I'm sort of trying to round off the story a bit... It will be finished soon, even if there are many things that haven't been explained or covered yet, just because I've planned out very little of what comes next. So I'm trying to come to a satisfactory "ending" without covering everything unanswered as that would take just as long as it's been so far... Like the ending of the first book in a series.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Mortal Instruments.

The house Luke had offered to Clary turned out to be a cross between a large farmhouse and a manor in the countryside, far removed from the nearest village. When they'd pulled up in his battered car in the driveway of the house - the gardens were enormous; she hadn't expected that Luke's day job as a bookkeeper would be able to buy this place for him - she'd sullenly dumped her stuff (mainly oversized clothes loaned to her by Maia) on the pavestones at the base of the slate steps leading to the flimsy front door, and jabbed the key into the lock.

Now she wandered through the corridors, moving significantly slower because of her crutch. The rusty key had left a jagged red imprint in her sweaty palm with how tight she was gripping it but she ignored it. When she heard Luke's heavy footsteps behind her she turned awkwardly, with a series of hops, her grip tightening on the key, to face her mother's best friend. Her resolution hardened in her heart.

He wore a cautious look, as though he knew what she was about to say and didn't want to hear it. But there was no way she could - or would - ask Jonathan, and Luke was the most likely candidate for knowing the answer. This was the last chance she had to ask him; she wasn't sure if any of his eavesdropping colleagues would take kindly to her inquiry.

"Luke," she said gently. The gentleness was as deceptive as the constant sunshine that caused a storm to brew. "You said I was the only one Jon brought back. So what happened to Sebastian and Mum?"

He swallowed and surreptitiously began to wring his hands. Had he not expected her to ask this question? Finally, he sighed. "We don't know, Clary. Jon wasn't the only one there that night, but the others who were watching the front and back doors didn't see anyone come out. There's no way they could've escaped."

For an instant, the world distorted, like some kindly deity had taken pity on her and was trying to twist reality into a more favourable shape. She became hyperaware of the sunlight raining in through the open window on her right and suddenly noticed that the lampshade adorning the main light bulb was rotating, presumably from the wind. Luke's face was thrown into sharp relief, all the weathered angles and plains casting thick shadows over his right cheek and his lips were moving but she couldn't hear him speaking. The floor connected with her palms, her crutches cluttering to the ground and she dimly registered that they were stinging, but then her eyes had slid shut and the world was blotted out in black and red. Her sprained angle began aching again in it's cast.

Luke shook her shoulder and she sprung upwards on one foot, almost bashing his chin with the crown of her head. "He must've waited for me." Her words rushed out in an unintelligible jumble as water rushes from behind a broken dam. "I told him I'd take the servants stairs but I lied because they were blocked and I had to jump out a window but he didn't know that and he must have waited at the base of the servants stairs for me to come out but he waited too long and now he's gone." The sharp-edged pieces, like fragments of a shattered mirror, were clicking together seamlessly in her mind to create a picture so hideous she couldn't bear to look at it. "He's gone because of me." She said slowly, the awful, plausible truth of them rushing out to grab her like Valkyries ready to drag her to her afterlife.

"No-" Luke's weak protest was cut off by Clary turning round and marching as well as she could further down the corridors. The key was clutched so tightly in her hand it had split the skin, crimson beads of blood oozing from under her fingernails, leaving a dot-to-dot trail that tracked her as she walked.

All Luke knew how to do was watch her go.

"Who the hell are you?" Isabelle interrogated the teenager standing on her doorstep, arms folded across her chest. He was vaguely attractive, she had to admit, with chin-length white-blonde hair and his bottle green eyes, like glass. But that didn't explain why he was standing on her doorstep like he owned it, especially considering she'd never met him before in her life.

He ignored her question, though his easy, smug smile told her he'd heard it perfectly well. Her scowl deepened until she was sure it would carve permanent fissures in her skin.

The boy ducked past her into the sheltered corridor of her house.

She practically exploded. "What do you think you're doing, asshole? Who do you think you are?!" She screeched, throwing her hands up and waving them about like a frightened parrot. Her voice sounded a bit like that as well.

He regarded her with calm amusement. "I believe that's the second time you've asked a variation of that question." He said politely. She scoffed. Like his actions in the timeframe since she'd met him had been polite.

"You think? What gives you the right to come in here, ignore me, and-"

"Jonathan, quit winding her up," came Jace's tired voice. She whirled around to see him leaning against the banisters on the stairs - never a good idea - and glaring at both of them with half-lidded eyes. "There's no point in beating about the bush."

Jonathan grinned, and shrugged.

Isabelle took a deep breath. "So who are you, and what are you doing here?" She said in a tight voice.

It was Jace who answered. "This is Jon, Clary's brother."

She raised one raven black eyebrow. "Oh?" This was getting twisted.

Jon nodded fervently. "I was told that you are in a bit of a housing crisis, and that my sister offered you her place of current residence whilst you sort things out." His easy smile faltered. "Probably a good thing. Bad idea for her to live in that big house all alone, especially after the traumatising stuff that has occurred recently."

Isabelle slowly moved her head in an uncertain nod. "I know; I was the one she contacted, as this guy lacks the social skills to give a girl his number before he kissed her-"

A green-eyed gaze was suddenly swivelled onto Jace. "You kissed my sister?"

"Can we have this conversation later?" A tinge of desperateness.

Isabelle continued, regardless of her companions' idiocy. "-but I've heard nothing about you. Ever. Like, at. All. So kindly explain, what you are doing here, and to quote my brother with the lack of social skills: quit beating about the bush."

Jon sighed finally, then tripped over one of the boxes Maryse had packed and placed in the door to the kitchen. From the floor, he regarded the incriminated box laughingly, like not even a vaguely painful tumble such as that one could kill his cheerful disposition. Isabelle envied him.

"Luke said to me specifically," he acquiesced, slightly breathless from the fall, "to one: help you get packed, and two: take you to the new place. Also to pass on his greetings to your mother." He looked around at the box-filled kitchen with a faint bemusement, then back up at them. "Well," he continued delicately. "I guess I can scrap step one."

With much bickering, and many suppressed urges from Jonathan to scream out loud, he'd shoved all the Lightwoods into the back of the car loaned to him by Luke and only had to deal with the especially annoying one who'd lodged himself in the front with him. All things considered, Jace was starting to irritate Jon a bit.

Although maybe that was karma: he irritates people, so an irritating person is shoved unceremoniously into his sister's life, therefore he becomes obligated to accept him into his.

To be honest, Jon didn't really mind most of the Lightwoods. If he ignored Maryse's cool hostility, Max's surely unhealthy obsession with whatever it was he was reading, Isabelle's bluntness, Alec's quietness, and Jace altogether, he almost liked them.

Unfortunately, Jace was a tough thing to ignore, especially considering he was currently talking his ear off with snide comments. He blocked them out.

They were coming up the drive now. Jon carefully brought the car to a halt, feeling slightly scrutinised in the shadow of the house. How Luke had managed to hold onto this, was beyond him.

The man himself was sitting cross-legged on the steps, in a bizarrely casual-yet-stiff manner. Jon opened the doors and let the Lightwoods tumble out with their mouths stretched in awestruck circles, before jogging over to greet Luke. he was stopped by the look the blue-eyed man sent his way, and with another wave of his hand he had Jonathan marching back to the Lightwoods in order to be civil.

"Welcome to your temporary home," he drawled. "This house is belongs to-"

"Lucian," Maryse interrupted him, walking toward him. He hadn't noticed before, but she was taller than him. "This house was owned by Amatis Graymark before she passed away, and it was inherited by her younger brother." A quick nod confirmed what she'd said.

"Come in," Jon ushered. "You can grab your stuff later. Go and explore, 'cause I'm pretty sure no one living knows enough about this place to give you a tour." Alec Lightwood slanted him a slightly disturbed look, and Jonathan restrained himself from making a face in return.

Max was long gone, disappearing into the looping halls and curling banisters of the place, Isabelle and Jace running after him. Alec joined his mother at her more leisurely pace as she took in he whole strangeness of the situation. That left Jon with Luke.

"I already put your stuff in the room next to Clary's," the older man told him.

"What?"

"You're staying here." Luke replied passively. His spectacles sparked in the sunlight. "Clary needs some reasonably stable ground in her life right now, and you can't argue with blood. You're staying here."

"She hates me."

"If you like." Totally beyond all comprehension, Luke gave a small smile. "But you're staying here."

His tone brooked no argument.

I'm sorry if it's awful.

Review?

(That includes you, Tamsin, if you're reading this).