Magnus viewed the events of my workdays with particular hilarity lately. I swear that hearing about it was becoming his favourite pastime whenever we met up. Which was often. I spent as much time at Magnus' place as I did my own, if not more.

Some evenings he'd be literally swamped in fabric. When he got like this, I was discovering, Magnus would forget to eat. I spoke to Cam about it, she said that was common. The longest he'd gone was two days - she would have intervened but she was away filming at the time.

Camille had told me that Magnus grew up going hungry and didn't really notice when his body was complaining. At that point I'd asked her not to tell me any more on the topic; it sounded like the kind of thing I should only hear from Magnus himself.

So I took it on as a personal task to make sure Magnus didn't starve himself in the name of work. That was how I ended up cooking in his kitchen; which was immaculate from lack of use.

"Smells good." Magnus commented. I jumped. I hadn't realised he'd come to sit on one of the counter tops beside me.

"Well, not many Lightwoods can cook, and those of us who can don't like to. So you're honoured." I let Magnus know. Really, my Mother was excellent at it, but if she could have hired somebody to feed the family for her she would have them do it instead.

"Well I look forward to it..." Magnus was purring again. He usually did that when he wanted to get away with something.

"Don't you have work to do?" I asked when he got up and held me from behind.

Magnus was taller than me but he wasn't quite tall enough to rest his chin comfortably on the top of my head, which he tried. He rested on my shoulder instead, but he had to bend over a little, and that was no good for his back.

I don't want to hear any old man jokes here. Hunching over a sewing machine all day would give anybody an ache.

"I'm not too busy to hear about your day." Magnus always knew how to perfectly tone his voice. It was one of the reasons he always sounded wonderful, even when his accent got the better of his pronunciation.

One evening I'd managed to coax the story of Magnus' origin out of him; despite the fact he was reluctant to talk about it. His accent, as it turned out, was a muddled mixture that came from growing up in a Dutch-speaking country with an Indonesian-speaking family; then emigrating (legally, I was assured) when he was around ten years old and learning to speak English.

He considered Indonesian his native language although he hadn't spoken it since marrying Camille. I could read between the lines; he was saying he stopped speaking it after his Mother died. I guess it reminded him of her too much.

Magnus didn't mention going hungry as a kid, or anything all that personal. I could only speculate that his Mother had been either too poor or too depressed to go buy food. And if that was the case than I figured wanting to keep that to himself made sense.

"Alec? The stove." Magnus said. I stopped phasing out and jumped to turn the heat down when I saw the water in one of the pans was boiling over.

"I think it's ready." I told him, cursing under my breath. Maybe I got the Lightwood cooking curse after all.

"So you believe me now?" Magnus smirked and dumped his completely-empty plate into the dishwasher. I thought it was kind of wasteful to use a dishwasher for such a small load but he turned it on anyway. I wondered if he used it when it was only his mess to take care of. Whatever. His apartment, his bills.

"It's not funny Magnus..." I whined. I'd just been telling him about work while we ate. "How am I supposed to see this Zach every weekday?"

There wasn't any doubt anymore. The last couple days the only way I was able to hide my discomfort at work was by smiling through it. Trouble was, Zach appeared to be taking that as encouragement. The more awkward I felt, the closer he got. Today he'd pushed my hair out of my face while I was talking to him and I stopped mid-sentence.

"Well, if you were Cammie I'd tell you to just sleep with him, but we don't do that." Magnus considered aloud. "So... I guess I don't know."

Helpful. It was clear that my boyfriend's age didn't always equate to wisdom. Here I'd been trying to think of a reasonable way to breech the topic with Zach, while the Magnus approach was more along the lines of 'just do him'.

"How is Cam, anyway? I was just talking about her the other day." I said, seems as our conversation about dealing with flirtatious co-workers had hit a brick wall.

"You were talking about her?" Magnus appeared to be astonished. I knew he liked us getting along, I think it would have been pretty hard on him if I viewed his ex-wife in a hateful sort of way. In fact I was sure that would have been a deal breaker between us. "Why's that?"

So I told him about dinner at my Mother's place. About the conversations we'd had and all the tension in the room. About how Isabelle was being stubborn as hell.

"But my Mother sends her love." I said half-heartedly as I'm sure she'd have meant it.

Magnus looked thoughtful for quite a long time. I began to wonder if he remembered I was in the room at all and picked up the Chairman. Magnus' little cat let out a yawn and settled back down into my lap without a complaint. I'd never met a more compliant animal.

"I don't like all this strain with your family." Magnus said, at last. "You were very close when I met you."

"What am I supposed to do? Pretend like I hate you?" I sighed.

Magnus came over to put an arm around me comfortingly. They all wanted me to be angry with him, and maybe I should have been, but I just wasn't anymore. Pretending otherwise would be pointless.

I sunk into his side. Magnus was bigger than me and being held by him felt warm and safe in the best way.

"They don't even know you..." I muttered.

Okay, so they'd been lied to, too. It wasn't my Parents' fault Magnus had introduced himself under a guise. But they were dismissing him without a chance of redemption now, which I didn't think was fair.

My Father had lied to us for as long as I'd been alive. Everybody was trying to forgive him, because we had love for him in spite of that. Magnus had lied to us for a very short time; and I loved him immensely. He deserved another chance as well.

While I was thinking to myself, Magnus kissed my forehead. I tilted my head to plant another on his jawline. He smiled down at me and for a second nothing else existed or mattered.

I cuddled closer and soaked in the fact that I was content for the moment. You had to take those moments as they came.

"I want you to meet them. Meet them again." I said. My fingers stroked through Chairman Meow's fur slowly while I awaited a reaction.

Magnus seemed to stiffen. Only slightly. He was probably just surprised.

"Do you think that's a good idea?" He asked. "It may not be a good time."

"It will never be a good time." I told him honestly. They had to forgive him to be ready to meet him; and meet him to be ready to forgive him. If we never broke that circle ourselves, we'd be at a standstill. So I was determined. "We have to make it a good time."

Hope that you guys liked the chapter, thank you for reading it! "Integrating" is coming up next.