Those three little words ...

“Clary?”

Clary could sense him standing in the doorway behind her as she packed her few belongings. Amatis had said she could keep the battle outfit she wore, so her water stained and muddy clothes were the only things going in the backpack. She yanked the tie viciously to close the bag.

“Are you here to gloat?” she asked him, not allowing herself to turn around. After what he had said to her, and what she had said back Clary didn’t think she would be able to look at him without crying. The damage was done and she was leaving the glass city for good.  

“Why would I do that?” Jace said from behind her, answering her question with a question, the way he always did.

“Well you won. I’m going back to New York.” She shivered, thinking of the hateful things that had been said between them. Would they ever be able to be in the same room together? Would he even want to see her when he got back?

He was standing right behind her now. She could feel his warm breath on her back of her neck. One hand lightly touched her shoulder that tiny contact almost enough to make her burst into tears, and turned her gently to face him. She didn’t look at him, staring instead down at his demon hunting boots.

“I didn’t win anything Clary,” he told her in his softest, sincerest voice.

She took a deep breath and met his eyes, seeing a similar pain rooted in the fathomless gold pools. “Then why does it feel like I lost?”

Jace’s hands came up to cup her face.

“Clary … you must know, surely you must know, that I didn’t mean a word of what I said. I was angry that you were here, that you insist on putting yourself in danger. I … I can’t loose you Clary. I won’t survive it. So I was horrible. I was mean. I just wanted you angry enough at me that you would leave, so that you would be safe.”

“But you said … you said you just wanted to be my brother.”

“I lied,” he told her, making her battered and bruised heart swell in sudden, pointless hope. “Clary, just because we can’t say those three little words to each other doesn’t mean they’re not true. At least, not for me. If I could, I would say them to you every single day.”

Her heart thudded uselessly in her chest and her body thrummed with an energy that seemed to emanate from where ever his hands touched her. It was the closest they could ever come to a declaration of how they felt. Ever.

So she looked into his eyes and said the only three words that she could, three words that said far too much about how she felt, yet still not nearly enough.

“I would too.”