I'M BACK YOU GUYS! HI!

Did you miss me? No? Okay.

Anyhow, I wrote you a chapter! Sorry it didn't come sooner. I've been INSANELY busy with school. Seriously. I'm not kidding. I go to a private school, and it had like the best academic achievement in the state or whatever, so they're always like 'HOMEWORK ARGGGGGHHH BAHHBEJBCJBJE BETH STOP LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW STOP EATING YOUR PENCIL WHY IS YOUR DRESS SO WRINKLED HOMEWORK DO IT ARRRGH!'

Wasn't that a good impression of my SOSE teacher? I thought so.

Anywho, this is long, but I hope you like it.

DISCLAIMER: I can't own an entire story. Apparently I have too much SOSE homework; where would I find the time?

Enjoy.

Jordan stopped at the side of the road, dropping his duffel bag at his feet. As he watched, the dark shape of the interstate bus shrunk over the horizon, disappearing into nothing. He wished he could have been on that bus, but he'd only had enough money to get him to Ohio.

It was fine though. He didn't mind. Anything was better than what he was coming from.

Groaning, he slid onto the dusty path beside the drag. His back was sore from sleeping upright in the stiff bus seat all night, his hair felt greasy and lank on his head and the clothes he was wearing were three days old. If he was thinking honestly, then he'd expected a bit more that night he'd climbed down the trellis outside his bedroom window and turned his back on the only life he'd ever known. He'd wanted to head somewhere sunny and glamorous. Somewhere exciting.

Or at least somewhere with access to a shower.

Jordan pulled his legs to his chest and thought of the alternative. He could still be in that sewerage dump of a town in New Jersey, with his father. The thought made Jordan feel sick and reflexively his hand drifted to the tender spot beneath his ribcage. He winced; it was still sore.

So he was better off where he was. Even if where he was was on the side of an interstate highway in the middle of Ohio.

XXX

"Jace," Clary whispered. She took the foot that wasn't on the accelerator and, lifting her leg onto the bench seat, jabbed him in the ribs with her toes. He stirred in his sleep, mumbling something incoherent under his breath. He didn't wake. Clary let out a dramatic sigh. She slowed the car down to twenty and jabbed him in the ribs again as the speck in the distance that had first caught her attention became less of a speck and more of an actual thing.

Her blonde companion still refused to wake.

"JACE!" She yelled abruptly, delivering a firm 'kick' to his thigh. It worked the trick.

Jace awoke with a jerk, his elbow colliding with the window screen, hitting him right in the funny bone. Clary couldn't help but laugh at him as he bit his lip, whining as the pain that the redheaded girl knew all too well travelled up his arm.

"Agh, ow." He said, and she felt a little bit bad for him. She herself had done similar things; woken up, falling off of her bed, headfirst into the floor. Although, admittedly, she hadn't had someone kicking her in the ribs moments beforehand. Now, Jace grumbled to himself, cracking the stiff joints in his shoulders as Clary pulled up to a stop beside the speck. She couldn't help but notice how cute he looked when he hadn't had enough sleep; eyelids slipping lazily over very dark gold eyes, blonde hair in a tangled mess all over his head. He yawned, squeezing his eyes shut. He blinked at her and smiled a one dimpled smile.

"Morning," He drawled happily.

"Morning," She replied brightly, feeling quite exuberant, despite the fact that she'd been driving all night. He looked around, noticing the fact that they were no longer moving.

"Why'd we stop?" He asked her. She grinned.

"Because of that," She pointed at the speck, which was actually a boy, who had been waiting patiently beside the idling car. He couldn't have been any older than they were. He was tall and slim, with the type of olive skin that seemed to hold its beach-esque tan all year long. His tired hazel eyes were rimmed with thick, dark eyelashes, and his hair tumbled off of his head in dark –albeit slightly greasy- curls. He held a duffel bag in one hand and the other gripped the strap of the guitar that was strapped to his back. He grinned at them, one of those big, goofy grins.

Jace rolled down the window and peered at the boy. Then he looked back at Clary.

"You want to pick him up, don't you?" She smiled sheepishly.

"Of course I do." She leaned towards Jace, "Who knows what creeps he could get into a car with! He could get murdered or raped or something!" Jace looked at her doubtfully.

"I'm sure he can take care of himself." She pouted.

"Please?" She drew out the word, hoping to win him over. It must have worked, because Jace sighed and turned to the boy.

"Get in," Jace ordered, and the kid wasted no time in throwing his bag and guitar into the backseat of the Falcon.

XXX

Jordan was just considering his options – none of them particularly hopeful- when he saw the small figure approach from the distance enlarging as it came closer and closer. Before long, the car pulled up beside him.

It was beautiful car. The Ford was old and worn out looking, its faded blue paint peeling around the fender. But he could tell by the fact that it wasn't falling apart in front of them that it had been cared for and loved and impeccably maintained.

The window rolled down, and a guy around his age- possibly older- looked up at him. He said nothing to him, turning to face the person in the driver's seat. There was an exchanging of words, and after a few moments the guy in the passenger's seat – tall, blonde, burly – looked up at him, and raked his eyes up and down Jordan's dishevelled body.

"Get in." He said, and Jordan hurried to pack his bag and guitar into the backseat of the car.

Climbing in after them, he took the opportunity to study whoever it was in the driver's seat. He was surprised to see it was a petite, redheaded girl, covered from head to toe in a splattering of freckles.

Looking at his two saviours, Jordan grinned.

It looked like his luck was changing for the better.

XXX

"Thanks man," He held his hand out to Jace from the back seat, "I'm Jordan, by the way." Jace took his hand, shaking it.

"Jace." Clary turned to face Jordan, smiling, "I'm Clary," She gave a small wave in his direction, "Hi."

"Well," Jordan said, "It's lovely to meet you Clary."

"Out," Jace said to her, making shooing motions with his hands. She looked at him, stunned.

"What? Why?" He rolled his eyes exasperatedly,

"Move." He told her, and she understood what he meant, "I'm driving now."

It was her turn to roll her eyes. They had been travelling with each other for almost a week now – they were somewhere in Ohio- and Jace had only let Clary drive once, which was last night. And that was only because he could barely keep his eyes open. Jace was very protective over his car, as it turned out. She was surprised that he even let them eat and drink in it. He had explained it to her;

"It's like you and your art." He'd said to her, "How would you feel if I took your sketchbook and started doodling in it? You wouldn't like it, would you?"

So, it made some sense to her, but she still thought he was being too paranoid.

Now, she slipped out the door on the driver's side, walking around to sit in the passenger seat. Jace slid over to the steering wheel, looking comfortably in his zone.

"So," he said over his shoulder to Jordan, "Where you headed?"

"Memphis," He answered, "Is that okay with you folks?"

"I suppose so," Jace seemed to think about this more, "We'd have to travel south-west a bit though." He looked at Clary,

"Is that cool with you?" He asked. She shrugged.

"Yeah. Let's go for it." Jace drummed the steering wheel with his fingers.

"Alright, Memphis it is." He hummed to himself, turning out onto the deserted freeway.

XXX

Jace watched as Clary leaned over and switched on the radio, turning to a station with loud clashing guitar riffs and a deep drum beat; totally inappropriate for that time of the morning – just past eight. But that was something he had begun to notice about her. She just seemed to throw random bits of traditional custom (and consideration) out the window, replacing them with whatever the hell she felt like. The day before she'd had sushi for breakfast.

Yet Jace could not bring himself to care. Which was odd, if he thought about it. Jace knew he was a little high maintenance, easily annoyed and hard to live with. If it had been anyone else blasting Nirvana at eight o clock in the morning, it would have driven him mental. But it wasn't anyone else. It was Clary. In fact, he was begging to see these quirky habits of hers as something beautiful; something to be admired. He thought that perhaps he might be viewing her through rose tinted glasses, but did he really even care? So what if he idolised the girl; nobody else seemed to –God knows why. She deserved to be admired.

Jace was pulled out of his reverie by the soft tinkling of Clary's musical voice.

"Why are you going to Tennessee?" She asked Jordan. The dark haired boy looked a bit muddled.

"I don't know."

"Then why did you want to go?"

"I don't know."

Clary just looked at him, bemused.

"Surely there's a reason."

"Not always. I mean, what's our reason for going wherever the hell it is we're going? " Jace had not even made the conscious decision to start talking, but now that he had, he didn't seem to be able to stop.

"I mean, we don't even know where we're going, but we're still going there. Maybe it's the reason that always holds us back, you know? Maybe if we just stopped thinking "Why" and just started doing it, then we would get so much more out of life." Clary seemed to consider this.

"I get what you're saying, but, maybe we have to think about the consequences sometimes, you know? So we don't end up hurting someone or something we care about?" Jace shook his head.

"I'm not talking about consequences; I'm talking about the actual "why". Like, say, what if I wanted to learn to speak Arabic or something? Or learn how to cook macaroons? What exactly is holding me back? Nothing, but the fact that there's not really a reason for someone like me to learn those things."

Clary and Jordan seemed to consider this.

"So what you mean," Jordan spoke slowly, as if feeling his way through, "Is that we get too caught up in the reason we do things, that we forget to just let go and do things?" Jace thumped a hand hard on the leather steering wheel in triumph.

"Exactly."

Clary said nothing. She just continued staring out the window, at the sparse scrub that surrounded them.

XXX

It was almost half an hour since the conversation on 'why?'

Clary could not say why the subject bothered her so much. Maybe it was the fact that she'd never done something for no reason in her entire life, until last week.

Growing up illegitimate with her mother, she'd grown up careful. She approached everything she did with caution. Because what would happen to her if she didn't? She would get hurt. At least, that's what her mother always told her.

"You have to be careful Clary, sweetie. You have to tread with caution, take every step with heed. There are many people who will not hesitate to hurt you."

Thos were the words she had lived by her entire life. They were like life law, to her. Or at least they had been, until that night.

It wasn't that she regretted going with Jace. She didn't. But she couldn't help the flower of anxiety opening in her chest every time she took a minute to properly think about it. It was so unlike what she knew; uncharted territory. But that was hardly remarkable; it wasn't everyday you jumped in a car and rode off into the sunset – or, in their case, the sunrise.

She scoffed, mentally. It all sounded so cliché, when you put it that way. But she and Jace weren't even together – like he would ever be interested in her that way. She knew that he must like her; why else would he choose her as a travel mate? But that was it- he only liked her. As a friend. And she felt the same way. He so wasn't her type.

Tall, handsome and charming isn't your type? It was that voice in her head again.

"Shut up", she told it, "I don't like him that way. He's just my friend."

So why can't you stop thinking about him? How come every time you look at him, your heart starts to race and you have to actively keep yourself from losing yourself in his smile? How come you can't get his eyes, golden and sweet, like praline, out of your head?

"Clary?" The sound of Jordan's thick New Jersey accent pulled her from her thoughts.

"Huh?" She sounded dumb, even to her own ears. Jordan looked at her carefully. Jace peeled his eyes off of the road for a millisecond to look at her, eyebrow pulled together in concern.

"You just had this really angry look on your face for a second." The hitchhiker said, "Like you were gonna freak out and kill us with your mind powers or something."

"I have mind powers?"

"I think he was referencing to 'Carrie"." Jace put in. "Were you?"

"Uh huh. They kinda have similar names, don't they? Carrie and Clary."

"I suppose they do."

"What's 'Carrie'?" Both of the boys looked at her like she'd just asked them something stupid like, 'Who's the queen?' or 'Where do eggs come from?'

"You don't know what 'Carrie' is?" Jace asked, "did you, like, grow up under a rock? 'Carrie' is a classic. " Jordan jeered.

"Are sure you've got your brain in check, Clary?" Jace laughed, and she felt herself going red.

"Maybe she lost it underneath all that hair," The blonde boy mocked. She snapped.

"Stop the car." She said, her tone clipped.

"Huh?" He seemed baffled.

"I said; stop the car!" She yelled. Jace sort of looked at her, baffled, but slowed the car to a stop. She wrenched the door open and stepped out, marching back in the direction she came from.

Clary knew she was being immature. She knew she was overreacting, knew that they hadn't meant it. She knew her temper was infamously short. But she couldn't help herself.

Her lip began to tremble, and her eyes watered, threatening to overflow. She heard quick, light footsteps behind her, but didn't turn around. She just kept walking, fast, towards the horizon they'd just passed over.

"Clary," She ignored him.

"Clary, please." She stopped, but didn't turn to face him. At this point, she was angry enough to want to yell at him, but too embarrassed by her tears to let him see. She felt a warm hand on her elbow. It was rough against her skin, and she briefly wondered what the rest of skin felt like. Was it soft in places? Smooth? She imagined it was.

"Clary," he said again, and his voice was so soft, she couldn't help but turn t him. His expression was a mixture of emotion, but she could tell by his eyes that he was feeling guilty.

"I'm not an idiot," She told him gruffly. He opened his mouth to say something but she cut him off.

"I know I can't really say much about movies, or pop culture. I couldn't tell you about the Tea Party movement, or how many seats there are in parliament. I sure as hell couldn't solve a quadratic equation and I wouldn't even look at Calculus as a subject for senior year. But I'm not an Idiot. There are things I can tell you. I can tell you when Picasso was born, I can tell you how Vincent Van Gough lost his ear or how many paintings he sold in his lifetime. I can tell you whether you should use pastel or charcoal and I can tell you how many stanzas there are in 'The Raven.' " He tried to speak again, but she wasn't done.

"And I'm tired of people making fun of me!" She was crying now. "I always put up with it in high school. I put up with Jessamine Lovelace laughing at me because I couldn't answer a question in biology, and I put up with Will Herondale calling me names. I put up with my mom giving me that disappointed look of hers every time a report card came in the mail. Hell, I even put up with Isabelle always treating me like some kind of idiot who couldn't dress herself or talk to boys. But I will not up with that anymore, especially not from you."

All these things burst out of her before she could stop them. Some of them she'd been holding in since grade school, some of them she hadn't even realised she'd been upset by.

Shaking her head, she closed her eyes and wiped away her tears. It wasn't really his fault, and he had only been mucking around. She was about to apologize for the outburst when she was surrounded by something warm and hard but soft at the same time.

"I'm a dickhead." Jace's voice was muffled in her hair. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't even think. God, I'm such an idiot."

"It's okay," She said into his chest. "I know. I overreacted. I'm sorry." He pushed her away from his chest and looked her straight in the eyes.

"No." His voice was stern. "You don't- You don't have to apologize to me. You don't have to apologize to anyone who treats you badly."

"I know. But I know you guys were just teasing." She smiled at him, trying to invoke some confidence into her voice.

Jace put his arm around her and squeezed her tight and they walked back to the car together. His arm was heavy, but warm and comforting around her shoulders, and she was glad of it.

"Clary," Jordan's voice was anxious when they reached the car. "I-" Clary cut him off.

"Don't. It's okay. I overreacted. Can we just forget it ever happened and move on?" Jordan nodded warily, and she was just about to duck into the car when she stopped and actually looked at what they'd stopped by. She gasped, and both boys turned to see what caught her attention. She stumbled down over the side of the road and down the decline until she was just at the edge of the lake. Jace and Jordan followed suit.

It was beautiful. Stunning. The sun was white in its morning light, and it sent bright, pure rays down onto the lake, bouncing off the completely still surface of the water. It seemed almost like glass, and she could imagine reaching out and stepping over it. Even more stunning than the water, was the thousand of the tinniest silver fish Clary had ever seen. The pale light bounced off them as the wriggled through the water, and the entire body seemed to glitter. Her hands itched for a 2B pencil and her sketch book.

"Wow."

"I know." Jace looked to her.

"Do you want to stay?" He asked her, reading her mind. She bit her lip.

"Will you guys be okay? You won't be bored or anything?"

"Nah," Jace said, "We'll find a way to entertain ourselves."

They sat there all day. From down the decline, you could barely hear the traffic, let alone see it, so it was as good as being in the middle of the wilderness.

Around noon, just as the sun peeked in the sky and Clary's hands had turned almost numb from gripping the pencil so tight, she looked back at Jace and Jordan behind her. They were drinking flat coke and eating left over potato chips, while Jordan strummed lightly on his guitar, and Jace sang along. His voice was not perfect; he was off tune at times and he had a small range. But it was rich and strong. They were in the middle of the second verse of 'Thunder' when he caught her eye, and he grinned at her.

It was at that moment when she realised, with a start, that she was happy. Actually happy. Like, from-the-tips-of-your-toes-to-the-top-of-your-head, warm-in-your-chest happy. The type of happy she hadn't really felt since she was too young to take notice of her mother's constant badgering, and before she could see all the ugly things in the world. They type of happy she only felt when she drew.

She turned back to her led and her paper, and let the sound of Jace's voice, full and lovely, to sing her into a state of oblivious ecstasy.

TA DAAA!

What do you think?

BTW, I live in Australia, so therefore my knowledge of American Geography is incredibly limited, and whatever I put in this story (about geography) is probably WRONG. So don't take that aspect of the story too seriously. (I don't know if there's a lake like that next to a highway in Ohio.)

If you wanted to know the song Jace is singing at the end, it's 'Thunder' by Boys Like Girls. I would listen to the acoustic version.

Anyways, if you want more updates than R&R (Please?)

Hope to hear feedback from you guys, both negative and positive.

Keep it groovy,

Beth.