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Alec had never understood birthdays. As a child, his birthdays meant an extra portion of pancakes and a hug from his mother. As a teenager, he stopped celebrating his birthdays. Time passed whether he wanted it or not, and there were always more important things to do, like training, patrols, learning the right angle for an arrow to enter a demon’s rib cage. Later, when he was old enough to understand what it meant to be a Shadowhunter, birthdays became just an arrogant reminder.
Thirty-seven years.
There were people he had known who had been given only sixteen. Or twenty-two. Names of fallen heroes carved into a marble headstone. Shadowhunters did not usually grow old. Their lives were measured in scars, more than in years.
He had plenty of both.
He stood at the window with his arms folded as he watched the lights of New York beneath the evening sky. The city looked almost gentle from the loft. But he knew the streets. He knew which churches had ancient protective spells built into their foundations, which alleyways had once been hunting grounds, and which rooftops offered the cleanest shot with his bow. He looked at the city and remembered the hunting.
But there was a new feeling. He could remember other things now, too. Or perhaps not new, only it had just happened so slowly that he hadn’t noticed.
At seventeen, Alec had thought his life was already mapped out for him. Duty had been simple then. Protect the Clave and the institute. Protect Jace and Izzy, protect his parents, the family name. And protect a secret he carried so deeply inside himself, which sometimes felt like a second skeleton.
He had become very good at protecting things, mostly because he was terrified of losing them.
He was eighteen when he learned that wanting to protect someone was not the same as being able to save them. Sometimes the memory of his little brother came back with a sharp pain that seemed impossible after so many years. He had spent most of his life measuring himself by the people he could keep safe, and there would always be a place in him that remembered the one he hadn’t. For years afterward, Max’s absence had faded in the Lightwoods. Alec carried it with him still.
There had been so much fear in him once. Not from Demons. They were easy. They wanted to kill him, so he killed them first. People were harder. They could look at him and judge. They could be disappointed, and they could leave.
For a long time, he believed that courage meant walking into a battle without hesitation.
But he knew better now. It meant standing in front of everyone he had ever known and choosing himself. Choosing Magnus.
The thought of him softened something inside Alec. It was a reaction so familiar now that he barely noticed it anymore.
Magnus.
He was still thinking about that there had been a world in which Magnus had not belonged to him. Not "belonged" exactly, because Magnus belonged to no one except himself. However, he knew that Magnus wouldn’t argue about the wording. Magnus was his person. His home.
There had been centuries of Magnus' life before Alec. That fact once bothered him. Now, it made Alec grateful that all those years had led Magnus to him. He had seen civilizations rise and fall. He loved people and grieved them. Carried pieces of them through centuries. And somehow Magnus still looked at him as if he were something miraculous.
Maybe that’s why Alec had started thinking differently about birthdays.
Thirty-seven was not merely time passing. It contained mistakes. Things that Alec wished he understood sooner. Words he wished he could take back. Choices he had made because he was young and frightened, certain that love was only a duty he could fail if he performed incorrectly. He had hurt Magnus. He hated himself for that. But there were other memories that surpassed those old ones. Forgiveness, growth, Magnus laughing against his shoulder. The comforting click of his rings. Mornings, when Alec woke with a leg tangled between his and glitter on the pillowcase for reasons Magnus insisted were mysterious.
Years. Actual years. Alec lowered his head for a moment. He had never expected years. Once, he had barely allowed himself to expect happiness.
The strangest part was that happiness wasn’t what he imagined it to be. It wasn’t grand. It was Magnus’ necklaces abandoned on the table. It was his scent. It was tiny socks appearing in places socks had no place to be. It was stepping on a wooden block at six in the morning and learning that even highly trained Shadowhunters could be defeated by children’s toys. It was blue hands, a sleepy little body pressed tightly against his chest.
Alec’s throat tightened. There were still moments when the word father startled him. He had spent so much of his life afraid of becoming something unacceptable that he had never dared to imagine that he would one day become something so ordinary like someone’s dad.
Max didn’t care about expectations Alec had once carried. He didn’t care whether Alec had disappointed the Clave years ago or his family, or what titles he held now. Max cared about his dad finding his stuffed duck that had vanished under the couch. He cared about Alec picking him up when he lifted both arms.
And Alec always did.
There was something terrifying about loving a child. All of his instincts sharpened the moment Max entered their life. The world suddenly had become nothing but corners Max could bump his head on. Objects he might swallow, demons he might one day have to face, and people who someday may hurt him.
Alec could imagine a thousand dangers in seconds.
Magnus told him he was deeply overthinking.
Magnus also checked on Max three times after putting him to bed.
Alec smiled.
Thirty-seven years.
He lifted his hands and looked at them. There was a scar across his palm, and another at his wrist, and many more hidden under the soft fabric of his clothes.
He was a shadowhunter. Brother, husband, father. He was the Consul of the Clave.
Also, he was Alexander, but only for his Magnus.
Now, standing in the home he shared with the people he loved, Alec understood that perhaps getting older is a normal thing, and there is nothing scary about it. And Magnus was crazy about those few gray hairs they’d recently discovered nestled in his black curls. He loved this man so much, it hurt.
Behind him, he heard an unmistakable sound of something slamming against the doorframe. Then a low sound, which was certainly Magnus swearing very creatively under his nose.
Alec turned.
Magnus stood in the doorway. He had obviously planned to make a dramatic entrance. His plans were ruined by the toddler balanced on his hip and the cake he held in his other hand. Max’s blue face was illuminated by the candles, his dark hair had been combed neatly, although one side now stuck upward. There was icing on his nose.
There was a lot more icing on Magnus’ sleeve. The cake itself leaned slightly to the left.
Alec stared at them.
Magnus, beautiful and impossible, Max bouncing excitedly in his arms, and thirty-seven candles bright enough to turn them both gold around the edges.
Something in Alec’s chest gave way. He made his decision.
All those years, all the people he had been… The frightened boy, the soldier, the brother standing helpless in a room full of grief, the young man kissing a warlock in front of the world because for once he had decided to choose love. The responsible leader, who, during his diplomatic career, initiated changes and brought about a level of stability that was unprecedented.
He had survived every one of them.
Alec crossed the room. Max immediately reached for him. He took him, and Max curled his fingers into Alec’s shirt. Magnus moved closer, their shoulders touched. The candles trembled in a tiny breeze between them.
Alec looked at his family. Thirty-seven no longer seemed like a number, marking how much of his life was gone.
He pressed his lips into Max’s soft hair. Magnus’ hand settled at the back of his neck, his thumb brushing the sensitive skin just beneath Alec’s ear.
Home. Alec thought.
Max made a little sound and leaned toward the cake.
Alec laughed. He was happy, and now he was sure what he wanted to do with his life.
With Magnus beside him, their child in his arms and thirty-seven flames shining in front of them, Alec Lightwood closed his eyes and made a wish about keeping this forever.
THE END