Running Away From Jace

Valentine's Arrow

"Bullshit," Allison spat.

Clary shook her head, her tongue lead in her mouth. "No," what else could she say?

"You are not trying to tell me that I'm related to Sebastian Morgenstern!" Allison shouted, her hands moving like she wanted to flip something, punch a hole through Clary. "I am not a Morgenstern!"

But in the dark look that crossed her daughter's face Clary could clearly see Valentine and Sebastian looking back at her. Could see Sebastian as Clary had betrayed him at the Citadel, could see Valentine's shock when the Angel told him Clary had written her own name in the sand.

She knew the things young Shadowhunters were taught in their history lessons - the Morgensterns, once an esteemed family, were the monsters that had nearly destroyed everything. Valentine had tried to kill every last Downworlder and Sebastian had nearly burned the world and built his throne from the ashes.

Clary's stomach tightened and her tongue felt leaden in her mouth. She hadn't wanted Allison to find out this way, hadn't wanted her to find out at all. But she was Valentine's daughter and she'd heard Diana call her daughter Allison Morgenstern. It was a truth she had come to terms with a long time ago; she was Valentine's daughter. It was like hearing the whispers all over again only the awful voices in her whispered Allison Morgenstern instead of Clarissa Morgenstern.

Valentine's descendent, Sebastian's blood.

Morgenstern.

XXX

Allison shut herself in her room, leaving Clary alone to relive Sebastian's death over and over again. When she blinked she saw Valentine's ship be destroyed, with every inhale she felt Jace's heavenly fire as it consumed them. Every exhale she felt her stomach drop at the sight of Alicante's demon towers alight like beacons.

A war hero, that's what she'd been called returning from the demon realms. But she hadn't felt like a hero at all. She laughed at it now - sure, she and her friends saved the world, but what good did being called war heroes do them? Clary distinctly remembered the sound of Isabelle screaming in the dead of night like she was being murdered, only come to find she was dreaming of Sebastian bashing in her little brother's head.   

She remembered with exact clarity the look on Jace's face when he'd crawled through her window in Alicante, sure of his death and proud to give his life for the cause even if it meant losing her.

Clary remembered his voice, the heat of his words as he told her he had too much of Valentine in him to ever have a family. She remembered finding a little black box with the prettiest emerald diamond ring underneath his pillow the same night. 

And then, she remembered better than anything else, looking down at her positive pregnancy test and crying.