Hey! I need to thank Artdrunky for a really awesome idea that I ended up in this chapter. (plus shes written a really awesome au called Co-ed.) Thanks to all who reveiwed! Now on to the story!
Today was the dreaded day of this week. Still having no choice in backing out or not, I pushed on. Jace was coming with me. He grabs the parking ticket from the automated booth in the cement parking garage. "They should give me a frequent parkers card." he mumbles as his hand shoved the card almost angrily into his pocket.
"Don't get mad over a piece of paper."
"Sorry, I don't mean to take it out on you- Hey asshole!" He yells to car in front of us that stopped slamming of the brakes caused the stack of papers on the dashboard to go flying into my lap. My eyes hit the title on the first one, Columbia Lions basketball registration. Under that it reads the packet is due today.
"Hey Jace?"
"Yeah?" He looks over and sees the paper on my lap.
"It's due today."
"I know."
"Do you plan on filling it out?"
He sighs, "I can't."
"You better. This is your future."
"Yeah," there is a tightness in his voice. It's not exactly anger, but more frustation. "What happens if Max finally does die or you get really sick and I'm in a game. No one will be able to reach me. What happens then?"
"We'll carry on. Jace, you need to be able to be you."
"Clary, it will be to much."
"Do it for me than, Jace, I don't want to watch your life go away with mine."
His chest rises and falls with a deep breath. "You win. You better promise me you'll be okay this season."
"I promise." I say leaning to kiss him on the cheek.
"Alright. Why do I have to love a girl as stubborn as me?"
-o.0.O-
We had spent the three hours of me treatment filling out ridiculously specific forms and going over the contractual agreements. After that I sent Jace back out to his car and over to Columbia to hand those pieces in. I went upstairs to sit with Max. I don't know why but I wanted to visit him without Jace.
I take the elevator up to the correct floor. Still remembering the room number, I didn't need to ask when I signed in. When I go to Max's room he laid in the bed with even more lines connected to him than before. "Max?" I ask softly, afraid to wake him if he is asleep.
He was up. His eyes were just closed. "Where's Jace?" The child croaks.
"Sent him to confirm his spot on the basketball team."
"He wasn't going to play?"
"Not until now."
"Goodjob," he says and I laugh. "Your hair's gone." that kills the laughter.
"So is yours." I state.
"I guess were twinning." there is a gloomy tone to his voice.
"So what's new?" I ask him, trying to change the topic.
"Umm... It took five tries to get an IV in me."
"That sucks. I got one of these." I hold my arm up to show the dangly VAP machine.
"Why are you here?"
"The people downstairs decided to put cancer-fighting poison in my veins."
"Do you feel alright? You could go home? I wouldn't mind." The sentence ends with a rattling cough. The kid is worrying about me. He is the one in the hospital and he is worrying about me.
"Don't ever worry about me. Okay? Just take care of yourself."
"But..." his voice dies down before picking back up. "Don't tell Jace or anyone, I know I am going to die. I don't want to but it's fine. You better live though, because Jace needs you." My eyes had decided to start crying. "I can't tell anyone else this because they would tell me lies, but you get it right? Oh, sorry about not going to Forbidden Planet." They say you know when you're sick and you are going to die, but no one is here to confirm that.
"Don't worry about it, but yeah I get what you mean."
It takes Jace about an hour and a half to to come back a pick me up. We sit outside my place in Jace's car. "I'm gunna have to go move back in with my parents." I tell him.
"Why?"
"It's too much money."
"Come stay with me," he says suddenly.
"What?
"Alec and I have an appartment that we don't use."
"Won't Alec be mad?"
"From the looks of it he'll be out a lot with Magnus."
"Wait. How do you know about that?"
"I'm the all knowing God?" he reads my unimpressed expression and starts again. "I was sitting next to his phone when Magnus texted him."
"Seriously though he won't be mad?"
"Not at all, Red. Let's go look at it right now."
"I'm kind of tired." I say.
"Tomorrow then?" he asks.
"Tomorrow." I agree.
-o.o.o-
When I wake up the next day I text Jace telling him to come over whenever. He's here in under an hour. The ride to Jace's apartment is mostly done in silence. I just didn't feel like talking and he must not of either.
Jace pulls the car into a cement underground garage and swipes a card so he is let in. He gets out and walks over to an elevator. I watch his back as the muscles crease on his back as he unconsciously swings his arms. "Like it so far?" he asks summoning the elevator with the push of a button.
"Yes," I joke, "That parking garage is not like any of the others I've seen." We ride the elevator to the lobby where we have to switch. The lobby is modestly decorated. Think 80's hotel. There is a pudy security guard who sits supposedly looking at some security cameras.
Jace leans casually against the inside of the elevator. "Please tell me this place doesn't have a horrible downfall I haven't seen yet."
"The sink clogs sometimes." Jace says.
"That's fine I mean like there isn't a communal bathroom or something."
"No." Jace's long muscular arm slinks around me, pulling me close. My bald head sits against his shoulder. We go right up to Jace's floor, 4.
He shows me down two doors to apartment 402. After using a key, Jace lets me in first. Okay, here's some math. Take my apartment, times it by two. Now add 50. That's about as big a Jace's place. "Hello?" asks a person on the couch who we cant see.
"Oh, hey Alec." Says Jace.
"Jace, what are you doing here?" Alec asks turning to face us, looking over the back of the couch. His hair is wet from a shower but the shower is running.
"Hey, who's in the shower?" I ask. His face goes a tomato shade of red, borderline Flash red. Then, as if to answer my question, the water cuts and door opens. Out steps Magnus in all his glory. A small towel tries oh-so-hard to cover what counts. It barely succeeds.
"Clary," acknowledges Magnus walking right across the room and into what must be a bedroom.
"I thought you said no one would be here." I say to Jace.
"I also said he'd be spending time with Magnus." Alec was definably Flash red now.
"You two weren't…" Alec starts but doesn't finish.
"Not unless she wanted to, but looks like did."
"Wait, was she going to move here?" He asks.
"Yep." Jace walks off to a door, opens it and flops down on a bed in one fluid motion. The shocking aspect of the room is how clean it is. Most boys rooms aren't exactly pigsties, but none are Jace, Mr. Clean clean. I sit on the foot of the bed.
"I'll take it." I say.
"When do you want to get your stuff?" He asks.
"Can I just stay here today?"
"Whatever you want." I twist to lie next to him but have to scoot up so our faces meet. Darn shortness.