"Simon." Simon snapped awake to the sound of his name. It was morning, and warm light was illuminating the room, and a rather concerned-looking Clary, who was apparently the one calling him.

"Good morning," he said quickly, sitting up, trying to act normal. But it was obvious that she wasn't buying it.

"Simon," she stated, "You were acting really weird yesterday… It's not like you to just wander off on your own without telling anyone." Simon blinked. Was that why he had been out in an alley when the timeline shift happened? "Then you forgot band practice. Normally you're the one reminding ME. And you were acting all distracted when you came back. AND you should have SEEN yourself with that pizza! It was like you'd never had it before." She sighed. "Simon, are you feeling alright? Did something happen while you were gone?"

"I'm fine," Simon said, frowning. "I just feel a little… Off is all. Don't worry about it."

"You KNOW that I can tell when you're lying, Simon." Simon flinched. "But, fine… If you really don't want me to know, that's your decision." He could hear the disappointment and agitation in her voice. "Just… Whatever it is… Good luck, okay?"

"… Thanks." Simon climbed to his feet, watching her expression. It was obvious that she was worried about him. She really thought he was in some sort of trouble. He felt awful hiding something from her, but he knew he had no choice. It would just be too weird otherwise. Besides… He'd forget his old life in two days, anyway. He could hold things together until then, right?

"Let's go get some breakfast," said Clary.

"Good plan."

It was a pretty good day. It was a lot like things had been before they had known about the world of Shadowhunters. They even went over to Simon's house for a while. Since he'd never been a vampire, his mother had never gone crazy, though she was oddly suspicious from his time in Idris. Even despite that, it was still a dream-come-true for Simon. He'd thought he didn't want things to be the way they were before, but now that it had actually happened, he was enjoying every second of it. Maybe it was because it was even BETTER than things had been before.

Or at least it was until he had another flashback that struck him like a freight train, carrying him into another distorted and alarming memory.

It took only moments to become obvious it was a continuation of Simon's last flashback. He was in the house in Idris, sitting in the living room, a crutch by his side. He wasn't supposed to be out of bed, but he couldn't help it. There was fighting outside, and he wasn't going to let himself be a sitting duck if the demons got in. Admittedly, this position wasn't much better, but at least he could get up fairly quickly, and his crutch was in reach. If nothing else, he could try smacking a demon with it. Not that it would do much, but it was better than nothing.

Max was sitting in the same room, looking anxious. He was clearly too distracted by the events in the city outside to read a manga. Simon couldn't blame him. The sounds outside really were quite disturbing. He was glad Isabelle and Sebastian were fortifying the house.

Then something went wrong. Sebastian came back in. He apparently hadn't noticed Simon yet, since he wasn't directly in sight. He was going toward Max, sneaking up on him, and something about his expression struck Simon as wrong. He looked hostile, violent even. He'd called out, asking Sebastian what he was doing. Then he'd turned and glared at Simon, and his eyes had been pure black. Simon had thought maybe it was a demon in disguise, and yelled at Max to run. And he had.

Furious, Sebastian had turned on Simon. He'd tried to defend himself with the crutch, but Sebastian was fast, too fast. He caught the crude weapon and flung it to the floor, then suddenly he had Simon by the throat, and there was pain, and a SNAP-

Then nothing.

When Simon snapped out of the flashback this time, he was relieved, but also confused and shaken. What had just happened? Had he just died? But how could that be, if he was still here, perfectly alive? What was going on? Then Simon realized that Clary was staring at him again.

"Simon," she said finally, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," he lied.

She just shook her head in frustration, no doubt noticing that he wasn't being truthful with her. Which just made him feel all the worse.

A few hours later, during dinner, Simon had another flashback, and this one was even worse than the last.

Simon was back in the dark, and he knew he must be dead. But then he heard something, a voice. Clary's voice. He followed it…

Suddenly he was awake. He was lying on the ground next to a lake. In the sky was a magnificent golden, winged figure. Raziel. Standing in front of him was Clary. And lying on the ground like grotesque broken dolls were Valentine and Jace.

Clary had turned, and her despairing look had lightened at the sight of him.

She had wished him back to life.

And that meant she hadn't wished Jace back to life.

Jace was dead. And this time, he wasn't coming back.

When Simon returned to the present, he was so stunned he dropped the piece of pizza he'd been holding back on his plate. And it wasn't a good kind of stunned. It was more a shocked, guilty, utterly horrified sort of stunned, the sort that made a person break into a cold sweat and want to just crawl into a corner and die.

Sure, he'd apparently saved Max, but because of him, Jace was gone instead. It was all his fault. And the only way to fix it was to undo his wish. But he wouldn't do that. He COULDN'T. Maybe he could still make this work, maybe, maybe…

"Simon!" Simon snapped back to reality. Clary was looking at him again.

"Uh, yeah?" he said weakly.

"Did you hear anything I just said?"

"Of course."

"Then what did I just say?"

"…" Clary gave him an exasperated look.

"You did it again," she said, shaking her head.

"Sorry," said Simon, "What were you saying?"

"Nevermind." Simon blinked. He had a feeling she had just said something bizarre to see if he was paying attention. He knew he'd done that to her a few times.

"If you're sure…" He went back to his dinner.

The table was very quiet for the rest of the meal.

That night, Simon slept back at home. He figured he didn't need to give his mother any more trouble than he already had.

This time he didn't sleep so well. All night Simon was troubled by nightmares of blond-haired demon boys with black feathery wings trying to climb out of a fiery pit. And knowing who it was based off of made the dreams all the more alarming.