Chapter 4

Clary was the first one to sit down at the table she and her friends always ate lunch at. She was surprised that she had beat the boys to the table, especially since she had stopped by the teacher's room just long enough to warm up her left over past from Riccardo's. She had just taken her first bite when Magnus smoothly slipped into a chair in front of her.

"Magnus." Clary greeted as she took another bite of her food, it wasn't as good as it had been last night but it was still delicious.

"Whatcha eating?" Magnus asked as he made a motion to snitch some of her pasta.

Clary quickly covered her bowl and with one hand and slapped Magnus's advance with the other. "It's pasta from Riccardo's and I am not sharing."

"Fine then," Magnus said in mock hurt. Clary stuck her tongue out at him.

"What are you to up to this time?" Simon said as he sat down and glanced at his two friends.

"Clary won't share her food." Magnus complained.

Simon raised an eyebrow at Clary who still had her arm covering her good.

"It's Riccardo's" Clary explained defensively.

Simon laughed a little and shook his head. "You should know better than to try to steal food from Riccardo's from Clary."

"Whatever." Magnus said waving his hand. "But since we are all here, I have something to tell you guys."

Clary looked at Simon who just shrugged; she then turned her gaze to Magnus. "Okay."

"I hope you don't mind but I invited Alec to eat lunch with us and by default the invite extended to his siblings as well."

Clary looked at Magnus for a second then shrugged, "Fine by me."

"Wait, who's Alec?" Simon asked confused.

"Isabelle and Jace's brother" Clary answered quickly. Magnus gave her a funny look. "Alec is in Mr. Kent's ancient history class with me and of course I have Isabelle and Jace in a few random classes." Clary took another bite of her pasta.

"Oh! Where are Maia and Jordan?" Clary was surprised that both of them were missing a second day. Maia was Clary and Simon's age and Jordan, or Kyle, was a year older like Magnus.

"Kyle has mono." Simon said with a sigh, no doubt bummed he couldn't go over to the other boy's house to play video games with him.

"Maia?" Clary asked. Magnus just shrugged.

"She got mono from Kyle." Simon said with a shrug.

Magnus laughed a little. "Of course he did."

"Of course who did what?" A familiar voice asked from behind Clary. She saw Magnus's face brighten a little as his eyes focused on the figure behind her.

Clary turned around and smiled. "Hey, Alec. Why don't you sit down?"

"Hey, Clary." Alec said as he smiled at her and then looked over at Simon and nodded.

"Come sit by me, darling." Magnus said with a sparkle in his eyes.

"Magnus," Alec said in a good natured sigh, but did as he was told.

"Where's the other two?" Magnus asked as he finally took a bite out of the sandwich he had brought for his lunch.

"They're coming." Alec started to search the cafeteria for his brother and sister. "There they are." He said when he found them as he waved his hand a little.

"You could have waited for us, Alec." Isabelle said in a huff as she sat down on the other side of Clary. Alec grumbled something but Isabelle ignored him as she turned to Clary and smiled. "Hey, Clary." "Hey." Clary said as she saw Jace take a seat across from her by his brother at the circle table. Clary saw Simon frown a little at the golden eyed boy and quickly turn his attention to the other two Lightwoods.

"Now that everyone is here. Why doesn't everyone introduce themselves so we all know each other's names?" Magnus said brightly. "I'm Magnus." He gave a pointed look at Alec who sighed.

"Alec."

"Jace." His voice sounded bored.

"Simon." He was looking at Isabelle.

"Clary." Clary said as she smiled, ignoring Jace.

"Isabelle."

"Great, now we all know each other!" Clary stared at Magnus; his chipperness was a little unsettling.

Thankfully everyone seemed to break off into their own conversations. Jace and Alec had their heads close together as they talked and occasionally Magnus would interrupt their conversation and talk to Alec just to go back to his conversation with Simon. Isabelle had turned to Clary and they started talking about Mrs. Kyle and her weird love of Edgar Allen Poe. Clary was just standing up to go to the bathroom when Isabelle touched her hand.

"Clary?" Isabelle bit her lip as if she was nervous about continuing. When Clary stayed where she was standing Isabelle took a breath before going on. "How did you get that burn?"

Isabelle's voice had been soft, too soft for even Simon to hear, but when Clary sat back down suddenly the boys all looked at her. Closing her eyes in frustration for a moment, she took a deep breath. She shouldn't have sat back down; she should have stayed strong, just like every other time people asked how she got a bruise or a cut or any of the number of wounds she'd had over the last few years.

Noticing the attention of the others, Isabelle gave Clary an embarrassed smile. "Never mind, you can tell me later."

"Tell you what?" Simon asked. He looked at Clary a little worriedly. Clary cursed herself again for slipping up. She looked at Magnus who frowned when she met his gaze, not being able to keep it she looked away to the two brothers and saw that they just looked curious.

"Oh, it's nothing." Isabelle gave Clary an apologizing look. Clary tried to smile at her new friend but she could barely force her lips to twist up.

Simon eyed Clary carefully. "What is it this time?" He finally asked.

Clary glanced as Magnus who kept glancing between Simon, Isabelle, and herself. The other two boys still just looked confused. Great. Clary thought as she sighed.

"It's nothing really." Clary said, forcing her voice to sound light. Her two friends didn't by it.

"Clary." Magnus said, his tone of voice saying he wanted to know and he wasn't going to not let her tell him.

"Fine." Clary said with a sigh, burying her head in her hands for a moment and then bringing her head back up and pushing the hair back out of her face. "I had another one of my klutzy moments Wednesday night and accidently spilled boiling water on my leg." Clary got the words out as quickly as she could.

"How did you manage that?" Magnus said after a few moments of silence.

"I don't know. I was taking a pan of noodles over to the sink to drain the water and I slipped and ended up spilling it all over when I fell." Clary lied. Again. When no one said anything she added. "It really isn't that bad. Dad rushed me to the hospital against my will and the doctor gave me some ointment to put on it. Said it should be healed up in a couple weeks."

"So that's why you were wearing the skirt." Magnus said as if suddenly the entire world made sense.

"Oh, please. It's not like I don't wear dresses and skirts." Clary argued.

"Yeah, but you had already worn a skirt Monday, and you never wear a skirt or dress more than every couple weeks. Unless it's a special occasion." Simon said. Clary wanted to hit both of them.

"Whatever. I'm leaving." Clary said as she stood up and left. Noticing that the entire time none of the Lightwoods had said a thing, but the entire time Jace had had his eyes one her.

The rest of the school day went by quickly and was fairly quiet. Isabelle kept giving Clary apologetic looks during world history and gym but never said anything about it. Not even Magnus brought it back up in art class. In fact, he didn't say anything at all to Clary, but she did catch him a few times giving her thoughtful looks. Clary didn't know if this was a good thing or bad thing, on both accounts, with Magnus but she didn't let it bother her.

Clary got just opened her car door when she heard he name called. Turning around she saw Isabelle jogging towards her.

"Hey," Isabelle said as she stopped in front of Clary. "I'm sorry about lunch."

Clary sighed a little. "It's fine." She knew Isabelle felt bad about it but she couldn't understand why she did feel so bad. In fact, it was starting to make Clary feel a little bad about all of it because she had had to lie, again, to her friends. Clary hated lying to her friends and that was the main reason she hadn't planned on telling any of her friends. In all honesty, Clary had been mad at Isabelle at first but as the afternoon progressed she couldn't help but feel bad for the girl. It wasn't Isabelle's fault that she didn't know how Simon and Magnus would react to her getting hurt, yet again, and then not telling them.

"Really." Clary added when Isabelle didn't look convinced. "Don't worry about it, Isabelle."

Isabelle still didn't look completely convinced, but she nodded her head and left to join her brothers. As Clary watcher her go to the car that Jace and Alec were standing by she couldn't help but feel like Jace was staring at her, even when she saw him laugh at something Alec had probably said. Shaking her head, Clary got into her Challenger and went home. Thanking that is was Friday and that meant it was guaranteed to be another good day at home.

…..

…..

…

Walking towards the stands with a burger and a pop in hand, Clary was glad that there was a tailgate going on until halftime because it meant that, once again, she hadn't had to worry about making dinner for her father and then hurrying to clean it up before they left to go to the game. Even better, when Valentine got home he was in an exceptionally good mood, even for a game night. Clary's eyes scanned the stands. She saw her father in the middle to her left with some of his friends. Then out of the corner of her eye she saw spikes and sparkles. Clary turned her head to her right and saw Magnus sitting close to the front of the stands with Simon and Isabelle. Smiling, Clary made her way towards her friends.

"Bout time you showed up." Magnus said as she sat down beside him. He had an easy going expression on his face and Clary felt relieved. Either he had forgotten about lunch or he had decided to not make a big deal of it. In the end Clary didn't care which it was as long as he was back to his normal self.

Clary glanced at her watch. "There's still a good thirty minutes before the game starts, so calm down. Besides, Dad got off work a little later than normal." This was another reason why Clary had been surprised at her father's good mood when he got home. Usually on Friday's he got off around 5:00 and today he hadn't gotten off until 5:30, on almost any other day he would have come home annoyed and wouldn't be in a very pleasant mood.

"Probably earning more money to pay off bills." A voice to Clary's right said. Turning to see who had sat down beside her she saw golden eyes looking at her playfully.

Jace.

Clary managed to give him a hard look even though she felt startled by his comment. Behind her, Clary heard a smack and what sounded like Simon mumbling something.

"It doesn't really work like that." Clary said. When Jace raised his eyebrows at her she continued. "My Dad is a cop. Besides he got off work early yesterday and today he was only held up for an extra thirty minutes cleaning up someone else's mess." Another thing that Clary had been surprised about, Valentine loved his job but he most definitely didn't like it when people were too incompetent to do their job. The station had hired a lot of new rookies recently, meaning they were still learning and usually when her father had to fix someone else's mistake he wasn't too thrilled. Even before.

"I'm surprised he's not still irritated about that." Simon said as he glanced up at her father for a second. There had been a few times in grade school and middle school when Simon had been over and her father had come home angry and frustrated about the rookies. Clary's mother had always humored him and managed to calm him down.

Clary looked at her friend. "I think he had a good day at work today. He was in a good mood when he came home. But then again, that could just be because of the football game."

"So you dad's a cop?" Jace said, catching Clary's attention again. Looking at him his eyes almost seemed to be deep in thought, but she couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"Yep." Clary smiled. She had always been proud of that fact, proud of her dad.

"Hmm." Was Jace's response. Clary didn't know what to say to that so she just turned back to the field.

Clary could hear the others carrying on in conversation but she didn't really care to join. The thought of her mother had her thinking back to when her family hadn't been broken. Thinking of her mother also led Clary to think of her older brother, Jonathan. She missed them both dearly, her mother and her brother. As did her father. There were a lot of subjects Valentine was just now able to discuss again, like old summer vacations and birthdays. Though Clary always made sure to steer clear of those subjects unless he was the one to bring them up, and even then she treaded carefully. The sound of Jace's laughter just barely made it to Clary and she was almost startled to realize that in a lot of ways Jace was just like her brother. From what little she knew of Jace he was athletic, confident, sarcastic, and easy going. Just like Jonathan.

"Clary."

The voice startled Clary out of her thoughts and she snapped her head to look at Magnus. She heard the band finish playing the National Anthem. Clary didn't remember standing as she shook her head, ridding her of her thoughts, and tried to smile at her friend.

Magnus's eyes looked at her with what she thought was understanding. For a second Clary thought he was going to say something, but he just smiled at her and turned his attention back to the football field.

The football game seemed to fly by, no longer had it started had it came to an end with a home team victory. Everyone was walking past Clary and her group, who were standing off to the side, as they made their way to their own vehicles. Clary felt a little bad for not having taken part of her friends' conversations throughout the game but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't completely stop thinking about all the old days. She wanted nothing more at that moment than to go home and curl up in bed, partially because she was tired and partially because she didn't want to be a downer on the others' good mood.

"So what do you think, Clary? You in?" Isabelle asked, looking at her expectantly.

"Sorry, what?" Clary said confused.

"We just beat are arch rivals and you can't even keep your head out of the clouds for a moment?" Simon joked. Clary tried to smile as she just shrugged at him.

"We were just saying we were going to go to the bonfire that some of the football players are having." Isabelle explained, not seeming annoyed at all that Clary hadn't heard a word they had said. But then again, maybe they had expected it.

"I don't know." Clary said slowly. A part of her wanted to go and some fun after the long week she had had and another part of her didn't really feel like pretending she was as happy as the others. Plus she didn't think her father would let her go anyways and she didn't want to ask and ruin his good mood.

"Come one, Clary. It will be fun!" Isabelle was relentless.

"Plus we better get a move on if we want to get there before it gets too wild." Jace said. Clary noticed that the stream of people coming from the stands had lessoned.

"Too wild?" Alec looked at his brother with knowing look. "Since when does a party get too wild for you?"

"Hey, it's all fun and games until you start running around thinking you're a knight on a pink unicorn shouting stuff about how you are Alexander reincarnate." Jace's voice was perfectly serious, even as the others stared at him with varied expressions.

"That wasn't so bad, knocked you down a peg or two." Alec shrugged, repressing a smile.

Jace gave his brother a hurt look which Alec ignored. Isabelle sighed.

"You guys go on ahead. I'll talk to Clary and we'll catch up to you." Magnus said. The group all looked at each other but after Magnus insisted one more time they all took their leave.

"So, what's up with you?" Magnus asked once the other's had left.

"Nothing." Clary said, trying not to sound too defensive.

Magnus gave her a stern look. "Really." He obviously didn't believe her.

Clary sighed knowing she wouldn't be able to fool him. Simon was easy to full most of the time, Magnus not so much. "It's just been a rough week." Clary said finally with a shrug.

Magnus didn't seem to completely buy this because he crossed his arms and kept looking at her.

"It really isn't anything to worry about, Magnus. I'm just tired. Why don't you go join the others and go to the party?
"Fine, have it your way." Magnus sighed. Clary gave him a weak smile as he followed after the others. Clary let the smile fall from her lips as she turned and made her way to her father's truck. When she got to where it had been parked had to force to not scream in frustration. She stared at the empty parking spot and sighed instead as she rolled her head back and closed her eyes. How could she forget? She had told her father that he could go home without her and she would catch a ride home with Simon, who was now on his way with the others to the bonfire. Looked like she would have to walk home.

Setting her shoulders, Clary started walking across the parking lot, still feeling stupid for not remembering she didn't have a ride home. She was just glad that she didn't live too far away, only about seven blocks. It could be worse; she could live on the other side of town. Ready to fall asleep on her feet, Clary trudged up the steps to her house and into her house. When she got to her room she barely managed to change out of her clothes before she collapsed onto her bed and fell asleep.

Just to be woken up by the slam of the front door and the sound of feet coming up the stairs. Clary's heart sank a little as she realized that she had been too tired to notice that her father's truck had been missing and there were empty beer cans littering the kitchen table.

Here's another chapter. You guys are lucky I got a four day weekend because school was canceled because of the snow and ice. I'll try to post a couple more chapters this weekend, but once Monday gets here I won't be able to post as often since Softball is getting ready to start.