Chapter Fifteen

A/N: Thank you to Guest, rori-mori, Alex13 and for reviewing the last chapter.

Valentine maintained his grip on her hand until they crossed the threshold of the manor house, as if he feared she might bolt at any second like a frightened foal. It was the way he had always held her, ever since they were lovesick teenagers, as if with the clutch of his fingers he could keep her from all the harms of the world; now that she looked back on it, it was not the world his grip was harming.

Once they reached the house, he left her be, retiring to his study and promising to meet her for dinner. His expression was awkward, torn between his joy that she had come back to him and the clear assertion that he was not the reason she stayed. Jocelyn did not speak another word to him, her face unreadable, and so the man resigned himself to loneliness again.

Jonathan was nowhere near as passive. The moment his parents crossed the threshold, he had bolted to the stairs, peering down them like a frightened child who had been left alone at night. Words could not describe the look on his face when he saw Jocelyn, or the feeling in her heart when she saw it.

"I thought you weren't coming back." Jonathan confessed, long after Valentine had left them alone. They were sat together at the dining room table, a bizarre experience for the elder, who was used to doing the same thing with her daughter.

"I know you did." Jocelyn conceded. Her heart prickled a little in her chest, seeing her son so dejected. When she had first seen him, the boy would barely even raise an eyebrow; now he was laying his heart bare for her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that to you."

"You said you would stop at nothing to get your daughter back." Jonathan commented. From what little she knew of the boy, she had learnt he had a near perfect memory. "So, what stopped you?"

The redhead chuckled gently. If she did not laugh, she would probably start to cry. "Clary."

Jonathan looked up at his mother, confused. In another situation, Jocelyn probably would have been flattered. Even with all his knowledge, her son could not understand how his sister would turn their mother away.

"She didn't know." the woman explained, shrugging gently. Somehow, it did not seem right to pretend she was innocent in all of this. "About the Shadow World, the Uprising, any of it. I never told her. I suppose I just thought it would be easier that way."

"And I suppose she didn't take too kindly to being lied to." Jonathan continued. His dark eyes glinted a little, a kind of kindred spirit with a sister he had never met. Jocelyn made a note to ask Valentine a few questions later; something told her she was not the only parent keeping secrets.

Jocelyn shook her head sadly, letting out a breath through pursed lips. "She ran away. It's funny, really; the moment she wanted most to get away from me was the moment she behaved exactly like me. Guess we're more similar than I thought."

The boy sat still for a moment, then reached up to push a little hair out of his face. It was not long enough to actually bother him, the white gold strands barely having to curl under their own weight, and the nervous gesture was more than familiar, given Jocelyn had always done it herself.

"Being like you isn't a bad thing." At first, Jocelyn dismissed the words, because they had been so quiet she was almost sure they had only been spoken in her head. But when she glanced over to her son, she found his eyes fixed on her. "She's lucky."

The woman could barely believe what she was hearing. "Do you really mean that?"

Jonathan nodded solemnly. "You're a great warrior. You're strong, determined, but you still… love. I've never seen anything like you."

It was a painful reminder, almost like the blade of a knife. It did not take much to realise Jonathan had not known love, or anything like it, for far too long. When Valentine had spoken of her, he had praised her quick thinking, her skill with a blade; but Jonathan had not needed a trainer, he had needed a mother.

"Well," the woman sighed, fighting back her tears before they even began to surface. "That's good, because it looks like you're going to be stuck with me for a while."

The boy's eyes lit up, catching the light so well that he almost looked normal, but though the corners of his lips twitched, he did not smile. It was almost as if he did not trust himself to be happy, in case he should be disappointed once again. "You're staying?"

Images swam before her eyes; Clary, Luke, the little apartment she had tried so hard to make a home for them. She thought of poor Simon, who would never know the world that had stolen away the woman who had been like a mother to him. But all those people had each other. Jonathan had no one.

The moment that Jocelyn nodded her assent was a moment both of them would remember the rest of their lives. For a moment, there was stillness between them, like the two were posing for an artist to capture the joy threatening to erupt from their heart. But once that moment was done, Jonathan hurled himself into his mother's arms, his enthusiasm nearly knocking her from her chair.

Jocelyn did not know how to react. In all the times she had imagined stealing Jonathan away from Idris, shielding him in the comforting anonymity of New York, it had been a thought that she had out of obligation. She was his mother, he needed her, and so she would take him into her life and hope that they could exist side by side.

She had never imagined this.

'He loves me.' The thought alone broke the dam, and tears flooded her cheeks. 'My little boy. He loves me.'

As Jocelyn embraced her son in return, she truly realised what she was fighting so hard to create. Everything she had done since stepping foot in Idris, it was not about Clary, or Jonathan, or Luke, or her. It was about the family she had dreamed they might create together. And for the first time in her life, the woman really believed that her dream might come true.

A/N: I really wanted to emphasise the relationship between Jocelyn and Jonathan, especially given he would have been so worried she'd left him. Now, all she has to do is convince him to come away with her.