Authors Note: I have been reading stories in this forum for about a year but I'm a fanfic writing virgin, so please be gentle with me. A huge thanks to my beta Writesalott who has some great works in this fandom you should all check out. I also have much appreciation tor my little sister, L, who has helped me with ideas and will be coming up with the fantastic cover art which I will upload later. Of course I don't own any of the characters from Cassandra Clare's amazing books and while the way they are portrayed here is my fault she gets all the credit for their awesomeness. I hope you all enjoy, and don't forget to let me know what you think. :)
As soon as Clary opened the apartment door she heard her grandmother's cough coming from the back bedroom. It sounded even worse than it had yesterday. Clary knew she didn't have much time, but she had to change before she checked on Gran. She didn't want her grandmother knowing she had just gotten in. Slipping into the front bedroom as quietly as she could, she quickly exchanged her uniform for a cream silk blouse, professional fitted black suit skirt, and heels. She would have loved to catch a quick shower and give her brain a little time to wake up, but she knew when Gran was having a bad day it would take every minute she had to help her with her breathing treatment and get her day started right before she had to scramble to the office.
Quickly wetting her dark red hair Clary repined it into a tight French knot. She knew with the VIP coming to town today her boss was going to be more on edge than usual, and Clary definitely wasn't going to have time to mess with her unruly curls. Once she thought she looked fresh enough not to arouse any suspicion from Gran, Clary hurried to get Gran's medicine and prepare a breathing treatment before putting some water on to boil. She wished she had time to make something more, but Gran's favorite instant peaches and cream oatmeal would have to be enough for now. While that was boiling she poured some juice for Gran to drink with the meds and quietly proceeded to the back bedroom.
Peaking in Clary saw that Gran was already awake. That would save some time, but she couldn't be too happy about it when she saw the dark circles under the frail woman's eyes. It looked like she'd hardly slept at all. Not wanting her grandmother to worry she schooled her face to hide her own concern and smiled cheerfully.
"You're looking beautiful as always, Gran! How'd you sleep?" Clary asked. As she waited for the reply she began scurrying around getting the room set up so everything could be easily reached from the bed in case Gran's energy level was low enough today that she didn't feel like venturing out of bed.
"As good as I ever do these days. I do worry about you though, dear. I didn't even hear you come home from your date last night. You didn't get home too late, did you?" Gran asked, managing a weak smile.
Clary wished she could answer Gran honestly and tell her just how late she'd really gotten home and just how exhausted she really was, but she knew she couldn't do that anymore.
Clary and Gran used to tell each other everything, but Clary would never risk worrying Gran now that her health was so bad. "I probably just got home so early you weren't listening for me yet," she hedged. She comforted herself with the thought that it wasn't truly a lie since she'd gotten home early in the morning.
Focusing on the photo Gran kept on her nightstand, Clary felt the nostalgia and grief tug at her. It had been taken on Gramps' last living birthday and was the last chance the three of them had to celebrate anything together. Until his death, Gramps had taken care of everything, leaving Clary and Gran both blissfully ignorant of the financial secrets Gramps had kept from them.
Everything was different now. Now it was Clary bearing the secrets and burdens and taking care of everything. It wasn't until her grandfather passed that Clary found out how much everything wasn't actually taken care of. Clary knew he'd done his best.
He and Gran had been living comfortably enough and would probably have been bound for a carefree retirement by now if their only daughter hadn't shown up on their doorstep 18 years ago with a crying toddler and no intentions of raising her.
This was one of Clary's first memories. Her mother, Jocelyn, had been strung out on drugs at the time and gone on and on about how she was too old to start a family and shouldn't have even been able to have a kid. Her speech had been filled with lots more unrepeatable words and threats about what would happen to "the brat" if they didn't take her in. Her parents had begged her to get help and offered to pay for her rehab if she would just check herself in, but she had spat in their face and told them her man would take much better care of her then they ever did.
Kids come with a lot of expenses and raising one that was not born to them came with even higher costs than starting over with another of their own. Jocelyn didn't stay around long enough to sign over her rights, so they never did legally take custody of Clary. They may have been able to hire lawyers and find a way to take their daughter to court, but that came with a risk they hadn't been willing to take. Going that route meant Clary would go into the system and they might lose her forever. Of course placing a child with extended family was preferable when possible, but at the very least she would have had to go into foster care while her grandparents were vetted and their house deemed a safe and suitable place for a young child. After hearing so many stories in the news and on crime shows about foster children who were abused, neglected, lost in the system, and even killed they knew they couldn't take a chance with their granddaughter's life. That decision meant Clary couldn't be added to health insurance, and they weren't willing to chance doing anything that would draw attention to the situation, including things like listing her as a dependent on their tax return or applying for government assistance.
Being a child at the time, it had never occurred to Clary to wonder how her grandparents afforded the extra expenses. It wasn't until Gramps' death that she discovered one of many things he had given up to afford to take her in was his life insurance policy. The day she looked into his estate and tried to figure out the finances to care for her grandmother was also the first time she had lied to Gran.
There was no way she was going to put any worry onto Gran's shoulders when she was already in bad health and mourning her husband. Seeing the relief on Gran's face when she heard the life insurance would be plenty to keep her comfortable the rest of her days made Clary sure she had made the right decision. Instead of telling Gran they couldn't afford to keep the house, she came up with the excuse that her grandparent's beautiful home in the east end of Louisville was too far of a commute from her secretarial job in Shepherdsville and begged Gran to move into her apartment with her since she wasn't well enough to live alone.
The whistle of the tea kettle pulled Clary out of her thoughts and back into the present moment. She rushed to stir the oatmeal and make the tuna sandwich Gran always requested for lunch.
Once Gran was as settled as she could be and Clary had done everything she had time for to make the woman as comfortable as possible, she grabbed her bag and a protein bar and headed out the door. She only lived a couple miles from work, but if she showed up to the office without her bosses peanut butter blended coffee from Cedar Grove Coffee House she would never hear the end of it.
Clary was still deep in thought about her grandmother's ailing health and all the medical bills that were stacking up fast as she waited at the drive through window. The medical insurance from Gramps' job had ended when he died and the minimal insurance provided by the government didn't cover much of what Gran needed.
The little money she got from the sale of the house was long gone. The house had been worth quite a bit of money, but they hadn't had much equity since her grandfather had apparently taken out another mortgage five years back. Clary couldn't help feeling like that was her fault too. She still remembered coming home from school one afternoon and hearing her mother shouting threats about reporting her grandparents as kidnappers if they didn't give her the money she was asking for to leave them alone. Her grandmother had met Clary outside and quickly sent her away saying they needed her to pick up a few things from the grocery store, but she had recognized the voice from her recurring nightmares. By the time she had returned from the store her mother had been gone, but when she asked Gran about it all she would say was that Gramps had taken care of it and she shouldn't worry. The timeline checked out though. That month was the month she now knew her grandfather had taken out a loan on their paid off house to buy her freedom from her mother.
The drive through exited onto a small road that seemed to serve no purpose other than getting people from the coffee shop to another small road that could lead them elsewhere. She had literally never seen any car on it coming from anywhere other than this exit of this parking lot. That fact, combined with her worries about her grandmother's rapidly declining health and her non-existent funds to pay for the medical care Gran so desperately needed were a poor excuse for not looking to be sure the road was clear before pulling out. Unfortunately, poor excuse or not, she was caught completely by surprise when she heard the screech of brakes and felt the impact of another car on the left side of her bumper. Next thing she knew she was being showered in frozen coffee as her car spun completely around and into the dirt on the shoulder of the road opposite the coffee shop.