Clary sat huddled in her seat at her usual table at The Half-Moon, her hair falling in messy curls over her shoulders.

She didn't even care that she probably looked a mess today, or that Jace had given her a strange look when he left for the day after he'd finished his shift early-it was a look that suggested that he was maybe a little concerned for her wellbeing.

She folded her arms, trying to pull her mom's leather jacket even tighter around her body, almost wishing that the jacket would just swallow her up.

As she sank down a little further in her seat, Clary couldn't help replaying her most recent argument with Simon over and over in her head.

The two of them had bickered all the time ever since they were kids, but they hadn't had a fight as bad as the one they'd had yesterday for years.

The memory of it was made worse by the fact that before their argument yesterday, Clary hadn't even seen him for a couple days, and they hadn't spoken much on the phone to each other for what felt like months.

Then, when Clary finally got to spend a little time with her best friend yesterday afternoon, their 'reunion' had ended up turning into an argument over Simon's insistence on sneaking around so that he could date two women at once.

Clary knew that she could be a little naïve and overly romantic, but still, she wasn't comfortable with what Simon was doing-it just felt dishonest. Not to mention that she could already imagine how bad things were going to go when the women inevitably found out what was going on. Like her, Simon was also pretty bad at keeping secrets.

"This isn't like one of the love triangles in your favorite book series, Clary," Simon had told her with a grin when Clary vaguely voiced her disapproval of what he was doing, his tone of voice sounding kind of patronizing, kind of condescending, which had instantly caused Clary to feel her first flashes of anger and hurt.

"I can't believe you just said!" she'd started yelling at him before he could finish explaining that 'the dating scene' was different in the city, that this is what everybody did, that dating was more of a casual thing at college...like he was now some kind of expert and Clary was still like a naïve little kid who learned about romance through reading fairy-tales.

She'd always thought that Simon understood her passion for love and relationships, even the fictional ones, but now it felt like he was trying to leave their days of sharing fictional worlds and 'ship names' and drawing fan art together behind.

Their argument had gradually got more heated, with Simon trying to insist that Clary was overreacting, and that maybe she was just a little tired from all her studying lately, which hadn't helped Clary to calm down. It had done just the opposite, and she'd been so tempted to yell something about how he had no idea how she was feeling lately, because he hadn't been around.

"I don't even know you anymore," Clary had told Simon sadly instead, just before she stormed out of his room, making sure to slam the door behind her.

She hadn't heard from him since.

Clary let out yet another sigh, trying to bring her thoughts back to the present. Even Magnus and Alec weren't enough to distract her from her more negative thoughts right now, which was kind of a shame, because they were being particularly adorable today.

They were sitting close together, and for the past couple of minutes, they'd been sharing a pastry that Magnus had bought for the two of them, with Alec even allowing Magnus to feed him now.

Magnus had just started to show Alec what looked like sketches of various clothes and accessories on a large piece of paper that he'd spread all over their table. Clary guessed that Magnus probably worked in something to do with fashion, because he kept talking about dressing clients for photo shoots as he pointed to each sketch (as well as throwing in a few flirty comments about 'undressing Alec' every couple of minutes, which made Alec blush).

As Magnus continued to talk about the latest designs and accessories, Clary leaned forward almost involuntarily in her seat; as miserable as she felt today, right now she really wished that she could see the sketches on Magnus's table. Any kind of artwork fascinated her, and she loved to see other people's interpretations on paper or on canvas.

She sat back quickly in her seat, reminding herself yet again that she didn't know Magnus or Alec and she'd probably look a little weird if she did something like walking slowly past their table so she could see Magnus's pictures.

"They're amazing," Alec told Magnus as he draped an arm almost casually over Magnus's shoulder, and Magnus smiled, looking pleased with himself.

As Magnus continued talking enthusiastically about fashion, Alec brushed his fingers against Magnus's chest, caressing the bare skin on display where Magnus had left the buttons of his shirt unfastened. Every now and again, Alec would also hook his fingers into the holes of Magnus's ripped jeans, almost like he really needed to touch the skin on Magnus's legs, too, like he needed to be in close physical contact with his boyfriend at all times.

The touches were almost unconscious, as Alec kept nodding along with Magnus as he spoke, looking serious as he offered the occasional comment and suggestion, like he wasn't even thinking about the physical affection anymore, like it just came naturally now.

Eventually, Clary managed a half-grin at their behaviour. There was something so…domestic about the two of them today, like they were totally in sync with one another as their relationship was developing. Clary could only imagine what that would be like, to be with someone who made you feel complete.

She sighed again, feeling strangely lonely. Suddenly needing someone to talk to about her fight with Simon, Clary took her phone out of the pocket of her jeans and dialled her mom's number.

Luke answered her mom's phone, sounding really enthusiastic about something. Forgetting for a moment about her problems, Clary couldn't resist asking him what he was so happy about.

He said something about heading to a work party tonight with her mom, and the event was taking place at a local art gallery. Her mom was apparently really excited about the venue, and she'd been searching for weeks for the perfect outfit, and now she was anxiously getting ready for the big event.

Clary suddenly realized that she couldn't burden her mother with her problems right now, not when her mom was clearly looking forward to a night at the art gallery with Luke. She knew her mom would only spend the night worrying if Clary started complaining about Simon over the phone.

As Clary put on what she hoped was an enthusiastic smile and quickly told Luke that she'd call her mom back tomorrow, Luke must have picked up on something in her tone of voice, because he interrupted her by saying, "No, Clary, it's cool, talk to your mom-I'll just go get her-"

"No, Luke, seriously, it's fine. I'm fine," Clary insisted, wondering how many times she'd lied and told people she was fine this semester. "You guys have a great night. I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?"

Before Luke could protest any further, Clary hung up the phone. She packed up all her stuff in her backpack as she prepared to leave. As adorable as Alec and Magnus were being today, right now, all she wanted was to head back to her dorm and just sleep all afternoon.

"You looked me right in the eye and lied to me!"

Clary jumped, startled, as she looked up from her latest sketch to look over at Alec and Magnus's table. She'd been sketching a picture of a large wave about to crash to the shore, and she was trying to decide where to go with the rest of the sketch. She'd decided that the wave looked a little too threatening to be used to depict some kind of romantic scene on a beach. She was kind of thinking about adding a couple of mermaids to the scene, maybe showing a doomed love between a mermaid and a human…

"Why are you making this personal?!"

Right now, however, she was completely distracted from her latest sketch by Magnus and Alec's argument.

She wasn't sure why she was so surprised by the fact that an argument had broken out between them-she'd already noticed when she arrived at The Half-Moon today that Magnus had looked a little irritated while he waited for Alec at their table, and Alec had also arrived looking tense. Still, she'd kind of hoped that she was only imagining things, that they'd work everything out before an argument started.

"This is about my family!" Alec was now yelling at Magnus.

"This is about us!" Magnus snapped back at him.

Clary quickly turned away from the two of them, almost wishing that she could cover her ears like a child. She hated arguments, and deep down she knew that it was because they reminded her of the arguments her parents had always had back when she was a kid.

Almost without thinking about it, Clary turned in her seat a little and looked over her shoulder, discreetly searching for Jace. As much as he usually irritated her, she almost wished that he were here right now-something about Jace's presence at The Half-Moon always made her feel a little calmer, with his smirks and his mocking laughter serving as a reminder that plenty of things could just be shrugged off or laughed at; that life didn't always have to be taken so seriously.

Unfortunately, a few of the attractive women who Jace typically flirted with seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because there was a group of them at the counter right now, asking Jace's fellow baristas and his boss where Jace was today.

Jace's boss simply shrugged, telling them that Jace had taken a day off today, muttering something about 'family stuff', and Clary rolled her eyes as the women let out obvious sighs of disappointment.

"So pathetic," Clary said out loud as she glanced in their direction again, not even caring if they heard her. She deliberately ignored the fact that she'd felt a similar pang of disappointment at Jace's boss's words.

"You know how much I care about this! You know how much I care about how you feel!"

Alec's words seemed to carry all over the coffee shop, and they snapped Clary out of her thoughts about Jace.

She took a few calming breaths, firmly telling herself that all couples argued, that this was just another form of communication in relationships, that relationships weren't always happy and perfect all the time.

Clary tried to distract herself from the argument by continuing with her sketch, but she couldn't focus on drawing right now. She knew that she could just sit and read instead-she had a new supernatural book series in her backpack about fallen angels that she'd picked up at a second-hand bookstore near campus, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to focus on reading when she could still hear the argument.

Eventually, Clary reached for her headphones. Simon had recently sent her a new song called War of Hearts that he was thinking of covering at his next gig, insisting in his message that she would love it.

Clary suspected that this was Simon's attempt at a peace offering after their argument, but she still wasn't ready to talk to him yet or to answer his calls or his messages.

Right now though, she was grateful for any kind of noise that would drown out Magnus and Alec's argument, so she opened up the link he'd sent her and listened to the music.

The song was beautiful, and Clary sat back in her seat for a couple minutes, taking the time to really listen to the lyrics as she drank her coffee. Simon was right; Clary loved the song already. After the song had finished, she used the Internet connection available at the coffee shop to search for other versions of War of Hearts, deciding that she wanted to hear different interpretations. As she listened to the acoustic version, Clary decided that this version was perfect. She almost started typing a message to Simon to tell him how much she liked it, but then she remembered all over again that she wasn't talking to Simon.

Clary was just listening to the song again when she noticed Magnus get up out of his seat and storm out of the coffee shop.

As Clary removed her headphones and stared across the room in shock, Magnus slammed the door behind him as he left.

Her eyes darted to Alec, who was now sitting alone at his table and running his hands through his hair, his expression a mix of anger and helplessness. Clary didn't know the details of the argument, but she couldn't help feeling sorry for him.

After a couple of minutes, Alec also got up from his table with a heavy sigh and left the coffee shop, with Clary watching him helplessly as he went, still holding her phone in her hand, like she hadn't been able to move since Magnus walked out.

As she thought about Magnus and Alec's argument, and her own argument with Simon, Clary started dialling the one number that she'd vowed she wasn't going to dial again for a long time; it was the number that she always called when she knew that all else had failed.

"Clarissa?"

Clary heard her full name being spoken the second he picked up the phone, his tone of voice sounding a little confused, a little impatient.

"Hey, Dad," Clary sighed.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd talked to him; she wasn't even sure if she'd seen him in person since she started college. She still felt his presence wherever she went in the city, however, as it wasn't unusual for her father's picture to appear on the front cover of magazines and journals focusing on business and finance in the city whenever Clary happened to be walking past various newsstands on the streets. Her dad was a pretty successful businessman, when he wasn't getting drunk and getting into arguments. He could be persuasive and charismatic, and a lot of his clients often fell for his charm.

"Clarissa, it really is great to hear from you," her dad continued before Clary could even ask him how he was doing; he paused their conversation for a moment so he could yell something to one of his colleagues about finding a financial record, then he started to yell something to one of his interns about bringing him coffee. "But I'm just heading to a very important business meeting right now. A bunch of new clients, a major financial deal in the works…you know how it is. Can I call you back later?"

"Uh…yeah, sure," Clary responded, trying to sound positive, upbeat. She wasn't sure why she was so disappointed by her dad's response, because it wasn't like she was surprised by it.

"I promise I'll call you back later, Clarissa," her dad insisted as he ended their call, still yelling at his interns the whole time.

Clary hung up the phone with a sigh. Already, she knew that he wouldn't call her back later.

Now feeling like she was completely out of options for people to talk to today, she put all her stuff in her backpack and got ready to leave.

As she headed back to her dorm to do something productive like studying, Clary hoped more than anything that Magnus and Alec would have resolved their argument by the time she headed to The Half-Moon again.

In the days that led up to her next visit to The Half-Moon, Clary told herself over and over that Magnus and Alec would work everything out; that their argument had just been the result of a bad day, that it was nothing serious, that they'd be back to laughing and joking and flirting again by next Friday.

She couldn't believe how invested she'd become in this relationship already; how much she believed in their love; how genuinely anxious it made her feel at the thought of Magnus or Alec being upset.

She'd almost convinced herself that everything would be okay between them as she approached the door to The Half-Moon a week later, but she felt her new-found sense of hope flicker and die out a little as she caught sight of Magnus through the large front window of the coffee shop, sitting alone at his and Alec's table and looking pretty upset.

Feeling nervous now, Clary went through the door and walked down the couple of steps and past Magnus's table at an extra slow pace.

She could see that Magnus was on his phone now, and he kept saying the name Catarina, so Clary assumed that this was who he was talking to. From what she could remember of Magnus and Alec's past conversations, she was pretty sure that Catarina was a friend of Magnus's.

Suddenly, Magnus sighed and muttered something to Catarina about his recent break up with Alec.

Clary froze on the spot, her eyes widening in shock.

No, no, no… she kept repeating over and over in her head, like this would make it not true, somehow.

Surely it wasn't true, though? Magnus and Alec were in love; they were perfect for each other. They couldn't have broken up...

Almost in a daze, Clary forced herself to keep moving. She headed to her table and sat down, feeling like her movements were happening in slow motion.

Clary tried to do something, anything, but she couldn't think, couldn't focus; she couldn't bear to look over at Magnus, who was now looking so devastated as he sat alone at his table, looking out the window every few seconds, like he almost hoped that Alec would show up, but he knew deep down that this wouldn't happen. Not now. Not today.

Suddenly, Clary knew that she had to leave. She couldn't be here today, she couldn't deal with this.

Less than five minutes after she'd arrived, Clary was already heading out the door. As soon as she stepped outside, she noticed that Jace was there, leaning almost casually against the outside wall with his arms folded. She guessed that he must have just arrived to start his shift, because he was still wearing his leather jacket, and his body language suggested that he was attempting to hang around outside for as long as possible before he had to go inside and start doing any actual work.

Clary stopped and stared at him, still feeling a little dazed.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked her as a flicker of what looked like real concern crossed his face.

"Malec broke up."

The words were out of Clary's mouth before she could even think about what she was saying. She cringed internally as she realized that she'd just said the word 'Malec' out loud in front of Jace, instead of using Magnus and Alec's full names. Like Jace didn't think that she was weird enough already.

Jace stared at her for a couple seconds, like he was thinking about what to say, like he was working her out, like he wanted to say something.

"Malec broke up." He eventually repeated the words back to her with a nod and a sigh, and Clary could also detect a little sadness of his own in his words, although she had no idea why Jace would have any reason to be upset about the break up of two of his regular customers.

However, something about Jace's words served as a confirmation to Clary-they made what had happened between Magnus and Alec true, heartbreakingly real, and Clary was hit with what felt like a wave of sadness.

Clary felt something wet trickling down her cheek. She blinked quickly in confusion, feeling something wet on her other cheek, too. It actually took her a few seconds before she realized that she was crying.

Feeling completely mortified, Clary quickly tried to brush the tears away. She knew that Jace already laughed at her for being overly invested in Magnus and Alec's relationship, and she didn't want to look like even more of an idiot for crying. Besides, she'd only ever allowed her mom, Simon and Luke to see her cry before.

But her attempts to stop crying only made Clary cry even harder. She suddenly felt like she had been trying to hold these tears back for weeks and she couldn't stop them now that they had started.

For his part, Jace was standing and staring at her with wide eyes, looking pretty terrified. Clary guessed that he wasn't used to seeing women break down in tears in front of him.

"Hey," he muttered after a few seconds of silence, his tone of voice now sounding soft, protective almost, all hints of sneers and smirks completely wiped from his face.

He moved towards her slowly, looking really uncertain, before he opened his arms out to her, his movements a little awkward.

As he pulled her awkwardly towards him, wrapping his arms around her, Clary could tell that Jace didn't really do this a lot-she could sense that he wasn't much of a hugger in his everyday life.

For a moment, Clary wanted to step back, tell him that she was fine, shrug it all off, push him away, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She already felt too upset, and she knew that if she pushed him away now, there would be no one else who would comfort her today.

As she continued to sob, Clary knew that she wasn't just crying over Magnus and Alec's break up: she was crying because her and Simon still weren't talking, and she missed him, even though she was still mad at him; she was crying because she missed spending time with her mom, missed the weekends they'd spent at the apartment, watching old movies and completing their paintings and sketches together; she was crying because she didn't fit in with her fellow college students who had easily fallen into a 'young adult' life of partying and dating; she was crying because her dad still hadn't called her back.

As Jace held her a little tighter, Clary was hit by the sudden realization that it felt kind of nice, being this close to Jace, in spite of the unfortunate circumstances. His well-toned arms felt strong, protective, and he smelled really good-his scent was clean, fresh, almost like soap in a weird, surprising way-or flowers, maybe, even though Clary knew that it was a little crazy that she was thinking about how good Jace smelled right now, especially when he usually annoyed her so much every time she encountered him inside the coffee shop.

The thought of how good it felt to be held in Jace's arms only made her cry even harder on his shoulder.