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Alec couldn’t sleep.
The room was silent aside from Magnus’ soft, steady breaths, and he tried to focus on the way his boyfriend’s chest rose and fell against his back, but it was no use. He couldn’t stop picturing his mother being deruned, the pained screams leaving her throat as they were removed one by one, the set of her jaw as she tried to put on a brave face for the people she had sacrificed her own wellbeing for over and over again.
He wasn’t sad, or scared, or even really surprised now that he had time to digest the information. He was furious.
He felt like someone was pouring lava into his blood, like if he made one wrong move he would burn whatever he touched. Him and his mom had never seen eye to eye on much, but one thing he couldn’t deny was that she was incomparably devoted to the Clave and its mission. She spent years upon years trying to earn back their trust, to salvage what little pride she had left after all of the damage she had helped cause.
She made terrible decisions, ones that still made Alec sick sometimes when he thought about them, but she had been working tirelessly to turn it around since she realized what she’d done. For the Clave to randomly decide to make her relive all of it and suffer a fate worse than others who were just as guilty was unforgivable, and he wouldn’t stand for it.
He had heard everything his mother said to him. She didn’t want him to sacrifice his own position and standing with the Clave for her, but if there was anything he’d learned in the past few months, it was that fighting for what was right was always worth it in the end. It wouldn’t come without hardships, and definitely not without consequences, but he refused to stand back and allow his family to suffer. He would not stay idle while his father, who was guilty of more than just betraying the Clave, barely got a slap on the wrist.
The Clave was corrupted, blinded by their hatred and fear. They had strayed so far off the path that they vowed to be on that Alec was unsure if they would ever open their eyes wide enough to head back in the right direction, but they didn’t have a choice anymore.
“My generation nearly destroyed everything in our passion to fix it. Yours will have to be wiser,” his mother had said, her eyes alight and sincerity dripping from every word, and she was right.
He would be wiser, and he would fight every member of the Clave with his bare hands if he had to. He controlled his own fate, and he would no longer let the generation before him taint his life.
If it turned into a revolution, then so be it.