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There were people throughout history who were remembered for doing great things. People who’d accomplished things those before them had only dreamed of. People who’d changed the shape of the world around them and lived on in that change long after they’d died.
Alexander Lightwood was not one of those people. He was not beloved for changing history. Alec was not remembered for the amazing things he’d done. He was not remembered for the ways he’d managed to change the world for future generations. Honestly, Alexander Lightwood hadn’t accomplished much in his short life. Had he never been born, the Clave would have gone on exactly as it did after his death. Alec didn’t change anything. He didn’t make anything better. He didn’t accomplish anything he’d wanted to… but he’d tried.
That’s what everyone remembered of Alexander for. They remembered him trying. They remembered him drafting letter after letter, writing to his people on behalf of those the Clave had never bothered to listen to before. They remembered him showing up to meetings just to be the only one in a room full of his peers insisting that what they were doing was wrong. They remembered him trying with everything he had to shift the power the Clave had taken even just a little. He’d tried so hard and sure, perhaps there were a few downworlders who’s lives had been touched by him.
Alec had managed to save some. He’d managed to spare the lives of a few stray downworld children who’d have been slaughtered if he hadn’t been there. He’d managed to let just a couple vampires escape, let a few warlocks portal away, let one or two faeries and vampires run. Those few would remember him as the man who had saved them but Alec’s grand dreams of changing the system so they didn’t need to be saved never came.
The Clave threw out all of his letters. They silenced him in meetings. He had his position and his rank stripped from him when he refused to shut up. He was put on the worst shifts, with the worst help for far longer than anyone else was expected to remain on duty. The downworld had tried to help him then. They never made contact directly (or few did) but Alec had to have been aware of them.
Every shift that he was alone, he’d hear someone in the shadows, close enough to step in if something happened but far enough away not to be caught if any other shadowhunters happened to come close. Alec was protected the best the downworld could protect him but there wasn’t actually much they could do.
Every day, Alec went back home where his silent allies could not follow. Every day, he walked back into enemy territory, where he was in danger with every step he took. The downworld tried to help but it was inevitable. They’d all known it was. Even Alec had to have known it was coming.
There was not a world in which the Clave allowed a man like Alexander Lightwood to live and no matter what the downworld tried to do, Alec was caught in their clutches. He was trapped the same way the countless downworlders who lost their lives to seraph blades were. The downworld couldn’t protect him if they couldn’t even protect themselves.
The official story was that Alec had died due to a demon attack when he’d been on his way back from patrol. His peers believed it or they pretended to at least but the downworld knew better.
It was not a demon that had attacked Alexander Lightwood. It was another form of evil all together. It was a shadowhunter with a blank face and a weapon that gleamed in the night exactly like Alec’s weapon did. Alec hadn’t looked surprised when he’d realized what was happening. He hadn’t looked shocked or scared. Perhaps, he knew that it was his time. Perhaps, he’d known that he was being followed by something more than the downworlders who lurked in the shadows long before his silent watches did.
The shadowhunter moved forward and Alec didn’t even bother moving back. The shadows around him shifted. A figure in the dark moved, nervous and fluttering, unsure of what to do. Something moved behind the unnamed shadowhunter, feet away, close enough to reach the shadowhunter lunging towards Alec and pull them back.
Alec shook his head no.
The shadows stilled. The shadowhunter’s pace didn’t falter and Alexander didn’t even bother to raise a weapon to defend himself. There were people watching him. The last thing he needed was to make a scene. The last thing he needed was for someone else to come out and get caught in a blade that was intended for Alec alone.
Alec closed his eyes and the shadows went entirely pale as a blade was driven into the only shadowhunter who’d ever bothered to stand up for them. Stories would go around that those watching had wept but no one cried, not just then. Crying was something that happened when you were caught off guard by your sadness. No one was caught off guard by the death of Alexander Lightwood. No shadowhunter as pure hearted and kind as him would ever have been allowed to live.
Tears were not shed then but when Alec took his last breaths and was left alone in the dark, dirty alleyway he’d died in, the shadows finally moved forward.
No doubt, more shadowhunters would come to collect Alec’s body. They’d come to burn him before anyone could ask too many questions about what had happened and why exactly there was no demon spotted the night Alec died and no claw marks on Alec’s body. They’d take him and they’d burn away any trace of Alec that was left.
The downworld couldn’t have saved him and they knew it but they could do this at least.
Alec’s body vanished. When the team was sent out to find him, they went back to the Institute perplexed. They’d been told exactly where to find the body but the only thing that had been left was a puddle of blood that was already dried.
The Clave ‘found’ his body a couple days later. No one ever saw it but no one cared. After all, why would the Clave lie about the body of a shadowhunter who’d died the same way countless shadowhunters had before - at the hands of a monster?
Alec was dead and that’s all that mattered. The Clave didn’t care if the downworld wanted their little memento. Even for beings that had magic and powers, there was no bringing Alexander back to life.
That wasn’t why the downworld had wanted him though. The downworld hadn’t taken him to try to fix what the Clave had done. There was no fixing it but when a grave was dug at the outskirts of the city, in a place where mundane feet would not go and shadowhunters could not travel, the downworld laid their Alexander to rest.
Alec was buried with flowers from all over the world, flowers from other worlds, flowers from other dimensions even. He was buried with precious stones across his body - stones of rest and peace in his palms, stones of kindness laid across his sternum and stones of protection that the downworld could not give him in life laid across his limbs.
His grave was unmarked, just in case the protections of the downworld’s last sacred place were ever stripped away but the grave didn’t need to be marked with a name for everyone to know. In the beginning, Alec’s resting place was memorialized in trinkets and gifts. There was no official marking in place but eventually one appeared overnight.
It read simply, ‘the one who tried.' No one needed to be more specific than that. It could only be Alexander, the only shadowhunter who’d ever cared for them. The downworld could not repay Alec for what he'd tried to do with his life but in death, they’d care for him like he had them.
At least, they’d try. They’d try their very best.