Hi! As promised, I'm updating right now after only a week!
I want to wish all of you a merry Christmas and send you a very warm hug! Please spend these holidays with your families and eat a yummy dinner! Also, in case you are Jewish, happy Hanukkah!
To apologize for my previous disappearance, I will try to publish a chapter once a week until my vacations are over and... this is the first of those chapters!
PS: I'm not going to write any specials for Christmas and/or New Year because... I suck at specials, but.. I hope you enjoy this! Love you!
Changes and Misunderstandings
If there was something undeniable, that was that the past couldn't be fixed, although that did not mean that the future was irrevocably going to follow in the footsteps that said past had set. Change was, as a matter of fact, possible―but that didn't mean that it was easy.
The Lightwood family knew that all too well, precisely because they had met mistakes in the past, and encouraged by the wrongs previously made, they had constituted change as the new base of their knowledge―the only way to really improve after an error was first to forgive, both when it came to oneself and to others.
Maxwell Michael Lightwood ―who was never really called by his complete name― was a living proof of just how immense a transformation could be, for he was deeply loved by those who had one once despised his kind.
However, even when forgiveness had found a way into the Lightwood family and a deep love had allowed them to welcome both Magnus and Max, warlocks as they were, to their bosom, simple things still managed to bring back memories that, more than anything, reminded them that the scars of an atrocious past were not yet faded, and misunderstandings often became the reason as to why bad things happened when there were only good intentions behind those actions.
An example of that came on Max's third birthday.
As the Lightwoods had no idea of exactly when had the young warlock had been born and he was estimated-ly eight months of age at the time he had been found, they had plainly subtracted eight months to that day of their serendipity and celebrated the date like that. No one had ever thrown a fuss over that―that was not the problem.
For a start, that day Alec and Max left their loft early, heading for the Institute, where Magnus would meet them after he was over with a couple of clients. A simple, cheery family gathering.
The problem begun when Magnus arrived to the old church and Max instantly raced to meet him, crying hysterically while saying he'd heard Maryse and Robert talking about making him a cake after Alec left for the grocery store.
Needless to say, the child's words instantly enraged the warlock, alarms instantly going off in his head as he sheltered the boy in his arms and, no matter how much he knew both shadowhunters had changed, he had not only seen them while they were welcoming and loving, but at their worst too, when they were nothing short of atrocious, and fear was something hard to forget.
That was when he heard the laughter coming directly from the kitchen, making his fury increase. With the boy still in his arms, he directed himself to the terribly place, not really thinking of asking for an explanation before attacking.
"What in the world is going on here?" he asked in a voice dangerously low as soon as the door was open.
"Magnus!" Maryse greeted from one of the chairs placed around the kitchen table, not seeming to have noticed the warlock's tone of voice. "It's so nice to see you, Alec just came back."
"Don't tell me" he spat, the inflection in his voice being a complete opposite to the care with which his hands left Max on the floor, barely shooting Alexander a glance before turning once more to his mother-in-law. "Before or after you hurt my child?"
"What?" Alec inquired, speaking for the first time from his spot to Maryse's right as he leaned on the kitchen counter.
"Magnus, what are you talking about?" the woman seconded at almost the same time.
"I don't know, why don't you explain me!" he exploded in frustration, letting anger and hurt and frustration taint his words because how was it possible that he had actually started to trust these people? How was it that they were so cruel that they had pretended to love and cherish Max while all along they had been only waiting for the right time to hurt him?
"Magnus, listen, why don't you calm down and try to explain―"
"I'm not the one who has explanations to give!" he replied harshly.
"Enough" Maryse ordered with a shaky voice that, somehow, was still demanding. "I won't have you screaming at me in my own house, if you are not willing to explicate your actions then―"
"If you want to explain something, then why don't you start telling me how or why were you planning to turn my child into a cake?"
"What kind of absurdity is that?" Alec inquired, confusion turned into utter bewilderment.
"You said so…" Mac whispered from behind Magnus, his hand firmly clinging to his father's leg. "You and grandpa said that you'd make Blueberry a cake."
"Oh, dear…" Maryse let out, a tiny smile finding its way to her lips. "Well, now, yes we did. We said we'd make blueberry cupcakes."
Only then did Magnus notice the actual blueberries neatly kept in a basket in the center of the table, right next to the flour and eggs.
"Please don't tell me that… Oh God…" he muttered, smacking a hand to his forehead.
"But I am Blueberry" Max protested, his earlier fear forgotten and transformed into sincere childish curiosity once he saw the tension leave his father.
"That's what you papa calls you, ah?" Maryse inquired softly, opening her arms for her grandson. "Come here."
Still with the tiniest bit of apprehension in his eyes, Max turned to look at Magnus, who could only nod in shame.
"I can't believe this" Alec mocked as he finally couldn't hold it any longer and burst into laughter.
"This silly fruit over here is called a blueberry" Maryse continued to explain with a smile as he took Max into her lap, offering him one of the fruitlets. "See the color? That's why your papa calls you that" she assured.
"So you are not going to bake me? Like the witch from Hansel and Gretel?" the boy asked, having already stained his small face with the juice of the berry.
"Of course not, dear!" Maryse replied, laughing with pleasure. "But we indeed are baking blueberry cupcakes because it's someone's birthday today, isn't it?" she said, grabbing a pinch of flour between her index and thumb right before taking Max's nose with her fingers, sending tiny puffs of white dust flying.
Blushing to the point that he could have passed as a red-berry, Magnus cleared his throat.
"Oh dear… Maryse… I'm so sorry I did… oh God…" he trailed off. The shadowhunter, though, instead of becoming mad at him or throwing the whole bowl of eggs in his direction, merely smiled at him denying with her head, as if to shrug the incident off.
"It's alright, Magnus" she assured kindly, without losing that genuine smile that made her look a few years younger. "But we're still missing the milk, so if you could go to the grocery store and bring a some, it'd' be awesome" she said, not losing her grin when Max got his tiny hands into the flour bag and dropped the small handfuls right on Maryse's black dress. True was, the shadowhunter was enjoying herself just as much as her grandson was.
"As things are right now, Maryse, I'd gladly bring you the whole store" he offered awkwardly.
"What's going on here?" Robert asked as a greeting, startling Magnus.
"Nothing's going on, why'd you say that?" the warlock hurried to answer. "Better yet, I was already leaving to buy dear Maryse here some things she needs for her cooking!"
"Give me a second and I'll go with you" Robert said. "Apparently, Isabelle forgot to buy more paper and I need to finish a report."
As he nodded with no further thoughts, Magnus had time to, once more, dwell on how much things had changed, how Maryse Lightwood ―strong-willed, stern, mordant Maryse Lightwood― had left her pride aside and wasn't even mad at him for having distrusted her to the point of accusing her of planning to hurt a child; how Robert. Lightwood ―cold, disdainful, hateful Robert Lightwood― was now pleased to see him, downworlder as he was, in his house.
How he, too, had come to actually like these people, despite what had happened in the past. And what was more, ten minutes in the past he hadn't been enraged merely because it was cruel to despise someone because of who he had been born to, oh, no. While that continued to be unfair, what really had gotten on his nerves and what had turned so rapidly into rage had been hurt. Hurt at the thought, flashing as it was, that even when everything seemed to be so good then, all the trust he had placing into the shadowhunter kind had gone to waste. Disappointment at the thought that, after all, things like hate didn't amend.
"I'm sorry" Magnus offered one more time as he leaned down to kiss Alec's temple as a form of apology.
"I can't believe you sometimes" the shadowhunter said, though the smile in his lips gave him away.
"Me neither, I guess I'm just too amazing sometimes" the warlock offered with a smile, while behind them Maryse could only roll her eyes.
Maybe, she thought, no matter how other things did change, some were simply meant to last forever.
Thanks for everything!
This idea is a little... bizarre I must say, but it was also kind of cute, so... I had to write it down after a friend shared his plot idea with me.
On another note, I promise Rafael will have his first appearance in this story in the next chapter!