#seraphim!simon

Becky's gaze is inscrutable. "I like you, Clary," she says finally, fingers white-knuckled around the doorframe. "And I have no reason to dislike you, Jace, other than the fact that you're hurting my brother by existing." Jace looks like he wants to comment on that, but decides not to. Smart boy. "But Clary... you haven't been there." And oh, does that hurt. "You call yourself his best friend, and he's never denied it, but- you haven't been there when he stumbles home soaked in blood and empty-eyed. You haven't been there when I and Zemre have to storm random buildings to rescue him from Otherworlders looking for cash and fame. You weren't been there when his dad was murdered in front of him, you weren't there the first time he dared drop his glamour after his father's death, you weren't there the first time he came home and told me he'd killed a demon because it was trying to hurt an innocent mundane." Becky's voice isn't cruel, just matter-of-fact, and that makes it hurt even more. "You haven't been there when he's a bonfire in the backyard because he's too angry or sad to keep it in any longer. You haven't been there when his power is locked away and he's an empty shell. You weren't there when he came home when he was six and told me he had to be friends with you or he'd never meet his soulmate." Clary's chest expands with a sudden breath. Becky's mouth twists. "And that was true, wasn't it," and her voice is introspective suddenly. "That was true. Simon'd never have met him if it wasn't for you. But... I think it might've been better if they hadn't met at all, rather than- than this." Her gaze sharpens, clears, locks back on Clary. "Point is, you haven't been there for him, Clary. I'm not going to tell you his secrets just because you ask, because you haven't earned them." Becky's fingers clench and release the door and she takes a half-step back, into the house. "If you want to know anything, ask your mother," Becky says. "And if, for whatever reason, Isabelle is interested... tell her to come to me." Her voice is cool and polite, utterly impersonal, as she shuts the door in their faces.

"Let me get this straight," Jace says incredulously. "Your soulmate is a reptilian alien from another dimension who you met through Simon, and Simon and her met because she was hired to kill him when he was twelve?" Becky shrugs and grins. "Trust me, it's not the weirdest way I've met someone. Simon has very, very strange friends, and both he and I meet more people in life-or-death situations than anywhere else." Her gaze is sharp. "I think you know a little something about that. You're a Nephil, after all."

"Back. Away. From. Him," Becky says, advancing another step with each word. Her hands are completely steady on the gun trained straight at the Cjaoklin's heart. The Cjaoklin sneers at her. "Who're you, his girlfriend?" Becky's mouth twists. A gunshot echoes through the room and the Cjaoklin crumples to the ground with a scream, thick green blood splattering to the ground out of his chest. The other Otherworlders back away from the chair, hands above their heads. "No," Becky says calmly, coldly. "I'm his sister."

"It doesn't matter what I tell you," he says tiredly. "The outcome will be the same. I know it. I've known it for years."