A/N: This chapter features scenes directly taken from Shadowhunters episode 3x4. None of that dialogue or screenplay is my own, all rights go to Freeform. However, I have added my own spin and context to the scenes. I hope you guys enjoy! And if this feels like filler right now, I promise it's all relevant to the greater plot! Thanks for continuing to read and review this story! And don't forget to vote in the poll on my profile page supporting either Team Morningwood or Team Deckerstar! Love y'all! XOXOX

Devil in the Details

It was one of those rare days when Alec had decided to run things from home instead of going into the Institute. Every couple minutes, fire messages would zip by his head and he would catch them without looking, focused intently on the report beside his plate of pancakes and scrambled eggs. Magnus didn't seem to mind that his boyfriend was wrapped up in work - humming a song as he waved his finger in the air, breakfast following in its wake - as he, too, was wrapped up in reading some large tome in a language Izzy was sure was dead.

Since it was one of those rare days when The Head of the New York Institute ran his business from home, that meant his meetings sometimes, quite literally, crashed through his front door. And sometimes that meeting's name was Clary Fairchild.

"Got your alert," Clary announced apropos to nothing, oblivious to the breakfast she just crashed. She stood at one end of the table, looking right at Alec who sat at the opposite end. "Another Owl attack?"

"Owl?" Izzy asked. The Institute was hunting birds now?

"No. Blood unit hit downtown, possible mundane hostage. Most likely the work of a rogue vampire," Alec explained, visibly uncomfortable disclosing missions details in front of Izzy, and over what was supposed to be a relaxing meal. Izzy knew it was the protective older brother in him; he didn't want her to get any ideas. But trying to shut her out was not the way to go about 'curing' her curiosity. "I want you on this with Jace."

"Jace...might not be a good idea," Clary said with a grimace and those damnably guilty eyes.

Alec crossed his arms over his chest, the latest fire message sizzling to dust in the wind. "Well, why not Jace?

"He's exhausted. He's been hunting the Owl 24-7. He hasn't slept."

A weak excuse if there ever was one. Not even Izzy, who had been fighting alongside Jace since they were kids, could believe that. Alec, who had been by Jace's side as his parabatai at his weakest and his worst, sure as hell didn't. He was already against Clary's appointment to Weapon's Master...Clary wasn't making things any better by lying to the Head of the Institute.

"Are you sure this is about sleep?" Alec questioned, taking on a more serious, conspiratorial tone. "When you and Jace were at Lake Lyn, my parabatai rune disappeared. There's a reason for that. What was it?"

Now it was Clary's turn to become defensive. She copied Alec's stance and crossed her arms over her chest. "I told you. I don't know."

"Look..." Alec sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had come leaps and bounds with sensitivity and emotional awareness in the past year, but handling messy feelings still weren't his strong suit. "I know how much you care about Jace, how much you would do to protect him, and I appreciate that. But if there is something wrong with Jace, something serious...you'd tell me about it, right?"

This softened Clary's stance, a wave of sympathy washing over her as she reached out clasped Alec's arm. "Of course."

There was a moment where they both just assessed each other, wondering where they stood, if someone was going to keep pushing. Izzy didn't see the point in drawing out this stalemate any longer. Clearly, Clary was hiding something. But there were better ways to get to the bottom of things and deal with the problem at hand.

"I can handle a rogue vamp," Izzy volunteered herself.

All heads swiveled her way, alarmed.

"Iz, that's not a good - " Alec started, but Izzy didn't want to hear it.

"This vamp is rogue, that means they're nowhere near the Institute," Izzy spoke over her brother, not giving him time to interject. "Vampires only come out at night so the chances of someone seeing me are low. I won't need a weapon; my fighting skills are just as sharp as they were when I left. Besides, I'd have Clary right by my side."

All valid reasons, but Alec still didn't look convinced. He had that furrow in his brow, the one that cast shadows over his entire face, that meant he was about to crush her dreams.

"Pleaseeeee Alec," Izzy pleaded, hating how childlike she sounded but too desperate to care. "I'm going crazy being away from the action. I need this. I promise I'll be safe and I'll tap out as soon as I think I'm in danger."

Alec was lost. He looked to Magnus for support, words of wisdom, anything. But all he found was a sympathetic stare and hopeful puppy dog eyes that could rival Izzy's.

"It would be nice to have the apartment to ourselves for an evening," Magnus said, no subtlety to his hinting. He placed his hand overtop Alec's and gave it a squeeze, and that was it. Alec was a goner.

"Fine," Alec sighed, as if the decision came with ten grey hairs and aged him a decade. "The moment anything strays even the slightest bit away from the plan, you come back. Immediately."

"Sir yes sir," Izzy said with a mock salute, though her gratitude was genuine.

"I'll take good care of her," Clary swore.

Alec shot Clary a look that proclaimed he was skeptical at best, but it spoke volumes that he still signed off on the paperwork to let them go.

..._...

Perhaps Izzy had jumped the gun by running back into demon hunting.

Leather, it turned out, was not a forgiving fabric. Her hunting clothes were tight, and not flattering. Her ass had gotten bigger, and her stomach protruded further than it did a week ago, giving her a very unflattering bloated appearance. So, she layered up and hoped the jacket she threw on top covered most of the damage. Clary didn't say anything about the more modest look, though her face probably screamed 'say a word and I'll gut you like a fish'.

Runes were still off-limits. Magnus lent her a couple of knives and a sword - not the angelic kind, so the risk of burning was removed - so she could pin down an opponent and let Clary do the destroying. It was the closest she was going to get to normal.

Somehow, being back in her own clothes made Izzy want to break down and sob.

She was proud of herself for keeping it in. She should be grateful for the opportunity. Alec could have handcuffed her to her bed. He almost did when Izzy was walking out the door.

Bless the Angel for Clary not making a big deal out of doing things the 'hard way'. She had to stop and explain what she was picking up with the hearing rune, what she was seeing with the farsighted rune. Clary had to be extra careful in sneaking around since Izzy couldn't use her stealth rune. Izzy felt like they were in one of Simon's bad action-comedy movies.

A few hours of searching landed them across town surveying old apartment buildings and graffitied storefronts. Izzy didn't like to admit when she was uncomfortable. So the fact that Clary vocally asked her if she was fine walking through some sketchy back alley in a part of town that reminded Izzy of her days spent high and dazed, stumbling around like a fool waiting for Raphael to sink his teeth into her one more time -

"You sure you're OK, being in this neighborhood?"

No, Izzy wasn't okay. But she couldn't admit that, not after how hard she pushed to go on this mission.

"I can handle it," Izzy said and grit her teeth, tightening her grip on her very normal, not at all Angel-blessed blade. "Yin-Fen dealers know the dirt. If we play our cards right, we might be able to get a lead on this delinquent blood sucker."

Clary didn't push, and for that Izzy was grateful. Together, they canvased the alley, wandering deep into the dark and stink of it, ignoring the funny looks they got from the homeless population that lived there during the day. Even they were smart enough to clear out by night, to know that the shadows that seemed so small in the light of day quickly turned into the perfect hunting grounds for creatures that lived not too far from the surface.

The Hotel du Mort was just across the street. Izzy knew for a fact that the vampires from Raphael's clan used the passageways in the basement to navigate between buildings, creating an underground network, a bustling highway for vampires to traverse the city. Their rogue could be anywhere...

"If a vampire drained a mundane, you'd think we'd find a body..."

They'd found an empty warehouse on the way. The vampire sure did leave behind a mess: blood splatters across the floors and walls, husks of plastic blood bags, debris from Angel-knew-what. But other than a tattered scrap of a lab coat, there was no sign that anyone had occupied the space recently. Vampires were cold, left no heat signals. Corpses were also cold, and depending on how late they were to pick up the trail...

"No tracking signal," Clary cursed and looked up and around, like maybe she had missed something. "Body or not, the mundane must be dead."

Another dead mundane. Nothing new, but if the bits of information Izzy picked up on from morning breakfasts were true, then it was a phenomenon with increasing numbers due to suspicious (aka demonic) interference. Could it be possible that this rogue vampire was in league with the creature(s) causing the spike in mundane deaths? A far-fetched theory, but Izzy's reached further.

First, she needed data.

"So...this Owl..." she prodded gently in the hopes that Clary wouldn't see it as an interrogation.

"Izzy..."

Cover blown. She really was out of practice.

"No one tells me anything anymore," Izzy lamented, changing tactics to include a little bit of vulnerability. Plus the truth. It was really easy, and kind of comforting to vent to Clary. "Just because I can't always jump into the fight doesn't mean I can't help with the detective work."

Maybe the guilt trip was laying it on a little too thick, but once the floodgate of irrational emotion was opened, there was no stopping the waters from crashing through. Clary was an emotional person by nature. Her own emotions were likely influenced by those around her, and Izzy's surge of vulnerability and hurt took a chunk out of her aloofness. Clary cast her glance from side to side as if Alec might spring from the shadows and punish her for saying something.

"The Owl is this creature we've been tracking. It showed up a month or so ago, around the same time as those demons attacked you, Jace, and I," Clary explained in a rush. "It's fast, strong, covered in black shadows, wears a stupid owl mask like it's some kind of Medieval witch doctor - "

Izzy tuned out, transported back to the night on Magnus' balcony. The night she saw the stranger with the dark eyes from down below. She could feel those eyes on her from stories above, dark and fathomless and malevolent. And familiar. A shiver ran down her spine. That was the Owl, Izzy was certain. But what did it want with her?

When Izzy tuned back in, Clary was finishing with, "Alec thinks it's demonic, and after seeing what it can do, I agree with him."

"Yeah, sounds demonic to me." The hairs on Izzy's neck stood up. She avoided eye contact with Clary, too shaken to focus on one thing. Her head was spinning with possibilities and fears. And then, one more disturbing than the rest... "Are you sure Jace is OK?"

"He's tired."

What a poor excuse to pull on someone who was raised with Jace. Clary might have loved Jace, might have been his 'person' now, but that didn't replace years of family bonds. That didn't replace the blood, sweat, and tears they shed together.

"I've seen Jace tired before. He's never missed a mission."

"I think..." Clary bit down on her bottom lip, scrambling in her own, nervous way. "...everything he's been through lately is just catching up to him. He needs rest."

If that was the story she wanted to stick with, so be it. Izzy was a patient woman. She could wait for the truth.

"There's something else, something you're not telling us. I can feel it, Clary."

Buzzing from her back pocket grabbed Izzy's attention. With a sigh, she turned and pulled her phone from her pants, an LA area code lighting up the screen. Both Max and her Dad still had New York area codes; they never changed when they moved. There was only one person it could be.

Izzy should take this call. It could be important. She could be in danger.

She was in danger right now, in a warehouse, hunting a vampire.

Lucifer Morningstar could wait. Or text.

"Who's that?" Clary asked, ready to stick her nose in Izzy's business when Izzy wasn't allowed in hers. Izzy wasn't willing to bring up the hypocrisy of that, either.

"No one. Just some mundane," she lied. If Clary suspected anything was amiss, she kept her mouth shut. Maybe Clary had enough awareness for once that, if she was going to keep things from Izzy, Izzy could keep some things to herself as well.

Izzy put her phone back in her pocket, pretending it was fine to ignore the Devil while her anxiety made her stomach do flips. She couldn't have answered anyway, not in front of Clary. Not that she was ashamed of Lucifer, or the baby, or the situation. She just wasn't ready to have her worlds mixed up that much. Not yet.

Time they returned to the task at hand: finding the rogue vampire.

Which lasted for all of five minutes until Izzy's phone buzzed, the annoying number lighting up the screen. Again, she sent Lucifer to voicemail. He really didn't know how to take a hint.

"So, that mundane you're avoiding..." Clary started cautiously, keeping her distance. "Is it because you're still hung up on Raphael?"

Izzy didn't want to talk about this, especially not out in the open for the entire city to hear. On cue, a drunk stumbled out a back door and into their path before landing flat on his face. Izzy stepped over him, a frown carving deep lines into her face.

"Let's just drop it."

Clary scoffed and rolled her eyes in that way she probably thought was playful but came off kind of patronizing. "You do remember who you're talking to?"

Clary wasn't going to let this go. Izzy had two choices: make up an egregious lie, or tell part of the truth. The lesser of two evils, and the smartest option, was the latter.

"All the guys I've been with...sex was always a big part of it." Sex without expectations or limitations was how she ended up in her current predicament. When all this was over, she reminded herself to revisit and revise her policy. Maybe she'd change it to be through with men forever, but the idea just made her heart ache. She wasn't meant to be alone. "With Raphael...it was about everything but that. He made me feel like I wanted so much more."

That was the truth. Raphael had never expected anything from Izzy, had never demanded her be something she wasn't. He accepted her as she was for who she was, and that was a powerful feeling, but not as powerful as the addiction that followed.

"So why end it?" Clary asked.

There were the obvious reasons, the reasons of their biology and their cravings for venom and blood. "We thought we couldn't be together without being tempted by our old habits. But...Raphael and I...there's... something about us that just...fit."

Clary looked so concerned, so upset. "Izzy, your instincts are always spot on. If you and Raphael fit...what's wrong?"

Being around Raphael brings out the best and the worst in me. One day I'll be old and wrinkled and he'll be ageless, perfect. I think I missed my chance, and now it's too late to love him. I'm pregnant with another man's - another being's - baby.

Izzy didn't say any of that. She didn't say anything at all. There was nothing she could say that made sense, that could possible capture every reason why every single thing in her life was wrong, and how it all stemmed from one poor choice in Los Angeles.

A ping on Clary's phone saved her from responding.

"I just got a tracking hit," Clary said, determination and focus sharpening her face into something fierce as she took the lead. "The mundane's not dead. Not yet."

..._...

Yet, it seemed, was the key word.

It turned out that Alec was right after all. This was a very bad idea. Izzy never should have come. If she had stayed at Magnus' apartment, if she had just listened and had more self-control, more respect for the danger that her very existence now put people in, then maybe she wouldn't have blood on her hands.

You're fine, you're okay, she said over and over again to the mundane dying in her arms. Izzy never got his name, not before he bled out. She wasn't fast enough to stop a wraith from ripping his throat apart, and without her angelic blade, she was left helpless against its wrath.

Wraiths never targeted her. No, she was safe under the protection of her 'demonic aura'. But that didn't stop them from following her, from destroying any chance of happiness and normality she could find in the life she left behind.

Clary didn't blame her, didn't say a word as she found Izzy and the mundane. She had gone to check out things on the roof, had found Raphael bound and chained to be burned alive by the rising sun. There was no sign of the rogue vampire, the only thing indicating they even existed being a blonde head disappearing to escape the dawn. Clary was pretty sure the vamp was new, and a woman. Izzy wasn't in the right mind to process any of that. She couldn't even muster happiness that Raphael was saved or that no one else fell victim to the wraiths who screeched their protest at the first spec of light.

All she could see was the blood on her hands. All she could see was her failure to save an innocent man.

Raphael, however, was no innocent man.

After Clary left to deal with Alec's wrath at the Institute (some fights were best had in-office, not home office), Izzy pretended to head back to the penthouse. In reality, she sat and she waited behind a dark, shadowy corner of the basement prison where all this unpleasantness started. She didn't want to be right, didn't want to see Raphael limp down the stairs to the damned basement and start cleaning up his mess. But he did, so she was stuck.

Betrayal flared in her gut along with sadness. Izzy thought she knew the kind of man Raphael was. Clearly, she knew nothing at all.

"Trying to cover your tracks?" Izzy asked, standing up and moving towards the dim light. Not that that was necessary; Raphael could see every detail in perfect clarity with his heightened senses. But Izzy...Izzy wanted to see the shock, the defeat of being caught. She wanted - no, she needed to be right about something.

"Isabelle..."

Raphael startled like a newborn foal, halting his clean up, hands hovering uncertainly over the pillows he'd shoved into a burlap sack for burning. Reality was not nearly as satisfying as fiction. Where she wished to feel pride in being right, in putting all the pieces to this mystery together, she only felt grief.

Then, another emotion flickered through: confusion. He cocked his head to the side, eyes skittering around the room, nose wrinkling.

"Do you smell that?"

"Smell what?"

"Hellfire," Raphael said with grave seriousness, turning his focus back to Izzy like he had found his source. "And that sound, like your heart is beating in doubles." Raphael reared back as if everything made perfect, terrible sense. "Isabelle...are you - ?"

Izzy couldn't, wouldn't let him finish that sentence.

"I knew something didn't add up," she cut him off, steamrolled right over any revelations and took them both back to what really mattered. "It makes sense that a power-hungry vampire might want to kill you...but binding you on the rooftop to be burned by the rising sun...taking the time and effort to dispose of your enemy in such a specific way? That's about revenge." She paused to let the words sink in, to cast her gaze around the filthy conditions of the room, the puddle of blood congealing on the concrete. Her stomach turned. "How could you do this?"

"It was an experiment to become a Daylighter," Raphael confessed like it was being ripped from him, full of shame. He stepped towards Izzy and she took a matching step back, putting as much distance between them as possible. She tried not to notice how much that hurt him. "You know how you care about Max and your family? Sixty years ago, I was ripped away from Rosa...and my family. I just wanted a piece of my old life back: to be with Rosa...to watch the sun rise, and...to be normal."

"So you were willing to let someone else go through all this pain so your life could be better?" Izzy couldn't believe it, didn't want to believe it. He was breaking her heart, and she could barely stand to look at him. "I thought I knew you."

Raphael said nothing, just looked away. Izzy wanted to understand, and some small part of her did. But understanding did not equal forgiveness, and forgiveness was something Raphael would not find from anyone else, especially not the Clave. Izzy held her head high and kept her tears inside as she switched from former lover to Shadowhunter. "I won't report your crimes to the Clave...on one condition: leave the city. Tonight."

Perhaps it was a blessing, perhaps it was a curse, that Raphael didn't fight. He didn't curse or scream or hiss. He didn't exert his power as Clan leader.

If he did, Izzy wouldn't have known. She was too busy running up the stairs and out to the street, putting as much distance as she could between herself and heartache.