Hi guys. This is a slightly longer chapter. I wasn't happy with how short the original one was, or how it ended, so I've updated it. Thank you to everyone who reviews my story and please keep reviewing! I can only improve if you guys help me. These magical characters belong to Cassandra Clare.

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Just as Luke moves to share out the food, we hear the door.

"I'll get it!" I say still giggling and moving towards the door. I walk out into the hall and head down and get the door just as the bell rings again. "I'm coming!" I yell as I open the door. When I open it is see a very sheepish looking Simon standing on the other side.

"Hi Clary." "Hi Simon. Unfortunately you missed the painting stage of the morning but you managed to get here just in time for the family breakfast before Mum Luke leave for work." He grins. "I just have that magic timing don't I? So I still get to attend family breakfasts even with the new guy in the picture?" I roll my eyes. "Of course Si. Now can you come in? It's freezing and I wouldn't put it past Jace to eat my share of the bacon." I pull him in and shut the door behind him.

"I thought you said it's a family breakfast?!" Simon sputters. I frown at him. "I did. I think that's what you call a breakfast you eat with your family isn't it?" The sputtering noise continues. "But you just said Jace was going to eat all your bacon!" I sigh in exasperation. "Exactly! That's why we have to go back to the kitchen now before he does!"

Just then Luke calls back down the hall, "Clary? You coming? Jace is trying to make moves on your bacon! I can only hold him off alone for so long!" This is followed by the muffled sounds of laughter followed by a sharp yelp that sounds like Jace's. "No!" I yell and Spring down the hallway not caring if Simon follows or not.

"Don't you dare!" I screech just as Jace reaches for my plate. He looks up in shock and then pulls an angelic expression onto his face. "Aw come on Clary. I was just gonna have a bit." I glare at him and he flinches back a bit. "Not of my bacon you won't." I say and sit down pulling my plate over and taking big bite out of some of the bacon. It's then that Simon wanders into the kitchen.

"Simon!" My mother exclaims. "It's good to see you again! Sorry we don't have any breakfast left. You ate before you came didn't you? Tell me you did. I'll feel bad if you haven't eaten and I don't have any food to give you." He gives a smile. "Don't worry. My Mum would never let me out of the house without a good nutritious breakfast." My mother nods. "That would be very unlike Elaine to do something like that wouldn't it? Well Luke and I have to go but Clary and the others aren't going anywhere so goodbye everyone!" She calls and then grabs Luke and drags him out of the kitchen.

With my bacon safely consumed by me, even though Jace is still staring at my empty plate sulkily, I turn back to Simon. "What were you going on about a family breakfast? Don't you want to be included in stuff like that anymore?" I say feeling hurt. "It's not that, it's just that I sister realise Jace had made family status yet." He says glaring at the blonde haired boy who just smirks at this admission. "Jocelyn loves me." Jace crows gleefully. At this Isabelle promptly pinches him again and his smile quickly disappears.

"Oh for goodness sake Simon! It's not like that and you know it. You're my best friend, Jace and Isabelle are my new friends and neighbours. They came over at the crack of dawn," "Well before you were up for sure." Isabelle mumbles and I throw her a glare as I continue, "to help me paint my room so they got breakfast. What's wrong with that?" Simon pulls a face and mutters something under his breath. Choosing to ignore him while he's being stupid, I turn back to the others.

"If you don't want to help me wash the dishes you can go and wait in the living room. Mum will kill me if I don't clean up this mess." Isabelle nods. "Ok. Simon and I can go and talk," she says that word with emphasis as she looks him up and down, "while Jace helps you do this dishes to apologise for being such an asshat." With her speech finished she grabs Simon by the arm and practically frogmarches him from the room.

Jace looks up at me. For a sudden golden face, smiling softly for once stuns me, then he starts talking and I shake myself from the spell. Trying to think about anything other than how much I would love to draw his angular face.

"I wash, you dry and we both put away?" He asks me and I nod and say "What we can put away anyway. I don't know where much stuff belongs yet." He nods and moves to the sink and turns on the tap. "Yeah. You really haven't been here long have you? So, how's it going? I mean how are you adjusting. This has to be pretty different to however you were living before."

I stare at him for a second. "What do you mean?" I ask, not one hundred percent sure I heard what I thought I did. "How are you doing. I mean abruptly moving in with your mum's boyfriend, you I doubt you met before you came, can't be easy. I know what it's like to have you life uprooted and have to move in with strangers." I stare at him. "You're right I guess. It hasn't been easy." I see the sink is about to over flow and a lunge forward and turn off the tap just in time. I notice that I'm now really close to Jace and step back again, blushing. "Luke's nice though and they've been really accommodating in fining me some time to adjust. And I do have the coolest room in the house AND people to help me decorate it."

He smiles at me and it's like pure sunshine. This ridiculous thought makes me blush again and Jace laughs at my easy blushes. "You're right. You do have some really awesome people to help you. Well at least one awesome person. The other too are kind of questionable." I smile ready to get him. "Yes well, Simon is pretty awesome." I watch as the shock and then laughter crosses his face. "You got me." he admits and I smile beatifically at him.

"Ok dishes done. You know what? Let's just leave them on the bench. Mum and Luke can put them away." Jace smiles and agrees. It's just then that Simon comes back into the kitchen and sees Jace and I standing in the middle of the kitchen just smiling at each other. I turn away from Jace and look to Simon. "Ready to help me sort?" He just stares at me but doesn't object when I grab his hand and start towing me to my bedroom.

As the three of them start pulling all the drop sheets off the floor and furniture I start unloading my boxes from the walk in wardrobe again. "The walls are still too wet to hang anything or pin anything but if you guys could help me start sorting through all this I would really appreciate it." Isabelle nods enthusiastically and grabs the nearest box and starts shuffling through everything. I pull the box closest to me closer and open it.

It's the box full of photos and sketches again. As I start sorting through them and deciding which ones I do and don't want, I find one and gasp. "Simon!" I call him over. "Look what I found!" I say and show him the photo. It's was from when we were quite little. It was his eighth birthday and we went to Coney Island for the day. We played games and ate fair food and he has always said it was his best birthday ever. The photo is of the two of us standing in front of the Ferris wheel with huge smiles on our faces with sticks of fairy floss in our hands.

He takes it from me and smiles. "I hope this one makes the cut." He says and I laugh. "Why wouldn't it make the cut? It's one of my favourite photos." By now Jace and Isabelle have wandered over to see what we are talking about. "Look!" I say. "Weren't we the cutest?" Isabelle coos and agrees while Jace looks sceptical. "Well one of you was. I can't say much for the other." Isabelle rounds on him. "Jace! Be nice or Clary won't invite us back!"

I smile at her. "Don't worry Isabelle." She looks shocked but Jace looks triumphant. "It would just be Jace who wouldn't get invited back." This makes her look happier but Jace looks shocked. "You'd ban me from coming over because of a joke?" I smile. "Yes. But if it was just a joke, then you don't mean it and therefore will have no trouble apologising." He look flabbergasted but Isabelle's grin widens and she declares "You, Clary Morgenstern, are my new favourite person!"

I smile and loop my arm around her shoulders. Jace turns to her. "You're not going to let them make me apologise for joking are you?" She stares at him. "Yes I am Jace. So get in with it. Nothing happens until you apologise." He turns to me eyes pleading. "Come on Clary! It was a joke! Don't make me apologise over a joke!" I glare at him. "You making fun of my best friend is no joke. Apologise."

Finally after much more yelling, Jace spins to face Simon and yells out an apology. Then he declares. "I did it. So stop picking on me!" We all just stare, even though Simon looks quite smug that we made Jace apologise to him. I round on him. "Don't look like that. Now you have to say that's ok. I know it was just a joke." He looks at me incredulously. "Clary-" "No Simon, say it." One glare is all it takes to crack Simon, who quickly says his part.

Turning back I start pulling my favourite sketches from the box. "Wow." Jace says behind me, giving me a fright and causing me to drop the sketch. Jace quickly grabs it and picks it up. "This is beautiful. Did you draw this?" I nod dumbly and reach for the sketch, but he doesn't give it back. "This really is amazing Clary. Where did you learn this?" I sigh and say, "If I tell you do I back?" He nods so I tell him "No one taught me. I watched my mum paint and tried that but I couldn't make anything look right, so she suggested if I like art so much I should try drawing. And I did. And I liked it and was good at it. Now can I have it back?" He hands it back to me only to reach into the box and grab another.

"Hey! Give that back!" He grins cheekily. "You never said I couldn't grab another one. You just said I had to give that one back!" I glare angrily. "A mistake obviously, I'll remember for the future. Now give it back!" He frowns at me. "Alright alright. I didn't think it was such a big deal." "They're private. Give it back and don't grab another on either." Still frowning he passes it back to me. "I'm sorry Clary, I didn't realise that they're pretty private." I nod not looking at him, still too pissed and he sighs and walks away mumbling under his breath.

Then I feel someone coming up behind me and turn to see Isabelle standing there. "What happened with Jace just now? You looked pretty pissed off and he has a weird look on his face." I sigh and look back down at the box. "Nothing Isabelle. Jace was just being a jerk. It's fine, I dealt with it." She pulls a face. "I don't think so Clary. Jace is a jerk constantly. What did he do that was particularly insulting?" "Really nothing Isabelle." She smirks. "Fine then. I'll ask Jace, who will tell me his biased opinion and I'll do my best to believe him." I glare at her. "Fine. Jace was pawing through my sketches without permission and then again after I had specifically asked him to stop."

At this, Isabelle storms over to Jace and starts whispering to him and using her hands to gesture wildly as she talks. I turn back to what I was doing. It's midday by the time everything is sorted and the bed is made and the curtains hung. The walls aren't quite dry yet, so there is nothing pinned up yet and the furniture is still all over the place. Let me just say that hanging curtains is not as easy as it looks. It took all four of us the best part of an hour to figure it out. Good thing they look so good.

"Finally," I say, "I thought that this was going to take us all day at the rate we were moving." Simon and Isabelle laugh but Jace doesn't say anything. I look at him wondering why he's so upset. He has barely spoken since this morning. I internally shrug my shoulders and sigh. Then I realise that he hasn't spoken since Isabelle spoke to him. Groaning I turn to him and say. "Come with me." I then march across the room and down the bottom of the stairs I stand and wait for him. When he is halfway down the stairs I take off again, moving towards the spare bedroom, wanting this conversation to be private.

When we are both inside and I've pulled the door shut, I turn to him. "What did Isabelle say to you?" He gives an empty laugh. "No actually, the question is what did you say to Isabelle? I saw the two of you whispering before she ambushed me." I wince at the use of the word ambush but stand tall as I answer. "Nothing really. She asked me if we'd argued and what we had argued about. I first told her nothing really and she called bullshit so I told her the truth."

Jace jumped at my casual swearing. He quickly composes himself and then replies with, "And what version of the truth would this be?" I stare at him. "How many versions of the truth can there be?" "I don't know Clary, you tell me." I stare at him. 'He sounds so angry,' I think, 'I wonder what Isabelle told him.'

"What did she tell you?" He looks at me blankly. "Isabelle, what did she tell you?" He groans. "Clary, just stop ok? Stop playing this game. She absolutely tore into me and didn't tell me why, right after she had been talking to you. So again, the question is, what did you tell Isabelle?" I huff in frustration. "All I told her was that you had been looking at my sketches, which I thought were private and that you were being a bit of a jerk. Nothing that incriminating."

"Are you sure that's all you said?" I glare at him. "What you think I asked her to yell at her brother over something as trivial as that?" "You didn't seem to think it was trivial when I was trying to look at your sketches." I stomp my foot and he looks at me shocked. "Jesus Clary, I didn't see you as the type of girl who stomps her foot. I thought girls didn't actually do that in real life. I don't think I've even seen Isabelle do that. And she has a flair for dramatics."

I do my best to tune him out while he gets it all out of his system. Finally he finishes it with. "...but then she has always been very territorial about her friends. All of them." I look up at him. "You done?" He just nods his head with a flicker of, was that guilt?, in his eye. "Well now we have this sorted, let's go back upstairs. Maybe we can order a pizza or something for lunch." "Clary," Jace says softly. "I really am sorry that I over reacted. I know you must be stressed out enough without me adding to that." I nod and walk past him and open the door.

When we get back upstairs, this time it seems that we are the ones that have walked in on a moment. Isabelle is making a high pitched noise that I think might be a giggle, while Simon is practically puffing his chest with pride at making her laugh. I hover awkwardly in the door way unsure as to whether or not I should go in. Jace however doesn't seem to care, as he marches straight in and claps his hands, waking them from their daze.

"Oh, hi Jace." Isabelle says brightly. "You should have heard that amazing joke that Simon just told. It was truly hilarious." Jace stares at her. "I find it really hard to believe that he said anything of value, let alone anything remotely funny."

Just as I begin to announce my plan to order a pizza for lunch, the door bell rings again. We all look around at each other. "Who could that be?" Isabelle wonders. "You don't have anymore cute stalker friends do you Clary?" Simon looks as though he's not sure whether to be pleased by the fact that she thinks he's cute, or upset by the fact she thinks he's a stalker.

"I guess I'll go get it. You guys just stay here and talk about pizza. It's probably just a salesman. But! Do not order without me!" They laugh and agree and arguments about toppings and bases follow me down the stairs. I laugh to myself as I walk down the hall wondering what that was with Isabelle and Simon. 'It's obvious that he likes her, but how much does she like him?' I'm contemplating different ways to set them up, when I open the door.

Before I can even make out a face through the glare of the sun, a familiar voice coldly says, "Hello Clarissa."

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A/N: Please review! I love hearing what you guys all think of my writing! The only way I can make it better is if you tell me what you like, what you don't like, what you'd like to see more of.