Wow I can't believe I'm posting this. I should stop writing beforehand because I can't stop myself from putting it up.

/lacks patience/

Anyways thank you guys so much for all the cookies! So as promised, here it is. It's pretty long too, so an extra treat :D

Enjoy ;)

Chapter 10

Jace POV

The cheese sandwiches had been piled neatly into a brown paper bag when I set to work on carving a few apples. I grinned as I recalled Clary's love for my cheese sandwiches.

Was there anything I couldn't do?

I hoped that this pseudo picnic would be a suitable peace offering; I couldn't handle the thought of Clary being angry at me. Besides, I had done my job. I had let her know I wasn't interested in her, so there was no point in me avoiding her…

Right?

I sent a silent curse as the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs reached the kitchen. The parents were out to some business party and Alec was busy doing his own thing, so there could only be one person who was out and about. I had hoped to leave the house without anyone noticing and asking me where I was going but Isabelle ruined it as she walked in, groggy eyed.

Play it cool, Jace. "Did Sleeping Beauty wake up from her evening nap? You'd think you'd have something better to do on a Saturday night than bum around the house." I shook my head at Isabelle in effort to distract her from my labors.

Sticking her tongue out at me, she walked over to the cabinet to pull out a glass, still seemingly oblivious to what I had been doing beforehand.

Isabelle was fiercely protective of Clary, even more so than me as impossible as it may seem. She was the last person I wanted to know where I was heading to.

She looked better than before. It seemed that she had calmed herself after yesterday's shock, though I expected nothing less of her. In all the years we had lived together, there had been little she couldn't get through without batting her eyes.

Keeping my face composed as I watched her slug around the kitchen, I channeled my impatience into my fingers which were tapping the counter nervously. How long did it take to grab a glass of freaking water?

When she finally stumbled out, a breath of relief let itself out of my lungs. I grabbed a plastic container to throw the now-sliced apples into and stuffed it into the bag along with the sandwiches.

I looked into the bag meaningfully. There's something missing.

"Ah, right. Chocolate." I said quietly. A smirk passed my lips as I realized Clary would be putty in my hands at the sight of chocolate.

After having taken two chocolate bars out of the pantry I turned back, whistling, to the bag to throw them in as well when a figure by the door stopped me in my tracks.

"Jace?" Isabelle was eyeing me curiously, "What are you doing?"

I shrugged, as if she hadn't caught me off guard. "Nothing, just packing a little snack for later. I'm heading out to the gym."

Isabelle snorted. "You never go to the gym. You say it's all 'too easy' for you."

My own words were biting me right back in the ass. Isabelle narrowed her eyes at me before they slid down to the paper bag resting on the counter.

She inched closer, straining to peer into the bag when she caught sight of the two chocolate bars that were still in my hand. Izzy's mouth fell into a small 'o' as she looked at me with accusation in her eyes.

"You're going to see Clary aren't you." Her voice was level, but I could sense anger brewing behind it.

I sighed and placed both hands onto the counter. How could I explain to Isabelle what I was feeling? That I was restless night and day at the thought of Clary so upset?

"Izzy, I-,"

"Jace you know better than this," she cut me off, "And you know now that she likes you and she knows that she's always liked you. It was fine before but how can you keep getting her hopes up by doing things like this?"

"She's my friend Iz. You know that." I had to restrain myself from pleading with Isabelle, yet some of my desperation still found its way into my voice, "I promise not to lead her on or anything. Just let me fix things between us."

Isabelle pursed her lips and stared at me, her eyes fixing onto mine. After searching my face for a few moments, she let out an exasperated sigh.

"Whatever, Jace. As long as you know your boundaries." She turned on her heel and made her way towards the door, but paused midway to look back at me.

Her eyes had grown a bit gentler, and it almost looked like she was sorry. "I love both of you Jace, but I know when it's not going to work out. Save her and yourself the pain." With that she left, her footsteps echoing in the still house.

I put the chocolate bars into the brown paper back, barely aware that they had partially melted in my hands during the previous exchange.

I knew she was right, but it didn't change anything. It didn't change the fact that Clary was my friend, and it definitely didn't change the fact that I would be the first to stop Clary if things went too far.

I had that much sense.

Clary POV

Yoga is a lie.

In hopes of distracting myself from the suffocating wave of problems surrounding me, I had attempted the various yoga exercises that my mother had encouraged me to try.

Aside from looking ridiculous, all that had come out of it was aches and pains and even more frustration.

You're a mess without Simon or Isabelle or Jace, Clary.

I threw away the thought. I could be perfectly independent when needed to be, right?

Yet there was still the empty feeling of loneliness. I needed to take my mind off of the whole situation before I actually went crazy.

I ended up back on my bed with a book, slowly losing myself into the pages as my world merged with fantasy. I was still somewhere in the middle of London when a knock sounded at my door that barely registered in my brain. It was not until my mother stuck her head in around the door that I was pulled out of the book and back into reality.

"Clary? The doorbell rang so many times, didn't you hear it?"

I waved the book at her. "Not really." Reading was a pastime that we both enjoyed and agreed to leave each other alone during. She knew exactly how lost one could get in the middle of a good book.

She nodded understandingly. "Well there's someone here to see you." Her face broke into an excited smile as she moved to reveal who was standing behind her.

It was only my stubbornness and my anger at Jace that stopped me from screaming in surprise and happiness when he came into view. He stood smirking at me in the doorway holding a paper bag for a few moments before he turned back to my mother.

"Thank you for letting me in, Jocelyn."

My mother gave him a warm smile. That traitor. "That's not a problem Jace. It's late already though, do you plan on staying over? Is Isabelle coming? The spare room is still open for you guys, you know that."

I cringed. My mother was of course referring to the times Jace or Izzy or Simon had crashed at my house when we were younger. When it didn't matter. It seemed that the concept of teenager hadn't made sense to her yet.

I noticed Jace's smirk grow in size at the mention of sleeping over. "It's alright Jocelyn, I have some stuff to do tomorrow. Thank you for the offer though."

"Suit yourself then." With one last smile at Jace and me, my mother left, shutting the door behind her.

When Jace crossed the door towards my bed, I pointedly looked away to signal my continuing annoyance with him. He, however, did not seem to notice one bit.

"Guess what I brought?" he waved the paper bag he had brought in in front of my face.

I had to say, it piqued my curiosity. Yet I kept my eyes on the top left corner of my room, not giving a damn if he had the whole of Ireland in that bag.

"Come on, Clary. You know you love my cheese sandwiches." His voice dropped into a sweet coo as he pulled out one of the limp cheese sandwiches from the bag.

I caved. I turned to face him and snatched the sandwich from his hand and began to peel off the plastic wrap he had put around it. With a chuckle, he sat down on the bed next to me, placing the bag to the side.

The sandwiches actually were really good, okay.

I couldn't remember the last time he had sat next to me on my bed like this, but I was sure it certainly hadn't felt like it did now. I could sense his body next to mine in the few short inches that separated our arms, and his breathing was magnified to where it filled my ears.

Before I could completely lose my thought process, I took a bite of the sandwich. "So what brings you here?" I asked between mouthfuls.

"To find out why you're so mad at me." He gave me a playful half smile, but the look in his eyes made it seem like he knew more than he was letting on.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I huffed, taking another bite. I had no idea how to explain exactly why I was mad at him anyways.

"Well whatever it may be," Jace leaned in closer to me until his mouth was close to my ear, "I'm sorry."

I froze as his breath hit my ear and turned to him in shock, but he had already leaned back. My face heated up so I turned even farther away from him to hide my fresh blush. It wasn't until I had the first sandwich finished that I turned back to him.

"You're forgiven." I mumbled, but then said more strongly, "though only for the food."

There was that smirk again. "I know," was all he said, however.

He pulled out his own sandwich and we lapsed into silence for a few minutes, until he spoke up again. "Besides, you've never been able to stay mad at me for long."

He dodged the play punch I threw at him and held up the bag. "Don't hurt me, I have more treats."

I almost squealed in excitement as he pulled out a container of sliced apples. I felt a surge of affection for him when I saw that he remembered that I liked apples.

A huge grin spread across his face when he saw how excited I was. "See? I know exactly how to make you happy."

The previous blush returned again, but this time I found no excuse to hide it. Usually Jace would make fun of me to no end when he saw one of my famous blushes, but instead he tensed up.

I glanced up at him. He seemed to be searching for words, biting his lip with his chipped incisor. This surprised me. Jace Lightwood was never nervous, and he was definitely never speechless.

"Jace?" I asked, forgetting about my earlier embarrassment.

"Clary," Jace started, tentatively. "You know that you're my closest friend right?"

"I-uh, yes I do," I stuttered. The fact that we were close friends had always remained unspoken between us. What was it that made him suddenly want to reaffirm it aloud?

He seemed to relax a bit after I answered. "Just making sure," he sent up another one of his smirks, as if the tension from a few moments ago had never existed.

After the apples had been finished off and he had revealed the slightly mushed chocolate, we ended up chatting about ordinary things, like we had when we were younger and had spent more time together. I realized I missed this Jace; I missed this Jace a lot. So much so that all the memories I tried to suppress of him came rushing back, reminding me of how blind I really had been.

When we were 9, Isabelle and Jace had come over to my house for a sleepover, which had become routine in the few years we had known each other. That night, however, we had decided to stay up until dawn to watch the sunrise.

It hadn't worked.

Isabelle had dozed off first, falling asleep at the foot of my bed and releasing light snores. Jace had managed to last a bit longer, his eyes fluttering close just as the first splotches of light appeared in the sky.

By the time the sun had started peeping from the horizon, both Isabelle and Jace had been fast asleep. I was still wide awake however, and moved to rouse Jace from his sleep. Nine year old Isabelle had been just as scary to wake up when sleeping as she was now.

Jace had stirred, yet no amount of shaking had gotten him to come awake. So I had sat in between their sleeping forms and watched as the sun came up from my bedroom window.

Somewhere in the middle of that, my eyes had fallen onto Jace's sleeping form. Here the details were hazy; I couldn't remember if what I saw was a dream or reality. But what I did remember was the faint tug of wonder that brought me closer to him, the curiousity that brought my face close to his…

"There you go again Cherrydrop. Where were you wandering off to this time?"

I jumped when I saw that present Jace's face was almost just as close. "No-nothing," I sputtered, mentally hitting myself for remembering such things. It felt ten times worse now not knowing my own feelings when they were so obvious…

...when I was nine.

"Whatever you say." he shrugged. I relaxed a bit after he didn't push the topic.

Another name, however, surfaced in my mind. Isabelle.

"Jace can I ask you a question?" I was anxious to know exactly what was going on with her.

Jace looked surprised at the sense of urgency in my voice. "Yeah?"

"Do you know what happened to Isabelle yesterday? I was telling her about-," I paused. I couldn't come out and say exactly what we had been discussing the day before, but Jace just gave a knowing grimace.

"Don't worry I know. Isabelle told me."

Damn that girl for having such a big mouth.

He seemed reluctant to answer my question. I waited, looking at him purposely until he sighed and began to speak.

"Isabelle…likes Simon, Clary."

Huh?

"Uh, what?" Had I heard him right?

Jace shook his head and muttered something that sounded oddly like blind idiot. I would have been annoyed if I hadn't been so shocked at his previous statement.

"Yeah, Clary. That's why she was upset."

I wave of guilt washed over me. How could I have not known?

I felt like the world's shittiest friend. She knew every little detail about me, yet I had managed to be oblivious of her feelings. "I should I call her, I need to-," I scrambled off of the bed to grab at my phone, but Jace's hand had come up and held me back.

"You can do that later, Clary. She isn't that mad at you. She knew you were clueless with these sort of things to begin with."

I knew exactly how true that was. "Still…" as much as I wanted to rush over to Isabelle, Jace's voice was drawing me back towards where he was sitting.

"It's not every day you get this much of my amazingness. Enjoy it while it lasts."

I laughed at that. It seemed as if all of my stress and all of my tension over Simon was gone, even if for just a moment. I would not be able to find this comfort anywhere else.

Jace POV

We had spent the next couple hours sitting side by side against her headboard. It was refreshing to sit next to her and just talk like this; something I hadn't been able to do in a very long time.

Sometime after midnight, Clary had dozed off. Her head was now resting gently on my shoulder, her red curls splayed so that only a portion of her lightly freckled face was visible.

She looked so defenseless in her sleep, so breakable. I felt my protective streak flare up at the sight of her pale sleeping face that practically screamed innocence.

I reached out a hand to brush away her curls, surprised to see that it was shaking.

I sighed, bringing the hand back down after clearing the curls from her face. We were much too close

This was definitely crossing boundaries.

:D

Happiness.

I don't know when I'm going to update next because I have a few things I have to do before school starts again. But maybe if there are tons of reviews, I'll feel like writing quicker ;)

Review because I updated really really quickly and because this chapter was all fuzzy c:

Bye my lovelies!

Yours,

~A.W.W