Walking Out

PS. Shit gon' get real.

2 January, 2011

'Isabelle, for the last time I'm telling you, no,' Clary groaned into the receiver, wishing that Isabelle would hang up because Isabelle's baby's noises from the background were causing her to have a headache.

'Is the presence of an ax murderer the reason for your baby's incessant yelling?' Clary asked her friend as another cry ripped through the phone, and Clary immediately held it away for a good few seconds before bringing it back to her ear.

'Are you done getting yelled at?' Clary asked sardonically as she pushed around pieces of scrambled eggs on her plate.

Isabelle sighed into the phone. 'Clary, this is precisely why I need a night off,' she insisted, sounding tired.

'Hey, this is your fault. You make your bed, you lie in it. With Simon,' she added and snickered at her friend's expense.

She heard Isabelle huff in indignation over the phone. 'Excuse you,' she said in an insulted tone, 'come on, Clary, you're supposed to be on my side!'

'Against whom?' Clary asked, as she played with a saltshaker, tipping it over but then she accidentally spilled the contents.

'Shit,' she cursed, holding the phone to her ear and struggling to gather the salt.

'Shh!' Isabelle reprimanded, as if her baby would overhear.

'Izzy, Charlotte is a five months old, okay? She doesn't understand cuss words,' Clary assured her friend while spooning the salt into a napkin.

'Well, forgive me for not wanting my baby's first word to be "shit", ' Isabelle defended, 'why'd you cuss?'

'Because I spilled over salt,' Clary told her as she disposed off the napkin in the trashcan. 'See, this is precisely why I can't look over your baby,' she mimicked Isabelle's tone.

'So, what, my baby is a bottle of salt?' Isabelle demanded, sounding offended.

'God, are you sure you aren't pregnant anymore? You're as hormonal as you were back then,' Clary grumbled under her breath a she set her empty plate in the sink.

'What was that?' Isabelle's voice sounded dangerously close to a threat.

'Nothing!' Clary changed her sentence quickly before saying, 'You know I don't like kids, Isabelle!'

'So?' her friend whined like a toddler. 'I don't like giving birth but here we are,' she pointed out and Clary could almost imagine Isabelle pouting and crossing her arms.

Clary rubbed her temples with her thumb and forefinger of her free hand. If Isabelle was this frustrating, Clary didn't even want to imagine what her daughter would be like.

'You know what, Jace will be here,' Isabelle said, and Clary perked up. Had her boyfriend finally gone utterly insane? And finally a sighting of the elusive creature?

'And, you know he can't be trusted with kids,' Isabelle continued, and Clary could imagine her smirking, 'and it's not Charlotte you're worried about, it's Jace!' Isabelle concluded, and Clary hated to admit she was right.

Though Jace might act all macho, babies would definitely scare the living shit out of him once he had to endure nappy-changing. She knew why agreed to Isabelle. He'd been avoiding her. And she thought it was high time she spoke to him about it,

'Isabelle…'

That was how Clary found herself getting piled with all sorts of baby things as Isabelle explained the basics—or more accurately, barked them. Explaining would require student-teacher interaction. And Isabelle didn't wait for Clary to ask any questions as she prattled on.

'Do not, under any circumstances, let her grab hold of the plastic curtains,' Isabelle warned, and Clary scoffed.

'Why do you have plastic curtains in the first place?' Clary asked, crossing her arms.

'They're easier to clean,' Isabelle dismissed her with a wave of her hand.

'Okay,' Clary nodded, as she mentally grasped the fact that yes, her friend was indeed baby-crazy.

Jace raised his head from his laptop, and his face registered shock before the mask was back again. Five year-old Theo sat on the back on the couch with his legs thrown across Jace's shoulders carelessly as he peered over Jace's shoulder, pointing out random words and asking their meanings.

'Tell Jace not to tell Theo the meaning of dirty words, please,' Isabelle said, glancing towards her son who was tumbling off the sofa, and then handed Clary Charlotte who gurgled and raised a tiny hand.

'Hey Charlie,' Clary greeted the baby, holding up a finger as Charlie's fingers curled around it in a death grip.

'Wow, look at you,' Clary commented and Charlie pulled her hand closer, her big brown eyes focused on it, and her dainty eyebrows pulled into a frown like her father's.

Clary turned back to ask Isabelle but she was gone, and the door was shut.

Charlie babbled meaninglessly as she played with Clary's curls, and Clary adjusted Charlie on her hip as she slouched down next to Jace. She cradled Charlotte, and the sound of Jace tapping away was the only thing that could be heard besides the occasional gurgle from Charlie.

Fifteen minutes later, Clary gingerly uncurled Charlie's fingers from around the small puffin stuffed animal as Charlie's cries filled the room.

'Oh God, what did you do?' Jace asked her, looking over the screen at where she stood with a wailing Charlie in her arms.

Clary gave him an incredulous look. 'Me? How the hell would I make her cry? She's a baby, not a robot, Jace!'

She saw him lower his head into his hands. 'One day. One fu—dang day. I need this work done, okay? Do something.' He took a deep breath and grit his teeth.

'Hey, mind the attitude. Other skanks may put up with it, but I definitely won't,' Clary said, finally giving in and confronting him. She'd been on edge about it for the past week. They might've seemed like the perfect couple, but close up, they were a bit of a mess.

His eyes narrowed behind the lenses. 'What?'

Clary ignored Charlie, shutting her eyes. 'Nothing. Why've you been avoiding me? Staying at Alec's, my calls going to voicemail after they ring twice, Kaelie turning up in the middle of the night? You know, the usual.'

Jace seemed to pale. 'What about Kaelie? You know she's just trying to get me set up somewhere.'

'Is she?' Clary let out a humorless laugh. 'Does that explain her turning up at three-oh-nine a.m., telling me you were passed out drunk at some bar?'

'Look, just get Charlie quiet, and we'll talk about it.' Thankfully, Theo wasn't around to listen to Clary's outburst.

After 'How to Keep a Baby Alive' was typed into Google, they'd concluded Charlie needed burping, feeding, or nappy-changing. The foul smell narrowed it down to one, and therefore they spent the next half hour doing nappy origami.

Clary leaned against the kitchen counter, facing Jace who sat on the couch, his head in one hand and the other flung over the back. She didn't know what to say. It was like she'd pulled the plug on a grenade, and the wrong direction of conversation could blow up what they had.

This was what she was always wary of. It seemed too perfect. One crack and their whole relationship would fall apart. One crack, which would spread, and eventually shatter.

Charlie was asleep in her crib in the nursery and Theo was tired from running around—even a four year old had his energy limits.

'Can we please just not skirt around this?' Clary asked, turning her back toward him.

'What do you want to know?' came his voice.

'The truth, what you've been doing this whole time.'

'And what do you want to hear?'

Little warning bells started going off in her mind. Guys usually said that when there was something she didn't want to hear. 'What I said.'

She heard him sigh. 'Kaelie…is hard to explain,' he admitted.

'Hard how?' she insisted and faced him once more. 'What do you mean it's hard to explain? Either you're honest me or you're not. Either you tell me what you've been doing with her, or you don't. It's that simple.'

He groaned, burying his head in his arm. 'You just have to know everything, don't you?'

She stared at him. 'I don't get you right now,' she said, folding her arms over her torso.

He whipped his head up. 'You don't have to get me all the time! It is literally like you're a walking talking shrink with the whole "Jace, talk to me, tell me how you feel" thing!'

Her eyes filled with tears. He was never like this with her.

'At least Kaelie uses her mouth for something other than talking,' he shrugged.

That was it. She crossed the room in four strides and slapped him across his face. 'I don't know what you're on right now, but when you're in your right mind, you know where to find me.'

With that, she left.

A/N: Heyyy! How's everyone? I'm alive, yes. I'm so lame, I'm doing Physics and Maths during vacations. Ah, well. And, I lost my phone. I am brilliant at losing things. Aaand, I ain't got nothin' on babies. I am fourteen, I do not have any experience in handling babies, expect for the occasional holding-of-the-baby-because-he-just-looks-so-cute-and-then-the-devil-comes-out-to-play kind.

Also, I have not beta'd this, so there might be some mistakes here and there. It's 3:09 a.m. here and yeah. I don't know. I looked over it and it looked pretty dang fine. But, that might just be sleepy-me. Yup. Totally.

Meeeeeee *Hides* I'm sorry. Seriously. Sorry.

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Disclaimer: I don't own TMI