CLARY'S POV

Clary silently drank coffee as she scrolled through phones on her laptop. She was in the middle of comparing her several options when the door opened and Simon walked in.

"So, I've been thinking," he announced... rather loudly.

"Shh!" Clary exclaimed. Her head didn't hurt too bad, but Isabelle was still asleep on the couch. It was almost ten, but she was still asleep. At least, she had been. Clary pointed to the couch. "Izzy."

"Sorry, I didn't-"

"Know," Isabelle cut him off and finished his sentence as she sat up with her head in her hand. "Yes, clearly you didn't know or else I would still be sleeping soundly."

Simon grimaced. "Whoops?"

"What were you thinking?" Clary asked. She poured another cup of coffee, put in some cream and sugar, and walked over to hand it to the hungover Isabelle.

"I was thinking that for your birthday we could visit Luke, as a surprise. I was on the phone with him yesterday and he mentioned how much he wished he could be there for you." Simon glanced sideways at Isabelle. "And it might be nice to get away for a couple of days."

"Si?" Clary pointed to her room. "Do you wanna talk in private?" He nodded with wide eyes.

They stepped away and once the door was such, Simon spoke. "Okay, I did think that we should go to Luke's, but that's not what I came over here to talk to you about."

"What's up?" Clary sat down on her bed and waited.

"I've been thinking about Sebastian." Simon sat beside Clary. "I don't know, just the fact that he knows where you're staying makes me a little uncomfortable. That's part of the reason why I was thinking we could visit Luke."

"Listen, I get it," said Clary, "but I think that I'm fine. Honestly, as long as he thinks I'm dating Jace then he should-"

"Wait, what?" Simon stopped her.

"Huh?"

"What about Sebastian thinking you're dating Jace?"

"Oh, uh..." Clary scratched the back of her neck. "The way that Jace managed to get Sebastian to go away the other day was by telling him that he was my new boyfriend or something like that."

"So I see that everything's been going well over here," Simon deadpanned. He looked at Clary with an intense stare to which her reply was an exasperated shrug.

"He helped me out and I'm eternally grateful for that, but in all honesty, I would never want to be with somebody like Jace. He's a pretty-boy and a womanizer. He's a decent friend though."

Simon looked like there was something he wanted to say, but only nodded. "Alright, well I just want you to think about the Luke thing. We could leave tomorrow night possibly and just take a train ride. This is, of course, if Jon agrees to go too."

"Of course," Clary mumbled.

"Clare." Simon sets his hand over Clary's. "I'm not mad that you haven't told Jonathon yet. I know it's scary and it probably is better that you tell him in person."

"Thank you." Clary lets out a long breath. "I've really been healing the past week though, so I think it'll be easier to tell Jon."

Simon nodded. "Good. Because he's arriving tomorrow. You are officially out of time dear."

Later that evening, after Simon and Isabelle had left, Clary was at the flower shop working. She ran her fingers over a blue orchid as she sat at the desk with her head leaning against her free hand. It had been a slow day. So, when the bells on the front door jingled, Clary immediately perked up. When she saw that it was only Jace, her head fell back down.

"Hey," he greeted.

"Hey."

"Is Isabelle here? I thought she was working today."

"No, Izzy usually doesn't work on Thursdays." Clary would've figured he'd have known that.

"Alright, well I was gonna head out for dinner at Taki's and I was going to ask Izzy to come along, but seeing as she's not here do you wanna come? I could use the company."

Clary checked the clock. It was about half-past five and she was a little hungry. It wouldn't hurt to close up a little early, not with the lack of customers there'd been.

"Sure," she said, "why not. Just give me a minute to lock up here and I'll meet you outside." Jace nods and leaves to wait for her. Clary pauses before getting her stuff and locking up. She stares at the door and raps her knuckles against the counter. She really would've sworn that being as close to his sister as he is, Jace would know Isabelle's schedule.

Ignoring her thoughts, Clary grabbed her bag and left the shop. Her and Jace headed over to Taki's. To Clary's surprise, starting a conversation with her roommate wasn't as awkward or difficult as she thought it was going to be. In fact, the flow of conversation came rather naturally. It was nice, especially since the two hadn't had a lot of real talk over the past week. Aside from the blackout, it was all mainly just banter.

"You can't be serious," Jace was saying in between bites of his burger, "there's just no way that's the real story."

"No, it is." Clary laughed. "All of the Disney princesses have really wack original stories like that. If you think that Cinderella is dark though, well let's just say that you don't want to know what happened to Ariel."

Jace narrowed his eyes. "Tell me."

"If you say so." Clary set down her sandwich and leaned forward on the table to make it more dramatic. "You know how Ariel gave up her voice so she could meet the prince?" Jace nods. "Well, when she got her legs every step felt like daggers were being stabbed into her feet and the prince loved to watch her dance. Obviously, since she had no voice she couldn't tell him of the pain so she did it anyway. But the prince still ended up marrying another girl and so Ariel threw herself into the ocean and turned into sea foam."

Jace's jaw dropped. "Holy shit, that's terrible." He was smiling as he spoke though. "I feel bad for laughing."

Clary shrugged. "I can lend you my Brother's Grimm book and you can feel bad for laughing at all those atrocious stories."

"I might just have to take you up on that." Jace paused, thinking. "Okay, but I mean Sleeping Beauty-"

"You'll cry."

"Fair enough."

Clary leaned back and took another bite of her food. They'd been at Taki's for over an hour and a half but all the talking was slowing down their food intake.

"Alright, well now that's got me thinking about the princesses," Jace said suddenly and Clary raised her eyebrows at him.

"What?"

"Think about it." Jace put up his hands and Clary had a feeling this wasn't going anywhere good. "Which Disney princess would win in a fight?"

"Do you mean Grimm princess or Disney princess?"

"Disney because all the Grimm ones are dead."

Clary laughed. "Touche. I'd have to say probably Snow White because when she was only like thirteen or something she managed to run away and survive in the woods until these seven dudes came along to help her. I just think that after almost having her heart carved out and after being killed by a poison apple she's learned a thing or two."

Jace shook his head. "Nah, it's probably Ariel. I mean she was badass under the sea and on land. Not to mention, she won over a dude without ever using her voice. You gotta be pretty determined to do that."

"You make a decent point, but I feel like we're forgetting about all the more modern princesses. Obviously, it would be somebody like Merida or Tiana."

"What about Jasmine or Mulan though? Or even Rapunzel!"

"Crap, you're right." Clary laughs into her sandwich. "I think there are too many hardcore princesses to choose from."

"Well, I'm sure if we put some real thought into it we could figure it out."

"Yeah, but are we really going to sit here and argue over which Disney princess would win in a fight?"

Jace paused, made an exaggerated thinking face, then nodded. "Yeah, why the hell wouldn't we?"

"I'll tell you what," Clary said, "when we get back to the apartment, we can make a list and logically figure out which one would win."

Jace shook his head. "Now that's excessive."

"Whatever." Clary threw a piece of bread at him. "We should be heading back now. It's past seven."

"What's your point?"

"That I wanna go home." She laughed and stood. "So let's go."

Jace sighed but stood as well. "Fine, you elderly person. We'll leave so you can hit the hay and I can proceed to stay up all night getting repeatedly thrown up on by black-out drunks."

"Does that really happen to bartenders?" Clary asked as they exited.

"Sure," said Jace, "you did it once."

Clary's jaw dropped as she stopped walking. Jace turned back and from the smile on his face, she thankfully knew he was joking. She kept walking and hit him on the arm as she passed him. "Asshole."

"And proud of it."

The two drove home together, the air never silent as they talked about whatever. Eventually, when they got to the door to the apartment, Clary was laughing too hard to stand up straight. Jace unlocked the door and they walked in together. The laughter was cut short though when someone else spoke from within the apartment.

"Clarissa, I've missed you."

Clary's face went slack and her jaw dropped. Immediately, the smile was back as she ran forward to bearhug the man that stood in the living room. She didn't even question how he got in here. She was just happy to see him.

"Jonathon!" Clary let herself get squished under her older brother's grasp. For a moment, she completely forgot that Jace even existed. "How the hell did you get in here? How did you even know where I was?"

"I went to Seb's." By his tone of voice, Clary could tell Jon wasn't too happy. And now, she was a little worried. She released him and took a step back with fear on her face. "When I got told off there, I called Simon. He told me where you were staying and said he was going to call someone else, Isabelle, to let me in so I could wait for you. So, Clare-bear, got anything you want to tell me?"

"I'm sorry I wasn't there to pick you up from the airport?" Clary guessed even though she knew what the correct and obvious answer was. "Although in my defense you weren't supposed to be here until tomorrow."

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah." Clary looked down. "He cheated on me, Jon. I ended it. I didn't know how to tell you."

"That's all you had to say. You know I would've understood. You have no reason to be scared to tell me anything at all, Clary."

"I know," she sighed, "I know. I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Jon wrapped one arm around her. "Just as soon as I kill that bastard it'll all be okay."

"Jon!"

"Joking! Kinda..."

Clary rolled her eyes and pulled away from him. It was only then that she caught a glimpse of Jace standing awkwardly off to the side and remembered him.

"Oh yeah." Clary cleared her throat. "Jace this is my older brother Jonathon. Jon this is Jace, he's Isabelle's brother and has graciously been letting me stay with him."

"I know who he is," Jon said as though Clary was stupid for introducing him.

"What do you mean?" Clary asked. "How?"

Jon opened his mouth, but Jace cut him off. "So, brother huh? Clary's mentioned you before but she didn't say who you were exactly. Nice to meet you, man." He held out his hand for Jon to shake. The other boy shook reluctantly. He looked just as confused as Clary felt.

"Same?" The response came out like a question. Jon cleared his throat. "Anyway, I had been originally planning to stay with you at your old house, but once Simon told me you were elsewhere I booked a hotel. I should be headed off, but I want to see you tomorrow so we can start talking about birthday plans." Jon gave Clary another quick hug. "And how come you don't have a phone?"

"That's a story for tomorrow." Clary chuckled awkwardly as she started shooing Jon out the door. "Just come by in the morning and we can spend the whole day together with Si. Good?"

Jon rolled his eyes but nodded. "Good." Clary closed the door behind him. When she turned back around to Jace, her eyebrows were raised with expectancy.

"Why did Jon say he knows who you are?"

Jace shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he had me confused with someone else. Maybe in the past when he's been in New York he's gone to the bar I work at and recognized me."

Clary's eyebrows dropped as she furrowed them instead. She thought for a moment remembering the comment that Sebastian had made when he saw Jace. There was something she was missing here. She had actually thought that Jace looked a little familiar when she first met him but didn't think it was a big deal. They lived in the same city after all and she had been to that bar a number of times. Instead of working her brain to figure this out, Clary pointed back to her room.

"I'm gonna draw before I go to sleep. I'll talk to you later."

Jace nodded, not making direct eye contact with her. "Yeah, sounds good. Talk to you later."

So, it's going to get bad and then good! And then bad... Yay... Anyway, I hope y'all liked this chapter. Please review! I love reading your comments!