"Clary, Simon is here!"

Awoken by her mother's voice, sixteen year old Clary blinked in confusion, still half asleep. She muttered out an annoyed 'I'm coming' before sitting up on her bed, her hand tangling into her messy head of red hair. Turning her head, she looked at the spot beside her on her queen size bed, a couple of pillows pushed around as the blanket and sheets beside her were pushed down. Jace must have left in a hurry this morning.

She forced herself out of bed a minute later, reaching over to grab a dark green hairband from her nightstand, pulling her hair up as she headed out of her room. "It's too early." She complained, giving her mother a tired look.

"Take that up with Simon." Her mother, Jocelyn, nodded her head toward the door with a small smile, seeming pleased that her daughter was up and out of her room. Clary couldn't blame her though, she hadn't been out of her room as much this summer. After her sixteenth birthday, she mainly focused on the 'important' things. Art, Simon and Jace.

"I will." Clary chuckled at her mother's comment as she went over to answer the door, immediately greeted with a grinning Simon. Simon was her friend for years now, the person she could talk to about her more…'geeky' hobbies that Jace never had any clue about. "You understand it's 3:00am Clary time, right, Simon?"

"Well, today is daylight savings day." Simon teased her back, his hands stuffed into his pockets. "The band is playing tomorrow at a café. You coming?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world." Clary reached out to push a finger against Simon's chest, nodding her head back towards her room. "I'm gonna work on a sketch and afterwards we can head out and get something to drink."

"Meet you at the coffee shop?"

"One o'clock, as usual."

Clary sulked into her room after a long day of aimlessly walking around Brooklyn with Simon and drinking coffee. Coffee leaves her system quick now, it's what she lives on. She dipped her shoulder to let her messenger bag slip down her arm and drop beside the door, where she usually leaves it. "Too much coffee or not as much coffee?" Oh, now she starts talking to herself. The things coffee can do to a person.

"I would say not enough. When you have two, you're at least coherent when you come home."

Clary was unable to hold back a yell in surprise at the familiar voice, stepping back as she turned to look towards her bed. Jace was sitting in the middle, smirk and all, obviously pleased at her reaction. "You get to either sleep on the chair or in the closet tonight, your choice."

"Well, if I slept on the chair, it would be a bit comfortable but not much room. If I slept in the closet, I could ruin all of your clothes, take them off of the hangers and lay them on the ground to make a makeshift bed. Decisions, decisions. Both very comfortable."

"Then you get to sleep on the floor."

"You break my poor heart, Miss Clary Fray."

"I better break it."

Jace shot a grin in her direction, scooting over to one side to let Clary get in beside him. She took the offer right away, collapsing back onto the bed beside him. "I get a workout every single day just walking around Brooklyn with Simon and I still can't look prettier than Isabelle." Isabelle was one of the people Jace had been living with for a while, ever since his father had died. Isabelle was gorgeous, he would show Clary pictures when she got curious about how she looked. She was a brunette, dark brown, almost black hair almost down to the middle of her back. Her figure was perfect, thin but built enough to show that she trains a lot. Her skin was flawless, she was flawless and Rory envied her completely.

"Will there be a day where you don't think Izzy is prettier than you?"

"No."

"Izzy is good-looking, pretty. But you're beautiful."

Clary was taken aback. Sure, she and Jace were close but he had never called her…'beautiful' before. It was a word she rarely ever heard from anyone but her mother and Luke. Surely Jace was just trying to make her feel better about her, right? He couldn't possibly think that.

"Funny, pretty boy." Clary rolled her eyes playfully as she scooted down, tilting her head to comfortably let it rest against his abdomen. "Simon still thinks I'm crazy, when I talk about you. He always asks so there's not any way I can't just…say you're not real."

"Maybe you are crazy, maybe I'm not real." Clary rolled her eyes once more at that, though unable to contain her grin. She lifted a hand, lightly smacking at his side.

"You're so funny. I'd love to test and see if my mom can see you." Clary thought aloud in wonder, absentmindedly picking at the hem of Jace's white t-shirt. "Maybe…"

"She's a Shadowhunter, Clary. Of course she would. It's not like that just goes away. She can still see Downworlders, she can still see through the glamour." Jace explained carefully, knowing the fact that he didn't want her mother or Luke to see him was a touchy subject for her. "She kept you away from this world for a reason, if she knew I was here, she'd send you to…I don't know, fucking Australia."

The red-head couldn't help but laugh at that, because it was true. If her mother knew about Jace, she would send her as far away from Brooklyn as possible. She had already threatened it before, though that was just to get her to pay more attention in school. "I guess. Hey, can you do something for me?"

"No, because I never do anything for you." Jace fought back a grin as he sat up along with Clary, who scrambled off of the bed to get her sketchpad. "What do you need me to do?"

"I want…to try to draw your runes." She nodded her head towards his arm, heading back over to settle in front of him, cross-legged with her pencil and sketchpad in her lap. "It may not be the best idea but I want to brush up on my…knowledge and learn them. Learn what they mean too."

"Is this just an excuse to see me with my shirt off?"

"Don't flatter yourself, pretty boy."

Clary found herself that night dazedly tracing the blonde's runes with her fingertip, having gotten tired much earlier than she had thought she would. This was a normal night for her, laying back in bed with Jace in the middle of the night while her mother slept. "Isn't Alec gonna kill you for coming home late?"

"Maybe. But he'd kill me much more maliciously if he knew I was spending my night with you." Jace nudged his shoulder with hers, the arm she was tracing lifting up so his fingers met her own. She blinked in surprise at the gesture, but quickly went along with it.

"I wonder what he thinks you do at night when you're gone." Clary hummed out thoughtfully, allowing the pads of her fingers to brush over his own. "Do they even know?"

"Isabelle may have an idea, Hodge definitely knows but Alec probably thinks I'm out partying with vampires, hunting with werewolves or something like that. He just thinks I'm being a troublemaker." Clary laughed at that, knowing that was beyond what Jace actually was.

"Such a badass troublemaker, staying with a mundane Shadowhunter while her mother can't know."

"Hey, it sounds pretty badass to me."

"Maybe a little." Clary admitted as she thought back on the situation, nodding in agreement. It was true. It seemed like the typical teenage romance type of thing, hiding their relationship from her mom and Luke so they won't get freaked out. It was typical, aside from the Shadowhunter part…and the romance part.

"Will I ever get to see the Institute?" Clary blurted out, that being one thing on her mind a lot recently. She lifted her head as Jace's fingers paused against her own, seeing the thoughtful look on his face.

"Maybe one day. It would be a good idea for everyone to actually know about you first though, huh? After that, maybe. Hodge may not like it thought." Jace muttered the last part as an afterthought.

"I'm still trying to understand if he's strict or not." From what Clary had heard of Hodge, he seemed strict but also fun when he wanted to be. It confused her but it also reminded her a lot of Luke. Luke could be her best friend or her best enemy at the most random times. "Mom has been acting weird lately…do you know why?"

Jace looked down at her in slight confusion, then shook his head 'no'. "I don't see why she would be acting weird. Maybe she's PMSing."

"You know that one day where I said I wanted to know how much you knew about women?"

"Yes?"

"I do not want to know anymore."