Our Favorite Mortal Instruments Quote of the Chapter:
"'Investigation?' Isabelle laughed. 'Now we're detectives? Maybe we should all have code names.'
'Good idea,' said Jace. 'I shall be Baron Hotschaft Von Hugenstein.'"
-Isabelle, Jace and
0O0
I haven't seen much of Jace in the last few weeks. He's come by a few times during his lunch break and we've gone out to eat. It's nice getting to know him better. He's still the cocky, annoying guy I first met, but there's something else to him. Something that wasn't there to begin with. We talk mostly about work and the traumas we've worked on; the worst case, the best case, most interesting and so on. I can feel myself growing unusually close to him.
The other day we were walking back to the hospital he was telling me a story about his co-worker's when I slipped on a patch of ice. He caught me around the waist before I had a change to fall. He pulled me closer and asked me if I was alright, his deliciously hot breath fanning across my face. I couldn't do anything but nod, my mind conjuring up thoughts of our kiss only weeks before. He quickly let me go, but the heat from his touch took a long time to fade.
My hand continues to scrawl furiously across the page as my mind wanders. I've been assigned to paperwork duty and have been at it for the past six hours. I sit up, my back protesting the movement, and rub my hand over my tired eyes. It's time for coffee and a break from my minds wanderings.
Down the hall, in the Nurse's room, is an ancient coffee maker. It produces a powerful sludge, but it contains enough caffeine to make a person intoxicated and if you add enough cream and sugar, it's almost edible. The coffee in the pot is cold. With a sigh, I pour it into my mug and add enough cream and sugar to send a person into diabetic shock. I take a big gulp of the cold beverage and force it down before the taste can get to me.
When I get back to my station I see the beautiful, black-haired girl from the other day leaning against the desk. She's dressed in a standard EMT uniform, but she makes it look as elegant as a ball gown.
"Clary Fray?" she asks as I approach.
"Can I help you?" I ask, sliding into the seat behind the desk. I pull on the lever that raises the seat so that I can see above the desk. My toes barely touch the floor. Silently, I curse my height, or rather my lack of it.
"Are you Clary Fray?"
"I am," I answer warily.
"Do you know Jace Herondale?" she asks me. I freeze in my seat and glance up at her.
"Yes," I answer wearily. She grins and turns toward me, her hand extended.
"My name is Isabelle Lightwood. I'm, for all intents and purposes, his sister."
"Oh," I say, reaching out and shaking her hand. Suddenly I recall Jace telling stories about his brother and sister, though he never really calls them by name. "It's nice to meet you."
"Are you the girl?" she asks, leaning forward.
"The…girl?" I ask.
"The one he's been spending so much time with."
"Umm…maybe?" I say.
"All the signs are pointing to you. I 'might' know you but you're not a paramedic," she says putting up a finger. "Mom says Dr. Bane has seen the two of you together. I asked Magnus himself and he went off on some rant about nurse's and their love affairs," she says, putting up a second and third finger. "Then there's the whole you-live-in-the-same-building-as-us thing," she says as I shoot her a surprised glance. "The man at the front desk is very easy to get information out of," she says with a wink. "So I have one question for you; did he take you to the manor?" I feel my cheeks flush. Her blue eyes widen and she smiles broader. "It's you! Oh, Alec will be so thrilled!"
"Who's—"
"Our brother," she says. "And Dr. Bane's unofficial boyfriend." I feel flustered and search for something to say. "I can't wait to tell Jace," she says almost evilly. "Did you know he has—"
"Isabelle?" I look up and see Jace walk through the front doors, dressed in full uniform. I feel my cheeks heat up and curse my body for its response to him. "What are you doing?" he asks.
"Ah, Jace," Isabelle says, sounding very self-satisfied. Jace makes his way over and leans his hip against the desk.
"I see you've met Clary," he says to her.
"Yep. I found your secret girlfriend," she says with a smile. Jace flashes me a look somewhere between a smirk and a grimace.
"And I see you've been stalking. Did you know, Izzy, that stalking is a crime."
"It's not stalking. It's snooping."
"There's a difference?" Jace asks.
"Umm…"
"Oh, right. Stalking involves following someone and finding out things about them and snooping involves finding out things about them then finding…wait a minute!" he says, snapping his fingers. "They're the same thing."
"Either way, you're little friend is no longer a secret," Isabelle says.
"'Little' friend? Was that a short joke?" I ask with a smile, meaning to change the subject.
"Umm…not purposely," Isabelle says.
"Ignore Clary. Her height's a sore spot for her. Especially since she recently got a handicap sign for her car because she's a legal midget."
"I am not," I say, glaring at Jace, "A legal midget." He peers over the counter and sees my feet dangling above the ground. "I'm five feet and four-tenths inches, thank-you-very-much." He smirks.
"Clary, this is Isabelle, my sister. Isabelle, Clary."
"Remind me how you got her? She doesn't look like a slut, which is usually the only kind of girl you can get. And we all know she doesn't like you for your personality, soo…" Jace places his hand over his heart and puts on a hurt face.
"Your words wound me," he says.
"Shut it, Jace. You're ego needs no boost." Clary laughs loudly. "We're going to be good friends," Isabelle says. She pulls a pen out of her front pocket and grabs my hand. She scribbles on seven digits then her name. "Here's my number. We must hang out some time." She shoots Jace a look then walks away, waving to me as she goes.
"Well, then," Jace says.
"So what was all that about me being 'the girl'?" I ask, mimicking Isabelle's intense tone. Jace rolls his eyes and hops over the counter. "Hey!" I scold. "Employees only."
"Poor wording, Fray. I'm an employee." I sigh and turn in my chair to face Jace. "I'm sorry about that," he says, sinking into the other chair. "Isabelle can be…abrasive," he says.
"I like her. She's like you, except nicer and a girl. Prettier too," I say with a smirk.
"Remember what you learned today about insulting me, Fray," he says warningly.
"As long as you remember that my bite is worse than my bark, Herondale," I counter.
"Cute." I turn back to my paperwork with a smile. Jace leans back and props his feet on the edge of the counter, assuming a relaxed position.
"Don't you have work?" I ask.
"Just got off." He picks my coffee mug up off the counter and takes a deep drink. He splutters and chokes it down. "That," he says, making a face at the mug, "is not coffee."
"Trust me. We know." He puts the cup back on the counter and moves away from it. He grabs my bottle of water from the counter and drains the bottle.
"You can finish that," I say sarcastically. "It wasn't like I was drinking it or anything."
"When do you get off work?" he asks, ignoring my comment. He flashes me a smirk. I sigh and steal a glance at my watch.
"About an hour."
"I'll pick you up then."
"Pick me up? Isn't that a bit presumptuous?" I ask.
"You know you're going to say yes. Especially when I say there's real coffee involved. And breakfast."
"At four in the morning?"
"It'll be more like four thirty, but yes." I drop my pen and scan his face. He's relaxed; the normal worry lines between his eyebrows have been erased from his face. His soft looking mouth is pulled up in a smirk and his golden eyes are bright.
"Alright. I'll go."
"See you at four," he says, pushing himself to his feet and swinging back over the counter. I shake my head and turn back to my paperwork.
0O0
My head whips up at the sound of the ER doors opening. It's Jace, walking in with a large box in his hands. He moves straight towards me, his gold eyes sparkling. He drops the box on the floor.
"What's this?" I ask.
"Come here and find out," he says with a wide grin. He's changed out of his uniform and into a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a black t-shirt. I tear my eyes away from him and make my way around the counter. With a wary glance at Jace, I kneel down beside the box. It holds a new coffee maker. I turn towards him, my eyes wide with surprise.
"The sludge they were giving you guys was completely unacceptable," he says nonchalantly, his hands in his pocket. I fling my arms around him. He staggers back a step in surprise, then, after a pause, returns my embrace. The warmth from his arms seeps into my back. It feels amazing, perfect, absolutely right. I pull back before my mind loses control of my body.
"Thank you," I say, meeting his eyes. He grips the back of his neck and smirks.
"All in a day's work," he says. "Let's get this set up, then I'm taking you out for breakfast." He lifts the box, the muscles in his arms straining against the weight. I lead him to the nurse's station and help him take the new machine out of the box and plug it in. Jace picks up the old coffee maker and balances it in his hand.
"I feel like we should do something ceremonious with this," he says.
"It has served us for a long time," I say.
"Want to throw it off the roof?" he asks, his signature smirk plastered across his face.
"And what happens when we hit someone in the head with it?"
"It won't take us to long to get to the hospital," he responds. I laugh and bump my hip against his, or more accurately, his thigh. He picks up the machine and throws it in the garbage.
"Come on, Red. Time to hit the road."