They say mothers hold the key to their children’s hearts, or at least so Jonathan seemed to think and, right then, Alec couldn’t find it in himself to disagree. There was no denying he’d once known the Morgenstern boy, same as there was denying he had forgotten all about it in a way that was positively meddlesome.
If anyone would be able to tell him what happened it was Maryse, very little of what happened to her children something the Lightwood matriarch wasn’t aware of. Jonathan’s suggestion lingered at the back of Alec’s mind as he sought her out. Talk to your mother... He intended to do just so.
It wasn’t hard to find Maryse these days. After the attack that had harmed two of her sons she had taken to staying at the house, bringing Clave’s business home rather than going to them whenever it was possible. The development was certainly new when it came to their mother, but convenient as Alec knew exactly where to find her a mere few rooms away from his bedroom, sitting at the office of the Penhallow mansion.
His hands were held behind his back as he was called in, back stiff and the standing of a soldier by all means - the woman might be his mother, but she was still Maryse Lightwood, head of the New York Institute and his superior in command ( Alec could never quite bring himself to forget ).
There was warmness in his mother’s eyes as she welcomed him, the spark of having her son alive and well not yet gone. “Is everything okay?” she inquired as he remained silent, open and waiting.
Alec had his audience, all he had to do was ask her, and so he did.
“Why is it that I don’t have any memories of Jonathan Morgenstern?” Straight to the point, as he often was, and even before Maryse replied the paleness that took over her face was a response in and on itself.
“Alec, you were only a child-- ”
“Bullshit,” he cut her off, expression growing stormy as lies continued to be pushed his way. “I can’t even think about it without getting a headache, I almost passed out the other day... ” This time he cut himself off willingly. When he was here, he had almost said, but regardless of it, “Something was done to me, to my memories.”
Alec’s hands were closed into fists at his sides, everything about him making it clear he wouldn’t back down from this fight easily. He wanted the truth, and he thought he was ready for it too, but nothing could quite prepare him for the moment his mother admitted to it, confirming that his parents had been the ones to order his memories to be taken from him, never quite willing to face the mistakes of their past.
“We did this to protect you,” Maryse said, but Alec didn’t have it in him to believe her.
“You did it to protect yourself.” Those were his last words to her right before he left the office, the door closing soundly as his mother called after him. He couldn’t stand to look at her right then, to be in her presence when he didn’t even how to feel about the confirmation of his dark assumptions.
No one could even begin to comprehend what he was feeling, no one could understand- No one but one person. Closing the door to his bedroom Alec’s eyes fell to the window Jonathan had used to break in the previous night. He could only wish Valentine’s son would come again, no way of contacting him at hand, but thinking of his expression back when they had talked Alec had a feeling he would come.
I need you to remember...
“I want to,” Alec told no one in particular, his room eerily silent, “But I’m going to need your help.”
