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Isabelle was hysterical when she arrived at Magnus’ flat, all but breaking down his door as she pounded on it desperately.
“It’s Max,” she said, the second Magnus opened the door. “He was attacked by a spider demon, we don’t know if he’s going to make it.”
“Tell me everything about the attack,” said Magnus, already opening a portal to the Institute.
It took three hours until Max was finally in stable condition. Magnus stepped back, allowing the boy’s family to fret over him in relief. He left quietly, but Isabelle was always the perceptive one and followed him out of the room.
“Thank you, Magnus,” she said with sincerity. “I don’t know what we would have done if…” she trailed off, unable to finish that horrible thought.
“The nephilim should keep a better eye on their children,” said Magnus. Usually he had no business what the nephilim chose or did not choose to do, but today he was wary and he pinched his nose tiredly. “Max is young, had no business being anywhere near a demon.”
“I know,” Isabelle looked at the floor. “We should’ve been more careful, especially after… well. Especially after Alec.”
Magnus didn’t know whether he should prod further, judging by the droop in Isabelle’s lips and the sudden tears in her eyes. He softened his voice. “Alec?” he asked.
Isabelle nodded, blinking back the tears as quickly as they’d come. “My older brother,” she explained. “He was killed by a demon when he was nineteen.”
Too young, thought Magnus. “I’m so sorry,” he said. He had never known that Isabelle had had an older brother other than Jace. But, that was the start to Magnus’ lengthy obsession with somebody who was long dead.
oOo
Once, after an unsanctioned mission, Magnus teleported Jace and Isabelle back to the Institute when they saw Maryse Lightwood storming down the hall towards them. She came to an abrupt halt in front of her daughter, raising her arm as if to slap her right across the face, but then seemed to think better of it.
“Where were you?” she hissed.
Isabelle, to her credit, held her ground. “There was a disturbance in Manhattan. We detected an odd burst of magic mixed with demonic activity - ”
“I told you to stay here, you’re acting Head of the Institute. We were waiting on a call from the Council, what if we’d missed it?”
For a moment, Isabelle’s jaw set, headstrong attitude seeming to get the better of her. Then, she visibly bit back her temper and said, “The activity we detected was powerful. It could have been dangerous if we didn’t investigate immediately.”
Maryse nodded, lips thinning into an unimpressed smile. “And? Did you find anything?”
“No.”
“Of course not, because you were wrong. You’re as naive as you’ve ever been, and you have a long way to go before you can step into your brother’s shoes as the future Head of the Institute.”
“Don’t use Alec against me like that!”
“Then don’t give me a reason to!” Maryse raised her voice to match Isabelle’s. “You’re the oldest Lightwood now, so you better act like it. I won’t tolerate something like this again.” With that, the she spun on her heels and marched off, leaving Jace and Magnus in stunned silence.
Jace patted Isabelle’s shoulder awkwardly. “She’s only like that because she cares,” he said. When Isabelle shot him a murderous glare, he quickly retreated. “Um, I’ll go and see if, uh, if anyone needs anything.”
“He’s only like that because he cares,” Magnus echoed as Jace ran off down the hall, and Isabelle couldn’t help but chuckle. He gave her a moment to pull herself together. “Tea at my place?” he offered, when she finally managed to smile at him reassuringly.
“I’d like that,” she said.
The perks of having magic was that it took less than twenty minutes for Magnus to push a cup of oolong into Isabelle’s hands, and they sat with their legs crossed on the couch, like two teenaged girls sharing secrets at a slumber party.
“I really miss him sometimes,” Isabelle said quietly after a long moment of silence.
“Alec,” Magnus acknowledged.
“He always played the role of the responsible one, the protector. Jace and I used to give him flack for being a stickler for the rules, but…” she stared into her teacup. “We needed him to be like that. He was the one that kept us out of trouble.”
“He must have been quite the character if he had any success keeping you two out of trouble,” said Magnus.
Isabelle laughed, almost upsetting her cup. “Only some of the times. Mostly we got in trouble anyways, and he’d sneak into my room and comfort me.”
A tear rolled down Isabelle’s cheek, falling into her tea and rippling the surface.
“He never told me ‘I told you so’, even if he did. He was always on my side, no matter what.”
Magnus watched sadly as Isabelle set her teacup on the coffee table in front of her and curled up with her head in her knees. Her body shook as she cried loudly, unabashedly, for a lost loved one.
“He sounds like a good brother,” Magnus murmured, placing a comforting hand on her back.
“I wish,” said Isabelle, when she’d calmed down enough to string together words, “I really wish that he were here.”
“Me too, Isabelle,” Magnus agreed, and was surprised by how much he meant those words.
This isn’t right, some guttural part of him told him. It’s not supposed to be like this.
oOo
Magnus was investigating a case for a client when he realized he had to call in a favour at the Institute to obtain files on a particular shadowhunter. For what he was sure was against her better judgement, Isabelle Lightwood agreed in a heartbeat and had the entire archives sent to his apartment.
After hours of flipping through documents, Magnus was nowhere close to finding a lead, having no idea who or even what characteristics he was looking for. He opened another file half-heartedly and was about to toss it aside when the photograph paperclipped to the top left corner caught his eyes.
A young man with familiar curls of black hair and stunningly sharp features stared up at him through the photograph. He looked so much like his sister, but his eyes were a striking hazel so different than Isabelle’s warm brown ones.
Magnus’ breath caught and he felt a sudden aching pain in his chest which he didn’t understand. He brushed a finger over Alec Lightwood’s photo, and for a second he could feel the boy’s soft cheek under his thumb, so inexplicably vivid it was like he’d done so before.
His heart hurt for the boy in the photo, so youthful and sure, who looked so familiar yet foreign at the same time.
With a jolt of surprise, Magnus realized that there were tears streaming down his cheeks. Wiping them away, bewildered, he snapped the folder shut and tossed it back into the box of files that he didn’t need.
oOo
After one of the periodic meetings the nephilim deigned to have with the representatives of various factions of downworlders, Magnus found himself taking a particular path through the halls of the Institute.
He stopped himself short when he realized what he was doing and prepared to head straight back to his apartment when something about the door in front of him called to him.
Cautiously, not for fear of being caught but for uncertainty over the cordiality of entering random rooms in the Institute, Magnus pushed the door open.
It was a bedroom. The first thing that struck Magnus as odd was that, although there were various personal belongings strewn around, the entire room was covered in a thick layer of dust indicating that it had been a long while since anyone had set foot inside. The second thing that occurred to him was that the room was meticulously tidy, so whoever owned it must have kept a clean room.
He didn’t know why, but he was beckoned inside. He’d been in this room before, he was certain, probably some odd number of decades ago when he had friends at the Institute.
As he crept further in the room, the quiet sounds of his footfalls contrasted against the silence. There was a black leather jacket hanging off the back of the desk chair, which Magnus reached for automatically. It felt oddly comforting.
There was a journal lying on the desk, the only thing that wasn’t placed tidily, as if the owner of the room hadn’t had the time to put it away carefully before they’d left, leaving it there haphazardly and never having the opportunity to come back for it.
Magnus knew who this room belonged to in that instant, but still the name etched on the cover of the journal was a confirmation that left his heart thudding.
Then, he would never able to explain why, he picked up the journal. Tucking it under his outer vest, he quickly left the room and portaled back to the apartment.
oOo
…It’s strange. Izzy and I have been training to hunt demons since we just learned to walk. And yet, Max is already eight, but I can’t imagine sending him off to fight a demon. He’s taken an interest in archery, though. I’m teaching him, just for fun. He can barely pull open his bowstring. He’s so fragile, he reminds me of a baby bird. I hope we can protect him for as long as possible.
Magnus closed the journal with a heavy heart. It was often difficult to read a person just from their diary, but Alexander Lightwood’s journal held such a strong sense of him that Magnus felt like he somehow knew him, just by reading the first couple entries.
Running his fingers over the leather, he traced the letters that were carved into the bottom corner of the cover.
A. G. Lightwood
“Alexander Gideon Lightwood,” Magnus said softly, and didn’t wonder how he knew Alec’s full name.
oOo
The pounding music and blinding lights at downworlder raves had always been Magnus’ element. Tonight, though, the blaring bass made his head hurt, and he found all the neon a bit too much.
Instead, he settled by the bar, throwing back mojitos.
Someone slid into the seat next to him. “Hello, handsome,” a fey girl grinned at him. She was remarkably beautiful, as all fey were, with large doe-like eyes and tongue poking cheekily between her teeth.
“Hello, beautiful,” Magnus turned his attention to her, and the girl lit up at his seeming interest.
Perhaps Magnus had a little too much to drink. He had no idea for how long nor what they talked about, but the next thing he was aware of was that she was straddling him on the barstool and kissing him.
“Wait, stop,” Magnus finally broke away when she put a hand under his shirt and ran it up his chest. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
The fey girl looked confused, maybe even a little offended, but Magnus couldn’t explain any more. He felt sick. Making his escape quickly, he all but slammed into the bathroom and retched into toilet.
After emptying the contents of his stomach, Magnus stumbled out of the stall and towards the sink.
“Too much to drink?” another man in the washroom asked in sympathy.
“Yeah,” Magnus lied.
Later, when he was alone in his bed with a mug of hot chocolate on his nightstand, Magnus wondered why he had been so repulsed by the kiss. The fey girl had been attractive, and it had been a long time since he’d been with anyone. Yet, the thought of being intimate with someone, even kissing someone, made his stomach churn. Made him feel wrong.
He absent-mindedly took a sip of his hot chocolate. His apartment felt lonelier and emptier than usual, these past few weeks.
oOo
On some level, Magnus knew he should respect a dead man’s privacy, but time after time he was drawn back to Alexander Lightwood’s journal.
Reading Alexander’s entries felt like talking to an old friend, like coming home and asking a loved one about their day. He read about Alec’s missions with his siblings, the disagreements he had with his parents, the yearning to make his family proud, the dedication to keeping his loved ones safe.
There were things about Alec’s journal that spoke more about its owners than the words on paper. Alec, for example, liked to draw in the margins. He was not a good artist, but his doodles were always entertaining. Alec also had a particular tone to his entries. Magnus could almost hear the dry humour in his words and, for all he was strict and proper, the boy had an unparalleled sense of wit and sarcasm that always made Magnus smile.
Sometimes, Magnus wished he’d only been able to meet him. Isabelle said Alec had been nineteen when he’d died, which was only four years ago. If only Magnus had been four years earlier, and they might have known each other. Been friends, even. For he knew as much as he felt like he knew Alexander Lightwood from his diary, in the end he’d never truly know the real Alec. The man he really was. The thought killed him, for some reason.
But then, why did Alec’s journal make him feel like coming home?
oOo
“You’ve been unusually quiet these past few weeks,” Catarina told him during a visit.
Magnus shrugged. “I’ve been busy with work.” He picked up his drink from the balcony railing.
Catarina pushed his hand back down and took the drink away from him. “You’ve been doing nothing but work. You haven’t talked to anyone besides your clients. When’s the last time you went out to a party?”
“Last week,” Magnus replied with forced cheerfulness. “Look, darling, I’m touched that you’re concerned. But there’s nothing wrong.”
“Don’t lie to me, Magnus, I haven’t seen you this mellow since. Well. Her.” Catarina gave a pointed look so that Magnus knew exactly who she was talking about. “Is that what this is? Are you lonely?”
“I have no desire to find a significant other,” Magnus replied.
“That’s not what I asked,” Catarina shot back. Magnus only shrugged.
“Maybe I’ll get a cat,” he said, and laughed when Catarina rolled her eyes.
oOo
On the last page that Alexander wrote in, there was only one sentence written.
Some secrets are too dangerous to write down even in a diary.
“Oh, Alexander,” Magnus says sadly, because he knew exactly what Alec had wanted to write down.
And that had been Alec’s last thought before he went off to die.
oOo
Magnus couldn’t let Alexander go.
He’d portaled Alexander’s journal back to his room now that he’d finished reading it. It was like losing someone dear to him.
oOo
There was a man standing in the field facing the sunrise.
Acutely aware that his legs were not his own to control, Magnus found himself standing right behind him.
“Alexander?” he said.
The man turned around. It wasn’t the same Alexander Lightwood whose photo had been stapled in the file. This Alec was older, how he would have been if he’d never died.
“Magnus,” he said, face splitting into a grin.
Magnus was taken aback. “How are you here? How do you know my name?”
Alexander looked at him funny. “What do you mean?” He cupped Magnus’ face. “How could I ever not know who you are?” He took in Magnus’ confused expression and began to frown. “Magnus, are you okay? Do you want to sit down?”
They were somehow in Magnus’ apartment. Alec lowered him onto the couch.
“I’m going to get you some water,” he said
Magnus grabbed onto his wrist as he got up. “Wait, stay.”
Concerned, Alec sat back down. “Okay, I’m not going anywhere.” As if to prove his point, he gripped onto Magnus’ hands tightly.
“Please don’t leave me again,” Magnus whispered, raising their intertwined hands to kiss Alec’s knuckles. “Promise me you won’t leave me again, Alexander.
“Alexander!”
Magnus sat straight up in bed, sobbing and gasping for air. The clock on his nightstand told him it was four in the morning. For a good ten minutes, Magnus sat there in the dark, clutching his chest and breathing raggedly.
It had been such an odd dream. And yet, it had been so warm; Magnus found himself clutching to the remnants of it, clutching at the sturdiness of Alexander’s arms as he lowered him onto the couch and the softness of his eyes as he asked if Magnus was okay.
He’d known Alec, in the dream. It had been so brief. If only they had had more time together.
If only it hadn’t been a dream at all.
oOo
The sound of Isabelle and Jace arguing could be heard before they even reached Magnus’ door.
“I’m telling you, Izzy, it’s just phantom pain or something.”
“But what if it’s not? What if it’s something important?”
“Don’t. Don’t say that. I don’t want to have to go through this.”
“Ahem.” Swinging the door open, Magnus stood with his arms crossed in a way that would have been impressive if he wasn’t half-dressed and in his pyjama bottoms. Both shadowhunters shut up instantly, though they were still glowering at each other. “To what do I owe this lovely pleasure at,” he checked the time, “seven am in the morning?”
“It’s nothing,” Jace said, the instant Isabelle said, “Jace’s parabatai rune is hurting.”
Magnus’ eyebrows shot up. “Your parabatai rune? Isn’t that supposed to disappear if you lose your parabatai?”
“I told you,” Jace grumbled under his breath.
Isabelle rounded on him. “Why won’t you at least get it checked? There’s no such thing as phantom pain for a rune that disappeared over four years ago.”
“Because I can’t do this!” Jace exploded. Magnus realized suddenly that what he’d mistaken for anger in his expression was instead fear and pain. “Do you know how much it hurts every time I look down at my torso, expecting to see my parabatai rune, only to see nothing? It’s like losing him all over again!”
Isabelle was still glaring at Jace, but her face had softened. Eyes darting back and forth between the two siblings, Magnus held up his hands in a gesture of peace.
“How about you two come in and I’ll get a change of clothes?”
After throwing on an outfit, Magnus sauntered into the living room to see Isabelle and Jace sitting on the couch together, seeming to have made up.
“So, what is this I hear about your parabatai rune hurting?” he said, conjuring up a chair and dropping down into a seat opposite them.
“Well, the place where it used to be keeps flaring up these past couple of weeks,” Jace explained.
“But there’s no rune there?”
Jace pulled up his shirt to show the blank skin.
Magnus leaned forward, waving a hand over the area to cast a diagnostic spell. “Hang on,” he said with a frown. Muttering some more words, he waved his hand over Jace’s abdomen again and then snapped his fingers.
Isabelle gasped as a dark rune appeared near Jace’s hip, like someone had taken a wet towel to wipe off concealer in one stroke.
“A glamour,” Magnus said, after they all registered what had happened.
Isabelle looked at a loss for words. “Are - Are you saying that Alec - ?”
“No,” Jace cut in forcefully. “No, that’s impossible, I saw him die.”
“Jace,” said Isabelle, trying to pull Jace back down as the man leapt up in agitation.
“I saw him die!” Jace shouted, wrenching his arm from Isabelle’s hand. He whipped around and looked at them both with wild eyes. “I saw that demon pierce his heart with his fangs, I felt him die. We were there for his funeral, Izzy, you saw his body, you saw it burn.”
“Then why is the rune still there?” Isabelle pressed. “And why would someone try to glamour it?”
Jace ran both hands through his hair. “Do you know,” he said, eyes glistening with tears, “how many times I wished that that day had just been a bad dream? How many times I reached out to him, hoping to feel something?” He shook his head. “No. Alec is dead. I can’t go through that again.”
“Jace!” Magnus called, but the shadowhunter hurried from Magnus’ apartment and slammed the door behind him.
“Leave him be,” Isabelle said, watching as Jace left. “These last four years have been hard on him.”
“How did it happen?” Magnus asked carefully.
Isabelle looked down and didn’t respond for a long time.
“They were on a mission,” she said at long last. “Just the two of them. It was just supposed to be a couple rogue demons, but they were ambushed. Jace… Jace watched, felt one of the demons stab Alec through the heart.” A jolt went through Magnus that robbed him of his breath at Isabelle’s words. “He blames himself, that he didn’t save him.”
“Survivor’s guilt,” Magnus acknowledged.
“We didn’t hear from them for an entire day. He couldn’t bare coming back and telling us what had happened. When Jace finally came back the next day it was to bring us Alec’s body. He even went to pack his bags until mom stopped him.”
“And he doesn’t want to go through that pain again, just in case we’re wrong,” said Magnus.
Isabelle gave him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “After all, why would anyone want to fake Alec’s death?”
oOo
He was standing in an empty street in New York, a sure sign that he was dreaming; New York’s streets were never empty unless a literal apocalypse was happening.
Alexander Lightwood was standing in front of him again, but this time he was younger. This version of him seemed more foreign, even though by all accounts this was the Alexander that Magnus had come to know.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “You’re a warlock. Who are you?”
“I’m Magnus Bane,” Magnus replied. “Although I don’t have any more idea than you do about what’s happening.”
Alexander’s expression was so helpless and lost. “Help me,” he pleaded.
“What do you need?”
“I was here with my… my brother,” said Alec. “I remember being attacked by demons. One of them almost pierced me with its fangs, but Jace pushed me out of the way just in time. Then the next thing I knew, I was here.”
And that was when a sudden, horrifying thought occurred to Magnus.
oOo
When he finally thought of It, Magnus was a mixture of horrified and disbelieving. He left eleven voicemails on Isabelle’s phone until she assured him that both she and Jace were on their way over.
“What is it?” they asked, barging into the apartment.
Magnus pointed at Jace. “You. What did you say last time? About Alexander’s funeral.”
Perplexed, Jace shared a look with Isabelle. “Did I say anything about Alec’s funeral?”
“You said you watched his body burn. But, and correct me if I’m wrong, shadowhunters are buried in the City of Bones when they die.”
Both Jace and Isabelle blanched.
“What else do you remember about Alexander’s funeral?” Magnus asked, watching as the two nephilim wracked their brains. Wearing identical looks of confusion, they looked at Magnus oddly.
“I guess… mom and dad and Max were there,” said Jace.
Isabelle shook her head hazily. “What exactly are you trying to say, Magnus?”
Magnus paced back and forth. “Memory spells are notoriously difficult to cast. Not only do you have to take the memories away, you also have to invent alternate events to fill the gaps. To cast a really good memory spell, you have to be very careful with the details or else the object of you spell will notice discrepancies. I know this from the spells I cast on your friend Clarissa.” Here, he came to a halt. “Then again, I was only working on one person. Imagine, though, casting a memory spell on a large group of people. One’s bound to get sloppy, right?”
There were looks of realization as Isabelle and Jace seemed to catch on to what Magnus was suggesting.
“Your brother’s funeral seems like an awfully important event for you to misremember details, or at least forget them, right?”
“So somebody cast a memory spell on us to think Alec was dead,” Jace filled in the blanks.
“By the Angel,” Isabelle looked horrified. “Magnus, you can undo this, right?”
Magnus grimaced. “I can, but it would be easier to find the warlock responsible for this, especially when we’re dealing with matters as delicate as the mind. We’ll have to track Alexander’s location first.”
“Let me help,” offered Jace. “I’m his parabatai.”
“Of course,” said Magnus. He moved to cast the spell, but then remembered something. “I must warn you both, though. It will be shocking for you to get your memories back. The spell could have been cast last week, in which case things will just be restored to normal. Or, it could have been cast literally the day after you had your mission, in which case four years will have passed since you last saw your brother. That’s four years you’ll never get back.”
“If that’s the price it takes to get Alec back,” said Isabelle grimly, “then so be it.”
Jace nodded in agreement. Satisfied at their answer, Magnus began doing his work.
oOo
They tracked Alec to an abandoned warehouse in a ghost town.
“Well, now I’m just disappointed,” said Magnus. “Us warlocks are supposed to be classy with our lairs.” He made quick work of the wards and they burst inside. “Quick, our friend will have noticed that the wards are down.”
They split up to find Alec. Soon, Jaw was hollering, “Over here!”
“Oh my Angel,” Isabelle gasped when both she and Magnus hurried over. “Alec.”
Alexander was lying unconscious on a metal counter. He looked just as he had in Magnus’ first dream, definitely older than nineteen. His siblings clutched at his body as if to ground themselves, as if making sure that he was really there.
“Alec, Alec,” Jace was saying over and over, and Isabelle had a hand over her mouth as she dissolved into tears.
There were footsteps from behind them.
“Well, well, well. I was hoping it would at least take you all a little longer.”
They whipped around to see a man standing by the exit of the room.
“Why did you do this to our brother?” Jace snarled.
The warlock’s lips curled. “Why? Because of him!” He pointed a finger at Magnus, who gave a surprised start. “You, who betrayed your kind when you entered a relationship with a shadowhunter. You left us for them.”
Magnus held both hands up. “I would never betray my kind,” he said in a steady voice. “There is no us versus them.”
“You honestly think you can negotiate for downworlder rights when you're involved with the head of a shadowhunter institute?”
“This is an unfair conversation because I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Magnus replied calmly, even though the thoughts in his head were spinning a thousand times a minute at the thought of him and Alec being involved. Only last night, he didn’t even know whether or not he had ever met Alec. “But once again, I would never betray my fellow downworlders.”
“Undo all of this,” said Isabelle.
“What she said,” Magnus told the warlock. “Take off the memory spell and wake Alec up, and I’ll give you a pass.”
“Or what?” the warlock sneered.
“Or,” said Magnus, and he let the glamour drop from his eyes. “I get very angry. And you’ve heard of me, so you don’t want to see me when I’m angry.”
Suddenly realizing that he was at an incredible disadvantage, the warlock’s expression went from one of contempt to fearful. His eyes darted back and forth between the shadowhunters and Magnus. Then, grudgingly, he flourished his hands and chanted the words.
The memories slammed back into Magnus so hard that his knees buckled. As he collapsed on the floor, he was distantly aware that the warlock had escaped, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Meeting a tall, dark shadowhunter who stuttered when they first met. Crashing a wedding and being kissed within an inch of his life. Being terrified at his boyfriend’s lack of experience when he himself had been with so many, and then being reassured that it didn’t matter. Watching the love of his life on his deathbed and forcing all the magic he could summon into keeping him alive.
The memories came faster and faster. Little talks on the balcony as they sipped martinis. Sitting in the same room taking care of work, but still enjoying each other’s company. Lazy mornings spent in bed as they talked about nothing. Walks through the city when they both had time in their busy schedules.
Alexander.
His Alexander.
How could he have forgotten?
“Alexander,” Magnus gasped, finally turning towards the counter where Alec had been lying. The shadowhunter in question was sitting up and rubbing his forehead groggily. Isabelle and Jace, for their part, also looked like they had been hit by a truck.
“Wha - ?” Alec groaned, looking so lovely that Magnus wanted to get up and just hold him in his arms.
But now was not the time. Now they needed to get back to the Institute and sort out this mess.
oOo
There was a soft knocking at Magnus’ door, which Magnus opened before the knocking even finished.
“Alexander,” Magnus said breathlessly before he was cut off by a hard kiss.
“I’m sorry, I wanted to come earlier, but my parents… and Jace and Isabelle…”
“No, I know, I’m the one who should be sorry. How could I have forgotten you?”
“Don’t say that,” said Alec, holding Magnus’ face in his hands. His eyes bore into Magnus’. “It’s not at all your fault, okay? You’re the one who saved me.”
Magnus pulled Alec into a firm hug, holding on tight so that Alec could never leave again. “I missed you,” he said softly, burrowing his face in Alec’s shoulder.
“I missed you too,” Alec whispered back. “But I’m not going anywhere now. I promise.”
And Magnus smiled. Standing on his tippy toes, he leaned up to kiss Alec again for the second time in so long, hoping Alec could feel all his love and need.
Alexander would never leave him, he knew, because Alexander kept his promises.
They had so much time to make up for, and they had all the time in the world.