Chapter 23: Not So Easy
Hello everyone, thank you for coming back for another chapter. I would also like to thank everyone who followed and favourited the story at all, but especially in the past week! And another thank you to everyone who reviewed with suggestions or comment - keep them coming! I've tried to work your suggestions into this chapter, but let me know if you want more or less of something, and I'd be happy to put it in!
It seemed that the initial relief of their children being okay was slow to wear off. But when it did, just a few weeks after Jace finished filming his movie, it hit hard. Thinking about it now, as Clary sat rocking Ella back to sleep, she thought that it may have worn off some time ago, but then Jace had come home to help, so it all became easier to handle. But in the weeks since that time, everything just seemed to get harder.
Admittedly, they had a solid routine down now. Clary and Jace would get up together during the night even if only one twin was crying. They now knew that the other wouldn't be far behind. And it was much easier if they were both there to settle the twins. It also meant they didn't argue the next morning over who had gotten more sleep, which they seemed to do when the twins first came home.
While Clary fed one twin in the morning, Jace would take the other for a walk. They seemed to get fussy if they noticed the other twin was being fed, but Clary was only able to feed one at a time. She was sure they would be completely reliant on formula by the end of the month.
It didn't help that because only one of them was ever seen out, there now seemed to be a seemingly never ending rumour that they were splitting up. Admittedly, they were arguing now more than they ever had, but they were all small arguments over things that only seemed to matter in the moment. If anything, they'd never felt closer. Jace seemed to realise that he'd nearly lost his wife, and he wasn't about to lose her now.
After walking and feeding the twins, they would go down for another nap, when Clary and Jace would eat breakfast themselves. After this the twins went through a cycle of eating, sleeping, diaper changes, being read books and being sung to until it was time for their bath and bed. And then the same thing happened the next day.
Clary and Jace had also learned that if anything went amiss during their routine, like one of the twins refusing to eat in the morning or fighting getting dressed, it would disrupt the whole rest of the day, and meant they didn't sleep as well at night.
Clary and Jace, were unfortunately, also used to blaming anything that went wrong in the day on the other person. It was always that Jace was being too rough putting them in clothes, and that's why they wouldn't stop squirming. Or Clary was trying to feed them too early, and that's why they wouldn't eat. But these arguments were always forgotten 10 minutes later when something new drew their attention.
They decided to try something completely new one day. They hadn't been out as a family before, and it had been a few months since the twins were born. They decided they better give it a go.
They planned to go to this little cafe close to their home. They'd seen other parents there with babies before, and it seemed a friendly enough place for their first public outing.
They went through their usual morning routine of feeding and walking, but after changing them they put them into their car seats to sleep instead of their cots. Jace drove slowly both because he was afraid of hurting them and because he was afraid of waking them.
They got a park close to the cafe, and Clary started unbuckling the twins from their seats while Jace set up the stroller. They managed to slowly transfer the kids from their seats into the stroller without waking them up. Feeling hopeful that their trip might be successful, they started the short walk towards the cafe.
Out of nowhere, it felt like a hundred paparazzi swarmed around them. They were all yelling at Clary and Jace, and weirdly enough at the babies. While Jace yelled at them to get away from his children, Clary started laying a soft blanket over the hood of the pram so it covered them. Clary and Jace had made a very conscious effort not to post any pictures of the twins, so that one day, when they were old enough, they could make the choice of becoming a public figure like their parents or staying a little more hidden. Just because their parents were in the public eye, it didn't mean that their children had to be as well. Until that day, they were going to try hard to hide their identity, and Clary was trying desperately not to let go of that on their first outing.
Jace started pushing the stroller towards the cafe, hoping to get inside and away from this mess, when Ella started crying. Clary could barely hear her scream above the yell of the paparazzi and the flashing of cameras, but she did hear it. She decided to ignore it, hoping she'd be able to settle her down once they got inside the cafe, but then she heard Teddy start crying as well. She quickly looked under the blanket, and saw that they both looked, understandably terrified.
"We've got to go, Jace," she tried to say over the yell of the paparazzi.
"Are they okay?" Jace asked, flashing an angry look at a photographer who was getting a little too close for comfort. "Eh buddy, back up yeah?"
"They're not going to settle for a while. Especially if they all hang outside the cafe, which they will," Clary said, placing her hand on her husband's arm, "we've got to go home."
Jace nodded at her, and told her to push the stroller. Jace stood in front, clearing a path, while Clary followed closely behind.
They quickly put the babies back in their car seats, under the watchful eye of the large group of photographers still following them. As soon as everyone was safely in the car, Jace zoomed off, no longer having to be conscious about waking his kids, who were still crying in the back seat.
A while later, Clary and Jace had managed to settle them. They crept away from their bedroom towards the kitchen, where Jace got them both a drink.
"Well," Clary said, after taking a sip, "that wasn't successful."
"We couldn't have known," Jace says.
"But we probably should have guessed," Clary says, angry at herself. "Somehow, every morning without fail photos of you get released walking each twin."
Jace puts his glass down on the table and covers his face with his hands, drumming his fingers into the sides of his head.
"If we can't protect them," Clary whispers, "then what's the point."
Jace lowers his hands from his face. "What do you mean?"
"I mean… they're not safe here. They're two months old and people are practically stalking them to get a photo - in a gated community," she says, sitting on the floor.
Jace knew she was thinking about the time the man broke into her house.
"It's not like that, Clary," Jace says, sitting down next to her.
"Photos are where it starts," she says, refusing to look him in the eye.
"Clary-" Jace says, but they both look up the stairs as they hear a cry on the baby monitor.
"I've got it," Clary says. "I'll call you if I need help."
So Clary went away up the stairs, leaving Jace sitting on the floor trying to figure out how to convince her that her family was safe. Not much sooner, he heard her speaking to the twins on the monitor.
"Hey Teddy," she said, "shh shh, it's okay. Mommy's here now. A bad dream? I get them too. Come here my sweet little boy."
He assumed she was rocking him for a while, because his cries eventually stopped, but then he heard whimpers coming from Ella. Clary began to sing 'Pure Imagination' from Willy Wonka, and Jace sat listening to and enjoying the soft sounds of Clary singing to their children. She stops singing, and Jace waits for her to come back downstairs so they can finish their conversation, but she still doesn't appear after a few minutes.
Jace assumes she's gone and done something upstairs so that she doesn't have to keep talking to him, but however uncomfortable it may be, this is a conversation they need to have.
He goes upstairs and searches in their bedroom, and then the bathroom and music room, but he can't find her. He eventually thinks to look in the nursery, and he sees Clary sitting on the ground between the two cribs, her back leaning against the wall, asleep. Her arms are slightly outstretched towards each crib, so Jace assumes she was holding onto the bars, but after falling asleep, her arms fell back towards her body.
Jace quietly walked into the room, careful not to wake the twins, before picking Clary up and walking her towards their bedroom. The conversation could wait until she woke up, Jace thought. They'd both been encouraged by their doctor to try and sleep whenever their babies did, but because they always had such short naps, it didn't make a lot of sense for Clary and Jace to try and fall asleep as well, only to be woken twenty minutes later.
Jace made sure that the twins waking a little while later doesn't wake Clary as well. Clary wakes up a few hours later, and finds Jace feeding both the twins in the kitchen. He's got a bottle in each hand, which the twins are sucking on eagerly.
"Hey," Jace says to her, looking up at her for a moment before watching the twins again.
"Looks like you've got everything sorted out," Clary says, yawning. Their previous conversation had been completely forgotten by them both.
"I thought I would give you a chance to sleep," Jace says, stepping away from the twins now that they were done with their bottles. Clary walks over to them and kisses them both on the head, before walking over to the fridge, looking for something her and Jace could eat for dinner that night.
"Everyone's coming over tonight, by the way," Jace says, not looking up from the sink where he was washing out the bottles.
"What?" Clary says, quickly shutting the fridge door. "Jace we don't really have the food to have people over."
"It's okay - I told them that. They're bringing food," Jace says, putting the bottles into the dishwasher. "They know what's been going on - no one's going to judge you."
"I don't care if they judge me," Clary says. She's practically grown up with most of them - they'd judged her before and they would do it again, "I just literally can't feed them. The groceries aren't being delivered until tomorrow."
"It's fine Clary," Jace says. Before Clary has time to argue again, the doorbell rings.
"Thanks for the warning," Clary says, and then goes over to open the door.
"Where is my beautiful Goddaughter!" Izzy says by way of greeting, and then speeds into the house in pursuit of the baby. By the time Clary and everyone else has made it back to the kitchen, Izzy was already holding Ella and bouncing around.
"My Teddy Bear!" Magnus says when he sees Teddy, and follows Izzy's lead by picking him up and bouncing him around.
Simon joins Izzy holding Ella while Alec starts putting food in the fridge. "Kit's coming," he tells Clary, "he's just…"
"Kit," Clary finishes, completely understanding that you can't expect Kit to show up on time. A few minutes later, he arrives, rushing into the house with another bag full of food.
"How's the baby life treating you?" he asks, laughing at her appearance.
"How's the bachelor life treating you?" she asks instead of responding.
"Ah! You forget I'm not single anymore," Kit says, opening up a bag of chips he brought.
"A world where Christopher Rook isn't single… how time's change!" Simon says.
"A world where Simon Lewis has a hot wife and baby fever… how time's change," Kit responds.
"Not that I don't love you all and everything," Clary says, "but what are you all doing here?"
"Jace didn't tell you?" Magnus asks.
"To be completely honest, things are a little crazy around here - it may have slipped my mind," Jace answers, not looking anyone in the eye.
"Explains why she looks like that," Izzy says, eyeing her sweatpants.
"I just woke up!" Clary says.
"Well, it's time to go get ready, biscuit, because you're going on a date!" Magnus says, booping Teddy on the nose.
"On a date?" Clary says. "I'm not going on a date."
"Yes, you are," Izzy says.
"You need to leave the house, Clary," Alec says kindly.
"We've tried that, it wasn't really successful," Clary says, thinking of the paparazzi swarming them.
"That's why you're going to leave the babies at home," Simon says, looking sympathetic.
"And who's going to look after them?" Clary says. When they all look at her with a 'duh' face she says, "look I love you guys, but I'm not leaving my babies alone with you."
"You're not going to leave your babies with their Godparents?" Simon asks.
"And me!" Kit says, still eating chips.
"Jace?" Clary says. If he was involved in this, she wasn't going to be happy.
"Clary, we could really use some alone time," Jace says, pausing so she could think of all the arguments they'd had in the past month. "And they promised to call me if they were unsure about anything. And they're going to stay here all night so everything will be here for them. I'm going to give them a bath and get them into their pyjamas while you get ready, and then you'll be able to feed them and put them in bed, so all they'll really have to do is get up a few times if they start crying. And give them breakfast."
"And why won't I be giving them breakfast?" Clary asks.
"Because we'll be staying at a hotel tonight - we can sleep in and get room service, and come home tomorrow morning," Jace says.
"Why do we need to stay at a hotel? Isn't leaving them to have dinner enough?" Clary asks.
"Because you need to get laid Clary," Izzy says bluntly. Clary sees all the guys shiver just thinking about it.
"And there will be five of us here taking care of two babies," Simon says.
"You forget that Izzy and I looked after Max all the time when he was a baby," Alec says.
"And I've babysat heaps of kids," Magnus adds.
"And we always used to babysit my cousin," Simon says.
"I'm more here for moral support," Kit says, "but you know, I'll do what I can."
"I don't know," Clary says. She was okay with going out to dinner, but being away from them the whole night?
"We'll go to dinner first," Jace says, "and we'll see how you're feeling and if you want to come home, then you can. And that's totally fine."
"Fine," Clary says, reluctantly, "but if I say I want to come home, no matter when it is, you have to agree okay?" Jace nods back at her. "And you all have to promise to call even if you have the smallest question."
"Yes, Clary we'll call!" Izzy says, dramatically, "now come with me so I can get you ready!"
So Izzy got Clary ready while Jace got the babies ready, and after feeding them, putting them to bed and making everyone promise they would call one more time, Clary and Jace were off on their date.
"I can't believe you ambushed me into having a date," Clary says after they'd been seated at the restaurant Jace had chosen.
"Would you have said yes if there weren't already all there in person," Jace asks, smirking.
"I mean, probably not," Clary admits, "but that's not the point."
"It's exactly the point," Jace says, "you've been so preoccupied with taking care of the kids that you haven't had a moment for yourself. And before you say that's the point of being a mother, I want to tell you that you deserve a little bit of time to yourself. Just one night, and then right back into the hard work, Herondale."
"Yeah, yeah," Clary says, taking a sip of the champagne Jace had ordered. It was the first time she'd drunk any alcohol in almost a year, and it was going straight to her head. By the time she'd finished her first glass, she was giggling along to everything Jace was saying and was considerably less stressed about leaving the babies.
"They'll be fine," Clary said loudly, and she laughed as everyone looked at them, and continued speaking a little bit quieter, "they're going to call if anything happens."
"And nothing will happen," Jace says, pouring her another glass of champagne. It was nice to see Clary lightening up a bit.
"What do you think they're going to be like?" Clary asks after her second glass.
"I'm sure they're doing a great job. I have faith in all of them - I mean even in Kit, which is amazing," Jace says.
"Not them!" Clary says, laughing at her husband's mistake. "Ella and Teddy. What do you think they'll be like?"
"Oh. Well, I think they're going to be beautiful little children," Jace says, bending down to pick up the fork Clary had knocked off the table.
"Yeah but like… do you think they're going to be into music, or acting or something completely different?" she asks again.
"I think they're going to try a little bit of everything," Jace says.
"I just hope they're happy," Clary says.
The waiter comes and drops off the dessert menu, and Jace tells her a few things that he thinks look good.
"I really shouldn't," Clary says, sighing.
"And why's that?" Jace asks, amused.
"Because I still have baby weight to lose, and I mean I've already drunk a bunch of champagne," she says, looking at the nearly empty bottle.
"First of all, Clary, I think you're absolutely stunning," Jace says, "and secondly, you deserve a piece of chocolate cake or a brownie if you want it. I'm not going to force you to eat anything, but if you want it, get it!"
She smiles at him, and when the waiter comes back, she orders the chocolate brownie with ice cream.
After they finish their meal, Clary is feeling very generous and leaves a massive tip for both their server and the chef.
"So, what do you want to do?" Jace asks, helping Clary into her coat.
"They haven't called," Clary says, shrugging, "so maybe we could go to the hotel."
"Okay sounds good. I think I saw some cameras outside, so why don't you wait here until I can get us a cab?" Jace says.
Clary nods, leaning against the wall, "I'll be waiting!"
"Okay," Jace says, laughing as he heads outside.
As Jace assumed, there's a bunch of paparazzi outside, all asking where Clary is and how the babies are. Jace ignores them and tries to hail a cab. When one pulls up, he hurries inside and gets Clary, who, despite being very tipsy, is able to walk to and get into the cab without revealing as much.
"How are my babies?" Clary asks, walking into the house the next morning.
"We're good, how are you?" Kit replies.
"They're good," Alec says, hitting Kit in the chest. Clary rushes to where both the twins are sitting in their high chairs and starts raining kisses down all over the heads, faces and arms.
"Mommy missed you, yeah she missed you so much," Clary says in a baby voice.
Jace reaches over and picks up Ella, bouncing her up and down and kissing her. He sniffs her for a second, and then says, "does somebody need a diaper change? I think they do!" in the same baby voice Clary was using.
"So you both do that. You know, use that voice?" Kit asks Clary, who now had Teddy in her arms.
"Yeah," Clary says, no longer using the baby voice, "I don't know when it started."
"Have you guys had breakfast yet?" Clary asks them all. "The groceries should be here in a minute - I could cook up some bacon and eggs?"
They all agree, and once the groceries arrive, Clary does just that.
They all sit outside on the massive picnic table, eating.
"Thank you all, by the way," Clary says, "I had a very nice night."
"She got drunk!" Jace says, reaching for the plate of bacon.
"After like, three glasses of champagne. It was so embarrassing!" Clary says.
"Little light weight Clary is back!" Simon says. "The first time we ever drank together, Clary was like fifteen and we'd had the same amount to drink and I was fine and she was stumbling all over the place."
"God, I was so sick the next morning," Clary says, remembering that night.
"Okay, well the more important question," Izzy pipes up, "is not how drunk you got - although I'm glad you had fun."
Clary raises her eyebrows, asking what the important is.
"It's if you two got down and dirty of course," Izzy says, winking.
Neither of them answer, but Clary goes bright red and Jace quickly moves onto a new topic, which tells Izzy all she needs to know.
"Well," Magnus says, "I'm glad that you two had fun, but there was actually another purpose to last night's activities."
Clary looks at Magnus totally confused. "Not your activities!" he quickly clarifies.
"Magnus and I were using it as a sort of test," Alec says, holding his husband's hand. "To see if we were ready to adopt."
"Well to two did practically everything!" Izzy says, practically buzzing with joy, "you'd be great dads!"
"We've decided that we're ready," Magnus says, smiling at Alec.
"Oh my God!" Izzy yells "I'm going to be an aunt!"
I hope you enjoyed that chapter :) Also just a note - I'm Australian but I'm trying to write this like it American, because Clary and Jace are America, so if there's inconsistency in the terms used (I kept writing pram but had to replace it with stroller) or mistakes in the spelling that might be the reason! Anyway, please review and I hope you all are happy and healthy :)