Hey guys :) So this is my last update of the year. I've got quite a lengthy A/N below, but in case you guys don't want to read my droning on and on, then I want to wish you guys a safe and a happy holidays and I will be back next year xxx
Also, I have posted several new stories, including a werewolf one called Put Your Heart On Mine, and a biker one, Wrong Side Of A Parallel Universe. I definitely have my favourite AU's. Haha. So check those out :)
"Is she going to be okay?" Jace was asking, getting in Catarina's way for the umpteenth time. She sent a glare in Jace's direction before her face completely transformed, utterly softening as she looked back down at Clary. "And what about Alec and Isabelle? They need to be looked at as well." Catarina didn't reply to Jace, and Raphael was now sitting on the couch next to Isabelle, patting her forehead with a damp cloth, just like the doctor had told her. "Cat, we need—"
"You keep crowding me, sweetheart, and I'm going to pop you on in the nose," Catarina snipped, not bothering to look back at Jace as she let out a heavy breath through her nose. She had one of her hands resting on Clary's shoulder as she examined her wound. She was a mutant, with the ability to take away other peoples pain. It came in handy, given her profession was as a doctor, running her own surgery in the middle of the city. "I'm going to need help," Catarina announced, finally turning around to look at Jace. "I can't tend to her by myself. She's going to need surgery," she looked over at Alec, whom she had reached out for when she had first arrived in the room, sucking his pain so that he was able to be a bit more lucid. "And he is possibly going to need surgery as well." The older womans shoulders were squared, her jaw set, as though she was expecting an argument from Jace.
And usually, she would be right. A surgery meant a hospital, or in the very least, her doctors clinic, and that meant taking his business out in public, which was the opposite of what he wanted to do. They had been to Catarina's private clinic quite a few times, but it was usually in the middle of the night, not in the afternoon when there would be patients that her other doctors were seeing, actual witnesses.
But Clary was hurt—badly—and so was Alec, both of them bleeding.
"We can teleport them wherever you need to go," Jace nodded over at Max.
"Teleport, in their condition?" Catarina mumbled, more to herself than to Jace, as though she was considering whether Clary and Alec would make it, teleporting again with their wounds. "Okay," she nodded. "I will let you teleport them to my surgery, the back room where we usually go," she said that to Max, who nodded. "But once they are all fixed up, then I insist that you use a stretcher to transport them, no more teleporting. It's not good for healing bodies."
"Okay," Jace nodded, looking over to Max. "What about Isabelle? Does she need to come with us? She hasn't woken up since we've been here."
"I'm not feeling any pain from her," Catarina replied. When she had come into the room and drained Alec's pain, she had also reached out for Isabelle and touched her shoulder. "She was knocked unconscious, judging by the lump on her head, nothing more." Her upper lip curled as she looked over at Theo, who was standing beside the wooden door of the office...The wooden door that no longer really served any purpose, given the glass walls on either side of it had been completely shattered. He was holding a machine gun in his hands, clenching his fingers tightly around the grip. "That can't come."
"Boss," Raphael began, not looking happy at that as he got up from where he had been sitting beside Isabelle. "We need to make sure—"
"It's okay," Jace waved a hand at Raphael. "You're going to stay here with Isabelle, until she wakes up." With Catarina there, he was feeling a little bit calmer, although he could feel how quickly Clary's pulse was thudding, his fingers wrapped around her slim wrist. "Theo," Jace could sense a pistol strapped to his leg, in an ankle holster, underneath his pants, and then another one hidden at his lower back, the metal vibrating at his angry touch. "Leave that gun here." Theo narrowed his eyes at Jace, but he flicked the safety on and rested the machine gun down on a nearby leather arm chair, that had several shards of glass sticking out of it.
"We make one jump," Catarina said. "So you need to get up," she pointed her finger at Alec, who set his jaw and managed to get to his feet, with help from his younger brother. "And when I get there, I'm going to have my nurse help us." Jace wanted to argue, but there was so much blood pooling underneath Clary's body, there just wasn't time. Max and Alec hobbled over to them, and Max gripped Jace's shoulder. Jace, in turn, put his arms carefully underneath Clary's frail body, picking her up carefully, feeling a pain in his chest when she made a little groan. Catarina tutted under her breath, still not happy about being anywhere near this whole situation, but she rested her hand on Clary's arm, sucking more of the pain from the unconscious girl. Theo stepped forward, his limp barely perceptible, resting a heavy hand on Max's shoulder and the young boy nodded.
A portal appeared, triggered by a flicker of Max's fingers, and he stepped forward, sucking all six people through the portal with him.
When the ground was steady underneath them again, they were in the bright room of Catarina's room. It seemed a bit strange, to be here when it was light outside, and when there was noise on the other side of the closed door, since they were usually here at night when it was empty, but they didn't have much time to think about it.
"Okay, on the table," Catarina ordered, pointing at Clary. "And you, on the chair," she pointed at Alec. Catarina glanced between the two injured people, before taking in a deep breath and walking over to her door, opening it up and carefully positioning her body in the way of the door so that no one would see the group of people inside. "Malcolm," her voice was low but tight. "I need you in here."
"Yeah, I was just going to go on my break—" the younger man outside seemed to begin.
"Inside," Catarina snipped, and Jace gritted his teeth together, wondering how much time his friend and lover had before this was going to be dangerous. Alec's bleeding had stopped, and he didn't look as bad as he did before. Clary, on the other hand...Jace pressed his lips together as the man came into the room. His hair was completely white, and his eyes were purplish, and Jace immediately knew that he was a mutant, although he had no idea which kind. "We can't go to a hospital, I need you to tell me what's wrong with her, and then I need you to fix him up," she jerked her head at Alec, in the corner of the room.
It turned out that Malcolm Fade's mutation was he could see through the layers of skin, an to the organs and bones beneath. He began spouting off medical jargon that Jace didn't fully understand, although he did catch that there was apparently something still embedded inside Clary. Theo moved to stand next to the door, his feet spread apart and his hands braced at his sides, clenched into fists, clearly ready to jump into action if the situation called for it. Max was standing beside his brother, and he was standing in a similar stance to Theo, a gun pressed against his hip, hidden beneath the jacket and bullet-proof vest that he was wearing.
Jace refused to leave Clary's side.
He let himself be moved a little, as Catarina wheeled the gurney a little closer to the wall so that she could pull the flimsy curtain to give them at least a hint of privacy, but then he settled above her head, fingers curled into the cheap mattress and white sheet, his eyes narrowed and watching every single move that the doctor made. His breaths were coming out short and his lips were pressed together, completely drained of colour. Catarina worked quickly to undress Clary from the waist up, using a pair of scissors to cut through her shirt, carefully undoing the bullet-proof vest and then cutting her bra so that she could work unhindered over her the wound in her stomach.
Catarina worked for hours. Malcolm helped her as well, once he had finished stitching up Alec, and after he had had a look at Theo's leg, and Jace knew that ideally they would be in a hospital right now. If Catarina absolutely needed to take her to the hospital, she would tell Jace, and he wouldn't hesitate to have Max take them there. But that would bring up a whole lot of unnecessary questions and attention, and so if Catarina was able to look after Clary here, then that was preferable.
Catarina used to work as a surgeon, until she had an accident, injuring her dominant hand. She was still an incredible surgeon, and Jace trusted her with his life, and the life of his men time and time again, but she no longer worked at the same level that she used to, which was why she was now a general practitioner.
"Alright," Catarina let out a long sigh after nearly four hours. "I don't want any of you moving her just yet," she looked around at the men in the room, a sharp expression on her face despite how drained she looked. "She's steadier now, but she's not out of the woods yet. We'll give her a few more hours, and I'll see how she's doing then, and then we'll talk about you moving her." Malcolm was standing quiet beside the gurney where Clary was still unconscious, his eyes wide as he took in her bloody clothes and the stained sheet beneath her. Jace wasn't particularly happy with bringing in an extra person in, especially a person that he hadn't vetted extensively, which is what he did for every other person that he brought into his operation. But money spoke volumes, and if that didn't work, Theo would be more than happy to find something that the man cared about and use it to their advantage.
"Thank you," Jace said in a clipped tone, walking over to the door that lead directly outside to the small, private car park specifically for the doctors and nurses who worked at the clinic. It was well outside of the clinic's work hours now, and the building was empty, so there was only two cars in the lot now, he assumed belonging to Catarina and her nurse. He took in a deep breath, but he could still smell blood, given it was soaked through his clothes. After a moment, he summoned the disposable cellphone that Max had passed him an hour ago, and dialed a number that he knew off by heart.
"Carstairs," came an answer after only two rings.
"It's me," Jace snapped into the phone, glancing around and ensuring that there was no one in the small car park, even though it had been empty a minute ago. "Have you got anything for me?"
"Hold on, mum, let me get somewhere a bit quieter," Jem Carstairs replied, and Jace waited, unsurprising at the response. Jem was a cop—and a good one at that—but he had a sickly mother who needed expensive treatments, and so sometimes he did some work for Jace on the side. "Okay, yeah, so," Jem sounded as though he was somewhere small and enclosed, given the slight echoing. "The guy who was responsible for killing a bunch of people at the anti-mutant rally, right? That's what I've been looking into."
"Yup."
"Look, I haven't got anything at the moment, but we've been pretty busy today," Jem said quietly. "You wouldn't know anything about a gun fight that broke out on the outskirts of the city, would you? Couple of cars were completely destroyed and buildings crumbling apart?"
"Wouldn't have a clue," Jace responded without missing a beat.
"Right," Jem didn't sound as though he totally believed Jace, but he knew there was no point in pushing it. "Okay, well, I will get onto it, tonight. It was him, right? Sebastian? The same one from the anti-mutant rally?"
"Yes," Jace stated, his teeth gritted together. "Sebastian Verlac."
So usually this is the point where I tell you guys some movies and songs that I'm super into. Since this is my last post, I had some other things I wanted to say. But I did see the new Halloween movie, and The House With A Clock In Its Walls and Venom, and they were all good, although Venom was a bit of a let down. Also, anyone else a GallaVich supporter? I stopped watching Shameless a few seasons ago, when it started spiraling, but holy shit, tumblr when crazy with the reunion, and that totally made my day. It was amaaaazing. These two boys deserve each other, and I'm so glad they got a very...fitting send off :)
Right, well...
This year has been hard. I feel this year has been bad for everyone. There have been the numerous mass shootings, it feels as though there is just one natural disaster after another and there is the continual, completely legitimate distrust of authorities who are meant to be the ones protecting us. There are so many things that I could write in here and specifically comment on, but I don't want to make this a political statement, just a statement that wherever we are in the world, we are all struggling. There are so many people struggling at the moment, but today, my heart goes out to the people of Brazil, all people in the Jewish community and to the beautiful LGBTQA members of the world, especially the transgender community, and specifically those in America.
There have been good things as well, though! The rescue of the boys in Thailand, the proud, unapologetic statement that Colin Kaepernick's Nike campaign made, the decriminalization of homosexuality in India, the incredible organisation and unity in the March For Our Lives and the utter love and support shown by so many people in this world toward one another. This was just demonstrated yet again in the past few days with the non profit Muslim organisations who set up the online funding for those in the Jewish community affected by this one of the most recent horrific attacks.
This year has also been hard for myself personally, as I'm sure some of you are aware from my posts. My mental health is probably the worst it's ever been, I'm dealing with some relationship issues with my husband, I lost the friendship of someone that I considered very close after a betrayal that left me spinning and over the past few months, it's been the one year anniversary of the deaths of three people, who all died within a month of each other. I consider myself pretty open with you guys about my problems, and a big reason for that is because I know how lonely this huge world can feel sometimes. I just hope that with me putting myself out there, if you guys are dealing with something similar, then hopefully you know you're not alone. While I don't always have the best words, if any of you ever want to PM me just to get things off your chest, I'm here. I don't always know what to say, but sometimes just putting your problems into words can help, and I am more than happy to be that person for any of you xx
Alright.
Well.
That was all very intense, but I felt it was necessary. I'm sorry if it felt as though I was crossing a line with any of it, but that's why I said at the top that if you didn't want to read all of this, just read by first authors note!
Anyway.
I hope every single one of you has a safe and incredible and happy holidays with the people you love the most, and I will be back next year, probably early February. Here's to a better next year xx