All in all, Jace's high school wasn't that different from hers. Sure everyone wore a uniform and Clary wasn't quite used to everyone around her speaking English in a British accent, but it was mostly the same.

It had been a shock that morning to see Jace in his uniform and not casual clothes.

She'd been sitting downstairs, eating her breakfast alone. Thankfully Mrs Montclaire wasn't there otherwise Clary had a feeling that they would have spent the entire meal in an awkward silence.

She had then heard Jace's footsteps in the hallway and had turned around to say hi when she noticed what he was wearing. He had on a navy blue blazer, with a striped white and blue tie and although his hair was still slightly untidy, he still looked neat. Clary had then felt very underdressed in a t-shirt and shorts.

However, now that she was walking around the school she noticed that people had managed to customise their uniforms slightly. Most girls had rolled up their knee-length kilts to make them shorter and some people wore badges on their blazers.

"So what other uniform rules do you have?" asked Clary.

"Well from the top of my head, your hair has to be a natural colour, don't worry I think yours just about makes it. No heels, no obvious makeup, blazers on at all times, except when it's hot. Umm," he looked up at the ceiling. "No jewellery, only black shoes allowed and boys have to wear ties."

Clary's eyes widened. "Jesus, your school's stict."

"Yeah, it wasn't like this in France." They stopped at his locker so that he could put some of his books in it.

"What about when you were younger? Did you have to follow all these rules then?"

"Other than having school uniform, they didn't really care that much," he replied, shoving his books into his locker. Clary felt out of place here, some of the younger students, kept looking at her whenever she passed.

When she'd first seen the younger kids, she'd thought they'd accidentally ended up in the wrong school. Some of those kids hadn't looked older than Max, and he was only eight. Jace had explained that high schools in England mainly had pupils from eleven to eighteen years old. And, no they weren't eight, they just looked younger than they were.

"Come on, it's time for physics," said Jace slamming his door shut.

To say that physics had been boring was an understatement. The teacher hadn't really cared about Clary doing any work, and so hadn't set her any and back home Clary wasn't doing physics so she had nothing to do really that entire lesson. The teacher had told the class that they had to spend it in silence and so she couldn't really talk to Jace that much. On top of that, she'd left her sketchbook back in her suitcase and couldn't finish off any of her other drawings.

However, Jace had torn a piece of paper from the back of his book for her so she could doodle on it, but still it had been a very boring hour. Now, though, it was lunch and the two of them were heading outside to eat.

"Hey Jace!" someone shouted a few metres away. They turned around and Clary saw someone throw their arms around Jace.

"Good to see you," said a brown-haired boy from behind the girl who was hugging Jace.

"Yeah, you two," said Jace. The girl drew back from Jace with a grin on her face and Clary realised that it was Aline Penhallow, the person who she was supposed to get on the exchange. The four of them began walking again, though Clary felt slightly awkward as she didn't know them (with the exception of Jace) but he was deep in conversation with the brown-haired boy.

They were walking across a decently sized field where clusters of students sat on the ground eating. It was still weird seeing so many people wearing the same clothes. The majority of the colours nearby were grays and blues, and the occasional brown. Clary stuck out with her bright hair and different clothes. However, she did see other students from her school occasionally amongst all the people.

"So how do you like it here?" Aline had stepped back from the other two and was looking at her.

"It's okay, I guess," she answered.

"Hmm," she said, awkwardness settling between them. Clary looked away.

"I bet, you're wondering why I didn't go on the exchange," Aline said after a brief silence.

Clary shrugged. "Yeah, a little. I mean, I was expecting you and then suddenly this blond guy's dumped on me instead."

Aline laughed. "I take it your friends with him, huh?"

"Yeah," replied Clary. They were starting to get nearer to the edge of the field which was lined with large bushes. In the places where it thinned, a metal fence could be seen.

"I did want to go to the exchange, don't get me wrong, but my grandad died and we had to go the funeral."

Clary wasn't sure what to say. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," she decided on.

"It's fine, I barely knew him and to be honest, I didn't like him that much either." Clary was slightly shocked by her admission and the way that she had said that she didn't like her grandfather so casually. True, her dad's parents had died when she was younger and she also hadn't liked them mainly because of the way they looked down on her mother, but she would never had admitted that. Somehow, it seemed rude to disrespect a dead person.

They had stopped walking and Jace and the other boy were sitting on the grass, laughing. Clary joined them, sitting next to Aline. Aline had taken her blazer off and was now using it to shield her phone from anyone's view. Clary had a feeling she often spent her lunches being the third wheel. She'd spent enough time with Simon and Izzy to know what that felt like.

Picking up her apple, Clary began to slowly eat it as she watched everyone around her, trying to spot Simon. She'd called him last night after she and Jace had gotten home from the pier, but a few rings later and it had gone to voicemail. He had replied to her texts that morning though, saying that he'd been having dinner.

She continued searching the field for him, but instead found a teacher coming in their direction. "Aline!" she hissed, nudging her. "A teacher's coming!"

Swiftly, Aline slid her phone into one of the pockets of her blazer. The teacher, thankfully, hadn't seen her and was instead talking to a group of people a few metres away. Soon after, he left with two phones.

"Good thing you were here, my parents would've murdered me if they had to pick up my phone from here for the third time in the past month and they probably would've murdered me again for getting a detention," she said, bringing her bag towards her.

"So this happens often I take it," said Clary, gesturing to the talking boys and Aline.

"Oh yeah, I'm always the third wheel," she said, pulling out a sandwich from her bag.

"Tell me about it. My two best friends are dating, that's infinitely worse."

Aline laughed. "Well I know for a fact that Sebastian is straight," she said, gesturing to the brown-haired boy. "So I guess they're not as bad as your friends."

In no time at all, Aline and Clary were talking like they had known each other for years.

Clary was sprawled out on Jace's bed while he was at his desk doing his homework. They had been like this for the past hour, Clary drawing and Jace writing.

When she had walked into his room, she had been surprised. It was neat and looked very plain. It could've belonged to anyone and nothing in it seemed like it was his. She'd been expecting an untidy bedroom. Clary had then headed straight to his bed so that she could draw there.

Yesterday, when they had been by the beach, she had taken a picture of the sea on the way home, hoping to replicate it in her sketchbook.

She picked up her phone again, and turned it on, going to her photos to find the right one. Jace had taken her phone yesterday and had managed to take a picture of her holding the giant chicken as they sat on the train. It had been embarrassing carrying the stuffed toy around and there had been lots of heads turning in her way as she walked past. She didn't know whether it was because of what she was holding, or because of how big it was in comparison to her, which Jace hadn't stopped pointing out. The chicken was currently residing on her bed.

Clary picked up her pencil and began shaping the outline of the sidewalk. She hadn't yet decided whether to add colour to the drawing or to just leave it in pencil.

She couldn't dwell on that problem longer, though, because the door of Jace's room creaked open suddenly, and Clary turned around to see his mum. She hadn't seen her again after they'd gotten back from the park on her first night.

"Jace," she said, softly.

"Yeah?" he asked, turning around in his chair resting his arms on top of its back.

"Could you pick the strawberries, please?" she asked.

Clary had expected that he would have protested a little bit but all he said was, "Sure." His mother left the room, soundless. There was something about her that made Clary feel as if she wasn't entirely there with them.

Jace slammed his textbook shut and got out of his seat. "You coming with me?"

"Sure, I've got nothing better to do," said Clary as she closed her sketchbook and put all her pencils back in their container. Sliding off his bed, she left her stuff on the duvet. She could retrieve it later.

They made their way downstairs and Jace led them to the kitchen where the back door was. He picked up a plastic bowl from a cupboard and followed her outside once she'd gotten her shoes on.

When they stepped outside, the scent of the small white flowers climbing up the trellis on the wall greeted them. At the center of the garden there was a medium-sized pond with a small tree with its branches dangling over it. Waterlilies ringed the corners.

The edges of the garden had large flowerbeds that had a natural look to them as if they hadn't been planted there and had always been there.

They headed over to the left side of the garden which Clary noticed that they held fruits and vegetables, patches of onions and carrots, a group of beans twined around wooden sticks, bushes of raspberries and blackberries and dotted throughout all of the space, apple, peach and cherry trees.

However, Jace led them to the back of the garden where a patch of strawberries had seemed to gone wild and had even started to grow in the cracks of the path. The back of the garden faced a field below them and had a small wire fence that was broken in some places. Behind that was a drop of about two metres onto the rocks at the bottom.

"Get picking then," said Jace, crouching down and starting to drop small, red strawberries into the bowl. "But don't go too close to that edge, the rocks aren't so secure and I rather you didn't take a trip to that pile of rocks a few metres below you."

"So who planted all this stuff here?" asked Clary, gesturing to the garden as she followed Jace into the patch of strawberries and began picking some.

"I don't know, it was all here when we bought the house, my mum just looks after it all now though." He placed a handful of the fruit onto the bowl carefully so that they wouldn't get damaged.

They slowly went further into the patch as the bowl began to get more and more full. "What's your mum going to do with all this anyway?" asked Clary as she threw away a strawberry that had been half-eaten by a slug.

"Make jam or something, this stuff will go off in a few days."

They picked for a few more minutes until the bowl was full. "Okay, I think that's enough," said Jace, pushing back his hair with the back of his hand. "Here, my mum's not going to miss any."

He handed her a red, heart-shaped strawberry.

"Is it good?" he asked when she had finished.

"Yeah, it's good," she replied as they headed back to the house.

Whenever Max was bored and nobody was at home, he visited the comic book shop with the sort of strange owner and his lazy cat. Right now was one of those times. Having finished his latest comic with Yossarian yesterday, he was hoping that he could get the next one in the series so that he could read to the cat later on.

He'd spent the half hour after he'd woken up trying to collect coins from around the house and he'd been lucky when he found twenty dollars on the floor (it was directly under his father's jacket, but Max could never be sure it had been from there).

He had wanted to call Izzy or Alec, but he didn't know their numbers and their numbers weren't saved on the phone in the living room.

After that though, Max realised that he needed to get to school; he couldn't let them tell his mum he hadn't been going. If they did, Alec and Izzy would be in big trouble for leaving him alone.

For once, he had had to leave the house for school by himself. He'd left Yossarian a huge bowl of food and water and, once he had taken the spare key and had locked the door, he left for school. He'd been hoping ever since that Alec and Izzy would get home soon. It was getting lonely with just Yossarian and his books for company.

Now though he couldn't wait to meet Magnus and properly talk to him about his comic. Magnus also loved the same ones he read, which was understandable since he owned a shop dedicated to comics.

The bell above the door rang when he opened the door, the cold air rushing to meet him. "Magnus?" he called out. He couldn't see anyone, which didn't bother him, the shop usually had few customers whenever he went. Plus, it was just after his school had ended but most high schools had not yet. Still, it was unusual for Max to not be able to see Magnus. His cat had also not been around the last couple of times he had visited.

"Magnus?" he called out again. Wandering the aisles, he started to near the back corner where he could hear something. As he turned, he saw something very surprising.

"Alec?" he asked, astonished. His brother was leaning against the shelves, looking up at Magnus who had a hand braced against the space beside Alec's head. Is this where he'd spent the last two days?

"Alec, what are you doing here?" asked Max again. As soon as Alec saw Max, he sprung away from the shelf, backing away from Magnus.

"Oh, me? I'm buying a comic." Blindly, he grabbed at one from the shelf behind him. He glanced down at it. "Yeah, Teen Titans. I love them."

"Really?" asked Max disbelief clear in his voice. "Who's that then?" He pointed at the cover.

"Oh, um, Batman?" Magnus was shaking his head from the corner of Max's eye, trying to hide a small smile.

"No! He's not one of the Titans!"

Magnus stepped forward, placing a hand on Alec's shoulder which he immediately shrugged off. "He came to visit me. I'm a friend of his."

As a result of Alec's pale skin, the blush on his face was very visible. Max assumed it was from embarrassment, maybe because he hadn't known anything about the comic book he'd picked up.

"You're friends with him?" Max asked in shock. Alec and Magnus had nothing in common. How did they ever become friends?

"Yeah," intervened Magnus. "I used to go to his school."

"Oh," said Max. He'd never really seen Alec with his friends and had always assumed he didn't have any. Alec was the sort of person who seemed to prefer being alone.

"Magnus, do you have any new comics?" Max asked, turning to Magnus.

"Sure do," he said. "Come on, follow me." He put an arm around Alec's shoulders, who looked as if he were trying to leave, and steered them off in the direction of the storage room.

The short trip to it was filled with awkward silence. However, once they were inside, Magnus disappeared behind a stack of cardboard boxes, whistling. As soon as he was gone, Alec turned to Max and hissed, "What are you doing here?"

"No, what are you doing here?"

"Why are you out of the house by yourself? Where's Izzy or Mum?"

"Izzy's been gone the whole day and night, like you've been. And mum's away, she told us. You would've known if you bothered to stay home," Max said, crossing his arms.

"So who's been looking after you?" asked Alec, alarmed.

"Well, it was supposed to be you, but after hide and seek, you left and then Izzy went a few minutes later. It's just been me and Simon's cat."

Alec muttered something that sounded very similar to a swear word, but Max thought this was ridiculous because Alec never swore.

"So you've been looking after yourself? Have you had food? Gone to school?" he asked, crouching down beside him and looking at his face.

"Yes, yes and yes."

"And what about Yossarian? Izzy was supposed to look after him," he said. He still looked alarmed and worried.

"No, she thought you were staying and looking after us. But I've given him food and water and played with him, but he doesn't need a bath, he takes care of that himself."

Alec suddenly enveloped Max in a tight hug. "So you've been by yourself, all alone since Saturday?"

"Yeah." Alec's hold on him tightened even more. "I'm so sorry Max." Alec drew back so that he could look at his face and Max could see how angry he was at himself. Max leaned forward to hug him again. "It's okay. It was just a misunderstanding."

"But I should've at least thought about you, or checked on you," he said through clenched teeth.

"It's okay, Alec," repeated Max. They stayed like that, hugging for a while until Magnus called out Max's name. "I found you the latest copy!" he called. Max stepped back from Alec and went over to Magnus for the comic.

"How much is it?" he asked, digging his hand into his pocket to find the money.

"Free," said Magnus, handing it over. "I'm not taking any money from you."

"Really? But you've already given me one for free," he said.

"It's fine, we're friends aren't we?"

Max looked at Alec and then back at Magnus. "Thank you."

"Okay, now come on," said Alec, taking Max's hand. "We're going home now."

"But I wanted to talk to Magnus about the comic I just read," protested Max, planting his feet on the ground. They couldn't leave now. They hadn't even been here for ten minutes.

Alec dragged him towards the door anyway. "That can wait, I need to make you dinner."

"But you don't know how to cook!" Why did Alec want to leave so quickly? There was still a good three hours until dinner.

"I know how to cook, you can come round my house," said Magnus, appearing beside them.

"Yeah, let's go to Magnus's house!" exclaimed Max.

"No we need to go home, Max," said Alec firmly, tugging on his arm.

"You can come another day," offered Magnus.

"Okay," said Max, excitedly. Alec glared at Magnus.

"How about Saturday night, for dinner?" Magnus asked.

"No, Max can't go out that late," said Alec causing his younger brother to scowl at him.

"You get to go out that late, and Mum won't be home that day. Please can we go?" he pleaded.

Alec looked at him sternly for a moment. His eyes flickered to Magnus's and then he finally sighed. "Fine, but only if you don't tell anyone. Mum won't be happy knowing you're going out without her."

"Thank you," said Max, hugging Alec's waist. He couldn't see it, but Alec was smiling very softly down at his brother.

Okay, I actually kinda liked that Magnus and Alec and Max bit (not so much the Clace, but I had to set the scene a bit for future chapters). I just found it really fun writing about Max, maybe because everything's different from his perspective. And also I am so surprised about how quick I wrote this chapter but don't get used to it, it's probably a one off thing. Anyways, thanks for reading, reviewing and following! Hope you enjoyed the chapter.