Hello! I'm back! First of all I want to apologize for the delay with this chapter. I know it was supposed to be up last week, but shit happened. You probably don't care, but I was on vacation and my phone died, I didn't have my laptop or iPad with me, so I couldn't finish the chapter. I tried to post it last Sunday when I returned home, but I felt that the writing was a bit rushed, and I wasn't completely happy with it. Anyway, long story short, I decided to wait until today to post it.

I really hope you like it, we're kind of in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, so I apologize in advance if sometimes they sound a bit cheesy (lol), they are falling in love so let them be, okay? As per usual, I encourage you to follow the story, leave reviews, favorites or come talk to me on twitter or tumblr ( msalexiscriss), I love to hear from you!

Anyway, enjoy and see you all next week!

Chapter 16

"What you heard." Ragnor said, answering Magnus and Alec's question. "Valentine Morgenstern was a federal agent."

"But how?" Magnus asked confused. It was hard to believe that what his friend had just said was true, but at the same time it made perfect sense and explained a lot of what had happened since they had heard from the criminal again.

"How? Do you really want me to explain how?" Ragnor said. "Well, I might be wrong, but I suppose he went to the Academy for a few years, graduated, got his badge, and all that Jazz—probably your fed here knows the process a lot better than I do."

"That's not what I meant." Magnus said, rolling his eyes at his friend. This wasn't the right time for Ragnor's smart-ass remarks, this was a serious matter. "How is it possible that we hadn't known this before?"

"Isn't it obvious? The feds made sure to wipe out all the details about Valentine from the records. All the information about him before he became a criminal must be in their classified files."

"Well, that makes sense, but what exactly did you find out?" Magnus asked, still confused. "I want to know everything!"

"Well, I told Ra-I mean our source, what you told me yesterday about the lack of information prior to Valentine's criminal years, and he found it strange too, so he decided to do a bit of research on that. He tracked down the first case we had of him, the bank fraud? And well, something unusual came up. According to the official FBI report, when Valentine committed that crime, he defrauded five people, but the file had only four statements."

"Who was the fifth victim?"

"An old lady."

"Why wasn't her statement added to the file?"

"Because of what she said, she referred to the man who deceived her as a very educated and charismatic man who, with his position and rank, had convinced her that he was protecting her when in fact he was only taking advantage of her."

"How do you know that?"

"We found her statement, the one she gave to the police when she first reported what Valentine had done to her. It wasn't easy, but when our source noticed that her name was on one of the statements and was mentioned as a potential victim, he followed that lead and discovered a copy of what she had said all those years ago."

"Where?"

"In the archives of an old police station here in Brooklyn. After that, it didn't take long to put two and two together. There are old reports of a local corrupt federal agent before Valentine was known as a criminal, so we matched the dates, the reports, the locations, and everything fits perfectly—it's him. Valentine is that federal agent, there's no doubt about it."

"So it's true."

"Yes, we don't know much, at least not yet, but as far as we know, he did something, something pretty bad a little after leaving Quantico. Rumor has it that he went completely crazy, he betrayed his partner and team during a very important mission resulting in a real tragedy. We don't know much about it, but according to what we found many agents and innocent people died during that confrontation. After that, he got tired of playing the good guy and started a path of crime and murder, well, at least until the FBI 'got him,' although we know that's a lie and he's stayed active all these years."

Magnus listened carefully. Hearing that Valentine had been an special agent somehow explained why the FBI was so adamant on finding him and having someone else—like Magnus—to blame for what they couldn't cover up. It also explained why they had known about Valentine's fake death even before them—something that didn't happen regularly. The underworld usually learned everything first, rumors spread like wildfire among criminals...that was how it worked. So it was practically safe to say that Valentine had thousands of double agents spreading rumors (and fake rumors) to deceive both the authorities and fellow criminals.

"Do you think the FBI knew he was alive all these years?" Magnus asked no one in particular. He would have loved to hear Alec's opinion on the matter, but he doubted that the agent would utter a word, the man had remained silent since Ragnor had shared the news with them. In fact, now that he looked at him closely, he noticed that it seemed as if someone had sucked the air out of his lungs and he had trouble breathing; he was standing by the couch, holding the back of it as if he needed support.

"Of course they knew!" Ragnor exclaimed. "Haven't you heard what I've been saying? He was one of them, they have to know, my friend. In fact, I bet whatever you want that there must be someone protecting him from within the Bureau right now. He's gotten away with how many murders already? Twelve? Thirteen? Of course someone's covering his ass from within the system. The question is, who?"

"I have to go." Alec suddenly said, walking toward the door.

"No, Alexander, wait!" Magnus said, trying to stop him. He knew the agent all too well already to read his body language and know that he wasn't thinking clearly and only reacting on impulse. He could see the rage practically emanating from his pores—he had to stop him.

"Magnus, don't you see!?" Alec snapped. "Your friend is right! There must be someone protecting him from within the FBI. He was one of us! He was a special agent! I need to know who knew about this! My father, you know who he is! He must know! And my boss? They both were part of the team that 'took him down' all those years ago. I'm sure they knew he was alive! They are about the same age, if Valentine was in Quantico then they must have met back then! I need answers, Magnus! I need to know why they hid this from me!" The agent said, grabbing his coat from where Magnus had hung it the night before.

"No, wait!" Magnus said, placing his hand on Alec's back to stop him from putting on his coat. He knew how dangerous and disastrous this situation could be if Alec shared the tiny bit of information they had just discovered before they could investigate more about it. "You're too upset right now to think clearly. If they didn't tell you about this is because maybe they couldn't." He tried to reason with him. "Your people aren't exactly very honorable when it's one of your own making the mess, please don't go just yet. We need to think this through and make a plan, we can't blow this opportunity, Alec, please."

"Listen to him, fed." Ragnor intervened. "This is very valuable information and we can't risk you spoiling everything just because you're angry that your daddy and boss lied to you. If you want to get to the bottom of this, then you'll have to start playing by our rules."

Alec ignored him and walked to the door. Magnus sent his friend a killing look and rushed to stop Alec. What the agent least needed at the moment was someone trying to antagonize him.

"Alexander, please." Magnus said, grabbing the agent's hand and interlacing their fingers together. "I promise you that we'll get to the bottom of this and find out everything, but wait. I know you want answers, but if you act rashly, the only thing you will get is to warn Valentine and his people that we're right after them."

Alec didn't reply, but took a deep breath and stopped trying to free his hand from Magnus's grip. The criminal knew he was on the right track to win this battle. "Please, Alexander…" he begged, "...trust me."

"Fine." Alec said, exhaling defeated.

Magnus looked over at Ragnor. "I'm assuming our source is trying to find out more information as we speak?"

"Yes, he just sent me here because he thought you'd like to know right away, you know he's never trusted phones, especially when it comes to sharing such valuable information."

"Okay, well...you're right, this is very valuable information and we have to be very careful about it. If we manage to learn more about Valentine's past as one of the good guys, then maybe we'll have a real chance to bring him down. As I told you yesterday, his past may be key to solving this." Magnus said.

"Yes, we're working on that. Our source agrees with you, he's positive that if we find out a bit more about his past we'll be able to pinpoint exactly where he's hiding. After all, we all tend to go back to our roots."

"Indeed." Magnus agreed.

"Well, then I think I'd better go." Ragnor said, giving Magnus that look they always shared with each other when they couldn't talk in front of other people, but that communicated everything. It was clear for Magnus that Ragnor wasn't very comfortable with Alec there. "I'll send you more information later, we'll be using that old fax machine, so turn it on...okay?"

"Yes, thank you, my friend."

Ragnor just nodded in acknowledgement and after taking, or better said, stealing a bottle of wine that Magnus had just bought a couple of days ago, disappeared from the loft in the blink of an eye.

"Valentine's an agent." Alec said, exhaling loudly once they were left alone.

"He was an agent." Magnus corrected him.

"It's the same…"

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is, Magnus." Alec said, finally looking him in the eye. "He was part of the system, that's why he knows all our moves, that's why we can't stop him. He's a criminal with the training of a fed, we're never going to catch him."

"Hey, hey, don't talk like that." Magnus tried to reassure him. "We will." He said. He knew that this wasn't the real Alec talking, the Alec he knew and respected wasn't a defeatist. On the contrary, he was stubborn and tenacious, he didn't give up so easily.

"How are you so sure?"

"Because of what you just said, silly. He's a criminal with the training of a fed. I'm a criminal, you're a fed—we're the perfect team, don't you agree? If we keep working together, I'm sure we'll catch him sooner rather than later. We have something he doesn't...we have each other, Alexander. Just trust...okay?"

Alec looked at him and smiled. Magnus knew he had said the right words. "You're right."

"Of course I'm right, now, why don't we go back to what we were doing before my friend arrived?"

"I know his name." Alec confessed. "Ragnor Fell, 38, born in London. He's been under our radar for quite some time, but we haven't been able to connect him to anything. He's pretty slick, he always manages to evade us, but I know he's worked with you for many years."

"He's not going to be very happy to hear that." Magnus said. He could already see the face of sheer panic of his friend when he found out that the FBI knew his real name.

"You don't have to tell him if you don't want to." Alec said with a half shrug. "I noticed he's a bit...intense."

"You could say that." Magnus laughed. "So...pancakes?" He added, trying to change the subject and lighten the mood.

"I'm not very hungry."

"But we have to eat, Alexander, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Besides, you don't want to miss the opportunity to try my pancakes, I promise you they'll be the best ones you've ever tasted."

"Cocky much?"

"A bit…" Magnus confessed, placing a soft kiss on Alec's lips, "I told you that I'm a very good cook, you'll see. Come on, let's go eat and then, well...we'll see."

"Okay."

"By the way, have I told you how much I like it when you call me by my name? I didn't like it when you called me Bane, it sounded so formal, so...distant. Please feel free to keep calling me just Magnus...I like it. I like it very much."

Alec blushed, and Magnus just laughed, pulling the agent with him to the kitchen and kissing him again.

o-o-o-o-o

Alec was still in Magnus's loft. He was leaning against the parapet of the balcony, watching the city skyline and just letting his mind go over everything that had happened in the last few hours. It was so much that he still had trouble wrapping his head around it.

He had, despite what he knew could happen, decided to explore and give it a try to what was happening between him and Magnus; he had had sex for the first time in his life, he had been invited to Magnus's secret lair, he had met Magnus's partner in crime, Ragnor Fell, and to top it off, he had discovered that Valentine Morgenstern had been a federal agent just like him.

It was a lot to take in and he would be lying if he said he was okay—he wasn't. His mind and heart were at war.

On the one hand, he felt different, relaxed, more confident and even happy after what he had done the night before. For years, he had worried about his first time and what it would mean to him to have sex with someone, but the criminal had made his experience so perfect, he had made him feel so special, so cherished, that just by thinking about it, he felt chills all over his body and his heart raced again. But on the other hand, he was really conflicted. The new information they had found about Valentine had made him question many things that up until now had never crossed his mind. For years, he had regarded the FBI as some sort of honorable and incorruptible institution, but now? Well, now he didn't even know what to think. Knowing that the most wanted criminal of all time had been one of their own had shaken him to his root. The image he had created of his beloved institution had shattered in a matter of seconds and now, he didn't know who to trust and how to proceed.

Magnus was confident that if they kept a low profile and continued to do what they had been doing, they would catch him sooner rather than later, and although Alec wanted to believe him and hop onto the optimism train with him, he wasn't that sure they were going to succeed. It was true that combined he and Magnus made a pretty good team, but they couldn't underestimate Valentine and his powerful reach. For years, the criminal had been laughing at the authorities, hiding in plain sight and outwitting the system. They didn't know who his allies were or who was helping him, for all Alec knew, the Secretary of Defense himself could be protecting him. Knowing who to trust and who not to was now a real challenge.

"Are you alright, darling?" Magnus asked, startling Alec. He had been so engrossed in his thoughts that he hadn't realized that Magnus had walked into the loft again. The criminal had gone downstairs, to some storage rooms in the basement of the building, to collect some things that according to him, would help them to continue with their investigation.

"Yeah, I was just...thinking." Alec confessed.

In theory, he had stayed there to continue reading all the information that Magnus's contacts had been sending since very early in the morning, but the truth was that he hadn't even read a single file. He had just stayed there trying to clear his head a bit, enjoying the beautiful view that Magnus's place provided.

"About?"

"All this mess," Alec confessed, "I can no longer trust anyone, I mean, at work. Valentine's men could be working right next to me, pretending to help me catch him, but actually only protecting him."

"Well, yes, that's a great possibility."

"I won't be able to go back to the office and look everyone in the eye as if I trusted them."

"You'll have to, Alexander. This new information we have is crucial, I already told you, we can't risk Valentine knowing that we discovered his big secret, so you'll have to be very discreet and try not to raise any suspicion. Our safety and the case will depend entirely on how you handle yourself in the office."

"I know..." Alec exhaled resignedly, "it's just that...how am I going to know who to trust?"

"You'll have to trust your instincts."

"Easier said than done." Alec said. "But anyway, what do you have in there?" He asked, noticing for the first time the things Magnus was carrying.

"These old things?" Magnus said, with a smile. "Well, I got a little inspired by that wall that you have dedicated to my magnificent self back in your place and I thought we could do something similar for our dear Valentine. Let's go back inside so I can show you."

They walked back into the living room, and Magnus immediately placed three blackboards on some easels right in the center of the room. "There's a lot of information we need to sort out and I thought maybe we could, I don't know...organize it like you guys do, pinpointing the most important stuff and trying to find a way solve the case."

"Good idea!" Alec exclaimed excitedly. Now they had a lot of information that needed to be organized, so it was better if they started trying to put some order in all this mess.

"We could start with the things we know about him that are confirmed as true." Magnus suggested. "Like the fact that he faked his own death almost twenty-two years ago. I saw a copy of his death certificate in the boxes that you so kindly gave me."

Alec took the document from one of the boxes and pinned it on the second blackboard. "We'll take this point as the end of our second stage in Valentine's timeline. I was thinking that we could organize his life in three stages. The first one since he was born to the moment he left the Academy and betrayed the system. Then when he went astray and became the dangerous criminal until he faked his own death, and finally-"

"-when he resurfaced, until the last case we have on him." Magnus completed the sentence.

"Which is the private collector." Alec added, smiling pleased that he and Magnus were so in sync that they could practically read each other's minds.

"So in short, we have Good Valentine, then Evil Valentine, and Ghost Valentine." Magnus concluded.

"Something like that." Alec agreed with a smile.

They started to pin everything they knew so far about the man, being careful to put everything under their three main sections. All the information—past cases, aliases, whereabouts, people linked to him—was carefully classified. It seemed as if they were making progress, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't make sense of the information they had. It was as if they only had a few pieces of a very large puzzle.

"What about his family?" Magnus asked when they finished pinning things. It was obvious that the section dedicated to Valentine's early years was virtually empty.

"Well, if he had any, when he faked his own death, the Marshals must have taken them to witness protection. I could try to see if I can find out something about it in the Bureau, but I don't think it's going to be that easy. The Marshals have full control of that, besides, if I start asking around, Valentine's allies could start to suspect that we already know who he was or is...I don't even know."

"You're right, you can't request access to those documents, it's too dangerous, but…"

"But what?"

"But you could always steal them." Magnus suggested with a joking tone.

"Ha, ha...very funny."

"What? I could teach you how to do it without getting caught. It would be like stealing candy from a baby."

"Don't even think about it." Alec warned him. He could be dating a criminal, but he wasn't going to become one—that was a line he wasn't willing to cross.

"Why not? I mean, you would be learning from the best." Magnus said, teasing again. Alec could see the criminal was well aware that Alec would never dare to do something like that, he was just messing with him—as per usual. "Wouldn't you want me to teach you a couple of my secret tricks?" He added, winking and grinning mischievously.

Alec wasn't very good at catching innuendos, much less the sexual ones, but he was already getting used to understanding the ones that this man sent whenever he found the slightest opportunity. "I think you already showed me enough of your tricks last night."

"Well, quite a few, yes, but I haven't shown you the best ones." Magnus said, approaching him and wrapping his arms around Alec's waist to bring their bodies closer together. "Would you like me to show you some more?" He asked, slowly kissing his neck.

Alec would have gladly nodded and let himself get lost in this man again, but those blackboards in front of him and the constant noise of the fax machine notifying them of a new incoming file was enough for him to realize that they had to concentrate on this matter first—though he'd rather do otherwise.

"Magnus…"

"Uh-huh?" The criminal replied, still kissing his neck.

"Ple-please be-behave, we have...we have work to-work to do." Alec managed to say. In his defense, it was really hard to concentrate on uttering words and forming coherent sentences when Magnus was kiss-sucking his neck and touching him practically everywhere.

"Are you sure that's what you really want to do? Work? Because there's something else, or better said, someone else you could do..."

Alec had to gather every last drop of self-control he had within himself to reject that tempting sinful proposal and concentrate on what they had to do. "Ple-please? This is important."

"Okay." The criminal said, quickly pulling away from Alec and turning around as if nothing had happened. "So the family is unknown," he added, placing a huge question mark on the blackboard under the family section, "but we'll find out who they are sooner rather than later."

"It really isn't fair, you know?" Alec pointed out, his breathing was still a bit ragged.

"What, darling?"

"What you do to me...the effect you have on me. You-you start kissing me and-and then you just turn around as if nothing had happened, and I don't even know what to do with myself. It's like-"

"But you didn't want me to continue, you want us to do this, don't you?"

"I do, but..."

"Then let's finish it. The sooner we end with this, the sooner we can do something more...interesting."

Alec blushed. "You're impossible, did you know that?"

Magnus just nodded with a mocking smile.

Alec rolled his eyes and took a deep breath, concentrating on the task at hand again. "Okay, so...we have past locations, aliases, criminals linked to him…"

"We know that there are people helping him outside and inside the FBI and-"

"We need to know who his partner was." Alec interrupted, placing another question mark under that section. "Maybe he or she is still helping him."

"You think?"

"I would never turn my back on Jace," Alec confessed, "no matter what."

"Even if he became...?"

"Even so," Alec admitted, "he's my partner, every time we go out on a mission, I trust that he'll have my back even if that costs him his own life. Having a partner is like giving a person a part of yourself, it's a partnership that involves a closeness, a sharing of things big and small. I'm sure you understand the concept, although a bit different, I think Ragnor is for you what Jace is for me. Now think about this...Valentine used to have one, he used to trust someone unconditionally, so that means that there's someone out there who knows him better than anyone else, and until we don't know more, we have to consider this person as a suspect of complicity."

"But remember what Ragnor said…" Magnus added, "he betrayed his partner and team."

"I know, but it could be a setup, right? We don't know how close they were, so we need to know who he or she was."

"Okay."

They continued for a couple of minutes, adding the last bits of information that Magnus's friends had sent and trying to sort it out. They looked at their finished work and smiled.

"Look at us!" Magnus exclaimed, smiling proudly at their handiwork. "Teaming up for the greater good!"

"You'd be a great agent." Alec couldn't stop saying. He had already thought about that since the first time Magnus had helped him solve a case. "You're very smart and perceptive, I always admired that about you. Figuring out how you planned and executed your heists has always been the most entertaining part of going after you."

"Really?"

"Yes." Alec confessed.

"Well, Alexander...I would love to hear your theories."

"The Picasso you stole two years ago, did you really use a parachute to jump off the building and escape?"

"I think I'll have to plead the fifth on that one."

"I want to know!" Alec complained. "It's been eating me for years!"

"I'm sorry, dear, but to answer that, I'd have to confess a thing or two that I'm sure you don't want to know. Besides, I don't want to give you any more reasons to go after me someday, so…"

"Can I persuade you?" Alec asked hopefully.

"I don't know, can you?"

Alec meditated, could he? "I don't know…" he said, getting closer to Magnus and doing exactly what the criminal had done not so long ago and leaving a series of kisses down his neck, "but I could definitely try."

"Then try, Alexander, then try."

o-o-o-o-o

Magnus was watching Alec sleep. The man had fallen deeply after their very intense round of persuasion activities. Magnus couldn't deny that the agent had really stayed true to his word and tried to make him talk, but, well, he hadn't been very successful. Not because he wasn't good at persuading, little did he know that he could make Magnus do whatever he wanted with just one bat of his beautiful eyes, but because Magnus knew how risky knowledge could be in this situation. What they had, this new twist in their relationship, was complicated enough already to add more secrets and confessions to the mix. He didn't want to force Alec to bear the burden that Magnus's criminal life represented, so the less the agent knew about his past crimes, the better.

"Chairman...don't you dare!" Magnus whispered, pointing a menacing finger to his cat who was eying the tiny spot on the bed between Magnus and Alec to take his next nap.

The cat ignored him and, as graceful as he was, climbed onto the bed and snuggled close to the sleeping body, closing his eyes immediately.

Magnus thought about moving him before he could wake up Alec, but the agent hadn't even flinched when the cat had jumped right next to him, so he let them be. After all, it was a pretty cute sight to have them both sleeping next to him.

Alec rolled over in his sleep and hugged the cat, as if this were nothing more than a stuffed version of the little animal. It was so cute that Magnus couldn't stop grinning like a fool.

"You're going to be my undoing, did you know that?" He whispered to the sleeping agent, as he continued watching him with pure admiration. Alec looked so much younger when he was asleep that Magnus couldn't take his eyes away from him.

The rays of the setting sun were brushing against his pale skin, giving it an amber tone. Magnus wanted to touch it just to see if it felt as warm as it looked, but he didn't want to disturb him. It was so strange to see him so calm and relaxed. Since they had met that was something that Magnus had noticed about Alec—the agent didn't seem to know how to take it down a notch. He was always on high alert, working 24/7, functioning like a perfect robot ready to go into action when needed, but it was at times like this that Magnus could see all those layers that made the agent who he was—his Alexander.

His Alexander...

A wave of a warm and strange feeling filled his heart and he immediately knew that what he felt for this man was stronger than he had originally thought, and with the days and those little moments that they had been sharing together it was just growing—growing like a small plant well nourished and watered.

His friends had warned him about this, Ragnor, Raphael, Tessa, Catarina, apparently they all had seen it coming. Catarina had even advised him to stay away from him for a while so he could focus and keep this alliance between them strictly professional. But, well, he hadn't followed her advice, in fact, he had done the opposite and had ended up not only sleeping with the agent, but inviting him over to his secret lair.

He smiled. Who could blame him, though? One look at the man sleeping beside him and he knew he had made the right decision.

Making sure he didn't wake Alec, Magnus got out of bed, grabbed his phone from the nightstand drawer, and walked into the living room to make a call.

"Should I be worried that you called so soon?" His friend said as soon as she answered.

"I don't know…maybe?" Magnus smiled. "How are you, Cat?"

"Fine, working...and you?"

"Fine, well, actually more than fine, but...can you talk or should I call later?"

"It's okay, I have some time, what happened?"

"How do you know that something happened?" Magnus asked, bemused.

"Because I saw you just two weeks ago and you don't call so soon unless you're in trouble or something has happened, and since you say you're more than fine and you sound pretty relaxed, I'm assuming you're not in trouble, so..."

Magnus chuckled—this woman could practically see through him. "Well, you're right a lot of things have happened, but let's say that I'm calling because I didn't follow your advice."

"You never follow my advice." She said, sounding not so surprised.

"I know, but this time I'm not lying when I say I had every intention of listening to your always wise words." Magnus confessed.

"Continue…"

"Well, hmmm...yesterday night things kind of took an interesting turn," Magnus said, "I had one of those moments that Van Booy describes as the paradox of now or never and-"

"Get to the point, Magnus!"

"Okay, fine. I'm with Alexander." Magnus admitted. "Like really with him. I tried to keep this completely professional as you advised me, I swear, but, well, we talked and things...changed. I warned him about the risks of being with someone like me and he said he wanted to be with me anyway, and I couldn't tell him no, like how could I? I've been head over heels for him for weeks! So I invited him over to my place and we slept together. We both are aware that this is risky and crazy, and overall, could end badly for either of us, but there's no turning back now. We're together."

"And you're calling me because?"

"Because I need you to do something for me...just in case this ends badly."

"So I'm your contingency plan?" She asked.

"Yes."

"Is it illegal?"

"No."

"Okay, then I'm all ears."

"Hmmm...could you come over tomorrow before work?" Magnus asked. "I don't want to talk about it on the phone, he's still here."

"Have you been together since last night?"

"Yes." Magnus admitted with a smile.

"Okay, well, I could try...it'd be very early, though, is that okay?"

"Yeah, don't worry…"

"Okay, then I guess we'll see each other tomorrow."

"Thank you, Cat."

"For what?"

"For not lecturing me…"

"I already told you what I think, I have nothing against that boy, on the contrary, I think he's a great man and you deserve to be with someone like him, I'm just worried about you, like always. But if you're sure about this, and so is he, then I suppose I have nothing left to say or do, but to be happy for you and ask you to be careful. I don't want to see you suffer."

"I love you, Cat."

"Love you too."

"See you tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay...bye."

"Bye."

Magnus hung up and took a deep breath. The sun had already settled down on the horizon, transforming the city skyline into a velvet canvas of purples, pinks, and dark-blues all mixed together. Those minutes before the darkness covered the sky were his favorites. He wanted to grab a brush and just capture that beauty in a painting, so he could see it every day at all hours.

"Hi." Alec said, making him jump a bit.

"Well, hello there, sleepy head, did you have some rest?" Magnus asked, smiling at the mess of hair and wrinkled clothing that Alec was at the moment.

"As a matter of fact, I did."

"I didn't want to wake you, but I had to talk to a friend."

"It's okay…" Alec said, looking down at his own feet.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, I was just wondering," the agent said, tentatively, "will I ever get that phone number?" He asked, pointing to the phone Magnus was holding. It was the one he used to call his friends—his private phone.

"Why do you want a phone everyone has when you have your very own private and personal line, huh? Be sure of something, Alexander, this phone? I can ignore it, but yours every time it rings, I'll answer it no matter what I'm doing." Magnus said. "But having said that, if you want this phone too, I guess I could give it to you...I mean, you're in my home—a phone isn't going to be of much difference now, don't you think?"

Alec smiled, but the smile didn't reach his ears. It was clear that there was something else wandering in that head of his.

"Can I ask you something else?"

"Of course, anything."

"When this is over and if this thing between us doesn't work, you're going to run away, aren't you?" Alec asked.

Magnus took a deep breath. They had brushed the delicate subject during their conversation at the Brooklyn Bridge, but they hadn't spoken of it directly. They were aware that the future was uncertain, but Magnus wanted to be honest, he owed that to Alec after what had happened between them. "You know I will, and you'll try to catch me, will you not?"

Alec sighed. "I guess I will."

"Don't worry about the future, okay, Alexander?" Magnus said, wrapping his arms around the agent's waist—they fit perfectly there. "Nothing is written yet, for all I know, Valentine could kill me tomorrow."

"I wouldn't allow that."

"Would you kill him first?"

"Yes."

"You've never killed anyone." Magnus pointed out.

"How do you know that?"

"Because you still carry your gun with the innocence of someone who hasn't killed anyone."

"Have you killed anyone?" Alec asked, intrigued.

"No."

"Then how do you know that?"

"Because I've been very close to people who have their hands completely covered in blood."

"Who?"

"Alexander…" Magnus said, looking at the agent straight in the eye. Why was he always so curious about everything?

"Sorry, bad habit." Alec said, with a soft smile. "I can't stop the agent in me to take over from time to time."

"I've noticed." Magnus said, kissing him.

He had recently discovered that kissing Alec Lightwood was a total bliss, he could spend hours and hours just making out with him and taking advantage of his excellent kissing skills.

Magnus pushed his tongue just enough to intensify the kiss a bit and felt Alec's passionate reaction to it, but it all ended too soon—the agent pulled away abruptly.

"I'm sorry, I want to, believe me that I want to, but I really have to go." He said.

"You can stay."

"Thanks, I'd love to, but I really, really can't." Alec explained. "I don't have any clean clothes, besides, if I don't get home tonight, Izzy and Jace are going to start suspecting about us. I mean, they already know that I'm seeing someone, but they have no idea it's you and they can be really smart when they want. I don't want them to connect the dots."

Magnus smiled understandingly. He didn't want that either, he doubted that the other agents would be okay with this alliance/truce/relationship they had going on, after all, Magnus was who he was and they surely wanted someone better for their brother. "Okay, but we'll see each other tomorrow, right?"

"Yes, we have to keep working on Valentine's case."

"Of course."

"And we could, I don't know, have dinner?" Alec suggested.

"I'd love that." Magnus smiled.

"Then it's a date."

"It's a date." Magnus said, sealing the deal with another kiss.