"It feels like forever since we last properly hung out together," said Clary to Simon.

They were on one of the assigned trips that they went on with their school. Yesterday, they had gone to a museum, but she and Simon had barely talked as the group had been split into two and they weren't together. Now however, they were.

It was the second time Clary had been without Jace for about a week and she had to admit it still felt slightly odd. He'd always been with her, maybe not always beside her, but at most a short walk away.

They were in different cities now.

"We talked before we got onto the plane," said Simon. The two of them were sitting on a bench at the zoo eating their lunch. Clary had finished hers mostly and was sketching as usual. Simon was on his phone.

"Yeah, but that was barely anything," replied Clary. They were quiet for a few moments and Clary closed her eyes, resting her head on Simon's shoulder. He immediately leaned against her head too.

"You tired?" he asked her.

"Nah, just trying to figure out how to draw something. What are you doing, texting Izzy?" she asked, shifting her head to look at his phone. He was reading an online comic book.

"Some things never change, do they?" said Clary, laughing. "But, seriously, how are you and Izzy doing?"

"Good," he replied.

"That's it? Just good?" she asked, incredulously.

"What am I supposed to say?" He stopped and put on a more energetic voice. "Clary I think I've found the love of my life! I connect with her on a deeper level! We're like Romeo and Juliet but without all of the death!"

Clary sat up properly so that she could see his face. "Really? Is that how you feel?"

Simon sighed, dragging a hand over his face. He had returned his phone to his pocket now. "I don't know. I like her, a lot. And she's really cool and all, but I'm not sure about anything else."

Clary shook her head. "I should've been having this conversation with Izzy. If I did, she wouldn't stop talking about you."

Simon smiled slightly, as if recalling something that Clary did not know of. "Yeah, she does have a tendency to talk a lot. But what about you, how've you been?"

"Okay I guess," she said, not really sure what to tell him. A part of her didn't want to say anything on the subject of Jace, he was something personal to her. Which was stupid, she thought, since the two of them were just friends.

"Look who's not talking now," said Simon, nudging her side.

"I haven't been doing anything interesting, really. Just the usual: drawing," she answered.

"Some things never change, do they?" he said, reiterating what she'd said to him. "What about Jace, is he nice? I mean, he looks a bit distant every time I see him."

Clary tried to understand why Simon would ever think that. Jace was the exact opposite of distant but then again, they hadn't spend too much time with other people together. "Yeah, Jace is nice," said Clary. "He's fun to hang out with."

"Better than me?" teased Simon.

"I know you way better than him, Simon." A part of her wished that she knew Jace just as well as she did Simon.

They were in a large building full of numerous habitats for different types of primates. The air was thick and humid and pressed against everyone like they being wrapped in a duvet. At the far end of the room, a group of children had gathered around a particular habitat where they were allowed to feed the animals inside. However, Clary and Simon were by the orangutan habitat.

"That one looks like you," said Clary pointing to one that was sitting on the ground beneath a tree.

"How does that look anything like me?" said Simon, unimpressed.

"Just look at its face," said Clary. "It's just like yours." She then attempted to recreate the orangutan's facial expression.

"You look constipated," stated Simon.

Clary poked his side with her elbow. "Ow, your elbow's pointy," he muttered as she said, "You know you just insulted yourself, right?"

"How? I do not look like that. But that, that one looks like you." He pointed at a bunch of small orange monkeys, under a foot long, who were inside a different cage, this one full of trees and ropes.

"The Golden Lion Tamarin," read Clary from the small board displaying facts about the monkey. She tilted her head to the side. "How the hell do I look like that?"

"I mean just look as its fur, it looks nearly as wild as your hair, Fray," he said, dodging her hand that was about to shove him. "And I haven't even started on its height yet." He laughed and ducked as she tried to shove him yet again.

"Why does everyone always insult my height?" she asked, giving up on her attempt to shove Simon into the wall.

"What do you mean everyone? I'm the only one who makes fun of your lack of height," said Simon, returning to his place beside Clary but there was now a foot gap between them.

"But the amount of times you make fun of me, it's like multiple people are," she said, avoiding any mention of Jace. "And anyway, shouldn't we be making fun of your height?" She smirked. "Doesn't Izzy have to bend down to kiss you?"

"No, actually, we're the same height," said Simon, defensively. He wouldn't speak about that topic, however, for the rest of the trip around the zoo.

When Ms Montclaire had heard about the painting that Clary and Jace were going to make, she told them she had a box of paints in the garage. This surprised Clary slightly as she couldn't imagine Jace's grandma with her permanent look of disapproval on her face painting. Jace, though, told her that she used to paint with watercolours a lot and once tried to paint a mural on his bedroom wall at their old house.

"It didn't go well though," he said, turning on the light of the garage.

It was devoid of a car but was filled with lots of other stuff packed away in cardboard boxes and stacked against the walls. In the far right corner, there was, unmistakably, a motorbike hidden under its cover.

"Who's is this?" asked Clary as she walked over to it and pulled back its covers. She couldn't imagine who would drive it

"Mine," replied Jace, walking over to where she stood.

"But I thought you're not old enough to drive yet," she said, running her hand over its seat.

"Yeah, here I'm not. But when we lived in France I was and I had a licence. Though technically it's my mum's now, it's under her name and everything," said Jace.

"Your mum drives this thing?" Clary was astonished, his mum definitely didn't look like the type of person who'd be sitting on its seat.

Jace laughed slightly, but it was more of an exhale. "Not anymore, but she has a licence."

As he headed over to the opposite wall to search through the boxes, Clary placed the cover back on before joining him on his search for the paints. The boxes that Clary looked through were mainly full of old clothes and other pieces of junk. However, she finally found what she wanted when she pulled a long rectangular box away from the pile. Inside, in long, neat rows were all of the small paint pots, dried paint encrusted on the sides and lids.

"Hey, I found them," called Clary. Jace was searching through a cupboard a few metres away.

Opening one of the small tubs, she was immediately greeted with the strong scent of it, a scent that Clary enjoyed. It reminded her of her mother. Tilting the the paint to the side, she looked inside to see if it had separated or dried, but it seemed in perfect condition to her.

As Jace sat beside her, he stretched his arm across her body to grab one of the tubs. "We need to look through them to see if we have the right paint colours," said Clary. She pulled out her phone, unlocked it, and went to the list of all the things she needed to paint the mural.

Jace read through the list of colours and then nodded. "But, all of this other stuff, the rollers and paintbrushes, we need to buy. The paint's dried in all of my grandma's ones," he said, picking up a thick, black brush which had paint all over its handle and bristles.

"Okay, so some small rollers," said Clary reading from her phone. "And some of those, thick chunky paintbrush thingys. Yeah those ones," she said in reply to the ones that Jace had just held up.

"Thick, chunky paintbrush thingys. You know for an artist I'd have thought you'd know the name of them," said Jace, shooting her a sideways glance.

"I draw. I don't paint walls, well not often that is," said Clary, examining another paint roller before deciding that she may as well get it. After she chucked it into her basket, they headed over to the cash register where there was no one in line and the two people waiting for customers were talking.

"So how often do you actually do murals?"

"Well, I've never done one by myself, it's always been with my mum. We did one a few months back at Luke's bookshop."

"Your mum's fiance?" asked Jace.

"Yeah," replied Clary as she gave one of the teenage boys (a guy with light brown skin and blue eyes) behind the cash register her basket. The other boy had a mullet and pale skin that made his black hair stand out, he watched the two of them with a slightly annoyed expression.

Well he's welcoming, thought Clary.

"Is that all you need?" asked the blue-eyed boy, giving her a flirty smile. She saw Jace glare at him from the corner of her eyes.

"Ignore him," said the other boy. "It's what I always do. That'll be eight pounds and seventy pence." He slid her stuff across the counter and she picked it up after she'd dropped the right amount of money into the boy's hand.

"Come again!" called the blue-eyed boy as Clary and Jace headed over to the door. She could hear the other boy muttering something angrily to his partner as they left the hardware store and stepped outside onto the busy street.

Although it wasn't raining anymore, it wasn't sunny either and the cloudy sky was empty, like a blank piece of paper. Underneath it, a row of small shops stood, each one of the storefronts decorated in a different way. She saw a jewelry shop with elegant carved wood bordering its large window and also saw a second-hand electronics shop with flashy LED lights that changed colours every few seconds. The road separating the two sides of the street was narrow and only wide enough for one car to drive down it.

"We still need to get some dark blue paint and smaller paintbrushes, so if there's an art store here..."

"Yeah, there's one a bit further into town," he said. "But we need to hurry, the shops are gonna close soon." Together, they walked down the street as fast as they could while Clary tried to take in as much of what was around her as possible.

The trip to the art shop didn't take that long, only a few minutes. Luckily, the shop had not yet closed, but the two of them were still the only customers there.

The first aisle they walked down only contained a variety of pencils (Clary itched to look through them and buy some but she managed to resist the urge). On the next aisle they found what they wanted, however. The tubs of paint were arranged in uniform lines like soldiers.

"Dark blue, dark blue," she muttered, eyes searching through the rows.

"Is this the one?" asked Jace suddenly, holding a tub between his index finger and thumb.

Clary took it and looked at the small strip of colour that ran across the side of the tube. "Yeah, this looks good," said Clary. "Now we just need some thinner paintbrushes, you know for all of the finer details."

She pointed to the rack above her head where she could see them hanging, just out of her arm's reach. She felt sure that Jace was going to notice this and tease her about her height, but for once he didn't and simply pulled them off the rack. She wasn't quite sure if he just hadn't noticed or simply had decided not to bother her.

Jace had said that he was going to show them something, and he knew that Clary thought that they were going out on a trip similar to the ones they had in New York. He had placed one hand over her eyes so that she couldn't see where they were going and he had been surprised by her hair in doing so. Naturally, it was all about her head, all untidy and some of it had fallen across her forehead so that he could feel it. It was much softer than it looked was what he had just learnt. Not that Jace thought about how soft her hair was, it was merely an observation, and thinking that her hair felt nice was another observation.

"Okay, hold my arm here," he said, as they approached their destination. They hadn't been walking for too long, it was only a few minutes from the art shop and Clary had only been blindfolded for one of them.

He held out his arm for her to take so that he could lead her along the narrow path and so that she wouldn't fall into a pile of nettles.

Clary surprised him yet again.

Instead of holding his arm, she held his hand, slipping her fingers between his and holding tight.

Jace stopped. Breathing and moving.

After only a few moments of him being frozen, he quickly regained himself and led them the five steps down the path to where he wanted them to go.

"You can open your eyes now," he said, taking his hand away from her eyes, brushing through her hair.

"Really?" she asked, unimpressed when she saw where they were. They were standing in front of a medium-sized river with the opposite bank full of reeds which looked like vertical slashes of green paint against a dark background. The water of the river was mostly dark and occasionally reflected flashes of the sky above them. Jace knew Clary hadn't been expecting this.

"Is this what you wanted to show me?" she asked, confusion colouring her voice.

"Nah, I just wanted to get something to eat." He placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her around to show her a small cafe with outdoor tables.

A few minutes later, they were seated with a plate of scones between them and a drink each.

"I still think you should've bought some tea, you know for the proper English experience," joked Jace.

"Why didn't you get any tea then?" she asked before taking a bite out of her scone.

He shrugged. "It's not really my thing. In actual fact I don't even like scones that much, I don't even remember the last time I ate one."

Wiping some of the cream off her chin, Clary laughed. "The disrespect to your nation."

"I'm not fully British. My mum's from France. Je parle français, Clary. Please tell me you remember what that means, Clary." He looked at her from over his cup, smiling slightly.

"Oui, je parle un peu de français," she replied, smirking.

He grinned at her properly. "Well at least you remembered some stuff."

"So what about when you were in France, were you disrespectful then?"

"Me? I was the very definition of patriotic, croissants for every meal," he joked. In a more serious voice, however, he added, "But, honestly my mum barely bought any, she didn't really like them."

They lapsed into comfortable silence again, silence in which Clary brought out her sketchbook and Jace spent his time looking anywhere but her. Whenever his mind was unfocused, his eyes would often stray to her without him even noticing until a bit later. This had been happening increasingly more often with his thoughts as well, they would just wander over to her, thinking about some random time he had spent with her or just thinking about her.

He supposed it was because of how much of his day he was with her. It would simply feel absurd if she wasn't there, like it had yesterday when she had been at the museum or today at the zoo. He had kept thinking she'd be beside him and, when he looked, she wasn't there. Which, he had to admit, was slightly disappointing. Maybe a lot more than slightly.

And maybe that was because Clary was different to most girls. Most of them just wanted to flirt with with him (with maybe the exception of Aline, but she wasn't straight or single) but Clary had never looked at him like all reason and thought had flown out of her mind.

She looked at him equally. She didn't look at him like she judged him on how he looked on the outside like she had done at first, she didn't judge him on anything but himself now, not his family, not his looks. And for that, Jace really, really liked her.

The only reason why Clary dragged herself off of her bed when she was trying to add to her drawing of Central Park was because she was so thirsty now that it wasn't something she could ignore. And also maybe the muffled sounds of a piano drifting through the walls had caught her interest, but mainly it was her thirst.

Once she had opened the door of her room, she could hear the sound of the piano more clearly, and she may not have been a musician but she could tell whoever was playing it had skill. As she came down the stairs, she saw through the doorway of the living room that it was Jace, bent over the keys with his back to her. She decided she'd go see him after she'd done something about how thirsty she was.

As it was not yet too late, there was no light on in the kitchen, however there was someone bent over the table, frozen in place. She recognised that it was Jace's mum from her pale blonde hair. Even as she took steps closer, his mother didn't turn around and it was only when Clary had stopped by her that she saw what had his mum's attention.

There was a thin trail of blood across her chopping board seeping into the onions that she had been cutting and staining them red. A tear fell onto the board.

"Are you okay?" asked Clary immediately, and then regretting what she'd said because did it look like she was okay? Jace's mum didn't say anything.

"Ms Montclaire, do you need a bandage or something?" asked Clary. This time his mum looked at her, straight at her with a strange intensity in her eyes despite the tears filling them. She wasn't sure whether the tears were from the onions or the blood. A part of her suspected that it was the onions

"Mrs Herondale," she said, her tone sharp.

"What?"

"Mrs Herondale," she said again, firmly. "And thank you Clary, but I'm fine."

"Remind me again why we're doing this?" said Izzy, yawning. For the past half an hour, both her and Max had been sitting on his windowsill, looking outside at the garden. It was a bit later than ten o'clock and it was starting to get hard to see things out there.

"Because if you don't, I'll tell Mum you left me alone at home for two days," said Max. "Now keep looking."

"Firstly, it was only one day. Secondly, Alec was supposed to look after you and thirdly, aren't you a little young for blackmail?"

Max shook his head so that his black hair (which needed a trim) flung itself into his face. "You certainly didn't think I was young when you left me alone for the day."

Since when was this kid so rude? But, she had to admit, he did have a point and Izzy felt guilty about leaving her baby brother alone.

"Fine, fine," said Izzy. "But how am I supposed to look for a hedgehog if I can barely see anything in the garden? How do you even know there is one?"

"You'll know when you see him, and there is one, I saw it last night," he said indignantly. "Me and Yossarian did."

Izzy rolled her eyes. Ever since Max had first seen the cat, both him and Yossarian hadn't spent any time apart, with the only exception being when he went to school. In all honesty, she thought it was adorable the way her brother cared for the cat and how attached he'd gotten. She'd even sent a few photos to Simon and he'd replied that even Yossarian didn't like him that much and was now calling Max 'a cat whisperer'. She shook her head fondly at the memory.

Right now, she wanted to call her boyfriend but it was very late in England and although she had her suspicions that Simon was awake she didn't want to disturb him in case he wasn't.

So Izzy didn't have much to do while watching for hedgehogs other than check her phone occasionally, hoping for Simon to respond to her last text. She had no idea why Max was so fascinated by hedgehogs but ever since Yossarian had come to stay he'd been fascinated with any animal in their house or garden. And today there were a lot of them.

She thought there were about five more cats that Alec had received today and she had no clue what he was up to. Izzy had given up pestering him for answers and had just straight up ignored him for the rest of the evening. Did their house look like a pet shop?

Max, though, found this new predicament amazing and had spent every minute he could playing with the cats or feeding them, but he still paid special attention to Yossarian and it was clear that he liked the fluffy white cat more than all of the others combined.

Suddenly, the front door slammed shut and Izzy sprinted out of Max's room ("Izzy get back here!" he'd shouted) and ran down the stairs to see who had just come home. Luckily (for Alec at least) it wasn't any of their parents. It was just her brother himself, and another cage in his hands.

"Alexander Gideon Lightwood," she began, not caring about how she was supposed to be giving him the silent treatment, "What are you doing?"

"It's a stray cat Izzy, I had to rescue it," was all he said as he untied his shoes.

"What if it has rabies or something?" she said.

"It doesn't look like it," he said, looking into the cage. "They'll all be gone by tomorrow anyway."

"Where to?" Izzy asked, hands on her hips.

"To their homes," he said slowly as if trying to remind her of all of the arguments they'd had earlier on about the cats leaving.

"I'm not talking about those ones," she said, impatiently. "I'm talking about him!" She pointed to the cage.

"It could be a her."

"I don't care if it's a girl or a boy! Where's that cat going to go?"

"Anywhere but here."

She glared at him.

"I know someone who'll take him in," replied Alec.

"You better," said Izzy. By now Max had crept out of his room and he was standing on the stairs looking between the two of them, Yossarian curled at his feet.

"Is it another cat?" he asked excitedly.

"Don't go near it Max, we don't know what diseases this cat has," warned Izzy.

"It looks fine and healthy to me," said Alec. "A little thin though."

"You didn't steal the cat?" said Izzy, her eyes wide.

"No! No I didn't!" he said quickly, opening up the cat's cage. He took a small grey and white cat (the size of a large mouse) out carefully. "Look, no collar."

Izzy eyed it warily. There was indeed no collar, but it still could've belonged to someone else. However, it did look thin and slightly dirty, but mostly disease-free. Still, Izzy was no vet and she didn't want to go anywhere near that thing.

The cat, as soon as Alec had loosened his grip on it, jumped back into the cage. "I thought cats don't like those things," said Alec to no one in particular.

"Well he probably doesn't like this house then," said Izzy. "Come on Max, let's go back to your room." She took his hand and left Alec to deal with all of his new feline friends by himself. She wasn't going to get herself caught up in that mess.

Clary was lying flat on her bed staring at her dark room. Her curtains were open to let the breeze pass through to her bed. On the walls in different places, there were patches of light from the streetlights outside the window. On one of the walls there was a large square of light with the moving shadows of a bunch of branches zigzagging across it so that it looked as if that particular patch of the wall was glittering.

Clary couldn't fall asleep. There were so many thoughts flying around in her head that she had no chance of falling asleep anytime soon. At dinner that evening, she couldn't stop looking at Jace's mum (Mrs Herondale she had said) and looking at the cut on her finger. It no longer bled any blood, but it still looked raw. Apparently, Clary wasn't the only one who'd been looking because she had noticed Jace looking at his mother's hand with a blank look on his face.

She was also now thinking about Jace's last name. Had he been lying? Or had he taken his dad's name rather than his mum's? She kept thinking that maybe Jace was adopted. It made sense, really, after what he'd said at Central Park about being insecure about people finding out about his parents.

But that wasn't the only thoughts that she was having. Her mind kept wandering back to what Aline had said and her mind was starting to think about what she'd said about Jace liking her. A part of her still denied anything between them because friends were all they were going to be, next week, he'd be out of her life completely. They physically couldn't be anything more.

She was starting to wish that Aline had never said anything. Aline's words had awoken that part of her that thought she and Jace could be together, that part of her that was in control of her when she and Jace had danced in that storage room in Pandemonium, or when Jace had held her hand at the airport, or they had slept practically on top of each other on the plane or the time when he'd held her waist at the park (and she had really wanted him to continue but hermind had told her to instead swat his hands away).

She groaned. There were a lot more instances of her having a crush on him than she cared to remember. Why was it so weird on her behalf now? She couldn't look at him without thinking of the way she wanted to hold his hand (like she had earlier on) or the way she wanted him to hold her (like at Pandemonium).

Clary's feelings for him ran deeper than she wanted them to.

Sighing, she rolled onto her stomach to bury her head into the pillow. If she could get him out of her mind for a few minutes then (hopefully) she'd be able to sleep. Maybe she needed some music. As she was about to reach for her phone she heard a soft knock on the door followed by someone calling her name.

She froze. It couldn't have been Jace even though the voice was remarkably similar to his but it was nearly twelve now, he wouldn't be bothering her at this time. She must have imagined it she thought, picking her phone up from the floor but then she heard it again. A soft knock. "Clary."

It was unmistakably Jace.

Leaping out of her bed, she rushed to open the door. In the faint light of the hallway she could see that he was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, a jacket over them.

"So, you wanna go out somewhere?"

"What?" she asked.

"Out somewhere, out of your room, the house, maybe the city, okay not the last one, unless you want to get a bus ride..."

Did he not realise that it was nearly midnight and he'd given her no warning that they were going to go out? Not like out on a date, she thought. Just like what they used to do in New York. She scolded herself internally for even thinking he'd go on a date with her, for thinking they should've gone on a date. But still, she could never say no to his offer.

"Sure," she said, "but, I need to get changed." She gestured to the pyjamas on her body.

"Right," he said, as if he honestly hadn't noticed. "I'll be outside."

As she closed the door, she could hear his footsteps on the stairs. As fast as she could, she pulled on a pair of jeans and zipped a jacket over her t-shirt. She slid her phone into her pocket as she raced down the stairs and out of the house as quietly as she could.

Jace was leaning in the wall outside, looking up at the sky, at the numerous stars, at the moon. There was a wistful look on his face. When he saw her, he gave her a half smile, but she could see his heart wasn't really into it. If only she knew how wrong she was.

"Is this what you wanted to show me?" asked Clary, leaning on the wall beside him.

"Nah, it's a bit further away. Come on."

I don't even want to speak of this chapter. The last four hours have been a horrifying mess of me accidentally deleting my edited version of this chapter, comforting myself by looking at fanart for over an hour and then grudgingly coming back to fix the mess I made. Anyway...

I was reading everyone's reviews and I feel really rude for not replying to them so, from now one, that's what I'm gonna do.

clacepercabeth4ever: You have no idea how happy you made me feel when you said that you liked my version of Clace, because to be honest, I feel like they're a little occ, but this made me feel a LOT better, thanks!

Guest: Well I hope you like the rest of the story as well.

Guest: Okay, so I was hella happy that someone replied what they think Jace should ask for a favour and I really like your idea but (you probably knew this was gonna happen) your suggestion kinda clashes with my idea, so I wanted to incorporate parts of it, and (if I ever finish this fanfic) I'll add a short scene thing on the end with a your idea in it cause I literally pictured it in my head as soon as I read your review. Hope that okay though :)

SkyBell1272: I really hope the story isn't going to end up being rushed and also about the cats, yeah you've missed nothing, you'll find out soon (unless I decide to quit this fanfic altogether because of how annoyed I still am at myself for deleting my first edited version of this chapter. Seriously though, it was entirely an option, but knowing me I'd come back a bit later, because I'd never be able to abandon you guys, I've read one too many unfinished fanfics)

(Please skip the following paragraph if you do not want to listen to me fangirl)

This is really kinda unrelated but, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LANCE MCLAIN (yes that did need to be written in caps and also I don't know if anyone here has watched vld, but if you have, you probably noticed me stick him and Keith into this chapter because I got bored)

The last thing I wanted to say though was that I have nothing planned for the next chapter other than where Jace is going to take Clary which is only be one scene, so if you have anything let me know. Other than that, thanks for following and favouriting as always :)