He twiddled with the olive in his glass, watching it spin in his martini with a level of guilty apathy he had not felt in a long time. What had he done? He had behaved like an utter fool that was for certain.

"Hey," a good-looking brunette greeted him from the adjacent bar stool.

"Not interested," Magnus said automatically and took a swig of his drink.

"Wow," she said. "How rude."

Magnus sighed and turned to face her. "I'm sorry," he apologised. "I think my husband wants a baby and I don't know if I can deal with that. Let me buy you a drink."

The girl sneered at him; she slid from her stool and walked tartly away.

"Are you serious?" a familiar voice asked him from his other side. "That is the reason you are scaring away unsuspecting mortals with such ferocity?"

He couldn't help but smile in recognition. "It was her fault," he told his companion, without turning to face her immediately. "I didn't really want the company and if I go home smelling of women's perfume Alec will hit the roof. Hello Tessa," he said, finally facing her.

She smiled serenely at him and perched herself up onto the bar stool in the other side. "Hello Magnus," she greeted him warmly.

"And may I remind you that I am not immortal anymore, so perfectly within my rights to scare any of my fellow mortals that I like."

"Considering you are a centuries-old practitioner of magic with a Prince of Hell as your progenitor I disagree with that point."

"Let's agree to disagree then. Drink?"

"I'll have what you're having."

He ordered another dirty martini for himself plus another for Tessa.

"So what are you doing here? You are no barfly so I cannot assume it is coincidence."

"No, you're right," she admitted with a wry smile. "Alec called me. He's worried about you."

"Still don't see how you found me," he sulked. "I took precautions."

"True, I couldn't get a locator spell to work." She held up her phone guiltily. "But you do have GPS. Sorry Magnus, I don't mean to stalk you."

"And I am sure you have much better things to do with your time than follow around after me. Alec should have known better." He knew his anger was misplaced, but in an odd way it made him feel slightly better – if he could be angry with Alec over something like this then perhaps he could feel slightly more justified in his actions. Because he could not – would not – allow himself to be angry at his husband just because some thoughtless people had put the idea in his head about having a baby.

"Don't do that Magnus," she warned lightly and took a sip of her drink. "So you are angry with Alec because he wants to have a baby?"

It was a loaded question and she knew perfectly well what she was doing. He glared at her as menacingly as he could, but she simply smiled sweetly back at him. Damn her for being so reasonable and knowing him too well. He let out a big, exasperated sigh to hammer home his point.

"Come on, don't be like that. Talk to me. Don't make me waste my evening."

"He hasn't actually said he wants a baby. But I can see it in his eyes, Tessa. Alec wants a family. He wants perfect little Shadowhunter children and that is something I can't give him."

"Are you talking about adopting?"

"No. We haven't really talked. I think that may be about ninety percent of the problem…"

"And you have told him you don't want kids?"

"That's the problem though. I don't know if I want kids." He deflated. Admitting it out loud sounded strange and made him feel light-headed. Having children, something which he had never thought possible, was now completely within his reach. "I met your children, remember. I think that may have been enough to put me off."

"Hey!" she berated him. "My children were darling angels."

Magnus took another swig of his drink and raised his eyebrows in reply.

"Ok, so it was difficult and they were quite often little monsters," Tessa chuckled.

"Do you regret it though, Tessa?" Part of him was scared of the reply.

"Not one second of it," she told him truthfully, her voice thick with emotion and her eyes tearing up. "The only thing I regret is having to watch my babies grow old and leave me behind. The cruellest thing was that I could not be a part of their mortal lives, not really. But you Magnus, you have been given a great gift. You have your mortality. You won't have to watch your children die."

"Unless they are Nephilim. Then it is a real possibility."

Tessa smiled warmly at him. "So you do want to have a baby."

"I never said that," he protested.

"No, you implied you wanted several babies."

He scowled at her, but she wasn't fazed. Magnus downed the rest of his cocktail and stared glumly into the bottom of the glass. "Would you have any more children? You and Jem?"

At that, Tessa downed her own drink and looked at him ruefully. "I have to admit it hasn't come up. Jem seems content where we are. He has Emma to look out for and we are just enjoying being together at the moment. But the thought has crossed my mind. I would do it, if it was what he wanted."

"But it isn't what you want?" The bartender didn't even need any prompting and he brought over another two martinis and set them down in front of the pair.

"I'm not sure I could go through all that pain again. But having children was a wonderful experience and I would want to make Jem happy. So yes, I would if he asked me and I would push down all those terrible memories and pretend I wasn't terrified."

"You are a braver soul than I Mrs Carstairs."

"It's not bravery Magnus. It's love."

"So what you are saying is if I love Alec as much as you love Jem then I should totally go along with it. Let him go off and have a baby."

Tessa frowned at him as they both finished up their drinks again. "It's not a competition Magnus. I didn't come here to play 'who loves their husband the most selflessly'. But you are clearly worrying Alec for no reason. You need to talk to him and, you know what I am going to say: be honest with him. Tell him exactly how you feel because that is the only way you are going to come to understand one another over this. Are you sure he wants to have a baby?"

"Yeah, he said as much." Magnus beckoned the bartender over again and motioned to their empty glasses and the man nodded in recognition.

"Did he say, 'Magnus I want to have a baby with you'?"

"Well not in so many words."

"And that is my point. Before you go off and have huge drama queen strops you really need to get your facts straight."

Magnus handed her the next drink and clinked their glasses together. "I know you are right Tessa and I think you know me well enough by now to realise I ran away because I was scared."

She looked at him sadly, and Magnus couldn't bear it. He hated pity more than anything.

"I am scared because, actually, I want to have a family with Alec more than anything."

She smiled briefly before she caught the anguish on his face.

"I am scared because this is the one thing I cannot give him. We will have to rely on someone else, someone involving themselves inextricably in our lives. It won't be just me and Alec and a baby. We will have both of its mothers hanging on too. Alec has been asked to be the father of Helen and Aline Penhallow's child, so it's not all 'look at Magnus overreacting'. This is really big. Plus, how on earth should anyone expect me to be responsible for a child? I mean, come on, look at me."

"I'm not going to deny this is a huge decision. Having one Shadowhunter as a parent is hard enough and I speak from experience. But three Shadowhunter parents? Wow."

Magnus found himself staring once again at the bottom of his glass. He popped the olive into his mouth in a conciliatory gesture. The barman slid over another drink across the bar and gave him a small encouraging smile.

"But what's this nonsense about you not being able to be responsible for a child? You'd be a fantastic father."

"You said that with so much conviction you almost had me."

"I'm serious Magnus. You have such a big heart and you would make such a wonderful parent. Look at how you've raised the Hawkswood boys. You have already proven you can do it."

"Alec looked after them more than me. All I did was teach them a couple of demon languages and how to cheat at five card draw."

"I think you are doing yourself an injustice. Still, you need to talk to Alec. You ready to go home?"

Magnus took a long look at his drink and swallowed it all down in one go.

"And how many of those have you had?"

He looked at her, knowing he was drunk, but trying really hard to not sway on the bar stool. "Seven. More or less. I think."

"Guess I am taking you home," she said with a sigh.

Alec was not please at all when Tessa brought Magnus back to the Institute. Magnus hadn't really helped, especially when Alec had told him off for getting so inebriated and the Warlock had responded with, "Uh-oh, it's the Fun Police. Nephilim: killing both downworlders and joy since the Dark Ages." He had been escorted promptly to bed and force-fed an entire jug of water. He awoke the next day, still in his clothes and drooling over the pillow. His head was pounding.

"Ow," he said into the pillow. It was quiet in the room, only the very distant and muffled sound of the New York traffic permeated through. He dragged himself up into a sitting position and looked around. His tongue was dry and he felt like he had eaten sand. Alec was nowhere to be seen.

With a groan Magnus lumbered out of bed and stripped off his dirty clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor. He ran his head under the cold water from the sink, taking big gulps at the same time to try and quench his thirst before he hopped into the shower, enjoying the contrast of the instant warmth and steam. He let the heat envelop him and tried not to think about his headache.

Looking in the mirror, he was overdue a shave and a haircut, but really couldn't be bothered to do anything about it at the moment. And then he remembered that Alec wasn't there and could only blame his slowness on being extremely hungover. It wasn't like Alec to not come to bed or to stay angry with him for this long and he wondered what else he had said or done. Well, it wasn't his fault that he had ended up in the company of an old friend last night and they had enjoyed a few drinks together. Alec was the one who had set Tessa on him – Magnus had fully intended to go back home after three drinks.

He resolved, finally, that he would get dressed and get some food to help soothe his aching body. Getting drunk was definitely more fun before he was mortal; he was sure he never used to suffer quite so much when he sobered up as an immortal. His stomach grumbled angrily, prompting him to go more quickly.

The kitchen was empty, no sign of Alec. Magnus checked the time on his phone and it was gone midday, but he concluded that he was probably still jet-lagged. Something pulled inside him and he suddenly got very angry. How dare Alec take the moral high ground over this? He sat and ate some cereal and contemplated exactly what he was going to say to his husband who was being completely unfair.

However, as he strode purposefully towards Alec's office another thought struck him. What if something bad had happened? What if Alec had been called out on a patrol? There weren't any other Shadowhunters at the Institute at the moment so if anything bad had happened in the local area Alec would have had to be first on the scene. Magnus choked and found himself running the final few yards. He burst into the room in a flurry and his heart stopped when he saw Alec was not there. Panic washed over him and he fumbled with his phone to ring his husband.

"Hey," Alec answered. He sounded sad but by no means hurt or injured.

"You scared the life out of me Alexander! Where the hell are you?!"

"Ok, calm down. I had to go and pick up Paul's new tutor from the airport. I thought I would be back by now but his flight was delayed, so I am still here waiting. You ok? Not going to have a heart attack?"

"Stop it Alexander. How dare you be making a joke out of this! Why on earth didn't you tell me that was where you were going? Or leave a note? Or drop me a message?"

"I did tell you. Last night."

"Yes, well…"

"You were too drunk to remember, clearly."

Now Alec was pissed off. He hadn't really handled that one too well.

"I was not that drunk," he argued. "And you let me just sleep in my clothes and didn't even come to bed." He couldn't hide the hurt in his voice, though he didn't try very hard. He wanted Alec to know how worried he had been and how hurt he was that his husband had seemingly abandoned him when he was unable to look after himself. Granted, it had all been self-inflicted, but he would have looked after Alec in a similar situation.

"Yeah sorry about that. I actually stayed up for a while with Tessa, chatting. I was intending to go to bed, but we lost track of time. And I didn't undress you because you were being ridiculous in front of Tessa and being inappropriate."

"Inappropriate?"

"Yes, you were trying to get me to have sex with you."

Magnus cringed.

"And then I got a message from Jia saying that this guy's flight gets in at seven in the morning so I just stayed up."

He couldn't really argue with the explanation. "Well, I missed you and was very upset when I woke up."

"I'm sorry to have worried you darling. I will make it up to you later, I promise."

That returned a smile to his face.

"I shouldn't be much longer – the flight took off at just gone four am East Coast time. He sent me a text. So he should be landing any minute."

"I can't wait to see you," Magnus told him sincerely.

"Love you!"

"I love you too," he said and put down the phone. At least he could relax now.

Suddenly, a fire message burned into the air in front of him and he had to take a step back and shield his eyes before plucking it up.

You are needed at the Dumont. Now.
R

He very almost growled. Raphael was such an imposition sometimes.

"Come out come out wherever you are," Magnus called, knowing the room was actually probably filled with little vampires hiding themselves. "I promise I won't hurt you. Unless you start singing very loudly and off key. I had way too many dirty martinis last night and cannot be held accountable for my actions if you exacerbate my hangover further."

"Can I help you Mr Bane?" a pretty young vampire with auburn hair asked him, stepping forward into the dark atrium.

"Raphael sent me a message," he told her and held out the piece of paper.

"I shall fetch him for you," she told Magnus with a polite nod. Raphael had certainly done something about manners and discipline amongst the Manhattan clan; he couldn't fault him for that.

"Ah Magnus," Raphael greeted him after only a few moments, in an uncharacteristically friendly manner.

"You disturbed my hangover so this better be good."

"Oh it is," the Vampire told him, his eyes shining in excitement. Curiosity now piqued, Magnus followed Raphael without further question or delay down a long corridor and then through a hidden door and a set of concrete steps to a lower level. He found himself in a dark room, bare and hollow and pitch black. He lit up the room with a swirl of blue sparks in his hand.

"Some of us can't see in the dark," he told Raphael pointedly when the Vampire had looked at him with distaste. Then Raphael pointed towards one of the corners, where Magnus could make out a pile of old linens bunched together.

"Thought that may be of interest to you," Raphael said, unable to quite conceal his glee.

Magnus squinted through the darkness and the pile of linen shifted – someone, or something, was concealed beneath them. He walked towards the heap to get a better look.

What was there was unmistakable, a face as etched into his memory as well as even his own. The familiarity overwhelmed him at first, before he realised the full weight of what he saw before him. Large green eyes stared up into his, her pale white face streaked with dirt and grime and she was still as beautiful as ever.

"Camille," he said, almost a whisper.

She stared at him as though she could see into his soul, seemingly uncomprehending until she whispered hoarsely, "Help me Magnus." And then she started crying and muttering nonsense.

Alec spotted the guy a mile away. He wasn't glamoured himself but his runes were; even so he looked every bit Nephilim, if Nephilim could be descried as having 'a look'.

He was not quite as tall as Alec, but built a lot more solidly, his biceps straining underneath a denim jacket. His hair was a chestnut brown and fell long and straight about his shoulders, reminding Alec of surfer guys he had seen on the beaches in California. He also spotted Alec and gave a tentative wave so he waved back.

"Hello, Mathieu?" Alec checked as he approached and the other man nodded and held out his hand in greeting.

"Yes, hello. I am Mathieu Guerrier."

"Alexander Lightwood," Alec said with a smile and shook his proffered hand. "But do call me Alec."

"It is nice to meet you Alec, I have heard a lot about you. My apologies for my delay in getting here but we have been having difficulties with our portals on the continent. I hope you were not kept waiting too long?"

He had a thick French accent, though he seemed to converse well in English. Alec couldn't help notice his eyes were a very pretty dark green and had to stop himself from staring. He was a little bit ashamed with himself. Not that he hadn't found any men attractive since he had been with Magnus, but he had perhaps naïvely thought that being married would definitely quell any rogue feelings he would have towards other guys.

"Uh, no," Alec answered him after a pause to collect himself, which probably made him sound exceptionally stupid. "Not long at all." Despite him waiting around at the airport for five hours and getting absolutely no sleep.

He found Mathieu to be friendly and talkative on their journey to the Institute and found all of his stories about the Downworlder unrest in Europe very interesting indeed. He made sure to convey that the New York Institute had a rather good relationship with Downworlders in the city and Alec casually dropped in that his husband was Magnus Bane, the famous Warlock.

Mathieu had smiled at him and said, "I know. The two of you are rather famous after all."

Alec was a little taken aback, believing that their part in the Dark War, although probably not forgotten, was not as talked about anymore. He noticed that Mathieu's eyes lingered on him a while longer than he would have thought polite too, but then again he hadn't had much experience of French people and those he had met had all been very friendly.

"So tell me about Paul," Mathieu asked him, finally turning back and looking out of the window with interest.

Alec relaxed a little bit. Mathieu seemed really nice, he had no idea why he suddenly felt so weird around him. "Paul is a bit of a handful," he smiled, happiness filling him when he spoke of his young ward. "He's coming up fourteen in July and he got marked at the beginning of last year."

"And how did he take it?"

"We had a party, he made himself sick from eating too much cake. It was a blast."

Mathieu chuckled. "You are very dry. I like your humour."

Alec took a gulp. He hadn't meant to come across as being humorous, he could only really tell things like they were and that is what he had tried to do. And he couldn't shake the feeling that Mathieu was flirting with him.

"Yeah, well, um… Paul is really great anyway. Really talented at all the acrobatic stuff, though he's getting larger now and more powerful so he definitely needs to learn how to use melee weapons." Perhaps if he spoke about Paul the entire way back he could avoid any further awkwardness. Besides, it was ridiculous to assume that Mathieu's motives were not anything but acceptable – he had only been enquiring after his new student. Alec didn't even know if Mathieu was gay.

"So do you have a girlfriend?" he blurted out. He immediately regretted it and almost banged his head against the steering wheel.

"I left a girl in Paris. We did not want to continue over such a great distance," Mathieu informed him matter-of-factly, pretending not to be offended or amused or both at Alec's blatant directness. "But I do swing both way, is how you say it, no? That is what you were asking?"

Mathieu was staring at him again, a smirk on his face and Alec almost crashed the car.

"That wasn't exactly what I was asking, no," he just about managed to squeak out. Magnus was not going to be happy about this. He also started to slightly worry whether Magnus would find Mathieu attractive too…

Alec managed to keep his head down the rest of the way and barely spoke two words to Mathieu until he was showing him to his room.

"So, this is your room. It has its own bathroom. You remember where the kitchen is? We usually just have meals in there. Nothing formal and everyone usually grabs their own food whenever so just come and go as you please, I guess." He nervously handed over a key to the room and felt Mathieu's fingertips linger on his.

"Thank you Alec. I should like to have a rest this afternoon and do some training early evening. May I find you later and ask you to show me around the training facilities?"

"Yes of course," Alec replied with a nervous smile as he snatched his hand back and dug it deeply into his pocket. He couldn't shake the feeling that Mathieu had been in some way sinister as he walked away and he felt a little bit dirty for allowing all of the flirting. He resolved to find Magnus and tell him all about it, hoping to assuage his guilt and to make sure the Warlock knew that he was not allowed to flirt with Mathieu either.

However, Alec couldn't seem to locate his husband anywhere.

"Hey," he said, stopping by Paul's room. "You seen Magnus?"

"Think he went out," Paul told him as he stuffed a lump of cheese into his mouth.

Alec eyed him suspiciously. "What are you eating?"

"Uh…" Paul genuinely had to look down to see what he was eating. "Cheese," he said after he had examined the bit he hadn't stuffed into his mouth.

Alec could well remember and sympathise – he remembered himself and Jace sneaking into the kitchen at all times of day and night and eating nearly everything they could find. It was a particular feature of being a teenage boy, even more so as a Shadowhunter with all of the physical training they did.

"Just don't make a mess," he warned.

"I won't," Paul reassured him with a smile and shut his door practically in Alec's face. Alec sighed. Paul was no longer a kid and he couldn't blame him for not wanting to hang out with him. He called Magnus' cell but it went straight through to voicemail.

"Hey Magnus, it's me. I just got back from the airport and you are not around. Hurry up and come home so I can make up this morning to you."

"You're going to have to keep her here," Magnus told Raphael authoritatively.

The Vampire snorted. "Like hell. She is your problem, not mine."

"And, pray, tell me how an insane Vampire is my problem? Especially considering she is technically your clan leader."

Raphael laughed and Magnus glared at him in annoyance. "Ooh I love it when I know more than you," Raphael said with glee. Magnus did not grace him with a reply but stared him down instead.

"Can you not tell? Has your mortality really dulled your senses that much?"

Magnus folded his arms across his chest. This was a folding arms kind of moment.

"She is mortal," Raphael said, barely able to contain his excitement.

Magnus looked at Camille sideways, who was now rocking herself back and forth and muttering quietly. He knew in his heart this was true, his sister had revealed that much information before Magnus had hidden her with a friend in Maine, hoping to keep her from completing whatever nefarious plan their father's followers had wanted of her. But there was a part of him that did not want to believe it. She was his Camille still, in a way. Despite the hurt she had caused and despite her coldness and cruelty, he couldn't help but feel protective over her.

"If she is mortal then why is she still drinking blood?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"No idea. She screamed for it. Cried and cried until we gave her some and even broke her nails scraping them up and down the wall and pulling out tufts of her hair. She still has the thirst. She's mad with it in fact. Though I refuse to give her more than we already have. It is within my interest to keep her as weak as possible."

It was then Magnus noticed the shackle and chain about her ankle.

"Oh, you didn't need to chain her," he said sadly, bending down so that he was face to face with her. He lightly stroked her bare foot, trying to see whether the shackle had hurt her in anyway. There were some marks, but nothing serious, and she didn't even acknowledge him.

"That was for all of our sakes. You think me a monster that I would chain a living creature up like this? She attacked us when she got here. Killed three of us."

"How did she…"

"Although she appears to be mortal, she has retained her strength and speed somehow. But her heart is beating Magnus, I can hear it."

"I believe you," he said rather venomously. "Fine, I will take her," he at last conceded. "To the Sanctuary at the Institute."

Raphael put his hand tentatively on Magnus' shoulder. "I am sorry about this, I really am."

"Don't lie to me," he spat. "I know you too well."

"I am just trying to help you out Magnus. You know how much I would like to see her die."

He sighed, thinking that actually Raphael had shown a good amount of restraint under the circumstances. "Can you watch her while I give Alec a call? Pretty sure if I just show up with Camille in tow he will freak out."

A/N: It is commonly known that chapters are like buses. You wait ages for one and then loads come along at once! I seem to be out of my funk now so hopefully this story will be updated more frequently :-)
Again, thank you very much those who reviewed! Do leave some feedback, even if it is to tell me you how much you love/ hate (though let's hope for love...) it! It really will make my day!
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Laubz x
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