...I really am terrible at updating...

And I spelt Jonathan wrong this WHOLE TIME! I want to cry! I am incredibly sorry for cheapening the authenticity of an amazing antagonist, whom (though is not at all mine) should have at least had their name spelt right. Sorry. Really. Sincerely.

Also, this hasn't yet been edited but I'm looking to update pretty soon for the next two or three installments, then edit them. Cool? Great.

Clary was sat at a long wooden table, the space around her as comfortable as it had looked when they'd first seen it. She hadn't ever been so happy to sit! Magnus had ushered Jace and herself into his very humble abode before explaining his statement. Clary didn't know if it was the mysterious scent of freshly baked cookies, for there was no oven as far as she could tell, or the fact that she and Jace were "connected", that was making her head spin. She just knew it was spinning, and she knew she needed a bath, a long one, and a nice sleep.

Jace was slumped in his chair and not touching her. She wished he was. He looked emotionless again. He looked as if he had no soul. She didn't like him with no soul. He'd said he was Jace, but this wasn't Jace. This was...nothing.

Clary didn't know when she'd decided she had the right to know what the true Jace was.

She didn't know when her feelings became so strong.

She didn't know a lot of things lately and she was so, so, so tired of it.

When Magnus strode into the room after them and tucked himself neatly into a chair she'd pounced. Verbally, not physically of course. "Magnus, what do you mean Jace is the lost experiment? What do mean he's the angel boy? What do you mean by saying we're connect-" He cut her off swiftly.

"I mean," he started. "exactly what I say, Clarissa darling. And if you'd let me explain it..." He quirked a strangely thin and perfect eyebrow.

Clary relaxed into the back of her chair. Glancing at the golden-eyed boy beside her she saw him gazing distantly at the table, caught up in his own mind. But he needed to hear this too, so she reached out and tried touching him. The spark and the feeling of suddenly sharing her mind enveloped her. She didn't know what this was either. But she focused her thoughts on him and only him, of his need for this, of concentration. His gaze broke from the table and switched to stare at her instead. She smiled weakly before turning to Magnus. "Okay, talk."

"It all begins with your father." he began.

Clary snorted. "Doesn't it always?"

Magnus just sighed exasperatedly and arced another eyebrow in her direction. 'You're supposed to be quiet now...' it said. She shut her mouth.

"He wanted power." This Clary already knew. "He wanted to over-rule Alicante, darken the ways of the shadowhunters, eliminate all every downworlder that didn't work for him. And what better way to do that, then use their source of creation against them." This time Clary raised her eyebrows. She saw Jace lean forward and was secretly happy he was intrigued. She hadn't removed her hand from his and felt his slow steady pulse thumping against her the skin of her own wrist. It distracted her for a moment before Magnus continued.

"Valentine couldn't raise the angel himself without alerting those in Alicante of his plans, so he instead raised a demon. Lilith. Valentine her his blood, and in return she gave him an incantation used to bring down an angel."

"Wait," Clary felt her eye brows furrow. "How would she know how summon an angel? And why would she want Valentine's blood?"

"All greater demons were angels once. Lilith is just a fallen one." Magnus lowered his eye lids in an expression of...disgust? Dislike? "As for your last question, Lilith wanted a child."

Jace spoke up this time. His voice was rough and scratchy and somehow in all her mental turmoil she still found it in herself to find it extremely sexy. "But Lilith is the mother of warlocks, isn't she? She is the mother to magic and darkness. Passion and lust. Why would she need Valentine for a child?"

Magnus smirked before replying. "That was quite poetic, what textbook did it come from?" Clary glared at him. "She wanted a mundane boy, seized the oppurtunity while it lasted. Valentine always said she'd wanted it as a sort of spy in our dimension."

"Anyways," Magnus said. "Valentine tested the angel blood on your mother's child, powdered and slipped into her meals, and the baby girl was born all golden. Golden eyes, hair, skin. She didn't even cry, coming out with a smile. But soon, Lilith came back and demanded to see what became of your father's experiment. In the end she determined that the baby was too close to an angel, power that great would only cause destruction. Valentine couldn't have any possible use for that much. And she'd fed off of the baby's power, dulling it. Even with a protection spell, and restrictions of her passing, Lilith was strong enough to use her powers in this dimension. The girl still had power, just not as much. Her gold hair and eyes dulled to red and green right before Valentine's eyes. Eventually they named her Clarissa."

Clary face remained stoic and Jace squeezed her palm tightly. She shuddered internally at the thought of Lilith feeding on her. Magnus moved on. "Lilith delivered news that day. As she appeared she brought also a bundle of blankets and worn old paper. In it was a little boy, with black eyes like a demon's. Lilith gave him to her father as if it disgusted her. Valentine had been shocked, obviously. Lilith wanted the blood badly before. Why throw away such a creation? She'd told Valentine that the baby was too strange. It was not mundane, but only mundane enough that he appeared so. So Valentine took the child and banished Lilith from the dimension. She gladly left, but the baby grew very troublesome. Valentine resorted to violence against it, trying to tame its ways, and it seemed to have worked until now. "

"Why now, what happened to him?" Clary questioned though she had a sneaking suspicion in her gut.

Magnus' eyes darkened. "That baby grew to be Jonathan. Every time Valentine would hurt the boy the lashes stayed where they were lain, the cuts and scars healing but stayed a crimson colour. The demon blood didn't allow him to heal normally...and Lilith had long since imprinted on him. Pitiful, really."

She still didn't understand something. "But, that doesn't explain Jac-" Magnus cut Clary off again.

"Valentine was disappointed his first experiment didn't work, so he tried it on a close friend's wife. She was already 8 months pregnant, but Valentine didn't know if the transformation needed a lot of blood, or time. He used the same method and the baby, though crying and normally birthed, was all golden like his daughter once was. Valentine was convinced this baby was a new beginning. He needed it. And so he killed the baby's parents when it was old enough to feed from bottles. The baby didn't cry. It didn't smile. It didn't refute, it didn't have the hear in itself to kill. And so he sent it away to Alicante to be orphaned. This baby was Jonathon Christopher. Jace."

Clary and Jace sat back. It was a lot to take in.

It was too much to take in.

"Wait...why do you know this?" Clary asked, the scent of cookies, her mind, the story all swirling into black shapes before her eyes.

"Because I was the one who raised the angels; fallen and not." Magnus said. But his lips didn't line up with the words. His eyes were blurring, the cat's pupils going wide and then contracting. And then the shadows overwhelmed her, and flooded her mind until it was black.

Isabelle was hit with a blinding light as Jonathan rushed through the front door, her eyes red and swollen from rubbing tears away all night. She had been aware when the black sky had faded with the sun's light- early this morning the darkness surrounding her finally faded to shadows. But she had no idea what exact time it was, nor the period in which dawn had become the blistering afternoon.

"Those loathsome, disgusting, unloyal, unworthy, bastard-of-cowards-" Jonathan was interrupted as Sebastian rushed over to him. Isabelle had time to wonder when Sebastian came back into the foyer before she was sucked into eavesdropping. It was the only thing that made her feel normal knowing...well...She swallowed hard and tuned in to Sebastian's sickening voice.

"What are you rambling on about? I mean, I haven't seen you this angry since you found that mouse in your soup."

Jonathan growled. "Mundanes" He looked as if he smelt something bad. Snarling he ripped off his tattered clothes- were they that ripped when he came in? "That's what happened!" Underneath his skin his muscles rippled as he removed the thin cotton that was his shirt, and the leather chest straps that had previously held weapons. His chest- Isabelle had to admit- was very nicely sculpted, in fact, it was quite beautiful. If he wasn't a sadistic freak she'd have been into him. She closed her eyes briefly as she held back some self-disgust.

Who thought the man that subsequently killed their brother was attractive? Shallow people, that's who. Shallow, revolting, unforgivable people.

But when she opened her eyes she couldn't help the gasp escaping her lips.

His back held scars, ragged and raised, and an angry, smoldering red. As if they were from a whip, but that wasn't it. There was a...tatoo almost, black and spastic curling over his spine. It wasn't a rune, but looked more like a brand. As if the image wasn't gracefully carved there, but stamped on and left to scorch.

It looked painful and Isabelle couldn't help but feel pity for the man- boy in front of her.

He was just a broken boy.

Jonathan turned on her with a glare, cutting off the story his was animating in Sebastian's direction. She watched his adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed hard. She prepared herself for a jest, for an insult, or even a come-on. So imagine her surprise when all he said was "Don't stare," and continued.

"The servants from the Manor," he said to Sebastian, taking a cloth Sebastian had given him and tending to a cut down his rib cage. "They ambushed me. I don't know how they found me, I-I'm always so careful to watch for things like that, you know-"

Isabelle furrowed her eyes. He actually sounded human, almost...unsure of something.

Sebastian looked up with hooded eyes. "Carla."

"What?" Jonathan scrunched up his face and turned so Isabelle had a profile view of his body. Again, a very sculpted body.

"My maid. Was she...there?"

Jonathan drew his weapons belt from his pants, the loops tugging the fabric gently from his skin. Little scars littered his pale body, and instead of their normal silver colour they burned red or black.

He's just a broken boy.

Jonathan threw it to the side as he said sarcastically, "Swords and hammers were attacking me from all angles, was I supposed to look for individual faces?" Sebastian just laughed and hung his head back.

"Her brother," he started. "Was killed by you, on a command you ordered. Or was it me?" he wondered aloud. "Any way, she'd want revenge."

Jonathan nodded and made an agreeing hum. Then unexpectedly he turned. "Your brother is dead." he stated. Isabelle fought to keep no expression on her face and bit hard into her cheek to hold back her tears.

"Yes," she chocked out and narrowed her eyes. But her lips kept moving without her incentive. "I assume you were the one to place the order." Her voice was raspy. Jonathan tipped his head and regarded her with curious eyes, no dislike, like he wasn't going to kill her. She could almost imagine him with eyes like Clary's, fresh green. He'd be so innocent looking...

"How could I do that. I was being attacked with swords and hammers-" she cut him off- again without her forethought.

"From every angle, yes, I heard." she stared at him.

He smiled a little bit, amused she guessed. But it didn't reach his eyes. Nothing ever reached his eyes.

He's just, a broken, boy...

"From all angles. Didn't really do them any good, killed almost all of them." He did this little eyebrow lift that made his forehead crinkle. As if he was testing her. Her inner self shook her head and swallowed her pride. She couldn't pretend to be strong any longer, couldn't fake the indifference. How was pretending any good. She pretended Alec would be okay, and look how that turned out.

The tears leaked down her cheeks slowly. "You're a bastard. You're scum. I hope you know that when I get released I will weep for every one of those people. And I will weep for the death of your long lost soul."

Jonathon's face lost emotion. Then it cracked with a sadistic grin. "Take her to the rooms upstairs" he ordered and Isabelle watched as he started to walk away. He didn't turn around when he spoke but she heard him loud and clear. "Isabella, dear lovely girl, I hope you soon pull your head from the clouds. Because I promise, when I become your end, I will never once weep over the death of you and every single member of your family." With that he turned just his head and glared from over his shoulder. And then there was only black eyes, and black mind, and black heart. "Just like I didn't weep over your brother"

And Sebastian threw her over his shoulder and dropped her in a dark room upstairs, where she did weep, alone.

Clary woke up in a bed. A large, comfortable, queen sized bed. And she felt so dirty, and so tired, and so she took a shower. You wouldn't be able to ask her how she found the bathroom, because she didn't really remember how she got there. It was probably an en suit, at least all she remembered was walking through the first door she saw and finding herself in a small, spa-like, room.

Shedding her clothes as she made her way to the glass doors of the modern shower, Clary pondered where Jace was, and how he was doing. His sadness had seemed to spur her own and now, no matter what was happening, she constantly felt a pit of dread yawning in the base of her stomach.

Something drastic was going to happen.

And it was inevitable.

Clary cranked the handle of the shower all the way to the left, erupting a scorching scalding of hot water. The best kind. She instantly felt her sore muscles relax, the water pounding them into serenity. She lost all track of time and place, so caught up in the rhythm of the water, the heartbeat of the droplets cascading over her.

That was until the door creaked open.

Clary froze, her muscles tensing once again under her never-ending stress, and crouched so she was in a sort of offensive position. She couldn't make any distinct details through the fog on the glass doors, but she saw as a human-like blob entered the room.

It was all tanned colour and gold smudges.

Jace.

Before she even realized what she had done she turned so her back was facing him and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Clary." he called. Not surprisingly it didn't make her relieved. In fact, she was finding it quite hard to concentrate on the fact that the only thing separating her naked body from his view was a layer of steam and glass.

"Yes?" her voice was shaking. She mentally slapped herself.

"Your awake?" it was more of a statement.

She chuckled dryly, trying to play off the fact she was a bundle of nerves at the very moment.. "No, Jace, I'm actually sleep walking right now. Or, I guess it would be sleep-showering."

He let out a breathy laugh and swallowed so hard that Clary could hear it. "Magnus...after you passed out, Magnus was explaining something to me." he started. Clary felt the water run over her back as she turned to face the door.

"And you're okay with everything he told you? You're just...okay in general?" she asked, true concern seeping into her words. She didn't know when she became so attached to him, or when she really and truly wanted him to be okay. She just did now, and that was that mattered.

She heard his chuckle mixing with his footsteps as he moved closer to the shower. "I'm working...on being okay."

"Okay." she said. "That's totally fine."

She heard his intake of breath as she saw him place his forehead on the glass doors. Thoughts she definitely should not be thinking with angel blood in her veins were twisting their way into her mind. Not with her naked and a shower running and him having the capability to be naked. No, blinking water from her eyes she instead focused on his silence. It was the heavy kind. The kind that meant he was about to say something big.

"We're both angels. Experiments." he started. Clary hummed in agreement. "And...well...I'd told Magnus about the sudden... attraction we've had towards each other..." his sentences were slow. Clary didn't know if it was because he was still finding it hard to talk from grief or because he didn't know how to approach the subject. She didn't really care. "And he'd said it was...instigated...by the fact that we both had angel blood. Not from Raziel only, but from this other angel Valentine had used. Ithuriel. He'd said it amplified our feelings towards one another. He'd said that the day I really, first, touched you- intimately- even remotely so, was the day this all started." Another wobbly breath and a stretching silence.

"But it wasn't then that I started to fall in love with you, Clary." Her heart stopped at that moment. Her body overtaken with inner shivers, a deep and consuming thing that raked her mind from the inside and out. He loved her. A smile betrayed her by breaking into her face as the warmth rushed up and into her throat, a crimson coating appearing on her cheeks. It was too good to be true, it couldn't exist. Anyone who's ever loved her has either died or betrayed her. And yet the feeling still surged.

She let out a puff of an exhale, sounding almost like a chuckle. "I thought I said, not to say that."

Jace just laughed lightly, she could feel and see his grinning teeth. "I cared for you...when you first fell into my arms. I-I looked into your eyes and it was like looking into my soul. But I fell in love with you when I was hiding you, and we were in that hallway, and you mocked me. It was like looking in a mirror, Clary. It was a challenge and it was a fight and it was...you. I never really realized how much that feeling has grown in the past days, how when I think back to it, I couldn't get through it without you. You're so...so selfless. You had your own problems to deal with and yet you held onto mine and carried them with me. And for that I don't just love you, I respect you. I know now...that there will always be you, because with you there's this, mystery, this sadness that I want gone forever. I wanted to fix you, Clary. "

Clary didn't know if they were tears or shower water, but drops of wetness ran down her cheeks. It really was too good to be true. "I didn't know I needed to be fixed." she croaked.

"That's the thing," Jace said. "You didn't." She felt his eyes trying to look through the steam, trying to sought hers out. "I did."

"No," Clary whispered. He couldn't love her. She couldn't love him. At least not until Jonathan died. No one could love her. They'd just end up getting their heart broken. And Jace- if Jace got his heart broken any more than it already was...there would be nothing left. "No, you're just saying that now, Jace. Because right now you're broken. Right now you need someone...I don't know if it's to fill in for Alec, or if it's just because he's gone, but you don't...love...me." She placed her hand on her side of the glass doors, right by his face's outline. His hand moved to cover hers on his side of the glass.

"It's alright, Jace" Her heart was breaking. "It isn't your fault that you need to use someone...that you need to get over this." The water running down her spine was as cold as her heart, but she needed to do this. He couldn't love her. She didn't know why she was so dead set on it, why she was dead set on it from the beginning, but he couldn't. Maybe it was the feeling of danger looming over her, a massive threat hat made it feel death was inevitable, but he wouldn't lose himself because of her. And the best way was to convince him otherwise. "I'll be here for you, I will, but you have to realize," and this realization was causing her heart to crack like a mirror. "That you don't really love me. You love...the idea of me."

He shook his head and murmured something Clary didn't exactly catch. "What?" she asked gently.

He took a deep breath and yelled at her, "You're wrong!" She pulled her hand from the glass in shock and through the clear hand print she saw his molten gold eyes turn a dark amber. Almost brown.

"I'm not." she solemnly shook her head.

She didn't realize he was crying until she heard the tears in his voice. "Yes, you are." He braced himself on the glass doors and gazed at her from where her pinky once was. In a whisper, husky and low, sending shivers down her spine, she heard him say, "Let me show you."

And she couldn't find it in herself to stop him as he backed away. She heard his belt thump to the ground, heard his shirt and pants flutter down softly, before the glass doors started to slide open. She darted back around and planted her arms against her chest.

By the demon Lilith, this is actually happening.

"By the angel..." Clary thought she heard him whisper. He probably didn't, Clary wasn't much of a sight to see. "Clary..." his voice was low and compelling but her will was stronger. It had to be stronger. She couldn't...let him...do this. Not when they could die tomorrow. "Don't hide from me, Clarissa...please." His hand touched the sensitive place between her shoulder blades and she shivered as he stroked down her spine. Goosebumps rose embarrassingly on her skin. It was then that she realized the water had gone freezing cold.

But Jace was undeniably warm as he stepped closer to her. She could feel the heat radiating from his skin. The hand that had been caressing her back now slipped to press against her flat stomach. She loved his skin on hers. The callouses on his finger scratched just so lightly against her body and made tingles shoot through her torso. She could feel him press his body against her back. His chest tight and hard as she leaned back into his warmth. His lips were at the joint of her neck and shoulder, teeth and tongue equally biting out to elicit a gasp. Suddenly they were at her neck, then her jaw line. Her ear lobe. "Let me show you...how much I love you..." his voice was pleasurably hoarse and she felt how much he wanted her, both in sense and pure understanding. Not only a physical want-which was definitely pending between them- but a mental want, an emotional need. They were together in this, had been since she fell into him. Jace. Because she needed Jace.

Carefully, still not turning around, she moved one hand up and backward to his cheek, and caressed the skin there. "We could die..." she whispered solemnly, for there was nothing more in the world that she wanted besides him showing her. "Tomorrow we could die- it would be the end. Do you really want those ties?"

She felt his lips move as he spoke. "What do you mean, ties?"

"Sex isn't just sex- at least it won't be with us." She took a deep breath. "You said that the angel blood amplifies our feelings towards one another. We couldn't help the severity of feeling that will come with...uh...intercourse..."

"Clary," he said. "I have no problem doing this. I've already told you that I love you. The point of me saying that wasn't to just say it." She felt his lips at her shoulder now. "I meant it."

He meant it.

Clary didn't remember the last time someone told her they'd loved her and really truly meant it.

"And the fact," he continued, lips teasing her skin. "That we might die tomorrow, makes me want to do this even more."

She felt her head move without her even telling it to do so. It was a simple movement, a simple action in one direction, and another equally simple action in the opposite.

It was a nod.