Chapter Text
Cordelia Carstairs set foot in her hometown for the first time in five years. The April air was chilly, but her coat kept her comfortably warm.
She hadn’t lived in the same place for longer than a year since she was 11, but for once, they had moved to stay. Her parents ran a successful company, and as a result, they had moved around during her entire teenage years to chase whatever business opportunity came up next.
Eventually, though, they had realised that it was impossible to keep it up, and that their hectic lifestyle caused them more stress than anything, so they had decided to move right back to where they came from.
Neither Cordelia nor her older brother Alastair had minded the travelling much. Walking down the Champs-Élysées in Paris and meeting her cousin Emma in LA had all been amazing experiences. For every experience she gained by travelling all over the world, though, she felt like she lost one, too.
Her teenage years had been extraordinary, but she felt like she had completely missed everything being a teenager was supposed to be about.
She had never been to a proper party, never kissed anyone, and because of the constant moving around, she didn’t have many close friends either. As soon as someone had become her acquaintance, they would have to move once more.
Right now, there were only two people she considered her friends: Lucie and James Herondale.
They had met as children, and essentially grew up together. Lucie had cried for days when Cordelia told her she was leaving.
Lucie was adamant on keeping the friendship alive, though, and had texted her nearly every day in the five years she was gone, and sent the occasional email if she felt what she needed to say was too long and complicated to say over text.
Despite the distance, they were still incredibly involved in each other’s lives. Cordelia had beta-read all of Lucies fanfics. Lucie made sure to send Cordelia details on whatever drama her brother and his friends were caught up in.
Cordelia knew of them, James’ friend group, but she had not been friends with them when she still lived in her hometown. They had always been friends-of-a-friend to her, people that occasionally came up in James or Lucie’s stories. Cordelia had never actually met them, as they had gone to a different primary school than her, James, and Lucie.
They were mostly strangers, but she had pieced together information about them throughout the years, based on Lucie’s emails.
The Merry Thieves, as they were commonly referred to, consisted of four people: Christopher Lightwood, a scientist with a kind heart, his cousin Thomas Lightwood, a stubborn but sweet jock, Matthew Fairchild, a flamboyant charmer, and James Herondale.
James had been Cordelia’s best friend throughout her childhood, and the oblivious object of her affections. It was silly. A childhood crush on the only boy she had ever felt close to. But still, no matter how young she was, she knew that what she had felt for him was real.
In the years she was gone, she still dreamed in memories of him. His golden eyes in the sun, his dark hair floating around him like a cloud when they went swimming, his hand in hers as they marched through the forest right outside town together.
James texted her, too, but not as much as Lucie did. They hadn’t really been close friends in a while, and any emotional attachment was a remnant of their younger years. James had taken his distance for her, for a reason that Cordelia never quite understood.
What Cordelia did understand, though, was that James loving her would never be anything beyond a fantasy she would dream up when she couldn’t sleep at night. It would never be, but sometimes it was nice to think about the what-ifs.
She would never return to her hometown and James would find some other girl to marry and that would be it.
Except she did return.
Not only Lucie, but James, too, had been there to greet her at the airport, and for a second there, she felt her heart drop and butterflies rise in her stomach at the sight of him, and every rational thought of how James would never think of her that way left her mind entirely.
She felt guilty about her feelings for James being louder than the excitement of seeing her best friend for the first time in five years. Cordelia tried to push it away, but even now, a car ride home later, every time she looked at him she felt something hopeless.
He now stood on the curb in front of her house, caught up in some idle discussion with Lucie, and she couldn’t help but think of how he both looked like the boy she knew and a complete stranger.
His face had become sharper, his eyes more intense, his hair longer and somehow messier than it was when he was ten years old and running through the woods with her. She had seen photos of him, of course, but none of them truly did him justice.
“A pretty sight, isn’t he?” A voice cut through her reverie. “James, I mean. Not that he has any clue he’s unnervingly gorgeous. Goes straight over his head. It’s equal amounts endearing and concerning.”
“I wasn’t-- I mean, I was looking, but I wasn’t looking-- I mean, not like that ,” Cordelia stammered. “Um, who are you again?”
The golden-haired boy that stood in front of her cast her a dashing smile, and Cordelia thought to herself, did they change the laws to make it illegal to be anything but gorgeous in this town?
“Matthew Fairchild. I’m sure you’ve heard lots about me. I actually live right down the street here,” Matthew said, and pointed in a vague direction, probably towards one of the houses.
“Right, of course! I’ve seen you in a few pictures, I think,” Cordelia said. She figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to mention the countless emails Lucie had sent her that described every aspect of him in the greatest detail.
Lucie had had something of a crush on him for a while, when she was fourteen and he was fifteen, but it had passed entirely. The current owner of her heart was a boy she had met online named Jesse Blackthorn.
Lucie didn’t seem to care that they wouldn't be able to feel each other’s touch until either of them had a concrete plan for visiting. She had always been someone who preferred souls over faces. Their meaningful contact was enough for her to be entirely infatuated.
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Cordelia said, and stuck out her hand to shake his, which he gently took into his own and bent over to press a kiss on instead. Cordelia felt a deep blush heat her cheeks, and tried to think of something to say to that intimate gesture, but her mind was wiped blank.
“MATTHEW!” Lucie was walking towards them from where she was standing at an impressive speed. “Please refrain from hitting on my friends. I refuse to let you near-destroy another friendship.”
Cordelia opened her mouth to say something about how she was absolutely not being hit on, because she did not ever get hit on, so this was clearly not getting hit on, but Matthew spoke first. “Okay, first of all, that was once , and it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as you make it out to be--”
Cordelia let Matthew and Lucies voices fade into the background, not understanding the conversation anyway, and looked over to where James was standing. He had not followed his sister to Cordelia’s side.
She was hoping to see jealousy in his eyes, anger at his best friend making a move on her before he could, any sign that he wanted her.
But his eyes were blank, and he just stood here. Not even Lucies shrill voice had made him do as much as turn his head towards her. He probably hadn’t even noticed that something had been going on.
He had not been watching her like she had been watching him. He probably never would.
Trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her gut, she turned back to Lucie and Matthew.
“...And not only did it turn out fine, I also caused some personal realisations to happen, so honestly, it was a win-win,” Matthew argued. Lucie rolled her eyes. She tried to fake annoyance, but the smile on her lips gave her away. Lucie could never truly be annoyed with Matthew. Her fondness always overpowered any negative feelings she could possibly have towards him.
“Am I wrong, though? Am I?” Matthew smiled a shit-eating grin at Lucie, to which she replied by putting her whole hand on his face. Cordelia couldn’t help but giggle at the sight.
Matthew turned his face (and Lucie’s hand) towards her. “She does this more often than you’d think.”
Lucie took back her hand. “Because it’s the only thing that efficiently shuts you up. Now, please stop distracting Cordelia, as she has a lot of things to unpack.
“Alright, alright,” Matthew said, “I’ll be going then. See you at school, Cordelia?”
Matthew was the same age as James, who was the same age as Cordelia, which meant that they would be in the same year. “Yes. You will. After the Easter holidays.”
Matthew nodded. “After the holidays. Looking forward to it.” He winked at her and walked away from them.
Cordelia blinked. “He’s... “
Lucie sighed. “Yep.”
“You were right, though,” Cordelia said, “about the unpacking thing. I have like, 16 boxes I need to go through if I want to sleep tonight. The house still had furniture in it, as her parents had intended to return to it more often than they did throughout the years, but all her personal belongings were still packed up.
Lucie shot her an empathetic look. “Good luck. I’d honestly help you out, but I seriously don’t have any time. I still need to do all my reading before school starts. At this point, I’ll have to read a book and a half a day. Not even SparkNotes can save me for this one.”
“Perhaps you should have spent less time writing and more time reading, then,” Cordelia teased.
Lucie dramatically gasped. “Are you saying school is more important than my Spiderman AU?”
Cordelia laughed. “No, of course not, I’m sorry for ever even implying it.”
“That’s more like it”, Lucie said, and pulled her into a side hug. Cordelia had truly missed her every single day.
“I can help you unpack, if you want.” A voice sounded from behind her.
James, she realised.
Cordelia turned around to face him. She still wasn’t used to how handsome he had become. It completely caught her off guard every time. “I.. Yes. I’d like that.”
“Alright. Then I will,” James said.
Lucie had gone home with her parents, while James stayed and helped her sort through the boxes. “James, how lovely of you,” her mother had said, and “James, all I asked was for you to get Cordelia to come inside, you are allowed to go home,” her father had joked. Alastair had not commented on any of it, and disappeared up to his room within seconds.
It was odd, standing in a bedroom which felt both familiar and completely foreign, especially while standing next to a boy who felt both like her closest friend and a complete stranger.
“Do you remember,” James said, when they had gotten all her boxes upstairs, “When I had a bad case of the flu, and you read to me?”
Cordelia smiled. “I remember. Your mum told me not to sit so close to you, because then you might make me sick too.”
“And then I actually did make you sick,” James said, eyes wandering around the room, a fond smile on his lips. “As soon as my mum let me leave the house, I returned the favour and read to you, too. Right here.”
Cordelia watched his hand move across the wood of her old bed.
“It almost feels wrong to be back in a place that belongs to the past,” she said. “We made so many memories here. Trying to move it into the present is a bit unnatural to me.”
James looked at her, and for a moment, she saw the boy from her childhood again. “Guess we’ll just have to make more memories here, then.”
She smiled. “I’d like that.”
They had sorted through the boxes together. He still remembered the name of the stuffed animals she had dragged around the world since he had last seen them. She shared stories of the objects that were unfamiliar to him that she had bought in faraway places. He inspected every single book that he came across before putting it on the shelf, and she gave a short summary of what it was about if he hadn’t read it yet. There were few books he had not read. They had always had a similar taste in novels, and not even the time and space they were apart had changed that.
It was like they had never even been apart, and Cordelia realised that it wasn’t the house that made this place feel like her true home.