Chapter 9: How to Cope

Hey guys, thanks for coming back to another chapter, and for all of your feedback on the last chapter! I really appreciate everything you guys tell me, as it really helps me write the story in a way I know you'll like. In saying that I would really appropriate if you could read and respond to the question at the end of the chapter. Anyway, on with the story!

Clary waits up a while longer, just hoping that Jace will come back out of the spare bedroom to talk to her. To figure out why she wants to leave. To not be angry at her, even though she knows she deserves it.

She knows that it will annoy him more if she goes into the spare bedroom. When Jace was in this type of mood, you had to wait for him to come to you. She decides to go to sleep in their own bedroom, knowing that a night of sleep will do them both some good. When they had clear minds in the morning, they would be able to discuss it. Clary can't help but get her hopes up as she's falling asleep, thinking about Jace sneaking in during the night and waking up next to him. Even though she knows it can't happen because the door is locked.

Despite this, she still feels her heart drop when she wakes up alone the next morning. She shakes it off - of course they didn't wake up together. She goes to the kitchen and makes them each a mug of coffee and a bowl of muesli, yogurt and berries. She loads it all onto a tray and heads to the spare room Jace slept in last night.

Clary usually woke up before Jace, so she wasn't surprised to find the door still shut. After some careful manoeuvring of the tray, she is able to open the door, only to find the room empty. She places the tray down on the credenza, and quickly checks he's not in the nearby bathroom before checking the draw that has all their car keys in it. One of the sets for Jace's car is missing, and Clary assumes he's left early for work.

Clary goes back to the spare room and carries the tray to the kitchen, tipping Jace's coffee down the sink and emptying his bowl into the bin.

As she's washing the bowls up, she thinks about following him to work. They're going to have to talk about this at some time, but she figures that it's probably not best to do it at work. Or to pretty much stalk him there. Instead, she sighs and places the bowls onto the drying rack before calling Magnus.

"Okay, so it was pretty last minute, but I was able to get you out on a 1.00 to-" Magnus begins right as he picks up the phone.

"I'm really grateful, Magnus," Clary interrupts, "but I'm not going to be able to leave today."

When Clary knew she wanted to leave, she called Magnus and asked him to start arranging travel plans for today. She didn't expect Jace to jump for joy at the news, but hadn't expected this either.

"What's wrong, biscuit?" Magnus asks.

"Ahh, Jace didn't exactly react the way I was expecting. He really doesn't want me to go, and I don't feel comfortable leaving right now. I'm going to have to delay or something," Clary says, trying to play it off cool.

"Delay until when?" Magnus asks more seriously. She sounded so excited yesterday on the phone. He'd seen Clary put others before herself so often, he was just hoping it would stop with the solo career.

"Until he's okay with it I guess. If he's ever okay with it…" Clary trails off.

Jace had indeed gone in early to work, just spending time in his trailer running over everything until he was called to the costume department.

The first thing he had to do everyday was hair and makeup - mainly making his skin a bit lighter, his cheeks rosier and wearing this short haired white wig. Izzy is sitting in the seat next to him as he's having this done.

He was trying desperately not to give away how bothered he was at the moment, but his short answers and quick temper give away that something is wrong pretty quickly.

"You know you should really just tell me what's wrong," Izzy says, "I give really good advice."

"Nothings wrong, Iz," Jace replies, getting out of the makeup chair and heading over to the costume department to get dressed. Izzy follows closely behind him.

"Is it something to do with Clary?" Izzy asks. Jace doesn't answer, only clenches his jaw, so Izzy takes this as a yes.

"You know you should really just tell me. Otherwise I'll make Simon go talk to Clary, and then he'll tell me everything. And let me tell you, Simon might be a great story teller, but he's not big on the facts, so I really think it should come from you."

"Fine," Jace whispers, watching the costume lady walk out of the room out of the corner of his eye. Once she shuts the door, Jace turns to Izzy.

"She wants to go travel," Jace says, unable to help the about of spite he puts into the last word.

"Okay… I'm failing to see the problem here," Izzy says. "I thought you two travelled well together."

"So did I," Jace says angrily, "but apparently she'd rather go by herself." His voice breaks a little bit, and he tries to clear his throat, but Izzy can see how defeated he is. His shoulders are slumped in, he's looking at the ground, and he keeps clenching and unclenching his jaw. "I just don't understand… we only got back from our honeymoon a couple of week ago, and everything's been great. Or so I thought. But she just came home yesterday with these grand plans to travel the globe and leave me behind."

Izzy rests her hand on his shoulder, but lets him keep talking. "I just don't want to get left behind Iz. I don't want her to discover this great big world and forget me."

"First of all," Izzy says kindly, "that's never going to happen. You are Clary's great big adventure. You have a right to be angry - it's a sucky thing she's doing, but Clary knows that. And she wouldn't be doing it for no reason. I know it's hard, but you've got to try and see if from her perspective."

"It's all about her music," Jace says, becoming angry again. "I get that it's important, but she should want to leave just because of her music. I didn't leave to film!"

"Even if she's not saying it, there's got to be more behind it all. There's no way it's just because of her music - otherwise you would be able to go with her. I'm not saying she wants to break up with you or anything like that," Izzy quickly adds at Jace's alarmed expression. "What I'm saying, is that after you've finished filming today, you need to go home, and sit down and talk it out. I know it's hard, but you can't always run away."

"I guess you do give good advice, sometimes," Jace says, lightly punching Izzy on the arm. He could only hope that Clary hadn't left already.

"I told you," Izzy replies, grinning up at him.

When Jace pulls into their garage later that night, he sits in the car for a while, just trying to hype himself up. Usually, he was quite confident - he knew what he wanted to say, and normally how others would respond. But he was never sure around Clary. She was constantly surprising him, and that was just one of the many reasons he loved her. But he forgot that not all surprises are good. He takes one final deep breath and gets out of the car and quickly walks into the house, not giving himself a chance to turn around.

Clary must have heard the garage door open and shut, because she's waiting for him on the other side of the door that connects the house to the garage. It also probably means that she also knew how long he just sat in the car for.

He wanted to be calm and respectful, but he says, "I thought you were leaving today," harshly, and regrets it the minute he sees the hurt on Clary's face.

"No," she replies. "Not when where like this."

"Well, what else did you expect Clary?" he asks, "did you want me to be excited that you were leaving?"

"No," she answers again. "I don't know what I was expecting. And I'm sorry that I hurt you. That's the last thing I wanted to do."

Jace moves towards her and grabs her hands. "Then help me understand. Help me understand why you want to do this."

"Honestly, I don't know the real reason. But I just have this gut feeling that something is wrong, and I need to figure it out. I know the timing sucks, but this is what I need to do right now. And I promise I'll explain everything when I get back," Clary practically pleads.

"It's hard," Jace replies, "not knowing the reason. But I vowed to make you happy, whatever it took. And if doing this will make you happy, then I need to let you go. And trust that you'll come back to me."

"I'm not going to go if you're not okay with it," Clary whispers. "I can figure out everything from here." She smiles up at him, but Jace can see how hard it is for her. This is a forced smile, with hidden disappointment underneath it. He'll figure out a way to cope with it all - like he told her, he vowed to make her happy. And he wasn't going to break his vows any time soon.

"I'm okay with it. I promise. I really think you should go - for as long as you need to figure everything out. Because I know you'll be better when you come back, which will make me better and us better. Please go Clary."

"Are you sure," Clary asks. She looks like she's trying to not let her hopes get up, but Jace can already see how much happier she looks, and it makes it so much easier to reply.

"I'm certain."

Okay... I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I wanted to ask you all something about my updating scheduled. I'm back at uni now, and I don't have as much time to work on this story, so I want to know; would you prefer two shorter chapters a week, or one longer one. I'm happy to do either, I just can't really commit to doing two longer at the moment. Please let me know what you would prefer! I hope you all have a great weekend :)