2007
Clary started to fall asleep before they'd even left the club, before she panicked. If she slept, she'd turn into the demon and then Izzy would die because she wouldn't be able to protect her.
Her eyes opened at the thought and she pushed herself to her feet, drowsiness clear in every move.
"God, Clary, stop being stubborn and sleep, I'll make sure you get home." Jace said tightly, she glanced over at him, despite the worry she could see, it looked like fear and disgust were the strongest emotions.
"You don't have to look at me like that." she snapped. "I'm not going to turn into a raging demon-person!" her lips curled. Maybe she would turn into a raging demon-person if her anger kept boiling to the surface. Damn Simon. If it wasn't for him, she wouldn't be having this issue of being constantly angry (not that she wasn't angry before, but at least it hadn't been that uncontrollable).
She forced herself to leash her temper and used it as fuel to keep herself awake. She didn't need sleep. She didn't. She could survive with never sleeping again. On semisteady feet, she walked ahead of the him.
Despite his protest, Jace was the only one taking her back to home. Neither he nor Alec wanted Izzy and Clary to be alone and for some reason that hurt. She could feel a crack in her stonecold heart. Was she finally going to learn how to feel without it being an act?
Jace easily caught up to her and grabbed her arm. If he hadn't been fast enough to grab her fist before she hit her target, his nose, they would have had another problem. And it would have been her fault. Again.
Clary tore her fist from his hand and backed away slowly, as if she could do damage control before anything else happened. She wasn't sure where she wanted to go, she wasn't sure about anything.
She knew she was different. And not in a good way. Her vision went blurry again and she panicked. She didn't know when she lost track of what she was thinking.
This feeling… it was so new to her. The only thing she'd felt before was anger and physical pain. She turned away from him. She had thought she had wanted to know how it felt to feel, but if this was one of the mild humane feelings… it made her unsure of what she wanted.
"Clary… we'll figure this out. Whatever is happening to you." he didn't reach for her again.
"What if we don't? What if … kill me if I turn into that… thing. Demon. Again. Please, Jace." Her voice broke and suddenly she was crying. The action surprised her and she wasn't sure how to react. Why was she crying? And how did she make herself stop?
She'd seen Izzy and Alec and Jace cry a couple of times but… They had access to all of their emotions. They knew how to make the tears stop. She didn't remember ever crying; not when she'd broken a leg and arm when she'd first learned of the Shadow World. Not when she got her first Rune- which burned so much more than anyone said it would.
The ones she knew naturally, the Demonic ones, hurt considerably less than the Angelic ones; but she'd learned to know all of the ones of the Angel, had learned how to ignore the pain.
He grabbed her chin and made her look him in they eyes. "You won't, Red, you won't." He said softly, wiping her tears with a thumb. "You won't turn into a demon."
Clary couldn't accept his words. She could feel her breathing pick up. "But I will, Jace, I can feel it. I can feel her waiting. Resting." She forced herself to take a deep breath. She forced her breathing to go back to normal. Now was not a time to feel anything new.
"I'll kill myself." She whispered. "If you won't kill me, then I will." This was probably the most… humane she'd ever felt. And she doubted she'd feel such emotions again.
Would that be a blessing or a curse? She was already damned, already cursed, so what was the difference? The only difference was that she'd had a taste of what it felt like to be human, to have access to more emotions.
He shook his head. "You won't kill yourself either." how was he so calm? His calmness made her blood boil.
"Watch, I wi-" her words were cut off and her body stiffened as he kissed her. Her eyes widened and she … she didn't know what to do. It felt like an eternity before her body up for her lack of response to his kids by kissing him back. She was surprised to realise that she thought of him more in a romantic than a brother/sister way.
His hand dropped from her chin and pulled her closer as her arms wrapped around his neck. For once, she didn't feel embarrassed about her lack of empathy. She didn't feel like she had to pretend that she was as emotionless as she wanted everyone to believe. She still felt anger and sometimes - like now - happiness. Fear and sadness and embarrassment and thousands of other emotions were things she rarely, if ever, felt.
Tonight… like she'd observed so many times already, was a first for so many things. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. They both pulled back, just a little, at the same time. She gave him a small smile.
Maybe I won't kill myself. Not tonight, anyway. Hopefully I'll feel whenever I'm about to turn into a demon. It sounded like a solid plan.
"If you're insistent on killing yourself, I guess we'll just have to sleep together every night."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "One kiss and you think i'll sleep with you?" She didn't think he meant it that way, but damn was it fun to tease him when she could.
He snorted at her words. "If I wanted to have sex with you I would have just said so." She was pretty sure he did want to have sex with her. She didn't know if that's what she wanted at the moment. "But, no, not now. Sleep as in you need rest."
She could almost hear what he didn't add: you haven't been getting enough lately and this 'mood' you're in won't help matters any.
The smile dropped from her face. She never let anyone in, into her heart or into her room. Both were the only things that were hers and nobody else's. She wasn't sure if she could share them with anybody.
Izzy and Alec and Jace were already in her heart, and they'd never hurt her… but none of them had the power to hurt her beyond repair. Well, one of them did and he'd just kissed her.
Her room was dark and didn't feel at all angelic. It was, like her darker runes, it had more of satanic - demonic - feel. She wasn't sure she was ready to share that part of her completely.
She took a deep breath. "before we head home… I would like to stop and see my little sister." She also wanted to see her Mother and Luke, but mostly Scarlett. She'd be almost thirteen and maybe Clary wanted her sister to know her, or for her to know about the world she was born to be in. She wasn't sure.
"I thought you were tired?" He said in a slight teasing tone, though she knew he understood. If he'd had any biological siblings, he'd want to know them too - even after seven years of not seeing them.
She shrugged. "I just want to talk with them for a few minutes, then we can go home."
He studied her for a second before nodding and she pulled away, taking his hand. She started walking the way to the apartment she'd spent nine years living in.
XxXxX
Scarlett went to a year round, prep school and she was currently studying for her math test. PreAlgebra felt useless. When was she ever going to use anything more than multiplication? Maybe she'd use division, but she didn't see when she was ever going to need to know the Absolute Value or how to find plug in numbers to a equation when the numbers were given to her and all she had to do was read?
Maybe it was that she'd grown up with Simon, a complete nerd who made sure she understood things - school wise - long before she'd had to use them.
The twelve year old let out a loud sigh. Why couldn't she just her get good grades in all her classes for just drawing? Or being a smart ass. It wasn't like she didn't already know what the teacher was teaching. Infact, she daresay that she knew more than her 10th grade peers.
…. Her cocky attitude towards her schooling was going to get her in trouble and she wasn't even a teenager yet.
She jumped to her feet when there was a knock at the door. "I've got it!" she yelled to her parents.
Luke wasn't actually her father. Not biologically or legally, but he was her mother's childhood friend and basically lived with them in a spare room.
She opened the door and tilted her head. She'd never seen someone with such strange tattoos or black eyes. The woman before her felt familiar, though she wasn't sure why. The tattoos also felt familiar. She tried to pinpoint where she'd seen them before.
For some reason, she felt the urge to look over at her math homework that the teacher had returned for studying. Her eyes snapped between the woman's tattoos and one of the doodles in the margin of one of her papers.
"Scarlett? Who is it?" Her mother's question snapped her out of her confusion.
"I... don't know." She said, hearing the confusion in her voice.
"Hello, Mother." The black eyed one drawled.
Scarlett's eyes widened as the words sank in. Her older sister was alive? Is that why she felt so familiar? She looked between her Mother and sister. It wasn't hard to see… some similarities like their body language. Or the shape of their facial features.
Her mother's eyes widened. "Clary?" The shock was clear in her voice. Scarlett waited for the tears to come. Jocelyn often cried when anyone asked about Clarissa.
They claimed that Clarissa had run away… But Scarlett wasn't sure that was completely true. Not with the way the black haired girl was looking at their mother with such… distaste. Like the only one here who didn't deserve to burn in hell was Scarlett because she'd been five when Clary had 'run away'.
Clary's eyes seemed to darken when their mother said her name. Scarlett shivered as the temperature seemed to drop.
Whatever had happened, obviously her sister blamed her mother. Completely. She wanted to know more. She'd dreamed about what her older sister had been like. What she was like now, if she was still alive. She had memories of Clary, dim and blurry as they were.
Who was in front of her now… She seemed to be more detached. More ruthless. Scarlett saw the killer her sister could be- or the killer that she was. And that made her nervous and frightened.
Clary turned her gaze to her and it seemed to soften just a bit. "I do not mean to frighten you, Scar. But somethings are out of our hands." Her sister's voice had been cold- almost frozen - when she'd spoken to their mother, but it felt warmer when she addressed Scarlett. Not by much, but it made her not as tense at the Aura Clary was putting out.
The black haired girl turned to look at Jocelyn, a cold smile stretching over her face. "I do believe, Mother, that there are some things we need to discuss."
Jocelyn visibly swollowed, but otherwise showed no sign of her panic. Weather that was for Scarlett's sake or not… that was another question.
"Of… of course. Come in." Jocelyn's voice was hasty, rushed. "Scarlett, go to your r-"
"Scarlett stays." Both residents flinched at Clary's sharp tone. "This concerns her as well."
Both Clay and the blond guy stepped inside their apartment.
"I- I can leave. It isn't a b-"
"You are staying." Clary didn't even wait for a response before plowing on.
"How much have you told her about the world she was born to be in?" The question confused Scarlett. There was only one world? Unless one counted the cartel and mafia as separate from the world she was in… she looked at her mother whose expression clearly said she didn't want to have this discussion.
"Neither of you were born to fight." Jocelyn finally replied, obviously trying to avoid answering.
Clary's eyes narrowed. "If that is true then why did you abandon me? You made me learn how to fight, how to kill. You and our Father were born fighters." Her voice was back to the freezing tone.
"You know Valentine is still alive, yet you stay and hide like the coward you are."
Jocelyn flinched at Clary's words. "You don't understand. Your … father is mad. It was the onl-"
Clary's eyes widened and she looked, for the first time in God knew how long, shocked. "Valentine is alive?" there was confusion in her tone. The blond guy looked just as shocked