A/N: So I made you guys wait on this one, and I'm very sorry. If I'm being honest, this has gotten a lot a lot harder to write just because the subject matter is so much heavier. I've got 3-5 chapters left though, so I hope to be done by the end of the month, if all goes as planned. Hopefully the wait has been worth it.

Chapter 37

Clary guessed Jonathan felt like he'd been kept waiting long enough.

That was why, when he crept into her room that morning, he lingered in the doorjamb, eyeing her with a hint of frustration and hunger. After a moment, she knew her gaze, trained out the window as it so often was in a practiced disinterest, needed to be focused on the danged in front of her.

They locked eyes and Clary suppressed a shiver at the emptiness she still saw behind his. How had she ever seen him as her brother? As her family? The way he looked at her now was anything but familial.

"How are you this morning, Clary?" Jonathan asked, placing a foot across the threshold of her room.

Clary struggled to keep her breathing even, her mind instantly focused on avoiding this moment.

Stop him now. Kill him later.

"Please," she asked, her voice pathetic to her own ears. "Don't."

Another foot in the room came in response and Clary's safety shrank with each step.

"Don't what?" he mocked, his eyes trailing up and down her pale figure. At his behest, she'd changed out of her bloody clothes and had swapped them out for the other set she'd brought with her, layering on shirt over shirt into a makeshift suit of armor. Even with this though, she wanted to tug on something else to cover every inch of her skin.

"Please. Leave," her voice wavered and her expression must've revealed some of the fear that wrapped around chest, constricting her breath.

"It's my house, Clary. If I want to enter into one of my rooms, I will. Doesn't that seem fair, Clary?"

Venom dripped from his tongue as he neared her, her name sounding wrong on his breath. Her thoughts sharpened into focus as she developed and discarded escape plans with stunning speed. She'd never be able to fight him off like this. His stance was rigid and he approached her like a lion would its prey. Her best bet was still to catch him off guard, which made her options of fighting him off somewhat limited. They'd fought before, when they were younger, and he knew she'd continued to train, but it was unlikely that he knew just how seriously she'd taken it. She, on the other hand, had witnessed is brutality and skill several times. She had an advantage that she was unwilling to sacrifice so easily.

So she'd need to be smart. Bide her time just enough to gain the upper hand and do what needed to be done.

With his next step, Clary released a shuddering sob, her shoulders shaking at what seemed like the suppression of terror. Jonathon hesitated, his warring emotions for once clearly on display before his mask took over. He reached a hand out and laid it on her shoulder, the ice in his heart chilling her skin. She forced herself not to flinch and every bone in her body was combatting her natural flight response.

She buried her teeth in her bottom lip, drawing blood, much to Jonathan's apparent fascination. His expression seemed tortured and Clary knew his desire to make her love him was working against him. He lowered himself to his knees in front of her, so that they were eye level, and this time she did flinch, sucking in a shaky breath. His dark brow furrowed and for a moment, Clary could see a human being. Slowly, as if each move was an act of restraint, he pressed his forehead into the crook of her neck, its smoothness nearly inhuman. For an incredibly agonizing moment, they stayed like that, his head pressed into the crook of her neck, his breathing shallow, his hands planted on the windowsill on either side of her body. She was caged in and breathing deeply in an effort to calm her shaking shoulders.

"I want you, Clary," his voice piercing her mind like a lance, the malice undercutting the tremor in his voice.

A shudder tore through her and she knew she had to act smart. Carefully, she supplied, "I-I need-"

"More time," he sighed, pulling back slowly.

His eyes, dark as his intentions, scanned her own green ones, apparently dissatisfied with what he saw there. He let out another sigh, this one harsher, before tearing out of her room with the slam of her door.

Clary waited a beat before exhaling slowly in relief at what was beginning more and more to feel like a postponement of the inevitable. She needed to act soon.

She pulled the rubber band from her wrist and wrapped her hair in a bun resolutely, her mind already preparing for battle.

Turning her head towards the window, she watched her reflection as her eyes turned to steel and any semblance of the woman Jace cared for disappeared. She was no longer Clary, a girl who needed to wrap herself in Jace's strong, golden arms.

She was the Morgenstern.

Jonathan had more than proven that there could be only one.

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When Clary pressed her hand against Jonathan's office door and opened it, she heard Jonathan's quiet, tense voice conclude, "Well this is obviously an exception. Bring it to me immediately."

She stepped through the threshold, timidly, gaining Jon's attention immediately. His brow furrowed in confusion as he hung up on whoever he was talking to.

He pushed his chair back from his desk and Clary stated, "You don't have to stand. I just wanted to – " she hesitated, swallowing against the fear.

"Wanted to…?" he prompted, his expression as unsure as she felt.

More bravely, she concluded, "I wanted to talk, I guess."

"Talk?" he asked, his confusion morphing to fascination.

She took another step towards him and another, until she stood across from him, on the other side of his desk.

"Do you remember Mom?"

He cocked an eyebrow and scrutinized her. She knew he was trying to figure out her angle.

"It's just," Clary continued, forcing her eyes downward to focus on his impeccable desk. "Whenever I try to pinpoint where it all went wrong, how it got like this, all I can picture is her falling."

Jonathan released a mirthless laugh, throwing his head back against his large, leather chair, and replied, "It started long before then, Clary."

"I think I know that now," she offered, looking into his eyes, sincerity etched into her guarded expression. "I know there was a lot you had to take from Valentine that I never saw or didn't understand. I couldn't see that he was breaking you."

Jonathan's jaw twitched as he appraised her, still wordlessly.

"I guess I just mean for me, where everything went wrong was when she died. I used to think she was perfect. She was good where Valentine was evil. She was light where Valentine dark. Everything about her just –" she broke off, tearing up aa the memory of her mother, smiling in green, assaulted her senses.

"She wasn't like that," Jonathan added bitterly. "You were her little angel and I was her little disgrace. It's a wonder she didn't kill me while I was still a baby. Maybe she needed to be sure, I don't know."

"She was weak. She was always weak, not perfect. She couldn't protect us any more than she could protect herself."

Jonathan looked surprised at Clary's words and leaned forward in interest.

"What's got you thinking about her, Clary?"

Clary sucked in a breath, contemplating the answer to his question before returning with one of her own, "If I move closer, can you," she paused, offering a pleading look, "not touch me."

Jonathan's mouth quirked up into a half-smile and he raised his hands in a surrender gesture.

"I'd never say no to you willingly coming near me," he agreed easily.

After a moment's hesitation, she came around to the other side of the desk, stopping several inches away from him and sliding back so that she was propped on his desk with her knees drawn closely to her chest. She focused her attention on hiding the effect being so close to him had on her.

"I feel like I'm on that ledge sometimes, Jonathan," Clary finally answered, focusing on her brother's expression.

"What do you mean?" His voice was quiet and concerned, Clary's only indication that his feelings for her were in any way genuine, as twisted and violent as they were.

"I don't want to be weak like her, but I know I have been. I've been running away from what it means to be a Morgenstern, just like she did. And now I feel like I'm standing with her, on the ledge, moments away from death. And just like her, I have no idea how to get down."

The silence between them was thick and Clary was sure that Jonathan hadn't expected this bout of honesty from her.

"You know I'd never let anything happen to you. You're mine, Clary, and I'll keep you safe."

She felt her eyes water and a slow tear trickled down her cheek as she focused on him again. Her green eyes almost seeing through his black ones.

"Can you help me get down, Jonathan?"

It must have been the lost look in her eye or the mournful lilt in her voice that caused him to lean towards her, his expression pained, and to promise, "I'll do anything, Clary."

She released a sobbing breath and smiled lightly at him, some hope evident in her features and he smiled in response, his own chest lighter. Tentatively, she reached a hand out towards him and pressed it gently to his cold cheek. His smile grew and he leaned into the contact.

Her hand moved back to the nape of his neck, her fingers curling into his hair softly.

Without warning, Clary yanked back on his hair with her right hand and drove the pen he'd been writing with into his neck, causing sharp pain and a scream of agony and surprise to rip through him.

"I'm gonna need you to die," she hissed, yanking again so that he flew backwards in his chair, which she yanked out from under him and slammed into his chest almost before he hit the ground. The chair shattered and she held the broken leg of it in her hand. Quickly, so quickly that he barely had time to react, she drove the makeshift stake into where his torso was. He managed to roll out of the way despite the throbbing pain in his neck and chest.

She was jabbing again at him before he had a chance to clamor to his feet, stabbing his shoulder. He pivoted his body so that his feet were towards her and pushed her backwards into the wall of the small study, knocking his globe off of his desk in her fall.

She was on her feet as quickly as he was and they were in defense stances on either side of his desk. He pulled the piece of wood from his shoulder with a wild howl of laughter and tossed it to the side. He feinted to the left, his move matched in speed by hers to the right. He did the same in the opposite direction and was incredibly impressed again by her reaction.

"I must say, Clary, I didn't know you had it in you. I'm not sure why though, this is exactly the fire I first saw in you. This spirit, it's incredible," he mused, his voice not hinting at the pain he was in and the genuine concern he felt at the possibility that she might actually best him.

"I'd be more interested to see your spirit, Jonathan. In fact, how about I kill you, so we can both see it," she spat back.

He laughed again and pushed the desk towards her to trap her against the wall. Once it began to move, Clary pushed up from the ground with her arms and swung her legs so that she slid across the desk and kicked Jonathan back. He grunted against the impact and grabbed onto her ankle. She swung her free leg up and slammed onto the crook of his arm, forcing him to release her. More quickly than he could process she pressed her foot against his bleeding shoulder, causing him to cry out again in pain. She pushed more fiercely, her muscles straining against the effort, until his knees crumpled beneath him and he fell to the floor.

Without hesitation, she reached into the top desk of his drawer and pulled out the gun she knew would be there. She checked to ensure it was loaded and turned off the safety before training it on her brother.

"I shouldn't be surprised you left it in the same spot Dad did, Jon, and I'm not really. More disappointed. Sentimentality like this is very un-Morgenstern of you," she jeered, her hand shaking as the adrenaline coursed through her veins.

Jonathan groaned and clutched his shoulder in pain on the ground before letting loose another laugh.

"Well, well, well, Clary, I'm very impressed. You have become a worthy adversary and, honestly, I'd rather die by your hands than any other. That is," he smiled menacingly, "If you can kill me. I'm not convinced you've got it in you."

"Maybe this will convince you," she concluded, increasing pressure on the trigger.

Before she could fire, two of Jonathan's guard clamored through the door, each holding the arm of a man with a bag over his head, dragging him across the threshold.

Clary's eyes widened at she studied them, surprise coloring her expression.

"What the hell is this? Another game?" she barked, earning a groan from Jonathan's prisoner.

"Excellent timing," Jonathan cackled, clapping his hands together in amusement. "I guess we'll never know if you'd have shot me, Clary. Now, if you do, our newest guest dies."

Clary turned again towards the captive, her mind not comprehending all that was happening. Even as the guard nearest her, ripped off the cloth covering the man's face. Her heart sank to the floor before her brain supplied her with a name she wished she'd forgotten.

"Jace."