Disclaimer: Not I, but Cassandra Clare. She owns all this good stuff.

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Clary's lips were still tingling where Jace had kissed her softly and sweetly after they had all devoured the homemade chocolate cake, but the entire left side of her face seemed to hum with electricity where Simon had pressed his mouth quickly to the skin of her cheek. She touched the vibrating flesh hesitantly, her brows knit with confusion, mouth pursed.

She sighed and drew her hand away, finally turning to face the small mirror hanging beside the closet. Her reflection stared back at her, wearing an expression of weariness and lingering excitement, laced with unsettling confusion. Wide green eyes stood out startlingly from the reflection's pale, flushed face, contrasting sharply with the thin purple scarf knotted around her neck from Magnus and Alec. Sweat glistened damply on her forehead.

With another slow exhalation, Clary stood from the edge of her neat white bed, stretching the aches out of her bones she had developed from sitting completely still for ten full minutes. The delicate silver chain she had received from Isabelle tinkled merrily on her wrist, and Clary glanced down at it with an odd expression residing in her eyes. Tiny colored charms winked back at her from their hooks, glowing electric blue, hot pink, and white gold in the bright light emanating from the lamp on her small table. She smiled a tiny ghost of a smile, and then moved to her closet.

Sliding back the plain white door, she frowned when she saw her meager wardrobe, made up of a few plain T-shirts, a sweater, the silvery dress Amatis had given to her the night of the celebration, and her favorite green hoodie. She kept her leather Shadowhunter gear stored in a chest at the foot of her bed, along with the Morgenstern ring, as a reminder of Jace in his earlier days, before the complication of his life. Before Simon. Before Valentine. Before Clary.

As she reached for her comforting green hoodie, frayed from the adventures of her pre-teens, a sharp knock sounded at the door. Clary jerked and gasped in surprise. Behind the thick door, a low chuckle could be heard.

Clary smiled out of habit and rolled her eyes at the sound of Simon's familiar laugh. Stupid ultra-sonic vampire hearing, she thought, but it was a hollow, meaningless insult.

Hurrying to the door, her hoodie forgotten, she quickly wrenched the door open, revealing a familiar grinning face staring down at her. "Simon," she laughed breathlessly, "Hi."

The vampire removed one hand from it's position inside his jean pocket to wave half-heartedly at her. He was smiling, but it was a wobbly, nervous thing.

Clary's interest instantly piqued at the sight of his hands twisting and turning within the confines of his jeans pockets, a nervous habit he had upheld when he was a young child.

"Can I help you?" Clary drawled suspiciously, a wary smirk playing at the corners of her mouth.

Simon chuckled again, this time softly, before removing his hand once more from his pocket to cup the back of his own neck, another nervous habit he had developed as a young boy.

"Well, um, actually...." He paused and snapped his mouth shut, finally moving his fingers back into his jeans, where they dug around blindly for a few seconds. After a minute or so, his hand retracted, revealing something small and shiny that he thrust toward her blindly. "Happy birthday, Fray," he mumbled quietly, a fine dusting of pink coloring his pale cheeks.

Clary gently wrapped her fingers around the small object he produced from his pocket, her mouth drawn up into a curious smile. "Aw, what's this? You know I don't like you wasting your money on me, Si-"

Her voice cut off abruptly when she finally realized what exactly she now clutched in her hand. Her jaw slackened and her emerald eyes widened, incoherent stutters falling from between her parted lips. "Oh, Gawd, Simon. It's beautiful! Thank you, thank you, it's gorgeous!"

In her palm, she cupped a wide, thick silver ring, decorated with a design of complex, intricate Runes interwoven deep into the surface. The shiny ring gleamed brilliantly when she slid it onto her finger. "It fits perfectly," she murmured, and her voice was a raw whisper. She didn't realize she was crying until a single fat drop of salty water dripped onto the hand she held in front of her.

"Clary?" Simon asked, and his voice held frantic urgency. "Clary, what's wrong? Is it the ring? Did I-"

Now his rambling was interrupted, when Clary suddenly let out a shriek of joy and launched herself at him, falling effortlessly into his outstretched arms. Simon's dark eyes widened considerably, but his arms instantly circled her tiny waist, drawing her into him with a smile.

"I take it you like the ring?" His voice was husky and teasing, but Clary caught the underlying serious tone to it.

She crushed her arms around his waist and grinned into the fabric of his newly-applied T-shirt, mumbling through it, "I love it, Simon."

Simon smiled and leaned down, pressing his mouth in a chaste kiss to the top of her head. He seemed to mumble something into her scalp, and Clary arched her neck back to look up at him, her mouth pursed suspiciously.

"What?"

Pink light seared across Simon's cheekbones, and he looked down at her with wide eyes. Stumbles whooshed past his parted lips in nearly incoherent gasps. "I-uh.... I-my-you.... You're...."

Clary cut him off by repeating his earlier action, and pressing her index finger to his slightly parted pale lips. "Simon. Hush." Her tone was gentle but reprimanding. "Calm down. I understand; you don't have to tell me."

The nervous light in Simon's brown eyes instantly faded into sadness, and he reached up to cup Clary's shoulder tenderly. "I'm sorry, Clary. It's not that I don't want to tell you." He cast his gaze down to the carpeted floor, teeth tearing into his lower lip in clear embarrassment. "I just... can't. I'm sorry," he repeated, and Clary smiled. It was a miserable, withered thing, but her eyes seemed to glow with that everpresent happiness of hers.

"It's fine, Simon. I understand," she reassured him. "Some things are better left unsaid."

Simon's eyes shot back up to her face, lanced with pain and fear and sorrow, but the unreadable expression hidden deep beneath those other battling emotions was the most interesting, guarding something in those deep brown irises of his.

"Yeah," Simon agreed breathlessly, stepping quickly away from Clary's arms, his gaze directed now at a point somewhere behind her. "Some things. But sometimes things are just far too complicated to be left unsaid."

And, with that cryptic message hanging ominously in the air between them, Simon turned and disappeared into the hallway, melting into the shadows dancing along the pale walls. His bedroom door clicked shut a few seconds later, and Clary was left staring at the space where he had stood, her fingernails clicking absently against the surface of the intricate silver ring.