guide to healing a broken heart
ao3
post-canon clary/isabelle for the wlw bingo event
Clary comes back into her life the same way she does most things: headfirst, with no warning, and knocking the breath out of everyone in her path.
It’s the voice Izzy recognizes first, when they bump into each other at the Institute, where Izzy’s heading to the weapons room after a meeting in Alicante and Clary’s staring around the familiar-yet-unfamiliar space, distracted in her awestruck state. Izzy nearly topples over with the force of the collision, but manages to straighten up at the last second. The red-haired girl who bumped into her is quick to smother her with apologies, at least.
And Izzy freezes, because that voice .
She quickly banishes the thought. It can’t be Clary. Clary is gone. And it’s taken Izzy the better part of a year to come to terms with that. Clary is not here.
But then she looks up into those startled green eyes and it’s like she’s falling again.
Clary blinks. Something like recognition passes through her features. It’s gone too soon, though, and Izzy wonders whether it was ever there, because that shouldn’t be possible.
Then again, when has Clary ever cared about what is and is not possible?
A word slips from Clary’s lips, shaky and hesitant and lower than even a whisper, but there nonetheless:
“Isabelle?”
Izzy’s breath hitches. Before she can think of a way to respond - before she can even really process what’s happened - Jace is running into the room, grabbing Clary by the arm and letting out a sigh of relief.
“Where did you run off to?” he asks breathlessly. “I was just about to introduce you to-”
“Jace,” Izzy interrupts. “What the hell is going on?”
“Iz!” Jace says, surprised to see her there. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you and Alec.”
“I was at a meeting. Now tell me what the hell is going on .”
Clary answers instead of Jace. “I remember,” she says. There is a proud, triumphant gleam in her eyes. “Well, some things. I know I’m missing time. I know I used to live here. I know you. But I don’t remember all of it, so Jace and Luke are helping jog my memory.”
Izzy looks between the two of them. But her eyes keep drifting to Clary. Clary with her new haircut and her new clothes and her new life and this new beginning.
“Is this some kind of joke?” Izzy asks quietly, voice shaky with the array of emotions she’s trying to contain.
“What?” Jace frowns. “No!”
“Then am I dreaming?”
“No!” Clary says. “No, I promise- Oh, Izzy, it’s okay…”
She steps closer and places one hand on Izzy’s shoulder, another on her cheek to wipe away tears Izzy hadn’t even realized she’d been crying. The next thing Clary does is pull her into a hug - which Izzy of course melts into. It’s warm and sweet and comforting (it’s Clary , how could it not be?). But it feels different. Like something is missing.
History.
And something else.
“How did this happen?” Izzy asks once she’s done crying her heart out into Clary’s shoulder. Right there in the middle of the Institute she’s supposed to be running. For some reason, that doesn’t make her feel as weak and vulnerable as it should.
“I don’t know,” Clary admits. She’s still holding Izzy by the arms.
(Izzy tries not to think about the last time Clary held her by the arm.)
They decide to figure it out. In the following weeks, Clary spends most of her time at the Institute, being led around by Jace or Simon or Luke and even Max, once, when he comes to visit Izzy and Clary immediately recognizes him. Whenever she can, Izzy shows her around, too. They spend most of their time in Clary’s old bedroom watching her go through the things she left behind with a look of deep concentration on her face, or in the library trying to figure out what the hell happened to her. They don’t get very far with that, but Clary’s memories do start to return more and more each day.
By the fourth week, Izzy breaks up with Simon.
He’s quiet, trying to understand. She doesn’t know what to say to make him understand. To make it hurt less.
You were a dream , she wants to say. You were a fresh start. You were a mirror to my fucked up family and my fucked up heart and all my unresolved issues. You were what I needed. You made me feel needed.
Past tense.
You’re not her .
“You deserve the world,” she says instead. And I don’t deserve to settle.
Simon nods, inhales, looks up. “I love you,” he says.
Izzy shuts her eyes. “Simon, please-”
“But I don’t want us to be together if you have doubts. I think we both deserve better than that.”
Izzy feels like a weight has been lifted off her chest. She feels guilty for feeling that way.
“Yeah,” she says. “We do.” And then, hesitantly, she adds, “Friends?”
Simon takes in a deep breath and stands. He smiles. “Always,” he says.
She can’t tell whether he’s lying for her sake or his own.
But life goes on. And a few nights later, Izzy is awoken from her sleep by a loud knocking at her bedroom door. She drags herself out of bed, ready to kill whatever employee or demon or brother thought it was a good idea to wake her after the exhausting day she’s had, but when she opens the door, a tearful Clary is on the other side.
“Was it you?” Clary demands before Izzy can get a word out.
“What?”
“Was it you?” Clary asks again, her eyes never leaving Izzy’s. “Jace wouldn’t tell me. But it had to have been you, right? I know it was-”
“Clary!” Izzy snaps. “Please just tell me what this is about. Did something happen?”
Clary holds something up: her sketchbook. A new one. Not one of the ones she left behind, the ones Jace and Izzy took turns flipping through and trying not to stain with tears when Clary first left. It’s open to a page with a small sketch on it. Of a woman, her face mostly hidden behind long dark hair, smiling at a snake that’s curled its way up her arm.
Underneath it, in her messy handwriting, Clary has scribbled, my first love .
“I dreamt it,” Clary explains. “A few months ago I had this dream about a beautiful woman with a tattoo on her chest and a snake on her arm, and I woke up in tears because I was just so in love with her. And I don’t mean I thought she was cool or pretty, I mean I was in love. And when I woke up, she felt real, and it felt like I’d actually lost her, even though I knew she was just a dream and I’d never been in love. But…” She laughs a little through the tears, hugging her sketchbook to her chest. “She was real, wasn’t she? She was you.”
Izzy waits to wake up. Actually wake up, because this can’t possibly be real. She steps back inside her room and, ignoring Clary’s confused frown, walks over to her dresser drawer to turn it inside out. When she finally finds what she was searching for, she marches back over to Clary and hands her the creased, crumpled, tear-stained letter.
Dearest Isabelle , it starts.
It was touching, at the time, that Clary spent her last remaining hours writing them each a letter. But as time went on it just started to feel cruel. To have this personal, physical thing left behind by her, offering closure none of them were ever going to get.
“‘Forever your…parabatai…’” Clary reads the end out loud, her own words unfamiliar to her. “Oh.”
“Jace was your first love,” Izzy says. Quickly, hoping that will make the reality of it hurt less. “I was your best friend.”
Clary looks about ready to cry again. “So you didn’t love me like that?”
Izzy can’t say no. But she can’t say yes, either. Not without betraying the most important people in her life.
And there she goes again! a little voice in the back of her head cries. Isabelle Lightwood, the fucking saint , pretending she has no choice because she chooses to put other people’s happiness ahead of her own. And she wonders who keeps breaking her heart.
Clary’s eyes light up at her hesitance. “You did, didn’t you?” she asks, too much hope in her voice and in her eyes and in her heart for Izzy to stand looking at. “You do . I know you do. Please say you do.”
Please say you do.
Present tense.
“Clary…” Isabelle whispers. And it’s confession enough.
Clary hugs her. It’s their first hug since their reunion almost a month ago, and it feels different again. This time, Izzy doesn’t know what’s new and what’s missing. She doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. She just lets Clary hold her and lets herself hope.
“I love you, too,” Clary says softly. She pulls back to look into Izzy’s eyes, smiling like they’re the most beautiful things she’s ever seen. Izzy can’t help but reach up and hold Clary’s face in both her hands. It’s her turn to wipe Clary’s tears away.
“I didn’t realize it before, but I do,” Clary goes on. “In every way a human being can love another human being. In every way that matters. I know you do, too.” Her eyes flutter closed and she leans in. Marginally. Waiting for permission. “Tell me you do, Iz.”
The last part is a whisper, and it makes Izzy want to scream her answer.
“I do,” Izzy says. “I love you.”
And when she closes the last of the space between them, it feels like she’s putting her heart back together.