Hello. If you clicked on this you'd better be ready for a ride. Nothing will ever end up how I planned it- sadly. I hope you'll enjoy me torturing my characters and the many random twists. Now read.

~S

I don't own TMI, and obviously there is incest. This is a Clabastian fanfiction.

If you're looking for other Clabastian fanfiction then I recommend checking out a fanfic that I just finished, This is the Hunt.

Chapter 1

"-My daughter's betrothed, Jonathan Christopher Herondale." Valentine announced at the party that they'd decided to host that night, a glass of wine in hand as everybody Clary had thought would reject the idea of such a wedding begin to clap for her arranged marriage- one that she'd given no consent to. Clary felt her corset tighten from her anger as she turned around to glare at her father. Jonathan Herondale, out of all people? She knew that not getting married wasn't an option, but she'd thought that her father would give her the choice of who it would be.

Their business hadn't been going well lately, and Valentine had been talking about the many suitors who'd been asking for her hand. Valentine had promised to reject them all, but Jonathan Herondale offering his hand in marriage? That was an offer that a plain businessman couldn't reject without good reason, and his daughter not wanting to be married to somebody she did not love wasn't a good reason. In fact, it was no reason at all.

There was somebody she did love, but that wasn't the point.

Clary had been excited when her father had announced that they were going to have a party in her honor- she'd thought it would be to celebrate one of the many paintings that she'd offered to sell to keep food on the table, but she clearly realized it wasn't when she saw all of the noblemen begin to walk in. It clearly wasn't just a business party.

But just two hours before this had happened, Clary had tightened her corset, put on an emerald green dress and white gloves and had been hopeful that she would finally be able to start a career that she wanted.

She'd never thought that she was about to be sold off to a man that at the most she tolerated, and at the worst she loathed with every single bone in her body. However, if this was going to benefit her family, then… then she would have to go through with it. Her family was one of the most important things to her, and if this was what it was going to take for their business to get customers back, then she'd marry him… well, she would've married him if it weren't for the fact that she was already engaged. She got up from her seat at the large dining table, smiled at the crowd of people and Jonathan Herondale himself before sitting back down and wiping her sweaty palms down her skirt.

Pretty soon, music started playing again and she had to get up, plastering a smile onto her face once more and listening to the soft notes of a piano get softer and louder, crescendo and decrescendo.

"May I have this dance?" Jonathan held his hand up for her to grab. She could not refuse although another man who'd proposed to her last night was probably watching her every move.

Clary smiled a bit too widely at him before taking his hand and letting him lead her onto the dance floor. She went through the motions and let him spin her around. She had to make Valentine and Jocelyn Fairchild proud. At least for tonight. Clary tried not to show her disgust visibly everytime his hand brushed her waist. When it was time to switch partners, she sighed in relief, getting ready to sit back down.

"Come with me." A voice whispered, angry but a voice of somebody she knew and loved.

The next thing she knew, she was behind a wall, all other people from the party still dancing. Clary looked up from the ground. "Sebastian." She breathed, anxious to tell him what had just happened.

"What the hell was that? When did you agree to get married to Jace Herondale?" Sebastian's pitch black eyes seemed to get darker, although how that was possible Clary did not know. "Was it before I proposed? Why-" His hands went to his head and he looked back at the crowd, making sure once again that they were unnoticed.

"No. Never. I would never do something like that, Sebastian. You know it." Clary said, leaning against the wall.

"Why is this happening? If your father would've accepted my proposal-

"We can't." Clary sighed. "If it were a couple of months ago, back when everything was going great, then maybe, but… Sebastian, your father was a blacksmith. My father is a baker hoping that with his daughter's looks he can get a nobleman's son to propose… and it happened. I'm sorry, Sebastian. You know that with the measles outbreak in town and mother catching it, nobody comes to the bakery anymore." She looked up at him, not realizing the tears streaming down her eyes. "I wish that my father would've said yes to you."

Sebastian wiped her tears away gently, his hands calloused from the hours spent helping his father make tools, his clothes dirty and his hair messy. "You could've rejected it."

"You know that I can't, Sebastian. We're about to lose the house. The bakery. Everything. We'd be as poor as a blacksmith." Clary's eyes widened, about to take back the statement she'd just made. "Wait, I meant-

"I know very well what you mean, Clary." Sebastian's eyes were sad, and looking into them was like looking into a sea of sorrow. "I'm sorry I wasn't born something else.

"No, I should've said something else." Clary said. "But you know I said yes. I would leave my family for this… if Jonathan hadn't offered to marry me. If I had another sibling who'd be willing to get married." She shook her head. "It would be too cruel of me to just leave."

"But Clary." Sebastian looked back at the crowd of noblemen and women, and the middle class people who could afford to be there, such as Clary… a luxury that Sebastian couldn't afford. "What about me? What about all of the promises that we made?"

Clary closed her eyes as if it was too painful to face reality. "I know, I know." A hand went to the ring tied onto a necklace hidden behind the laces of her dress, a necklace over her heart; a promise. "But I can't leave my family. I can't leave my mother."

Sebastian's face went from angry and cold to sadness and understanding. "I get it. Do I leave you alone from now on or do I…?"

"I don't know. I don't know…" Clary said. "How am I supposed to marry somebody I don't love?"

"You have to love him, Clary. Because I don't think I can afford to stick around once you're married to him… once you start having little Herondale babies. Once your name isn't Clary Fairchild anymore. Once you're a noblewoman too expensive to talk to someone like me-

Clary sighed, her face darkening. She looked down. "So this is our fate."

"Look, I'll stick with you until the wedding date is set in stone, alright?" Sebastian smiled softly. "Your family will be thrilled, and you'll have more money than you could ever imagine. All you have to do is forget about me."

Clary looked up and the boy she loved was gone, along with the childhood innocence that let her fall in love with this boy in the first place. "I can't forget about you." She whispered, hoping that the message would somehow carry on with the wind.

They'd first started seeing each other one day he came to the bakery. He was a regular customer, coming after helping his father. In fact, he'd been coming since they were both little kids, except she was the one with lace and silk in her clothes, and he would come in with rags. She was always fed, and he was lucky if he'd get any food at all. She'd sneak him a loaf of bread or two, sometimes cookies, maybe a slice of cake if she was lucky. This had become routine over the years, and on that day, she'd managed to smuggle him some fudge.

She moved away from the counter, making sure there were no other customers in sight before gently handing him what might be the only source of food that day. "Don't catch a cold." She'd nodded at the snow falling outside.

He'd smirked softly, a hand in his pocket. "You're so hot that I wouldn't be able to." He whispered, not knowing that she'd heard.

Clary's face had gone bright red, and she brushed her hair back, wondering if she'd even bothered to brush it in the morning. This was not the first time Sebastian Morgenstern had charmed her, but this time, she wasn't going to hold back. "Are you done with work this afternoon?" She'd said quite loudly.

"I-" Sebastian turned around. "I am done for the day."

Clary walked over to the door and flipped over the open sign that she'd painted herself so that it said closed. His father was busy out in town looking for a doctor that would help her mother's illness. "Why don't you stay here until the snow stops? The bakery is warm because of the oven." She didn't mention the fact that a blacksmith had to work with fire, and it would be warm enough over there as well.

Sebastian said nothing about that either, and joined her behind the counter. She'd laughed at his jokes before, not taking them seriously, but now? She was beginning to realize that she was falling for the blacksmith boy. The issue?

Her father wasn't going to let their family statues fall even further.

She brushed that aside and showed Sebastian how to make cookies instead.

Clary had never felt more alone in her life. The man who had just proposed to her the night before was now telling her that she needed to fall in love with a man she loathed but was getting married to. Sebastian, the boy who had held her tightly in his arms and held out a ring the night before… Clary didn't want or need to cry in front of the many people that were watching her.

Jonathan Herondale wouldn't be her first choice if she had to marry a nobleman. In fact, it would be her last choice- but it wasn't her choice to begin with.

The truth and the reality of the situation was- Clary was betrothed to a man she barely knew but hated the slightest things she knew about, and the man who had proposed to her wanted her to fall for him because that was the best thing for her right now.

Oh, what she would give to have been born the daughter of a maid so that it would've been alright for her to run off with Sebastian.

Clary wanted to throw all of the presents from what had gone from a dinner party into an engagement party right into the garbage and burn it all to an ash. She wished she could go back to the night before and just stop time.

But there was no stop button, rewind button or a way to change fate.

I hope you guys enjoy my take on this era and this fanfic. I don't know everything about Victorian time, though, so I may have gotten some things wrong and I apologize if I did.

I also didn't edit this chapter… oops. But I need to stay on schedule so…

Follow, favorite, review! I'll see you next Friday.

~S