"Now this," said Clary, lifting her arm so that the water could fall onto it, "is more like what I was expecting."

As they were heading to school, it was fairly early in the morning (a very bad thing in Clary's opinion, she'd never really been a morning person). Another downside though was that it was now pouring with rain. The sky from which it fell from was as grey as the stone pathway on which they were walking on. Puddles of all sizes littered the ground of the path as a result of the cracked, unevenness of it.

"It's not like this often," said Jace. "I haven't seen a rainy day for, like, a month."

"That's because you've barely been here for the past month," she retorted. "I really wish I'd brought that coat with me." The only protection that they had from the rain was the single umbrella that they were huddled beneath. Jace was holding it as, he had pointed out, she was too short for it. He had wrapped his arm around her shoulders to so that they were both protected by the umbrella. Somehow, Jace holding her was a lot different to whenever Jonathan or Simon did.

"No, that coat would've been a mistake. How would your giant chicken ever fit in your suitcase then?" said Jace. They had stopped at the side of a road and were waiting for the flow of cars to disappear or for one of them to slow down.

"Of course, that chicken means more to me than life itself," said Clary, sarcastically.

"Naturally. I won it," said Jace. They watched as another car drove past without stopping. She was starting to get impatient now, not to mention cold.

Clary groaned. "Isn't there another place to cross with less cars? My shoulder is getting wet now." She could feel the water seep through her jacket and then her t-shirt and now her skin was feeling cold and unpleasant.

"Nope, this is the quickest way," he replied, turning to look at her shoulder. "Here." He pushed her ahead of him slightly so that she fit better under the umbrella and that her back was pressed against his front.

"Hey, I can still see over you, midget," said Jace, resting his chin on her hair.

Clary didn't reply. If she had been aware of Jace's presence before, she felt as if every nerve in her body was aware now. She watched as another car drove by, but this time it was closer to the curb and this time it drove straight through a puddle that caused the water to spray upwards... all onto Clary. She was now soaked. Almost all of her body was wet now.

She stumbled backwards into a laughing Jace and turned around angrily to face him.

"How did none of it touch you?" she exclaimed. Jace laughed, saying, "Because you're a pretty good human shield."

"Oh, I'm gonna -" She snatched the umbrella out of his hand suddenly and shoved him under a thin, steady stream of water that was sliding off of a roof.

For a moment, he stood there, shocked, with his hair now plastered to his face. Clary stifled a laugh behind her hand. He took a step towards her, wiping his sleeve across his face.

"Uh uh," she said shaking her head, "we're even now."

"I guess I deserved that, didn't I?" he said, walking towards her.

"Yeah, you did."

He paused in front of her, closer to her than he ever had before, looking at her with his mouth slightly open. He lifted his hand slightly just as a voice from Clary's left said, "What happened to you guys?"

Clary turned and saw that it was Aline walking towards them, under a small, transparent umbrella. She looked between Jace and then Clary's close figures silently. Clary took a step back from Jace.

"I was standing too close to the curb and a car soaked me," said Clary, turning to Aline.

"Right," Aline said, shifting her gaze from Jace to Clary.

"But you're going to need some dry clothes now," said Jace. "It's just my head and blazer that's wet." He took the umbrella out of Clary's hand and took shelter beneath it.

"Hey!" she said, reaching out to snatch it back. He moved out of the way. "You're already soaked. A few more minutes of rain won't make a difference." Clary knew they couldn't go back to Jace's house to get clothes for him as it was about half an hour away by foot. She guess it did make sense for one of them to be wet rather than both.

"Hey, Clary I've got some clothes in my bag if you want to borrow them," said Aline, suddenly. "I was going to go out with some friends after school, but she just told me she can't."

"Thanks," said Clary.

"It's fine. Any friend of Jace's is a friend of mine."

The rest of the five minute walk to school had a different sort of atmosphere. Clary didn't feel as comfortable with Aline as she did with Jace. Although the two girls had spent most of lunch yesterday talking, she still wouldn't joke around with Aline the way she and Jace did with each other.

When they walked through the front doors of the school, Clary was met with many curious looks. Sure, it was pouring outside but no one else was that wet. Clary looked as if she'd taken a bath with her clothes on.

"There's a bathroom over here," said Aline, tilting her head in its direction. "You can change in there."

"I'll be at my locker," said Jace. "You can show her the way, Aline."

"Sure," she said as she and Clary headed over to the toilets.

Inside, it could've been one of the ones at Clary's school, though it was small and only had two cubicles. Luckily, there was no one else in the bathroom but the two of them.

Aline placed her bag down next to the sink and pulled out some clothes. "They may be slightly too big for you, but I mean it's better than nothing."

Clary took them as Aline said, "I don't have any shoes though, sorry. But maybe Jace has his trainers in his locker."

"Trainers?"

"Sneakers," clarified Aline even though Clary knew what they were and was just trying to imagine wearing Jace's shoes all day.

"Thanks for everything," said Clary, locking herself in one of the stalls.

"I already told you, it's fine."

Clary unfolded the clothes to get a proper look at them. They were just a pair of denim jeans and a tight tank top which made Clary very glad. She thought Aline would have been the sort of girl to wear short skirts like Izzy.

She pulled off her wet jacket and her damp top, hanging them on a peg on the back if the door. Her skin felt slightly sticky with the moisture but that couldn't be helped. Once she slipped into the shirt, she pulled on the jeans. They were looser than they were intended to be. As was the top. The neckline hung lower than she liked and she felt exposed. Clary sighed. She guessed it couldn't be helped. Slinging her wet clothes over her arm, she unlocked the door and stepped out to see Aline standing against the sinks, on her phone.

She looked up when she heard Clary. "It's a bit big for you, but it's better than wearing any of Jace's clothes."

"Yeah, thanks for this."

Clary went over to the mirror and examined her hair. It, like her clothes, was wet and she could feel tiny cold droplets of water drip onto Aline's shirt.

"I guess you can put it under the handryer," said Aline, laughing a little.

Clary did too, waving her hand beneath it to get it to start. "I never thought I'd be drying my hair by a handryer at school."

She bent down at an awkward angle to begin drying her hair.

"Aren't you going to be late for your lesson," said Clary over the loud sound of the handryer.

"Nah, I've still got about twenty minutes. Besides I wanted to tell you something."

"Sure, what is it?" she asked. She turned her head to face Aline properly.

"I just wanted to say that I don't think you and Jace would be good together." Suddenly, every thought in Clary's mind stopped. Her and Jace. Why would Aline even think of that?

Aline held out a hand at Clary's shocked face. "Don't deny it. I've seen the way Jace looks at you." How does Jace look at me? thought Clary. "I know Jace," continued Aline, "and I don't know you too well, but I'll tell you this: he wouldn't be serious. He's a good friend, but anything more I don't think he'd be good. He's dated a few girls since he's been here, and you don't seem to be like those. But like I said, I don't know you too well."

Clary was silent for a moment. Why was Aline telling her all of this? She'd have understood if it had come from someone closer to her, like Izzy, but what did Aline gain from this?

"Thanks, but me and Jace are just friends, that's it," she said, finally. Her mind was still trying to wildly process everything Aline had just said and her reasons behind it.

"Whatever you say," said Aline, leaning against the sinks and going on her phone once again.

Clary had her hand resting against her palm, staring out of the window at the rain hitting the window pane. Some of the water droplets were faster than others sliding down with the grace of a snake but with a calmness that a snake did not possess. Others went slowly, more like snails, occasionally colliding into other drops of water.

Clary spent a lot of the lesson staring out of the window, thinking about what Aline had said. Could it really have been true that Jace would never have taken her seriously in a relationship?

As soon as she'd think that, she'd immediately tell herself off for having those sorts of thoughts. She and Jace really were just friends. However, for the sake of truly trying to see if Aline's statements were true, she allowed herself the opportunity to think of Jace as anything other than a friend.

Immediately, the main thought she had was, this would never happen. Jace and I are just friends. Soon after however, a small, quiet part of her brain that wasn't heard often said that maybe she did like him more than just a friend.

When she'd first seen him, she hadn't liked him that much. She had assumed a lot about him, and had based her thoughts on those assumptions. Now, however, she felt as if she did know him, and she liked the person she knew. A part of her denied how much she liked him.

"Hey, Clary. You good? You've been staring out of that window for the past five minutes and I know there's nothing interesting out there except for a couple of old bins," said Jace, looking up from his history book. Unlike the physics lesson yesterday, everyone was allowed to talk while they worked in this lesson, but like the physics lesson yesterday Clary wasn't expected to do any of the work.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking, you know about what to draw, but I think I'm just going to finish off some sketches," she said, bending down to pull out her sketchbook from her bag.

"Now I know how you felt when I just spent the entire lesson doing nothing, and you had to work," said Jace, flipping through pages of his history textbook.

"I would offer to help, but I think I'd rather draw," she said.

"Thanks," said Jace, rolling his eyes.

While flipping through her sketchbook, Clary saw the drawing that she'd done of Jace when he was lying on the grass. It was mostly finished. She'd coloured in his face and hair and the only thing now left was the grass. She supposed she could do that now.

"Woah," said Jace and she saw that he was peering over her shoulder to look at her piece of art. "Is that the drawing you were doing last week at lunch?"

"Yeah, the one I was doing when you were there," said Clary, digging around in her pencil case to find the right colours.

"I knew you were good, but I didn't know you were that good," he said in awe of her drawing.

"Really?" She turned to look at him properly. Simon and Izzy never really commented on her sketches and her mum said they were good, but she couldn't exactly say, "Clary these sketches make me want to pour bleach onto my eyes".

"No, seriously. These are crazy good. Can I see the rest of your drawings?"

She hesitated for a moment. Sure, she showed people her work, but that was the work she wanted them to see. Her sketchbook was more personal. It had bad pieces of work, unfinished ones and ones that she didn't want anyone else but herself to see. But she didn't want to say no to Jace. And she also felt like he wouldn't judge her.

"Sure," she said, handing it over to him. He opened up the book to the first page, which was blank.

"Why'd you skip it?" he asked.

"It's the first page. It's got to be something really good. I just don't have any ideas yet," she said.

"And am I not good enough for the first page?" he said, raising his eyebrows.

"Hell no. Your nose is way too big," she said, playing along.

He rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. On the next page, Clary had drawn a bunch of rough sketches of people, to work out different proportions and stances.

Jace continued flipping through her book for the next few minutes, saying nothing. He looked through the whole thing with a smile on his face and occasionally he would linger on a page looking at it more closely.

Finally, he spoke when he stopped at the page where Clary had sketched the drawing of that small pond in Central Park.

"Hey, I was thinking maybe you could paint this for me on my wall, I mean you don't have to, but my grandma's going to start asking us to go to places, like the museum and stuff, so I thought maybe you could at least do something you enjoyed."

"Okay, sure," said Clary. Her mind was already working out how to do the painting and what supplies she needed. Soon though, she saw the fault in the plan.

"But I don't have any of my paint or anything. I've just got this pencil case," she said, gesturing to its worn blue covering.

Jace waved a dismissive hand. "We can go out shopping for them. That would take up time for another afternoon that we would've otherwise spent in a museum."

"I never thought you'd actually listen to your grandma," said Clary, taking her sketchbook back so that she could finish the sketch of Jace.

"Yeah, well, you don't know my grandma.

Max was feeling much happier than he had been for the past few days. He, Izzy, Alec and Yossarian were in the kitchen. Izzy was bent over a pan of... something and he and Alec were sitting on the barstools. Yossarian was curled up on Max's lap, sleeping. He hadn't spent this much time with his siblings since the last family holiday they had been on which was last year.

"Izzy, I said we could order something," groaned Alec. "No one wants to eat that nasty stuff."

"Sure they do. It's a culinary masterpiece, right Max?" She turned around with one hand on her apron-clad hip and the other brandishing a spatula.

"More like a culinary disaster-piece," Max said, looking up from his comic book. He could see Alec trying I hide a smile.

"Rude. He gets it from you, Alec," she said, turning back to the stove.

Alec shook his head, smiling slightly. Max rarely saw Alec smile and decided that he liked Alec when he did smile. He looked so weary and tired when he didn't.

"Max is just telling the truth, Iz."

The indignant noise that Isabelle made was lost under the sound of the sizzling of whatever was in the pan. A burnt smell filled the air.

Max covered his nose and then Yossarian's too. He couldn't remember if dogs that had really a good sense of smell or cats, but he didn't want Yossarian to wake up to Izzy's disaster.

"Izzy, just throw it in the bin," said Alec, standing up from his barstool. He headed over to where Izzy stood trying to flip the thing over. From where Max sat, all he could see was a flat, black thing that was beginning to emit smoke.

"What the hell is that?" he exclaimed.

"Alec!" hissed Izzy.

"What? It's true."

"Don't say that word in front of Max!"

"What? He-" He stopped when he saw Isabelle's glare.

"Fine. What the heck is that? I don't see the point of saying 'heck' though, Max has already heard you swear at least a million times."

By now, a stream of smoke was rising from the pan towards the ceiling, but neither Alec nor Isabelle had noticed. The only person who had was Max.

"Izzy!" he called. She either didn't hear him or had ignored him because she was still arguing with Alec.

"What do you mean what the heck is that? It's a pancake obviously."

"It looks like you just cooked someone's vomit."

The smoke had finally reached the smoke alarm and now the house was filled with loud, high-pitched beeps. Izzy and Alec immediately whipped around and noticed the smoke filling the room.

"Where's it coming from?" asked Izzy, hurrying over to Max who was clutching a distressed Yossarian.

"It's coming from your deathtrap of a meal. Go open some windows."

The two of them (after Alec had turned off the stove) hurried to the far side of the living room and threw the windows open as wide as they could. Alec unlocked the French doors as well before dragging one of the barstools under the smoke alarm and trying to shift the smoke away from it with his hands. Max handed him his comic book reluctantly and soon the alarm stopped its annoying sounds.

Izzy was still trying to waft the smoke out of the window and Max, after putting Yossarian safely down by his feet, helped her.

It took a while for the room to completely clear itself of the smoke, but, after a lot of waving objects around and hoping that the smoke would just leave, the room was clear enough that it wouldn't trigger the alarm. And once that had been sorted, the four of them went back to the kitchen island.

"I think we should just order some pizza," said Alec, tiredly.

"Before Izzy, sets the house on fire again," added Max, stroking Yossarian's fluffy head between his ears.

"Well if Alec wasn't using such foul language -" began Izzy.

"You're sounding like Mum," said Max. That immediately shut Isabelle up. She went over to the stove and picked up the pan. Even she had to grimace at the sight of what was in it.

While Isabelle started scrubbing away at the pan, humming, Alec ordered the pizza. Max also went to get Yossarian's food (this time it was from a tin that Alec had opened). After a few minutes of Yossarian eating and the sound of the tap running, Izzy finally slammed the pan back onto the table, groaning.

"Careful!" said Alec, from across the room.

"This stuff just isn't coming off of it," said Izzy, fuming.

"How about you try-" Whatever Alec was going to say, though, was forgotten because, just then, the doorbell rang.

"Is it the pizza?" asked Max.

"It can't be, it's only been a few minutes," said Isabelle, but Alec had already left the room. Max, leaving Yossarian with his bowl, went into the hallway to see who it was.

"So I'll pick them up in three days then," said an unfamiliar voice at the door. It belonged to a brown-haired boy around Alec's age.

"Yeah, I'll take care of them," said Alec. In his hands were two cages, similar to the one in which Yossarian had arrived in and by his feet was a bag.

"Thanks. See you Thursday," the boy said, walking down the driveway. Alex closed the door with his elbow and, when he turned around, was met with Isabelle and Max's curious faces.

"What?" he asked, walking towards them. "Can you pick that bag up Max?"

Max obliged, heading towards the cloth bag but Izzy didn't move an inch.

"That better not be what I think it is," she said, arms crossed over her chest.

"I don't read minds, I've got no clue what you're thinking," said Alec, trying to get past her so that he could go into the living room. Max watched the two of them curiously. He really, really wanted to know why Alec had brought two more cats to stay with them. He wasn't really against that idea though, Yossarian could use a friend when he had to go to school.

"Why is there a cat in that cage and why did you bring him home?" asked Izzy, moving to the side to stop Alec from slipping through between her and the doorframe.

"A friend wanted me to look after it," he said. "Now can I go past you?"

Izzy shook her head. "Not until you stop lying."

"It's the truth, Izzy." It probably would've been convincing but his eyes were focused on Izzy's face a little too much, as if he had forced them to stay there and convince her that he wasn't lying.

Izzy sighed and let Alec pass. Max knew that she didn't believe Alec but he had no reason not to trust his brother.

"Mum's going to be so angry when she finds out that you've turned the house into a zoo," said Isabelle, following him into the living room. Max too went with them, bringing the bag along as well.

"She's not going to find out," said Alec. "They'll be gone before she comes back for her holidays."

"If you say so," muttered Izzy, returning back to the sink to attack the pan with the sponge once again.

While Alec started to take the cats out of the cages, Max sat down beside Yossarian, stroking his back. The rest of the evening went by without many problems. The next day, however, was when they started again.

I apologise for any mistakes in this chapter, which I know has many, but my brain is literally so tired I had to search up what a smoke alarm was (I know, I'm really out of it). But I felt like I wouldn't edit that well if I fell asleep now and did it in the morning. Editing is literally the worst part of this entire story. Also, the idea for Aline warning Clary about Jace was not mine. It belongs to a guest reviewer and I thought that the idea was great, so if you're still reading this (which is unlikely, it's been half a year) thanks for the great idea!

Well,hope you enjoyed anyway and I forgot to ask but if you have any ideas about that favour that Jace can collect from Clary, review it below, I'd love to see your ideas. Thanks for reading :)