Enjoy! Obvious things aren't mine. Thanks for the reviews, keep 'em coming.
Upon awakening the next morning, Clary was greeted with set of familiar feelings.
Pounding headache.
Dry mouth.
Churning stomach.
Spinning world.
It was twice as bad as it had ever been when she was on the drugs - before she could even begin to recall the events of the previous night she felt bile rise in her throat. She stood up and tried to run to the bathroom, but she was still wearing perilously high heels from the previous night. That, combined with the sudden increase of dizziness, Clary's feet hooked together and she fell, her torso and head landing in the hallway, her feet and the death traps that were attached to them still in her bedroom. Ignoring the pain that had shot through her wrist as she landed, Clary crawled the short distance from there to her bathroom, using all of the willpower she had to not vomit. Her whole body was shaking by the time she reached the porcelain of the toilet, her clothes from last night sticking to her, a sheen of sweat visible on her forehead. Her arms grasped the sides of the bowl as she heaved, acrid yellow bile coming up from her stomach, it's stench permeating the room, making Clary retch again and again. Before long, she gave up trying to keep her hair out of her face, letting it hang where it liked as she emptied the seemingly never-ending contents of her stomach.
After two final dry heaves, Clary collapsed onto the cold tiles of the bathroom, with barely enough energy to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. As sick as she felt, she could remember everything from last night - for once there were no holes in her memory, only the ones that had already existed last night. She couldn't recall exact words or expressions, but the summary of last night was clear in her head. She remembered coming home last night, insisting that she was okay while choosing to enter her house from the door in the courtyard that led to her room for some unfathomable drunk reason, collapsing on her bed as the room spun, to drunk to change or even take her shoes off. She took advantage of the cessation of puking by kicking her shoes off.
But for the moment, the needs of her body came before she could even try to make sense of the events from last night. Clary tried to remember what you could do to help with hangovers.
Water, she thought. With deliberate slowness, she turned herself so that she was laying by the sink, used the ledge to pull herself up just so her eyes could peer over the edge. She had to stay there for a few moments as she waited for the world to stop spinning so vigorously. With deliberate slowness, she reached for the glass by the sink and turned the water on. Even kneeling and leaning against the sink she was unsteady as the glass filled with water, her arm shaking as it held the glass at an awkward angle underneath the water. Her wrist ached from earlier. When she finished filling the glass, she half fell onto the floor, splashing water over her skirt. She leaned against the cupboards underneath the sink, taking tiny sips of water, concentrating on getting fluid into her system, and making sure that she wasn't going to puke again.
The events of last night were hazy, but she kept thinking back to the final moments that she'd been at the party, the golden-eyes boy and his companions. He had called her Clary, which must have meant that he had known her in New York - but why couldn't she remember him? He cared about her, enough to be furious when the other boy had tried to take advantage of her. She regretted getting so angry at the boy who had punched him for calling her Clary - if it hadn't been for him, she would probably be in a very different situation this morning. Her heart ached every time she remembered his face when she'd spat at him - she didn't know why exactly, but it just seemed like a crime to hurt someone so badly. Beautiful faces always seemed to be the best at expressing pain, she mused as her head continued to pound.
She was halfway done her glass of water when the room finally stopped spinning enough for her to turn around and grab some painkillers from underneath the sink, swallowing the with a large gulp of water that sat uncomfortably in her stomach. As the pounding in Clary's head started to fade, she noticed her clumped and matted hair, how sweat from last night's party had created a sticky sheen over her skin. In general, she just felt disgusting, especially her mouth. She didn't think she was quite up to tasting toothpaste, but Clary crawled into the shower, not even caring that she was fully clothed. She turned the water on from a sitting position, and let it soak her and her clothes. It was odd, taking a shower in the near-dark of the bathroom, the dim light in the hallway that came in through the open door was the only source illuminating the room.
Her shirt was stubbornly stuck to her body, the water plastering it to her skin so thoroughly each of her ribs were defined. Clary soon gave up the struggle and peeled her skirt off, chucking it to the other end of the shower, out of the way. Clary gave up showering when she saw her shampoo bottles up above her on the shelf. She turned off the water and began shivering almost immediately, the loss of heat a shock. She crawled out of the bathtub just like she'd come in, pulling a towel around herself. Her headache and dizziness were almost gone now, though her stomach still rolled at the thought of food. Clary stood on her knees and she grabbed her toothbrush and toothpaste. She brushed her tetth probably longer than she had ever had, but whenever she thought of stopping she remembered the feeling of the slime on them when she had begun, the bitter taste of bile that had still roamed in her mouth. She brushed her tongue for good measure.
Now that she was feeling relatively human again, Clary stood up, leaning against the wall on the way back to her room. She wanted to think more about the events of last night, but she knew she had to take care of herself first, and in her current state she could only focus on one thing at a time. She shed the rest of her party clothes, pulled on sweat pants and an old tank top, tied her hair up. By now the sickness had receded to it was less than it usually was she she first awoke, after taking her medication. She guessed she'd been up for an hour and a half or so, when she included all the puking and moaning about on her bathroom floor like an invalid. Clary cautiously descended downstairs, filling the kettle and putting it on the stove before turning on the artificial fireplace underneath the T.V. and grabbing a blanket to wrap around herself - she was freezing. As Clary went to choose which type of tea, she spotted her bottles of the pills in the middle of the counter, daring her to take them. As sick as she had felt that morning, Clary sensed that it didn't have anything to do with her neglecting to take the pills - she had a stereotypical hangover, nothing more. Maybe if she talked to her mother about it, showed her that she didn't need the pills, she wouldn't have to take them anymore, suffer the horrible side effects.
Now that Clary could focus past her various aliments, she felt deeply unsettled. Who were those people last night? She recalled the familiarity in the girl's voice, Isabelle, the one who had spilled her drink onto Clary. There was something about her manner, some unsaid expectation of Clary that she obviously had not met. She only had one name to go on - Isabelle, and even in this city which was a fraction of the size of New York, Clary knew finding them would be close to impossible. Nobody at the party had known who they were either, it seemed. Clary just felt that they would be able to tell her why she felt sick all the time, why she could never remember anything. They seemed like people with answers, which was what Clary desired.
Clary wanted to deny it, but she felt an undeniable pull towards to blonde boy, an ache in her chest to see him again, be close to him. That feeling, more than any other, scared her and she tried to ignore it. What she also couldn't understand was how she could forget a face so beautiful. She was so lost in these thoughts, she jumped when the kettle began to whistle on the stove. She left the blanket on the couch behind her as she walked to the kitchen. She tore open the small paper sachet containing the tea, pulling the bag out with one hand while reaching for a mug in the cupboard above her. The bag was stubbornly remaining in it's bag, taking up Clary's attention while she blindly reached for a mug with her right hand. Out of the corner of her eye, Clary saw a black mark on the back of her right hand. She pulled the hand back in front of her, her had clipping the cupboard door which caused her to lose her grip on her mug. A cacophonous sound was produced as it smashed to the floor, but Clary, barely flinched, transfixed by the eye-shaped tattoo on the back on her right hand that had not been there a second ago. She touched it cautiously, but it did not smudge. It was different than a typical tattoo, too, the black of the mark a true black, showing no signs of fading. Nor did it look brand new either.
A sudden inspiration came to Clary, the sort she hadn't felt for months. It was if someone had just dumped a buck of cold water on her, something coming to her mind with icy clarity. She had a tenuous hold on an image in her mind that she needed to get down on paper before it slipped away. Clary dashed upstairs, not even caring that she was trailing blood on the carpet from where the a mug shard had cut her foot. She couldn't feel the pain, even. Adrenaline coursed through her as she grabbed a box from the top shelf of her closet, where she'd shoved all of her old art supplies once she'd discovered that after the accident she no longer felt like drawing.
Surprising herself, Clary chose a long, thin piece of charcoal to use on the first sketchbook with an empty page she found. She only paused for a moment when she noticed that the design on her right hand had disappeared. Her hand seemed to move on it's own, drawing swirling lines in the same style of the one on her hand. The lines she drew all met in the middle of the page, weaving in an out of each other. Some lines where just little wisps, while others were large and bold. Despite her frantic movements, the lines came out sharp and crisp, the charcoal only smudging in the slightest.
Once she was finished, Clary held the drawing out in front of her as she sat cross legged in the middle of her bedroom, blood trickling down from the cut in her foot. She stared at it, and the symbol seemed to shout it's meaning at her.
Remember, it seemed to say.
It was like waking up from a dream.
She remembered everything.
It was as if her life in Vancouver had been a dream within a dream, that now she was in a world where there were angels, demons, vampires and werewolves. But she had surprisingly little doubt in her that her reality as she remembered it now was real - it was too vivid not to be. It fit in perfectly, those months she had supposedly been in a coma - it was during those months that she discovered she was a Shadowhunter.
The last night she had previously remembered spending with Simon, at Pandemonium, she could remember more of it - the girl and two boys who had killed the blue-haired boy, the ones that no one else but her could see.
It felt like she'd suddenly awoken after going to sleep after going to see Jace for the first time since she stabbed him through the heart with a sword at the Institute. It was normal, that she was a Shadowhunter, that Simon was a vampire.
How could I forget stabbing Jace through the heart with a sword? How could I forget Jace? she thought, and then it hit her like a train, the absence of Jace. It ebbed through her, a slow, steady ache.
He must be going crazy, trying to find me, Clary thought. Which led to other thoughts. Why were those memories being hidden from her for the past few months? What did the pills have to do with it? Was her mother just as clueless had she had been?
Clary thought back to her mother's overprotective behavior for the past few months, and with a sinking feeling in her stomach she knew that her mother had somehow been involved with this. She had taken Clary's memories away from her once - what was preventing her from doing it again.
The pieces of Clary's fake mundane life and her Shadowhunter life lined up quickly after that. Terror rolled through her when she thought back to the coffee shop - Sebastian knows I'm here. Why hasn't he taken me? Clary could not fathom why he'd let her be, as clueless and defenseless as she was. She might have panicked even more, if she hadn't recalled the previous night. Nobody but Jace would have burned down the world to dig her out of the ashes like her probably would have had to do to find her. She knew that once Jace had found her, he would not have strayed far from her. At least, she hoped, even after what she'd said to him last night. She wanted to hit herself for being so stupid, not remembering earlier.
Clary, who had been frozen in place while the thoughts raced through her head as she stared at the rune, reached over to her phone to dial a very familiar number, long distance be could see her Sight rune on the back of her hand, as well as the few permanent Marks she'd collected that swirled up her arm.
Of course her phone would be dead. Swearing, she plugged her phone into the charger. It would be at least ten minutes before she could use it. Still ignoring her bleeding foot, Clary ran downstairs back to the kitchen, carefully picking her way through the ceramic shards until she got to her knife block on the counter. She pulled each knife out. They weren't Seraph blades, but Clary would have to make do with them. She felt naked, without any daggers or a stele to defend herself with if Sebastian came for her. Which could be at any moment. Clary chose a long, thin boning knife and a short pairing knife to defend herself with, if it came to that. She slid the pairing knife into her bra - a little trick she'd learned from Isabelle and held the boning knife in her hand as she went back upstairs.
She could get answers to all of her questions later, the ones about her mother, her disappearance, Sebastian. What she needed now was to be safe, and she knew Sebastian was more than capable of snatching her away from here. She knew she would be safest with Jace, Alec, and Isabelle and whoever else they were working with to find her. There was no point is rushing out into the city to find them, either, if Sebastian was watching her, he would just know that something was wrong - Clary remembered seeing him in her courtyard Thursday night - it would be easy enough for him to have her townhouse watched constantly.
She wondered if Simon had come to look for her as well. His absence from the party last night unsettled her. Had something happened to Simon? He didn't have the Mark of Cain to protect him anymore, a thought that caused Clary's stomach to drop.
Questions later, Clary reminded herself, checking her phone to see if it was alive (it wasn't) before heading to her mother's bedroom. She knew it was going to be a long shot, but she had to at least look for her mother's stele. Clary didn't let go of the knife as she rifled through her's mother's drawers, but Clary could find anything of Nephilim origin.
Clary heard her phone beep from the other room. She sprinted to her room, picked up the phone off her desk with shaking hands. She dialed the familiar number, held the phone up to her ear.
"Damn it," she swore again when she realized she'd forgotten to add the '1' for a long distance call. She made the necessary correction and held the phone up again as it rang.
The phone rang twice before it was picked up.
"Hello?" Jace asked from the other end, his voice an immediate comfort to Clary. She felt less afraid, more sure of herself now that she had a way to talk to Jace.
"Hello?" Jace said again, impatient, raising his voice so loud it seemed to echo through the phone. Clary had been temporarily lost in the swell of emotions she was feeling, was suddenly ripped out of her reverie by the sudden improvement in call quality.
"It's Clary," she said, hoping those two words would be explanation enough. The line went dead. Through her open window, she heard the sound of a phone being flipped shut.
The door leading in from outside beside her swung open and Clary dropped her phone, whirled around, bending her knees and holding out her knife in anticipation of an attack. She was in full Shadowhunter mode, her senses inhuman. But the person before her made her breath catch, every thought racing through her head suddenly silenced.
I swear on the Angel I didn't intend to end things there, but unfortunately life has been crazy lately and this is all I had ready before I go on vacation. I really didn't intend for it to be so much of a monologue, but unfortunately this seemed like the best place to spilt the chapter in half. I promise it'll be pretty much nothing but character interaction for the next few chapters. School starts soon and things will get crazier from there, but I promise I won't abandon this story. Thanks for the lovely reviews, I appreciate them quite a bit.
