Jace opened his eyes, there had been a knock on his door.  He glanced at the clock next to his bed.  Four am, fantastic.  As if you already weren't going crazy around Clary, let's add sleep deprivation to the equation he thought bitterly.  Sighing, he pulled himself up and walked to the door, pulling his hair from his face as he grabbed the handle.  

"What do you want at..." he began to chide, expecting Alec or Isabelle, until he opened his eyes.  Clary looked up at him sheepishly.

"Sorry, I, I didn't meant to wake you."  He was suddenly very angry with himself.  He couldn't even keep Clary as a friend.  He couldn't even be nice to her.  He didn't deserve her.  Well great revelation, he thought to himself, cause you can't have her anyway.

"No it's ok, what do you need?" He did his best to sound light.  She looked at him with the strangest expression on her face.  She looked confused, yet happy, and maybe even scared.  She was picking at her fingernails, and she bit her lip.  He didn't let himself look at her lips for too long.  He moved his eyes to hers.  Big mistake.  The abyss of green he stared into engulfed him.  He tightened his hand on the door.  Suddenly she pushed past him into his room.  He turned to watch her and her hair brushed his face.  She smelled like strawberry shampoo.

"I have something to tell you."  She was standing awkwardly in the middle of his room, still pulling her nails and fidgeting.  She looked crazy. He almost laughed out aloud, he would have if looking at her didn't cause his heart so much pain, and joy.  He slowly made a wide circle around her and sat on the bed.  

"At four am?  Since when are you the night messenger?"  He said.  She laughed nervously and then her face dropped into seriousness.  He started to get nervous himself.  What was wrong with her?  "Clary, are you ok?"  As if to confuse him even more, she closed her eyes and half smiled when he said her name.  He stood up, almost walking to her, but he stopped himself.  He was going to have to work on his self control.

"I'm fine." she half whispered.  His heart skipped.  She did sound fine, she sounded, joyous.  

"Well, good. Then why are you......I mean what did you mean to tell me?"  Jace was shocked.  He had stuttered.  He never stuttered.  She opened her eyes and his mind went blank.  He stopped breathing as she slowly walked towards him.  Her eyes, they burned him, they trapped him, suddenly they were only inches from his face.  His hands were trembling as she raised hers to his chest.  Her fingers lightly traced the iratze rune across his heart.  Her touch sent electricity through his body, down to his toes.  His eyes almost rolled back into his head.  He shuddered and she smiled. "Clary?" he whispered her name and she smiled wider.  She stepped closer to him, almost pressing herself against him.  Hesitantly, he slid his hands onto her hips, and then up her spine.  His hands trembled harder as he felt her bare skin under his palms.  He had not meant to slip his hands under the material of her shirt, but she leaned into him, as if it was what she wanted.  He was what she wanted.

"Jace, I wanted to tell you that I..."  Clary stopped smiling.  Her eyes flew open in shock as she grabbed a handful of his t-shirt.  Jace had heard it.  Against his will, his eyes flew down to her chest, and there it was.  The arrow lodged in her heart, its bloody bladed end sticking all the way through her middle, the tip of it almost touching his chest.  She looked up at him, and her knees buckled.

"Clary!" he yelled as he caught her in his arms.  Her blood spilt out over his hands, warm and dark.  "Clary, Clary look at me!"  Her eyes had fallen to the arrow.  She looked at him again, fear in her eyes.  He grabbed her face.  "Clary don't leave me, no Clary you can't leave me, Clary!"  Jace cried out as he saw the fear leave her eyes.  She looked calm.  He knew that look, he had seen it so many times on the battle field.  "No," he whispered, his voice shook as he gripped her against his chest, she was so close he could smell her strawberry shampoo.  "I can save you," he whispered, rocking her back and forth, "let me save you Clary." She smiled up at him.  His heart broke as he smiled down at her for the last time.  "I love you Clary. I love you.  I'm not done loving you."  And then she was gone.  "NO!" he screamed, shaking her almost violently.  It was then that Jace sensed him.  Jace tore his eyes from Clary's blank face, and looked up to the window.

"Apparently, you couldn't save her."  A wicked smile gleamed on Valentine's face.

Jace was already out of his bed and had his seraph blade in hand before he realized it was the middle of the night.  It was dark, he was in his bedroom alone, and Clary was not dead in his arms.  It had been a dream. Just a dream. He wiped the sweat from his face and tore out into the hallway.    

**********************************************


Clary stared up at the ceiling.  She had never been an easy sleeper, and it wasn't any easier with the knowledge that Jace was just a few doors down the hall.  She shut her eyes and attempted to order herself.  Sleep.  She opened her eyes again.  It was no use.  Suddenly her door busted open and closed in a split second and the light had been turned on.  Blinking against the light, she looked up and saw Jace.  Shock flooded her body.  He was standing before her, seraph blade in hand, shirtless and out of breath.  His chest was heaving and his eyes looked wild.  He was sweating and his hands seemed to be trembling.  Clary looked at his face and felt a chilling warmth in the pit of her stomach.  The way he was looking at her.  He looked murderous, angry, joyous, wistful, sad and utterly destroyed all at once.

"Jace, are you..." She began to say something but he looked her straight in the eyes.  Her stomach did a cartwheel and she could scarcely breath.  What was he trying to do to her? She had never seen him like this.

"Say it again," he pleaded. He was pleading with her? What the hell? Clary forced herself to breathe.

"Say what again?"  He closed his eyes, almost in frustration and he dropped the blade.

"My name, say my name.  Please Clary." He opened his eyes and she felt her toes curl under the covers.

"Jace?"  And then he was no longer standing at the foot of her bed.  He crawled onto the bed towards her until he was straddling her legs. He wrapped his hands around her neck, and dropped his head so that his forehead was resting on her collarbone.  His breath was warm on her neck as he breathed in her scent.  She struggled to breathe through the warmth of his body on hers.  

"Strawberries," he whispered, more to himself than to her.  Clary put her hands on his stomach, her hands trembled on his bare skin.

"Jace, what's wrong?  Talk to me?"  He pulled back from her neck and just looked at her.  It was then that she realized the impossible.  She blinked at him.  Jace was crying, actually crying.  He looked so destroyed, so broken that her heart ached.  She reached up her hand and wiped the tears from his cheek.  He turned and kissed her palm, and then her wrist.  His lips traveled up her arm until he reached her neck.  She shook under his touch, gulping air.  He wrapped his arms around her body, just under her arms, and held her so tight to him that she could barely breathe, his lips desperately touching her skin.  She wrapped her arms around him.  "Jace?" she whispered.  She needed some answers.  What happened to him? He pulled back and looked at her again.  He had stopped crying but his eyes were still wild with agony.  

"You died.  I dreamed that you came to me, and then..Valentine. You died in my arms." He whispered, and then he dropped his head into her hands.

"Oh Jace," she whispered.  He took a sudden breath.  She sat up and rested his head in her lap.  He laid down on the bed next to her and wrapped his arms around her waist.  She ran her fingers through his hair.  "I'm right here."  Jace closed his eyes.  "I'm right here."