SH 1x3: eye of the beholder
There’s a theme going on here somewhere, appearances and deceptions, watcher and watched. I’ll figured it out by the end of the season. Maybe. ANYWAYS. I really want to write about the Vampires here in season 1, about Camille and Raphael and Simon’s oft-ignored trauma, but... I think that might be a bigger story than I quite have a grasp on yet. So. UNTIL THEN.
Have some Alec Lightwood, because I always go back to poor Alec Lightwood, and the contrast in this episode between him and Simon and Hodge, what it’s like to be the person left behind when the person you followed, the person you adored, the person you trusted, goes on without you.
Hodge, who’s locked up in the Institute paying for his own and everyone else’s sins, who’s the one to tell the Lightwood children what little they know about the Circle even when it tortures him, even though their parents no longer have Circle Runes, and could say anything and everything without consequence. Who despite everything else tried to train them well, clearly cares for Alec and Jace and Izzy, is cared for by them in return.
Clary, who could only be stopped from rushing after Simon (despite knowing she’d probably get herself killed) when it was pointed out that she’d probably get Simon killed too. Whose very first instinct when she sees him again is to tell Simon not to die.
Jace’s first instinct when defending Alec was not that, wasn’t “I would do anything for him” but was instead “[Alec] would die for me”... and Jace isn’t wrong, and how terrible is that?
Alec watches.
Alec always watches. He watches the approaches in any room, he watches the heights, the corners. He watches for danger. He makes himself aware...
And then Hodge startles him.
Hodge knows about Clary. He tells Alec, warns him about the monster’s daughter. Hodge didn’t tell Izzy, didn’t tell Jace. Didn’t tell them all, waited until Alec was alone. Waited to report privately, with sensitive information. Waited... for the right moment? But why here, why now?
Why go a step further, to show concern for the shadows Alec lives in, the life he’s chosen standing behind his siblings, watching out for them. Why warn Alec about Jace, Jace isn’t like Valentine, Jace could never... could never choose someone else over Alec and Izzy?
It gnaws at him, even as he goes to meet Izzy, even as he thinks about the plan, such as it is, turns it over and over in his head. Distraction, aggression, counting on luck.
It’s a terrible plan, but it’s not difficult to stand there and guard against Vampires, it isn’t enough to make him stop thinking about it.
How does everyone know? They risked the City of Bones to find Clary’s memories, and Hodge, Camille’s Vampires... they just knew.
What else does everyone know? What else doesn’t Alec know?
How can he protect them if he doesn’t know what else is coming next?
He tries.
He watches their backs.
He watches Izzy.
And Jace.
Always Jace, no matter how much he tries...
He watches Clary, and her poor mundane friend, and he thinks Jace is probably right.
She’s just a little girl who lost her mother, her home, her friends, the man she thought of as a father.
Found out about her actual father, which is probably almost worse than the rest.
But they don’t know, they can’t know, and for all Jace likes to rush into things, he’s never not let Alec say wait before. He may always do what he wants anyways, but he’s never not listened, never not let Alec work through a problem to figure out the angles, never not let Alec fret at him, a smile in his eyes as he waited for Alec to agree with him, but now he won’t even let Alec talk, and Alec...
Alec doesn’t know what to do with that, he just wants Jace to... stop looking at Clary for one moment, to stop watching her even when Alec’s talking. Just one minute, just one thought, just to let Alec finish one sentence...
Despite everything else, they’d always been partners, but now?
Now Jace asks him why Alec helped, and he doesn’t know how to answer that, can’t even understand how Jace could ask the question.
He leaves.
They can watch their own backs for once.
He pretends he doesn’t know that they probably won’t even notice, that him not protecting them will hurt him more than them. He pretends he doesn’t care.
He’s gotten good at that, over the years.
At least he’s good at something.
