Chapter 23

Jace sagged with emotion as his father stood weakly.

"Dad?" He whispered.

"Son. Oh, Jace." Jace's father surged forward and pulled him into a hug. "I can't believe it. Son, you're hurt. How did you find me?" Jace stared at his father, eyes shining with tears. He gripped his shirt tightly.

"You're dead. Valentine killed you. Valentine's… Valentine's here." Jace stuttered, not believing it was real. I smiled lightly, remembering the feeling of seeing my father and knowing what he was going through.

"No, Jace. It's me." Michael turned to Clary and me. "I'm Michael Wayland. I'm Jace's father. Look, I know what Jace told you, but I've been here for ten years. Valentine took off and left me." I frowned a little. It didn't make sense that Valentine would do that? He'd kept him for 10 years, probably moved about all over the place and now he chooses to just leave him behind? What was really going on here?

"And Jocelyn Fairchild?" Clary begged. I know how desperate she had been to see her. We both had.

"He took her with him. You are?" Michael looked at us suspiciously.

"I'm Clary, her daughter." He nodded and looked at me.

"Charlie Fray," he quirked an eyebrow at me.

"You don't look related?" He bit out, flicking his eyes between us.

"I'm adopted. Originally I was a Danvers." His eyebrows raised high.

"Danvers? Geoff and Amara Danvers?" I nodded.

"They were my parents." He nodded gently.

"Meliorn, the Seelie, told us that Valentine was here with our mom." Clary interrupted and Michael pulled his eyes from me. Jace sagged weakly in his dad's arms and I rushed over to support him from the other side. I grabbed his other arm and wrapped it round my neck, winding my other arm round his waist.

"Jace, no!" His father shouted.

"It's Ravener venom. He kept telling me he was all right." Clary glanced at Jace. She was panicking, I could tell.

"We have to find your father, not my father. Valentine's…" Jace murmured.

"Shut up. Save your strength. We're not gonna be able to lug your fat ass all the way back to Brooklyn without help, you know." I quipped, hoping it would do the trick. Amazingly it did, and he was quiet.

"His stele. Where is it?" Michael searched through Jace's pocket, pulling out the tarot card. My eyes widen as Clary snatched it off him.

"Back pocket. Back pocket. Get it." Clary encouraged, hoping he would forget about the card in the panic. Jace groaned loudly as Michael pulled up his shirt and ran the stele over his healing rune.

"What's wrong?" Clary's voice was becoming strained from worry. I wanted to give her a hug but was a little tied up with Jace to do so.

"The rune is weak." Michael shook his head.

"Ravener venom must be spreading. We have to get him help." I gripped him tightly, looking around for any clue to where we were.

"We, we closed the Portal." Michael adjusted his grip on Jace, nodding down the hall.

"Valentine's got a standing Portal. Let's go." We held Jace tight and began to move towards where Michael pointed. Jace was getting weaker and subsequently heavier by the second. "Hey, Jace, stay with me. Hey. Do you remember our first demon fight? We were way out past the Institute, way up at Kinshasa. You were only eight, but you were so brave. Do you remember what you said?" I was actually interested to hear about Jace's childhood.

"I'm ready to die," Jace grunted.

"And then I said, "Sometimes it's as brave to live as it is to die." Do you remember? I do." I smiled at the sight of Jace leaning into his father.

"It's true. It's you." Michael grinned and nodded further down the hall.

"Let's go." We were lucky, it wasn't far. Clary turned to stare at me.

"Where do we take him, we can't take him back to the Institute! We broke the law." I nodded but continued moving.

"We'll go to the Jade Wolf. Luke will help us." Clary nodded and as we rounded the corner we saw the Portal. Clary gripped hold of my jacket and I pulled us through. I'll never get used to Portal travel. One minute being in a cold metal warehouse and the next being out in the sun on a pier in Brooklyn. I blew a sigh of relief when I saw the Jade Wolf and we moved as fast as we could towards it.

We charged through the door, Clary shouting, "We need help!" Luke was sat at one of the restaurant tables with Simon.

"Fray's, what happened?" Simon asked, not dragging his eyes away from the unconscious Jace.

"We thought we found Valentine, but he was already gone." Clary filled them in and Michael and I dumped Jace rather gracefully, I hope, in one of the booths. Luke looked at Michael in confusion.

"Michael Wayland?"

"Valentine took our mother with him, but we found Jace's father." Clary continued.

"What? I thought Valentine killed Jace's father." Simon stuttered. I'm surprised he knew that. I figured he always tuned out when Jace spoke.

"He tried. Hello, Lucian." Michael locked eyes with Luke.

"This can't be," Luke stammered. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"I never thought I'd see anyone again." Michael said downcast. I narrowed my eyes. Something didn't feel right. I didn't doubt that this man was Jace's father. The resemblance was uncanny but there was something about him that didn't sit right with me.

"What happened?" Luke asked.

"Demon got him. He can't fight the poison. His runes are too weak and he needs blood, but we can't go back to the Institute." I moved over to where Simon stood.

"Simon, there's gotta be some kind of blood at Hotel DuMort." He nodded.

"Could you call Raphael?" Clary asked, coming to join us.

"Calling won't work. We have to do this in person." I sighed at his willingness to help. It wasn't a secret that he didn't like Jace, but this was just who he was. "My van is in the garage. You drive, I'll hide under a blanket to stay out of the sun, and - there's underground parking in the hotel." I nodded at his plan.

"Okay." I agreed. Clary nodded before running over to Jace.

"How bad is it?" Simon whispered to me.

"Bad," I responded, truthfully.

Clary ran back to us and we legged it to the van. Clary made sure Simon was hidden and I streaked out of the garage and towards the Hotel DuMort at full speed.

20 minutes later we reached the Hotel and jumped out. Two vamps stood by the entrance but moved aside when they saw Simon. I suppose being mates with a clan member had its benefits. Simon informed them that we needed to speak to Raphael and we were escorted to the main waiting room.

Clary paced up and down impatiently as we waited.

"Why can't we just take what we need and leave?" I rolled my eyes. Wasn't that obvious?

"If we were transfusing goat blood, no problem. But human blood, that's against the Accords." I raised an eyebrow at Simon's knowledge. Apparently, I wasn't the only one that was surprised.

"I'm surprised you know that much." Raphael stated, using his vamp speed to sneak up on Simon. I swear he loved fucking with him. Simon jumped.

"Why do you keep doing that to me?"

"If you worked on controlling your enhanced senses, as you should, you wouldn't be surprised." Raphael muttered before turning his gaze on Clary and I.

"Clary, you really have to stop barging in here. Charlotte, pleasure as always." I rolled my eyes but smirked.

"Sorry, Raphael. We need blood." Clary ignored Raphael's comment and got straight down to business.

"So I've heard. Human blood. Funny how those rules for Downworlders stop being such a big deal when you need our help." I raised an eyebrow and flicked my gaze to Simon. He caught my eye and I nodded towards Raphael. He understood what I meant and took his arm.

"Okay, listen. Come on." I strained my ears to hear the conversation. I was super interested in how this was going to play out.

"Last night, I bumped into Bernice." Odd start, but sure. "She overheard a couple of bridge and tunnel vamps gossiping about Camille." Raphael's eyes went wide.

"You said Camille took a leave of absence, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They didn't care about that. They said she kept around a couple of humans. Apparently, she'd feed on them, but never went all the way. What are they called? Uh, sub submissives?" I grimaced. Who would voluntarily let themselves be fed on?

"Keep your voice down." Raphael flicked his eyes to me, but I made it very obvious that I had heard everything by making a 'carry on' gesture with my hands. He rolled his eyes and turned back to Simon.

"They're called subjugates. Horrible things. Even Camille got sick of them."

"Okay, so, they're gone." Simon summarised, but I could see in his eyes that he had a plan. "But keeping around human beings just to drain at cocktail hour, that's against the Accords. Camille had a taste for the real stuff. I know from experience. She had to have something on ice." I smirked.

"I'm sorry. If you want to tattle to the Clave about Camille draining humans, fine. I'm the new administration." I furrowed my brow at Raphael's casual tone, but Simon didn't look worried.

"Yeah. You could probably get over on them with that line, but you weren't exactly an innocent bystander in my case." Raphael's eyes snapped to Simon's.

"We agreed not to discuss that." He hissed. Simon chuckled.

"Did we? Funny, I can't really remember. Hey," He asked Clary and I, "did you ever tell the Clave what Camille did to me?" We shook our heads, matching smirks plastered on our faces.

"You can't. I'd be implicated." Raphael sighed.

"Then help us. Raphael, Jace will die without it." Clary said, quite persuasively.

"I can't believe you'd do this to me. Blackmail." Raphael caught my eye. I raised an eyebrow.

"Really? Have we met before?" I grinned as he rolled his eyes at me.

"Save it. You're getting off easy." Simon smirked as Raphael walked over to a keypad on the wall. He typed in a number, after making sure we were not looking and a painting rose up to reveal a massive stock of labelled human blood.

"You have got be shitting me? You made us resort to blackmail when you have a reserve this massive?" Raphael sighed at my complaining and asked,

"What's his blood type?"

"Go for type O. Universal donor." Simon grinned at me as 3 bags of blood were handed over.

"Thank you. Simon, let's go." Clary tapped Simon on the chest and we turned to go.

"Yeah, not so fast. I like the way you handled yourself in this negotiation. Stick around." Raphael told Simon.

"I'm ambassador to the werewolves. It's very time-consuming." Simon stuttered.

"Let me take that burden off of your shoulders. As of now, you've been recalled. You're advisor to the interim chapter president. Don't complain. My new advisor has to stay here." I rolled my eyes at Raphael's grin.

"You are such a dick." I growled at him. He just smiled back, giving of waves of victory.

"It's okay. Just go. Really." I continued to glare at Raphael but gave Simon a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Later Si. If you could advise him to take a long walk on a hot summer's day that would be great." I said in a mock whisper, causing Simon to chuckle. Clary also dropped a kiss on Simon's cheek.

"Thank you. Both of you." Clary said and left. I glared at Raphael.

"I'm not thanking you." I stated to Raphael and left as well. As we were leaving Clary sighed.

"Do you really have to piss him off? He could take it out on Simon." I rolled my eyes.

"Did you see Simon back there? He was a complete badass. He can handle himself."

Clary and I rushed back to the Jade Wolf as fast as the Bat Van would take us. I felt bad leaving Si without transport, but I guessed that he wouldn't be leaving Raphael's side any time soon. Screeching into the car park, we saw Michael and Luke waiting anxiously out the front. We hauled out of the van and practically threw the blood at Luke. The two men ran into the back where I assumed, they had Jace prepped. I flopped into one of the booths and lay my head on the table. Everything had happened so fast over the last 24 hours that I hadn't had time to process.

I felt the seat dip next to me. I turned my face to look at Clary. She was white. I sat up and leaned my head on her shoulder rubbing her arm in what I hoped was a comforting manner.

"He'll be okay, you know. Takes more than a Ravener demon to take him down." I whispered. I felt her nod gently.

"I just hope we were fast enough." Me too, I think to myself. We sit silently for a moment before she turns to me. "How are you doing?" I laughed softly, trying to arrange my thoughts into sentence form.

"Umm…" I tried to form words. "I'm sorry,"

Clary looked confused. "For what?"

"For how I reacted about the whole 'Simon's a vampire' thing. Upon further reflection, and a chat with Magnus, I think I would've done the same." I gave her an apologetic smile. Clary sighed heavily. "Besides," I continued, "How could we be the Three Musketeers without Simon?"

"I didn't know what to do," Clary croaked out. "He was dead. Simon. Our Simon. I kept thinking about his mom and his sister and how they would cope. They wouldn't get the truth. No-one but us would really know what happened to him and I couldn't let that happen." I began to rub her arm again.

"You did the right thing. Really! I just hate that you had to make the decision alone." Clary shook her head.

"You had other things to deal with. How did that go, by the way?" I chuckled a little.

"Really well actually. Got the best outcome I could've hoped for. They're gonna train me in Shadowhunter/Downworld relations in a bit, but for now I'm just doing exactly what I was doing before, but now they know. It's like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders." I ended with a fake smile and a sigh, thinking about the new weight on them. Clary nodded slowly and eyed me closely.

"And what about Alec?"

I shrugged. "What about him?"

Clary rolled her eyes, crossed her arms and sat back in the booth. "Don't do this."

"Do what?" I stared confused.

"Close yourself off when you're hurting. You always do this. First with Nieve and now with Alec." I scoffed.

"I don't always do this. I just don't think there is anything more that needs to be said. Alec has made his decision. He has decided to marry Lydia. It's a strong partnership and I'm sure they will make quite the power couple."

"But what about you and him." I scoff again getting annoyed.

"Well apparently there is no me and him. It's recent news to me but hey, that's what happens." I get up from the booth and start to pace. The rage in my stomach starts to melt into a soft blue glow. "How could he do this?" I look at Clary, as if expecting her to give me an answer. She says nothing. "He made me promise not to leave him. He told me he cares about me. There have moments when I think that maybe…" My throat closes up painfully and I take a deep gulp. Before I can say more the door to the back swings open and Michael steps through. We turn towards him in earnest.

"The transfusion helped. He's much better." I take a deep breath and laugh.

Turning to Clary I say, "I told you he'd be alright." Michael nodded.

"He's gonna wanna see you. Both of you." We headed for the back but Michael touched Clary's arm.

"But, uh, can I, um, talk to you for a minute?" Clary nodded at me to go on ahead. I narrowed my eyes slightly at Michael, when went to see Jace anyway. I pushed the plastic sheeting away and walked over to a red couch in the middle of the room. Jace was lay down on it covered in a blanket. He turned to look at me as I came over.

"Hey," He smiled.

"Hey, how you feeling?" He nodded to the blood bags now hanging empty on the stand.

"Much better now. Thanks." I shook my head.

"Don't thank me. Thank Simon. He blackmailed Raphael to get it." Jace smirked.

"Didn't know he cared." I laughed.

"Simon cares about everyone. It's his superpower." Jace sighed.

"How you doing?" I nod.

"Good. I didn't get poisoned." Jace looked at me his smile vanishing into a serious face. Uh oh.

"You know that's not what I'm talking about." I shrugged.

"Then what are you talking about?"

"You think I didn't notice the engagement ring on your finger back there?"

I raised an eyebrow. "It was no-one. Just a rando."

Jace shook his head. "No, see I don't think it was."

I sighed irritably. "Then who do you think it was, oh wise one."

Jace smirked. "There is only one person it could have been to get this this wound up." I grind my teeth together a little. "I'm right aren't I?"

I nod gently. "Whoever did the casting call on that world has a sick sense of humour." I shook my head. "I didn't mind, it was just… I got to see what our lives might have been like if we weren't at war. If Shadowhunters weren't needed and the Downworld was left in peace. We were normal. My parents were alive, Clary was in art school, we drank coffee and went to parties and we were together. All of us. Even without the Shadowworld, we all still found each other." Jace gave me a look. "And yes, Alec and I found each other, and we were happy." I laugh. "We were so happy. Even my dad liked him. You should've seen him. He was smiling and relaxed… and he loved me." I lean back in my chair. "But it wasn't me. And he wasn't him. He wasn't my Alec and I wasn't his Charlie." God this was all so fucked up. The plastic sheeting fluttered as Clary walked through. I stood up to give them some space.

"Charlie…" Jace started but I cut him off with a wave.

"It's okay. You two need some time to talk." He opened to mouth to speak again but closed it without uttering a thing. I smiled at the pair of them and walked back into the restaurant. Michael was sat, hands clasped at one of the tables. Every bone in my body was screaming at me to get away from him, but I ignored them and sat down opposite. He eyed me suspiciously and I matched his gaze. He sighed and drop his gaze to the table.

"I knew your parents." He muttered. I nodded.

"Not surprising. It's the Shadowworld. Apparently, everyone knows everyone around here." Michael chuckles.

"They were good people. They best kind of people. And yet they made many enemies by not picking a side in the war." I scoffed. He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"They picked a side. Just one that wasn't that…" I nodded towards the red circle rune on his neck. Michael's hand touched the rune gently.

"He wasn't always seen as bad." I rolled my eyes. I had heard this argument one to many times. "He was seen as progressive."

"You mean before he went insane." Michael shook his head, getting frustrated. Why was he trying to change my view on Valentine! He'd kept him locked up for Christ sake. If anyone knew what a mad man he was, it should be him. "He murdered whole Institutes. Men, women, children, anyone who was going." Michael tried to cut in but I snapped, "Don't try and deny it. I saw it, with my own eyes. My friends, family, people that had trained me, people that had raised me. Everyone I knew… dead. Cold and lifeless on the floor of our home. I was 10 years old." My hands shook as the memories of that that flashed across my eyes. I felt a hand rest on mine which brought me back. I went to pull away but found the familiar eyes of Luke staring back at me. I hadn't even realised that he had sat down next to me.

"Charlie?" He murmured. I nodded sharply and turned my hand to squeeze his. I flicked my eyes over to Michael whose eyes were dark and his face stony. The bang of the door made me turn to see Jace and Clary walking in, bodies close, faces flushed. I wonder what they were just doing. I rolled my eyes and watched Jace slide in beside his father. Clary pulled a chair over and sat down too. We all sat in silence for a second before Luke spoke, "What now?"

Michael cleared his throat. "I might know." We all turned to look at him confused. "I know Valentine's plans."

I furrowed my brow. That didn't make any sense. Clary apparently agreed.

"But why would Valentine tell a prisoner what he was planning to do?" I nodded.

"He didn't. Well, not directly. But he gave me a way to learn all about his plans." Nope, still confused.

"How do you mean?" Jace asked.

"He injected me with Downworlder blood." Silence. I knew everyone was looking at me but I continued to stare at Michael.

"The pain was excruciating. Sometimes I was sick for days. But it's not often you got a Shadowhunter to experiment on." Goosebumps littered my arms. Experimentation? Was he doing that do Jocelyn? We had to get her out of there. "So I guess that's why he always stopped short of killing me. But, little by little I developed enhanced hearing and vision. They were talking about finding a new base. Right under our noses. Renwick's." He looked up at Luke as Luke inhaled sharply.

"Who's Renwick?" Clary asked gently.

"It's not a who. It's a where. It's a deserted smallpox hospital on one of the islands of the East River." Luke finished. I shook my head.

"Under our noses is right." I muttered under my breath.

"And we can't track over water." Clary looked at me. I sighed.

"He left me to die in that cage." Michael growled bitterly.

"Valentine never wasted time on compassion." I agreed with Luke on that one. He hadn't shown my family and friends anything other than hate.

"He won't get any from me when the time comes." Jace muttered under his breath going to stand. Michael stopped him with a touch of the arm.

"Before it does, you need a strategy. Waiting a day could mean the difference between failure and success." For the first time since he got here, Michael Wayland was actually making sense.

"He's right." I nodded at Jace. Jace huffed but conceded.

"Okay. Charlie, Clary and I will scout Renwick's tonight." I rolled my eyes. Not what we meant, genius! Clary stood to stop him.

"Jace, don't. Your runes are still weak. Luke, Charlie and I will go. Just take this extra time to rest and…" She was cut off before she could finish.

"I'll be fine, Clary."

"Jace, please." She begged, gripping his hand tightly. Jace sighed and turned to Luke.

"Don't let them get you into trouble." He slumped into his chair but raised his eyes when he noticed me giving him a look. "What?"

I gaped at him. "I am offended that you would assume that we were going to get Luke into trouble. Surely it's the opposite way round. Luke is the attracter of trouble, not us!" Luke scoffed at my antics, whilst Jace just smirked.

"That's why you found him right?" I started to match Jace's grin as I clapped him on the shoulder and headed out the front of the restaurant.

Ketsueko - Heyyyyy! I was excited to hear from you. Nice to see a familier name in the reviews. I'm so glad that you liked the prginal chapter, I was nervous to do one completley from scratch now that Charlie's character has developed so much, just from being around the other charcters, but i was pretty pleased with how it turned out. I'm glad you liked the speech, I could literally hear her in my head whilst i was writing that and knew exactly how it would go down before i had even started. DUDE! Tell me about it. Alec made a really stupid decision but we know he did it for the right reasons. It defo had an effect on Charlie even if she tried to play it down at the time. I really love Raphael as a character in the show, he's sarcastic and sassy so i knew that him and charlie would get along - plus it's gonna help her having friends on the Downworld side if she wants to help heal the rift between them later on. AHH that fight was very emotional for all parties. There was so much at stake for all of them and i think they knew it. I imagine that the Fairfolk feel a sort of kinship with Charlie and won't spill her secret willy nilly, but that's just my take. I really enjoyed writing the parallell world. Alec and her parents were exactly where she wanted them and i think it took more out of her to turn away from that than she expected - but hey, the converstaion when she tells Alec about that world will be fun huh! Anyway thanks for reviewing, it really made my day to see them all! Love ya!

Sandman17 - Thanks so much!

Have a lovely week people,

Like ive said before, the reviews mean so much so thanks to everyone that has!

Zoe xx