The last thing Simon wanted to do was to trust Jace and his plan, but that seemed to be the only option he had. Where Jace was free to come and go as he pleased, Simon was trapped in the room Valentine had assigned him to, and the only human contact he ever had was either Valentine or Jace. Which was essentially Simon's idea of the worst nightmare possible. Jace had been tasked to bring Simon the blood he needed, and Simon refused to ask where Jace got it from. The only times Valentine ever visited was when he wanted to hear himself talk while also trying to intimidate Simon.
So Simon spent a lot of time trying to work out what was going on, trying to come up with a better plan than the one that Jace had, especially if it just so happened that Alec and Magnus couldn't unite the Shadowhunters with Downworld. But most of his time was spent thinking of Isabelle, wondering if he would ever actually make it back to her, wondering what might happen if he didn't.
Simon missed Clary, he didn't see how he could keep from it. She'd been such a huge part of his life for so long that he could hardly remember a time that she hadn't been by his side. But the way he missed Isabelle was so very different. It was almost like a sort of longing. Like every part of him wanted Isabelle by his side once again. The way that he simply wanted to be with Isabelle again pushed all of Simon's previous doubts out of his mind. He now wished he could take back their arguments about his doubts, he wished he could ease Isabelle's mind once more.
When the door opened, Simon couldn't help but jump. He still wasn't used to his vampire hearing, so he didn't really use it in the way he knew he could. He tried to keep himself from groaning as Valentine walked in, throwing a bottle of blood on the bed for him. "My son had to run an errand," Valentine said, and Simon hated the way he made that sound, he didn't want to find out what sort of errand that might be. "I thought it would be inhumane to leave you without your food."
Simon refused to drink blood with Jace around, much less with Valentine watching his every move. So Simon left the blood where it landed on the bed, ignoring the sharp pang of pain he felt at the thought of it. "Jace isn't even your son, is he?" Simon asked, though he had no idea what actually made him do so. When Valentine tilted his head, it was obvious he wanted an explanation for the question. "You went to all that trouble to convince Clary and Jace that they're siblings. You went to tons of trouble to ensure that Jace never acquired a picture of you or Michael Wayland. I've had a lot of time to think while being in here, and I think you didn't want him to know what you looked like."
The look Valentine gave him was utterly unreadable, but Simon was able to tell from the narrowing of his eyes that he was definitely on to something. "I'd suggest you drink that bottle of blood," Valentine began, his voice slow and calculating. "I doubt you'll ever get another meal after this one." Simon resigned himself to the fact that Valentine wasn't going to leave him alone long enough for him to eat in peace. "Since you'll never see any of them again, I might as well tell you just how right you are."
Simon looked at Valentine with what he knew was thinly vailed surprise. The fact that Valentine was set to begin his plan so quickly was far more surprising to Simon than the fact that he was actually right about his hunch. "When I heard that Isabelle Lightwood was your soulmate, I must admit that I was terribly surprised," Valentine continued, his voice clothed with amusement. "How could you blame me, really? I mean, the most mundane of the mundanes I had ever met, the soulmate of a Lightwood? So I'm sure you can understand that I have my doubts about how much of my story you can actually understand."
When Valentine launched into his explanation, it became hard for Simon to keep up. The fact that he was terribly distracted by his thoughts of Isabelle didn't help him in any way. He wanted to ask about a million questions, but everything inside of him told him that Valentine was the last person on the face of the earth who would deal well with being interrupted. Simon was mildly confused by the entire thing, but not because of the Shadowhunter dealings with it. Mostly because he was confused as to why Valentine never wanted Jace to know that he was a Herondale. He guessed that was because Valentine had always been planning on dropping Jace off with the Lightwoods, so making him an honorary Wayland had been the easiest option.
After Valentine had finished, he didn't leave any time for Simon to ask even one of the questions that were on his mind. He simply lead Simon out of the door, leaving Simon with only enough time to hope that Jace's plan was in place, or that they had any plan at all. The trip through the portal wasn't exactly the most disorienting thing, it was just that he really hadn't expected to end up on a boat. And the only thing that Simon could do was hope that Jace was in on this part of the plan as well.
Simon had been thrown in a random room of the boat, and the entire time he'd been using his vampire hearing to try to actually hear something of any use at all. He kept hoping to hear Jace's footsteps, to hear anyone other than Valentine, to know that he would be freed in just a short amount of time. But when he heard Valentine's unmistakable footsteps, Simon couldn't calm his nerves in any way. He began to feel as though Jace's plan had gone downhill, as though there was no longer any hope for any of them.
Or at least, there was no hope for him. Simon barely heard Valentine as he began telling Simon about what was going to happen in his last few minutes of life. All he could think about was Isabelle. All he could think about was how they'd barely had any time together, how he'd never gotten the chance to love her in the way a soulmate was supposed to love. He had no idea of what Valentine was saying or doing, he just knew that he was consumed with fear. He wasn't scared of death, exactly, he was just scared of leaving Isabelle after so little time. The last thing Simon's mind let him see before he blacked out was Isabelle, and that was good enough for him.
When Simon woke up, he almost wondered if he was in the afterlife. But then he saw Jace's wrist and he realized what was happening and he knew that this had to actually be happening to him. He didn't mean to clamp down on Jace's wrist, but the hunger and the pain forced him to do so. When he somehow finally forced himself to release Jace, Jace's breathing was ragged, and Simon could only hope he hadn't gone too far. Without a word, Jace simply moved to rune himself with a rune Simon had never seen before. Then Jace motioned for Simon to follow him, and Simon did without a word, mostly because too many things were running through his head and he couldn't pick one of them to speak up about.
When they got on the deck of the boat, Simon registered the fact that the sun was going to come up at any moment. He registered the fact that, very unexpectedly, there were just as many Downworlders on the boat as there were Shadowhunters. But then he saw Isabelle. And he suddenly didn't care about any of that anymore. All he could think about was the fact that she wasn't hurt, the fact that he had just enough energy to run to her, to take her in his arms and finally kiss her. Simon hadn't had the courage to kiss her before, but none of the things he'd been worried about seemed to matter any longer.
The look on her face when she pulled away from him was not at all what he had been expecting, and it took him several seconds to understand what was going on. All she could seem to muster up the courage to say was, "Simon-" and then the sun came up and Simon was fairly certain that he was going to have survived Valentine's plan only to end up frying in the sun. Except he didn't. And then Isabelle's arms were around him tighter than they had ever been before, and Simon had no idea what was going on.
Simon turned to see Jace and Alec looking at him with the most puzzled of expressions, and he simply shrugged back at them, just as clueless as they were. "You're still bleeding," Isabelle said, pulling Simon out of his confused haze. "We need to get you somewhere where you can heal," she said, her voice soft in a way Simon had never heard it before. He let her lead him back to Magnus's; he let her sit him down while she fussed over him and Magnus healed the wounds that Valentine had made; he let her take care of him because he knew what it meant to her, because he knew he would have done the same if their rolls had been reversed.
When everyone had finally decided that he was well enough for them to stop worrying over, Isabelle wrapped herself in a blanket and moved to curl up beside of him. "I've never felt this content," Simon said, realizing that this was the first thing he had actually said since he'd woken up on the boat. "I've never felt this completely finally being with someone again." Simon realized that Alec was eyeing him in the brotherly way only Alec could ever seem to do, but he didn't care anymore. "I have no idea what's going on right now, but I do know that it's all going to be okay as long as you're by my side, Izzy."
Isabelle seemed happy to just let Simon say this, but Jace seemed to have other ideas. The grimace on his face told Simon that the plan must have been messed up somewhere along the line. "The sentiment is lovely, Simon, but I'm not entirely sure that everything will be 'okay' exactly," Jace said, his voice much more serious than usual. "We'll explain more about what happened later, but here are the facts you really need to know. Alec's plan worked and the Clave actually let Downworld help us, but even that wasn't exactly enough. So Valentine got away with the Mortal Sword, so now that he's got an army of demons at his control because of the Sword, there's no telling what he'll do next. Get all the rest you can tonight because we might have another battle on our hands tomorrow."
Sorry that it's been taking me so long to update things. I've been very busy, even though it's summer. I've been doing a lot of things for my resume this summer, and I'll be leaving again for three days in about a week. Then when I get back I'll have about a week before I leave again for a week. When I get back from that, I'll have two days before I move into my dorm and start work. So long story short, my updates my get kind of sparse, but believe me when I say that I'm not going to abandon my work!
As always, let me know what your thoughts are, and if you have any last requests for what you want to see me write before I stop writing altogether, just let me know! Love you all! Hope you enjoyed!