Hi again! Well, I might start by explaining why is it that I wrote this.

You'll see, the other day a friend of mind called my attention in how I'd qritten a story that involved both Max and Alec and one with Max and Jace but I had delibaratedly ignored Isabelle, which he considered unfair. I hadn't realized it until then, so I decided that I might as well write something with her.

As soon as I took that decision, the story practicaly wrote herself down.

So . . . here it is!

Hope you like it!

By the way, at fisrt, Isabelle is nine, Max is teo and Alec is eleven.

Gone

She was woken by the voice of her brother calling her name.

As soon as she opened her brown eyes she bumped into the worried face of her brother, Alec, who was almost screaming for her to wake up and shaking her shoulder all too violently for her taste.

"What do you want?" she asked hoarsely through her drowsiness.

"Hodge wants to see you" he said simply, as if that should answer everything. She growled throaty.

"Alec" she muttered in a dangerously low tone while she slowly sat in her bed, rubbing her eyes and sending a glance to the night clock in her bureau. "It's one in the morning. What in the world is he calling me for?"

Alec shuddered slightly, pointing to the door of the room, which he'd left open. Only then did Isabelle pay attention t and heard the desperate cries that echoed all the way through the hallway from her younger brother's room and into hers.

"Max?" She asked half-heartedly although the answer was simply too obvious not to notice it. Alec nodded. "What is it now?"

"Dunno" he said "Hodge woke me up too. He's calling mom to no stop, each time Hodge nears him he screams even louder and he won't stop crying" he continued to explain, matter-of-factly.

"And you woke me up because . . ?" Isabelle inquired, leaving the question hanging in the air, waiting for Alec to fill in the blanks.

"You're a girl!" he said simply, as if that were meant to solve any other question she might have in mind.

Isabelle let out a throaty sound. "Seriously, Alec?" she hissed. "You're waking me up at one in the morning because you can't make a two-year old stop crying?"

He didn't even answer, rather choosing to move out of Isabelle's way, who jumped out of her bed gracefully and almost pushed him apart in her way to the door.

She rapidly crossed her room and the hallway thanks to her exaggerated strides. In that same manner, and with an exasperated look in her features, she entered the only lightened room in the Institute, her younger brother's.

As soon as she was inside the circle of light, Hodge's eyes lit with relief, as if he'd seen his savior coming. She sent him a death glare, rolling her eyes just to let him know that she was not happy with her decision to wake her up.

In the middle of the room, standing inside a white cradle, his small hands gripping the bars and crying his lungs out was her baby brother.

Isabelle was almost taken aback by the intensity of his screams. She thought that all she really wanted was to go back to her room and shut the door out to block the noise, but, instead, she walked forward, extending her arms to her brother and forcing a tired smile to her lips.

"Hey there" she said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other insecurely. "What's wrong?" the boy only cried harder and she grimaced slightly. Wonderful thing to wake up at, she thought bitterly, to a screaming child. "C'mere you" she murmured then, before slowly bending down to the cradle and lifting the toddler up, supporting his weight on her hip. "What happened?" she asked, looking into his teary eyes.

"Mummy" he whimpered as he removed against her, causing Isabelle to hold him more tightly, fearing that the boy might fall from her arms. She grimaced slightly.

Both Robert and Maryse had left the Institute early that day in a hurry. They had traveled to Idris and were supposed to be back the next day, at twelve in the morning. Maryse had asked Hodge to take care of them, but it apparently wasn't one of her greatest ideas.

"Mom?" she questioned, faking she didn't understand, feeling Max's nod against her neck soon after. "She is not here right now" she continued calmly, catching the boy's attention in her words, which resulted in stopping his sobs, but she knew he'd start again if she didn't say anything else. Before Max could restart his crying she continued. "But she will be back soon, okay?"

In response, Max only wrapped his tiny arms around her neck, hiding his face in the crook between her neck and shoulder, sobbing into her skin more quietly than before, his back shuddering under shaky and painful intakes of breath.

"She where?" the boy asked with a trembling voice.

"Out" was Isabelle's immediate response, but upon hearing the despaired whimper from her brother she soon found herself adding. "But I'm here, Max, see?" she whispered, holding him tightly and retreating a little to look at him, a reassuring smile on her lips, drawing soothing circles in his small back with her right hand in an attempt to calm him down.

He nodded quietly, but his gray eyes were still filled with tears and the look in his face went from worried to scared and to one completely terrified.

"I'm not going anywhere, do you understand, Max?" she said softly, inwardly pricing herself of managing to silence her brother's cries, if only for a moment. "Do you want me to be here, with you?" she asked, receiving a tiny nod as an answer. "Then I'll stay with you, alright?" she continued. "But you have to promise me to stop crying, can you do that?"

Instead of answering, the little boy only buried his face into her neck, nodding against his sister repeatedly.

"Alright, then, Max, you can stay with me for tonight" she said calmly, patting his small back carefully, turning to Alec and Hodge. "Really? This was the big deal?" she asked flatly at them, who stared at her wide-eyed as she turned on her heals, leaving the room to head to her own and back to her bed, with Max clinging to her, breathing evenly now.

As she left the room, thinking about her lost sleep and warm comforter, with her brother slowly drifting off in her arms she was unaware of the surprised and startled look in Alec's and Hodge's faces, but she surely knew they would be there.

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Four years went by, and Isabelle Lightwood, who was currently sound asleep in her bed, already counted thirteen years.

True to say, not much was different from the previous scenario; if anything, she was a much lighter sleeper, and this time she woke up as soon as the sound of the rustling of the hinges in her door broke the silence of the night.

Her left arm was moving to her bureau immediately, almost before her eyes were completely open, in an attempt to reach for the dagger she kept next to her bed. It was only then that logic appeared to her and she realized there was no way nothing was attacking her because she was completely safe, in the Institute.

Her arm stopped mind way in the air, as she blinked what was left of her drowsiness ways from her eyes.

"Izzy?" came the shaky question from the door frame. She recognized it immediately–her younger brother, Maxwell.

"Max?" she asked back, trying to clear her throat. She turned in her bed, to look at the door, narrowing her eyes at the small figure that gripped the doorknob nervously, tears running down his cheeks. He nodded. "Again?" she inquired, her voice denoting a slight tiredness. In the door, Max nodded again, slowly, almost fearfully.

She repressed a sigh, scooting over in the bed, leaving her brother a spot next to her in the mattress.

"Como here" she murmured, opening her arms in his direction and gesturing for her brother to near her.

Leaving no need for Isabelle to repeat herself, Max entered the room, silently closing the door behind him and climbing to the bed next to his sister rapidly.

Isabelle wrapped her arms around him, feeling him bury his face in the curve of her neck and renew his crying, more loudly than before, his back trembling slightly under the impulse of violent sobs.

"It's okay, Max, it's okay" she whispered, hoping her voice was soothing for him.

This had been happening for a while now, since the last couple of weeks.

This had all started pretty innocently, really. Jace, Alec and her had had a free afternoon and decided to spend it outside, go for an ice-cream, to the movies or whatever normal teenagers did.

The three of them had started their training at least a year aback, for Isabelle, two years for Alec, and Jace, who, well, had been training pretty much for his whole life.

Anyways, in the end they had taken Max too, and the afternoon had lapsed pretty normally, until, of course, the inevitable had happened and a monster had appeared.

Nothing important, really. Just a demon that had decided to mess up their day. Jace had taken it down in a heart-beat, with Alec and her searching the area looking for another one but finding nothing.

However, it had been something for Max, as her previous nights witnessed.

A part of her wondered why was it that Max went up to her room, instead of to their parents' –who were currently staying at the Institute– or to one of their brother's.

She knew Mac admired Jace and Alec more than he could possibly admire her. Heck, who wouldn't, with Jace's ability at fighting and Alec's aptitude at shooting. Compared to that, she was near to nothing, just a pretty face training to use a dagger. And yet, Max kept coming to her instead of anyone else of the previously mentioned.

For a moment, an idea crept to her mind, the thought that it was not out of admiration that her brother looked for her, but out of something else. Something that could be read between the lines of 'trust'. Max trusted her to see him like this, completely out of what the perfect prototype of a Shadowhunter was, scared and crying. She felt an unfamiliar tugging in her chest as she instinctively hugged Max even more tightly to her chest.

She was pulled out of her musings by Max's slightly trembling voice.

"I'm never going to make out a good Shadowhunter" he said, his voice slightly muffled by Isabelle's skin.

"Hey, what's that you're saying?" she asked, feeling that tug again, same she couldn't fully place. Pity, regret, nervousness, hurt? She pulled back slowly to catch a glimpse of her brother's gray eyes.

"I'm scared of something that's not even real" he said, though his whimper made it hard for Isabelle to understand completely. When she finally did, an indignant expression appeared on her features as if she were about to take what Max had said as a personal offense.

"Don't you say that!" she scolded softly, and before her brother could reply anything she continued. "It is real, Max" she assured gently. "It was when you first saw it, and it is now in your mind. And that's okay."

She didn't say anything for a couple of seconds, a thoughtful expression fixed on her features until she finally came across what she was looking for: something to say, something that would make her brother feel better.

"I'll tell you a secret, okay?" she murmured, smiling a little. "But you have to stop crying 'cause I hate to see you like this" she said, and Max nodded. It was only then that she realized how truthful her words had been. She did hate to see Max like that, his beautiful eyes teary-stained, with that look of fear and worry in them, as if he . . . as if he was afraid of being scared, as nonsense as that sounded. She shuddered slightly, pushing the thought back and decided to continue talking.

"You might not remember, but when Alec first started shooting with that bow he was the worst out of the worse, I swear" she said, remaining fully attached to the truth. "Even I was better than him. Mom said that he should try using a sword and dad offered a dagger, but he insisted in using arrows, and you've seen him now, he's the best archer we have. But it was not like that at the beginning, get it?" she continued, smiling fondly at her brother. "Practice makes the teacher."

"But, Izzy–"

"No buts, Max" she cut him off, hopefully, not too violently. "You're gonna become the bravest of us all, I know" she promised, turning her expression into a much more serious one.

Max swallowed hardly, as if he were nervous, but nodded right after, looking at his sister solemnly as she smiled at him again.

"You'll manage, I'm sure" she promised. Just then, a look of worry crossed Max's eyes again, and her brow furrowed in concern.

"Izzy?" he called out rather timidly, breaking eye contact.

"Yeah?" she asked worriedly.

"Can I still stay with you tonight?" Max asked timidly. She chuckled softly at the question, hugging him again so that Max rested his head on her right shoulder, her chin on top of his curly black hair, both of her arms wrapped around his slender body while he gripped the front part of her t-shirt in his hands.

"Of course you can" she said softly, smiling warmly into the darkness.

"Thank you" Max answered quietly, drowsiness already making its way through his voice.

It took only a couple of minutes for Max to start breathing more heavily, more evenly, until he was soud asleep next to her, her own breathing the only thing that disturbed the quietness from the room.

Still smiling, Isabelle pressed a soft kiss to her brother's forehead, just before she laid her head back in the pillow and allowed herself to drift off too.

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Years passed rapidly, and soon, she was standing next to her brother again, but this time, it was not Max the one crying, but rather Isabelle.

This time, no-one was there to wake her up, to shake her out of sleep. How bad she wished for that to happen, for someone to wake her up, wake her from this nightmare, to tell her it was just a dream. Alec, or Max, or whoever it was, but just someone; someone to tell her that she was dreaming and that it would be over.

But she knew it would not happen. No-one was there. It was not just a dream.

She was staring back at the lifeless body of Max, her sibling, her baby brother.

She was dressed in white for his funeral.

Dead. White. Funeral. Max.

The words echoed in her ears nonstop.

Dead. Max. Max was dead.

The baby she'd held in her arms was gone. His innocent, big, gray eyes were gone. His sweet laughter was gone. The boy who would look for her and tell her she looked pretty when she was wearing nothing but a simple t-shirt was gone. Gone. Gone forever.

Gone.

She could feel the tears building up in her eyes, tears she wouldn't let fall out of pride. She'd lost enough already as things were to lose her reputation by allowing herself to cry in public too. No, she decided, she was not crying right then and there.

She could feel dry sobs filling her throat and mouth, same she bit back and tried to swallow, resulting in them making their way out as desperate sounds; a dry, low cry, quiet enough for no-one to hear her, loud enough to portray and carry her pain and regret.

She vaguely felt Alec's left arm wrap around her shoulders and pull her to his chest, but she didn't make any movement to acknowledge his presence. If anything, she only looked at Max's pale features more stubbornly.

There he was. Dead, pale, serious. Gone.

She repressed another painful cry.

She wanted to shut her eyes close. She wanted to keep herself from seeing that. She wanted to block out the truth, just as bad as she wanted to stop herself from crying.

And yet . . . Yet she couldn't make herself do it.

She couldn't stop staring at the cold body that didn't seem like her brother's but that was. She couldn't draw her gaze away from him and so she stood there, with watery eyes, her voice hoarse if she were to speak, which was sincerely unlikely, drowning in guilt.

It had been her fault. Her fault.

Not only because she had been the last one to see Max alive, the last one that could have done something. Jace and Alec could excuse themselves, but she could not. She had left her brother, her younger, innocent brother, in the hands of a monster to go outside and help a bitch that she hadn't even found.

Stupid. Careless. That's what her actions had been. Idiotic. Senseless.

He had trusted her. Max had trusted her. All along, since the very beginning, since the very fucking beginning he had trusted her.

No, she didn't care that no-one had known about Sebastian, didn't care about his acting skills, she didn't care! She should have known!

But she hadn't.

And now Max laid dead in front of her, forever gone.

They could say whatever they wanted, but in the end, nothing she had ever done mattered.

Shadowhunters and Downworlders might be on the same side now. They could have won the battle, won the war, but she couldn't care less about it, because she'd lost.

She'd lost what was most important. She'd lost what she should have protected with her life. She'd lost what she had vowed to protect with her life and had failed to. She'd failed.

She'd lost her brother, the one who looked at her with such admiration and love, the one who trusted her, the one that now was . . . gone.

Nothing she had ever done mattered now, because, in the end, she had failed. Battle won or lost, she had failed. Failed to protect what was most important–failed to protect him.

She'd been there for him through all those tiny, unimportant things, held him while he cried in his sleep, promised him love and support, but in the end, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

Nothing mattered because the one time that he had really needed her, needed her to protect him, needed her to be there for him, needed her to be there for him to cling on to, she hadn't been.

Can you please comment at let me know your opinion?

Thanks your reading!