Disclaimer: This is the official last time I am doing this horrendous thing. For the rest of this story please note that these are Cassandra Clare's characters and only hers, I just own my ideas. Any phrases used are hers. She is amazing.

Thank you thank you to any reviewers, followers, and/or favouriters. You make my day.

Btw, this one is going to have some skips in time. It's starts out the morning after, then transfers through the day.

Enjoy

"Jace," she called running to keep up with his long strides. "For the last time slow down, I've got my brothers endurance right now, and let me just tell you he does not do well with running-Jace" She was starting to sound almost...whiny. He whirled around and Clary feet stopped along with her heart at the intensity of his stare.

"What, Clary? Are you going to tell me for another time that I'm going too fast? Are you going to persist my rush in saving my family yet again?" He strode towards her and latched onto her arms, pressing her into a nearby tree. The bark was hard and sharp, digging into her back. "What are you doing? Why are you withholding information? Clary," his gaze flicked to the crisp new bandage that had been wrapped around her body earlier today. "I can help you."

She shivered in the dewy morning dawn. The air had settled coolly around them as the sun was just starting to rise, a glow of pale blue sheeting across the sky, and a mist of light fog covering their feet. "You already are helping me. Too much. I wondered why you helped me in the first place and-"

"Jia told us to." he interrupted."But that doesn't matter, all that matters is getting you somewhere where Jonathon can't find you, and sorry if I want to get there quicker than you want to to avoid my family's death and the worlds inevitable destruction!"he finished in a rush.

"I'm sorry," she whispered quietly. He was right, like usual. They needed to get there as soon as possible, and Clary needed to suck it up. "I'll stop complaining."

His face softened, like he didn't want to see the self-depreciating look currently plastered on her face.."I'll walk a little slower, okay?"

She smiled softly and even though her feet were screaming at her, and her calves were weeping, she got his point. Clary had been childish-they needed to move faster. "No, it's fine, I'll just-" he cut her off again.

"Okay?"he asked more with more force.

She swallowed. "Okay."

"Okay," he nodded slowly and Clary watched his gaze move to her lips. With a quick breath she pushed him off of her. They had to stop putting their attraction first. This was not some young adult novel where they picked a budding romance before saving the world.

This was her life.

This was all of their lives.

"Okay!" she said with renewed energy and a step down the long winding path before them, thinking of nothing but his lips. Because she didn't want to face the days that were sure to come. And she didn't know if she could return to reality.

She didn't know if she could handle reality.

Jace was tired. They had stopped for a quick break- eating and water, a nap- and he finally admitted that he was just as tired as Clarissa probably was.

Clarissa.

Her hair hung sweaty and dark over her shoulders, her eyes turned a rouge-y green as she stared deep into the fire they'd set up to cook some fish he'd caught. Pale porcelain was her skin, and two rosebuds her lips, but a fire was her heart.

It was times like this, he'd realized especially in the past day, that the pull began. It was like she was his magnet, and he was a piece of metal. Like she was his soul mate. It was a physical dragging towards her body, an actual motion that made him want to kiss her until her lips sought air, that made him want to lay her on the grass and make her his, and most frighteningly, that just wanted to stare at her, if only for a second, and have her stare back with all the love she could possibly feel.

He'd never felt like this before.

It made his head hurt.

And when she pushed him away, his heart hurt tenfold.

She turned to him suddenly and he caught himself fast enough to turn away before she found out he'd been staring. "What's your middle name, Jace?" she asked

He narrowed his brow. "Why?" he said and looked towards her.

"Because," her green gaze felt as if she were splitting his body, particle by particle, cell by cell, so she could look into his soul and gaze blatantly at all that made him Jace. "I want to know you."

The phrase sent a little bolt of electricity to his heart. He wanted to throw up just thinking about it.

Was that bad or good?

"Christopher." he replied, startling himself.

"Jace Christopher." She murmured it, almost disapprovingly or disbelieving, to herself.

"No," he found himself cutting in, not wanting that look to be on her face when she thought about him.

She looked at him again and he was lost in her eyes. Distantly he heard her voice. "You were lying?"

"No," he stole himself and distracted his mind by looking at his surroundings. Except the forest was just as green as her eyes. "My first name is actually Jonathon" he replied. "Everyone just always calls me Jace. It's the name I was given when I was adopted by the Lightwood's"

Had she moved closer to him? "What was your original last name?" she asked in a sweet humming voice.

"Everyone knows me as a Wayland but Maryse told me my Father was a Herondale, actually he was in quite close cahoots with your dad."

She chuckled lightly. "Cahoots?"

He found himself grinning at the word, the absurdity of everything at this moment. He tucked his chin down slightly and looked at her through his lashes- she was definitely moving closer- and murmured. "Shut up" before smirking.

She went serious again. "So, what do you like to eat, your favourite places to go when your upset? What do you-" he cut her off.

"What's my favourite colour?" he asked mockingly, and she blushed. He remembered that day as well. When he'd only felt a slight majority of what he did now for her. "It used to be white." he said.

She looked at him with those eyes again. "That's a shade," he thought he heard her whisper before she raised her eyebrows-he'd noticed she couldn't raise only one- and said "And now?"

"Green," he couldn't help himself from saying the colour of her eyes, though it was totally true, just to tease her. He wanted to see her blush- it didn't only look adorable but the past few days she'd been impenetrable and he didn't like that. Blushing made him feel as if he'd gotten into her, he'd broken through."Like a forest, emerald green." He was rewarded with another question. And then another. Small talking the afternoon away even as they walked at a now steady pace, the time seemingly flying by now that they were interacting. It was like reality had floated away, the same feeling he'd felt when he was close to her, or about to kiss her.

As if nothing was ever wrong.

And it couldn't be if he could always make her blush.

Jace had been unusually sweet and exceptionally charming that day, and Clary found herself liking him for more than his looks. It was night now, a fire blazing as the two sat in comfortable silence, the air settling in a hum of cricket songs and crackling embers. Clary felt Jace's arm brush along hers.

"Clary," A small breeze made tingles shock her vertebrae, or maybe it was just his voice.

"Yes," she didn't look at him but gazed into the flames that looked exceedingly like the strands of her air, heart quivering with both anticipation, excitement and fear. The constant brush of the skin-on-skin contact was immensly distracting and silently Clary admitted to herself that she didn't hate Jace.

She never did.

She was stupid to pretend to only be attracted to his looks, bcause like Jonathon said it was so much more.

"I know we've only just met each other, and i can admit that I am sorely attracted to you, but I...I..." he took a deep breath and with it Clary's heart stopped. She looked at him, his face as animated as a stone as he stared into the depths of the fire. "I feel like I-"

She found herself cutting him off before he could even finish the sentence, guilt and fear squeezing her heart, wringing it dry. "Please don't say you love me." She whispered, albeit she might be falling in love with him herself.

It was just that she had a mandate, and a boy would interfere with that. She didn't need even more confusion in her life right now and him even starting to say that would dwell inside her. She'd have to push him away like everything else until she was finally free, finally able to live!

There was something building inside her chest and it felt as if it would strangle her, as if it was strangling her. It was festering in her stomach and clawing, tearing into her throat, her mind. She felt as if she could never breath again. Her heart was straining against the confines of it, her chest feeling as if it was so close to bursting from all the pressure within. She did her best to swallow it down. She could handle this.

"I wasn't going to."

With that the feeling ebbed down, lingering just slightly as embarrassment took its place. "Oh," she whispered, her pitch hitching a few octaves as blood cells swarmed her already burning face. She'd been blushing a lot today.

"I was just going to say that," he turned and looked into her eyes, golden eyes flaming orange and red like the colour of peaches. "that I feel as if I know you. Like, like I'd always known you, and maybe not known your favourite colour or your secret hiding place when you were little, but I know you. I know what you're made of, and how you work. I know how you feel. Clarissa..."he whispered it into the dead silence that hung around them and Clary felt his hands entrap her face, the feeling of a dream-state settling welcoming around her as he moved his face close to hers. "I just want to try something. I know you're going to enjoy it."

And with that, as the fire crackled the colour of her hair, igniting his own golden curls in a golden haze she wanted to run her fingers through. The glaze of lust hid all her earlier hesitations and welling devastation, and his soft-as-silk lips brushed across her own in her fist taste of what was truly...Jace.

That's when he started screaming in pure agony.

Isabelle was staring at the door.

Not to the outside, the inevitable safety of the streets of Alicante, but the dining room door.

The one that held her brother, Alec, just inches away.

It was quiet, like he had never been there in the first place screaming as Aline Penhallow poured peroxide over his wound, trying to stop infection.

No stele had healed him, none had been allowed, and so for the past two days all Isabelle had heard were his moans of agony. She wished she could take his place, bare the pain instead of him. But his stupid pride made him suffer. Isabelle felt the tell-tale stinging behind her eyelids as the sobs welled in her throat. They didn't deserve this. Clarissa Morgenstern had brought this torture and Jia Penhallow allowed it just so she could be apart of the "winning cause".

Pondering it over Isabelle didn't let the tears drop, because with one another always came, and Jia Penhallow was not worth crying for.

"Aww," she heard his voice coo. Sebastian Verlac had become her own personal guardian, watching her as Jonathon searched the forests for his prize. "I was wondering when you'd break."

"I'm not breaking down in front of you." she stated calmly and collected herself. A deep breath came with fear as she smelled the blood seeping from the open space underneath the door. No sound. There was no sound.

He chuckled. "That's what Clary always said before breaking down." She turned and glared in the general direction of his form. It was so dark in the corridor that she could barely see him, but the something- maybe a rune- must have gave both him and Jonathon night-vision because his sight of her was perfectly clear.

"You wear your abusive acts like you're...you're proud or something. Like you're happy that you were the one to bring her all that pain and suffering." she started. "And then you go on and on about how much you love her. Clary is not some piece in a chess game that you and Jonathon are playing, okay? She is a girl, an abused, and destroyed, and strong girl that none of you will ever own. Don't act like she is yours because you willed her into obedience. And don't talk to me about your sadistic, destructive acts against her self worth. I, and frankly nobody in their right mind will praise you worth two shits." she spat venomously.

He glared obsidian in her direction. "What did we say about insulting us?" she heard his quiet footsteps on the hard floor and felt the blinding crack of is palm on her cheeks.

In that moment she didn't care if she died. "Then kill me for it." it was said like a dare, and he would have acted on it had Aline not ran from the dining room and into the foyer, leaving the door wide open and searing Isabelle's brain with light. When she saw his body her mind only processed life in flashes, like frames in a movie, as if they were in a tableau of stills. He was laying there, and he wasn't making a sound. He wasn't moving.

With Aline's words she felt whatever was left of her heart shatter, along with her resilience. The monster inside came out with shrieks and sobs and tears upon broken, washed out, tears. It felt as if the pain was perpetual and the twisting constricting hurt in her heart would always be ripping at the gaping hole left there. She'd never wanted to murder anyone as much as she did to Jonathon, and Sebastian, and Aline.

"H-He-I think h-he's dead"

Please don't kill me and review instead.

Remember that the end is coming, and all will be resolved, and that he died for the greater good. I haven't edited yet-sorry for any mistakes- but I wanted to challenge all of those who have favourited/followed.*

****** If you are one of the two and if you are comfortable, review. If we get even close to everybody then I'll update the day of and it'll feature a dream Jace had about Clary. And if not...well I'll still update ASAP.

What'd you think of the chapter? Please read again!

Lovestory112.