Okay, so I wanted to start off by saying I love you all! You guys have been so great; with all your follows and favorites and reviews! Seriously, you guys rock!

So, here's a chapter for you. It's all about Clace! But it's really short

I hope you still enjoy it anyway! And I love you all!

Seriously, I would totally invite all of you over and make you spaghetti if I could!

Disclaimer: I own nothing…still owning nothing.


"So," Jace said with a flap of his arms; the shirt that he had changed into when dropping his bag off at the car was well soaked and the material stuck to every inch of his torso making him scrunch his nose and pull the fabric away with a sucking sound before it fell right back into place. He sunk a glance at Clary from his peripheral vision; her shirt, much like his own, clung to her small and frail frame greedily leaving nothing to his imagination. He watched with hungry eyes as her small chest rose and fell with each breath she took, the soft curve of her breast on display as was the dip in her hips and her flattened stomach. Jace had a sneaking suspicion that Clarissa Morgenstern had a nice body shape hidden under all her large T-shirts and baggy jeans, what he didn't understand was why she was hiding it. "Are you ever going to tell me where we're going? Or are you just going to lead me blindly through the darkness and rain?"

Clary smirked and tossed her head to the side. Her long red curls soaked and hanging swung with the movement as she looked up at him with what he could only describe as mischief in her big, green eyes."Have you ever heard that patience is a virtue, Mr. Herondale?"

Jace cringed at the reference she had made, he was far from virtuous especially with thoughts of her and her soaking wet T-shirt. Jace shook his head in an effort to make the scandalous thoughts in his mind leave. Before truly thinking about what she said and wincing, he didn't like being called Mr. Herondale. It reminded him too much of his father.

"I've never really been one for virtue, Miss. Morgenstern."

Clary laughed as she threw her head back, her red hair falling behind her like a curtain. Fire amongst the darkness; she was a light guiding him through the black of the night. "''Living without virtues is to live divorced from society, separated from the most important thing in life, community.'" She spoke simply, not to offend but to simply speak her mind.

Jace felt a flutter in his stomach as she turned to look up at him again, the smile still upon her face. "Queen Elizabeth?" He inquired his head inching slightly closer to hers as she shook it. Droplets of water fell from her hair like fragmented light and softly hit his cheeks.

"Veronica Roth." She said with a grin.

"How do you know all these quotes?" He asked, with a slight tilt of his head, something he knew he did when something intrigued him but would deny up and down if you brought attention to the simple act. "Or remember their names even?"

A dark look passed over Clary's face as she glanced down at her paint covered fingers, twisting them so forcefully Jace almost intervened and took her small hands in his. But something about the way her face looked made him afraid that if he did, he might actually break her. "I had a lot of time to read them." She said with a shrug as she walked forward again, Jace watched behind her with a look of curiosity. It seemed that every time he learned something new about this small girl she made another question take its place. She was the most complex person Jace had ever met and it only made him more interested in knowing her.

She had secrets. Everyone did. He had his own too. But her's were different. He could just feel it.

She threw him a look over her shoulder. The moon cast a glow down from the sky as if to embrace her. Her hair glowed a deep red under the illumination as if she was truly a dancing flame. It cast shadows along her face making her small nose, plump lips, high cheekbones, and large eyes seem more striking. Right at that moment, he had never seen anything so beautiful. She looked like another creature; something mystifying and forbidden. Like Eve and Adam and the forbidden fruit.

Usually Jace loved anything forbidden, especially fruit, the more prohibited the sweeter it tasted but something about Clary made him want to lock her away. To keep her close and to never let her leave if only to make sure he kept his sanity.

"Well, what are you waiting for, Mascot? Another invitation?" Her smirk made him want to run forward and kiss her. Something that he couldn't quite believe he was thinking in the first place.

Jace smiled as he calmly placed his hands in the pockets of his cold and soaked basketball shorts and walked toward her without a single smart-ass reply in his mind.


"Unbelievable."

Clary looked at him from over her shoulder as she smiled a shy smile before glancing up at the large painting before them. "I'm glad you like it." She tucked a strand of hair behind her glistening, wet cheek before she walked toward the wall with steady steps. "I've been working on this for a while. I'm hoping this will make Ms. Culsko very happy. It's her birthday tomorrow."

Jace blinked in astonishment as he stared at the totally innocent but law breaking girl in front of him. "So wait, let me get this straight. You not only vandalize brick buildings, which is against the law by the way, but Ms. Culsko is in on the whole thing?"

Clary smiled at Jace as if he were too young to understand why she was doing what she was doing. It made him slightly annoyed as she patted his shoulder though Jace knew he was being irrational. "She is. I take a picture of the final result and I give them to her."

Jace's eyes fluttered a moment as he thought back to just earlier today, it seemed so long ago now.

"I took some more." Clary said with a large smile on her face; her green eyes were large and full of mischief and adventures.

"Oh!" Ms. Culsko answered; her graying hair fell around her face in wisps. "What beauty did you bestow upon the world last night, Clary?"

"You'll have to look and see for yourself."

"This is what you showed her." Jace whispered in wonder as he took in the large painting before him. Words couldn't describe what was shining in front of him so he made no effort to try.

"Besides," Clary shrugged, clearly not hearing Jace at all as she pulled the can from the strap at her waist and the camera, he had no idea hung around her hip, also and shook the can vigorously. "I don't see it as vandalizing. This building has been sitting here old and abandoned, left to rot and completely forgotten." Jace turned and watched a sort of glow take refuge in Clary's green orbs as she stared upward at the foreboding building in front of them. "I want the world to see how beautiful it is. To show the world what is right under their noses." She blinked as if coming out of her own world as she turned to him not at all taken by surprise when she saw him staring at her. "It's about the little things, I guess, finding beauty amongst the rubble and decay." She shrugged again as if she hadn't spoken with such feeling just seconds earlier. Her nonchalance couldn't fool him, not now. Not when he felt like he knew her.

Knew her? Earlier he had barely wanted to touch her. Where had the day gone?

She smiled at him again. "I mean, who wants to be forgotten right?"

It was the wisest and simplest thing anyone had ever said to him.


I had never met anyone as smart as she was. Now, if you had given her a large mathematic equation and 10 minutes to complete it; she would have simply scrunched her nose and given you a piece of paper back with doodles on it. But on life, she seemed to know everything. Even the things we tend to forget; things that don't seem special or important but truly are.

The things we glance at but never see. The things we inquire but never know.

She opened up a world before my eyes and helped me see the true beauty out of the ashes. To see what was always right in front of me but never appreciated enough to truly look at. God had made us this beautiful earth; a place for freedom and life. And until her I was too self-absorbed to even appreciate anything that wasn't looking back at me in the mirror.

I didn't even realize what I was missing out on. As the saying goes: ""Ignorance is bliss'".


Hovering before Jace was the outline of a golden angel. It shined with a ethereal light. How she had managed to do that was beyond him but his eyes couldn't be deceiving him. The angel's long white robe seemed to sway in a nonexistent breeze, its hair flowing the same way. Its eyes were two blindingly bright almond-shaped beckons of illumination as it raised its hands up toward the sky. Two children knelt before the angel; one with strikingly close hair to Clary's while the other had hair white as snow. They sat with both of their heads down as if they were too heavy for the children to lift; the boy with the white hair had his arm around the girl with hair like dripping crimson as if to protect her from some unseen threat.

Jace watched as Clary stood uncertainly on one of the dumpsters tops, shaking her spray can again she carefully constructed a frown upon the wall. He, himself, frowned as he walked closer as Clary shook again and continued on. This went on for some time; Clary would shake the can and shift her posture as Jace watched mesmerized as the blank wall of old and moldy brick transformed into to something heartbreakingly beautiful. It was a sad beauty. The picture now being complete made Jace's heart beat a little too quickly. Sitting before the children in deaden grass was a tombstone. Nothing was written upon it but that only made it seem more painful. Jace knew why Clary had done it, so that anyone who looked at the stone could picture someone they knew. It made the painting personal.

Jace felt his breath coming out in fast puffs as Clary blinked back and stared at her piece. The large floating angel, the broken children, and the old tombstone. She had made a picture of life, love, and death.

Clary calmly jumped from her spot perched upon the dumpsters cover and landed to her feet lightly. Standing beside Jace she glanced up at her artwork; no look of pleasure or pride taking over her face. Jace stared down at her confused. This painting was incredible, no it was more than that. Words couldn't describe it. But she held no look of pride, just emptiness. And even, if Jace was going to guess, sadness too.

Slowly, he walked toward the camera that sat behind the buildings wall and picked it up. He snapped a picture of the painting; looking down at the digital camera quickly to see the final result. If this didn't make Ms. Culsko cry nothing would. Clary continued to stare up at the painting as if it had transformed her into another world where her soul lied and her body was nothing but her shell. Her green eyes held no emotion as they stared upward and Jace thought she might just stand there forever completely desolate. Suddenly, a flash of emotion crossed Clary's face, a sort of melancholy look that made Jace press his finger down on the camera's button again, capturing the moment like one would a butterfly in a glass case.

"I think Ms. Culsko will really enjoy this piece." Clary spoke softly as if her voice had left her.

Jace shook his head as he passed her the camera. "No, she'll love it, Clary."

The tiny, red head turned to Jace with a smile as she took the camera willingly from his large hands. Her fingers closed over his as he passed it; he knew he should have took his hands back already but he couldn't seem to find the strength to move, not with her small, soft skin caressing his own. "You think so?"

Jace smiled, one that made his lips pull up and his grin to be lopsided. A smile no one had ever seen, no one except his mother and the Lightwoods. Ignoring the flash of guilt and sadness that shot through him, he nodded his head. The rain had long ago stopped but his hair was still damp and his clothes still soaked to the bone. "I know so."

He looked down at the photo of the painting on the camera's damp screen as Clary turned her head downward to do the same, her hair lightly brushed the skin on his chin as the scent of strawberries and soap took to the air. He leaned over her as they both held tight to the digital camera before them and finally Jace felt free. Something he'd never felt before; free and safe. Like he could run the world but the world couldn't touch him. He wanted to paint more walls and walk mindlessly through the rain without a jacket on. He wanted to apologize to the Lightwoods.

He wanted to kiss Clary.

But he wouldn't. Because that would mean breaking this moment. A moment so innocent that he couldn't bring himself to detangle and taint this iota of time that must have been given to him by the same angel that hovered before him now. He didn't want to detach her small hands from around his own or the feeling of her soft touch that was making his fingers twitch slightly and his pulse to race.

And even when they did let go of each other and walk back the way they came, Jace knew the moment was still there. Even when he dropped her off at her porch and she kissed his cheek. Even when he walked through the door to his house at 2:30 in the morning or when he fell to his bed with exhaustion. It was still there hovering between them; something so sweet and unspoken. He could still feel her soft, rose-like lips that caressed his rough cheek and the way his hands tingled and burned from where she had touched him earlier.

Jace had slept with more women than he could count on his fingers. But this was different, this was innocent and sweet; something that was just an adolescent and was growing fast. Something that was festering in his stomach and making his heart burn when he thought of her. He couldn't exactly put to words what was going on.

And he didn't know if he truly liked it but he wanted to continue; down this path that he had no idea how to walk, that he was completely in the darkness to. So, he would have to let Clary guide him down it, because she held a light no one else seemed to. Because life burned so bright in her that it was beginning to burn in him too.

Jace fell asleep with a smile on his face that night; thinking of rotting, old buildings so beautiful it hurt his eyes to look at them. Of angels and weeping children; of darkness that burned red and of a tombstone with his name on it.


I didn't know what all that meant then. What my brain was trying to tell me with that dream. I'll still never know what it meant by putting my name on that tombstone: did it mean the death of the old me or what I would become if I kept this relationship up with Clarissa Graymark.

Either way, I didn't really care because at that point nothing was stopping me from seeing that small, confusing red head. At least, that's what I thought that night.


Dun, dun, dun!

So, what will happen tomorrow to change what he and Clary have made?

What has he done to the Lightwoods?

WILL HE EVER KISS CLARY?

Find out in the next chapter, my lovelies ;)