"What the fuck do you want?" Clary spat out, refusing to wind down her window, knowing that he would be able to make out what she was saying from the shape her lips were making. She knew that there were tear tracks down her face, and she was glad that she hadn't bothered with makeup or else her face would be a mess, even with the expensive brands she wore. She fought to stop herself from rubbing her hands over her eyes, letting her wet eyelashes stick together as she stared adamantly up at him. Jace just waited, staring at her through the glass of her window, waiting for her to roll the window down.

Clary was tempted to throw her car into reverse and run over his feet as she did so, but she flashed a look in her rearview mirror and saw that he had parked his motorbike purposefully behind her car. She wasn't sure how long it had been there, or if maybe it had been there when she had been rushing back to her car and she just hadn't noticed it.

"Open the window, Clary," Jace's voice was low, but Clary could just make out the words. She licked her lips together and thought about ignoring him, but she didn't. They were just outside a police station and Jace was there, in his leather cut, proudly declaring his membership with Reapers Sons, and she could imagine that if they looked like they were arguing for too much longer, they would draw a lot of unwanted attention. Clary gritted her teeth together and pressed the button near her wrist, so that her window lowered. "Thank you," he told her.

"What are you doing here?" Clary asked, her words taunt. "What do you want?" Her eyebrows drew together even deeper, wrinkles in her forehead that her mother and Kaelie would undoubtedly be worried about if they saw. "How did you know I was here?"

"Sebastian told me that Izzy was going to see you," Jace answered, bracing one arm against the top of her car and leaning down so that he was almost eye-to-eye with her. "I wanted to make sure that you were okay, and that she was okay."

"I can look after myself," Clary snipped back.

"I'm aware of that, I saw you in the aftermath with that cheerleader bitch," Jace's lips tipped upwards in a small smile. "But I'm also aware that Izzy is a whole other type of bitch and I have actually seen her cut people...Multiple people."

"Doesn't explain what you're doing here," Clary told him. "Isabelle and I were at my house and we're now here. Are you fucking following me or something?"

"Yes," Jace added simply and Clary let out a short, loud breath through her nose, her eyes wide at how blatantly he had answered. Not that she should expect anything less...Other than the massive lie that their apparently fake relationship had been built on, Jace had always been pretty upfront with her. "I saw Izzy leave, and I was trying to..." he scrunched up his nose and the confidence in his face dropped. "I was waiting to come and see you, and then you left."

"And so you followed me?" Clary stated, more of a comment than a question, because they'd already covered the fact that he was following her. Clary had more to say, but before she did, she took in a long breath through her nose, exhaling through pursed lips and closed her eyes as she tried to calm herself down. When she opened them again, Jace was still right there, watching her with a curious expression.

Which was also a little soft.

But she tried not to think about that too much, because she didn't want things to be okay between them. She wanted to be angry, she wanted to hold onto that because she deserved to be pissed. Maybe it wasn't sustainable to be angry for a long, long time, but she felt as though she still had some weeks left.

"So," Jace twisted his lips together and he glanced up at the police station. His eyes faltered and he shifted from foot to foot. "What are you doing here?" Clary looked up at the steps that lead toward the station and she noticed that even though they hadn't really done anything to draw attention, there were two cops looking in their direction warily, acting as though they weren't watching them, even though it was obvious that they were.

"I had...A few questions," Clary answered carefully. Jace's exhaled heavily and shook his head.

"About?" Jace asked. Clary took her time replying, mulling over her reply before muttering out,

"Stuff." Jace sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, pulling away from the car for a moment as he thought about what he was going to say next. Clary gritted her teeth together, because she guessed that he was pissed that she was here, and she knew that she shouldn't be there, but she didn't know what else she was meant to do. There was an itch underneath her skin and a twist in her stomach that wouldn't go away, and there was no one to tell her how to fix it.

"You need to be careful, sweet thing," Jace told her in a low voice as he leaned back down and looked at her through her window, his golden eyes weary as they flicked over her. "This is dangerous shit, you can't get yourself involved too much."

"Uh," Clary squinted at him, making a face. "I wasn't involved at all," she ground out, her voice low but her words heavy. "You were the one that put me in the middle of all of it." Jace's lips drained of colour given how firmly he was pressing them together. "You're the one that kept on showing up, so if I'm involved—it's because of you."

"That was before I knew you," Jace pointed out, his words short.

"No, it wasn't," Clary shot back, her eyes narrowing. "We were getting it on for months and you knew who I was, so don't pretend as though things suddenly shifted in the last week or so before you told me...All that shit." Jace didn't say anything, but the way his eyes lowered, she knew that he knew that she was right. Clary swallowed sharply with a click and she lifted her hands to flex around her steering wheel. "Look," she began, her fingers curling and her knuckles whitening. "You told me a lot of stuff. And then Isabelle told me more stuff. You've got to fuck off and let me deal with things in the way that I want to."

"Clary," Jace began. "Whatever is going on in your head—let me help you—" but Clary shook her head firmly.

"No, Jace," she told him firmly, looking back up at him although gripping her steering wheel even tighter. She could feel Essex moving behind her, the fur rubbing up against her arm. "I'm not...I'm not interested in your excuses or your sorry or your whatever right now. I'm still trying to work through everything you told me because—" she could feel herself getting emotional, could feel it all welling up in her chest. "Because it wasn't just you I lost, okay, Jace?" She was trying to keep her words cold but she could feel the pitch in her voice getting higher. "It was Maia and Magnus, and it made me doubt things about my dad and about—about my brother, who was—who is my closest family member. You've thrown my life through a loop, and it wasn't in the good way, that you had done to begin with." She cut herself off and took in a shaky breath. "You need to leave me alone, and let me deal with this shit. You put me here, you need to let me process things." She finally let herself look back up at Jace and she was surprised by the amount of pain on his face.

He was chewing down on the corner of his lower lip and his cheekbones were standing out from the way he was hollowing his cheeks and his eyes were downcast.

"I need to figure some things out, and I need to do that without you," Clary's voice had lowered, was a bit gentler, because no matter how angry she was at him, unfortunately, she still cared so much about him. She wasn't about to tell him that, but she didn't want to twist her words any deeper in his chest. "I need you to leave me alone, and not follow me...Even if it's to protect me," she added quietly. Jace met her eyes and they stared at each other for a long time.

Clary could feel her pulse throbbing in her neck and her wrist and there was a heat that was skimming over her body and wrapping around her so tightly that it was making it hard for her to breathe.

Just another symptom of being around Jace.

There had been times when she just genuinely wished that she had never met him, and every single one of those times had all piled into the past few weeks.

"Okay," Jace finally got out, although it was obviously painful. Clary felt a weird instinct to say thank you for his response, but she bit the tip of her tongue and swallowed that back, because she really shouldn't be thanking him for anything, he didn't deserve that. "Can you...Can I come find you after? When you've...Done whatever it is you need to do?"

Clary was pretty sure there was more to what he was asking.

And she really didn't have an answer for him.

Not right now.

"I don't know," Clary said, and she was proud of herself that her voice came out firm and steady. Jace looked like he wanted to push it, maybe to ask again, but his eyes searched hers, and whatever it was that he was looking for, maybe he saw it or maybe he didn't—Clary wasn't sure, but either way, he gave a sharp nod and straightened up. He walked away from her car, going over to his bike and moving it from behind her car.

Clary caught a glimpse of him in her rearview mirror as she was reversing and then accelerating away, but she kept her eyes forward.

She didn't realize until she was two blocks away that she had been holding her breath.

Clary pulled fumbled around in her purse for her phone when she came to a stop at a red light, Essex shifting on the passenger seat to give her more room. Once she found her phone, she tapped out a quick text to Simon.

I need your help.

please note - i've already let my twitter followers know, so just posting here as well. 'put your heart on mine' and 'pretty young thing' will be removed from my profiles by the end of the year and i will not be writing multichaptered TMI fics from 2023. thank you.