Chapter 58: Day Four - Clary

Welcome to day four. If you celebrate Christmas, then happy Christmas Eve, otherwise happy holidays! I hope you're all having a great day whatever you're doing! Hope you enjoy the chapter :)

Clary's POV

"Honey, we're home," I yell as Jace and I walk through the front door.

"Is there someone I need to know about?" Jace asks, dropping his bag next to the door.

"I thought Kit would be around somewhere," I say, heading into the living room. "Apparently not. Chances are he's still asleep."

"But it's like…" Jace looks at his watch, "3am… in London."

"And it's 11.00 am here. Do you want to go have a nap or something?" I ask. I didn't really take his jet lag into consideration.

"No it's all good; I slept for most of the flight over. What'd you have planned for today?" He asks pulling me down to sit on the couch with him.

"Well, we got the day off rehearsals, because we're apparently 'so far ahead of schedule', but I really think it's because everyone wants to be with their family on Christmas Eve… which I'm totally not complaining about. So anyway I'm free all day. I've just got to do this video thing."

"Oh yeah on Instagram… I saw the guys. Pretty good, pretty funny," Jace says.

"Yeah well… I have no idea what I'm going to do. But I thought we could start making food for the Christmas party tomorrow?"

"You didn't get caterers?" Jace asks.

"Well… I've never really like catering smaller events - it just seems so impersonal. And especially with this one, when it's just friends and family. But I totally get it if you don't want to cook with me, I just thought… because I know you like cooking… It'd be too late to order a caterer now," I say, realising what a mistake I've made.

"Clary, Clary... calm down, okay. It's perfect - I totally agree. I'm just so used to attending these massive Christmas parties where I used to get black out drunk… I'm excited for this Christmas. To spend it with family."

"I'm glad - because you're the party planner in this relationship," I say, getting up and holding my hand out for him to follow, pulling him towards the kitchen. "I thought we could definitely do all of the desserts today, because they'll keep overnight, and then I thought we could just prep everything else - you know cut up vegetables, marinate the meat. Then we can just pop it in the oven or on the stove tomorrow.

"Sounds like a plan," Jace says, picking up the folder on the bench and flicking through it.

"The recipes," I tell him. "So how do you want to go about this? We can do everything together, or divide and conquer."

"It'll definitely be faster if we just pick a few recipes each," Jace says.

"Okay, well I can start with all the savoury and you can start with deserts, and then we'll meet in the middle," I say, starting to divide all the recipes.

We cook for around an hour, with Christmas music playing, and just catching up on everything we've missed in each others lives. Eventually Kit gets out of bed and makes himself a bowl of cereal, which he says counts as cooking.

I then realise that I may as well just do my video now, because it'll mean that I don't have to make time later, and I can easily talk and answer questions while cutting and spicing food.

"Yeah, but then wouldn't I be in it? Or do you want me to stop cooking for a little while?" Jace asks.

"Well if you don't want to be in it that fine, but Izzy was in Simon's yesterday, so I don't see why you couldn't be in mine…" I say.

"If you're sure," Jace says, and then starts sifting the flour again.

I set my phone up, and lean it against a bag of flour.

"Hey guys, Clary here for the fourth day of Christmas, which just happens to be Christmas Eve. So, happy Christmas Eve, or happy holidays, or if you're not into any of that; I hope you're having a great day! Jace and I are just making food for our Christmas party tomorrow, so I thought now would be as good a time as any to answer some of your questions and just hang out for a while."

Jaec walks behind me and waves at the camera, his hands covered in flour as if to prove the point that he's baking.

"Get back over there," I tell him playfully, "you're getting flour all over the green beans!" Of course, him being Jace means that he has to wipe flour across my forehead before heading back over to his bowl.

I quickly wash the beans again, and then look at the phone.

"Okay first question… what is your favourite Christmas song? Ummm, I'm probably more into Christmas carols than just songs… There's this album by the Choir of King's College that my family used to listen to every Christmas. But I also love the Michael Buble and Idina Mendes version of 'Baby it's Cold Outside'. The video clip for that is just too cute."

Jace looks at me grinning, so I throw a bean at him, "fine. What's yours then?" I ask.

"Mine would be 'All I Want for Christmas is You,' he says.

"Mariah Carey really does go off on that - I guess that's a pretty good answer," I say.

"Not the Mariah version, although that is good. Your version."

"Oh shut up, what's your real favourite?" I ask, tempted to throw another bean at him.

"I'm not kidding - look," he says, wiping his hands on his apron and taking his phone out of his pocket. He goes to his on repeat playlist on Spotify and shows it to me. Sure enough, the song is at number one, with Lucky below it. He shows the phone to the camera as if to prove his point to everyone watching.

"Why's Lucky your number two?" I ask, genuinely confused. "We recorded that song like, a year ago."

"Well, if you must know; I play it when I miss you," he says, putting his phone away. "And I've been in London for a while… and I miss you a lot." I can feel myself blushing, and can see that Jace has noticed, because he start chuckling at me. "Next question…" he says, leaning in towards the phone. If you could teach any course at college - real or fake, what would it be and why?"

"Ohh that's a really cool question," I say, and then put the beans in the fridge.

"I think I would teach… maybe, like, I don't want to be boring and say an acting class. Maybe like… a stunts class. Like teaching people how to do their own stunts in movies. I think that'd be pretty sick."

"Oh yeah, you'd be so good at that," I say. "I think I'd do, like an art appreciation class. We could look at like all mediums; music, movies, books, physical art, dance, fashion and everything in between, and then we could all just sit in a room and talk about how great it."

"How do you assess that class?" Jace asks, "not that you wouldn't be great a teaching it…" he adds, "I'm just curious."

"I don't know - it's a fake class! Maybe they write an essay about their favourite thing we looked at during the year, and talk about why it's their favourite. And dispute all critic's negative comments about it. What about your class, hey? Is it just a massive obstacle course?"

"Exactly that," he replies smugly.

"Oh whatever!" I say, struggling not to smile. "What's your favourite Christmas movie?"

"Okay, let's say them at the same time," Jace suggests. "One, two, three!" And then Jace says the Grinch at the same time I say Love Actually.

"The Grinch is my second favourite," I say.

"I suppose Love Actually is pretty good," he says as well.

"I never pegged you as a Grinch guy - the Jim Carrey one, right?" I ask.

"Oh definitely the Jim Carrey one - and I had you pegged exactly as a Love Actually girl," Jace says, poking his tongue out at me.

"So we can watch it tonight?" I ask, excited.

"If you want to watch all those porno scenes with Luke and Max, sure," he says.

"The Grinch it is then," I say, and Jace starts laughing.

"Are we meant to be spending this long on each question?" he asks me, flicking through the long list of questions that have come in.

"Probably not," I admit. "But there isn't really a set formula for this sort of thing, so we can do whatever we want."

"So I can do this?" he asks, and grabs be around the waist from behind, and spins me around. When he finally puts me down, he quickly kisses me on the neck before heading back over to the slice he's making.

"That's not really what I had in mind," I tell him, but laughing anyway. He just shrugs.

We answer questions for another little while, never really speeding up the process but having fun anyway. After that, we keep cooking, and Kit even helps us at one point, which is it's own Christmas miracle. After we clean the kitchen and ourselves up, and tell them that it's time to go to the airport.

"We're picking up a lot of people, so we're both going to have to take a car," I tell Jace. "And even then I don't think everyone will fit."

"Well I've organised for my parents to be picked up and taken straight to their hotel," Jace says, and looks like he doesn't want to be pushed on the topic. It was big for Jace to even invite both of his parents, so I don't say anything.

"Yeah same with my parents," Kit says. "I thought dad was going to say no, and I didn't really except my mother to show up - but anyway they've got separate cars going to a hotel.

"Well how about you pick up the Lightwood's" I tell Jace.

"There's five of them - they're not all going to fit," he points out.

"Okay well you get the Mayrses, Robert and Max. I'll get Simon's mom and sister and Luke. And then Alec, Mags, Simon and Izzy can get a cab and meet us back here."

Jace shrugs and then nods, and grabs a set of car keys off the bench. "Let's go then."

We pick everyone up and bring them back to Kits. Even though everyone wasn't staying here, we thought it would be nice to spend Christmas Eve together.

We order in Chinese food, and watch the Grinch together. After that, we play a couple of games, and just dance around to the Christmas music.

After Max falls asleep, we decide it's time to call it a night, and everyone heads off to wherever their staying, leaving just Kit, Jace, Luke and I in Kit's house. When we finish cleaning everything up, Jace looks at his phone and show it to me. 12.00.

"Merry Christmas Clary," he says, kissing me softly on the cheek.

Hope you liked that chapter! Come back tomorrow for the Christmas day chapter, where I can promise some wholesomeness, and a little bit of drama! Have a great day/night.