Thank you for the reviews. We're two away from seventy, crazy!

I think, think- that I may write one more Mortal Instruments fic. It'll ship Jace and Clary, but that's all I know. I'm still trying to think up some original plot that isn't clichéd or overdone, much like this one. I didn't think it'd be so hard to think of something so my own.

But. Review, and I'll get the next chapter up as soon as I have it.

(:


"Would it kill you to make an effort?" Clary hissed, once she'd hauled Jace halfway across the field. She glared up at him, her hand pressed to her brow to shield her squinting eyes from the sunlight. "And if you argue that you are I swear I'll hit you."

"I'm trying," Jace whined, flinching away from Clary's open palm. "It's just harder than I thought. He's a nerd and we've got nothing in common."

"You and I don't have anything in common. We get along fine. . . ish."

He sighed, and raised his hand to scratch the back of his neck. "We have a kid in common. I have to get along with you."

"And you have to get along with Simon," Clary said. "You promised me you would, so try harder."

Jace glanced back at the gazebo and met Simon's anxious gaze. He lifted a brow and the boy promptly turned away, busying himself with his kid- an olive skinned, almond eyed girl that wouldn't shut up, and his partner.

Jace hadn't found the partnerso bad, considering her boyfriend hosted the Stoner Society every Friday in the back of his stolen van. They'd met briefly once- the boyfriend and Jace, but neither had said anything more than 'hello' and 'want a spliff?'

In any case, glassy-eyed teenagers were much better suited to Jace than spectacle-eyed teenagers, which found Jace back at his own internal dilemma: rub shoulders with Simon and risk death by boredom, or flick grapes at his forehead and risk two days' worth of Clary's custody threats.

It was a lose-lose situation.

"OK," he said, with another sigh. "I'll try harder. I'll hold back on the rude comments etcetera, etcetera."

"Great," Clary said. "Thank you."


"So what's his name?" Simon questioned, his words a little too sharp and his hands wandering a little too much for Jace's liking. As if Simon's obvious distaste for his and Clary's kid wasn't offensive enough, his obvious skin to skin contact with Jace's partner was. What bothered Jace even more, however, was that Clary didn't rebuff the nerd once. She was practically exampling inappropriate PDA to their kid.

"Clary mentioned a few last night," he said, his eyes glaring at Simon's thigh-touching palm beneath drawn brows, "but we haven't decided yet."

Simon's brows pulled together, much like his own. He glanced over at Clary, frowning.

"Last night?"

Clary was quick to switch conversation, answering her friend before Jace could even open his mouth and leaving Maia blinking and halfway through her sentence.

"I left the bottle at Jace's," she said, not quite looking at Simon. The nerd lifted his hand off of her leg, but Clary caught it in her own before Jace could even begin to feel remotely smug. "I had to go pick it up so the baby would stop crying."

I didn't go willingly, her eyes said. I didn't want to be there.

Ouch.

Feeling far from happy, Jace dropped his gaze to the ground and picked furiously at a patch of grass. The group shifted to the field after a short two-on-two soccer match, in which Jace had been partnered with Maia. They'd won by a mile, of course, with his agility and her speed. Sadly, the thrill of their victory died as soon as the pigheaded nerd pressed his lips to Clary's temple. Jace hadn't quite stopped sulking since.

Feeling more upset than awkward, Jace turned his attention to Maia, blocking out the lie- I went straight home after, Clary was spewing.

Maia was already watching him, however. Her brows were heavy over her narrowed eyes, her lips pursed thoughtfully.

"You really don't like him," she easily observed, tilting her head toward a now-bickering Simon. "Why?"

"All he does is stare at her ass," Jace proclaimed, eyeing Simon with distaste.

"And you don't?"

"That's different," He said. "They're meant to be best friends, and best friends don't leer at each other. Plus Clary and I have a kid together."

Maia raised a brow. "It's plastic. You have a plastic kid together. That doesn't count for shit. And it definitely doesn't mean you can stare at her ass- if anything, Simon has more reason. From what I've heard, it's probably nothing he hasn't seen before anyway."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that Simon's entitled to stare at her ass, and you're not, so your argument is null and void."

Jace huffed and picked at the ground again.

Maia just laughed, much in the same fashion as when they'd scored their winning goal earlier. "You just seem so defensive every time he talks to you, is all."

"And he's not?"

"He has reason to be. You've been partnered up with his girlfriend, or his best friend, or the love of his life or whatever. And you're going to be playing happy families for weeks. You can't blame him for hating you."

Jace looked over at Clary, who was engaged in a frowning match with her BFF. "She's not defensive around you," he said. "You're playing happy families with Simon, and she likes you well enough."

"She doesn't care," Maia said. "At least, I don't think she does. She sure as hell doesn't look at him the same way he looks at her."

"What's that even got to do with-" pausing, Jace sighed and turned back to face Maia. "I don't understand what you're saying," he said. "And I sure as fuck don't understand them. Clary said they're friends, but the way you talk about them. . ."

Maia shrugged. "I don't understand them either. I'm just calling it how I see it."

"OK," Jace said, as he mentally stumbled over some new conversation starters. His little chat with Maia had veered off track- not that he'd known where said track was heading in the first place. He wasn't sure either of them knew what to say, and despite the awkward silence as he groped for something less. . . emotional to talk about, he'd take it over the lover's spat Simon and Clary were engaged in a mere few feet away.

Thankfully, Maia ended the quiet lapse with a giggle, leaving Jace his emergency small talk weather card for his next non-ideal interaction with his next non-ideal means of company.

"She's a firecracker, that one," she said, shielding her eyes in much the same manner as Clary had earlier. Jace followed her gaze, his eyes seeking out Clary once more.

He hid a smirk as he watched her deal with Simon.

"You are so wrong," she half-yelled at her friend. "Open up the window and let some of the wrong out."

Maia let out another giggle, and Jace turned to raise a brow at her.

"Everybody Loves Raymond," she said, and he could only guess that Clary's words referenced the show in some way. Not that he cared much.

"C'mon, Clary," Simon half-yelled, half-whined. "You're so obvious. Jonathan said-"

Jace watched in amusement as she arched one crazed eyebrow, her cheeks swarming with pink.

"God, Simon, shut up," she said. "Shut up before you ruin the whole day."

Jace's eyes hardened as Simon pointed an arm in his direction. "Your jackass date has already done that, don't you think?"

Clary glanced over at Jace, her face dropping as she met his gaze. Much like earlier, her eyes spoke volumes. 'I'm sorry' was evident in the set of her brows for almost a whole second before she turned back to Simon.

Her lips moved again, but Jace couldn't hear a thing she was saying. She looked angry, even angrier than she'd been that morning, and he hoped like hell she was sticking up for him. As emasculating as it was to have a five foot one redhead defend his honour, someone needed to put the possessive nerd in his place, and Clary seemed the one most likely to do so.

The two each exchanged a few more sour words, and then Clary was on her feet and pouncing on her baby's carrier.

"We're going home," she said, shoving the baby bag at Jace. "Check we've got everything, would you?"

Jace nodded, riffled through the bag, and then pulled it over his shoulder. Clary was already onto saying her goodbyes to Maia, Simon left sulking on the edge of the giant-sized picnic blanket. Jace didn't do much else than glare at him in parting, however, he returned Maia's half-embrace and then accompanied a huffing Clary to her car.

"What was that about?" he said, as she reversed deftly out of her parking space. Their baby was silent in the backseat, as he had been most of the day.

"That was about Simon being a jerk. I'm sorry I forced you to-"

"It's OK," Jace said, preferring to stray from conversations involving his warped personal relationships. They seemed to always end up with Clary crying or yelling at someone.

"I just want you to have friends," she said, much to his dismay. "I think it's sad that no one likes you."

"People do like me."

"No one at the school does."

"Does that matter? I don't care."

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, a small frown still tugging at her lips.

"I do."

Jace licked his lips and reclined his seat the slightest, avoiding Clary's gaze. He didn't dwell on her words, and he didn't want to. After all, she was still a stranger, and to misinterpret the words to mean something more would be detrimental to the harmony they'd unwittingly created. And it was difficult enough to prevent his eyes from wandering. If he were to believe she cared about more than just his measly social life, it wouldn't be just his eyes that went wandering.

"That's nice," he said, letting his eyes flutter closed, the sun warming his skin. "You care. Real nice."