"You'll love this." Dr Zachariah grinned as he placed an old book down in front of me. It looked like a diary; leather-bound with discoloured pages.

The museum was celebrating invention next month, carefully packed crates of old inventions, both the innovative and the overly-ambitious had been coming in over the week. A lot to study over, research and learn.

Dr Zachariah had been taken with the odd gizmos created by a Mr Branwell; an English inventor whose many concept drawings were usually singed in places. At first we thought that the man had narrowly escaped setting his workshop alight but the damage didn't look like everything had been scooped out of a large house fire. It was more like he couldn't keep close enough an eye on his candles.

"Branwell's?" I asked, sure to be careful as I opened the book and started to leaf through. The writing was spindly and the pages were cluttered with doodles. No space was left idol.

"He had scores of ideas. I can't tell if he was a genius or a fantasist." The Doctor said. He reached over my shoulder to turn the pages to the centre of the dairy. Sure enough, there were more drawings and scribbles in the centre. Pages and pages. Some of the ideas were good, some were nonsense, and some were just too ahead of their time.

I flipped through a few more pages. There was a lot to transcribe inside; that job would likely fall to me. It wasn't any good to keep all the information in just one, antique place. So few people would learn anything that way while these kinds of books were kept on restricted access. Things needed to be copied to really spread, that's why printing presses were so successful. Still, nothing compared to having the real thing in your grasp.

Now if I could just concentrate on that instead of what Camille had said, that would be good.

It had been three days since I met her in the old subway. Every day, I checked the magazines online and the tabloids. I was waiting for it. Somebody was going to find out I met up with her and there would be uproar again.

Something Camille hadn't seemed to take into account while she was planning her messed-up matchmaking was that even if I did manage to rekindle whatever I'd had with Magnus – and I definitely wasn't convinced that was ever going to happen – I never wanted to go through that again. I counted myself lucky every day I went without being noticed. I wasn't expecting to become a public figure or anything, but I wasn't dumb enough to forget that my picture had been in wide circulation or that large groups of rabid fans had formed an allegiance of hate against me.

And I knew exactly how it would look if I was caught dead around Magnus if the two of them were to break up.

I took a glance over to Dr Zachariah. He was engrossed in his research as always. I couldn't really remember him ever making a reference to pop culture. Not even in passing. So I was completely sure that he hadn't heard about what happened.

How would he react if he did know? Would his opinion of me change? Did it matter that he met me before he found out? Knowing me already hadn't changed the way some of the kids from school reacted. There was a good chance I'd have to give up my job again.

I averted my eyes when the Doctor looked over to me. Way to go, Alec, creep him out by staring. At least if he thinks you're a freak before Camille messes everything up she can't make things worse.

I stayed late at work that night; I managed to get a pretty good portion of Mr Branwell's journal typed up for easy reference. It was supposed to make Dr Zachariah's life easier, but to tell the truth he'd probably take the extra time to pour over the scrawl of the original for as long as he could. Like me, he knew books were better than screens, and original books were better than reprints.

I was starting to feel ill at ease staying with my Father. I was outgrowing it, and besides that what was I going to do if people we didn't know found their way to his place? I had work, now; between helping the Doctor and doing shifts in any other Museum department that had places going it was about time I stood on my own two feet.

I walked in the door prepared to creep quietly to my- the guest room. Usually Father would be asleep at that time. Instead I could hear him talking. With my Mother.

"Oh, Alexander." She gasped slightly. "We thought maybe you were staying with Jace overnight."

There were booklets about an arts school Izzy had been raving about. Clary had been planning to go there since she was a little girl and when my sister heard they had a drama program she immediately started to pester our parents about being able to apply there. Isabelle would make a good actress, I thought. She was dramatic by nature.

"There's a lot going on at the Museum right now." I told her. Father kept his eyes glued to me cautiously while I picked up that day's paper. It looked like a new copy so it couldn't hurt to check it for rental listings or Camille-centred news. "I'll get out of you way now."

I was used to seeing my parents around each other by now. I didn't think anything of the fact they would meet up to discuss their daughter's future; that kind of thing was normal. What wasn't normal, it dawned on me when I retreated to the guest room, was for them to have one of those meetings when neither of my siblings were home. That late at night.

My eyes widened and I twirled around to face my closed door. I could hear Mother laughing in the giggly tone she used when she'd had a couple glasses of wine.

I called Jace.

"Angels, Alec, did you quit sleeping or something?" My friend hissed. I cringed, remembering that you generally didn't call people up in the middle of the night on a weekday. Oh well, it was too late now. Jace was awake anyway.

"It's an emergency." I whispered and walked to the other side of the room so that the others in the apartment wouldn't hear me. I might have even rustled the paper too if I wasn't straining to hear Jace whisper himself. "I think my parents are on a date."

He groaned. "Isn't that a good thing?"

I blinked, with no idea what he was getting at. A good thing? After all the hurt they'd been through? I was glad that they got along but…

"I thought she was mad at him…" I said lamely. I couldn't find the right words to sum up what had me so worried. The two of them getting closer just seemed too risky after everything that had happened. Mother was smarter than that.

"Maybe they'll patch things up." Jace suggested. As if that was supposed to make me feel better.

I spluttered. "They were already 'patched', this is... It's... This is different."

Give me a call when you remember you're in love.

Camille's words resounded in my head. Love had nothing to do with being clever. You couldn't protect a heart with tactics. I guessed that even if you knew you were in danger sometimes it got the better of you.

"I just want her to be careful." I continued. I think I had every right to worry about my Mother after seeing her shatter. So much had happened over the last few months, but it was still only that: a few months.

"Look, calm down, they weren't doing it on the living room floor." Jace grumbled. I could hear the smirk in his voice. Idiot.

"You're disgusting." I informed him in monotone.

"You're uptight." He responded.

In the other room, my parents seemed to go quieter. Maybe Mother had left when I was talking and I was just imagining things. I strained to hear better, walking back towards the door carefully.

"I'm going to try listening against the wall." I whispered into the phone.

"Izzy?" Jace asked. "I thought I was talking to Alec. You know. The mature sibling."

"Shut up." I told him, clicking off the phone before he could ignore me.

I planned to get this out earlier but I ended up being busier today than I thought. Plus I don't think this one is all that great, so I'm super sorry to make you wait (even if it wasn't too long...). Thanks for reading all the same, next chapter should be "Follow-Up".