A/N: This is an alternate universe wherein Clary never goes to Pandemonium and continues through high school and college in ignorance. Her senior year in college though, she stumbles ungracefully into the Shadow Hunter world. This is a re-interpretation of City of Bones, where Clary is older, wiser, more confident, and most importantly an adult who is able to contend with the world in an adult way.

It had only been two days and Clary was already growing restless. Today was Saturday. Her exams had ended on Thursday night and she had come home to Brooklyn to spend some holiday time with her mother.

Clary had had visions of gingerbread houses and tree decorating. Instead, she remembered how suffocating and overbearing her mother got, especially during the holidays.

As much as she loved her mother, Clary knew that Jocelyn didn't really understand college. Clary was, after all, a first generation college student. It was probably what had given her a leg up over the other applicants while applying to Columbia four years ago.

Because, while Clary did well enough in her classes, she still wasn't sure how she had been lucky enough to gain admission along with Simon to his dream school.

Of course, while Simon was studying computer science at the engineering school, Clary had ended up majoring in Art History after trying on practically every other humanities major (and a couple sciences!) before returning to her one true love.

Despite surviving on her own for three and a half years at college, feeding and clothing herself like every other college student, she seemed to be permanently 15 years old in her mother's eyes.

Clary stared at herself in the bathroom mirror and quickly finished painting black cat eyes onto her upper eyelids with two practiced swishes.

"Don't forget to brush your teeth!" Jocelyn called from the kitchen.

Clary sighed and called back, "Don't worry Mom, I didn't."

As great as it was to be home, and especially to have Luke cook pancakes for breakfast, Clary was going a little stir crazy. She pulled on her pea coat, bracing herself for the bitter cold outside and headed for the door.

"Sick of us already?" Jocelyn asked. Her tone was light, but her eyes were sad and for a minute Clary felt a twinge of guilt.

"Don't be ridiculous Mom," she replied, "I just forgot to return this book to the library and they fine you like crazy if you go over the due date."

Clary held up the offending volume to corroborate her story. It was a blue hardback with gold writing on the spine: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.

She shoved the book back into her bag and stepped out into the hallway, deciding just to stay on campus for an hour, maybe two.

After all, she had her phone with her, and her Mom could always text if she needed her back at home for any reason.

She walked quickly to the closest Subway stop, eager to escape the December cold. As she sat on the train, Clary thought about how winter was, in some ways, the best season in New York: the Christmas decorations, fewer tourists, and not to mention fewer bugs from the freezing weather.

As her train pulled up to the 14th Street Station, Clary stepped out onto the platform and walked towards the tracks for the uptown express lines, transferring to the 2 train. The moment that she stepped into the car though, she froze.

Clary knew somewhere in the logical part of her brain that she should switch cars, that there was a danger here that she should flee from.

Instead she was frozen, staring at a couple sitting across from her covered in blood. Where they weren't covered in gore, they were covered in tattoos, leather, and knives.

Which first of all, was illegal, and second of all was pretty strange even for New York.

Clary scanned the rest of the car to see if anyone else had the same reaction as her, but she was surrounded by a sea of blank faces. Well either they were wearing costumes and Clary was the only idiot who thought it was real or this was a bona fide instance of the Bystander Effect.

Because although the boy, blond hair stained pink with blood, seemed to be just fine, the girl seemed to be struggling to stay awake.

Clary pushed slightly through the throng of people at the next stop to get closer and hear what was going on.

"No, Jace, stop I just want to go home" the girl said, weakly pushing his knife-wielding hand away. Clary felt her rate pick up.

"Isabelle, I've never seen a demon like that before and whatever" his voice was drowned out by the opening and closing doors and then he said, "we have to cut it out."

His long fingers ran over the short, serrated knife in his hand, and the girl pulled away from him.

Clary looked to see if anyone else was paying attention or if the sole responsibility lay on her. No one else seemed to have noticed, or be willing to admit that they had noticed, the bizarre exchange going on right next to them.

Obviously at least one half of this couple was insane. A demon? Was this like a code for drugs? A drug deal gone bad?

The only acceptable explanation was some kind of convention, Clary decided. But the drugs explanation was more likely. Clary continued to keep an eye on them. The boy was beautiful and it made her think unwillingly of a definition for sociopaths she had read once in school:

"Sociopaths are often charming, capable of imitating the full breadth of human emotion without the ability to feel it. Most have tendencies towards manipulation, even feigning vulnerability to lure their victims in. A notable case was Ted Bundy who faked an injury and used his good looks to bait the women he would later rape and kill."

Clary reasoned through her predicament uneasily: call the police, notify an MTA official, intervene? The train was quickly pulling up to her stop and she resolved to call the police to notify them of suspicious activity as soon as she got aboveground.

Clary stepped out of the open doors into the 96th street station, intending to transfer to the local train when she noticed the odd couple from the car had exited alongside her.

The girl was being half-dragged up the stairs by the boy—no not a boy, a man, she corrected herself, he had to be at least in his mid-20s.

Clary pulled out her phone to check for a signal only to see that it had died. Swearing at herself and her lack of self-preservation, Clary followed the couple at distance; she hung back half a block as they walked East.

Clary hesitated again as they entered the park, chastising herself for watching so many episodes of Law & Order: SVU. This was the moment, she realized, when the audience screams not to follow, how stupid was she really?

But there was no one else around and her phone was dead and if that girl died it was her fault.

"Fuck it," Clary muttered to herself, "in for a penny, in for a pound" and she bounded after the pair into the park.

Through the park and further East, the man had his left arm around her waist and the other pulling her arm over his shoulder, still-half dragging her even as she struggled to walk on her own.

Finally by York Avenue the pair pulled off the sidewalk and Clary sped up to see where they were going. He was heaving her up the stairs to some abandoned building when the girl suddenly collapsed.

Finally deciding that she was definitely witnessing the prelude to some bizarre murder, cult, date-rape, and overall Bad Thing, Clary ran towards the steps. Without thinking she shouted out "Hey!" hoping to spook the man, but he didn't even look up.

She reached for his shoulder to get his attention when he suddenly turned around and grabbed her wrist bringing it down in between them. Clary snatched her hand back and looked defiantly up into his eyes.

"She needs medical attention," she declared resolutely.

"I know," he responded turning back to the girl, "that's why I brought her here." he continued to pull the unconscious girl up the stairs. Clary looked despondently up at the abandoned lot at the top of the stairs, further dismayed by his actions.

"No," Clary jogged around to stand in between him and the girl, shoving at his shoulders, "She needs to go to a hospital. If you let me call a cab and take her there, I won't even call the police."

"The police? What? Look, I'm sorry, but I really don't have the time for this." His face was completely blank as he said this and Clary decided that he was completely delusional, unaware of the fact that he was even doing anything wrong.

And then all of a sudden he was reaching towards Clary. She flinched back, but not fast enough, as his hand closed behind her neck pinching the nerve endings and then nothing.

o0o

Jace straightened up as the stranger fell to the ground. He picked Isabelle up bridal style and carried her into the Institute, handing her off to Alec who had been anxiously awaiting their return.

"Who's that?" Alec asked when Clary's body came into view through the doorway where she lay sprawled on the steps.

"No time," Jace answered, "Isabelle needs immediate attention, demon ichor and some kind of shrapnel embedded into her wounds."

Alec hurried off and Jace turned back to the steps heaving his mystery girl up to the threshold. After a moment's hesitation, he pulled her through.

Huh, he thought, as the Institute accepted her, not a downworlder then and definitely not a mundane since she could see him. And that only left one possibility: Shadowhunter.

He brought her to the infirmary and laid her on the bed next to Isabelle.

Alec, having administered medicine to Isabelle and cleaned her wounds, came over to look at their new guest.

"So how did you leave with one conscious girl and come back with two unconscious ones?" Alec asked.

"I'm not really sure to be honest. Miss Upright Citizen here followed us here all the way from the Subway station; I think she thought I attacked Iz or something."

Jace pulled a chair up quietly sitting in front of his new charge.

"Well who is she?" Alec asked again.

"I don't know, but I'd like to find out," Jace replied as he opened her bag and began rifling through her bag.

"A wallet, excellent."

"What? You knocked her out and now you're going to steal from her body?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Jace mumbled as he went through her different cards "I'm looking for . . . this!" he held up a photo ID, "Clary Fray, student at Columbia University and owner of not one, not two, but three Joe's Coffee punch cards!"

"Very impressive," Alex deadpanned, "but how can she see us?"

"Well, I've never heard the name 'Fray' before have you?" Alec shook his head "And she definitely had no idea who we were. My best guess is that her Shadow Hunter great-great-great grandfather screwed the mundane milk maid or something and now we have our ignorant, but morally stout, Fray over here whose single drop of Shadowhunter blood allows her to see us." Jace responded, gesturing to Clary's limp body.

He put the ID back in the wallet and threw it back into the bag.

"A pretty sound theory."

Jace yawned, "Yeah it doesn't matter anyways though, she can't be here when she wakes up."

"What? What do you mean she can't be here?" Alec exclaimed, "You're going to dump the girl you knocked up back onto the street? Because she was looking out for my sister, our sister? Why did you even bother bringing her inside if you were just going to throw her out again?"

"Well," Jace sat back "when you put it like that—"

Jace broke off when he noticed that the girl in question had begun to stir. The parabatai looked at each other and then at the girl as she suddenly gasped and opened her startlingly green eyes.

END CHAPTER ONE

A/N: Thoughts? Should I continue?