Sorry I didn't get this up last night, I am easily distracted. I love you reviewers, you make my day! This now has the second most reviews of all Alec/Magnus fics! You can tell I'm really excited by my gratuitous abuse of exclamations marks!!!

Anyway, here is some quality time with Jace, because I felt he was just a little too awesome not to get a chance in the spotlight.

Magnus was eating when the phone rang. Well, he was less eating than he was pushing the food around and making swirling designs in the layer of soy sauce coating the bottom of the bowl. But he liked to think that qualified as eating, seeing as he hadn't had so much as coffee in the past twenty-four hours.

Setting his bowl down on the coffee table, he shimmied the phone out of his ridiculously tight pants and checked the caller ID. Jace. Normally he would've chucked the phone across the room and waited for the voicemail to pick it up, but something made him answer.

"Magnus?" came the scratchy voice. Magnus shifted to the side—nearly tumbling from his chair—and the static faded away. He had the weirdest dead spots in his apartment. "It's Jace."

"I know," Magnus said, still at a loss for why he had picked up. Maybe because he wanted someone to talk to. Maybe because he wanted to be cussed out. But he didn't know.

"Can you meet me at Taki's?" Jace asked, and a car horn wailed in the background. "I just want to talk, one tortured soul scorned by fate to another."

Magnus let the silence stretch, waiting for Jace to point out the flaw in his own logic. Chairman Meow mewled and nudged his water dish, making murky liquid slosh onto the kitchen floor. Magnus kicked him away with one bare foot, but the stupid cat just arched against his ankle, his silky fur sticking to the hem of Magnus' jeans.

"It's just me," Jace said finally, sounding exasperated.

The warlock was unconvinced, letting accusations layer his words. "I've learned the hard way just how much your Shadowhunter promises are worth." Crushing the phone between his shoulder and his ear, Magnus got up from his seat and bent over, cradling the whining cat in his arms.

"Fine," Jace sighed. "I swear on the Angel, I'm the only who's going."

Magnus shifted Chairman Meow to one arm, ignoring the cat's screech as he yanked open the refrigerator and shimmied out the half-filled pitcher, water lapping against the cracked plastic sides. "Are you going to go run right back and tell Alec everything I say?" Setting the cat down on the counter, Magnus dumped the bowl of filthy water, filling it with new stuff from the pitcher. Chairman Meow cried and butted against his hand, making water splatter onto the linoleum.

"No."

Mopping up the spill with the edge of his sleeve, Magnus lowered the dish to the floor, replacing the pitcher to its slot between a half-eaten pizza and a carton of orange juice. "You're buying," he said, and in one smooth motion, he slung the phone from his shoulder down his arm to his hand, and flipped it closed.

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"Magnus!" Jace called. He was leaning against the counter, talking animatedly with a part-fey girl. He waved his hand, and the girl smiled to herself, her gauzy wings fluttering through two holes in her dress. "Over here!"

"Yes, yes, I see you," Magnus said, burying his hand deep into the folds of his pockets. Taki's was packed, the thrum of conversation battling for dominance against the sounds of the kitchen drifting through the little window. "You're rather hard to miss." It was true, surrounded by bright lights and darkly dressed Downworlders, the Shadowhunter stood out like a sore thumb, his bright hair glinting like spun gold, his white shirt glowing faintly.

"Hey," called a burly werewolf in a tattered muscle shirt. He sat hunched over a plate covered in blood and hunks of meat, a nearly identical man across from him. "Are you Magnus Bane?"

Magnus sighed, and Jace made his way through the throng, nimbly dodging a nixie boy bearing a tray of tall glasses filled with amber colored fluid. "I rather doubt there are many other warlocks named Magnus in the tri-state area."

The werewolf laughed, and asked, "Could you beat up Dumbledore?" His friend frowned.

Raising his eyebrows, Magnus snapped his fingers and flicked his wrist. The werewolf's plate soared into the air, coming down hard on his messy hair, splattering him with flecks of blood. With an earsplitting screech, his chair flew backwards, abandoning him on the ground, his head falling forward to crack against the table. Magnus smiled. "What do you think?"

Jace appeared next to him, grinning, his hair ruffled as if he had just rolled out of bed. "And here I was thinking you were drained," he said, waggling a finger in the warlock's direction.

"I am," Magnus said, all the color draining from his face. His hand flashed out, his nails digging into Jace shoulder. His knees turned to jelly, his legs wobbling unsteadily. "Get us a table before I vomit all over your shoes." That seemed to get Jace moving. Careful to keep his feet out of Magnus' path, he helped the warlock to a deserted counter booth. Magnus sank gratefully into the cracked faux leather backrest, Jace sliding in across the table.

"Great," he muttered, watching the werewolves out of the corner of his eye as they scrambled out, cussing and screaming. "Now I'm not going to be able to come back here for the next decade. At least."

"I had to defend my honor," Magnus defended, holding up his hands and shaking his head. "To even think that old fogey could defeat me."

Jace grin widened, showing off every one of his teeth. "So says the nine-hundred-year-old warlock."

"So insults the impudent young Shadowhunter who begged me to come here in the first place."

He laughed. "Point taken."

"What do you want Jace?" Magnus asked, crossing his arms over his chest and resting his elbows on the table. "I'm missing Lost for this."

"I want you to take Alec back," he said, without looking up from the laminated menu, his fingers tapping along the back.

Magnus sighed, pressing his lips together. "Why am I not surprised? I told him—and he no doubt told you—that the two of us simply can't work. I'm going to live forever and he's going to die. It's easier for both of us to end it now."

Clicking his tongue, Jace set down his menu, shoving it towards the end of the table.

"That's not what Alec thinks."

Just then, the part-fey waitress click-clacked over, her long blond hair pulled back from her face with an abalone clip. Jace ordered "the usual" and Magnus asked for coffee. She smiled and swept up their menus, disappearing into the back.

"What would you do if it was Clary?" Magnus asked, running one hand through his tousled hair. Faint traces of glitter came off on his palm.

Jace's facial expression changed into a mix of painful memory and almost paternal concern. "I would do anything I could to keep her. I wouldn't stop trying until it killed me."

Grimacing, Magnus leaned closer, bunching his hands into fists. "It nearly did kill me. I would've let it. Do you think it was my choice to stop trying?" He laughed without humor, watching as Jace's lips twitched. "I ran out of options."

The waitress dumped a paper box of fries in front of Jace and slid Magnus his coffee before vanishing once more.

"I believe you," Jace said, tearing a fry in half and eating each piece in two separate swallows.

Magnus almost smiled. "No you don't."

Jace did smile. "No, I don't." He reached for the saltshaker, sprinkling tiny white crystals over his fries with fastidious care.

Taking a long drink of coffee, letting the liquid burn his throat, Magnus closed his eyes. "I've talked with every Downworlder in New York state. I've called every friend, every fling, every acquaintance in my address book until I couldn't speak for the next three days. I went to Idris; I searched through the library, the records, I went into the sewers and asked an ancient troll that smelled like old cheese. I read every word of The Book of the White, until the pages gave me paper cuts and my eyes burned. I went to the Seelie Queen, uninvited, and begged her to help me." His eyes popped open, boring into Jace like amber arrows. "I did everything Jace. We can't work. Watching him age, it would kill me."

The boy nodded, fiddling with the wax paper lining the box of fries. "I understand," he said finally, his voice unusually quiet.

"No you don't."

And Jace laughed, twirling a fry between his fingers before dropping it in his mouth. "You're talking to the master of the forbidden fruit here, Magnus. Trust me, I understand."

Magnus' smile was as brilliant and fleeting as a summer storm. "Ah yes, your fiery little apple."

"I rather doubt Clary would appreciate being compared to a fruit," Jace pointed out.

"Roll with it," Magnus said, stirring packaged creamer into his coffee. "I've got a good metaphor going here. If she's the apple, does that make you Eve?"

Jace fake-grimaced, but said nothing, choosing to eat the rest of his fries in heavy silence. When the last of the salt was wiped from the box, he looked up.

"You still love him," he said, total conviction in his eyes. Magnus' heart gave a little painful tug.

Magnus frowned, staring at Jace with withering eyes. "You're not rolling with it."

"You're not answering me," he countered.

"I wasn't aware I was being asked."

"Fine," Jace sighed, crumpling the wax paper into a tiny ball between his long fingers. "Do you still love him?"

Magnus nodded over his cup, running his nails along the rim absently. "More than anything."

Jace leaned forward, such intensity in his gaze that Magnus instinctively shifted back. "Then it's worth every fragile mortal second."

"I can't," Magnus whispered, his face falling in miniscule increments. "I just can't."

Sighing, Jace pulled out his wallet, siphoning out a few crumpled bills and leaving them on the table. "I guess I'd better be getting back to my apple," he said, smiling a smile that didn't touch his eyes. "She doesn't know I'm gone."

Magnus got to his feet, pulling his coat tighter around himself despite the fact that the restaurant was warm almost to an uncomfortable point. Suddenly, he felt cold. "Tell me, Jace," he said, his voice no more than a breath. But Jace heard him anyway, looking up from counting change. "What is Eden like?"

The smile spread like an infectious disease, crinkling his face and drawing lines around his eyes. "It's hell."

If you didn't get that last bit, read it a couple more times and you might. I have to think about it a little while myself each time I read it. Sorry for any typos, I type fast and badly. Every time you review, Magnus and Alec have a better chance at 'happily ever after', so press that button!