At two in the morning, Clary awoke with a start, and with that awful feeling that your stomach is curling in on itself. She rolled her head deliriously over the edge of the bed, and vomited into the bucket that she only just managed to grab hold of in time.

She would never understand how the girls at her old school could treat vomiting so lightly. To her, the process of having your body purge its contents was far too drastic to be done on purpose. She shivered with the shock of it and tried to catch her breath. Sitting up in her bed, she felt like she weighed down and sluggish. She was a stone statue coming back to life.

The room was dark, the only light was faint and amber, and it came from the streetlamp outside her window. She stared past the fire escape to where the light was brightest, flared and blurry through the glass. The bucket was gross and warm in her arms, and it smelled. She was going to dispose of it, wash her mouth out, get on with the motions, but then the bedroom door swung open and filled the room with an unexpected light.

"Honey?" her mother's voice was thick with sleep, but Jocelyn had been sleeping lightly for three days straight, up at the first sign of Clary's discomfort.

"I'm fine." She wished her mother would sleep through it. As though ignoring this thought completely, Jocelyn became suddenly alert and came further into the room. She took the bucket from Clary.

"Do you want some tea? Do you want some water?"

"I'm going to brush my teeth again," Clary whispered hoarsely. She hated the acidic taste in her mouth. In the dim light, she saw Jocelyn's face give a slight pucker of concern. She would refrain from frowning because she knew that Clary hated to see her mother upset over her, especially when it was just a bit of puke. Clary sighed, her body sagging back against her headboard, then she put a great deal of effort into getting into a standing position.

"Let me clean this out for you," Jocelyn said, holding the bucket adjacent to her. As they followed the light to the bathroom, Clary wondered if her mother longed to sooth her, to rub her back or hold her hair. She wouldn't allow this, of course, she would protest her mother's fussing every time she reached to wet her forehead with a cloth or feed her medicine. Clary would take care of herself for as long as she could, until she got too sick to do so. They weren't counting on that to happen. Assumedly, they were waiting for a marrow donor that would fix everything for a while. She hoped they wouldn't get to the point where she couldn't go to the bathroom by herself.

In the washroom, Jocelyn went about cleaning the bucket out with soap in the bathtub, and Clary reached for her toothbrush with shaky fingers. Clary hated the nausea. She had always been good at long car rides and boat trips, fighting off any kind of motion sickness with her iron stomach. It was another one of the perks of her "steadfast dwarf genes" that Simon joked about. However, as the radiation took hold of her whole body, trying to root out the cancer, it seemed to also throw it onto a rollercoaster of ups and downs. She vomited quite a lot, and as much as Simon would love it if she was part of some fantasy dwarf race form Warcraft, she was only human.

As she brushed her teeth, she battled more and more stomach lurches. Taking the punches, she thought.

"I'm going to make some tea anyway," her mother said. Clary gave a non-committal shrug of her shoulders. When she finished with her teeth, she set the toothbrush back in its spot and looked up. The lights in the bathroom were like the lights of the hospital, too fluorescent and bright. In the mirror, she saw her disheveled hair, he pale skin looking clammy. She fumbled with the wall, not turning her head, and switched the lights off so that the room was all dark. She could see a small bit of unknown light reflecting in the mirror, but she not herself anymore, which she found to be a strange relief.

For a few moments, she leaned over on the sink and breathed through her nose. The mantra was, in through the nose, out through the mouth, but she could only stand to breathe through her nose the whole time because her mouth was a direct line to her stomach, and her stomach was going crazy. After a few moments, she felt that the nausea was passing, for maybe just another grace period. She might be able to get back to sleep soon.

Then from the kitchen, she heard the kettle scream. She thought her mother would switch the stove off and come padding back to the bathroom with the peppermint and ginger tea (which Clary would let grow cold and untouched), but the kettle continued its wailing for another thirty seconds. She pushed off from the sink and moved slowly, like a locomotive starting up on the tracks, until she was in the kitchen. The lights were off in there as well, but Clary could see the angry steam coming form the kettle's spout. She switched it off herself and moved it to the back burner. Jocelyn hadn't set out the tea yet.

Clary realized that there was a shadow on the sofa, moving with consistent breaths. Her mother had fallen asleep, slumped over against the cushion. How tired was she? It had only been three days since the chemo appointment, three days filled with early side-effects, but Jocelyn had been up with Clary for every spell of sickness. Was she even sleeping at all? The thought of her mother up all night, twisting her hands with worry, like Simon's mother, made her suddenly nervous.

She went over to her mom's sleeping form, reaching for the afghan that was on the chair beside the sofa and throwing it over Jocelyn. At least she was sleeping now.

Tip-towing, Clary made it back to her room, feeling heavy and tired, but not as if she would throw up again, which was a blessing. She crawled onto the bed and immediately curled herself into a comfortable ball that was still, somehow, uncomfortable. She was going to have to get used to tiredness again, to sleeping. Her subconscious would probably take over soon, and it would feel like she was dreaming more than she was living. Of course, there would also be the slumbers, the dreamless naps that pulled her under so deep, she imagined it was like going into a cryogenic chamber for a few years.

The deep thoughts of sleep were beginning to lull her into a real sleep. She could feel that it was only moments away, that moment when sleepiness becomes nothingness, and you're unconscious. That moment never came, however. It was disturbed by a sharp knock on what could only be her window.

She knew it was him even before she opened her eyes. Who else would it be?

With not even a hint of trepidation, she moved her body out of the warm bed to where the unseasonable draft was coming from. Jace was folded up on the space that was her fire escape, his chin on his knee. He looked cold. When he saw her, he smiled and leaned forward to press his palm on the glass, waving.

A series of questions went through her mind as she fumbled with the window, struggling to pull the old thing up. A blast of cool air made her shiver.

"A tapping on your chamber door?" he said. Clary looked at him disbelievingly. She poked her head outside into the cold October air.

"How did you know I lived here?" was the first thing she thought of.

He shrugged, and came forward to rest knees on the cool see-through metal of the fire escape. Her arms ached, holding up the window frame.

"You put your name on the mailing list at the bar," Jace said. She had, a while ago, just so that she could get flyers and emails about upcoming shows. The crummy bar, The Steele, as it was called was one of the few places that Clary ever went because it was free and it was nearby.

"Do you go there a lot or something?" she asked him. It was strange that she hadn't seen him before, but really, her and Simon hadn't been to a real show in ages, they had been spending much more time in his room with Mia and endless videogames. The other week was the first time Clary had gone out in a while.

"Yes. It was on Magnus's computer." He grinned. She didn't have a clue who Magnus was or what he had to do with her mailing list information, but she felt a little unnerved that he had gone through the effort of finding out where she lived.

"Isn't that a little invasive?" she asked with her eyebrows raised.

"Well, I wanted to see you. I thought it was rather ingenious."

Clary hid her smile behind her forearm. She didn't know how to flirt, or say anything that wasn't ridiculous. She said,

"This could have been my mother's room."

"What's your mother like?" he asked with the corner of his mouth curved up. She wanted to swat his arm, but then he leaned right in and kissed her lips that were slightly open and surprised, about to say something. She caught herself, and turned her head slightly so that her nose was pressed against the bridge of his, and his lips went around her bottom lip, and his top lip was caught in hers. With a breath, he buried whatever sickness and exhaustion she felt six feet under himself.

He pulled away from her and braced the window for her. She ungracefully let her arms fall back to the ledge. She was afloat in the air and not aware of anything but the slight strain of his arm muscles.

"Can I crash here tonight?" he asked, and it surprised her, sent a self-aware shock through her whole body. Did he want to crash? Here? In her bed?

"Come in," she said, without really thinking.

She took a couple of unsteady steps back so that he could climb in. With smoothness, he fit his legs through and leaped into the room without even a resounding thump. And he was there, in her room. As soon as his feet touched down on the carpet, Clary realized that there was evidence of her sickness around the room. Her pillbox was on her bedside table, a few prescription bottles sat around a few glasses of half-drunk water.

But his eyes were on the art of her walls. Posters and drawings, prints of Rembrandt's saddest portraits, and Van Gogh's flowers were everywhere. The wall above her bed was a mismatched museum. In between the art, Clary had taped Kodak pictures of her mom and Luke, and her old friends from school that she only sometimes talked to. With alarm, she remembered the picture of her and Simon that was stuck to the mirror in her room. They were twelve, and lying on the hospital beds with their freshly shaved heads, giving the middle finger to the nurse who had agreed to take their picture. With some semblance of stealth, she moved herself in front of the mirror and ripped the photo from the glass.

"This is it," she said in a low voice. "Where the magic happens."

"Magic? You wouldn't throw that word around so lightly if you knew Magnus. He once made a rabbit disappear." Jace said this, all while navigating around Clary's dark room, taking in the sight of her walls and her furniture. No one but Simon had ever been this deep into her house before. This place was where she lived. Her room was the most inner sanctum, the womb-like place she retreated to after long days of bullshit and long days of chemo. The exhaustion was starting to seep in again.

"Who is this Magnus?" she asked, moving around the other side of the desk and tucking the photo of her into a book on her desk. When she walked, she was Jacob Marley, dragging tons of chains and weights in her wake.

"He owns The Steele. He's not very good at managing it."

She remembered the pub and how it had always seemed like a horde of elephants had stomped through it, and how the bar had always been sticky, the tables wobbly, the graffiti in abundance. She had been drawn to it, of course.

Jace came forward and put his hands on her hips. He was much taller than her, and Clary didn't know why that suddenly mattered. Perhaps she'd been feeling small lately. His fingers brushed away a strand of hair from her forehead, and her heart began to thump like the beats in the music Simon listened to. Her chest was bursting with a migration of birds, fast and fluttering their wings, springing free from her ribcage. Her head also ached, and her tongue was flat against the roof of her mouth, warding of the acrid nausea that was rising up at the wrong moment.

"You look tired," he said. Was it concern in his voice? She didn't know if his concern bothered her or elated her.

"I'm sick," she said, again without thinking. She would tell him no more. He would assume it was a stomach bug or something benign like that, and tomorrow she would get the healthy marrow from Dr. Franz, and finish radiation before she lost a single hair on her head. She'd get so much better and run wild in the streets with him, and paint the town like she planned. The word "cancer" would never escape her lips. Maybe she should cross her fingers for luck, or start looking for pennies on the street. She could start praying. The hand of God would come down and press Jace and Clary together so that death couldn't thwart them. She put her hands on his hips like a gambler strolling into a casino with a pocket of cash. Be lucky, she willed herself.

"I have a terrific immune system," he said, breathing the words against her cheek. Then they kissed. She sagged her tiredness into his mouth, and her fingers were airy against the thin fabric of cloth on his waist. He wore such old, such thin shirts. She wondered if, like her clothes, they were memorials of someone.

It was stupid of her to be focusing on so many different things when it was Jace who was this close to her, kissing her. He wound his hand into her hair, starting at her neck and pulling his fingers through the thickness. Her scalp tingled from his movements, her lips parted to let him kiss her deeper, if that's what you were supposed to do. Clary had no clue how to kiss, but he seemed to know what he was doing. For a moment, she let her mouth go slightly slack and let him kiss his tongue partway into her mouth. Then she closed her lips around his, sealing their mouths and their tongues together. They didn't move for a moment, the kiss was just frozen. If her hear palpated one more time, she would surely go into cardiac arrest.

He took a deep breath against her mouth, pulling away from her again, then moving back in for one more lighter kiss that left her lips numb

"I think you need to sleep," he said. She looked up and nodded, weary. Then, at the mention of sleep, she realized the bags under his eyes were darker, more hollow. He needed sleep, too. She hadn't bothered to wonder why he had shown up here at two in the morning, looking for a place to crash. He took her hand and led her over to her own bed.

She knew it was only for sleeping, but her heart rate still sped up, and it felt wild and animated to have someone guide her there, as if they could do whatever else people did in beds. With that thought, she realized something.

"My mom," she whispered. Her mother, who was asleep on the damn couch, and would probably be up any minute to come check on her, lean over her to make sure she was still breathing. "I can't… I mean, she would flip if she saw you…"

Jace sat her down on the bed, then dropped to his knees in front of her. He gave her a concentrated smile, then suddenly he was flat on the ground, sticking his head under the bed. There was nothing down there but an old box of keepsakes that was locked, but she knew he wouldn't go tearing through it. She tapped his shoulder with her toe.

"What are you doing?" she whispered. He emerged from under the bed and grinned.

"I can hide down here. What your mother doesn't know won't hurt her." He grabbed one of her pillows.

"You're going to sleep under my bed?" she said, amused.

"I've slept in worse places."

And with that, he slid his body and the pillow under her bed, until he had completely disappeared from sight. She swallowed down the excitement that was tumbling through her. This was ridiculous, and she loved it. Would she ever get used to it? Or him? Would she ever get used to him and the way he made her feel?

She tentatively slid under her own covers, settling into the mattress. Then, she kicked off one of the blankets so that it slid to the floor. She watched it being dragged under the bed with a smile. Clary wondered what it was like under there, under her. His breath came out lightly, and hers came out strong and winded, but she could still hear him, his lungs filling up with the air of her room. She couldn't get over it, that he was in her room.

"Jace?" she whispered into the darkness. It was strange that she couldn't see him, but that she knew he was absolutely there.

"Clary?"

She let a few beats pass until she realized what she really wanted to know.

"Are you running away from home or something?" It sounded more stupid than she'd meant it to be.

There was a long pause.

"I like to get away sometimes."

"Why here?" She said it so softly, she wondered if she would have to repeat herself.

"I like you."

It was as simple as that. She ached to say something back like, I like you to! It's disgusting how much I like you, Jace. I don't even know you and I like you more than I like myself. But she didn't say that, she said,

"Do you live in a foster home?"

Another pause. Oh shit. She worried that she had put her foot in her mouth, and she was about to start back peddling, but then the smallest of words came out of the silence.

"Yes."

Relief flooded over Clary. She turned on her side in the bed, suddenly aware of the creaking that the springs made and hating them. She wanted to bite her tongue, to shut up, and keep that air of mystery between them, but there was no stopping her mind.

"Is it awful?" she asked, and the horror stories of street kids and they failure of The System started to flash through her mind. She pictured a broken home filled with broken kids, and foster parents strung out and at their wits-end.

"No, it's not awful," he said. She listened to his voice, detecting the slight strain to it. He was not being very forthcoming.

"Okay." Clary decided she would drop it for tonight. She didn't want to force him into an info dump. Still, her body relaxed, now that she had more of an idea of who the person under her bed was. She bit the inside of her cheek as a voice in her head shouted,

Tell him it isn't the stomach flu. Tell him that you could die.

Then there was the sound of breathing. Jace's breath was deeper than before, it was slower, like he was on the verge of sleep, like she had been before he tapped on her window. There was also the sound of wind, rattling the window gently. Somewhere in the apartment, a clock ticked. In the apartment above them, someone got up and walked across the floor, making little thumping noises. She listened to it, and then she heard him fill the room up with one more word that swelled and popped into a silence.

"Goodnight."

A/N- I really love all your reviews- you guys make my day!