...

"Jace, something's wrong." Izzy said as he walked into her room. Jace and Clary had only come back in the early hours of the morning, and Izzy hadn't had the heart to keep them from a few hours of sleep when she wasn't even sure anything was wrong. But now she was sure.

"What's wrong?" He sat down on her dresser. He had come as soon as she had yelled down the hall for him.

"Alec isn't answering his text messages. And I can't get a hold of Magnus, so I assume he's not there either. Otherwise he would have at least told Alec that I called."

"Well, Alec not answering his phone might have something to do with the fact that he left it here. And while the last place he went was Magnus', I agree that he's probably not there anymore if no one is picking up." He didn't look particularly concerned by this.

That's right, Izzy thought, he dropped his phone in his rush last morning. Stupid of me to forget that. "I'm going to look for him. He has to be somewhere, right?" She started getting ready to leave. She was just debating the need for battle gear when Jace interrupted her.

"He knows you love to worry, Iz. That means he would have called if he wanted to. He's OK, Izzy. If anything, he probably just wants some space. "

"I know he's not hurt physically, if that's what you mean. Otherwise, you would have already told me he was hurt. But that doesn't mean he's OK. There's a difference."

Jace closed his eyes and sighed. Alec probably wouldn't appreciate it, but he could see Izzy's point. He had been feeling a little strange since yesterday afternoon, but it had never occurred to him that it could have been from his Parabatai bond. Unconsciously, he brought his hand up to the mark. "You're right. I'll get Clary and we'll go."

What do you think so far? Anything in particular you'd like to see?

Until next time!

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