Title: Falling Up
Warnings: None
Category: Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff
Requested By: nightflightthehero

Post CoHF era. I also wrote this before CoHF came out, so there's a small detail here that conflicts with the events of CoHF. It's minor though and no one has noticed so far, so I haven't changed it.

"Simon?" Clary skipped every other step as she hurried up the stairs, a roll of masking tape in hand.

There was no answer from Simon, who was up in her room and probably buried in piles of cardboard boxes. He was helping her pack up her items to move to the Institute, and it had taken the majority of the past three days. Who knew she had so much stuff? And she was only packing half of her belongings.

It had taken a while, but Clary had finally convinced her mother that if she was training to be a Shadowhunter, she should live at the Institute like one. Jocelyn had proposed a compromise, and Clary was to spend two weeks at the Institute and two weeks with Jocelyn and Luke every month.

It happened in a matter of seconds.

Her foot caught and twisted, and Clary found herself sprawled at an unnatural angle on the floor, bracing herself with her forearms. A sharp pain pierced through her ankle, and her arms ached—almost stung, though that was probably from the carpet burn—from where she had fallen on them.

Simon was out in a flash, taking in the whole scene and swearing underneath his breath. "Are you okay?" he asked, his brow creased.

Simon reached for Clary's hand, attempting to pull her up, but as soon as she put weight on her foot, her face scrunched up with pain and paled. Clary sat down on the stairs, gripping the railing with white-knuckled fingers.

"Maybe I'll just stay here for now," she said, gingerly resting her foot on the carpeted step below her. "Can you get my stele?"

"Where is it?"

Clary groaned internally as she remembered where her stele was: in a cardboard box at the Institute, and Luke had already left with the first couple boxes.

"Can you call Jace?" Clary asked. "My phone is in my room on the nightstand."

Simon's eyes widened slightly at the mention of Jace's name. "He is going to kill me for letting you get hurt."

"He can't exactly do that. You know, with the whole you-being-an-undead-vampire thing and all," she pointed out.

He ignored her, saying "Your superhuman boyfriend is way too overprotective." Nevertheless, he agreed and ended up calling Jace, mentally preparing himself for bloodsucker and rat comments.

Simon sandwiched the phone between his ear and shoulder, leaving his hands open to search for compression bandages. That's what you were supposed to do for possibly sprained ankles, right?

"Clary," Jace picked up, sounding breathless. "Are you coming over now?"

Simon paused for a moment, slightly surprised at the gentle tone of Jace's voice. Whenever Jace talked to Simon, it sounded sarcastic and cool, as if he couldn't care less about what Simon had to say. But, of course, Simon was using Clary's cell phone, and Jace thought he was talking to Clary.

"Clary?"

"It's Simon."

"Well, bloodsucker," said Jace, his voice automatically sliding into the same tone that Simon was accustomed to, like dew turning to frost. "Still vying for my attention, are we?"

"You know, your insults are actually pretty lame," he paused. "But no, I'm calling because of Clary."

"What's wrong? Did something happen to her?" Jace asked. His voice was still cool and calm, but beneath it was barely concealed worry.

"She said she wanted you to come over because she hurt her ankle—" Simon was cut off by the dial tone. Jace had hung up on him, probably frantically rushing over to Clary's house.

The door flew open, and a worried-looking Jace appeared on the other side.

"How did you get in?" asked Simon.

Jace waved the key in his hand in the air dismissively.

"Why do you get a key? I don't even have a key," complained Simon, looking rather affronted.

Jace gave him a condescending look before brushing past him.

"Clary?" Jace said, concern obvious in his eyes.

Clary lifted a hand in the air, then dropped it. "Up here."

Jace sprinted up the stairs, with Shadowhunter grace, as Clary noticed. She sighed. Even though she was a Shadowhunter, she never seemed to develop the same gracefulness and control that Jace, Alec, and Isabelle all had.

"What's wrong?" asked Jace, crouching down to take Clary's hand in his.

"I did something to my ankle," she said, gesturing vaguely in the proximity of her foot.

Jace leaned towards Clary and picked her up, one arm supporting her in the crook of her knees and the other circling her back. He cautiously made his way down the stairs, careful not to jostle her injured ankle.

After Clary was set down on the couch, Jace kneeled down next to her, gently touching her swollen ankle.

"It hurts here?"

Clary nodded her head in reply.

"I don't think it's broken. You probably twisted it," he said, after a few more minutes of examining and prodding at her ankle.

At that moment, Simon bounced onto the arm of the couch, and Clary drew in a sharp breath as it jolted her ankle.

"Careful!" Jace wrapped a protective arm around her.

Simon put his hands in the air and backed away slowly, then shot an amused glance at Clary, as if proving his earlier point about Jace being overprotective.

"It's okay, Jace," said Clary. "He wasn't going to kill me or anything."

The tension from Jace's muscles released, though he glared at Simon—an alpha male contest, as Isabelle would have put it—before extracting a stele from the pocket in the inside lining of his jacket. He polished it on his shirt, then traced an iratze on Clary's ankle.

"It'll take approximately an hour to completely heal," informed Jace. "For now, you just rest."

He wedged a pillow behind Clary's back and propped her foot up on another one to elevate it. Now that Jace was assured that Clary was safe, another thought sprang to mind.

"How did you twist your ankle anyway?"

"I was walking up the stairs and I tripped."

"You fell up the stairs?" Jace asked.

Even Simon had to laugh.

"Leave it to you," said Simon, between gasps of laughter, "to fall up the stairs."

Clary glared at them. "It's not funny!"

Jace kissed Clary on the nose and, still chuckling, disappeared to the kitchen.

He later returned with an armful of items.

"What's that?" Clary asked, pointing.

"Ice bath, water, ice cream."

Jace set the items down one by one as he named them, then helped Clary sit up on the couch.

"It helps with the swelling," he said, easing her foot into the ice, "and numbs the pain."

"And the ice cream?" Clary said, smirking.

"For this," Jace replied, feeding a spoonful of chocolate fudge ice cream to Clary.

Simon made a retching noise from his place in the armchair next to the couch. "Can you save all the lovey-dovey stuff for when I'm not here?" he asked.

"You're always here though, like a pesky moth or a bloodsucking—"

"And we're back to the vampire insults," observed Simon, absentmindedly scrolling through his phone.

"I think I would prefer the vampire insults over rat insults, so you should probably leave it at that," advised Clary.

"I was referring to a leech. You know, they're scrawny, latch on, then refuse to let go."

Simon and Clary simultaneously rolled their eyes, before Clary leaned over and plucked the spoon out of Jace's hands. She dug a spoonful of cold, creamy ice cream out of the carton and popped it into Jace's mouth, ignoring another groan from Simon.

"You have some ice cream over here," said Clary, gesturing to Jace's mouth.

Jace turned to the mirror that was propped against the wall, before turning back in confusion.

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do," insisted Clary. "I'll show you. It's right," Clary leaned into Jace, pressing her lips firmly to his, "here."

A/N: City of Heavenly Fire came out today! I have my copy next to me right now, and I may have fangirled a bit (just a bit) on my porch step when I got the package. And received some odd looks from neighbors.

I'll be posting two oneshots next week, so any requests? Also, feedback/reviews mean the world to me!