Magnus heard the click of the front door close and turned to collapsed on the couch. The last of their guests were gone and he wanted to sleep for about a week. Leaning his head back, Magnus closed his eyes, enjoying the silence. He felt, more than saw, Alec join him on the couch, hearing the springs in the couch creak as Alec moved closer. Magnus put his arm around his fiance as Alec rested his head on Magnus's shoulder. Neither of them spoke, and Magnus focused on their breathing. In and out at the same time. Two people joined together for life. For the rest of his life, Magnus would be next to Alexander. Had it all happened so fast, or had it taken ages? Magnus wasn't sure.

"Thank you," Alec whispered after a while.

"What for?" Magnus laughed, opening his eyes and turning to the other man.

"For indulging me tonight," Alec explained.

"I've made my bed," Magnus said after a moment's thought. "Now, I have to sleep in it." He was smiling. This phrase was usually used for people who have made mistakes and are now forced to live with the consequences of that mistake, and even though Magnus felt the exact opposite about Alec, he still liked the phrase. It seemed to fit the way he was feeling. Magnus had fallen in love with who he'd fallen in love with, and that was that. There was no changing it now, no backing out. The bed was made. Loving Alexander was so different than the way he'd loved before; Magnus knew this was it. With or without the engagement, Magnus had meant every word he'd said to Alec during their fight. Alec was the greatest- and last- love of Magnus's life.

"Are you implying falling in love with me is like an unmade bed?" Alec smirked in a teasing tone.

"Yes and no," Magnus replied. "What I mean is that no matter what, for richer or poorer, I love you, want only you. If it's for richer than I will just have to get used to it. I know there are many people who wouldn't let it bother them so much. Heck, there are probably people out that whose goal in life is to get someone wealthy to fall in love with them. I believe in Sims, the aspiration is something like 'See the ghost of your wealthy spouse.'" Alec's laughter filled the room and made Magnus smile.

"Oh wow I remember that game," Alec chuckled. "I haven't played it in ages."

"Me neither," Magnus replied.

"I can't picture you as one of those people," Alec continued. "I have never once thought you were with me for my money, quite the opposite actually."

"What do you mean?" Magnus asked.

"I was worried we were too different," Alec said. "Sometimes it feels like we are worlds apart. More than once during the last year, I feared my habit of throwing money at my problems would break us up."

Magnus leaned over and kissed Alec's forehead before speaking. "Well we sure failed to communicate didn't we," Magnus whispered. "My strange discomfort didn't make me love you any less, Alexander. I just wasn't raised to think about money the way you do." Magnus pulled Alec in closer, crushing him in a hug.

"And I'm glad," Alec said with surprising sincerity.

"Oh," Magnus gasped surprised. "But I thought you wanted me to let you pay for everything?"

"Oh I do," Alec answered. "But I think I'm not totally right to. It's nice to be so sure that you're here for me and not for-" he paused, laughing lightly as he added, "'Seeing the ghost of your wealthy spouse.'" Magnus couldn't help but laugh with him. "It's harder to see on this side of it," Alec continued soberly. "But maybe I can understand why it makes you feel the way it does."

"Oh, and how does it make me feel Alexander?" Magnus asked in a soft teasing voice. He was stroking Alec's hair, knowing full well how this always puts Alec to sleep.

"Hmmm," Alec sighed, closing his eyes. "Feels nice."

"Does it now?" Magnus chuckled.

"This," Alec mumbled. "Not the other thing." He was clearly tired and getting more comfortable by the minute. It made Magnus smile.

"You're welcome," Magnus whispered, finally answering Alec's first statement that had started this conversation, before kissing Alec's forehead. "I know this party made you happy."

"You make me happy," Alec corrected, his eyes were still closed, but now his breathing was slowly evening out. Magnus felt more pressure on his shoulder as Alec fell asleep, his neck muscles relaxing. Magnus just enjoyed the silence for a while, until he too started to get tired. Gently waking Alec, Magnus supported his fiance to bed where he instantly fell asleep again. Then Magnus laid down beside him and fell into a peaceful sleep.

When Magnus woke, he reached out but found the space beside him on the bed empty. Well, not totally empty, both cats were sleeping with him. Over the sound of purring, Magnus could just barely hear whispered voices from down the hall. Dislodging only one of the cats, Magnus got up and went to investigate. What he found was Alec and Aline sitting at the table deep in conversation. Blinking sleepily, Magnus sat down to join them.

"Good morning," Alec smiled turning to him.

"Did I miss the party?" Magnus asked.

"You are the party," Aline laughed and turned towards him.

"What a nice thing to say," Magnus smiled at her. It took his sleepy brain a second to register the evil grin on her face.

"The packing party!" Aline exclaimed, throwing bubble wrap at him. Magnus groaned.

The next thing he knew, Magnus had been made to dress, and ushered out the door. They arrived at Jace's shortly after, and the party started, though Magnus thought calling it a party was being very generous. Magnus remembered moving Alec from dorm life to his place for the summer had been less than an hours work, but it seemed Alec had accumulated quite a lot more stuff than last year, including furniture.

He was just starting to wonder how they were going carry all this stuff back initially once they'd walked in, when Magnus spotted Will's truck. It was parked outside the apartment complex, and Magnus marveled for a moment how Alexander had managed to bring everyone together like this.

"That boy should major in leadership," Magnus sighed to himself as he put the box he was holding into the back of Will's truck. "He rangles people like pawns."

It was just before lunch by the time they were all driving the short distance back to Magnus's apartment. A very short distance. It felt quite silly actually, but they couldn't have carried all that stuff, so the truck was needed.

They arrived at Magnus's place to find Jace and Clary joining in the packing party. Of course, they were packing up her stuff. Alec and Aline helped too, and soon enough, they had Will's truck full once again. Magnus and Alec stayed to unpack his stuff as Clary, Jace and Will drove Clary's stuff back the way they'd come.

"I have to admit that was the most efficient move I've ever been part of," Magnus said once they were alone.

"Can I major in efficient?" Alec asked.

"Business maybe?" Magnus shrugged. Alec sighed a little then turned back to his task, picking up a box of his clothes and moving them into their room. Next they carried the dresser in and tried to make room for it.

"We need a bigger place," Alec stated as he looked at the awkward way they managed to get the dresser to fit.

"One problem at a time," Magnus sighed. "This place is so close to school so while you're still there…"

"Yeah yeah," Alec agreed, only slightly reluctantly. They unpacked Alec's kitchen stuff next, thankfully without too many duplicates. It turned out that Magnus didn't cook enough to own half the stuff Alec did.

"It's not like I cook a lot," Alec argued. "It's just compared to you, anyone's a chef." Magnus grumbled about that while they decided what to do with Alec's couch.

"Really I think Jace should have kept it," Alec argued. "Considering what they did to it."

"Jace insisted you have it since you bought it," Magnus reminded him.

"Yes but they broke it in," Alec countered.

"We can't claim not to have violated any furniture either, Alexander," Magnus reminded his fiance, and then it was Alec's turn to grumble as they turned the other couch on an angle to make room for this one.

"Oh come look at this!" Magnus called across the house as he was unpacking one of the boxes labeled trinkets.

"One minute," Alec yelled back. Grinning, Magnus picked the object up and waited. When Alec appeared, Magnus handed him the gold rimmed watch.

"You asked for a minute," Magnus sniggered. Alec just rolled his eyes.

"That was not your best work," Alec told him. "Points for effort though."

"Spoil sport," Magnus laughed. Alec took a closer look at the rold trim, sleek watch in his hand. To Magnus it looked expensive, but he'd come to realize most of what he thought of as expensive, to Alec, was just normal so he wasn't going to assume.

"It's one of my dad's old watches," Alec explained. "I forgot I had this."

"It's a really nice watch," Magnus said. "You should wear it."

"Nah," Alec replied, throwing the watch back into the box. "It's too flashy."

"The cat's out of the bag you know," Magnus explained. "Everyone at school knows who your parents are. It's not like wearing a gold rimmed watch will change that." Alec's great articulate response to this was a shrug, and a quick change of topic. Magnus smiled; he couldn't say he was surprised. Sometimes Alexander was quite the enigma.

By the time the day was out, Magnus and Alec were officially living together. It didn't really feel like anything had changed at first. Sure, they were properly living together now, but Alec had spent so much time here before, that Magnus didn't notice the difference right away. That is until one morning when he woke up to find a stranger in his bathroom. For a moment, Magnus just stared in shock until he noticed what the woman was doing. Backing out of the room, Magnus went to confront Alec.

"Alec, did you hire a maid?" Magnus asked his fiance.

"Yep," Alec replied. "Why?"

Magnus wasn't sure how to reply to this. Was he supposed to be upset that he didn't have to clean, or upset that Alec forgot to mention it. Yes, that was better.

"You didn't tell me," Magnus replied. "I just walked into the bathroom and there she was!"

"Sorry, sweetie," Alec soothed, getting up off the couch and facing Magnus. "I've never not lived with a maid. I didn't even think about it."

"Your life baffles me," Magnus sighed with a shake of his head. "And I can't shower."

"My maid is cleaning the bathroom so I can't take a shower," Alec laughed. "Sounds like a first world problem to me."

"Oh shut up," Magnus grumbled. "That was a great song." But Alec just laughed. The song in question was Weird Al's 'First World Problem', and Magnus had recently come to appreciate some of the lyrics more than he had previously.

April turned to May, and before long, Magnus found himself arriving for his very first day of volunteer work at the museum. As he inspected priceless artifacts, and poured his endless history enthusiasm into every moment at the museum, Magnus tried not to think about his lack of an income. Somehow Alec had managed to steal all the bills out from under him, even though they were in Magnus's name. Since he wasn't making money right now, Magnus was trying not to think about it, and his work at the museum was helping a great deal in this regard.

Magnus came home everyday energized and giddy from his time there. He supposed that Alec would eventually get sick of listening to him go on and on about french artifact displays, but until Alec shut him down, Magnus was going to talk his ear off about specks of dirt from thousands of years ago.

Since it was summer vacation for Alec, Magnus often arrived home to find that his fiance had company over. More than once, Magnus found him playing Catan with his cousin, watching movies with Jace, or even sometimes hanging out with Clary. Magnus's hours at the museum weren't like last summer. He was home by six every night, and they ate dinner together while talking about their day. It was the most domestic summer of Magnus's life, and he had to admit it was rather wonderful.

By the end of May, Magnus had heard from his aunt many times, all of which, amounted to the same thing; she wanted to come visit them.

"That sounds great," Alec said when Magnus told him. "When does she want to visit, because my parents want to see us this summer too?" Magnus rubbed his neck to give himself time to think. Why did it feel like a parent parade all of a sudden?

"She didn't say," Magnus confessed. "But I suppose so long as they don't visit at the same time we should be okay."

"Well mom and dad will stay in a hotel somewhere," Alec explained. "So even if it was at the same time, it shouldn't matter much."

"Oh right," Magnus replied. He had assumed everyone would want to stay with them, when really it was only his aunt who would have ended up in their guest room. Even after all this time, he still wasn't quite used to the Lightwood way of doing things.

"I think Mom and dad might prefer if we go see them," Alec explained.

"I can't get away from the museum right now," Magnus said. "Okay, well I guess that's not true since they aren't paying me, but I'd rather not right now. We are still half way through setting up the exhibit."

"What about in July?" Alec suggested. "Your exhibit should be all set up by then, right?"

"Yes," Magnus confirmed. "And if we are traveling anyway, should we maybe visit my aunt as well, save her the trip?"

"Sure why not," Alec smiled. "I'd like to see the house you grew up in."

Magnus laughed. "That house was long ago torn down. Where she's at now, she's only lived in for maybe five years."

"I can't imagine that," Alec said. "I think my parents house was handed down from my grandfather, so my parents were probably raised there too."

"Now that is hard to imagine," Magnus laughed. "Too many memories in one place if you ask me."

Yes, I am a fan of both Sims and Weird Al. How did you guess?

Guest Review:
I just read like this whole thing in two days. Now I'm dissapointed that I have to wait for more

My reply:
Hehe this story is stupid long so I totally get that. Actually I've been there. Lucky for you I usually update very quickly though maybe not for the next little while. This last week has been a fluke. I can't remember when I last went a week without writing! It felt so wrong.
I also have 5 other Mortal Instruments fanfics and original content on FictionPress. Lots more to read while you wait!

Sneak Peek Chapter 93

"I'll think about it," Simon said. He had to admit it made sense. This place was on the fourth floor of a beautiful apartment complex, with modern room layouts. He could tell the place had been renovated within the last few years, probably just before Alec got the place. Magnus's apartment was slightly smaller and had an older feel to it. The style at Magnus's was very retro with cupboard from the 60s and wooden paneling on the walls. This place had stainless steel appliances and pastel walls.

"I have to ask," Simon said. "When you guys all decided to apartment swap why didn't Alec and Magnus move in here and you guys take the cheaper place?"

"This apartment complex has a no pet rule," Clary explained. "They couldn't have brought the cats and even if they could Magnus didn't want to move them."

"Ah, makes sense," Simon replied. "Still didn't really work out for you two if you can't afford the place."

"Alec didn't tell me how much it was costing him," Jace whined. "Best friend or not he can be such a snob sometimes."

"I don't think he thinks about money the way other people do," Clary added. "He doesn't see it as something that matters I guess. It's just there and he doesn't think much about it."

"Because he has it," Jace sighed. "I gotta get a job."