Chapter Text
“You want me to…” Jace began, not fully believing what he was hearing. Or, more like, he didn’t want to believe what he was hearing.
“I want you to take Rafe and Max to the mall,” Alec repeated, patiently. He had always been the most patient of the Lightwood siblings, but this had exponentially increased somehow since he had become a father. “I promised that they could go see Santa Claus.”
Jace closed his eyes. “But why can’t you or Magnus take them?” he tried, desperately.
Alec folded his arms. “Because it’s Magnus’s birthday and I’m taking him out to lunch. Mom cancelled on me at the last minute because she has an important meeting.” He narrowed his eyes. “Is there a particular reason why you don’t want to take them to see Santa?”
I’ve never been alone with both of them at once and I’m terrified of messing up, Jace wanted to say. Also terrified of what you or Magnus would do to me if I broke your children.
He didn’t say any of this, however. He just sighed. It looked like he was taking two small children to see Santa Claus.
***
Clary pulled at the hem of the elf costume as if this would magically make it longer and turned from the mirror she had been critiquing her appearance in to scowl at her best friend. “This has got to be one of the worst ideas you have ever had.”
Simon put his arm around Clary’s shoulders with a cheery grin. “I think you may be giving me way too much credit. I’m sure I’ve had way worse ideas than this. Remember that time-”
“Alright,” Clary cut him off. “This is still a bad idea. Why did I let you talk me into it again?”
“Because you’re flat broke and you need the money to buy your mom that ridiculously expensive set of pencils despite the fact that we both know she would be happy with the set from the art supply store that’s a tenth of the price?”
Clary glared at him and Simon backed off slightly, hands up placatingly in front of him. Clary released her annoyance with a sigh and turned back to the mirror. Simon stood beside her again, looking into the mirror with her.
“You ready, Santa’s little elf?”
Sighing again, Clary tried one last tug at the hemline, but it didn’t magically grow several inches as she’d hoped.
“Ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.”
***
Jace was in his own personal nightmare.
It was like someone had looked into every bad dream he’d had in the last couple of months and stuffed it all into one department store. It was horrific. Kids were screaming, tinsel was being thrown about, and the same five Christmas songs had been playing on repeat for the last hour reception; which was how long he’d been stuck in line to see Santa Claus.
Max and Rafe were getting restless. Well, “getting restless” may be underestimating. Max face was turning red and he looked like he might cry any second and Rafe kept trying to run off to look at the displays. By the time they had gotten close to the front of the queue, Jace was exhausted. He wasn’t sure how Alec and Magnus managed to deal with two small children day in and day out. He had only had them for the afternoon and he was already swearing off ever having kids of his own.
Jace was almost considering giving up on the kids seeing Santa and trying to think how he would explain it to a) the kids and b) Alec, when Rafe spotted a Big Hero 6 collection on the shelves to the right and his eyes widened.
“Baymax!”
He was off like a shot and Jace nearly dropped Max in his panic.
“Rafe!” Jace yelled, fear gripping him as the six-year-old ran towards a display of toys. Several shoppers twisted sharply out of the child's way as he moved with single-minded purpose. One woman, however, was not so lucky.
She was just coming around a corner, carrying a load of brightly wrapped presents when Rafe, going too fast to slow down in time, crashed headfirst into her.
It was like watching it in slow motion. Presents went flying in all directions. Rafe had been going at such a speed that he rebounded and landed on his behind several feet away. The woman – a pretty redhead close to Jace's own age, it seemed – had a look of surprise on her face as she toppled backwards. Her head hit the ground with a thump Jace could hear from 15 feet away, red hair splayed around her head like a halo.
His only thoughts as he rushed towards both child and woman were about how he hoped he didn’t have to explain to Alec and Magnus how their son had killed someone.
***
Clary opened her eyes. Her body felt like it had been hit by a steam train. She groaned softly and shut her eyes again. The light hurt her head.
“Ma’am?” a panicked man’s voice sounded from somewhere around her. “Are you okay?”
A child was crying, too.
“I didn’ mean to! I didn’ mean to! ’m sorry! ’m sorry! ’m sorry!”
Clary tried to sit up, eyes still screwed shut against the bright lights.
“Maybe you shouldn’t get up?” the voice suggested, worriedly. “You hit your head pretty hard.”
“’m fine,” Clary grunted. She almost lost her balance, but arms steadied her before she could fall back down again.
“Clarissa?”
That was her manager’s voice.
“Are you well enough to come into the office? We can sit you down and get you a drink.”
That sounded nice. Clary risked the pain and opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was the man that was still holding onto her. He was kneeling on the floor next to her with a toddler in his other arm. He had fine, curly blond hair and eyes that seemed almost golden in the department store lighting. His face was beautiful and it took Clary an embarrassingly long time to realize that she was staring. Well, she might have a concussion, so she would just have to be forgiven later.
She pulled her eyes from the beautiful man ad looked around her. Just behind the man was a small boy who was sobbing and clinging on to his t-shirt, still proclaiming to everyone that he was sorry.
Clary’s heart melted and she reached for the boy, touching his arm softly, causing him to jump. This stopped his proclamations, but didn’t stop his crying.
“Hey,” Clary said softly. “Hey, I know you’re sorry. I know. It’s okay, it’s okay,” she soothed.
The boy cried harder and buried his face into the man’s shirt.
Clary looked the other way and saw Mrs. Appleby, her manager, knelt on her on the floor on her other side. There was a crowd forming down the aisle and the other Elves were helping keep everyone back, out of the way.
“Can you get up, Clarissa?” Mrs. Appleby asked.
Clary nodded, although it hurt her head to do so. She had to use the support of both Mrs. Appleby and the man with the children to get to her feet, but she managed it, wobbling dangerously when they tried to let go of her. Once upright, she felt like she was going to hurl.
“I think you need to go to the Emergency Room,” Mrs. Appleby said, worriedly.
“I can take her,” the man said. “My car’s in the parking lot. I just have to call my brother to come pick up his kids. This whole thing is my fault anyway. I should have kept a better hold on Rafe.”
He looked really upset about the whole thing, so Clary smiled wobblily at Mrs. Appleby. “I’ll be fine. Mr… er…”
“Lightwood,” the man finished for her. “Jace Lightwood.”
“Mr. Lightwood can take me to the Emergency Room, and I can get out while I still have a shred of dignity left,” Clary joked.
Mrs. Appleby chuckled slightly.
“Okay, let’s get you all into the office, so you can call your brother Mr. Lightwood.”
***
The day really couldn’t get any worse, Jace thought as he quickly brought up Alec’s number on his cell and called him. Max was quietly drawing on some printer paper that Mrs. Appleby brought out for him and Rafe was now curled in the lap of the woman he had knocked out ten minutes before. She’d only been unconscious for a few seconds, but they had been the longest of Jace’s life. The woman was now trying to reassure Rafe that she wasn’t mad at him and she wasn’t hurt a lot.
“Jace? What’s wrong?” Alec answered the call. “Didn’t expect you to call this early.”
“You’re going to have to come pick up Max and Rafe,” Jace started. “Rafe ran off in the department store and knocked a woman over and she banged her head. I’m going to take her to the Emergency Room to get checked out and I didn’t think bringing two small children with me was the best idea.”
“Yeah, definitely not a good idea,” Alec said faintly. Jace could almost see the pained expression on his brother’s face. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
It took less than twenty minutes for Alec and Magnus to arrive. It was enough time to catch that the woman’s name was Clary Fray and this was her first day on the job. Definitely a first day to remember, Jace though, sighing to himself.
Alec and Magnus were ushered into the office by a harried employee. Rafe was out of Clary’s arms like a shot, throwing himself at Magnus and babbling in Spanish, as he often did when upset. Jace didn’t speak any Spanish, but Magnus was fluent in several languages and was teaching Alec.
Magnus picked up his son and murmured softly to him, stroking his hair. Alec bent down next to Max and attempted to coax him away from his drawing.
Jace saw movement out of the corner of his eye and saw that Clary had slumped, seeming to be falling asleep.
“Hey!” he called, rushing over and shaking her arm. “I don’t think you’re meant to fall asleep if you have a concussion. Right?” he called over his shoulder.
Alec and Magnus both shrugged, arms full of children.
“You’re so helpful,” Jace said, rolling his eyes.
Clary blinked. “’m tired,” she mumbled.
“Okay. I think we’d better get you to the ER,” Jace decided.
***
Clary’s head hurt and she threw up in the parking lot. Apart from that, she doesn’t remember a whole lot about how she got into Jace Lightwood’s car.
“Please don’t throw up in here,” Jace begged her, as he helped buckle her seatbelt when she couldn’t do it after her third attempt, her hands seemingly not co-operating with her.
“Can’t promise,” Clary murmured, closing her eyes and leaning against the door.
The drive didn’t take very long and Jace kept talking to her the whole way. He told her about the kids he’d had with him. His nephews, he told her. Max and Rafael. They were his brother’s children, both adopted. Max had been with them since he was a baby, but Rafe had only been with them a year. Jace’s brother, Alec, and his husband, Magnus, had found Rafael living on the streets in Buenos Aires.
“I’m not used to both at the same time,” Jace admitted. “I babysat Max when he was a baby, but the last year, I got busy with my final year of college, then grad school… I’ve not really spent as much time with Rafe.”
He sounded a bit guilty, so Clary changed the subject. “You’re at grad school? I’m doing my MFA. What do you study?”
“Classics,” Jace answered, pulling into the hospital parking lot. “It’s okay. Fine Art, though. You have to have real talent for that.”
Clary blushed. “I had a good teacher. My mom’s an artist. She’s better than me.”
“She’s just been doing it longer,” Jace replied. It sounded like he was quoting, so Clary looked at him questioningly.
“Maryse – Alec’s mom – used to say that to me when I was younger,” he told her. “When I wanted to give up on something because people were better than me. Sports, spelling bees, you name it. I was a competitive child and if I wasn’t immediately the best, I wanted to give up.”
They pulled into a parking spot. Clary frowned as she undid her seatbelt. “You say ‘Alec’s mom’, but you call Alec your brother. What’s the story there?”
Jace got out of the car and ran around to Clary’s side, helping her out. “Alec’s parents took me in after my father died. I was ten. Robert had been my father’s best friend when they were younger. They adopted me when I was sixteen.”
He had to help Clary get to the building. She almost threw up a couple more times, but managed to get inside without incident. She knew that when she could think clearly, she would be mortified about all of this.
***
Jace insisted on staying in case Clary needed a ride home. He didn’t feel okay about just abandoning her in the Emergency Room. It took over an hour to be seen by a doctor, who proclaimed that Clary did indeed have concussion. Jace could have told him that, but he bit his tongue.
“Take some aspirin and get plenty of rest,” the doctor recommended.
Jace frowned. “I thought people with concussion weren’t supposed to sleep?”
The doctor shook his head. “A myth. The opposite, actually. The brain needs plenty of sleep to recover. Although, you should be supervised for the first 48 hours in case the symptoms get any worse. Do you have someone who can stay with you for a few days?”
Clary nodded. “I live with my mom and she works from home.”
“Okay. No alcohol, try to avoid computer screens for a few days, and ensure you keep eating and drinking water, no matter how nauseated you feel.”
They were out quite quickly after that.
“I’ll drive you home,” Jace told her. Clary nodded and gave him the address.
She fell asleep on the way home. Jace glanced over a few times. Just to make sure she was okay, he told himself. Nothing at all to do with how beautiful she looked.
He pulled up outside of Clary’s apartment building and gently shook her awake. She mumbled some nonsense words and tried to swat at his hand.
“Come on, Clary,” he encouraged. “You’re home.”
Clary leaned against him all the way up to her apartment. When they got to the right door, she fumbled with her bag, presumably trying to find her keys, but it didn’t seem to be happening.
“Your mom in?” Jace asked her. She nodded, so he just knocked on the door.
A woman who looked very much like an older version of Clary opened the door and her eyes widened in alarm.
“Clary! Are you okay?!”
Clary stumbled forwards into her mother’s arms and mumbled tiredly into her sweater.
“She has a concussion, Mrs. Fray,” Jace explained. “There was an incident at the department store. My five-year-old nephew ran into her and knocked her over. She hit her head on the ground. I took her to the Emergency Room and they said that she just needs plenty of rest and someone to watch her for the first 48 hours.”
“Thank you Mr…” Clary’s mother trailed off, waiting for a response. She was softly stroking her daughter’s hair.
“Lightwood. Jace,” Jace told her.
“Thank you, Jace, for taking her to the ER and for bringing her home. I’m Jocelyn Garroway. I remarried not too long ago.” Jocelyn maneuvered her daughter into the apartment and laid her down on the couch, where she seemed to instantly drop off to sleep. Jocelyn grabbed a blanket that had been folded up, hanging over the back of the couch, and laid it over her daughter.
She turned back to Jace, who had been watching the interaction. His mother had dies when he was born, and Maryse hadn’t been overly maternal, instead trying to push her children to learn and better themselves. He’d never really experienced the level of affection that Jocelyn showed Clary. He knew the Lightwoods loved him, and each other, but they didn’t really show affection that way.
“You should come to dinner tomorrow,” Jocelyn told him.
Jace blinked. “Wha-?”
“As a thank you. For taking Clary to the ER. For getting her home,” said Jocelyn.
Frowning, Jace said “But it’s kinda my fault she got hurt in the first place. If I’d been paying better attention…”
Jocelyn shook her head. “Trust me, I know how hard it is to look after small children. At least your nephew didn’t get hurt. Five-year-olds are decidedly more breakable than my twenty-two-year-old daughter.”
Jace bit his lip, but decided. He’d quite like to see Clary again. “Sure, I’ll come.”