Hey, everybody! I'd just like to make a quick shout-out to all the people who are sticking with this story. It means the world to me and I love all of you ideas and feedback.

Disclaimer: Nothing is what I own. None at all.

Sleep was not something that had come easy to Jace these past few weeks. Not since meeting Clary Morgenstern. Not even three weeks ago she was just the odd girl who never wore a coat whenever it rained and lived up on Mount Angel with her crazy grandfather Hodge Starkweather.

And in all but three weeks she had proved that everything he knew about her was a lie. Why she didn't wear a coat still alluded him; he found the rain bothersome. He didn't like the feeling of wet jeans and soaking shirts, he especially didn't like when his hair dripped in front of his face and hung in his eyes. He always looked weird with his hair plastered to his head; his golden curls were part of his signature look after all.

But Clary loved that feeling; loved having the rain soak her to the bone and give her a higher probability of developing some common cold or virus. Every time he got to know her; she seemed to confuse him more. He couldn't quite get her down and he prided himself on being a good read of people. But Clary Morgenstern was a mystery; he never seemed to get any answers just more questions and it frustrated him.

But it also excited him.

He really cared about Clary more than he really thought she knew. More than he knew himself until now that is. He knew that feeling, swirling and twisting like two fine dancers in his stomach when he thought of her. He really liked Clarissa Morgenstern. A whole lot.

A whole lot more than he was supposed to.

A whole lot more than he had ever liked anyone at all.

Jace seemed to be seeing things through opening eyes. He noticed more than just himself as he walked the hallway of Kingsley High. He smiled half-heartedly at his fellow classmates and gawking girls as he made his way toward his locker.

He noticed a boy, he was pretty sure was in his Chem class, leaning closer to Kimberly Jaxson's locker and peering down her shirt before she scowled at him and pushed him away. She turned on her heel leaving the boy, Jace couldn't put a name to, pleading with her as she walked.

He noticed a small girl, only slightly larger than Clary, struggling with a pile of books that probably weighed more than she did soaking wet. Her glasses were perched on the end of her nose and her hair looked like she had put her finger into an electric socket. He paused with his hand on his lock as the books teetered precariously to the side, making her force her body into that direction to keep up. It looked as if she were performing some odd dance, one he had never had to execute himself.

He watched as Sebastian's dark head came into view followed by his minions. His cousin, Aline Penhallow, smirked at the small girl; her hair glistening under the fluorescent lights as she turned to Sebastian who seemed to know exactly what she was thinking as they unlatched arms. Jace watched with almost horror struck eyes as Aline locked her eyes back on the helpless girl. She looked like a cat that was on the hunt; a predator hunting its prey. Had he looked like that? Did he look so soulless and empty?

He watched as the twins, Kaelie and Seelie Whitewillow, smirked in the background their crimson mouths turned up in gory smiles. Jace couldn't believe he'd ever been a part of that; couldn't believe he had sat by and watched just as Sebastian did now. Declan McCormick stood off to the side with a deadly expression of glee and his best friend Mickey Yeager stood just as ecstatically beside him.

"Opps," Aline said as she hip checked the poor, barely balanced girl. The small teen let out a squeal as her books scattered across the floor and, as if just to add the icing on the cake, began slipping on a puddle of water someone had obviously brought in from the outside downpour.

Jace didn't really think before he acted. He rarely did anyway, he usually just spoke what he wanted and did what he wanted and let the consequences be damned but that was usually only for his own benefit. This time he was doing it for somebody else's. He dropped his backpack by his locker and leaped forward catching the girl by the stomach with one strong arm and pulling her upright with the other. He watched her blink as she adjusted her glasses as if the person standing before her couldn't possibly be the one that was there now.

Jace smiled as softly as he knew how and slowly let her go slightly afraid that she might still take the fall. She seemed to shake as Jace bent down and gathered her heavy books before handing her one in each hand. "That might help you carry them better." He said with a carefree smile.

The girl continued to blink as Jace smiled at her before her mouth seemed to drop open like a gasping fish. Once upon a time, something like this would have made Jace yawn. Once upon a time, he never would have stopped to help her. It would have been him looking onward with smirking eyes and a crimson smile. Now, it made him feel a flutter of something else, almost like pride if he was going to put a name to it. But this wasn't the same pride he was used to feeling. Not the pride of his looks or wealth or prestige. This was a better pride; something he knew he would only feel by helping someone besides himself.

"Th—thank you." She said through shaking lips as Jace tried to make the whole situation easier on her by nodded slowly.

"You're more than welcome. . ." He trailed off and waited as the girl scrambled for her name as if she had forgotten it somehow.

"Anna!" She said quickly and triumphantly, something that made Jace smile at in its fondness. "My name is Anna." She said softer and shyer the second time around.

"Well, you're more than welcome, Anna." He answered before looking up at the crowd around him.

The hallway, he hadn't noticed, had gone completely silent. Not even the sounds of panting breaths made an occurrence throughout the flustered and bewildered student body. Kids everywhere had stopped doing what they were originally doing to watch with wide eyes as Jace Herondale, Kingley hawk's star football player hot son of the Mayor, stopped to help someone so below him on the social pyramid that it was comical and disbelieving.

Sebastian looked at him through narrowed eyes as if he thought he was dreaming somehow. Like he couldn't quite embrace and understand the scene before him. The Whitewillow twins gaped at him in a flummoxed state while Aline stared with a blank expression as if what had happened simply didn't exist.

Jace stared into a set of simple brown eyes, his only friend up until 3 weeks ago, stared back at him. Jordan smiled softly at Jace as he inclined his head and Jace couldn't help but smile back. For once he had done the right thing, he'd done something for someone else rather than himself. He'd done the right thing rather than the easy thing or the one that the people wanted. He was breaking free a little at a time.

Except, though Jordan held a look of respect in his eyes, the feeling in Jace's stomach had vanished instantly as more eyes settled on him. He could feel their judgment, feel the way they compelled him to do as they wished. He could feel the rumors start to flow, the whispered insults in his ears. For the first time ever Jace was on the outside looking in and he didn't like the feeling one bit. He didn't like the insecurity rolling around in his stomach or the nerves that had seemed to settle in his chest. He had never gone a day in his life with feeling uncertain and unconfident. He was self-doubting and apprehensive as he took in the eyes that wouldn't leave him alone.

Turning quickly he grabbed his backpack and rushed down the hall, shouldering past gawking class mates as he did without a word as he headed to the only place he knew was secret. The only place he could think to hide.

He didn't notice Jordan's concerned expression or the cluster of teens that looked on from a far off corner. A mix of kids so different the possibility that their group even existing seemed imaginary. A boy with sincere eyes and a fair face stood beside a girl with black ink for hair. She looked onward with wide eyes toward a boy who looked similar to her in complexion and face though with eyes a piercing cyan. They rolled and rocked like an endless sea as he watched the struggling golden hair teen run from his good deed as if part of him were ashamed.

And in front of them all, as if protecting them from judgmental and cynical eyes, stood a girl so small she seemed no older than 12 if looked at from the back. Curly red hair was tired tight at the nape of her porcelain neck and soft freckles danced across her petite nose; lips like pink roses and velvet ribbons were parted in wonder as large green eyes took in the entire scene in a different light than everyone else. She watched on with wiser and all seeing eyes as she softly made her way through the breaking crowd. Her friends cries being swallowed by the sounds of banging lockers, outraged and confused classmates, and dropped books.

Jace panted as if he'd run a marathon though he really had only ran a short distance; his hands on his knees as he leaned his shoulder against the panel of glass from the showcase, where past victories sat waiting to be polished and dusted, beside him. He ran a quick hand through his hair before he stood straight and turned to go forward before stopping right in his tracks.

Looking at him with an impish and wicked smirk was a boy who felt for nothing and wanted for too much. With eyes a glimmering topaz of mischievous ideas and promises of pleasure and heartbreak. Hair a shimmering gloss coat of golden blonde curling in what should have been an innocent manner but really only added to the naughty image his face created. The boy staring back at him clenched onto a football, his arms tight and his body tensed as if he were about to take you down and shove your face into the dirt.

"You've won enough games to get your name in the paper. You've showed you have promise and potential to the whole community. You also step on anyone you deem different; you laugh at the expense of others and you hold yourself in such a high esteem everyone around you feels the need to please you."

"Open your eyes, Jace." Clary said with a slight disgust crossing her face; the most emotion he'd seen from her since he walked in. "The school has a giant picture of you mounted on the wall beside the trophy case." She gave an unbelieving laugh. "This whole school strives for perfection and they use your image to do it." She raised her eyebrows at him; they looked like deep, bleeding slashes against the white paint on her forehead. "Now, think about that and tell me how you're not even close to being a Mascot."

It was the boy Clary had spoke so disenchantedly of; she was not at all illusioned by the picture he had created. This was the Mascot; the boy the school looked to for their image. The boy Jace had been trying to live up to for so long.

This was the image his father had wanted. This was the image that he had created, not Jace, Stephen.

It was the same face that haunted his thoughts and mind. It was the boy that made him rethink about doing something that was right. That was the boy that hurt any person in his path with no consequences. That was the boy Jace no longer wanted to be.

But how could he be anyone else? He didn't know how to be anyone else? He'd spent his whole life, his whole existence making that boy up in his head; the one smirking down at him with an everlasting hidden sadness in his eyes. Jace didn't know how to be anyone else but the sick man he'd created. He wanted to change but doing it was much scarier and harder than he ever thought it would be. He had to reshape his whole way of thinking and feeling and breathing and living. His heart had been stopped and surrounded by ice so long he didn't know how to make it beat again.

The panic had him running again, away from demons no one could see but himself, as he moved through the uncut soccer field out back and slipped through the Automotive building heading toward the old Science building D, which had been closed because they had simply decided to shove the Science program in with the English department. Now they had made the old building D into more of a greenhouse, one Jace had always sunk refuge in. He loved the gardens; he took care of them sometimes though no one would ever know.

Jiggling a key from his key chain forward he glanced over his shoulder to make sure he hadn't been followed before he swiftly closed the door behind him. Being the Mayor's son seriously had its perks.

Taking the narrow stairway two at a time, he breathed a sigh of relief when he'd rounded all 4 flights with ease and stood looking down at the ground below through the paned glass window beside him. Rain fell down in drizzles still, it was the type of rain that fell slowly but soaked everything it touched quickly. He shook his hair out, droplets falling onto the leaves around him and dropped his slick rain coat off his shoulders, hanging it on the hooks beside the open doorway. Over his head, rain fell in soft droplets on the top of the glass roof and colored windows. It was peaceful and lulled some of the aching he felt in his chest still.

"So this is your secret hideout." Jace let out yell as he leaped back and crashed into a large potted plant that he didn't know the name of knocking himself and soil all over the floor."Sorry!" Clary said quickly as she began to gather the dirt in her small, pale palms coating their surface in brown splotches. Her red hair was spilling from the quick bun she had thrown it into showing she had to have run after him; the thought made a forbidden emotion swell in Jace's cold chest. He had to blink and refocus at the task at hand as they patted the soil back into place. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Jace let out a mocking laugh to cover up for the way his cheeks seemed to heat at the thought of her scaring him. "You did not scare me. Jace Herondale does not get scared . . . startled, maybe, but not scared. He laughs in the face of fear; he's too brave to fear."

Clary stared at him a moment her lips pressed together as if she were trying to keep a smile at bay. A smile Jace knew to have the capability of brightening a whole room. "He also speaks of himself in third person."

Jace let out a laugh as he sat back on the ground, his back against the potted plant this time instead of knocking it down. He stared off into the drizzling beyond as rain seemed to increase in its speed. His jeans were uncomfortable from the rain they'd absorbed and as he gazed at Clary he noticed how she was wet to the bone. Her blue shirt sticking to her skin making the necklace she kept under her shirt visible as were the curve of her hips bones from her soaking jeans. He swallowed thickly as he turned away; his heart turning crisper as their silence grew longer.

"He's also a liar."

Jace didn't know why he said it but it seemed to just slip out. Like a lot of things seemed to do when she was around; he couldn't seem to control himself around her. Whether it was mentally, emotionally, even dare he say it, physically.

She stared at him blankly, much like Aline had earlier; expect he knew nothing had been going through the pretty Asian girl's mind other than an odd feeling of betrayal. While Clary's mind was constantly dancing with new ideas, with theories, and pictures and colors; a place where things were deeply thought over for the most honest and detailed answer. She never spoke quickly; she took her time, dissecting each word carefully before making a response. Possibilities and futures danced in her green eyes; truth lay in ever bone in her small frame.

Jace knew, above all else, that Clarissa Morgenstern had to have been some sort of angel sent by God Himself.

"I saw you help Anna today."

It was all she said. Not how she was proud of him for helping someone else or how brave he was for doing such a valiant thing. She simply stood above him; hovering like a weeping angel with eyes of the greenest emeralds he'd ever seen. And she waited.

Jace shrugged, tearing his gaze from hers thinking it might be easier to form a coherent sentence without looking at her porcelain face. But all he could think was how her fingers had felt laced through his, how her arm against his own had made the freezing ground bearable and the November chill nothing more than a soft breeze. He also thought of the boy's face by the trophy case, of his dark sad eyes camouflaged by arrogance. "I didn't really think; I more, sort of, acted." He felt uncomfortable talking about it as Clary took a seat gently down beside him, their arms again touching and causing Jace's chest to erupt in flame.

"You saved her from a pretty nasty fall." Clary spoke nonchalantly as if the whole thing weren't such a big deal as everyone made it. And, for some reason, that felt like a breath of fresh air. "And a lot of humiliation."

"You would have done the same." He shrugged again, his head still turned to the far off window to his right. Away from the gaze he felt piercing into the side of his head.

"Yes, I would have." Clary spoke softly as she placed a hand to Jace's chin using only the slightest of pressure and turning his head to look at her. He was trapped in her green gaze instantly and was taken back again by just how beautiful she really was. "I would have done something like that but, last I checked, you wouldn't have."

Jace groaned before standing quickly, confusion ran through him as he gripped fistfuls of his hair. "I don't understand! God, you confuse me so much. First, all I cared about was my-damn-self and you reprimanded me for that, which made sense, and now I'm helping someone else and you're still not satisfied! What the hell do you want from me!"

Clary smiled as Jace huffed feeling both upset and amazed by all that she was. She stood and walked toward him placing a small palm on either side of his face. Absentmindedly, he could feel the grim and dirt from the soil on her left hand but he didn't care even a bit. "Jace, you don't get it." He swallowed thickly as she gazed up at him from where she stood on her tiptoes. "I don't want you to do it for me or your father or Sebastian or the whole student body." She smiled as she pulled his face closer to hers. "I want you to do it for you." She released her hold on his face and pointed a fingertip on the corner of his chest, right where his heart skipped a beat.

"I don't . . . understand." Jace spoke through slow lips.

Clary shook her head; her hair falling completely from its binding and swirling around her face in flashes of orange and red; fire. "Doing something for someone else is always good. But I don't want you to do those things to please me or anyone else but you. Those things should make you happy and feeling free and brave and good. Doing them for someone else won't do the trick." Clary spoke as if she knew from experience and Jace wasn't about to start doubting her now. "Performing Random Acts of Kindness are always good, but they're better when you wish to do them. Not because you think you have to."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm not brave enough to do them without some sort of motivation."

"Sure you are."

"No, Clary, I'm not." Jace said through clenched lips. "At first, helping her felt great but then I felt the eyes and the stares and the whispers. The rumors just waiting to fly and the thought of all those things made me run." Jace dropped his face into his hands. "I'm scared, Clary. I'm terrified to step out and be a new person; I'm too afraid to change. I don't have enough courage."

There were a few beats of time before either said anything. And as that time grew longer, Jace felt the ice building back up and closing around his vulnerable heart, slowing it's skipping beat.

And then Clary spoke.

"'I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.'" Jace took a deep breath as he dropped his hands shakily to his sides locking eyes with Clary, who still stood in front of him, who didn't turn her back in disgust, who still believed in him after he told her he wanted to be secret friends, after he had made fun of her in front of the whole student body, who ran out on her at dinner. She still believed in him; believed he was made for bigger and better things, believed he was stronger than he thought. "I don't think your fear makes you weak, Jace Herondale. I think your fear makes you human." She smiled and took a step closer placing a tender hand upon his icy heart. "I think you have the potential to be one of the bravest boys I know."

And just like that the ice around his heart exploded.

Clary smiled at him over her shoulder as she moved toward the open door. He gazed at her in wonder and awe as she went. "Nelson Mandela said that, by the way."

Jace couldn't stop thinking about what she'd said to him earlier as he slipped back into the bare halls of Kingsley High. Everyone was in their 2nd period by now and he knew he should start to head off to his English Lit. class but something pulled him toward the abandoned hallway, something that pulled at his stomach. He wondered if he had forgotten something in his locker perhaps but he couldn't put his finger on it.

He stopped short when he noticed a familiar black head heading in the opposite direction; he had no backpack on so he'd obviously left it back in class and walked like he wanted no one to see him. As if maybe, if he curled in on himself and made himself small enough he could disappear from sight completely. But Jace could see him; like he was a beckon of light. And he couldn't help but call his name, couldn't help but run toward him.

He didn't turn as Jace placed a hand on his shoulder, he flinched and darted away from his touch swiftly but he didn't run. He turned slowly eyes of the brightest cyan stared back at him. Once upon a time, Jace had seen them twinkle with happiness and joy. But he'd destroyed that happiness with just a sentence years ago.

"Alec." It was all he could think to say, it was all he could come up with as his former best friend stared at him with dead eyes.

Alec sighed, his mop of black hair falling into his eyes as he did so. "What do you want, Jace?" The way he spoke was defeated as if he knew this day was coming and there was still no way he could have prepared.

Jace couldn't believe he actually called him by the name Maryse made up for him all those years ago when they were only children. "Alec, I just . . ." He was struggling for words as he tried to form some sort of coherent sentence in his head. So he began to spew everything that came from his mouth; how awful he felt and how he missed him. How he knew it wasn't worth anything but that he was sorry. And he seemed to talk forever as Alec, whose face remained unchanged, simply watched. And he felt better and happier and sadder and embarrassed all at once.

"Jace, what are you even trying to say?" Alec said with furrowed eyebrows as if he ignored what Jace had said completely.

The golden boy stared at him for a few beats before running a frustrated hand through his hair. "I suppose what I'm trying, very poorly, to say is that I feel sorry for you."

Jace knew it had been the wrong thing to say as soon as it fell from his lips. He closed his eyes tight and tried to will the words back but the tension still hung in the air and his words still seemed to float between them. Jace was slightly taken back when Alec dropped his head back and laughed. It took him a moment to notice though, that this was not the kind, whole hearted laugh he grew up with but a harsh, cold laugh.

A mocking laughter.

"You feel sorry for me!" Alec laughed again even colder than the first and Jace felt himself flinch as he set his cold stare right on him. His blue eyes were frigid; frozen over like a shield, crusted over like ice on a river. "The boy who hides behind his title, the boy who walks the streets of this wanna-be rich town with no damn purpose other than to look pretty, the boy who doesn't even really have a name feels sorry for me." Alec shook his head, his lip curled up in disgust and Jace wondered silently if that was how he had looked standing over Alec when he'd said those words in the locker room. He wondered if they had come back full circle. "At least, I know who I am. At least, I'm strong enough to be me." He stepped back as if Jace was poison. "I don't need your charity, next time you feel the urge to pity someone; maybe, you should take a long look in the mirror first."

And with that he turned on his heel and strided out of the hallway leaving Jace torn and hurt behind.

Alec was right. He was strong than me, much stronger. He accepted the person he was and in the long run that would pay off more than the fake persona I had created to protect myself. What he said to me that day had me thinking quite a bit. I did that a lot since I met Clary; she always had me thinking the way she did. Dissecting words for their true meanings, the tones of which people spoke.

Alec had been hurt that day, by my words and presence I was sure. He had been hurting since the day I turned my back on him and he had made a shield of his own. One that would take me a long time of gaining trust and honesty to break down.

But I would do it. Because I would be that strong. I would make myself better for me. Just as Clary always said: stop trying to please everyone else and try and better you for you.

Jace wasn't the least bit hunger when lunch rolled around but he went anyway deciding not to skip seeing as he hadn't made it to his first hour and skipping one class was enough for one day. He walked through the line picking up a deli sandwich and a cup of fruit before taking a look at the crowd around him. Kids shoved one another in fits of laughter. A huddle of girls in the corner patted a friend on the back who was crying and in the farthest corner of the room he saw Isabelle Lightwood glaring with her hands on her hips at a boy who stood just to the left of her.

Jace remembered how Isabelle had been a feisty little creature growing up. She had always had eyes full of adventure matching Jace's own and they would often out vote Alec into doing something dangerous and stupid getting all of them almost killed or leaving the situation with broken limbs. He had, had the biggest crush on her when they were small even going out of his way to purpose to her using a small disk that had come with his Batman action figure. He could still remember the way she had scrunched up her nose and said she could never marry her brother and then ran as Jace chased her around the yard.

He had no feelings for her now other than nostalgic and painful ones. He missed their friendship, the way all three of them seemed to know each other so well and he missed the way Max used to look at him with shining eyes as if he were some superhero from his favorite comic book come to life.

He watched in confusion as Isabelle shoved whoever stood with their back to him away. Her lips curled up in malice and her killer hips cocked to the side. Isabelle Lightwood was the most unattainable and untouchable girl in school, but that didn't mean that people didn't try to catch her anyway. But something about the hate in Isabelle's eyes told him this wasn't something that had to do with begging for a date on a Saturday night. He had seen that look before, when he had sat at the table with Hodge and Luke watching Clary as she told a story with so many hand movements Jace could hardly keep up.

Someone was attacking Alec; he could barely make out the mop of dark hair that sat in the seat next to her. On his other side sat a familiar red head, who watched the situation with knowing and tranquil eyes. Her small hand placed on Alec's shoulder as the person in front of them slammed his hands down on the table roughly in front of Clary making her narrow her gaze slightly but never flinch.

Jace felt his body fly into action as he strode over with easy sure steps."What's going on over here?"

Isabelle darted her eyes away from the person in front of her before she narrowed them further. If her brown eyes could kill, Jace would have been tortured to death in several different ways by now. "None of your concern, Herondale. Why don't you both mind your own damn business?" The question was also a statement and the most venomous sentence Jace had heard in awhile.

Clary nodded toward the male that stood looming over them. "Declan, was just expressing his thoughts on the male society."

Declan frowned and curled his nose up at Clary like he couldn't possibly be bothered by her. The whole thing made Jace erupt in an uncommon and foolish rage. He wanted to rip Declan apart for that one look. "No I wasn't." He threw a look at Jace as if he'd be proud of what he was actually doing. "I was just saying to the gay—"

"Oh, I left that last part out. It seemed too stupid and childish to mention." Clary smiled sweetly as if she didn't know she was cutting Declan and making it sting. "I was just trying to save you from the embarrassment your small brain seemed to be making of you. I was simply trying to make you look less like a damn fool." Clary spoke through clipped and cold words, Isabelle let out a laugh beside her. "But that seems to be just too hard of a concept for you."

Declan narrowed his eyes and curled his hand into a fist on the tabletop; his shaved hair looked even worse under the shining lights. "Why you little—" He lifted his hand into the air, Clary sat unmoving no sign of fear or surprise on her face as she gazed condescendingly at him.

Jace caught his fist instantly; curling his fingers around it too tightly and making Declan gasp. And instead of loosening his grip he tightened it. "Now, I know you weren't about to hit a girl, Declan, especially one as pretty as Miss. Morgenstern." He just caught a glance of Clary's red cheeks before she ducked her head.

"Of course not, Mr. Herondale." Declan with oozing sarcasm through clenched teeth as Jace dropped the death grip he had on the poor boy's hand. "But someone's got to show these freaks where their place is, especially, the gay one."

Jace narrowed his eyes as his stomach gave a lurch with the way he spoke so uncaringly of Alec. "I know you aren't talking about Alec, Declan." He said through closed lips, barely keeping his anger at bay. He wanted to smash his face in but he would refrain from that for now. "So why don't you walk away before I have to take matters in my own hands." Declan looked at him with a gaping mouth. "And while you're at it, you'll remember to leave this table and the people who sit at it alone or you'll be dealing with me. And I won't be happy about it." He took a step closer and was face-to-face with the blinking boy. "And if I ever see you saying shit like that to Alec or Isabelle," His voice dropped and octave and his fist starting to shake. "Or Clary again I'll make you wish you were never born. Got it?"

Declan couldn't seem to grasp the concept though he nodded slowly before releasing a breath and taking a couple steps away from Jace, who still stood fuming in front of the loner table in the corner. "I don't know what's gotten into you, man, but you're acting weird. And this whole town isn't going to like it. How would your dad feel if he knew you were threatening your friends?" Jace flinched at the mention of his father. "Throwing your lot in with them." He spoke like they were aliens or something of a different species before he shook his head and turned away.

Jace knew they weren't close to being finished. He was sure Declan would be back with reinforcements, presumably Sebastian, maybe not today but soon. And he wasn't so certain he would fare well under the pressure of Sebastian's demanding black eyes.

He could feel them staring at him as he turned and joined them at the table they sat around. Isabelle slowly took her seat, her red lips parted and her eyes wide. Alec looked to be wearing the same expression but Clary simply had her head down an untouched peanut butter and jelly sandwich in front of her and a perceptive smile on her face.

"I don't need you to stick up for me." The words were meant to be spoken harshly but were not given the effect when Alec said them through bewildered lips.

Jace didn't say anything as he unrolled the wrap from around his sandwich and opened his cup of fruit. He shrugged not lifting his gaze. "I didn't do it for you." He lifted his eyes off the table and slowly locked them with the boy who knew all his secrets and hadn't spoken a word. Even after all he had done, all he had continued to do. Alec was more than right; he was stronger than Jace but maybe Jace could get stronger. Maybe he could get better over time. Maybe he could deserve them, all of them. "I did it for myself."

Clary lifted her head from the table instantly and beamed at him. The widest smile he'd seen from her yet as she turned her attention to Isabelle who nodded to herself before her lips lifted softly which alone meant the world to Jace.

And then he looked at Alec.

That was the first time in 2 years that I saw Alec smile at me.

And it felt pretty damn good.

YAY! JACE IS MAKING PROGRESS! I'm not certain how I feel about this chapter I both love and hate it but whatever.

Will Jace ever tell Clary his feelings?

Will Alec and Isabella forgive him?

What's Clary's dark secret?

Is Jace really going to change?

Keep reading for another chapter!

Love you!

-Whisper

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