City of Time

What We Have Done (Part I)

JACE POV 

I loved her. I had always loved her. From that first moment after she came stumbling out from behind the pillar in the closet of Pandemonium, to right then. All of that love, and all of the things we had been through, and a little baby was tearing us apart.

I hadn't moved from where I sat on my side of our bed in hours. In fact the only reason I had moved since Isabelle and Alec had left was to check my phone when it got a text. Unsurprisingly it was from Isabelle. "Three hours" was all it had said.

That had been over two and a half hours ago. If I was lucky I had maybe fifteen minutes before it happened. At that point I still wasn't sure what I was going to choose. If I chose to save the baby there was no guarantee that Clary would live. And if I chose her there was a one hundred percent chance that the baby wouldn't live.

The more I thought about it the more I became sure that I was making the right decision. My choice wasn't going to make everyone happy, but it was what seemed right to me. I knew what I was going to do.
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ISABELLE POV

"Please, just a few more minutes," I pleaded with the nurse.

"I'm sorry," the burse apologized," But we should have started prepping her for surgery half an hour ago. We've given you enough time."

"You don't understand how much she gave up to have this baby. I want to give her husband the benefit of the doubt, and hold out just a little bit longer in case he does decide to come."

The nurse sighed. Giving me sympathetic look, she reluctantly stopped her work. She then pulled up a chair, and sat down on the opposite side of the bed. I could tell that she had done this before. Enough times to be easy persuaded to stop.

As she sat there I wondered how many lives she had seen ruined in this room. How many babies she had seen die.

"Then why am I prepping her for surgery? Why were the papers signed?" she asked.

"The same reason why she's in this hospital bed. She loves her child so much that she would do anything for it. Her mother signed the papers because she doesn't want to lose her daughter."

"And I'm guessing that the father is indifferent."

"He pretends to be, but I think that he'll come through," I told her.

She was about to respond, when an older woman stalked into the room with an annoyed look on her face.

"Why isn't Mrs. Herondale prepped?" the woman asked," She's already supposed to have been in the OR."

I could tell that the nurse was going to try to make something up. I wasn't going to put her through that. It was my fault, not hers.

"I asked her to give me more time," I interjected.

"You're not a direct family member. You can't make these decisions," the doctor told me.

"I'm her sister-in-law."

The other nurse sat completely silent and motionless. Whoever this was, I knew that she was someone to be feared. But I was a Shadowhunter, so naturally I prepared to take her down.

"You still have no say in happens," explained the nurse/doctor, or whatever you call it.

"No," someone said from the doorway," She may not, but I do."

Damn, I was about to go all Isabelle on her, and make her regret her existence. But that thought disappeared the moment that I looked over. It was Jace standing in the doorway. He was there. I felt my chest leap. I knew that I shouldn't doubt him, despite his previous shortcomings.