In the aftermath of it all, Catarina can’t find it in herself to be mad anymore.
At the start, after Magnus had portaled home, staggering and hurt and halfway to death with this boy leaning against him, asking that she help this Shadowhunter first… she remembers healing him – Alexander – and feeling rage. With runes stark on his skin and blood on his knuckles, he had been every inch a Nephilim. The Nephilim who had stolen Magnus’s heart.
She remembers the way she’d frowned at his unconscious face, comparing him to the strip of photographs Magnus left on his desk. Watching him lying there on a makeshift cot in the living room, suffering from the shock of blood loss and broken bones, she couldn’t imagine him making funny faces, couldn’t imagine him looking at Magnus with soft, sweet eyes. Couldn’t imagine that he’d want Magnus’s touch, that he would smile that boyish, lopsided smile with her best friend’s arms looped around him.
She remembers thinking, you don’t deserve him. This Shadowhunter, this lying Head of the New York Institute, didn’t deserve Magnus and his love. Magnus, who had started sleeping exclusively on the right side of the bed, who looked at Madzie with something wistful in his gaze every time she ran toward him, who always protected his people at the expense of his own happiness.
He’s too good for you, she had thought as she glared daggers at the boy in front of her, with his angel blood and penchant for prejudice. But she hadn’t said anything, hadn’t rolled him down the stairs, and had gone to help Magnus instead; her best friend, drained of magic and still stubbornly trying to heal himself. She’d gone to the balcony afterwards to clear her mind for a minute, to rest her hands, and now, as she turns around to check in on Magnus…
The Shadowhunter is missing from his cot. Classic. Rolling her eyes, she opens the door to the master bedroom.
They’re lying in Magnus’s bed together, Magnus’s head pillowed on Alec Lightwood’s chest, nearly asleep as he slowly heals from the wounds of battle. His body still lies stiff from the aches of demon venom coursing through his blood, skin paler than its usual golden hue, bruises littered everywhere, yet his arm is still curled possessively around the Shadowhunter’s waist in a familiar motion.
He’s looking at Magnus like he’s a miracle.
His eyes never leave Magnus’s and his face is soft and warm and content, like he’s holding onto something he thought he’d lost forever. He looks young like this, the way he smiles and whispers secrets into Magnus’s ear, the way his fingers trace patterns on his bare shoulder, the way he readjusts the red silk blanket so that it’s tucked carefully under Magnus’s chin.
Magnus can’t see it, with his face buried into the Shadowhunter’s shirt, but from the doorway, Catarina can. This boy… he’s truthfully, honestly, painfully in love. The type of love Catarina hasn’t seen Magnus receive in too long, the type that’s as helpless and natural as the sky is blue. And a part of her still wants to be angry, to shake Alec Lightwood until his teeth click in his skull, to tell him, don’t you ever hurt him, but from the way he’s staring down at Magnus with his heart in his eyes, she thinks he already knows.
Catarina starts to turn around, when unexpectedly Alec Lightwood’s eyes dart up to meet hers at the sound of her loafers swishing faintly against the rug. They stare, frozen for an awkward moment, and she nearly laughs at loud at the way his cheeks go rosy pink. She opens her mouth to say something, to make fun of him maybe, or tell him to let Magnus sleep, but right then Magnus shifts, groaning low in his throat, and the Shadowhunter breaks his gaze, mumbling something into Magnus’s hair that makes her friend smile gently.
Wordlessly, Catarina magics the door closed, staring at the smooth black wood as Magnus and Alec fade from view. In the kitchen, she makes herself a cup of chamomile tea, hands wrapped around the soothing, fragrant heat as she sighs in exhaustion. The two of them… they don’t make sense to her, not at all. They shouldn’t work. But Magnus is Magnus, and he’s never done anything by halves. If his happiness comes in the form of a too-tall Shadowhunter with gentle eyes and a cautious smile, then Catarina will be the very last person in this dimension to tell him no.
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