"Ten years ago I did join the army. I did go and serve for a few years like I said I would. They told me that I had excellent leadership skills and promoted me just over a year after joining, to be a sub-leader of one of the platoons. I wanted to tell you everything Magnus but we got shipped overseas to help with the war happening in Alicante involving a group called 'The Circle' and I never got the chance. We helped a group who called themselves 'Shadowhunters' and we were ambushed by Circle members. To this day, officials tell me that I did nothing wrong as a leader. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time but I feel so guilty every time I think about it. Half of my group were killed onsite while the rest of us were captured. I worked out that I was help prisoner for about a year and a half. They were killing us off one by one when demands were not met and we were refusing to answer their questions." Alec froze in his seat staring at the floor, leaning over on his elbows rested on his knees. "I was next. They left the higher ups for last, thinking we would be more beneficial once we cracked. But the interrogation training had kicked in so we kept quiet all of the time and they were getting tired of it. They were about to kill me when Jace's platoon came in and rescued us all. I had never been so happy to see sunlight and fresh air than I had that day. We were all malnourished and dehydrated, covered in scars and broken bones from being tortured, we had no access to sunlight the entire time so we had no idea how long we had been down there for and our captures never spoke english around us except from when they were interrogating us."

"Once we had been rescued, questioned and had months of therapy, those of us who survived were granted a choice to stay in the army or not. A few of them decided to leave the army entirely. I don't blame them to be honest. Part of me really wanted to leave, but once I found out how The Circle were still terrorising Alicante, I had to take them down to make sure no one else went through what I did. I got offered a unique position to go undercover. To avoid being caught out, Alexander Gideon Lightwood had to die. I had to disappear completely and I'm so sorry that I had to put everyone through this but it had to be done to make sure no one was going to go after my family."

"What hurt me the most was that I was there at my own damn funeral. I watched as you gave my eulogy, as you cried by an empty gravestone begging for me to still be alive and for all of this to be a joke. I heard every damn word and it killed me inside. But seeing you like that gave me more clarification that I had done the right thing. I had saved your life by pretending to lose mine. You were safe. You were able to become the amazing designer that I knew you could be. Izzy and Simon were safe and could get married and start a family one day without watching over their shoulders. Jace is…just Jace and is apparently dating Clary from what I have heard."

I still sat there silent with my hands almost in prayer covering my mouth while leaning on my desk. Shit. This was a lot to handle. My head seriously hurts right now from all of this new information. I struggled to fight the tears that were still trickling down my face from my previous outburst. Hell. I was still mad at him for not contacting me but him explaining what happened has managed to put a lot of things into perspective.

"Does anyone else know you're alive still?" I had to ask

"I'm going to talk to everyone after seeing you but Jace knew I was alive the whole time"

"What!" I screamed anger bubbling in me. I'm going to be having serious words with Jace when I see him. We would normally meet up every year on Alexander's "death" anniversary at his grave. I doubt he would go there tonight anyway now that the truth was out.

"I had to have someone on the inside who could keep tabs on everyone for me to make sure that no threats were heading your way. He is what we called my Parabatai which is a partner who I could safely relay information to and who could bail me out if I ended up compromised. Everyone in my position had one and I chose Jace. Please don't be mad at him Mags. I needed him to keep my sanity and remind me of why I did what I did in the first place. I think I lost count over the years how many times I have wanted to come home"

"Izzy once told me that you never wanted to go into the army in the first place. Was that true?"

Alec nodded "I wasn't given a choice."

"Of course you was given a choice. They couldn't force you but you went anyway."

"I had already disappointed my parents enough with wanting to be a writer. All they ever told me was that it was not a realistic job and that I should do something worthwhile and constructive rather than having my head in the clouds all day. I knew my parents were homophobic so who knows what they would have done if they had found out that I was into guys too. I felt so much pressure to hide who I truly was that I wanted to throw them off the scent. All I ever heard about was how amazing Jace was doing, how amazing it was that Jace had found himself a proper career path in the army, how he had become a proper man. So I thought doing this would not be too much of a big deal but it would take the heat off me for a while. I was planning on trying to find a way to get myself permanently discharged home after 6 months but of course, it never happened.

I laughed softly in disbelief "I knew you were lying to me when I originally asked you about going"

Alec grinned "You always saw right through me"

"That's what being a best friend was meant to be about" I said dripping as much sarcasm as I can into it.

Alex suddenly looked at me straight faced and sagged his shoulders. "Look Mags. I need to be serious with you now. I am meant to be your protection while you are on your tour. If this is too much for you then I need to know now so I can get you a replacement."

"Am I in any danger since you have now…come out of hiding?"

Alec grinned "Oh don't you worry. Those people will never be seeing the light of day again."

"Did you… kill them?"

Alec scoffed "All I can tell you is that the leader Valentine Morgenstern is dead and The Circle is gone. I can't tell you anymore than that."

Racking through my brain, I remember reading in the paper a few weeks ago that Valentine Morgenstern was a highly wanted man who was killed recently in a set of planned attacks. To think that Alexander was caught up in all this awful group for years….

I thought for a moment and nodded. "Okay"

"Okay?"

"Yes. Okay. You can be my security Alexander. You know my backstory. You know me as a person and Ragnor was very insistent that I have you with me."

Alec smiled "Great."

"But that doesn't mean that I haven't quite forgiven you yet." I walk up to him and place a hand on his cheek. Alec sinks into my hand just like he did all those years ago as I stare in the clear blue abyss of his eyes once more. "I'm just relieved that my prayers were finally answered and I get to see you again"

Alec throws me a lopsided grin and places a hand over mine as I shiver and my heart jolts alive again after 10 years "I've missed you Mags"

"I've missed you too"

Honestly I have been really nervous about uploading this chapter. I have rewritten this about 5 times over the past few weeks so I hope that my hard work has paid off.

Please be nice with your comments.

I always go on the policy of "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all"

Thank you for reading