Hey beautifuls,

Thank you for all the lovely reviews! I love reading them, they make me so happy!

Have chapter 14 as a reward :)

Aggression Workout

Anger. That was all that was left once she'd settled down. Clary had slept fitfully after Magnus and Alec had distracted her, and when she awoke, she felt nothing but white hot fury. Partly at him, partly at New Girl (although she knew realistically that she was probably completely unaware of her wrongdoings) but she was mostly angry with herself for letting him get to her. Again.

She slammed the bathroom door and turned the shower onto its hottest setting, burning herself in the process, but she was too angry to care. She yanked on her clothes and savagely pulled a brush through her uncooperative hair. The whole apartment shook as she slammed the front door and she proceeded to march to Java Jones.

She hadn't meant to take it out on Simon, but she couldn't help the fire that leapt from her tongue or spread from her fingers as she moved to slam another door.

'Hey Clary!' Simon called in his usual cheerful manner. 'How are you this morning?'

'I'm fine,' Clary growled. Her reply was normal she spoke it in the harshest tone she could muster.

Happily, Simon didn't seem to notice. She sat down at her usual table and when he came over to her with her coffee he was rambling excitedly about his gig later in the day. Clary's mood softened at this. Simon had never been anything but nice to her and the least she could do was show interest in his hobby.

Clary let him talk, pleased for a distraction from her diabolical mood. She felt bad for snapping at him, so asked him where and when his gig would be and promised him that she would be there. C'mon Clary, she thought to herself, be a good friend and go to his show. It will serve as another distraction, if nothing else.

Her students also proved to be a brilliant distraction and mood-improver. She walked into her classroom ready to bark and bite and snap at anyone who might be stepping a toe out of line, but when she saw that it was her delightful juniors, her icy shell began to melt.

Today was the day that the students would be showing their unfamiliar verses familiar face projects to the rest of the class. Some had clearly spent most effort on the familiar face and had spent considerably less time on the unfamiliar face, but some had done it the other way around, finding the unfamiliar face more of a challenge.

It was interesting to see who the people were in the portraits to the artist in question. For example, Kaelie had drawn her sister for the familiar face, which could have been a photograph, but her unfamiliar face, 'Train Stranger', was a quick pencil sketch that could have been a lot better. Helen's stranger, on the other hand was a beautiful oil painting of a beggar on the street. She explained that she'd had hours to paint him because she was sitting at a coffee shop window across from where he sat.

She raised the point that it was easier to draw a stranger for her because sometimes people close to you can be so familiar that you cant quite capture the unique qualities about them, whereas you know nothing about a stranger. Kaelie argued that she found drawing a familiar face easier because they were familiar, and she had spent a good portion of her life remembering their features.

The class continued to debate until it was time for Ragnor to stand up and present his work. Silence fell as Ragnor announced that he hadn't finished the assignment. Disbelief swept the classroom; everyone knew that Art was Ragnor's favourite subject, that he was always drawing, that this had to be a lie. But no. There were a few quick but intricate sketches of passers by, but nothing big like his portrait of Max had been.

Clary herself didn't quite believe it, and that was backed up by a voice from the back of the classroom.

'But Ragnor, who were you drawing yesterday at lunch? I figured that was your stranger? It was so good!'

Ragnor blushed and looked at his shoes. 'Oh, that was nothing, I mean, it was rubbish really. I'm sorry miss, I'll have it in on Monday.'

Clary nodded and let him return to his seat, a little confused at what Ragnor thought was rubbish. From what she'd seen, even his scribbles should be framed and hung proudly on a wall. She let the class talk amongst themselves for the last few minutes of the class, but when she dismissed them, she pulled Ragnor back for a chat.

'What's all this about a rubbish drawing?' Clary asked tentatively.

'It was really nothing, Miss. I figured I can't really draw a stranger if it's a face I've seen every day for the last couple of years, and I didn't have time to draw a proper stranger,' Ragnor replied.

'That's ok, as long as you get me your stranger portrait by the end of Monday. Is it ok if I see the portrait you drew yesterday?'

Ragnor seemed to freeze, but he recovered so quickly it was as if Clary had imagined it.

'Oh, I threw it out, sorry…' he was looking at his shoes again, which led Clary to believe he was lying.

She played along anyway, clearly he didn't want anyone to see this picture.

'Oh but you must never throw away your art! Keep whatever you draw even if you don't like it, so you can reflect on it later. It's a good habit to keep.'

'Ok, sorry, Miss. Oh! I signed up for your art club, by the way. There are loads of names down.'

'Really?! That's brilliant!' She was partying inside. 'Have a good weekend, Ragnor!' she called as he hurried to his next class.

As the next lot of students filed in to her classroom, she couldn't help but wonder who Ragnor had drawn, and why had he been so embarrassed about it?

Jace Wayland had good days and bad days. Today was a bad day. And all because of some spilt coffee.

He was going about his usual morning routine: get up, make bed, shower, dress, make coffee and drink said coffee whilst looking over the morning newspaper; when it all went wrong. As he was walking to the sofa, coffee in one hand, paper in the other, the Gods decided to ruin his morning as the handle of his mug detached itself from the rest, spilling coffee all over his cream carpet and grey sofa.

This might just sound like a crappy thing to happen at 8am to you, but to Jace it was the end of the world. It was worse than the end of the world.

Jace froze, dropping the newspaper and staring at the ugly dark brown stain on the otherwise spotless furniture. It didn't register for a few seconds, but then panic started to set in. He all but sprinted to the kitchen to grab the relevant cleaning product from his sizeable collection. When he returned, his hands were shaking as he scrubbed and scrubbed at the ever-worsening stain.

Oh God, he's going to kill me. He's actually going to kill me if this isn't clean when he gets back. Jace was in the midst of a full blown panic attack. He struggled to breathe as his brain ran through every possible punishment his father would think up for his incompetence. Father will- at the mention of this word in his inner monologue, Jace snapped out of it. My father is dead. My father is dead. My father is dead. Even as he repeated the mantra, he continued to scrub the carpet.

To you and me, the carpet would have looked clean by now, but still Jace continued to scrub, only seeing an ever increasing coffee stain. Rationally, he knew that the stain was gone, his father was dead and that no punishment would be dealt for his clumsiness, but Jace could only feel disgust at himself. Jace was a failure and every coffee stain, out-of-place item of clothing, chipped nail and asymmetrical pattern that adorned his house or his person reminded him so.

This was just one of the many items on the list of Things Jace Wayland Hates About Himself.

Jace hated that he still controlled so much of his behaviour. He hated that he couldn't leave the carpet and sofa as they were, that he had to make sure they were spotless before he left the house. He hated that once again, he felt worthless because of a man that died fifteen years ago.

Jace was ten minutes late to class, and that made him angrier. Father wouldn't have stood for your tardiness, he scolded himself, then proceeded to scold himself for thinking such a thing in the first place. At least his hands had stopped shaking, he noticed. That would make it easier to hide from Max that he was dying inside.

His students helped to leaven his mood. They always managed to cheer him up, and the change of location helped massively. At school, Jace wasn't as obsessively tidy. Well, he was, but only to his personal things. He never had the urge to straighten tables or to line pencils up in size order or whatever. As long as he looked smart and his own desk was tidy, he was happy. In many ways, it was easier for Jace to relax at work than it was at home.

As the school day ended, the distractions left with it, and the slow-burning anger decided to build up inside Clary again. It was a shame. She wanted to be happy. She wanted to enjoy the fact that 17 people had signed up for her art club. But no, the anger took over, and all she wanted as she stalked out of the Art Department was to hit someone.

As it turns out, bumping into someone wasn't enough. As she walked through the English Department, Jace chose exactly the wrong time to leave his classroom, and the two collided. Again. She noticed that he looked miserable, but at that moment she was too pissed to care. She grunted with annoyance as she righted herself, and Jace picked up on the sound.

'Someone's impatient today,' he commented, assessing the situation.

'Yeah, well don't flatter yourself. I'm angry and all I want to do is hit something.'

Jace raised his brows at her demeanor. Granted, he'd only known Clary for a couple of days, but this seemed very out of character. He paused for a second, thinking something through, then turned back to her.

'You want to hit something?' he asked, and she nodded fervently in reply. 'Come with me.'

Usually she'd ask where they were going, but following Jace was her ticket to hitting something so she followed him blindly. Despite having worked at the school for two weeks now, Clary still hadn't seen the rest of the school. She knew the staff room, the Art Department and the English corridor like the back of her hand, but everything else was new to her.

Jace led her through various corridors until he stood outside some kind of storeroom. He produced some keys and opened the door, rummaged inside for a bit, then pulled out what he had been looking for. Boxing gloves.

'Here,' he said as he passed them to Clary without any explanation. He turned and walked back through the corridor, turning right and out of view.

Clary tried to collect her thoughts, though she was more than a little surprised at Jace's actions, then darted after him as she realized she hadn't been paying attention to where they were in the school, and if he left she'd be lost.

She found him in the school gym, removing his jacket and placing it lightly over a rail attached to the wall. He then started to pull boxing pads onto his hands, all of this without a word.

Clary was more than a little confused and decided she needed some answers before she engaged in a somewhat violent activity with her new friend.

'What- I mean- how-' she started, but all of her questions tried to come out at once. Finally a coherent sentence formed on her tongue. 'Why do you have a key?'

It was a perfectly innocent question, one to be expected, but it's still not a question Jace was willing to give a full answer to. He didn't want to lie to Clary, working out aggression was quite a personal thing, and he wanted her to trust him, so he gave her as honest an answer as he could without giving much away.

'I get angry too.'

Despite the blatant lack of information, Clary couldn't help feeling like Jace understood. There didn't need to be an explanation on either side, it just was what it was: Clary was angry and Jace was helping her work out her aggression via one of the means he'd used for fifteen years.

His words were enough to spur her on. She really needed to hit something, so she shucked off her shoes and cardigan, pulled on the gloves and delivered a swift right hook to Jace's left hand. Clearly she was stronger than he expected; one side of his mouth quirked up in appreciation as he shook out his hand.

Jace stayed silent for the entire event. He could tell she needed this and she needed him not to ask questions, so he didn't. When she had exhausted herself, they collected their things, put the equipment away and left the school.

Before they went their separate ways, Clary spoke up.

'Thanks for that.' She didn't look at him as she spoke.

'Anytime,' Jace replied as he studied the enigma of a girl in front of him. 'Are you feeling better?'

She nodded in response, then added 'It's amazing how much better you feel when you imagine you've just punched the life out of someone in particular, isn't it?' She looked at him now, with a smiled edged with seriousness.

He chuckled and nodded back, then hesitated before asking a risky question. God knows he wouldn't have wanted to answer if he'd been the one asked.

'Who were you imagining?'

Clary was silent for a while and just as Jace assumed she wasn't going to answer, she spoke up.

'My ex-boyfriend,' she said blankly, then groaned and buried her face in her hands. 'Oh God, I'm such a cliché!'

Jace laughed at her outburst, but that didn't stop him wondering what exactly this ex had done to provoke this reaction. He knew he shouldn't care, that it wasn't his business and he should leave it alone, but he was determined to find out.

Determined to figure out Clary Fray.

AN: There you go. Too many things needed to happen in this chapter so I just decided to split it in two. Reviews would be great, see you next time!