{Clary POV}

I snuggled up closer to Jace, my head rising and falling with his chest as he breathed evenly in his sleep. Ever since he'd started sharing a bed with me, the night I'd made the decision to remain on the island with him, I couldn't fall asleep without being as close to him as I possibly could. It was inevitable that we'd shift apart a bit and move over the course of the night, but I always woke up in some kind of contact with him.

And I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Jace was literally the best thing that had ever happened to me. From the moment he told me he loved me, the rest of the world faded away until he was the most important thing in my life. We still fought on occasion about stupid stuff, but I was confident in my heart that we were meant to be together. I couldn't live without him anymore, and I knew from what he'd told me that he felt the same way.

And now we had a baby on the way. A little burst of life growing inside me that was part him and part me. When Celine had first told me we were expecting, my heart had almost stopped. I was only seventeen at the time, and Jace was eighteen. What would he think? Were we ready for a baby? As I sat on the bed with Celine hovering over me, looking like she was about to start jumping up and down at the thought of having a grandbaby, I tried to think about it a little more logically, pushing aside thoughts of our young ages. Jace loved me. I could feel it every time he touched me, see it every time he looked at me, hear it every time he spoke my name. I knew without a doubt in my heart that his feelings for me were as strong as mine were for him. Even if the baby was unexpected and had come sooner than I had ever imagined, I knew he or she would have two parents that loved them unconditionally. It wasn't like I hadn't thought of having babies with Jace before we actually had managed to get pregnant, but I always thought we'd talk long and hard about it first to figure out what we should do.

As far as being ready, it wasn't like we weren't well off. I knew the entirety of the village would be behind us, supporting our decisions and helping us with whatever we needed. Most of them I trusted with my life, and I knew I could trust them to help take care of our baby if anything were to happen to either of us. And the island was a peaceful, calm environment. The thriving success of the village was proof that it was a wonderful place to raise a baby, seeing as people had been doing it for a long time before I ever washed up on the beach.

With that thought came excitement. We were going to have a baby. There was a tiny miracle inside of me, a little bean of a person who was going to tie me and Jace together forever, in more ways than I could even imagine. After I calmed myself down, I couldn't wait to tell Jace, and his reaction had only strengthened the feeling of rightness settling over me.

Once he'd gotten over the initial shock, his amber eyes had grown wide with such excited contentment that my heart had almost burst with my love for him. He had no worries about our ages or how ready we were or what we were going to do now that we were going to have to take care of a tiny, defenseless person in nine short months. All he was focused on was the miracle aspect of it, the fact that we had created something so, so special together with our love. And it made me love him all the more for it.

My mind snapped back to the present when I felt a slight twinge of discomfort in my abdomen. It wasn't extremely painful or anything, but it made me nervous. It felt like something inside me, a muscle or something beneath my bellybutton, was stretching or moving in a way that I wasn't entirely sure it should have been. After a second, the twinge faded away, and I breathed a little easier as I curled up tighter against Jace's side. He smiled in his sleep and shifted, his arm tightening around my shoulder to pull me more snugly against him. I sighed in contentment and closed my eyes as a wave of tiredness washed over me.

I wasn't fully asleep yet when I felt the discomfort again, this time a little sharper and more focused. Again, it wasn't even exactly painful, but this time, it was also accompanied by what felt like a gush of moisture between my legs. Feeling embarrassed and hoping I hadn't just peed on myself or anything, I rolled away from Jace and sat up. Stretching my arms above my head made the feeling in my stomach lighten a little, and I let out a huge yawn before looking down to make sure everything was as it should be.

What I saw just about made my heart stop in my chest. I hadn't bothered to put clothes back on after Jace and I had made love, so I could clearly see the blood on my inner thighs. With shaky hands, I reached down and rubbed some of it off with my fingers, disbelievingly lifting it to try and figure out what was happening. It wasn't a lot of blood and there was nothing weird or discolored or anything in it, but my chest tightened all the same. As I stared down at my bloody fingers, my mind snapped back to when Tricia had been pregnant and the absolute devastation she'd so clearly felt when she'd lost her baby.

I had been trying to keep quiet so as not to wake and worry Jace unnecessarily, but the thought of losing our unborn child absolutely shattered me. I cried out, feeling like I wasn't getting enough air, like the room was closing in on me, trying to crush the life right out of my body. My vision tunneled until all I could see was the blood, so I didn't even notice when Jace sat up next to me. I didn't acknowledge him at all until I heard him cry out, just as I had.

I turned my head, my eyes already swimming with tears. He was staring down at my legs and the stained sheets beneath me, most likely having come to the same conclusion I had. "Jace," I whispered, begging him wordlessly to tell me that we were wrong. It had to be something else. When his eyes didn't move from my thighs, my entire body started trembling. "Jace, please," I whispered. My breath was getting shallower and shallower as I began to panic, and my vision got a little blurry around the edges. His eyes finally snapped up to mine, and without a word he jumped out of bed and scooped me into his arms. Stopping only long enough to pull on a pair of shorts and help me into one of his long t-shirts, he sprinted around the house and into his mother's room.

I was gasping now, trying so very hard not to pass out but confident that I was only moments away from it. Jace set me on his Celine's desk chair and quickly shook her awake, explaining in broken whispers about the blood and begging her to help me. I kept my eyes on Celine as she jumped up and raced over to me, lifting me from the chair and depositing me onto the bed. She lifted the shirt over my head and moved to sit between my legs. I was numb to the feeling of her fingers inside of me, trying to find out what was wrong, as I was still trying to stay conscious. I was starting to feel uncomfortably dizzy from lack of oxygen, but I needed to know if I had failed.

I needed to know if I had let Jace down and lost our miracle before they even had a chance to live.

It was only a few minutes later when Celine stood up from the bed and motioned Jace over. I couldn't look at her face, couldn't stand to see the devastation there as she too realized I had lost her grandchild. My ears were ringing, so I couldn't make out exact words as they spoke, but I could hear the bass of Jace's voice responding to the soothing alto of his mother's. When it registered with me that they didn't sound heart broken or devastated, my chest loosened a little bit and my breathing became a little easier. I wasn't convinced that I hadn't lost it, not by a long shot. But I knew I needed to calm down and listen to find out what was going on.

Finally, after what felt like forever, it was easier to breathe and the ringing in my ears faded until I could hear them talking.

"What should we do, mom?" Jace asked. I rolled my head on my shoulders to look at him, but I couldn't see the expression on his face because of the angle he was standing at.

"You're not going to like it, Jonathan," she replied. I could see her ringing her hands nervously in front of her, but she wasn't breaking down like I thought she would have been had I actually had a miscarriage. I calmed down a little more.

"I don't care! Tell me! I'll do anything. Please." Jace's voice cracked, and my heart tightened a little at the sound. My poor, sweet boy was absolutely wrecked over what was happening. I really wished I knew what was going on so I could comfort him.

"She's going to be okay, Jonathan, but I want Clary to have better care than we can offer her here. We have that choice now that we can communicate with her parents and that they left a boat here in case anyone wanted to come visit. I really think the best way to be absolutely sure that she's getting the best care would be . . . I think you and Clary should go to New York." I sucked in a sharp breath, and their heads turned towards me in synchronization. Jace rushed to the bed and collapsed down next to me, grabbing my hand in his and lifting it to his mouth.

"Jace," I whispered. "New York." He didn't speak, just continued to stare into my eyes. I couldn't read any emotions in his gaze, so I had to ask. I had to know. "Please. The baby?" My hand squeezed his with all the force I had left in my body, and he gave me a shaky smile.

"It wasn't what we thought, Clary. The baby is fine." Intense relief flooded my body so quickly that I felt like I was going to burst with it.

And that's when I finally fainted.

Hey, everyone . . .

I can't even imagine how angry you all must be at me for disappearing for so long. I know that it's been almost a year, and all I can say is that I am so extremely sorry I can't even put it into words. I really can't tell you why I was gone for so long, because it's just too much for me to talk about. All I can say is that I've gone through some stuff in the past year that just took over my whole life and I was in no place to write anything. I have barely picked up my laptop for anything more than homework since my last chapter went up. Again, I am so sincerely sorry to anyone who I've upset or let down with the long wait for this chapter.

To everyone who has stayed with the story and is willing to give me another chance, I promise I will do my hardest to make it up to you. I will try my very best to keep a regular updating schedule and not make you wait so long for the next chapter.

Thank you for reading, and I'm sorry again. I hope you're still with me, and that I don't let you down again.