Notes: Almost to a hundred—thank you for the reviews! I'm half addicted to writing this c:

There are mentions of Jace's father in this chapter (he's an original character, but also based off of Valentine). He's (if I may be so blunt) a complete, life-ruining asshole, so don't be too excited for Jace's 'loving' father being introduced.

Disclaimer: I do not own "The Mortal Instruments", or any other brands/franchises mentioned that are already in existence (there's one mention of a Patagonia jacket, but that's only because they have suitable jackets for winter, and I'm going through a phase of their clothing).

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When Clary's green eyes opened for the first time that morning, they were immediately pushed shut by the pain of the light streaming through the open windows. The shock of the light roused her slightly, but she was still too tired to do anything but moan, shut her eyes tightly, and burry her face into the pillow. Something about the lights confused her—she had closed the blinds that night, and was fairly sure that they would not open by themselves.

A paranoid thought of the killer being in her room spiked through her mind, and she choked against her pillow. She spiked herself upwards, but her jerking motion caused her to ram into a body close to hers, and this time she did scream. Her quiet scream was paused by an annoyed growl, and someone placed their hand over her mouth and pressed her back down against the bed in some idiotic attempt to quiet her. She buckled upwards against the hand, the tangled fan of scarlet hair over her face shielding her from seeing exactly who her attacker was.

"Do you shriek after waking up every morning, or only on Wednesdays?" Even if the voice hadn't familiar, she would have recognized who it was by the sarcasm packed into the sentence, and the obvious annoyance over something that was completely his fault (or what Clary pegged to be his fault).

"Do you wake every girl up by throwing open their blinds, gagging them, and throwing them down on their bed, or only redheads?" She shot back, pulling herself away from him. She ran her pale hands through her flaming hair, her fingers only making it two inches into her hair before getting caught in a cluster of sleep-ridden tangles.

"Clearly, you've never been gagged before. Usually, gently placing a hand to the mouth of an unreasonably screaming girl to quiet her is called logic, not gagging and 'throwing down on the bed'. I've thrown plenty of women down on beds, and that's most usually not the procedure." Clary scowled.

"It's too early in the morning for this. Why are you here, anyways?" Clary slid off of her bed, grabbing a toothbrush and plastering it with the paste—the brand she detested—and running it through her mouth. She sat in a position on the bathroom counter that she could see Jace in, a small frown still covering her face. He promised that he wouldn't watch me sleep, she thought to herself.

"Watching you sleep," His comment mirrored her thoughts, and she gave him an alarmed look. "Come on, Clarissa. Don't think so lowly of me. I'm here because I thought it would be best to usher you around this old-folk home, and help you practice playing the part of my girlfriend."

Clary raised her eyebrows silently, not removing the toothbrush from her mouth so that he would be forced to elaborate. He laid back on her bed, closing his golden eyes and propping his hands behind his head in a way that made him more alluring. It was annoying—he was already too attractive for his own good, and anything he did to emphasize his physical features (in this case his muscled arms) was good as a crime.

"Do you want our new neighbors to think we spent the first day together as a couple locked inside all day, having sex on just about every surface?" This made Clary spit her toothpaste out into the sink, and she treated him with a stone glare that made him laugh.

"There's more people than you believe who refrain from thinking of sex at every waking—and sleeping—moment of each day." Clary said coldly, but a hot blush still flared on her cheeks. The redness in her cheeks made it a bit more difficult to glare at him, and she could see him trying to keep himself from laughing at her again.

"The average person thinks of sex eighteen time every second. Or something like that." Jace said dismissively.

"I think once every eighteen seconds is the more reasonable theory." Clary stated, and Jace scoffed. He rolled his eyes—he obviously detested being wrong—and the redhead tried not to laugh.

Clary stepped out of the bathroom, scanning the room with bright eyes before letting them settle on a pile of casual clothes, still in the boxes. She reached into the boxes for a few moments before pulling away underwear, jeans, a thin top, and a Patagonia jacket.

"The bathroom is pretty far away, Clary. If you want, you can change here—I won't mind." Clary pulled a dense sweater out of the bag and whipped it at his head, his duck causing it to only skim his wavy hair.

"I think I'm all right," Clary shut the bathroom door and locked it, stripping down quickly, "So where are you taking me?"

Jace chuckled, not moving from his lying position on her bed. The sheets smelled too clean—Jocelyn had obviously cleaned them the day before—and he wrinkled his nose, wondering how anyone could sleep with the pungent smell of soap irritating their nose. His eyes wandered to the closed door that he knew Clary was changing behind, unwanted thoughts flickering past his mind of Clary with her long legs and wide eyes. Gritting his teeth, he turned his head away from the bathroom—the thoughts were distracting, and with a man trying to kill Clary, the last thing he wanted was to be distracted by thoughts of sleeping with her.

"I don't know. Ask Alec." Jace said, his voice harder than it was before. He knew that he most likely seemed bipolar—amused one moment, glaring at the ceiling the next—but his emotions always got the better of him, and that fact only brought angry emotions at the emotions for being present. It was a strange, twisted complex—he had been taught that emotions were weakness, and the only emotion a man should have was anger.

Anger—though present in him almost constantly—was one of the emotions that he hated the most. Anger made him blind, and the rage made him feel like some sort of animal.

When he was livid, he was unable to think—his mind often clouded with rage, and when he was set off, there was little stopping him from knocking a man's teeth out. The uncontrollable anger did not occur often, but when it came, it only reminded him of his father, and the thought of being anything alike to his bastard of a father made him want to punch a hole through the wall.

Just as the images of his father and his belt started in Jace's mind, the door opened, and Jace welcomed the distraction of the redheaded girl with open arms. Distractions were nice—they helped him push his demons away for a moment.

"Are you all right?" Clary asked.

"I'm fine." Jace's voice was hard, and Clary took a few steps closer—she was like a moth drawn to the angry flame in his eyes. She knew that when a person spoke in that way, it was best to simply back away, but she could not do that—maybe it was idiocy, maybe kindness, but she wasn't the type of person to back away from someone in such a state.

"Jace, I—"

"I'm fine, Clary." Jace's voice was dangerous, his tone low. He took a step away from her—he didn't trust himself in a mood like that, and was terrified of striking her in blind rage—and found himself running into her bed. He felt trapped—cornered—he was unable to move closer for fear of taking out his rage on the easiest subject, and was unable to move further away with the obstacle of the bed.

"You said that already." Clary again moved closer, and Jace couldn't help but think that she was half mad—if not, simply an idiot—for moving closer. To him, any sane person would leave him alone.

"Get away from me, Clary." Jace said, his voice dangerous, but a cautious undertone was embedded in the lethal words. His gold eyes flashed once, but she didn't move away—instead, she tilted her head up to look him squarely in the eyes, her face softening with something. What? Sympathy? He growled, his eyes narrowing, "Move, Clary."

"I'm not scared of you, Jace." Her voice was softer than had been before, and it made him want to tear his hair out—she was talking to him as though he wasn't a grenade about to explode. He grit his teeth—he did not want her to be caught in the aftermath of the explosion—and let his eyes dart around her, looking for an escape."

"I'm not fucking around, Clary." Jace's gaze wavered for a moment, and he tried to control his breathing in some way, but it was difficult to calm himself down when she was so close to him. He was afraid, and the fear of hurting her turned into anger over his father, a father who made him into something of a beast, unable to control even simple emotions.

The moment his father crossed his mind, he snapped, "I don't need you to treat me like I'm a child, Clarissa. I'm a grown man. It's my job to protect you from a bullet, but it sure as hell isn't your job to treat me as though I'm not a grenade." His voice was cold and low, cracking through the thin air like a whip, but there was some undertone of sadness in his voice.

And Clary understood.

He was afraid of letting people come close to him because something happened to him, something that terrified him of people he trusted and something that made him (as he so gently put it) a grenade. Her mind was whirring to life, but she didn't have a chance to call out to him, and tell him what was floating around the walls of her mind—he had already pushed past her, slamming the door behind him and leaving Clary in a daze.

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"Jace?"

Jace was sitting on the couch, staring intently at a plain wall, and drowning in his unspoken thoughts. He felt as though he was being pushed down into a pool, and every time he reached up for air, he was slammed back down into the water to drown again. He couldn't breathe—all he could think of was a mixture of his father and Clary, and why he had been so afraid to hurt her, or why the thought of taking out his misplaced anger on her even crossed his mind.

The voice came in the midst of his drowning, and it took him a long few moments to look up to find Alec watching him, some concern in his crystal eyes. Jace glared at his friend as he approached, "I'm not in the mood for a chat, Alec."

"Too bad. You're talking." The words were surprisingly firm for Alec, and the alien tone in Alec's voice was enough to convince Jace to stay seated. Alec sat down, some interrogation fresh in his eyes, and Jace regretted his decision to stay before the first scolding passed Alec's lips. "You look like you're guilty."

"Guilty?" Jace repeated, shaking his head no. "Guilty of what? If I didn't do anything wrong, then I have nothing to feel guilt for."

"Then you're guilty about your thoughts. What you could have done. What you wanted to do." By the look on Alec's face, it was obvious that he didn't know what he was getting at. "What you were capable of doing."

"And what, Alexander, do you believe that I am capable of doing? What did I want to do? What could I have done?" Jace questioned back, a sly smile crawling onto his lips when he saw Alec's pondering look. Believing that it was enough to distract Alec, he stood up, but was immediately tugged down by Alec.

"What the hell happened, Jace? Little Red looks like she just ate a sour lemon, and you're glaring at the wall as though the paint just choked your father." Isabelle walked in, draping her long legs over the arms of a parallel chair. Jace's face twisted into a scowl at the mention of the word 'father', and Isabelle winced, knowing she had struck a cord in Jace that was best left alone.

"Is this about him?" Isabelle asked bluntly, watching Jace's face twist. Alec winced, shifting away from Jace as though expecting him to explode at the brief mention of the man who raised Jace.

"Who is 'him'? Jesus Christ? Yes, Izzy. This is about Jesus. The goddamned reason that I nearly punched a defenseless girl in the face is because I was mad at myself for forgetting to pray this morning. Ah, damn. Now He won't reincarnate me into a flower." Jace said in a hard tone, not quite caring that he was blending his religions with reincarnation.

"Don't play stupid, Jonathan." Isabelle snapped. When she was annoyed with the man, she often slid back into her old habit of calling him Jonathan, something that made him scowl. "You don't think I'm talking about Jesus—you know damn well I'm talking about your dad."

"And you know," Jace hissed, his golden eyes narrowing, "That I'm not in the mood to talk about him. If you want a nice conversation about the jackass, come and talk to me the day that a bullet is put through his skull."

"You haven't seen him in five years, Jace. There's a good chance that you never will again, so stop wasting your time thinking about an asshole who isn't worth your time and try to work on controlling your anger." Isabelle snapped, her syrup eyes narrowed. Her position was still the same as before, but she looked ready to stand up and hit some sense into Jace.

"Oh, I apologize, Isabelle. You're right. I mean, if I had a constant reminder of him—something like a scar on my goddamned lip from his belt—my hatred would be justified, but I suppose I'm just being petty." Isabelle's eyes flickered to Jace's lower lip, straining to see the white scar—she had seen it before, but assumed it was from FBI training—and swallowed back her second argument.

"What if the odds are against you, and you run into Duncan again?" Alec said, deciding it best to not refer to Duncan as Jace's father.

"I'm not a child, Alec. I'm not scared that he's going to hit me—I'm stronger now. I'd be able to fight him off now, and he knows that I'm a grown man." Jace stood up, not wanting to hear Alec's and Isabelle's words turn into some form of sympathy. He didn't want an apology from them—they were not the ones that turned him into a beast, not the ones that hit him every night, not the ones that liked to use their belts as weapons—and he didn't need them to say they were sorry for a crime they did not commit.

After a few minutes of recollecting and wandering the house, Jace led Clary out of the house. He told her shortly that he wanted to talk to her, and familiarize the both of them to Portsmouth. She was confused by the sudden change in his mood, but obliged, and later found herself sitting in the passenger seat of his car. They were blanketed in silence.

"How did you meet Isabelle?" Clary asked. They had been driving in silence for ten minutes, and though she had been aching to break the silence, she hadn't been expecting to so blatantly ask him about the vixen.

"School," Jace said simply, switching lanes too quickly. Clary was slammed back against the seat, and she treated him with a glare. "Sorry. The driver in front of us is drunk—look closely at the way he swerves."

Clary strained her eyes to see, but even then, it was hard to tell that the driver was intoxicated, "How did you notice that? Or, just . . . everything like that?" He gave her a curious look, "The little things."

Jace laughed, "The little things?" He repeated, then shrugged his shoulders. "It's just something I've picked up over time. I've learned how to do it—if you aren't observant in this line of work, you're dead. Harsh, but true." Clary nodded slightly, leaning back against the car seat.

"Your car isn't very comfortable—I feel like I'm sitting at an acute angle." She said, using her lessons in angle measures for the only thing that she thought geometry to be useful for (metaphors). Jace simply pressed an obviously placed button down, adjusting the seat so that she was now leaning much too far back. She frowned, "That's very helpful."

"Alec usually sits there. He likes to be alert while I'm driving—you know, so someone doesn't crash into us or grabs a gun and shoot at us."

"You're kidding." Jace deadpanned, and Clary raised an eyebrow. "Is getting shot at a daily thing for you, or are you both overly cautious about every aspect of your life?"

"A little bit of both." Jace decided, switching lanes to exit the main road. He was quiet for a moment as he drove into the parking lot of a small mall—much smaller than they were in new York—before continuing to speak, "I've been shot at while driving before, so it would not be so much of a surprise if it happens again. And even if the scenario never again occurs, it's always better to be prepared than dead."

The car stopped without so much as a jolt—something Clary had tried so hard at perfecting, always failing—and Jace slipped out of the car, crossing over to her side. He opened the door in a gentlemanly fashion she did not expect, and waited as she stepped out of the car, trying not to trip over the door on her way out. "Where are we?"

Jace shut the door behind her and locked it. "We're getting burgers at somewhere my phone told me was the best fast food place in Portsmouth. But, this town is a quarter of a mile wide and chock full of elderly people, so I wouldn't trust that rating too much." Clary laughed at his stereotype, walking after him as he led her to the burger place. She contemplated lying to him and saying she was a vegetarian just to annoy for a moment, but was too hungry to stall him for even a moment.

The burger place was called The Cowboy Beef, a title that made Jace laugh and Clary wrinkle her nose. Before even walking in, she had a bad feeling about The Cowboy Beef, but kept her judgment to herself.

ace didn't bother asking Clary what she wanted—the menu consisted of nearly identical meals with different condiments and names—and told her to find a booth with no screaming kids nearby. Clary did as told, and they ended up sitting down by two seats that were much too close to the restroom—the smell wasn't too pungent, but staring at a bathroom was not the way she wanted to start off her first meal in Rhode Island.

"Here we have it," Jace said grandly, "The best burgers in Portsmouth. Savor this moment—you may never eat at the best burger place in a new town again." Clary rolled her eyes, and he slid her a cardboard tray with a thick burger and fries mixed in it. She worked at plucking the fries out of her burger—the cheese had woven them into the meal itself—while Jace began to eat, finishing half his meal before Clary could finish cleaning hers.

They ate without much speaking—Clary was still curious as to his previous outburst, and Jace was still trying to avoid the topic—and had to edge their way around meaningless small talk. They were saved by Jace's phone ringing, and he picked it up gratefully.

"Miss me already, Alec? I have to say—" Jace was interrupted by a confused Alec on the other end, speaking in a way that was almost frantic that made Jace's stomach turn.

"Come to the house, now. There's—there's a note for Clary."


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Secondary Notes: There you have it: a cliffhanger, and the reveal that Jace had an abusive father (who is the reason Jace left home for military school).

And to answer a few questions, I have no updating schedule—I write when I have the time, read it over or get a beta, and submit it after school is done that day (three pm pacific time)

Question of the day:

What is your favorite book (not including series)? I love The Fault In Our Stars by John Green and a million others that I'm blanking on (TFIOS came to mind because it's on my table)

feed the review box below ;3