Hi everyone!

Before I begin, I just wanted to address one guest review saying that the scene in chapter 34 was unbelievable because Clary would have passed out. In my mind, the out-of-body experience was when she was unconscious, and this experience continues until she comes to, not realizing she was unconscious from the pain. Sorry if that was unclear.

Also, has anyone watched Shadowhunters? How is it? I have it recorded but haven't been able to watch it yet.

Finally, is anyone else following the Humans of New York posts on Facebook? They're breaking my heart and totally changing how I look at the justice system. You should all check it out if you haven't already.

Okay, so that's all I have for right now. I'm not going to write anything at the bottom of this chapter, so I'll remind you all up here: I love reviews! So please leave a review if you have any questions/comments/just want to talk!

All right, that's all for real. Enjoy!

I do not own TMI

This chapter takes place at the same time as the last chapter, so it's been a week since Clary was taken

Clary

I wake up to the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. They're soft and slow, not angry and rushed, so I know it's Jonathan. He actually tries not to wake me when he comes down, but when there are no other sounds to hear, any footstep reverberates like an explosion. Slowly, I push my body up to a sitting position.

My wounds are healing, slowly. My father has only come down two or three times since the initial encounter, and he's done more yelling and threatening than actually hitting. I guess Jonathan has been making good on his promise to keep him calm. I'm surprised he's been able to, but I'm not complaining. So other than my face, which has a few new bruises from my father working himself up during his rants, the rest of my body has been healing. The cuts didn't reopen yesterday, at least, so that must be a good sign. And I can finally walk without too much pain.

While my father's visits have been infrequent, Jonathan's become more and more frequent each day. In the morning, he brings down some type of breakfast food – toast, cereal, even eggs once – to keep me from starving, and if he can sneak it down, he brings some of their dinner scraps down late at night while my father is either sleeping or immersed in the television. Between visits, he comes down three, sometimes four times a day. He had sex with me again two days after my father's attack, claiming that it would help me feel better and forget about what had happened. I tried to hide my pain for the sake of keeping his allegiance, but I think he could tell it only hurt me more. Since then, he hasn't pushed me for anything, although he does frequently kiss me before leaving.

And he keeps saying those three confusing words: I love you. The first time he said it was when I winced during sex: he grabbed onto a healing gash a little too hard and I couldn't hide my pain. Immediately, his eyes widened in alarm, and he released his grip, whispering, "I'm sorry. I love you. I love you; I'm sorry." He tried to be more careful after that, but every time I winced, flinched, or yelped, he'd bury his face in my neck and repeat, "I love you, I love you," as if his words could stop the pain.

Before he left that night, he repeated it with his good bye kiss, and during each subsequent visit he has reminded me. I never know how to respond when he says it. Do I say I love him too? I appreciate his attempts at subduing my father, but I don't think I'd call that love. But then again, my mother always says she loves my father, and he hits her. Jonathan doesn't do anything like that to me. Everything he does, he does out of love, he's told me that. If my mother loved a man who beat her, shouldn't I be able to love a man who treats me well, protects me from my father, and constantly tells me that he loves me?

"I hope you like muffins." Jonathan's soft voice pulls me out of my thoughts. He stands in the doorway, having come in so quietly I didn't even hear the lock click. A small smile adorning his features, he kicks the door closed gently and walks over to the mattress. In his hands is a wooden tray holding three chocolate muffins and two glasses of milk. Carefully, he places the tray on my lap and sits on the foot of the mattress in front of me.

"Yeah, muffins are great," I reply with a smile. A sense of déjà vu washes over me: has he brought me muffins before? I think back on all the mornings I've been here. I thought I'd accounted for all of them: two days of cereal, three with toast, and one with eggs. Maybe he fed me some muffins after my father's beating? The details of that day as a whole are a little fuzzy, after all.

As he pulls off his shirt, a loose-fitting black T-shirt, my brow furrows in confusion. Does he want sex again? He usually isn't so forward about it. But then he holds the shirt out to me. "That shirt you're wearing is covered in blood. You can wear this. It's a little big, but it should work."

Slowly, to avoid any pain, I pull off my old shirt – which I've been wearing since Jonathan first patched me up after my father's initial beating – and trade it in for the shirt in front of me. It's way too big, long enough to be a short dress, but that's good, since I don't have any pants and probably wouldn't be able to put them on over all my cuts and bruises anyways.

As I look down at my shirt-dress-clad body and the tray of milk and muffins, it all comes back to me. The muffins, the black shirt – these are things Jace brought me the morning after I fainted underneath him. I look up at the man in front of me to see Jace staring at me. Startled, I blink a few quick times, and when I look up again he's turned back into Jonathan. But it's the same situation, isn't it? He came to bring me food and clothing. Because he cares about me, and because he's trying to help me despite my father's wishes, just like Jace.

I smile at him and bite into a muffin. "Thank you." He nods, picking one up for himself.

He even looks kind of like Jace. The thought crosses my mind spontaneously, but I entertain it as we eat in silence. Granted, he's a bit taller and more muscular than Jace, Jonathan's black eyes are in sharp contrast to Jace's gold ones, and a stern aura surrounds Jonathan that simply doesn't exist in Jace, but from their same blonde hair, face shape, and body proportions they could easily be brothers.

And in some ways Jonathan is better than Jace.

As soon as it crosses my mind, I push the thought away in horror. Jonathan can't be better than Jace. Not after what he's done to me. Where did that thought even come from? I bite dutifully into my muffin and stare at Jonathan, thinking of all the horrible things he's put me through.

I'm even more confused when I draw a blank. Of course, I can think of bad things he has done to me, but every bad thing he's done – the sex, the branding, helping my father kidnap me – can be explained by his feelings for me – he loves me, he says, and it's only natural for love to invoke intense, sometimes destructive, actions. My father has always told me that: love destroys.

But my mother always looked at love in a positive light. Yes, it can cause great pain, but it can also lead to great happiness. And if she's right, I should be able to forgive Jonathan. And I'd much rather my mother be right than my father.

If his previous actions can be justified by his feelings for me, then his actions since my father kidnapped me have all been to help me. He came along on the kidnapping to keep an eye on me, he's kept my father relatively tame, and he's tended to my wounds, brought me as much food as he could, and he's been pretty respectful of my boundaries. He's trying to help me, and his efforts have actually paid off, which is more than I can say about Jace. All his efforts only ended with me in more pain: getting me out of Jonathan's office, taking me to his house after the party, taking me to the hospital, and taking me to his grandparents' house all resulted in my father punishing me much more than he would have had it not been for Jace.

So maybe, as odd as the thought originally was, Jonathan actually is better than Jace.

For all Jonathan's efforts, I've never really thanked him. For the food, I have, but not for everything he's done, everything he's risked.

Having finished his muffin, Jonathan looks up to notice me staring at him. His brow furrows, and he tenderly reaches his right hand out to cup my face and run his thumb gently over a small scrape next to my left eye, from where my father's nails broke skin the last time he slapped me.

He lets out a sad sigh, shaking his head slightly. "I'm so sorry about this. What are you thinking about?"

I smile sadly. His pain at even just this small scrape hurts me more than the cut itself. He blames himself each time my father hits me, I can tell. He tries to stop my father, but sometimes he can't. It's not his fault. I just wish he'd realize that. "It's not your fault, you know. You do what you can."

He shoots me a disbelieving smile. "Yeah, well, I don't know how much I'm going to be able to do in the next few days."

My blood runs cold at his words. Jonathan sounds worried; he sounds like whatever my father has in store for me will be as bad or worse than last week's punishment. I'm not prepared for that; I've barely healed at all from the last one. "What… what happened?" I ask, barely able to get the words out.

"I'm not sure. He was furious late last night. I was in my room, but I could hear him yelling at someone over the phone. And he was inconsolable this morning, flipping angrily through files and mumbling something about Pond Mercy or something like that. I don't know. All I know is he is pissed. I'll try to keep him upstairs as long as possible, but if I were you, I'd prepare for the worst."

As I soak in his words, he leans over the tray on my lap and kisses my forehead so lightly I barely feel it. As he pulls away, his eyes meet mine. I hope I'm able to hide my fear – I don't want to see that self-blaming pity in his gaze again.

My attempts are in vain, as the blame is evident in his next words. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'll do what I can." With that, he pushes himself from the bed, picks up the tray, and heads toward the door.

I really should be more thankful. Jonathan's given up everything from New York – his friends, his job, his future and reputation as an aspiring young lawyer – to come here (wherever here is) and try to keep me as safe as possible. When I think about it, he's doing quite an honorable thing, really. He may not completely stop my father, but he has definitely calmed him down on several occasions; without him, I'd be in much worse shape right now. I don't want him to leave thinking that the pain my father is about to inflict on me is his fault. I want him to know that I understand the sacrifice he's making to keep me safe, the danger he will be in if my father ever figures out what he's doing.

Just before he reaches the door, I say what I've been contemplating saying since he first stepped in this morning. "Thank you, Jon. For helping me."

He stops in his tracks, tensing at the sound of his old nickname. It doesn't surprise me; nobody has called him that in years, not since we were kids. It was the name I used back when we lived together and I saw him as an older brother. It was an innocent name, one I'd use to thank him for bandaging my scrapes or protecting me from the monsters I was scared of. Neither of our fathers liked it: they both thought it was 'too soft' a name for somebody as strong as Jonathan. I always saw it as the name of my doting protector and friend. I know he saw it the same way.

I hold my breath as he stands in silence, watching the muscles on his bare back clench and unclench. Each time they relax, he flinches as if to turn back to me, but before he turns around he stops and tenses up again. This repeats several times until I sigh and slide down to lie on the mattress. He obviously isn't turning around. He may love me and want to help me, but his father and mine have burned their words into his mind: Jon is for weaklings. Jonathan is a strong name. He won't want me to call him that, won't open up to me like that; why did I even try?

Just as I'm giving up on him, though, that flinch doesn't stop and tense back up. Instead, he looks over his shoulder, a boyish grin pushing through his usually stoic expression. "You're welcome, Clary. I'm just trying to look out for you."

Without another word or backwards glance, he strolls out the door, closing and locking the door with a slight click.

As I lie alone on the bed with nothing but my own thoughts to keep me company, I can't help but think about Jonathan. He really has helped me with so much, not just since my father kidnapped me to bring me here but throughout my life. From my elementary school days where he would scare off any bullies to his constant willingness to sneak me some extra money in New York, he has always been consistently willing to help me out.

My other memories of him seem fuzzy for some reason, but didn't he give me some PB&J sandwiches for lunch at school a few times? I'm pretty sure he drove me home a few times when it was raining or dark out. And wasn't it he who found me on the Brooklyn Bridge that night my mom went missing and who walked me home?

Or were those things Jace did for me? I entertain that proposal for a moment before discarding it. Jace made fun of me at school; he wouldn't have given me food. And he never would have walked me home from the Brooklyn Bridge: we barely knew each other at that point. That was before he started trying to 'help' me and ended up only making things worse. No, it must have been Jonathan.

Finally confident in my decision, I close my eyes. Hopefully I can get some sleep in before my father comes down. With the way Jonathan was talking, I don't know how easily I'll be able to sleep on my injuries when he's finished with me. At least Jonathan is here to help tame the fire a little bit.

Ignoring my fear as to what my father's next visit will entail, I slip into a restless sleep.

I dream of Jonathan. And Jace. First, they each have a hold of one of my hands, pulling in opposite directions, but quickly, the two men merge into one: one body, one voice, pulling in one direction. He pulls me forward, coercing me with promises of love and a a happy and free life, one where I don't have to worry about my father. One where he can't control me.

With a deep breath, I follow the merged Jonathan-Jace. "Take me there."

Okay, I said I wasn't going to post anything at the end, but hear me out.

As I thought about it, I realized a lot of people will look at the part of this chapter where she wonders if Jonathan's terrible actions can be justified by his love and will think that this kind of confusion and belief is unreasonable. So I really want to clarify something. I know, in my personal experience, that when somebody has justified misusing me with their feelings or love for me, I've tried to justify their actions right along with them. And I don't even have the intense messages Clary has been sent by her parents her whole life about love. So try, if you will, to imagine being in her shoes. She's never had anybody really love her, except her mother, who just sat back and allowed her father to hit her, and now she's been locked up in a basement for a week and her only experiences verging on happy or at least bearable have been with this guy who has done (almost) nothing but take care of her and keep her father from hurting her and tell her over and over how much he loves her. During this time, the guy she has seen as the good guy – Jace (who, if you recall, she never really trusted) – hasn't shown up at all. Of course she would wonder if Jonathan was the good guy in this situation. I'm not arguing by any means that she made the right decisions or thoughts, but they are, in her situation, definitely reasonable.

Also, sorry for the crappy writing. I feel like my writing has just generally been going downhill, but today I was really upset while writing this, and I write terribly when I'm upset. I wanted to finish it, thought, so I could hopefully make some people happy with my update.

That is all. :D Now you can continue with your days. I'd love some reviews, like always!