Chapter 3: It's All Coming Back
Hey everyone. Thank you for coming back for another chapter. I've tried to work some suggestions into this chapter, so if there's anything you want to see in this story, let me know and I'd be more than happy to include it. Enjoy!
Jace and Clary had always wanted to live together; just to be together. However, they'd always assumed that they'd both be working when this happened. To clarify, they had always wanted to work at the same location for a prolonged period of time.
So now that Jace was filming, and Clary wasn't really doing anything, she felt that she'd been reduced to a housewife with no kids and no real drive to upkeep a house.
She would write music or paint every now and then, really whenever inspiration struck. She occupied the rest of her time by planning their wedding, cleaning the house or working out. Occasionally she'd go shopping for furniture, but it was something that she wanted to do with Jace, so she always felt guilty while doing it.
She would have hung out with her friends if she could have, but Simon and Izzy had gone back to New York, Alec and Magnus had gone on a holiday to Paris, and Kit had been travelling the globe since Royals for a Day, only coming home for a few days at a time. She had a suspicion that Simon and Izzy were thinking of moving to New York, but they denied it every time she brought it up.
Because everyone seemed to be moving on with their lives, Clary felt there was really nothing she could do other than start to plan her album. She was never one to get left behind, and she wasn't going to start now.
She was sitting on the kitchen bench flipping through her new song book that she'd been writing in for the past couple of weeks, and making notes on a big piece of cardboard in front of her; listing songs she thought could work on the album, potential themes and ideas. She even wrote down a couple of ideas for music videos.
This of course would all be more helpful if she had signed to a label. Magnus had been sending through bucket loads of emails every day from different labels that wanted to represent her, to help her produce her next album. To some, this would have been very exciting. To Clary, it was daunting. Make the wrong choice here, and everything else could go to shit. That was what happened last time. They'd all been too young and naive about the business, and too excited to get started to really understand what they were signing up for. Signing with the label they chose turned them into international sensations, but it also took away any chance to really live their teenage years, and took away a lot of flexibility with their music.
Clary assumed that her past experiences were causing her to be extremely careful about the label she picked. Too big and they would try to control everything. Too small and they may not have the experience or ability to do everything Clary wanted to. She had to find the perfect mix.
She had found a few smaller ones that she loved the sound of - they had had clients that smarted small, but then once they got big left the label in pursuit of something more glamorous, more known.
She had played around with the idea of investing into one of the smaller production houses, so that they could really build everything up and would be able to support her, but for some reason the idea rubbed her the wrong way.
Why bother investing when she could just make her own production company? She'd thought about this too; quite a lot actually. She'd brought up the idea with both Jace and Magnus, who both said they thought it was a great idea. But she didn't want to bite off more than she can chew. This was going to be her first solo album after all; did she really want the added stress of producing it?
Jace had said that she'd be able to manage it, and that he'd be here to help her, but she had pretty much made her mind up about the whole thing; it was too much to write, record and produce her first album by herself.
That was when Magnus brought up the idea of creating her own production company that worked in conjunction with a label. That way she could have a good amount of control over everything, but wouldn't have to so it all by herself. So Magnus had started contacting labels to see if they'd be willing to work with another, albeit smaller, production company.
Naturally, a lot of the bigger labels had said they wouldn't, so Clary was left to choose from a handful of smaller production companies, but a lot of them had done some good work.
One that really stood out to Clary was Institute Records. It was run by a married couple, with a few other people. They hadn't represented anyone as notable as Clary before, but everything that they produced seemed to be high quality, and in the general area that Clary wanted to head. Magnus had contacted them (and he'd said they were lovely people) and they said that they'd love to work with Clary and with her production company.
Magnus said that he'd arrange a meeting with them once he got back from Paris, and she could decide after that.
When she's decided that she's pretty much done with planning for the day, Jace calls her.
"Hey Jace, how's everything going," Clary asks him.
"Hey Clary, everything's good. I was just calling you to remind you that I won't be home till way later tonight because we've got a night shoot," he says.
"It's right here on the calendar," Clary says, pointing to square on their calendar in the kitchen, that did indeed say Jace was working late tonight. "I'll probably go to bed before you get home, but I'll see you in the morning."
"Love you Clary," Jace says, and she can hear someone talking to him in the background.
"Love you too, now get back to work," she says.
She hears him chuckle a little bit, and then hang up. She puts her phone on the bench and looks around the empty house, sighing. Guess she'd have to find something to occupy her time until she could go to sleep.
Jace closes the front door quietly and then takes off his shoes. He places them with his bag on the ground next to the dining table. All he wanted to do now was get into bed without waking Clary - he could put everything away in the morning.
He walks slowly towards their bedroom, trying to be as quiet as possible, but as he approaches the room, he realises the light is still on. He checks his watch quickly - it's way too late for Clary to be waiting up for him. Maybe she just fell asleep while she was reading or something? As he slowly enters the room, there's a lot to take in.
Clary is sitting in their bed, with the covers bunched around her waist and an iPad in her hand, with all the outside security cameras on it. There are a bunch of screw drivers and other tools on the floor next to the bed, along with his old baseball bat. As Clary looks up at him, he can instantly tell that she's been crying.
He shrugs off his jacket, before slowly sitting in the bed next to her.
"Hey Clare… what's wrong?" he asks softly.
"The door…" she says, her voice a little croaky.
"What about the door," Jace asks gently.
"It wouldn't lock. It was jammed or something and I tried to fix it but…" she says, fidgeting with the covers.
"Why did you need the door to lock?" he asks. At least the tools made sense now.
"Because… someone might come in," she says, frowning, and looking at the security cameras again.
Of course. How could he be so daft. A couple of months ago a man broke into Clary's house and tried to do things to her that made Jace's skin crawl and his gut fill with fire. Clary had managed it pretty well, but she'd slept with her bedroom door locked since then… that was until Greece. He'd assumed that she'd worked her way through it, but apparently not.
Not wanting to upset her, but wanting to know how to help her, he asks, "but what about Greece? You didn't need the doors locked then - we slept with them open in fact."
"We were on our own island," she says so naturally that it's clear to Jace she's gone over this hundreds of times before - probably justifying the action to herself. "We were on our own island, so no one could come in. And you were there. We were safe."
"You're safe now Clary," he tells her, slowly taking the iPad from her.
"Not if the door doesn't lock," she says, completely monotone while staring at the door.
"Clary, I thought you went to therapy, I thought things were getting better," Jace asks. He'd never seen Clary like this before, so emotionless. So stuck on one idea. It broke his heart.
"I did, for a little while. She told me I should do whatever I needed to do to cope - that meant locking the door. Then I stopped going because I got too busy with touring," she says, not taking her eyes off the door. "But it wouldn't lock tonight. And you weren't here. So I had to stay awake so I could protect myself." Her eyes quickly flight to the baseball bat - almost like she's checking it's still there, and then they go back to carefully watching the door.
"Well, it's late, and I think we could both use some sleep. So how about we sleep in one of the spare bedrooms tonight so we can lock the door. I'll be there to protect you if anything happens - which it's not going to. Then we can fix our door in the morning and talk about this all a little more."
Clary nods, finally looking away from the door and towards Jace. Her eyes are bloodshot, which Jace puts down to staring at the door, being tired and potentially the crying. He runs his hand through her hair, and then rests it on her cheek, wiping his thumb gently over her eyelid. He then slowly stands up and holds his hand out for Clary. He leads her towards the closest spare bedroom and into the bed, before quickly taking off his jeans and getting into the bed next to her. As soon as Jace gets into bed, he pulls Clary into his side and wraps an arm around her, trying to make her feel as safe as possible. It takes a little while, but eventually Clary drifts off.
When the alarm on Jace's phone alarm goes off the next morning, he gets out of bed and tiredly looks around for his jeans, so he can turn off his phone. It takes him a moment to remember everything that happened last night, and to understand why he's in the spare bedroom. He looks over to the bed, which Clary isn't in and sighs. He heads towards their bedroom hoping to find her there, but instead he just finds her pyjamas on the ground, telling him that she's already been here but it was just to get dressed. He quickly gets changed himself and then goes down to the kitchen, where he finds Clary sitting at the breakfast bar, eating and looking over a massive piece of cardboard.
He begins to make himself a cup of coffee, before turning to Clary. "What's that?"
"Just planning," she says, placing the card on the bench so he can see the writing that's on it.
"I think we need to talk about last night," Jace says, watching her face. He sees her furrow her brow so quickly that anyone else may have missed it, before she smiles up at him.
"Of course. How was filming?" She asks, resting her elbows on the bench and her head in her palms.
"Clary… I thought things were getting better," Jace says, getting straight to the point. "Why wouldn't you tell me if they weren't."
Clary folds her arms and drops her head into them, mumbling something into the bench.
"Clary look at me," Jace says, somewhat sternly. Clary slowly lifts her head to look at her fiance. "Tell me."
"I didn't want to bother you with it, okay!" Clary says, her pitch higher than normal. "It's something I can deal with by myself."
"Clary I want to help you. That's what I'm here for. You don't have to deal with this sort of stuff by yourself anymore," Jace says, gently, almost like he's yearning for something. For her to understand how much he loved her, and hated seeing her like this. How much he would give up to make her feel better.
"But you were filming and I didn't…" Clary starts, but Jace quickly cuts her off.
"I don't care if I'm filming. Or in an interview… or at an awards show. Whenever you need me, I'll be here. I'm only ever a phone call away."
Clary nods, but Jace needs to know the point has gotten across.
"Clary there is nothing I wouldn't do for you. When I proposed I told you that I would spend everyday trying to make you happy. The girl that I saw last night wasn't happy. She was scared. And stuck in the past. So I really think you should go back to therapy. And you should make it a priority this time. And I need you to know that whatever you need, whenever, I will do everything in my power to get it to you, or do it for you."
"I think that maybe I should go back to therapy too," she says, looking across at Jace, wondering what she did to deserve him. Jace nods at her, and then walks around the island to hug her.
"So," Clary says, once they've pulled apart from each other, "I've decided that I'm going to start my own production company…"
Hope you liked that. Something things coming back from the past, and setting up some things from the future... As always, if you have any questions, comments or suggests please let me know! I'll see you all at the next one. Have a great weekend :)