Hola! Hope everyone's having brilliant lives in general. Time for the next chapter! Yay! Time to stuff things up for the Shadowhunters! Thank you once again to everyone who's reviewed, favourited or followed my story- it brightens my day so much to get any one of them . So, what with the all-important date of the release of CP2, I'll be finishing this story up pretty soon. I'm thinking there might be around 5 more chapters, give or take one. I just wanted to say, thanks for bearing with me with this one . Hope you like the chapter! Now to the guest accounts:

Monica: thank you! Hehe, aw, I love Sideon too. As for Jem/Tessa/Will… well, Jem and Tessa will be having their talk, and Tessa and Will aren't completely ignoring each other, so… yay-ish for that . I know what you mean about book characters! I am way to emotionally invested in fictional characters. Look out for the Magnus Bane Chronicles, too- Cassie's going to be posting them online, if I understand correctly. I can't wait for the Dark Artifaces, too! Gosh, Cassie must be busy! Hope you like the chapter!

Tracey Sandler: hello! Thank you very much well, you get your answer about Jem in this chapter! Hope you like it!

Isabelle: hi! Wow, thank you so much- although you can't have read very many fanfics if mine is one of the best you've ever read :P- still, it's a massive compliment . Yeah, it's all happening with Tessa/Will/Jem! Hope you like what goes down in this chapter!

ShadowKissed: thanks! I'm glad you liked the Sophie/Gideon part they have to be one of my favourite people to write about. And Will and Tessa are just serial heartbreakers ;)

Wessa123: hope you had a great Christmas! Thank you for reviewing, and I hope you like this chapter!

Guest: Sideon for president! You've gotta love Sophie and Gideon.

SECOND CHANCES

A second chance doesn't always mean a happy ending –unknown

When Jem realised who was at the door, his mouth closed in the midst of a greeting, and he stared blankly at her, not knowing what he could possibly say, given their last encounter alone. Then, he had been feverish and delusional. Now, his cheeks coloured in shame as he remembered how he had behaved; what she must have witnessed.

"Cecily," he managed to say at last. "I was not expecting you."

She managed a very thin smile back, sweeping her untidy black hair over her shoulder. "May I come in?"

At Jem's hesitation, she added, "I only wish to speak with you. This shall not take very long."

"Of course, come in." He stepped aside, letting her into his room and straightening his long white tunic nervously, suddenly not wanting to know what Cecily wanted to talk about. He remembered her arms around him, and his around her, and looked at her now, her expression most serene.

"James," she said, when the silence between them was growing most uncomfortable. At the same time, he said, "Cecily." They both paused, smiling sheepishly.

"Allow me," he said quickly. "Cecily, I must thank you for your companionship at Mortmain's. I was otherwise isolated, and without your visits- with or without the yin fen, I may not have recovered as well as I have. However," he proceeded carefully, "I also owe you an apology. I was in quite a state when you last saw me- and it impacted my actions in such a way that I fear I may have been terribly rude at times, as well as possibly giving you the wrong impression about…well, about…"

"Never fear," Cecily said, "I think I know what it is you are trying to say. And I assure you that your behaviour then has in no way affected my opinion of you, nor has it led me to have… hopes for the future. I wanted to speak to you today about that. I believe that I may owe you something of an apology as well."

"An apology?" Jem said, confused. To his puzzlement, Cecily was flushing, although she went on speaking quite clearly.

"Since I have arrived here, I have been quite forward about my intentions. So forward that I don't think that I stopped to consider my true feelings, let alone yours. But when I saw you in that dreadful prison, I came to understand both quite clearly. I see how much you love Tessa, and now I realise that that is what I wanted all along- I merely wanted to have someone love me, and I confused that with wanting you. I know that has put a strain on our relations, and I have come to make amends."

Jem blinked at her for a moment, surprised. "Oh. I… well, thank you, I suppose. This is quite a turn around."

"Don't misunderstand me," Cecily said, "I felt something for you. I really did. But I was deluding myself. I just wanted to have someone, and I thought that if you loved Will, then maybe you could love me. I never really… it was childish. But it is no more. I still think that you are wonderful, and kind, and beautiful. But that does not mean that I need to be with you. I see that now. I want to become your friend, James. That is, if you would allow me." She tilted her head at him. Jem smiled gently at her.

"There is nothing shameful about wanting to be loved, Cecily," he told her. "There's nothing shameful about being childish sometimes. I only wish that you didn't need to grow up so fast. Yes, I will be your friend. Gladly."

Cecily exhaled deeply. "Thank you." Her mouth twitched into a smile. "You know, you looked quite speechless when you opened the door. What had you imagined I had come to speak to you about?"

Jem flushed then, shugging his shoulders. "I…uh, I didn't really know." Cecily giggled.

"Well, you have nothing to worry about anymore," she promised him. "To tell you the truth, I am rather…embarrassed by my past behaviour."

"You are embarrassed? I believe I myself have things to be ashamed of," he confessed, chuckling. Cecily smiled at him, and it was as if a great weight was lifting from her shoulders, although a small twinge in her heart fought against her. It was true; Cecily still admired Jem in a way- but it had faded enough for her to see the mess she had made, enough for her to realise that the only way to have Jem in her life anymore was to become his friend.

"I wanted to thank you as well for your part in convincing Will that I had no desire to betray any of you," she said. Jem's laughter ceased.

"It was no trouble," he said. "Will is…difficult, but he will come around, Cecily."

"I know he let me stay," Cecily confessed, "but still it as if he cannot bare to be in the same room as me. I don't know if I can earn his forgiveness. He won't even speak to me about our parents."

"Your parents," Jem said, pressing back the vivid flashbacks of his own mother and father, dying screaming. "Mortmain has them?"

"I… I don't know what to do to help them anymore," Cecily said shakily. "Mortmain knows we escaped. Angel, if he has…"

"Hush," Jem said gently. He sighed. "I wish I could tell you that everything is alright and they will be fine. But you and I have both lived too much to believe that. Do you know what the important thing is now?"

"What?" she whispered.

"Making them proud. Live for them. Fight Mortmain, stand with us. Make a wonderful life for yourself when all this is over."

"Is that what you do?" she looked at him intently. Jem shook, suddenly feeling all too exposed.

"It is," he said at last.

"Then that is what I will do."

"Lottie," Henry said quietly. "Lottie, please. You're scaring me."

"Henry, I just don't have the energy right now."

"Tessa is in danger, Lottie," he said, hoping to invoke some emotion; something other than the blank demeanor that had consumed his wife ever since they returned from Mortmain's. She merely looked at him.

"Everyone is in danger, all the time." She sighed. "There's no point anymore."

"Of course there is," Henry said, dropping to his knees, clutching her hands in his desperately.

"Henry, our son is dead," she said plainly. Henry flinched.

"I know," he said softly. "And that will never get any easier- or any better. But you are alive. I am alive. Tessa and Will and Jem and Cecily and Gideon and Gabriel are alive. We have to make sure that nobody else dies."

"But Henry," she said, "we will all die. Eventually."

"You're scaring me," he repeated, pushing his flaming hair back agitatedly. "Charlotte, it's who you are. Who we are…Shadowhunters. We fight. We try. We save people- because even if they have to die eventually, we can make sure that they live for as long as possible. We fight evil- that means fighting demons, and Mortmain, and his army."

"The destination is always death," Charlotte said. "Always. We prolong it- but what for? What if it's cruel?"

Henry shook his head. "I don't know what to tell you," he said. "Angel, you were always better at these things than me. I was always occupied with my experiments. You were the one to bring me back into the fight. It's what I love about you."

"Don't," Charlotte said huskily. "Not now, Henry. Let somebody else do it for once. Let somebody else worry themselves sick. I can't do it."

"No." Henry shook his head. "I'm sorry, Charlotte. I can't let that happen."

"Why not?" She was scary when she was angry, and that's exactly what she was now. But more then that, there was a sadness in her eyes that scared Henry more than anything else ever had. "It isn't fair, Henry. What more must I give? I wanted to serve the Clave, I did- but now the Clave is corrupt- it's all but gone, for the Angel's sake- and Benedict is dead, and my child is dead. If I couldn't save my own baby, what on earth makes you presume that I am the one to come to now about the Herondales? I feel terrible for Will and Cecily, I do. But if Mortmain has their parents captive, then there is little we can do. He can still travel in half a heartbeat, we have no way of tracking him, no way of finding them- and the odds are they're already dead now that Mortmain's clearly realised that Cecily betrayed him."

"You propose that we do nothing?" Henry said, staring at her face as though it belonged to a stranger.

"Don't look at me like that," she hissed. "It's terrible, I know that. Unfortunate. But so is what happened to us. So is what happened to Tessa. So is what happened to Jem. His parents were killed. So were Tessa's- why, the poor girl cannot even say who her parents truly were. People die."

Henry's eyes tightened and he stared at her hard, searching for the remaints of the old Charlotte- for her determination and fierceness to emerge from the twisted grief and despair. But Charlotte just sighed, rubbing her tired eyes. "I'm sorry, alright? Will you leave me, now? I must rest." She began to fold back onto the bed, eyelids fluttering shut.

"Leave you," Henry said, voice empty. "If you wish it." Charlotte must have noticed the catch in his voice, because she opened her eyes at once, frowning.

"Henry what do you…" she froze. Henry stood before her at the edge of the bed, a seraph blade pressing to his chest, directly over his heart. "HENRY." She scrambled up towards him. "What are you doing? Don't be ridiculous!"
"If it is all the same to you," Henry said, voice quivering, "if we all die eventually, then why not? Why not start with me?" he spun the blade around, offering it to her by the handle. "Either you do it or I will, Charlotte."

"You can't be serious," she whispered, horrorstruck. "Henry." In the dim light of the room, she could only make out his silhouette, the shadow of the knife in his hands casting wide over the space between them.

"I am deadly serious, Charlotte," Henry said. "I'm not joking this time. Not blundering about the fool you know me to be. If we are all doomed to die, then I want to die now rather then living to see you fade even further from the woman I fell in love with- better now, then later, after watching everyone else go before me." He pressed the handle gently into her hands. "If that is what you truly believe, do it. Kill me, Lottie."

Charlotte stood before him, slim fingers wavering over the weapon. She stared down at them, lips slightly parted, but aside from that, she made no sound, nor any movement to drop the knife, as Henry had held hopes that she would. Henry hesitated for a moment, unsure if he should say something else to prompt her-unsure if there was anything that he could say. The silence stretched on until Henry had to stop looking at her- for the empty look in her eyes was too much for him to bare for long. Finally, she looked at him, tears collecting in her eyes, making them gleam in the dark.

"Henry," she said. And then the only sound was that of the knife falling to the ground.

"I'm so sorry," she was saying between sobs, as she fell clumsily to her knees, leaning against Henry as he knelt to be at level with her.

"Charlotte," he breathed a sigh of relief and sorrow. "You have nothing to apologise for."

"But I do," she sniffed. "Henry… I don't know how to be strong anymore. I just don't know how."

"I'll help you," he said. "We all will." He gathered her closely against him. "Nobody expects you to be the same. Nobody expects you to be alright. But we need our Charlotte. I need her."

"I'm still your Charlotte," she promised him. "Henry?"

"Yes?"

She opened her eyes, ignoring the tears that clouded her vision of him, and smiled, an honest kind of smile. "Thank you."

"For what?" he said, baffled.

"For doing what you just did… for saying the things you're saying. Thank you for not giving up on me."

"Oh, you would've found a way without me," Henry chuckled. "You're Charlotte Branwell, after all. Never needed anyone else. You're the most strong, independent woman the Clave has ever seen."

"You're wrong," she said, her sobs having slowed now. "I have always needed you."

"No you haven't," Henry said airily. "I was always the one who needed you- but you never needed me, Lottie."

"Henry-" she protested, but he held up his hands to stop her.

"It's alright, you know," he said. "I like that you don't need me. It means that you did not marry me because you depended on me- but for some other reason."

"Because I loved you," she said gently. He kissed the top of her head lightly.

"And I loved you," he said simply. "I have always loved you- for those reasons. You never needed anyone's approval, or their permission. You were clever, and you were strong, and you knew it was so. You never needed anyone to tell you who you were."

"Things have changed now," Charlotte said hoarsely. "The person that you just described… I don't know if that's me anymore."

"Of course it is," he said without hesitation. He smiled at her. "I think sometimes you just need to be reminded. And I will always be here to remind you."

Will straightened up in surprise as Charlotte followed Henry into the dining room, for the first time in what had been a most horrific, silent number of days.

"Charlotte?" Tessa said in surprise, followed by a chorus of murmurs from Jem, Cecily, Gideon, Gabriel and Sophie.

"Hello- all of you," Charlotte said, mouth twitching into a small smile. "It is pleasant to see you."

"Not as pleasant as it is to see you," Jem said at once. He scraped back his chair and stood, waiting for Charlotte to take her seat, as courteous as Jem had ever been. Will rolled his eyes, and Charlotte smiled.

"It's alright, James," she said kindly. "I have matters I wish to discuss with you." Sophie nodded her understanding and started to take her leave, but Charlotte turned to her. "All of you." She opened her mouth in surprise, about to say something, but she thought better of it.

"It is to do with your parents," Henry told Will and Cecily. The two glanced briefly at each other before remembering their feud and looking away again.

"What of them?" Will said cautiously.

"Well, we must do something to save them, of course," Gideon said unexpectedly. "I will happily work with any plan of yours, Charlotte."

"Thank you, Gideon," she said. "I'm afraid the plan as of now is somewhat…incomplete. While Cecily was able to tell us that Mortmain is holding her parents captive somewhere, Mortmain was not so kind as to reveal where. Even so, we must do something- if not just for the poor souls themselves then to ensure that Mortmain is not able to use them to blackmail any of us with them ever again."

"How are we going to locate them?" Jem asked, while everyone else leaned forward, listening intently. Charlotte pursed her lips, as though she had bitten into a lemon.

"While it is not ideal, I believe that the only way to proceed is to contact Magnus Bane again. He was able to use magic to find Tessa before. He is the best chance we have of reaching the Herondales- assuming that they are still there to be saved." Tessa flinched, glancing at Will and Cecily, and then back at Charlotte. Perhaps once, she wouldn't have been so frank as to allude to their parents' possible deaths so openly. The loss of her child, and the scars across her belly, must have had more of an impact on Charlotte than just her physicality.

"Are you sure that is a wise course of action? There is only so much that a warlock will do without demanding payment. As it is, we owe Magnus Bane much." Gideon frowned.

"Magnus is right to wish for payment," Will said, "but he has a moral compass, and he is a friend of mine."

"A warlock is your friend?" Gabriel said incredulously.

"And a demon made you it's b-" Will said, eyes glinting with malice.

"Will," Jem cut him off. Will turned back to Gabriel with a sour smile.

"Better a warlock than a demon any day, Gabriel," he said. Gabriel scowled.

"My," Jem said, resigned. "I had hoped that, after everything, your little feud would have ended."

"Whatever made you think that?" Gabriel and Will said in shocking unison. They glanced at each other, both almost smiling now.

"Oh, we can all bond later," Cecily said impatiently. "Can we summon Magnus right away, then? How does one summon a warlock, incidently?"

"I'd wager we could try sending him a letter," Tessa said mildly. Jem's mouth almost twitched into a smile, but then Tessa caught his eye and he caught his breath, unsure of how to respond. His heart was beating very fast. Too fast. Not the kind of fast, he noted, with a sick feeling, that one would experience from being near a person that they admire, but the kind of fast produced by a drug- or rather, lack of one.

"Jem!" He heard her voice, alarmed, and realised that something must be wrong. He looked around, trying to see what was the matter, but everything had become terribly blurry, and he could not see.

"James." That was Will's voice. As if from a distance, he could hear others, too, all gasping, muttering, talking very fast. He felt an impact behind him and realised that he must have fallen from his seat.

"Will," he found himself saying. "Will…" he coughed, scarlet clouding his vision.

"Jem!" Tessa's voice grew shrill in his ears, and he tried again to see clearly.

"…in his bedroom, the box on the bedside table," Will muttered. "Go!" Jem heard footsteps then- someone running off down the hall. He felt arms go up under his arms, lifting him.

"Come along, James," Will said in his ear. "You'll be alright."

"Tessa." Suddenly, a sharp, terrible pain seemed to spiral through his very veins, through his blood, his entire body. And then everything fell into darkness.

"…thought he'd taken enough yin fen." A female voice was saying, clearly agitated.

"We all thought so," a male, now. "He had enough in his system to sustain him. At least, it should have sustained him. I don't understand…"

"Perhaps," the woman was saying hesitantly, "…perhaps it is no longer enough to sustain him. Perhaps he needs more of the drug than he did before. The withdrawal…it might have triggered something in him."

Jem blinked, slowly coming to make out the familiar setting of his bedroom, with Will and Tessa standing at the edge of his bed, wrapped intently in a discussion. He fluttered his eyes closed at once, realising that they did not yet know he was awake. A throbbing pain made him faintly aware of what had just happened, but he wanted to know the whole truth- and he knew that nobody would willingly give him that, for the desire of keeping him calm, not worrying him. Tessa's words began to sink in, and his heart sunk.

"If Jem consumes more of the drug, it will kill him," Will spat. "It will kill him at a rate higher than it already was."

"And if he consumes less, then he will die of withdrawal from it," Tessa said, voice tight. "Will, I don't care what Jem has told you. I don't care what he has asked- we need to find a cure. If you will not help me find it, then I will seek it out myself."

"You think it is that simple?" Will's voice was hushed, but his words were sharp. "You cannot just 'seek out' the cure. We have tried everything, Tessa- everything we could think of, rational or irrational, possible or impossible, I tried it all. Eventually Jem decided he could not bear to see us all search in vain forever- he could not bear to get his hopes up and to be let down, each and every time- and who can blame him?"

"No one is blaming anybody." Tessa said. "Will, I will not let him die. I can't."

"You think I can?" Will's voice broke, and Jem sat still, shocked by the raw emotion in his voice. It had been few moments indeed that Jem had heard Will speak with real feeling in his voice, even after he had known about the false curse. Jem wondered if he always spoke this way around his fiancé.

"You care for Jem as much as I do," Tessa said. "Maybe more. Please, Will. I need you to tell me that you will not give up on him. Help me." She sounded so close to tears that Jem couldn't stand to listen anymore. He stirred, feigning a yawn, and he opened his eyes.

"Tessa, Will," he said. "What happened?"

Upon seeing him awake, Tessa rushed from where she was standing with Will over to his side, kneeling so that she was at his eye-level.

"You had an attack," she said softly. "You were coughing up quite a bit of blood. Will and Gideon carried you back here- we gave you yin fen. How are you feeling?"

"I will be alright," he told her, more for her benefit then for anything else. The truth was, he feared that she had been right- that he had been growing to crave more and more of the drug. Since returning from Mortmain's, his usual consumption would not sustain him, even on his laziest days. It would certainly not see him through another encounter with the Automatons. He was weak- weaker than he had been in a very long time. He could almost feel the poison of death seeping through his bloodstream.

"Of course you will, Carstairs," Will said, voice amazingly cheerful, for one who had just spoken with such plain anguish. Jem returned his smile as best as he could.

"I was so worried," Tessa whispered. She lay her hand over his. Jem glanced at her, eyes softening, and then looked at Will, who was very pale.

"I, um," he stammered, "I suppose I had better…fetch Charlotte and tell her that you are awake." He wrenched the door to the room open and closed it with a bang as he shuffled away. Once they could no longer hear Will's footsteps, Jem turned to Tessa.

"I have been wanting to speak to you," she said, "since we have returned. You have been avoiding me."

Jem looked away. "Tessa, I need to know something."

"Of course." She held his hand tighter.

"Do you love me?"

She stared at him, eyes very wide. "What sort of a question is that- to ask of your fiancé?"

"Answer it," he said shortly. "Please. Humour me."

"Of course I love you, Jem." She leant to kiss his cheek. "Of course. More than anything."

"More than anything?" he repeated.

"Jem." She looked at him, very seriously. "You are all I have left. Once, there were Aunt Harriet and Nate."

"And Will."

Tessa caught her breath, and was silent for a long moment. Jem just looked at her, studying her face. He was not angry, as he thought he may have been, nor was he even, at the time, devastatingly sad. He merely looked at the woman that he thought he knew so well, and he asked himself how much it was that he had missed- how much he did not know, and how much he did.

"What do you mean?" she said unevenly. Jem eyed her patiently.

"I saw what happened at the cages. I heard you say that you loved him."

Tessa shook her head, mouth half agape. "Then you must know what dire circumstances I said that under," she said at last.

"Mortmain was threatening to kill him," Jem said. "According to your answer."

"I thought that I was giving Mortmain what he needed in order for him to not kill Will," she said. "You must believe that had it been otherwise, I would not have said it."

"Then, can you also assure me," he said gently, "that it was not true?"
Tessa hesitated. "Once," she said, and Jem felt a terrible sense of dread, "there was Will. Once, there was a time that I entertained thoughts that perhaps there might be something for he and I. I have no such delusions anymore. I had no such delusions in the cage. You are the man I am marrying, Jem. I love you. You must believe me. You must know." Her eyes shone with tears that had not yet fallen. "Since I first arrived here, Jem, you were the one who was kind to me. You were the only person I could talk to- the only one who made me feel human throughout all of this business about what I am. You are more than my fiancé, James, you are my friend. You once said that to be friends is a beautiful thing. It is that, James, and it is also what saved me. It is also what I love the most about you- that you can be my friend as well as my partner. Is that not what a true partner is, after all?"

"It is." He wasn't looking at her. Instead, he stared past her, absent-minded. "And Will is not that, to you?"

"You are that to me," she insisted. "Jem… I…. I understand. I know that it is terrible, and unfair, that I should have had feelings for Will, and then for you. I was- I am- so determined for that not to ruin anything between you and he, or you and I."

"And you and Will? What of the two of you? Are you friends? Are you avoiding one another again? All of that makes more sense now, I must say."

"Jem," she said. "Please. I am begging you- I… I am begging you for a chance. Let me prove that I love you. I will do anything you want. I will never speak to Will again if you wish it-"

"Enough, Tess," he said softly. "I'm not going to ask you to do that. That would not be fair, nor would it be trusting, and trust is an important part of any union. But I do not know that I can trust you."

"James," she whispered. He turned to her.

"I missed you so much," he said coarsely. "I love you so much, Theresa Gray. I could not change it if I wanted to."

"Nor could I," she said. She leaned closer. "Jem…" their lips met, and her words were lost in the kiss. She felt warm, safe, as she always did when she was near Jem. Kissing him was like coming home after a long, terrible day, and knowing that everything was going to be alright. Even when they finally broke apart, that warm feeling stayed with her.

"You are the only man in my life now, James. That is a promise," she said. "That is…if you'll still have me."

Jem was breathing hard now, and he looked at her for a very, very long time.

"I love you," he said, plain and simple. "That is no secret, no subjectable thing- why, it is a fact!" Tessa laughed softly at that, and he smiled in return, a sad smile. "And it is because I love you," he sighed, "that I must call off our engagement at once."

Cliffhanger! (an A/N to those who ship Jessa: I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry don't hurt me *hides behind Will and Jem*) Review the chapter to let me know what you thought of it- or to threaten me, either or :).