So this is my first venture into The Mortal Instruments and my contribution is lackluster at best. I finished City of Fallen Angels and declared Simon and Isabelle to be my favourites. So naturally I wrote a little something. Nothing special, but here it is.

i.

When Simon leaves, and Isabelle can't remember what number they're on anymore, he drives until there's just a sea of wheat. He doesn't look at signs anymore. They don't matter. He's not going anywhere anyway. He wonders if he drives long enough, if he'll hit the coast. Making zigzagging marks across the country.

Then he's sitting in his car one night, tired but not really, and then some song plays on the radio. He's always liked music in that way that teenagers do but suddenly he's hit with this overwhelming wave of… something. He drives to the nearest gas station and calls her.

She picks up after two rings and her voice fills him with that same feeling. It takes him a while to say anything. He likes to listen to her breathing. The sound filling up the static that separates them. They don't talk much, there are too many pauses and she sounds like she might burst into tears at any moment. Eventually she sighs and tells him that it's late where she is and that she should go to sleep. She hangs up before he can say goodbye. Because he never does.

ii.

Isabelle feels everything. Like all her emotions are pulsing underneath her skin, threatening to break out at any moment. She feels it hard. She has so many scars, each encounter just adds to her collection. But Simon leaves the best ones.

They lie in his bed, his cold hand ghosts over her runes, tracing ancient words into her skin. There's a song playing on the stereo and she almost thinks that she could fall asleep but he's mumbling the words and she's close enough to hear him clearly. Love is watching someone die, so who's gonna watch you die.

She's eighteen by then. There's no noticeable shift in her, but she feels it. Inside of her, like she can feel her organs decaying. Thankfully she hasn't gotten any taller, just enough to fit right his chin. But this moment only reminds her that someday she's going to feel time and it's going to ravage her. She reaches out to him, grabbing his shirt to pull him closer. She's older but so is he, she tells herself.

iii.

Simon's scared of Isabelle really. She's like a fire, burning too bright that he's afraid she might just destroy everything. She's so quick to fight, quicker to judge and some days he just waits to figure out what Isabelle he's getting today. It can't be easy though, being with him.

Sometimes he asks her, asks her if she's okay. She smiles that smile of hers and tells him yes but most of the time he sees it in her eyes. She's tired. Tired of having her heart jerked around the country every time he has to leave. But if there's anything that she is, it's stubborn so she never says anything. And he's a little selfish so he doesn't say anything either. Because sometimes when he comes back to New York it's nice to have her to come back to. To feel her tug him onto his bed and kiss her and touch her.

But in the end he's a good guy, although it doesn't feel like it, and he asks her to stop waiting. He can see it hurting her and that's the last thing he wants. She doesn't scream or yell or even throw things, which comes as surprise to him. Instead she's filled with an eerily silence that is only broken with the sound of her swallowing her own spit. She leaves without saying goodbye to him, only the harsh sound of the door slamming behind her, and he finally understands what it feels like.

iv.

Isabelle wants to say that she gets over it. But she doesn't. Some nights she cries. Her body shakes with her sobs but no tears come because she is Isabelle Lightwood and she won't shed any tears. Instead she shudders, and she can hear her mattress creak as her weight shifts. It's worse even. It feels like it's not real. Her sadness or whatever it is that has its hold on her, it's not sincere and genuine.

Alec and Jace treat her with special care now, as if she might break at any moment. It just twists the knife. Clary attempts to be understanding but she doesn't want that. She just wants it to go away. It's funny how easily he can leave but the feelings don't trail out the door with him.

He calls her at night sometimes. She always answers, and even though he doesn't say anything she knows it's him because there's no breathing on the line, just her own. It makes her painfully aware of how alive she is. She wonders if his heart is dead, can it even break. She tells him off a few times, asking him if he's trying to turn her nocturnal, or telling him that she'll get a restraining order. But she still answers, each and every time.

v.

One day Simon knows that he won't come back to New York. The damage will be too much and no one will want to see him. But then Clary is getting married, and even though he doesn't an invitation, because she can't exactly mail it to his old Chevy impala, he hears through the grape vine. So he comes to New York. Stands outside the church, because of course. Like his entire life wasn't a joke anyway. Clary and Jace come out in a sea of people and he congratulates them after Clary stops shrieking in his ear about how happy she is to see him.

Then there's Isabelle who's standing behind them, a bouquet in her hands, leaning into someone to hear them over the rumbling of the crowd. He's staring at her and realizes that she's different. She's a woman and he's a kid. She sees him and it's the like the first time all over again. He lifts his hand in a gesture of greeting and she smiles back at him.

He doesn't stay. He doesn't have a reason to. She's found someone, a Shadowhunter and it makes him a little sick to the stomach. But he knows that ultimately he made a decision, realizing a little too late that he wasn't being as noble as he thought he was. So he lets his curse push him out of the city, away from her for the last time, to the sounds of that stupid song he heard playing all those years ago.

Well there it is, the song referenced a few times is What Sarah Said by Death Cab.