Chapter 14: Is This Goodbye?

Hey guys, sorry this is a little bit late - I had a bunch of school work and time got away from me a little bit. Hope you enjoy the chapter!

Clary POV

Jace is packing up the picnic, while I slowly start walking back to the car. It feels like a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I don't have to live with the shame of being too scared to visit my parents. I don't have to lie to Jace anymore. I fell the sun on my face, and turn to burning brightness of it, watch the beauty of it setting, and sigh a breath of relief.

Jace catches up to me, and together we watch the sun lower, and finally dip below the horizon. We turn and get into the car that I had borrowed for the day. When I get in, Jace begins driving us home. He has one hand on the steering wheel, and the other resting on my leg.

I pull my phone out of the glove box, looking at it for the first time in hours and see that I have a bunch of missed calls, texts and emails from Magnus. It turns out I was meant to get an earlier flight back to LA, as we had some urgent band meeting with the label, that couldn't be pushed back. I look at the time and see that the flight I'm meant to be on leaves in half an hour.

I call Magnus to see if I can just get a later flight, but he says that it is nonnegotiable, and that I'll just have to come straight to the airport, and that they can hire organise for someone to bring all my stuff back to LA.

"Jace, I'm so sorry, but would you be able to drive me to the airport. I have to get an earlier flight – and it leaves really soon. Like pretty much now."

He nods in agreement, and starts driving towards the airport. I reach down into my bag and pull out some gum, trying to distract myself from the situation at hand. I keep apologising to Jace, but every time he says that it's okay, and gives me this smile that makes shivers run down my spine.

When we're a couple of minutes from the airport, Jace says "Clary. I want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing your past with me, for taking me to meet your parents, for playing me that song this morning. I know it can't have been easy, and I feel so lucky that you chose me to share that with. I promise I won't tell anyone. Your secret is safe with me."

I grab the hand that is resting on my thigh, and squeeze it hard, before kissing it.

"If you ever need someone to talk to, you know, someone not in your immediate circle, I'm always available" he says, looking over at me quickly.

"Thank you." I say, "it would be really nice to have someone to talk to about it." After a minute or so I add, "I'm really going to miss you Jace." And as I see the airport, I realise how much I'm going to miss him. I haven't felt like this about anyone before – and now I was going to lose him.

"I'm going to miss you too Clary. So fucking much." He says, while squeezing my hand.

Jace pulls into a parking spot outside the airport, and I know I should jump out of the car and run to catch my flight, but instead I just look at Jace. I've never wanted to stay in New York more than now. Really, I just wanted to stay with Jace.

"You should come to LA" I say, before I even think about it. Once it's out, Jace gives me a funny look, and I am about to retract the statement, say it was just a joke. But he agrees. He says he has some free time coming up before he has to shoot his next movie, and could probably come over in about a week.

One more week with Jace. Two more weeks before tour. Two months before another brake.

"I'm going to be super busy. It's crunch time now – I won't really have time to spend with you. I'm sure it would be super boring for you – you don't have to come just because I told you all this stuff."

"I want to come," he says.

"I'm going to be super busy, we'll probably only see each other at night" I say, giving him one more chance to get out.

"I don't mind. I can wait," he says.

"Okay then. Well, you can stay with me in my house. It's way too big for just me. Anyway, I really have to get going now, my flight leaves in like 5 minutes. I'll call you when I land, yeah?"

"I'll be waiting," he says, and leans over quickly kisses me on the lips once, and then my forehead. "Go, or you'll be late."

As I'm getting out of the car a quickly say "I love you," and Jace replies, "I love you too," and then I run in the door and see Magnus waiting, he quickly gives guides me to security, flashes some card that lets up jump to the front of the queue. I say hello to some people, but tell them I'm running horribly late, and get yanked off by Magnus.

We have to run to make the flight, and we're the last people on board. I say hi to all the guys, get in my seat, plug in my earphones in and put my phone on shuffle. I lean back into my chair, just listening to the music, when my eyes snap open.

I told Jace I loved him.

Oh my God, he probably thinks I'm like, a weird stalker person now. I yank my headphones out of my ears, and start chewing really hard on my gum. I'm pulling at my hair, trying to figure out what to do. I can't call Jace – first off I'm on a plane, so I wouldn't get any signal, but it would probably also make the situation weirder. I start breathing heavier, when Simon notices that I'm freaking out. He pulls out his own headphones and leans over to me, asking me what's wrong.

I'm clearly making a far bigger scene than I thought, because soon, Alec and Kit come over as well, all asking me what's wrong. As I look up at the three guys, I can't form the words. I told Jace Herondale that I loved him.

After I've gone through another two sticks of gum, and had a full bottle of water I kind of whisper it. Only Simon is able to hear me, and he looks completely shocked, and quickly tells Alec and Kit what's going on.

They all start assuring me that it's nothing too bad.

"He probably knows that it was a mistake, that you were rushing. Trust me." Kit says. "Like that time I called Magnus dad."

"Yeah, guys say stupid things all the time, it was just a slip of the lounge, and you can explain to him when we land," Alec says.

"Trust me, with the way he was treating you, he'll know it was a mistake." Simon says.

Once he can see I've calmed down, Simon asks "why were you with him anyway? You didn't come straight from the studio?."

"We were out together, no big deal," I say, trying to play it cool.

Alec, however, who has always been over-protective of me asks, "wait, like out as friends, or…"

I just smile up at him, and when he doesn't look away I say, "I don't know. We never put a label on it."

This starts a whole new round of questions, especially from Simon, who is still under the impression that he was a douche. It ends with Simon telling me that he'll find out about my parents, and then I'll be in trouble.

"Look," I say, "he's coming to LA, so you can ask him these questions yourselves."

Obviously, this was a mistake, and a new round of protests start. They're saying things like, "you're moving too fast," "this isn't a good time to get into a relationship," "he's only going to hurt you."

"Stop, okay. Kit, you seem to have a new girl on your arm every week-,"

"Or guy," he interjects.

"Okay, or guy, so why can't I maybe have something with one guy. Alec, aren't you the one always telling me I should get out there, experience love. And Simon, you of all people know how good this could be for me. There's no need for you to be so protective. I'm 20 okay, not 15. And besides, he already knows about my parents." I say the last part more quietly, knowing that their reaction won't be good, and I was right.

Thankfully, before any of them can get a word out in protest, Magnus says, "He's actually a good guy once you get to know him. He takes a bit of getting used to, but I trust him. And so does Clary, obviously. It's her decision, not yours. Anyway, it's been a long day, and we have a meeting later tonight, so you should all try and get some sleep before that happens." When the guys look like they are going to protest again he says, "sleep. Now." The guys all fall back into the sets, clearly not finished with the argument. I look over to Magnus and silently thank him, before he sits to get some sleep himself. I can hear the occasional grumble from the guys of "moving too fast," and "just wait till I get to talk to him," but other than that they seemed to have calmed down.

As I begin to doze off myself, I think about the conversation I had with Jace before I left. I replaying it over, and then I realise that Jace said it back. Jace told me he loved me too. Maybe it was just a mistake, but maybe not. I hoped not. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Maybe I did love Jace.

As I fall asleep, I can't wipe the smile off my face.

I wake up as the plane lands, and look around to see the rest of the guys are still asleep. When the plane gets into the gate, I get up to leave, but notice that Kit is still asleep. I walk over to him, and begin shaking him, but he still doesn't wake up. I knew he was a heavy sleeper, but it wasn't usually this bad. I pick up the water bottle that he has in his seat pocket and dip my finger in it, and then start flicking the water in his face. One of his eyes open, and then he realises what I'm doing and jumps out of his seat, and pretends that I didn't just have to baby him awake. Because it's taken so long to wake Kit up, the rest of the people on the plane and caught up to us, and want to take photos.

I take a photo with a few people, and already know that I look like shit. Once we get off the plane and into the airport, we are swarmed by paparazzi.

"Hey Clary, how was the movie?" one of them asks.

"Yeah it was good fun - excited for everyone to see it. I'm happy to be back with the guys though." I reply, trying to move through the airport as quickly as possible.

"How's Jace Herondale?" anther asks.

"Jace is doing well." I reply simply.

I hear someone ask Alec about the busy upcoming tour, and someone else ask Kit about all of the parting he's been doing. They both ignore the people asking the questions. One last person shouts "you guys have a good night." I shout back "you too!" and then get in the car. I hear someone out the window shout about following us, and I sigh as I lean back into my chair. What was so interesting about us going to our hotel?

Although we all had houses in LA, we always had to stay in a hotel once we got back into LA after a break, so that the label could do whatever they wanted to do with us. It was easier to track us all down the for the first little bit if we are all together.

I hear Magnus ranting to Alec about how sorry he is, and that the paps shouldn't have known we were going to be there, because we changed our flight so late. Magnus then starts talking about how someone must have tipped them off, and now he would have to start going through everyone who knew about our flight and figure out who the mole was. He sounded really angry. Alec reassures him, and tells him that someone on the flight probably posted something about it and the paps just caught wind of it. That is was nothing to stress about.

"Yeah, and it's not like we haven't been dealing with the paparazzi for the past four years." Magnus kind of shrugs off my comment, but won't stop looking at me every few minutes.

I soon realise that it's not the paparazzi he's angry about. He's nervous about something. Probably something to do with the band meeting that is oh so important. What the hell could they have to tell us?

Okay, well, hope everyone enjoyed that. I'll make sure I upload on time next week! Please leave a review with any questions, comments or suggestions you have. Every single review makes me feel a little bit better about my writing, and they all really help, so I really do appreciate it when you leave them. Until next week!