Important!
For fuck's sake, I've gotten a million private messages and reviews about a couple of things that I feel I have to address now. Firstly, Clace is endgame. They will end up together but it will be a while and take some time and a lot of healing.
Secondly, Jace didn't move on quickly. Four and a half years passed before he moved on. Did yall want him to be sad, miserable, and alone for the rest of his life? In my opinion, there was plenty of time that passed for him to respectfully move on.
Lastly, this is the last chapter that will be relatively relaxed. The plot will be changing from Clary trying to adjust to her new reality to moving the story forward and Clary's future changing and where her 'fight' starts. I hope you enjoy!
Chapter Twelve
"Are you sure that no one else is there?" Clary asks for the millionth time, trying to make sure that Jace wasn't going to pop up around a corner with his beautiful new wife.
"I just talked to Izzy and she said that she's still by herself in the Institute. The shadowhunter that was caring for the Institute while we were gone left the moment we got back." Simon reassures her.
Clary nervously looks back to Jonathan and he gives her an encouraging nod. She turns back to the wall and draws a portal and then is being pulled into it by Simon's hand. The four of them land in the library of the Institute, Izzy having taken down the wards for her so they could portal directly inside. She stands up straight once they land and looks around. It looks exactly the same as she remembers it. The smell of old books and wood filling her nose while the smell of ash from the fireplaces linger in the air. Luke places his hand on her shoulder and steps around to look at her. "You okay?" he asks her and she nods her head, not saying anything.
"Listen," Simon says with a crooked smile. "You can hear Izzy running back up here from the basement where the wards are."
Clary lets her ears reach out far and sure enough, she can hear the rapid click-clack of heels slapping against the floor. "I'll never understand how she can run that fast in heels," Clary says with amusement. Another ten seconds and clicky-clack sound slows quickly the last few seconds before the library doors are pushed open.
Izzy's eyes skim over Jonathan and look down and land on Clary. She gives the dark-haired beauty a timid smile and then Izzy is marching towards her, determination in her every step. Clary is the one to close the distance then, wrapping her arms around Izzy and burying her face in the crook of her neck. "Hey, Iz," she mumbles.
"God it's weird seeing you here again. Fantastic, but weird." Izzy says and pulls back with a smile on her face and a single tear slipping down her cheek.
"There's a lot of things that are weird now," Clary says back, thinking about Jonathan and... "Like you being pregnant!" she says, not letting herself think about him right now. Her eyes move down to her stomach and she places her hand there and beams from ear to ear. "Congratulations on getting married and the baby," Clary says sounding slightly forlorn. "I'm sorry that I missed your wedding."
"Seriously, Clary?" Izzy asks incredulously. "There is not a damn thing you need to be sorry about. It's me who needs to apologize."
Clary shakes her head vigorously. "I really don't want to talk about that right now," she admits. "I just wanted to come and see you and since you can't leave the Institute unattended, here I am."
"Well, since you are here, sit down. I want to catch up and talk about everything we've missed in each other's lives." Izzy says and then her face pales as she realizes what she just said. "I mean...I know that you...a lot's happened for me and Simon."
Clary purses her lips in a tight smile as she nods at her and looks down at her hands in her lap.
"Shit, Clary." Izzy apologetically. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."
"I know you didn't," Clary says, looking back up to her and tries to give her a reassuring smile. "Just tell me that you have pictures from your wedding and that you have them on hand and I will be one happy lady."
"Of course I have pictures! I have two whole photo books of them."
"Then go get them. I want to see every one of them." Clary says. Izzy stands up with an excited clap and places a swift kiss on Simon's lips before hurrying off.
"And while you girls do that, I'm going to go to the training room," Jonathan says as he starts to head towards the doors. "I'm curious as to what my skills are now that I don't have demon blood anymore."
"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" Clary asks.
"No. Stay. I don't want you to see how I react if I don't like what I can or can't do anymore. I'm not sure if I will be mad or not when I find out." Jonathan says, admitting his insecurities so freely in front of her, Luke, and Simon.
"Okay. But you know what to do if you need me." Clary says and raises her hand to him. He seems to remember her telling him to cut his hand if he needs her the other night and waves his hand back at her in understanding. He leaves and Simon moves to sit next to her on the couch. "He seems...nice," Simon says thoughtfully. "He's surely not the same from before."
"No, he's not," Clary says looking at him. "He's who he was always supposed to be, even if he's not sure who that is yet."
Before anything else can be said, Izzy comes barging in the room with two giant binders full of photos in her hand. Clary's eyes widen at the sight and Simon laughs at the terrified look on her face. He leans into Clary's ear and says, "Just remember that you asked for this."
Clary elbows him in his ribs discreetly as Izzy sits down on the other side of her. She shoves one binder into Clary's lap and flips it open. When she looks to Izzy, she catches her looking at the long scar on the left side of her neck that goes all the way from her ear to her collarbone. She shifts uncomfortably, wishing she had worn a turtleneck, and Izzy's eyes snap back to Clary's. She looks embarrassed to have been caught looking and smiles, clearing her throat as she points at the first picture. "This was when I went shopping for my dress," she says brightly.
Thirty minutes later and they have finally made it to pictures of the ceremony. Izzy, of course, looked absolutely stunning as a bride while Simon looked as handsome and happy as ever. She tries not to linger on the pictures of Jace too long, always keeping her eyes moving when she comes to a picture with him in it. Granted, that's a lot of them so she sometimes ends up looking at the white spots in between the pictures as Izzy talks. She seems to sense her hesitation about Jace as well, trying to avoid saying his name and leaving out stories with him in it. Clary's not sure if she's thankful for that or not.
When Izzy moves to stand up and the book slips out of her lap and falls to the floor, Clary bends down to get it the same time Izzy and Simon do. The movement makes the sleeve of her long-sleeved shirt rise up and reveal her mangled wrist. Sure, they saw her wrists the night she came back, but it was dark outside and hard to see without the help of runes. There is one rush of startled breath that comes from Izzy while Simon freezes in his spot.
Clary quickly pulls back her hand and pushes down her sleeve with her other hand, bringing them in close to her body, folding them across her chest. Izzy and Simon both sit up slowly while she feels their eyes burning into her, the binder left forgotten on the floor. "Clary," Izzy says softly, trying to reach out and take her hands. Clary pulls back and tucks her hands further into herself, pulling the sleeves over her hands for safe measure. "You don't have to be ashamed of your scars."
"That's easy for you to say," Clary responds, her voice holding no bitterness to it, only sadness.
"Clary," Simon says gingerly. "You can talk to us."
"I know," she says unconvincingly.
"No, really. You can talk to me." Izzy reiterates. "Tell me what happened."
"Does it really matter what happened?" Clary says looking up at her. "It happened. It's in the past now."
"Of course it matters," Simon says.
"No, it doesn't," Clary says a little more forcefully this time. "I think you can gather why my wrists look like they do. I don't need to explain it." Surely they didn't need her to tell them that that is where she was tied down so Varys could torture her. It was obvious by the way the disfigured muscle tone and discolored skin wrapped all the way around her wrists that it was from being held down.
Her two friends seem to get that now is not the time to push her for information and thankfully pull their attention back to the photo album. It's another thirty minutes before they are finally done looking at the million pictures that Izzy had. Luke seems thankful for it to be done as well. He's just been sitting so patiently and watching the three of them interact with a smile on his face, but when they finally shut the book, he lets out a relieved breath of air.
"Well, now what do you want to do?" Izzy asks with a too bright smile. She's trying to be happy and excited, probably trying to take Clary's mind off of everything. "We could go to Taki's." she offers. "Or we could go to our favorite comic book store," Simon says to her.
"Actually, I'm going to go check on Jonathan," she says with a timid smile, worried about what kind of reaction that statement would warrant from the both of them. Izzy's lips purse ever so slightly but she puts a hard smile on her lips with some effort while Simon smiles more naturally. "Okay. We'll be around." Simon says to her.
She stands up and walks out of the library and starts down towards the training room. It feels sort of surreal to be back here after so long away; different and she's not sure if it is in a good way or a bad way. When she reaches the training room after a solid five-minute walk, the doors are closed. She pushes one open slowly and sticks her head in.
She easily spots Jonathan over by the dummies with a bunch of throwing knives in his hands. His arm pulls back and then snaps forward, letting a knife fly at the dummy's chest. It sinks in just a few millimeters above the small two-inch target and Jonathan groans loudly in frustration. He throws another one and this time, it sinks in just on the edge of the target. "Dammit!" he growls at himself.
Clary steps into the room and shuts the door behind her, gaining the attention of her brother. He looks back alarmed at who might be coming in and when he sees her, he relaxes and lets his shoulders sag. "I really fucking suck," he says as he runs a hand through his sweaty hair.
"No, you don't." she says as she walks towards him. She goes to stand beside him and looks to the dummy. "That looks pretty damn good to me."
"Yeah. To you," he says back. "I've never had trouble hitting the target dead center every single time I let a knife fly from my hand."
"Well, that's because you had a greater demon's blood coursing through your veins. It may have made you faster and stronger, but it also made you a raging psychopath."
He lets out one small huff of amused breath before sighing heavily. "Yeah, it did. It's just...I've been in here the whole time and I'm finding it difficult to come to terms with the fact that I'm just a normal shadowhunter now. I know that that might sound stupid and like I'm spoiled and ungrateful, but it's the truth. I liked that I was faster and stronger than anyone else."
Clary's glad that he's telling her these things. Things that he probably would never admit to anyone else because they might take it the wrong way. They might think he was saying that he wanted to get that power back but that's not how he meant it and deep down, she knew that. It was probably because of their connection with the rune. "Well, if it'll make you feel any better, we can spar. I've been sorely out of practice for almost five years and I'm sure you will put me to shame."
A grin spreads across his face. "Alright. If that's what you want."
"Just remember that whatever you do to me, will happen to you."
"I'm not afraid of that," Jonathan says with a slightly offended tone. "I'm not taking it easy on you because I know you would take it as an insult."
"I would," she admits as she walks over to the cabinet where training clothes are kept for visiting shadowhunters. She opens it up and grabs the child's large because she's lost so much weight over the years and hurries over to the connected bathroom and changes into the tight tank top and compression pants. If it were anyone other than Jonathan, she would have been worried about her scars, but since it was him, she knew that he wouldn't stare and ask about them. After all, he had scars of his own. When she emerges, Jonathan is already in the middle of the sparring mats, stretching his long arms across his body. As she walks over to him, she stretches her arms herself and even lunges a few times to try and stretch her legs.
"Alright, let's see what you've still got," Jonathan says with a smirk.
"This should be interesting," she says thoughtfully as she closes the last few feet to him. "If I get hurt, so do you which will at least give me some sort of satisfaction when you will surely kick my ass."
"I'm not so sure about that," he says back to her. "After all, I've been dead for the past, oh...six, six and a half years?"
"And I've been starved, tortured, and held prisoner for the past four and a half years. I'd say that, at the very least, we're even." She smiles up at him and he returns it. Before she can say anything else, he lunges. She tries to sidestep him but her body doesn't respond fast enough. He tackles her to the ground and she lets out a huff as the wind is knocked slightly out of her. "Wow. I'm really, really rusty," she says to herself.
"I'm glad you said it so I don't have to." he chuckles at her as he pushes up and offers her his hand to help her up. She takes it and readies herself again for another attack. "Why don't you charge me this time?" Jonathan suggests.
She shrugs and then studies his body for a moment. She knows his dominant side is his left so she should attack his right...but he'll be expecting that. Her eyes then move to his legs and quickly dismisses that plan of attack when she sees how strong his stance is. "Oh, fuck it," she says as she just lunges for him, aiming for his midsection. She is able to land a few blows to his side and around to where his kidneys are before he flips her over his head and she lands flat on her back. She feels the pain in her back and stomach from where she punched Jonathan and laughs to herself. "This was a horrible idea." she coughs out through her laughs. "Even if I do eventually win a match, I will have successfully kicked my own ass."
Jonathan appears in her sight, standing above her at her head with a wide smile on his lips, laughing with her. "I know what you mean. You landed really hard on that mat when I flipped you and I choked a little from having the breath knocked out of me."
"Why don't we just stick with practicing our skills, helping each other with things we need to improve on?" She heaves herself up and turns to face him. "I think I'll need to practice or re-learn everything I ever learned though."
"That's okay," Jonathan says with a shrug. "I have been told I'm a great teacher."
Clary furrows her brows at him incredulously. "By who?" she croaks out.
"When we were in the apartment, I helped Jace out with some things and he improved quite a bit. He told me I was a great teacher when I had patience."
Clary tries to hide the hurt that crosses her face when he says his name, looking down at the mat briefly before looking back up at him. "Alright then. Teach away, sensei."
To her surprise, he really was a great teacher. He reminded her so much of Jace sometimes that it hurt when he would say a certain thing or show her how to hold a blade. She figured she should have expected that since he and Jonathan had both grown up with Valentine and were trained by him. Unfortunately, though, she was so sorely out of shape and feebly weak compared to how she used to be. She'd have to fix that and fast. She still had her rune abilities but that wouldn't save her if it came down to a hand to hand fight. Jonathan gave her a bunch of exercises that she could do wherever she was instead of having to use the equipment here to strengthen her body. She had a long way to go but she was sure that she could do it. She could get back to where she was with the right diet and dedication to training.
Halfway through the one hundred laps around the training room her and Jonathan were doing, there was a knock at the door and then it opened. They both froze, not knowing who it was until Simon stuck his head in the room. He looks around for a second as they both relax again, and sees them. He smiles and comes in the door, shutting it behind him. "We were starting to wonder what you two were doing," he says as he walks towards them. Clary's hands rest on her hips as she breaths heavily and sweat rolls down her forehead. "It's been almost three hours since we last saw either of you."
"We just figured that since we were both so out of practice, that we might as well use the training room while no one was here." Jonathan offers with a swipe of his hand to his forehead, catching a bead of sweat there before it rolled into his right eye.
"That's not the worst idea." Simon says and looks between the two of them. "There are a lot of people that will, at the sight of you, want to kill you, and since your life is now tied with Clary's, you can never train enough."
"I'm not sure exactly how to take that," Jonathan says with a playful narrowing of his eyes at Simon. "I guess I will just have to win everyone over somehow, but I'm not sure how I'm going to do that if they attack me and I have to fight them. Surely they will be trying to kill me and I would probably have to kill them to stop it from happening, and that surely won't help my cause."
"Which is why I said that you two training wasn't the worst idea you've ever had," Simon says back to him. "At some point, someone is going to find out about you and then all hell will break loose."
Clary's head then sags between her shoulders. Her hand comes up to smooth down some flyaways from her ponytail as reality hits her, once again. "We'll never get a moment's rest again, will we?" she mumbles to herself. Unfortunately for her, she spoke just loud enough for both of them to hear her.
Simon steps forward and pushes her head up so he could look into her eyes. "Yes, you will, Clary. I won't rest till you have whatever life you want; a peaceful, fulfilling life. You deserve that after everything you've done for our race and after everything you've endured."
"You might think that but not everyone will," Clary says tiredly back to him. Her eyes betray her sadness to him and he can't hide the pity in his. "Don't look at me like that," she says fervently and quietly. She moves around him and hurries over to grab her long-sleeved shirt that is on the back of a chair ten feet away, realizing that too much of her skin is exposed. She pulls it over her head swiftly and tugs the sleeves down over her hands.
"Look at you like what?" Simon asks.
"Don't look at me like...with your eyes so full of pity. I don't need that," she says dismissively.
She looks up to him to see him thinking about denying it, when she raises her brows at him, challenging him to do it. He sighs in defeat before saying, "Okay. No more pity." His tone is a matter of fact and to the point. "But will you at least let me help you train?"
"Seriously?" she asks him, her voice raised high.
He narrows his eyes at her. "Yeah. Why not? I happen to be a good shadowhunter. I've gotten pretty damn good at what I do."
"I'm sure you have but the last thing I want to do is come here every day and risk...running into someone."
Simon immediately understands and realization flits over his face. He gives her a tight nod and rubs the back of his neck like he always has when he's thinking hard about something. "Then I guess I will just have to come to you, then. Every day."
"That's crazy, Simon. You have a pregnant wife to take care of."
"She's pregnant, not crippled." he retorts as Jonathan moves around him and goes to the bathroom. "I think she'll be okay for a few hours every day by herself."
"I don't want to cause any problems between the two of you though. You should be focused on Izzy, not me."
"Would you shut up!" he shouts out in an exasperated breath. The suddenness of his outburst startles Clary. She jumps a little and looks wide-eyed at him. "Stop trying to push me away. I'm going to be around you all the time now and there is nothing you can do about it. I've had to live over four years without you and let me tell you, it was horrible. Thinking you were dead was torture. As of three days ago, I woke up after a dream I had about Eric and Kirk and a shax demon and the first thing I thought was, 'I can't wait to tell Clary about it.' Even after all this time, I still would catch myself thinking you were alive, only to have the reality of your death crush me again. Every single day I thought about you. There wasn't one day when I didn't think about you and it hurt like hell knowing that I would never see you again. And now, here you are, right in front of me."
He walks purposefully over to her and grabs either side of her face. "I am not taking any second with you for granted, ever again. You may not know what it's like to think I'm dead but I know what it's like to think you are, and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. I will not let you push me away and let you continue to think that I don't have room in my life for you now because nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing that's happened is you took your rightful spot back in my life and you will just have to deal with it. So stop it. You're stuck with me till you die cause I'm not going anywhere."
A lump has formed in Clary's throat as she leans into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his shirt. "I just..." she says and swallows before she can say anything else, pushing the lump down into her stomach. "All of you have such full lives and the last thing I want to do it disturb them. I was stupid to ever think that you'd all be waiting for my return, but thinking that is the only thing that got me through my time in Faerie."
"Jeez, Clary. Didn't you hear anything I just said?" Simon says tiredly to her. "You are not a disturbance to anyone's life. You are refilling the spot you left when we thought you died."
"What about Jace?" she says as she pushes through the pain to be able to say his name aloud. "I'm sure his...his wife doesn't feel the same."
"I couldn't care less about what Evie thinks," Simon says dismissively.
Evie. That's the first time she's heard the blonde's name. Even saying it in her mind is painful for her. That's the name of the woman who gets to call Jace her husband and who gets to kiss him whenever she wants. She no longer gets to be the one to call him her own. That right now belongs to Evie. She pulls back and looks up at Simon. "Is...how long have they been together?" she finds herself asking.
"Almost a year," Simon says carefully as he is afraid that she'll run.
She nods her head as she drops her eyes. That's enough information for her about him right now. She wipes away the few tears that have left her eyes and then looks back up to him with a forced smile. "I need to work on my reflexes and my strength, of course." She motions to her frail-looking frame. "Jonathan says that I'm still good with my execution of my moves and skills but obviously, I'm sorely out of practice."
"She is," Jonathan says, reappearing from the bathroom. "Whoever trained her, to begin with, did a good job."
She sighs and looks away from him, thinking about the fact that Jace was the one to train her. "Well, good. We'll just have to get you some protein shakes." Simon says looking back at her.
"Ewww," she says with a grimace. "No thanks. Those things are nasty. I'll just stick with a protein-enriched diet."
"I guess that means we're going grocery shopping," Luke says, stepping into the training room. "How about we go make some lunch? Isabelle said that there's plenty of food in the kitchen."
"She wasn't lying," Simon says seriously. "She could eat a whole cow since she got pregnant. I've been sent on so many late-night grocery runs to get whatever she's craving, that the guy that works the night shift at the store a block down, now knows me by name."
Clary smiles at this. "Awwww. You're like the best husband ever."
"Or the husband whose pregnant wife also happens to be a demon-slaying professional killer with raging hormones, who is slightly terrified of her," Simon adds on.
"Very true," Clary says as they start towards the kitchen with a laugh. When they reach the kitchen, Izzy is already in the middle of making a very large sandwich with sliced turkey and tomato. "Mmmm. That looks delicious." Clary tells her.
Izzy waves a mayonnaise covered knife in the direction of a pile of ingredients beside her. "Well, dig in and make yourself a sandwich." Clary grabs two pieces of bread and looks back to Jonathan. "Do you want me to make you one while I'm at it?"
"Yeah. Thanks, little sis." he replies with a nervous tone, looking at the back of Izzy's head.
"What do you want on it?"
"Umm, I'm not really sure," he says as he takes a step closer to her and cranes his neck to look at the available ingredients, still keeping his distance from Izzy. "Things don't exactly taste the same since I came back."
"Well come and take a bite of a few things to figure out what you want," Clary says and jerks her head for him to come closer. His eyes glance to Izzy briefly and then back to her as he steps closer. He reaches out and takes a bite of tomato. His brows shoot up and he looks down at the fruit and nods. "That's good. I used to not like them." He reaches out and dips his finger in the jar of mayonnaise and licks it, earning a sour look from him. "Nope. No mayonnaise."
The sour expression on his face makes Clary laugh and toss him a piece of turkey. "How about turkey?"
"That's good," he says after taking a bite. "But what I'm really wanting to taste is guacamole. I used to love that stuff."
Clary turns to look at Izzy. "Do you have any?" she asks her. Izzy looks up at her since Jonathan approached and glances at him quickly before looking back at her. "Yeah. It's in the right side of the fridge."
Jonathan quickly finds it and sets it back down in between him and Clary. She stops making her sandwich and looks up at him to watch his reaction. He opens up the container and dips his finger in it and scoops up a heaping serving of it and shovels it into his mouth. The moment he closes it around the guacamole, his features scrunch together and then he is looking around in a panic, trying to find somewhere to spit it out.
Clary laughs loudly at this and points over to where the napkins are. He hurries over as Luke and Simon start to laugh at his horrified expression and tears him a napkin off the roll and spits it out into it. "I'm assuming that you didn't like it?" Clary says with a huge smile.
"Hell no. I'm beginning to think that everything I loved, I now hate and everything I hated, I now love." Jonathan wipes his tongue with the back of his hand a few times, trying to wipe away the taste, reminding Clary of a cat which makes her laugh again.
"Well, I guess that makes sense." Clary adds. "Since you don't have Lilith's blood in you anymore, you're the opposite of what you were. Even in aspects of what food you like."
"Then these next few months should be interesting at the very least," Jonathan says as he walks to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of water. "You get to witness me discover everything all over again like a baby."
"A very large baby," Clary adds with a laugh. She turns to see that Luke and Simon have sat down at the small table with food of their own, opposite of each other. Izzy goes and sits down next to Simon while she finishes making two sandwiches and moves to sit next to Luke. When Jonathan grabs his sandwich and heads over to the table, he realizes that the only seat left available is next to Izzy. He stops in his tracks and looks worriedly at her and then to Clary before he turns around and moves back to the counter, setting his plate down and taking a bite of his sandwich.
There is a quiet that settles over them as Clary looks to her brother. It's clear that he didn't want to bother Izzy, making Clary's heart swell for him. He's trying so hard to be a better person and she's so proud of him for that. She moves to get up and pushes her plate to the seat next to Izzy. "Jonathan, take my seat."
"No," Izzy says sternly, shoving Clary's plate back to her. "It's okay. He can sit here." Izzy doesn't look up as Jonathan hesitantly takes the seat next to her, trying his best to scoot as far away from her as possible to respect her personal space.
"Thank you, Isabelle," Jonathan says quietly and returns to eating.
Izzy and Jonathan may have a long way to go but Clary was thrilled to see the small baby step that her friend had just taken. It was enough to make her love Izzy even more than she had just moments ago.
As always, thanks a million for taking time out of your busy day to read my story! Don't forget to follow and review!
P.S. Y'all should look up the lead singer of Highly Suspect, Johnny Stevens, in the 'My Name is Human' music video. It's exactly how I've always pictured Jonathan looking. YUMMY!
P.P.S. Yall should 100% check out the story, 'You Are My Nothing' by SecretAdmirer. It's an amazing story so you should read it and review so she'll be inspired to update. I promise you won't be disappointed.
