I would like to make a big thank you to ReadingManiac, AlesiaJ89 and a lovely Guest for leaving some lovely review for me to read! Thanks so much for your support, it means so much, particularly as I've never written anything along these lines before xx

The two teens finally pulled up on a beach and were so exhausted they could barely keep their eyes open. Together they dragged the boat up the beach as far as they could and secured it to a mangrove before stripping it. Jace and Clary pulled out the main sail and hauled out the kite.
"Why are we doing this?" Clary asked, tiredly.
She felt physically exhausted and drained. Her eyelids felt like 100 kilogram weights and her actual eyeballs felt like sandpaper. Presumably from all the salt she had gotten in them thanks to her little dip. Her limbs felt heavy and awkward, every movement was an extremely conscious and forced movement. All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep—hopefully waking back up in her bed and realising this was all a nightmare.
"We can use the sails for shelter and for a bed. We can just hook them back up in the morning. After this go and grab my lunch and anything else you think we'll need for the night. Rope, anything," Jace told her tiredly.
Clary nodded and together they dragged the kite up the beach a bit further before she returned back to the boat. She dug through every little compartment and grabbed everything she could carry. She hauled it all back up the beach to where Jace was attempting to make a shelter.

"What did you find?" he asked her, his back still turned to her.
She dropped everything into the sand and listed it for him.
"Mooring rope, your lunch which consists of an apple, a sandwich and a couple of museli bars. Your EPIRB, your rope knife, a small first aid kit, your waterproof box with your keys, license and phone—"
"Clary! My phone! Call someone!" Jace said urgently whirling around to face her.
She looked up at him with heavy eyes to meet his frantic gold ones.
"Really, Jace? Call for help? Why didn't I think of that?" she snapped sarcastically.
"No need to get snappy Clary," Jace growled.
Clary sighed realising she was being unnecessarily bitchy. It wasn't his fault they were stranded here.
"Sorry Jace, I'm just… stressed out. In any case, there's no service on this beach," she told him dropping his phone back into the sand.
His face fell but he plastered a big smile for her anyway.

"Do you think you could give me a hand?" he asked her, changing the topic.
She nodded and stood up from their pitiful salvage.
"We should make a lean to, that'll be easiest," Clary offered.
Jace smiled.
"Just what I was thinking."
Together they worked together to create a spine from fallen logs, branches and buried them deep into the sand for stability. Next they used the knife to cut down leaves, leafy branches, just anything to insulate the shelter and lay on the floor. Next they cut and used the mooring line to lash Jace's kite down over them to keep them protected from the elements. Jace tossed his life jacket inside both agreeing to use it as a pillow.

When they were done both of their stomachs were growling. They looked hesitantly at their meagre food and Clary pushed it away.
"You have it," she told Jace, pushing the apple to him.
He snorted.
"I think it's best we just don't eat tonight. It won't be so bad, one night won't kill us. When they find us we'll have it as our victory feast," Jace said to her, reassuringly.
Clary looked up at him and marvelled at how easy it was for him to be optimistic. He had built the shelter, got everything together, basically keeping them alive while she was sitting on the ground barely able to function. Nevertheless, she agreed and they set the food aside in the lean to. She did open up one of Jace's water bottles that she found on the boat and took a small sip before offering it to Jace. He nodded his thanks and took a mouthful before screwing the cap on and placing it with the food.

"We need to make a fire. It'll scare animals away and make us noticeable," Clary said softly.
Jace nodded and grabbed the knife and began whittling away at a branch they hadn't used. Clary watched curiously as he kept all the shavings and created a centimetre deep groove in the branch.
"Can I have a shoelace?"
Clary immediately unlaced her shoe and handed it to him wordlessly. He grabbed a flexible branch and another smaller branch. He tied one end of the shoelace to one end of the flexible branch and looped it around the smaller branch before tying it to the other end, making a crude bow.
"What are you doing, Jace?" Clary asked in curiosity.
"I saw it on Mythbusters. I'm gonna make us a fire," he informed her.
Clary felt a small smile flicker at the corner of her lips.
"Thank God for Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman."
Jace snorted and grabbed some of the shavings as well as the paper bag that his lunch was kept in. He created a flat surface and laid the paper bag down before laying the grooved branch over the top. He grabbed a spare piece of wood and collected the shavings.

"Can you get me some more tinder? Just some twigs and leaves and dry grass? Then get some bigger sticks?" he asked her quietly.
Clary nodded and started collecting all the dry tinder around, setting it in a pile next to Jace. Meanwhile he set one end of the branch in the groove and placed the spare bit of wood on top, keeping it stable. He took a deep breath and took up the bow and began to vigorously move it in a sawing motion.
Clary watched him idly as he kept sawing. She noticed sweat start to build up on his forehead and bit her lip. She desperately wanted this to work, she needed it to work. Jace kept at it and she began to notice a bit of smoke start to waft away.

"It's working! Jace, it's working!" she squealed in excitement.
She dropped to her knees next to him and he stole a glance at her. She looked desperate. Her eyes were staring at the smoke like it was her lifeline, and for all they knew it kind of was. He also noticed her lips had turned a pale blue colour and whether she noticed it or not she was visibly shaking. He knew that was both a good and bad sign. Good because her body still maintained some form of heat generating function, but bad because it was the starting symptom of hypothermia. He pressed his lips together and redoubled his efforts.

Not long after more smoke began to form and he carefully pulled the stick away from the groove and tapped the end gently. Some black coals dropped into the groove he blew very, very gently on them. More smoke began to cloud and he carefully dropped the coals onto the paper bag underneath. He gathered up the shavings and dropped them on the coals. He carefully waved his hand on the embers and gathered up the leaves, grass and twigs Clary had gathered. He bundled them all up and then created a small crevice in the twigs.
"Clary, make a pit three feet from the entrance of our tent," he ordered.
She nodded and immediately began to dig a small fire pit in the sand and filled it up with the remaining sticks and twigs. Seconds later Jace came running over with a handful of fire, which he threw into the pit.
"How did you do that?" Clary asked him in awe.
"Transferred the embers to the bundle of twigs and grass and waited. Kept blowing it of course, everything gets hot when I blow on it," he teased, sending her a wink.
She just rolled her eye good naturedly and held out her hands over the slowly growing fire. She was still shivering and he bit his lip as he saw her soaking shirt clinging to her porcelain skin.

"Clary, you'll actually be warmer if you take your wet clothes off," he told her carefully.
She looked up at him indignantly
"I'm fine, Jace. You don't need to worry about me," she told him
"Clary, we're sopping wet and you've been shaking for hours. You are going to get hypothermia. Take your damn shirt off, wring it out and hang it so that it dries for tomorrow," he said to her in a no nonsense kind of tone.
Clary sighed irritated, even though she knew Jace only wanted the best for her. She just knew how many bruises were left on her body and she hated Jace seeing them. Every time he saw them she noticed he got a little twitch in his eye and she felt shame sink into a pit in her stomach. She knew, rationally, she had no reason to feel shameful but she couldn't help it. She reluctantly pulled her shirt up and felt the breeze brush over her skin, causing her to shudder violently. Jace pulled his shirt up as well and wrung it out as Clary did and took her shirt from her, hanging it up high and securely. He turned to her and he felt his eye twitch as he saw the bruises mottling her body. He couldn't help it, she was his best friend and he would always flinch at someone hurting her. He noticed her skin rise into goosebumps and he knew she needed to keep warm, otherwise her hypothermia would worsen.

He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her, drawing her into his body. Using their combined body heat was the best and most efficient way he knew to warm her up. He hadn't banked on her skin feeling like he was hugging a block of ice though. His skin immediately broke out in goosebumps and he sharply inhaled as she flinched from the contact.
"Jesus, Clary! I knew you were cold, but you really should have said something!"
She looked down feeling guilt rise up in her body. First she made them stranded now she was making him cold. She knew he was cold because his nipples were nearly poking her in the eye.
"Sorry Jace, I just didn't want to be even more of a burden," she mumbled as she curled into him, absorbing his body heat.
She marvelled at how he could still be so warm even though he had been soaked to the skin. She turned in his arms and snuggled in closer, her body craving the heat. Her head was resting against the smooth skin of his muscular chest and she could hear his heart beating in his chest to a slow, solid rhythm.
"Clary, you are never a burden. Don't ever think that," Jace assured her, smoothing down some of her hair so it wasn't trying to infiltrate his nose.
Clary couldn't bring herself to respond, she knew Jace was just being kind. After all, if they had just done what he wanted they would be safe and warm at home. Instead he had accommodated her wants and wishes and now they were stuck on some stupid island in the middle of nowhere.

"I hate that he has you so self conscious now," Jace said idly.
Clary's brows knitted together.
"What?" she asked him in confusion.
"Verlac," Jace clarified, his voice dripping with venom for the French boy.
"He makes you scared, self conscious, a mere shell of the confident Clary I know," he told her.
Clary just looked down, knowing his words were true. She couldn't help it though; she had loved and trusted Sebastian and he had betrayed her in the worst way. He basically told her that she was worth nothing as a person and the only thing she was good for was what using what was between her legs. That was hard for her to come to terms to. She had heard about shitty boyfriends like that before but she never thought she would have one. She also never thought that he would make her second guess everything she knew about herself.
"It's hard Jace… You don't know what it's like," she murmured finally.
"I don't know what it's like to be played? To be told that I mean nothing?" he asked her gently.
She sighed and hugged him a little bit tighter.
"Kaelie fucked around on me Clary, and there were two ways I could have taken that. I could have curled into a ball and cried about how much it hurt and wonder what I did wrong, or just accept that fact she wasn't for me," he told her softly.
Clary nodded, she remembered Jace showing up at her door drunk and crying about catching Kaelie with Raphael. She had remembered finding Kaelie the next day and tearing her a new ass hole before Kaelie had said something rather nasty about Jace. Clary naturally responded with violence and ended up suspended for the week.
"She didn't physically attack you and render you useless though," Clary mumbled weakly.
"I know, Clare Bear, I know. But that's all the more reason to believe in yourself though. He needed to render you immobile to even get near you. Even that didn't work, because you are strong. You are a fighter and you will not let some fuckboy get the better of you!" Jace campaigned passionately to her.
She could feel his heart rate rise with his anger and passion and she smiled. Trust Jace to know what words to make her feel better.
Jace felt her squeeze him a little tighter and he hoped what he said was getting through to her. She deserved so much better than any boy was ever capable of giving her and it made him frustrated. Someone needed to love and cherish her like he did, to show her how she should be treated. He could feel himself starting to get worked up about it so he focused on something else, namely how warm she was feeling. He could feel her skin starting to warm up slightly as a combined effort of his body heat and the fire that was now crackling and popping in front of him. She was snuggled tight in his arms and he felt his sense of overprotectiveness wash over him. Whenever she was in his arms like this she was trusting him to protect her from whatever she needed protecting from and he had promised to always do so.

Clary yawned against his skin and he felt himself following suit.
"Good idea. We'll wake up in the morning feeling better. We'll set the sails up and head back the way we came," Jace told her quietly.
She nodded, her head still against his chest.
"Let's go to bed," he murmured.
She nodded and pulled back away from his skin, a shiver immediately making its way through her body as her skin readjusted to the change in temperature.
"C'mon," he said softly and they both crawled into the makeshift tent.
Clary lay on one side of the sail, using it as a sheet, and Jace slid in next to her, drawing the other half of the sail over them like a blanket. Clary rested her head on the life jacket, surprised at how comfortable it was as a pillow. She felt another shiver rumble through her body and moments later a warm body pressed up to her back. She rolled over and faced Jace.
"Is this okay?" she asked him softly.
"Of course, now get closer so I don't have to worry about you dying of hypothermia," he muttered, his arm going around her hips and dragging her closer.
Clary snuggled in as close as she could to Jace, her head was tucked under his chin and one arm was flung over his side and now resting on his back where she began to automatically trace patterns on his back. He hummed in contentment as he felt some of the tension leave his body under her soothing touch. He rested his arm over hers, so that his hand rested on the small of her back and he began the same treatment. Clary felt her eyelids droop and she tangled her leg in between his, hooking her ankle around his. Now they were basically pressed up against each other, every inch of their skin touching. She could feel his abs against her belly with every breath and their chests pushed against each other with each inhale. It was a rather intimate position but Clary had never felt safer or more relaxed. It took her no time at all to fall asleep in Jace's arms.