Chapter Text
In the end, it’s Catarina who saves Alec.
When Magnus calls her from Alec’s cell phone, she’s reluctant to come, Lorenzo’s warning still fresh in her mind, but there’s something in Magnus’ voice, something that tells her that the situation’s truly dire, her dear friend wouldn’t call her otherwise. And so she comes and she almost weeps at what she finds: Magnus without his powers and Alec dying.
She teleports them all to Magnus’ loft and there she heals Alec, removing the arrow from his chest while Magnus holds his lover’s hand, his heart breaking at not being able to take Alec’s pain away. So Alec lives, but as with all Shadowhunter tales, this one doesn’t have a fairy tale ending, there’s no happy end.
Catarina holds the arrow so that they can see it, Alec sitting up in his and Magnus’ bed, propped up on a small mountain of pillows, an ugly scar on his chest, and Magnus right there, beside him, still holding his left hand tight, like a lifeline. And Catarina shows them where the problem lies: the arrow’s broken off tip, the tiny sliver of adamas that’s gone - still stuck in Alec’s chest, shifting, shifting, shifting ever closer to his heart with each breath he takes.
“Why can’t you just remove it?” Magnus asks and he’s not accusing, there’s no blame, just dread and the fear of loss yet to come.
Sighing, Catarina sets the arrow aside. “When Jace used his stele on Alec, to stop his bleeding, he saved his life, he closed the worst of the wound and gave him a fighting chance - but Alec’s tissue, it grew around the broken of piece, it enclosed it tight. And if I tried to remove it now…” She shakes her head. “It would kill him, instantly, because it’s too close to his heart.”
“But-but what you’re saying is that it’ll kill Alec anyway,” Magnus points out, now desperate and despairing. “Maybe not today or tomorrow, but eventually, it’ll reach his heart and it’ll kill him. Isn’t that so?” He squeezes Alec’s hand so hard his knuckles turn white and his eyes, no longer cat-like, turn wide and pleading.
This will never be something Catarina will get used to, not even after decades of working in hospitals, giving bad news to the loved ones of people in her care. “Yes,” she replies quietly and honestly, she’s never been one for lying. “Eventually, it will kill Alec.”
Silence settles over the room and the both of them, Magnus and Catarina, they turn to Alec who has yet to say a word. He sits there, his face unreadable, eyes down. Then, as he takes a deep breath, a slight grimace flickers over his features and he lifts his right hand to rub at the fresh scar: the adamas sliver shifted, sending a sharp, stabbing pain through his chest.
“Alexander,” Magnus whisper in a voice thick with emotions.
And Alec turns to him and smiles, lifting their linked hands to his lips and kissing the back of Magnus’ hand. “I’m alright, nothing I can’t take. I’ve had worse than that,” he assures Magnus but the lie doesn’t make Magnus feel any better.
So Alec drops the brave face and lets them see just how exhausted he is and how much it hurts and he says in a low voice, looking from Magnus to Catarina and back, “We keep this a secret, alright? They don’t need to know, my family. They have enough problems to deal with. And I especially don’t want Jace to know, he would blame himself when there was nothing he could’ve done differently, it was a no-win situation.”
He shakes his head. “Like Catarina said, there’s nothing that can be done. One day this” –he rubs at his chest again– “will kill me. Or tomorrow I might die at the hands of a demon. I was taught my whole life long that a Shadowhunter’s life was about sacrifice. Well, I guess this will be mine.”
“No,” Magnus says, shaking his head. “No, we’ll find a way to fix this. There’s always a way. As long as there’s life, there’s hope, Alexander,” he insists, face set, and then he pulls their linked hands closer and presses his cheek against the back of Alec’s hand, closing his eyes.
Alec pauses for a moment, then smiling again, he says, “Alright.”
But when he glances Catarina’s way, she knows the truth, she can see it in his eyes. Alec doesn’t believe it. He doesn’t believe he can be saved. But for his lover, for Magnus, he will pretend.