Chapter 31: It's All About Family
Hello everyone and welcome back to another chapter! I hope you enjoy this one - I was trying to make it a bit cute and include a few things you guys asked for! Let me know if you want to see anything else!
"Hey Clary, I've just got to go out and pick something up - I'll be back in a little while," Jace calls out.
"What are you getting?" Clary asks curiously.
"You'll know soon enough," he answers, smiling at her quickly.
"It's not for the twins is it? Because I thought we agreed that we'd bought them enough presents!" Clary calls out, following him to the car. The twins second birthday was in a few days' time, and Jace seemed to want to go all out for the occasion.
"It's not for the twins," Jace says grinning. He quickly kisses her and then goes into the garage, leaving Clary wondering what he's being so secretive about. She knew it would be nothing to do with work - they had both kept their promise and were finally being completely open with each other about their future employment plans. And he'd said it wasn't for the twins. She doubted it was for Jamie - his first birthday had only been a few weeks ago, and apparently on that occasion it was Clary's turn to go overboard.
Clary's left curious, playing with the kids and getting lunch ready until Jace comes home a few hours later. When he walks in from the garage with his back turned to everyone, apparently holding something in his arms.
"What've you got there?" Clary asks, her curiosity getting the better of her.
"It's a present," Jace says.
"Jace! You said you weren't going to get them anything-"
"It's not for the twins. It's for you," Jace says, with his back still to everyone in the kitchen.
"Daddy!" Ella calls out.
"Hey beautiful girl," Jace responds.
"Why'd you get me a present - my birthday isn't for a few more months," Clary asks.
"I know it's a little late, but I was looking for this one specifically, and it took me a little while to find," Jace explains, still facing away from everyone.
"What?" Clary asks, completely confused.
"Well, your last tour was so amazing…" Jace says, finally turning and revealing a tiny kitten in his arms, with a bow tied around its neck, "so I thought I'd get you something to show you how amazing it was."
"Oh my God, Jace!" Clary says, rushing forward to get a better look at the cat. It had a mainly white body, with a light brown tail and ears. It had the most amazing blue eyes, and a black mark down its nose. "Thank you!"
"He's a Munchkin Cat," Jace explains, handing him over to Clary, "it's got tiny little legs just like-" he sees his wife look up at him and says, "our children."
"He's so cute!" Clary says, scratching him between the ears, "thank you!" Clary goes on her tippy toes to kiss Jace, but then Jamie calls out for Clary.
"Look at this bubba," Clary says, walking over to Jamie still holding her new cat. "This is a cat, and his name is… What is his name?" Clary asks Jace.
"That's up to you," Jace says, walking over to the twins and kissing them both on the head.
"Hmmm," Clary says, considering a few options. Suddenly she smiles. "Honky!"
"Honky?" Jace says, with his eyebrows raised.
"Yeah, like Honky Cat. The song by Sir Elton John…" Clary says as if the reason behind the unusual name is obvious.
"Right," Jace says. He desperately wants to veto the name, but it's her cat. "That's a great name…"
"Honk!" Jamie calls out suddenly.
"Yeah," Clary says, happily, "Honky Cat! Good job Jamie!"
Jamie reaches out his pudgy little hand and runs it along the length of the cats body, and then laughs.
"Well I think Jamie's all for it!" Clary says. "What about you two?" Clary asks, walking over to Ella and Teddy. "What do you think about baby Honky cat?"
"Ella's cat!" Ella declares, and reaches out to try and take the cat from Clary.
"Be gentle," Clary says softly, helping her stroke the cat.
"Ella's cat!" she declares again.
"It's mommy's cat," Jace tells her.
Clary takes Honky around to Teddy, who looks a little scared at first, but eventually warms up to the kitten.
Clary finally puts him on the ground, where he starts sniffing around the living room and kitchen.
"I'm just going to go and grab the other stuff from the car," Jace says, and he quickly returns with a little bed, a little box and some toys.
Jamie spends the rest of the afternoon following Honky around. He had started walking months before the twins had - in fact he pretty much skipped crawling and just stood up one day. Despite stumbling every now and then, he was pretty confident now.
"Happy birthday my beautiful babies!" Jace calls down the hallway when he wakes up on the twins birthday.
He quickly collects them each from their rooms, and places them on the ground. They slowly follow him down the stairs, where Clary and Jace had decorated the whole room with balloons, posters and streamers.
Clary collects Jamie and helps him slowly walk down the stairs, while he holds onto a few of her fingers. It startled her in the beginning how much he looked like Jace in the morning, with his messy hair and lazy smile, but she'd grown used to it now.
"Party?" he asks her. The twins and Jace were in the kitchen, where Jace was beginning to cook waffles.
"Yeah bubba," Clary answers him, "It's Ella and Teddy's birthday today. They're two years old." Jamie nods, and looks around at all the decorations. "You can go play bubba," Clary tells him. He waddles over to a balloon, and hits it, but then spots Honky and heads over to the kitten.
Keeping an eye on Jamie, Clary heads into the kitchen to help Jace with breakfast and talk with the twins.
"Ella presents?" Ella asks, eyeing the pile of wrapped presents. They'd had to explain on Jamies' birthday that, while they could help him unwrap the presents, they were for Jamie. She'd clearly been waiting for her turn.
"Yep," Jace answers, "those and your and Teddy's presents. We can open them after breakfast!"
Ella nods excitedly, while Teddy reaches over and takes a strawberry from Clary.
After breakfast and presents, Clary and Jace get all three kids ready for everyone coming over a little bit later for a small party.
As predicted, Magnus and Izzy bring the biggest presents imaginable for their Godchildren. Jace helps them unwrap and set them up, while Clary and Simon watch Phoebe and Jamie playing in the backyard.
"B!" Jamie calls out. He wasn't able to say her full name, so Jamie had taken to just saying 'B', which was spreading through the whole family.
"D'you think they're going to be just like us?" Simon asks suddenly.
"In what way?" Clary asks.
Honky comes up beside Simon, who starts scratching him between the ears. "Y'know… best friends."
"Oh, I think they already are. He already plays with her more than Ella or Teddy," Clary says. At this thought, she turns and looks inside to see both Ella and Teddy playing with Ella's new dollhouse, clearly happy with the level of attention they were receiving from all the adults around them.
Simon must be able to see the slightly sad look in her eyes - she was hoping that the twins would quickly grow out of only wanting to play with each other, but it looked like it was here to stick.
"She's got his back," Simon says. "He'll be okay."
"I don't think he notices it too much yet," Clary says, "but I know when he does it's gonna hit hard."
"Nah, he'll be okay. B will make sure," Simon says. Clary smiles at him, and is reminded of all the times Clary went to Simon when she had problems and vice versa. But she still wanted Jamie to have a friend at home, even if that meant having another kid.
"We better go in for cake," Clary says as she notices the sun start setting.
The twins crashed pretty early that night after the excitement of the day. Jace was downstairs cleaning up after the party, leaving Clary and Jamie alone to get him ready for bed.
"I can't believe how big you're getting!" Clary tells him, lightly shaking his little legs, which he laughs at.
"D'you know," Clary tells him as she changes his diaper, "that you and B are just like me and uncle Simon! I think you two are going to be best friends for a very long time."
Jamie babbles something back that Clary can't understand any of.
"Is that right!" Clary answers. "Who knew you were so smart!"
He babbles something back, and then laughs at either what he said, or something Clary was unaware of.
"And so funny!" Clary adds. "One day you're going to have to tell me all your jokes."
A few days later, Clary was in the music room fiddling around with a new melody. She wasn't sure when she was going to do her next album - or even if she was going to do one, but she'd always liked writing.
"Mommy?" she hears Teddy say behind her.
Clary turns and sees Ella and Teddy slowly walking into the room.
"Hey you two," she says. When they get close enough, she lifts them up onto her stool on either side of her so they can see the piano keys better.
"We help?" Teddy asks.
"Do you want to learn how to play?" Clary asks them.
They both nod at her, and she slowly teaches them. At first, they just have fun being able to press the keys, but she eventually teaches them where the C key is. They look like they're getting a bit restless after that, so Clary decides to stop teaching.
She slowly gets off the chair, spins them around and then gets on her knees so that she's looking them both in the eyes.
"Can I ask you two a question?" she asks softly.
They both nod again, and each say yes.
"Why don't you like playing with Jamie?" she asks gently. She doesn't want to make them feel like they're in trouble - she just genuinely wants to know, and to see if it's something she can help.
"Teddy is brother," Ella says, holding out her hand towards Teddy.
"Ella fun!" Teddy says.
"Jamie's you're brother too," she tells Ella. "Just like Teddy. And, I know he's younger than you, but Jamie can have fun too - you could play with B as well!"
"Only Teddy!" Ella says, and looks at Clary angrily.
"I think," Clary tells her, "that sometimes Jamie gets a little bit sad that you don't play with him."
"No play Jamie!" Teddy says, and then laughs.
Clary decides that she's not getting anywhere with this conversation and puts them down so they can go play with Jace or Honky - or probably each other.
Clary sits back on her piano stool, thinking about possible ways to fix the issue. They would eventually go to preschool and school which would hopefully make them more sociable, but she still wanted them to improve a little bit in the meantime.
"Did I hear you teaching the twins piano?" Jace asks, coming into the music room a few minutes later. "I was putting Jamie down for a nap and thought I heard… some random notes. Unless you've really gone downhill since your tour ended…"
"They seem to like banging on random notes," she tells Jace as he sits next to her on the stool, "but… they could tell you where C is. Or at least they could have - I highly doubt they've remembered where it is."
"Don't you think they're a little young to start learning the piano?" Jace asks, looking down at the keys.
"It's not like I'm forcing them to do it," Clary says, "they heard me playing and wanted to 'help' so I thought why not teach them a little bit?"
"Right," Jace says, and he slowly begins playing a classical song.
"We both learnt when we were young," she says, motioning to him playing.
"I was forced into it," Jace says, still slowly playing the music.
"Well I wasn't. And it's served me well," Clary says defensively. "And like I said - I'm not forcing them into anything. They asked, and I stopped as soon as I saw they were losing interest."
"I'm not angry," Jace says, smiling at her. "Just curious."
"Okay," Clary says, kissing him on the temple. "I'm going to go make the twins some lunch."
So she left Jace in the music room, both of them distracted. Jace was thinking about the past, and how he wanted his kids to have a better life than he did, and Clary was thinking about how to get the twins to be nicer to James.
Well there you go! Let me know what you think, and if you have any suggestions for the story or anything particular you want to see. Hope you're all safe, happy and healthy :)