Honestly, I should not be back here, writing these stories, posting on this site. But when I hit a major writing block, this story that was meant to be a short practice to allow me to get back to my original stories and schoolwork, came out of nowhere and took on a life of its own. Right now I've got a few chapters finished, but I wanted to see if there's anyone still here and interested in these stories of mine on this site. So here we go again.

He remembered a coil of red hair twisting between his fingers, freckles and dimples and pale skin that smelt of strawberries and sunscreen, a giggle, and then darkness.

Darkness everywhere.

It was like the sunshine from that summer day was stuffed in a box and hidden away.

Darkness everywhere.

He was wet and cold and he longed for sunshine and her.

A cold laughter rang through the air, curling between his toes and clawing at his ears, icier than the liquid pool engulfing him. Then, there was light.

Jace opened his eyes. The sunlight was warm against his skin and a gentle breeze tickled the grass he lied upon. Why was he lying in grass? He was supposed to be…he couldn't finish the sentence.

"What the hell?" Jace shot up from the ground, instinctively reaching for his seraph blade. His hand clutched empty air in the place where he always kept his blade. With one look down, he saw his weapons belt was missing entirely.

He cursed. Jace couldn't remember how he got to what looked like a grassy field in the middle of nowhere, let alone how the weapons belt he kept on him at all times ended up missing. Alec was never going to let this go. He could already picture the cheeky comments his parabatai would make at his expense, no doubt with Isabelle joining in. It would be bad enough having to call them to pick him up from wherever the hell he was, but…he paused again, double checking his pockets and even the ground around him for his cellphone that was also nowhere to be found.

It was a good thing that no one was around because a new string of curses spewed from his lips. Mundane technology was for the most part ridiculous and a waste of time in his opinion, but Clary gave him that phone for Christmas and he had to admit it came in handy when she went home after training for late night conversations without facing Jocelyn's wrath.

Clary.

The reminder of his girlfriend made his blood run cold.

"Damn it," he cursed once, twice, thrice in a rapid string, followed by a sea of more creative terminology. She must've been going out of her mind trying to figure out where the hell he was. And if she was going out of her mind, he knew for a fact she would make sure he knew exactly how it felt. He shuddered, remembering how she ignored him for two weeks straight the last time he was late coming back from a demon hunt. Sure, maybe he should have told someone where he was going or brought backup. Fine, maybe he shouldn't have made a joke when he got back about Clary not being able to get enough of him. Admittedly, it probably didn't help that he then compared her to the demon, but in his defense, it was definitely one of the hottest demons he'd come across. Not that that defense had calmed her down in any way, but he still thought it counted for something.

Thinking of her was enough to convince him to search his surroundings for the phone with renewed vigor. He dug through the grass, looked between branches that poked out at him, and wandered away from the meadow he awoke in to try his luck in the woods. It took what must have been twenty minutes or so before he spotted the phone's screen glinting in the bright sunlight from between two rocks.

How the phone was so far away from where he woke up, he had no clue. Maybe it had fallen out while he was chasing a demon and the battle had carried him far away before he could realize, but then how was the screen remarkably uncracked…

Jace shook his head, figuring he was stalling the inevitable blow up. It was better to just rip off the band-aid and—

"We're sorry. The number you are using has been disconnected. If you believe this is an error, please contact your wireless service provider at…"

Well, that was just perfect. Jace stuffed the phone back in his pocket. Visions of inescapable darkness filled his eyes once more and a renewed sense of unease settled down upon his shoulders. There was something strange happening, but he didn't have time to dwell. First he would deal with a no doubt furious girlfriend. Then, after he had a decent amount of time to earn her forgiveness (preferably in a bedroom) he could get her to explain just how phone plans worked. Later he could try and work out the details of why he woke up in what he could only assume was an isolated stretch of Central Park.

He sighed, chose a random direction, and began to walk. Luckily in New York, there was never a cab too far away.

Jace pushed open the doors of the Institute as if he were ripping off a band-aid—quick and to the point. There was no use in delaying the inevitable yelling, which he may or may not deserve. On his way home, he'd prepared for yelling, screaming, an insult or two as he entered the Institute. He just hadn't imagined it to be so quiet. Where Maryse would normally be hovering about with orders and papers in hand, there was nothing. He shoved his hands in his pockets and slipped through hallways newly stacked with boxes. A few were opened, but the rest were stacked on top of each other. Jace raised an eyebrow. Even if new people had moved into the Institute, he would expect his siblings wouldn't be too busy helping the new occupants that they wouldn't notice he was gone.

Maybe he was being selfish, but he had hoped someone would at least notice his mysterious disappearance. But the further he walked through the halls, the more disappointed he felt. Where were they?

"C'mon, don't all crowd around me at once," he called out to the empty halls. "You'll just embarrass both of us."

Jace paused, waiting, and just when he was about to give up and walk up to Clary's room with his tail between his legs, the back of his neck prickled. He smirked. It's about time. I was getting bored. He spun, his smirk growing at the sight of Isabelle behind the kitchen counter. She stood frozen, mouth parted. Though she was as beautiful as ever, her cheeks were thinner—hollower—and her eyes older. A sharp pang of guilt raced through him. Had his absence taken that hard of a toll on her? It wasn't as if it was his first time coming back late from a night hunting demons and being reckless.

"Isabelle—"

Whatever he expected, it wasn't her screaming at the sight of him. And it definitely wasn't her grabbing a knife from the nearby cutting board and lunging at him, out from the kitchen where he could now see a large protruding stomach. Pregnant. She was pregnant.

"How are you pregnant? I was only gone one night!"

"Don't you dare speak to me!"

Second Trimester or not, Isabelle was a fierce fighter and she easily took advantage of his shock, quickly pinning him to a wall with a seraph blade at his throat. He could feel the blade humming against his skin with a charge nearly as electric as the fury radiating in his sister's eyes.

"How did you get here?"

Jace steadied his breathing. With the way Isabelle's nostrils were flaring, it was in his—and his neck's—best interest to be the calm one. He locked his eyes with hers, never breaking contact.

"I walked a mile through Central Park. Then I got a cab, which took a lot longer than normal." It took all of his self control to not glance down at the knife or her protruding stomach. "Though, I didn't think I was gone nearly long enough to come back an Uncle."

God, he was going to be an Uncle. That was, so long as Izzy didn't kill him first.

"You've got a lot of nerve you slimy bastard. How did you get into the Institute?"

"I used the door. Why, how do you get in?"

The blade pressed further into his skin, just enough to draw blood. If Jace hadn't trained to always be in tune to his surroundings, he would have missed the thumping down the stairs.

"Isabelle, what's going on? Are you alright?"

Jace sighed, then winced as the blade went further into his skin. Alec approached the two warily, only freezing when he came close enough to see Jace. His hand instinctively rose to touch the parabatai mark which mirrored Jace's own.

"Alec, please talk some sense into your sister. As far as welcoming committees go, this isn't what I had in mind."

Alec showed no sign of moving. His eyes were wide and glassy.

"Who the hell are you?"

Jace's eyes found Isabelle's once more. They were growing equally glassy. The time for jokes was over.

"I'm your brother, Jace Herondale, previously Lightwood, briefly Morgenstern, mistakenly Wayland. And I have no idea what is happening or how you're pregnant when the last thing I remember is dropping Clary off at her mom's and coming across a demon last night!"

Jace could no longer pretend to be calm. The weight of the past 24 hours pressed down, down, harder until it grew difficult to breathe.

His siblings were quiet. Isabelle's eyes darted beseechingly to Alec, but he was transfixed on Jace who firmly held his gaze. Alec took a clumsy step forward.

"If he were a demon, he wouldn't be able to enter the Institute."

Isabelle seemed to realize this at the same time as she dropped the seraph blade to the side and brought her hands to her gaping mouth. Jace lifted his hand to comfort her before he was knocked backward by Alec gripping at him in a desperate hug. Jace hesitantly returned the hug, backing up just far enough to see the tears in his eyes. A choked sob sounded to his right and then Isabelle was wrapping him in a hug as well. Jace could barely focus on his siblings holding onto him as if afraid he might disappear. His mind was racing. Isabelle's swollen stomach—her baby gut—pressed into his side and Jace jerked backward, breaking the hug and breathing heavily.

"Will somebody please tell me what is happening?" He ran his hands through his hair, tugging at the roots. This is real, the stinging told him. This isn't a nightmare. "How…how are you pregnant? When I saw you last night the only fat on you was from pigging out on onion rings!"

"Jace." Alec's eyes were were deep and dark blue from crying. "I—"

He faltered, looking to Isabelle. She bit her lip nervously.

"What! Come out with it!" There was a nervous coiling in his stomach. Something inside him knew what was wrong, was teasing him, but he couldn't decipher it.

Isabelle took a deep breath, looking at him as if she were cutting into him with the seraph blade for real.

"Jace, that night was three years ago. We all…we thought you were dead."

He stumbled backward, his back hitting the wall. Distantly, he realized his head was shaking back and forth: no.

"No, no, that's impossible. I would have remembered. After the angel brought me back, I remembered dying. I…you're wrong."

His gaze snapped to Alec. His parabatai. Alec's hand trailed upward once more to the spot on his shoulder where their shared rune was. He slipped the hem of his sweater down, revealing the faded white lines of the rune. The lines which signified the owner's other half was—

Jace's knees gave out from underneath him. He sank to the floor and let his head fall.

"I couldn't feel you, Jace. Whatever happened to you…I felt like you died."

"Do you have any idea what happened? Like whether someone faked your death or brought you back."

No sooner had the words tumbled from Isabelle's lips did Jace snap his head up. He quickly rose to his feet while Isabelle and Alec exchanged a look of alarm. Jace ignored them. He didn't have time. He was already racing toward the stairwell, where he would leap two stairs at a time and then take a left, then another left, and then six doors to the right where he would find—

"Jace, she isn't here."

"I'll wait." He moved to sit down before standing right back up again. "No, I can't. She thinks I'm dead. I—where is she? I have to find her right now."

He could smell the strawberries and sunscreen of her skin as if she were standing right in front of him. His fingers twitched, feeling the phantom sensation of her romper on his skin as his fingers had once dipped above and below. Red clouded his vision so utterly that he almost missed the whispered argument between his siblings.

"Where is she?" He repeated more forcefully, narrowing his eyes.

The two exchanged one more look. Alec sighed, avoiding Jace's steely gaze.

"About Clary," Alec said. "There's something you should know."

All of my classes are remote because of the coronavirus so I have time to write, miraculously. If you want me to keep this story going, please let me know and review, as well as the other stuff. I'm really excited about where this story can go, but I want to make sure I'm not putting a lot of effort into the void.

Thank you!

-A