Juliet stared adoringly down at a Senior guy pretending to be dead. The two of them were poised on a table which was draped with a sheet; painted to look like a stone alter. Juliet was heartbroken, and torn to pieces, and talking of somebody named Romeo.

"O churl! Drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after!" She tossed aside a glass test-tube from the School's science lab and an on looking teacher winced when it smashed.

"I will kiss thy lips;" Said Juliet, caressing the face of the Senior. "Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them, to make me die with a restorative."

Trembling, she kissed him sweetly as any girl would kiss her first love.

"Thy lips are warm!" She gasped. Her eyes welled with glistening tears as some members of a drama club called 'Which way?' from behind plywood scenery.

"Yea, noise? Then I'll be brief." Juliet said to herself, resolutely.

"O happy dagger! This is thy sheath!" She cried, snatching a plastic toy dagger from the table. She plunged it at her own chest, the blade portion retracted into the base and a blood pack in her dress burst, soaking a little of the fabric in crimson.

"There rest," Choked out Juliet's final words as she collapsed onto the table. "And let me die."

I was sure that people had never cheered a performance at our school as much as they cheered for that one. I certainly hadn't. I wasn't a theatre person; the whole suspension of disbelief thing was lost on me. But somehow I'd believed that Isabelle was Juliet for the entire duration of the play; and I was so proud of her.

This time when I went towards the backstage, the whole family came with me to gush over my baby sister. She told us all to cut it out and that we were being embarrassing - but I knew she loved it really. Especially when our Father complimented her. He was notoriously difficult to please.

"We should go out to celebrate." Mother suggested. She handed the bag Izzy had been carrying to our Father. He looked at it like it was a foreign object. My sister was one of those girls who used a handbag for school; not a rucksack.

I took the bag from him before his masculine ego could suffer too badly. Not that I really wanted to carry it either, but I was way over being judged by all the people around and figured that it didn't really matter. What mattered was taking Izzy out for ice-cream to reward her job well-done.

Max said goodbye to his friends. I watched curiously from a couple feet away and noticed that the Blackthorn boy was the last to leave. I couldn't help but wonder... I walked over to where Max was now stood alone, out of earshot from the rest of our group.

"Just, out of interest..." I ventured as the two of us followed the rest of our family at a small distance. "You and Julian?"

"What about us?" Max pulled a confused face at me. I gave him a look and moments later he stopped in his tracks. His mouth dropped open. "Ew! No!"

"I'm just checking." I insisted, almost laughing at his over the top reaction. Max had been becoming more curious about my orientation and growing in defensiveness lately. I had figured that I should ask about it just in case there was more to it than simply being a supportive sibling. Clearly I was way off, but no harm done.

"Julian has this giant crush on Emma Carstairs-" Max babbled quickly. "And I'm- Well I'm just not-"

"Okay, okay." I interrupted, giving my little brother a nudge before he hurt his brain thinking about it too hard. I could tell he was trying to come up with way to say 'not like you' without sounding rude. "You don't need to come-out-straight to me."

Max smiled as if I'd taken a weight off his shoulders. Our Father called back to us about dawdling so we got a move on.

I was surprised to see that our Mother and Father had travelled to the school together. He was driving her car. Admittedly it used to be the family car - he'd driven it all the time when I was a kid - but things were supposed to be different now.

Max and Izzy didn't seem to find it weird. The new developments I was seeing weren't so new to them. I'd have to sit my sister down and get updated sometime soon. I hated being on the outside looking in at my own family.

Simon was filling the seat which would usually be mine. I saw Izzy cuddle into his side and knew that he probably felt awkward about that with her parent's right there. He was always quite careful that way.

I threw my sister's bag into their boot and made my way over to Magnus' car. Jace and Clary were already in the back seat while my boyfriend leant on the drivers-side door.

"Alexei will love her." He said.

I felt like I was meant to know what he was talking about. I didn't, though. I let my face show my confusion.

"Who will love who?" I asked him. Meanwhile I walked around to the passenger door.

Magnus laughed over the hood of the car.

"Cammie's agent will love your sister." He clarified. "If you want to introduce them."

"Depends." I said, swinging down into my seat. "Did you ever sleep with this 'Alexei'?"

"Woah, Alec." Jace commented. He placed his hands over Clary's ears as if to protect her innocence. Nice try. Nobody who dated Jace had any - and if they did then they didn't keep it for very long.

"What difference does that make?" Magnus asked. I did note that he was choosing not to give an answer. Which usually meant the affirmative.

"It speaks for his moral character." I said, which seemed like a perfectly mature reason to ask. I didn't want to introduce my sister to somebody immoral, after all.

"If you consider me to have strong enough 'moral character' to meet your family," Said Magnus. "Then I can honestly call Alexei de Quincey a Saint."

"You met my family before I knew about your... lifestyle." I pointed out. I wouldn't exactly have brought him home knowing he was already in a relationship. Come to think of it, I didn't bring him home at all. He turned up under a guise one evening. "And even then, you introduced yourself."

"Moral enough to have my wicked way with you." Magnus muttered.

I flushed and Jace covered Clary's ears again. She tried to swat him off uselessly.

"Seriously, guys?" Said Jace, only mildly disgusted. He didn't want to hear about that any more than I wanted to hear about his activities with Clary. To be fair, I did hear about his activities with Clary. Often. So I didn't apologise.

We followed my Parent's car to Taki's, which Magnus must have recommended. Otherwise they would have driven right past. It was a good choice, though. Izzy would like it in there and their desserts were really good. When we got inside the waitress let us push two tables together. It was a bustling sort of establishment, so not a lot of attention was paid to any of us.

We were short on chairs so I went to another table to ask for an extra. I wasn't expecting the brunette to be Tessa when she turned to face me.

"Small world!" I said, quite surprised.

"Alec!" Tessa gasped. The extra expression in her eyes always made up for their boring colour. "How unexpected!"

"Mind if I steal this chair?" I asked her. There were two males at the table sitting across from Tessa, but their group was already eating and there was no fourth place setting, so it must have been just the three of them.

I wondered if either of these two was the guy she'd been talking about at work. They were giving each other sceptic looks, probably wondering who I was. I gave them an awkward kind of smile so I didn't seem ignorant.

"Of course." Said Tessa. She looked over her shoulder at the group settling into place. Izzy, Magnus and Max were watching me curiously while the rest of them were checking menus. "Is that your family?"

"The little one with glasses and the girl beside him are my younger siblings." I filled her in with a smile. Some teens feel uncomfortable or embarrassed to admit when their relatives are around. I was not one of them. I was proud of my family - strange as they may have been.

"Well this is James. And William." Tessa told me. I said 'hi' to them both, but I didn't have much to go on conversation-wise. This was the first I'd heard of them. "But look at me, keeping you here. Go have fun, I'll see you tomorrow."

So I did just that. We all congratulated Izzy on a job well-done and talked about how many more performances she had, what was next for her. I almost told her about our chat with Cam right there and then; but it seemed like a big thing to drop in the middle of such a light gathering. I did, however, invite her to Woolsey's.

Izzy got very excited and launched into a chat with Magnus about what she should be wearing while my parents tried to figure out whether or not they approved or not. I hoped that they'd land on 'approved'. A get-together at Woolsey Scott's place was probably a damn lot safer than any given night in Pandemonium.

In the end they didn't intervene with Isabelle. They did, however, step in when Max wanted to come.

Thank you for reading! I was going to post later on but I'm majorly excitable today because my baby sister is being born - so I wanted to do it earlier. I should post the next chapter 'The Tessa Triangle' very soon, too.