It All Started with Biology (Clace AU)

Chapter 1

September 3, 2015
6 A.M.
Wayland, U.S.
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The rain drizzled down the window by Clary's bed, making a soft pattering noise. She very cautiously opened her eyes to peek at the time, groaning when she realized it was time to wake up. It was the first day of school. More specifically, the first day of senior year.
Clary flung the comforter off and an instant rush of cold air hit her body. She dragged herself out of bed and to the bathroom to take a shower. She had been dreading this day for the past month. The day when she would face the horrible reality that is taking 5 AP classes during the same school year. She cheered herself up at the thought of her best friend, Simon Lewis, being in some of the same classes as her.
The ride to school was uneventful, except for the obnoxious freshmen on the bus, feeling as if they had to prove that they were real high schoolers. They shouted and threw stuff at each other, taking up the back half of the school bus. Clary just rolled her eyes and turned her music up. She couldn't wait until she could afford to buy a car and wouldn't have to take the sardine can to Hell every day.
In fact, most of her day was uneventful, right up until AP Biology, during fifth period.
Clary walked into the classroom, already exhausted from lugging around four textbooks and her backpack. She wanted to get her last period of the day out of the way so that she could go home and take a long bubble bath. However, fate had a different idea.
It turned out that she had taken too long to get from lunch and that the seat beside Simon was already taken. She caught his eye and gave him a terrified look. His eyes apologized for him and seemed to say "I'll explain later." She looked away to see where there were any open seats. The only one left was behind a blond guy whose face she couldn't see.
Clary walked over to the last long, black lab table in the back row and pulled out the stool. She plopped down and began to get her stuff settled when she looked over to see who her new Bio partner was.
Jace Herondale.
She did a quick double-take. There was no way Jace Freaking Herondale would be in an AP class, let alone an AP science course! She didn't realize she was staring until he turned his golden gaze towards her.
"What are you looking at, Carrot Top?" He asked, smirking at her. "Do I have something on my face, or is it that I'm too attractive to look away from?" Clary, snapping out of a sort of trance, shook her head and gave him a disgusted look before turning away.
"For your information, I was not staring because you were 'too attractive'-" she put in air quotes, "I was simply startled that you had a long enough attention span to meet the requirements for an AP course." Jace feigned hurt and turned away, just as the teacher walked in.
Mrs. Sneider was a short, scatter-brained, Asian woman who liked to give her students coffee when class was in the morning. She closed the door to her office and strolled over to her desk to place her laptop and binders down before standing at the front of the classroom and smiling at us.
"Hello, AP students! It's so nice to see a new batch of bright, young faces ready to learn about science!" She continued to give a welcome back speech. Jace yawned dramatically and leaned back in his chair, clearly not interested in what she was saying.
"Well, I guess we better get started! Open your textbooks to page 12. I want you to read until page 28 and answer questions 1-10 at the end of the section." Once she sat down at her desk, Jace fluffed up his hoodie and placed it on his side of the lab table.
"Wake me up when the bell rings," he said before laying his head down to take a nap. Clary rolled her eyes at him.
"It's your grade you're sacrificing, not mine," she mumbled before grabbing her highlighter to start reading. Ten minutes later, a hand slowly reaches over and slides one of her pencils off the table. Clary turned her head to see Jace, with his eyes still closed, smiling slightly, in the same position as before. She rolled her eyes again and reached down to pick up her pencil.
"If you could please not touch my stuff, that would be greatly appreciated," she said to him and continued to work. Well, she tried to, anyway. Every few minutes, she would get wrapped up in the text, but Jace would break her out by dropping her stuff on the floor. Every time she would roll her eyes, causing her to worry if they would fall out by the end of the year.
Fifteen minutes went by without Jace throwing her stuff around, so Clary began to relax, thinking maybe he had finally fallen asleep. That's when she felt a tug on her scalp.
The bastard was tugging on her hair!
Clary reached over and slapped his hand away with her ruler, accidentally yanking out a few strands of hair. "Don't touch me," she hissed at him, glaring daggers. "Mind your own business and stop distracting me from my schoolwork." That was when Jace smirked and raised his hand high in the air.
"Ms. Sneider, Clary keeps talking and disrupting my concentration," he called out to the oblivious teacher. Clary's eyes widened in disbelief. That liar! He was the one distracting her, not the other way around!
"Clary, please focus on your own work and do not interfere with others'," Ms. Sneider responded, barely looking up from her computer. Clary sighed heavily and glanced at the clock. 2:00. School was over in five minutes and she could finally be free from the arrogant idiot she shared a table with. She closed her textbook and started to pack away her belongings, making a mental list of her homework. Since most of her classmates had packed up and were standing, Clary walked over to Simon's lab table.
Simon had been her best friend for as long as she could remember. They did everything together, from movie night/sleepovers to working at the same store in the mall. He was kind of a nerd. Okay, really a nerd. He watched a lot of Star Wars and Star Trek, he read manga and watched anime, he knew the entire script of the Lord of The Rings movie and could recite it on command, and he was almost always playing video games. Still, she loved him any way. They were like brother and sister.
"I'm so sorry about that! I wasn't expecting Alyssa to sit next to me. I mean, she's one of those popular girls and I'm not one of those popular guys, and it was super surprising and I was all like 'whaaat?' and I didn't object when I should have told her that the seat was reserved, and now you're stuck sitting next to Jace Herondale who was probably annoying the crap out of you, and I'm really sorry. Is there any way I can make it up to you?" He said all of this in one huge breath. Clary just smirked at him and punched him lightly in the arm.
"It's fine, you dork. I know it's not your fault, Alyssa just wanted to copy your answers because you're smart and she's lacking a little between the ears." Simon laughed at that, rubbing the back of his neck. "Anyway, do you want to come over and have an X-Men marathon? My mom is going to be at her studio until ten or so, because Bill wants her to finish this really hard painting by Friday's show."
"Sure, you know I'm always up for a good Marvel movie."

A/N: I won't do these every time, but if I have something important to say, then I will.
In my version of the universe, Jace's parents aren't dead, so he wasn't taken in by the Lightwoods. However, he is still friends with them (as seen later on) and Alec and Izzy are twins (Max is still alive). Valentine was Clary's birth father who died when she was six (Jocelyn kept her maiden name and her kids hyphenated until they chose a last name they preferred) and Luke is still her mother's best friend. Sebastian is Clary's older brother who is in college across the country. All characters who are Shadowhunters at some point in the books have their Shadowhunter surnames.
Sorry that was so long. If I forgot any other technicalities, let me know.
Kendall