Running Away From Jace

Crack And Splinter

The smell of crisp autumn leafs, the bright colours and space-hungry buildings of New York that Clary had once found comfort in no longer gave her that same sense of home, reassurance, and safety that they once did.

In fact, she would have rather been on the run again than return to New York. Every where she went, every corner she turned, a memory sprang up, and she'd freeze. Allison would ask what was wrong, at first it was gently and alert, and when her daughter later realized it was bound to happen at every intersection they crossed, she became snappish and irritated.

Clary couldn't blame her. She would have done the same thing had Jocelyn stopped every few inches, haunted by memories. Allison didn't care about her past, and she didn't want to, either. But that just wasn't how it worked.

"Are we almost there?" Allison said impatiently, looking up to the darkening sky. The heavy clouds overhead held the promise of rain, and Clary didn't want to be outside when it poured. Would it sound pitiful if she said her chest contracted with the thought of the few blissful, yet painful minutes in that rainy alley in Alphabet City with Jace? She swore she could feel the rain dripping off her face, her wet eyelashes clinging to her under eyes, the hard brick wall behind herself with the fabric of her dress clinging to her teenage form; Jace's eyes dark and cloudy with something she had yet to decipher as his experienced fingers danced across her skin. His touch burned her skin, and she would have sworn his lips were still travelling slowly down her jaw to her neck if Allison wasn't stood beside her, waiting impatiently for the light to change.

Clary could see it; the brownstone. It was nearly the same as the one Jocelyn and she had shared for so many years. There, however, was the exception of a (sort of) witch not living downstairs and there was no dirt-clouded skylight for Luke to clean.

Something inside of her cracked at the thought that not even Luke, kind-hearted, soft, blue-eyed Luke, didn't know where she was, if she was even still alive. Luke didn't know he had a granddaughter, neither did Jocelyn, and biting down on what was left of her worn nails was all she could to not let the rest of her carefully-maintained self splinter and fall apart right there on the dirt-caked New York sidewalk.

XXX

Allison, despite her whines and protests about walking any further, was continuously, incessantly pacing the length of the brownstone's living room. It had gotten old the minute her daughter had stood from where she had previously collapsed onto the bare wood floor of the apartment.

This place, though, Clary thought as she gazed up at the blank ceiling, a few stains spattered in a few random spots, didn't hold anything but potential. There was nothing she could possibly look at here to make whatever that was left inside of her unbroken to break.

But something in her mind told her otherwise. Look at Allison, look at her, the voice seemed to whisper against the shell of her ear.

And so she did, only to find one of the last remaining pieces inside of her shatter, the shards scattering throughout her body; she looked like him, like love and happiness and home. Like everything she had left behind to give the blonde girl in front of her a chance.

Nothing, she knew, had ever hurt as badly as watching her little girl's profile in that very moment.

XXX

The next morning, with a hand tangled in some mussed curls and her eyes still half-lidded and crusted with sleep, Clary nearly screamed at the sight of Allison downing a cup of coffee and pouring over a thick piece of paper with precise writing upon it.

Her Clave summons.

"Found this on the doorstep this morning at the ass-crack of dawn," Allison said, though not softly, nor accusingly. "I think it's a notice from the landlord about rent or something, but I'm not entirely sure." She handed the paper over to her.

Under her unsure, semi-scrutinizing gaze, something about the paper flickered and rippled, almost as if—as if—

It had been glamoured.

When had been the last time Clary, herself, had used a glamour? She might have been in her early twenties, if she recalled correctly. Then again, there wasn't much from those years she liked to recall.

Her life was a poor and miserable thing for a Shadowhunter, wasn't it? No Shadowhunter would gladly present the kind of life she had chosen. She had been a coward to run the way she had, yet she could not bring herself to regret her decision. No matter how every part of her had hurt, almost as she had been severed from half of herself, when she'd run.

XXX

Clary found soon enough that she was doing most of the things she hadn't done in years, and she wasn't quite sure how to feel about it. On one hand, she still felt the thrill of the stele gracing her skin, branding her skin with that dark black ink she had become so familiar with, she still felt a rush of adrenaline when she strapped on some weapons, when slipping back into her barely used gear.

On the other hand, the redhead felt the consequences of all the aspects of Shadowhunting she enjoyed: she would forever have those little tick-mark-like scars upon her skin, she would constantly be reminded that she had to carry weapons on her person to avoid being brutally murdered by something completely and wholly otherworldly.

The balance she had somehow once maintained, with one foot in the mundane world, and one foot in the Shadow World, had been disrupted, and no longer could she find that same balance.

Staring up at the exquisitely crafted doors leading into the Institute, she glanced back at the road behind her, at the water getting splashed at pedestrians by oncoming traffic, going at speeds surely illegal—not that anyone really cared. It was New York, after all—she was reminded, coincidentally, of that lost equilibrium between the two worlds she both loved and adored.