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livia-dovehallow · 2 years

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unseen scenes - cecily turns 12 (ft. charlotte & henry)

remember the whole “if you leave the Nephilim, the Clave still lay claim on your children, and a representative will come every 6 years until they are 18 to ask if they want to be a Shadowhunter” business? haven’t you ever wondered what happened when Cecily turned 12? Ella was gone and Will had gone to London three years prior when he himself was 12. this is my interpretation of that tense day in 1875.

Charlotte sighed and set down the letter that had arrived on her desk early that morning. She’d expected it, but despite having years to prepare, she felt helpless at the various possibilities that could arise.

Will didn’t want to know. Not unless something had happened to them. He didn’t even want the good news. What terrible turmoil he had to go through not to ever want to speak of his family. It filled Charlotte with terrible sorrow.

“Lottie?”

Her mood lifted the slightest bit at the sound of her nickname, spoken only by one person in the entire world. She looked up at Henry, who for once, did not hold any sort of contraption or invention in his hands. “Henry,” she breathed.

He looked at her concerned. “What is it? Are you troubled?”

“It is Will’s younger sister, Cecily,” she said, and gave him a sympathetic smile at his sudden expression of worry. “She is all right. But she does turn twelve today.”

Understanding dawned on Henry’s face. It was a rare moment, indeed, when Henry was not aloof with excitement or humor. Even if he had been at this moment, Charlotte figured it wouldn’t have done much to ease her worry. “The claim,” he confirmed, and Charlotte nodded. “Have they dispatched them already?”

“They have.” Charlotte unceremoniously held the letter out to him, which he took and read quickly. Ragnor Fell’s letter gave her little information about the events to come, except that he had confirmed with his sources that the Clave representatives had been seen crossing into Wales.

Henry stepped forward, the letter tossed forgotten on the desk, and took her hand. Her heart jumped, but this was no time to dwell on her feelings. She had to think of Will’s. “It will be all right,” he said, sounding assured. He appeared more confident about that statement that she did. “Whatever happens, Charlotte, it is not yours alone to face.”

Charlotte swallowed painfully. Henry was such a kind man and gentle husband. He’d done her a great service, marrying her to fulfill the promise owed to her father and to allow her to run the Insititue. He had no reason to continue being so kind to her. She shook herself out of her thoughts. “There is no way Will isn’t aware what day it is. Will you check on him?”

Henry gave her a smile. “Of course. Though, I am afraid he will know what I am up to and give me a challenge. I should have to bring one of my inventions with me to appease his mood, I think.”

Oh, Henry. Don’t injure the boy just to distract his thoughts.

...

Will was not in the mood to speak to anyone.

Not that he usually was to begin with. He dreaded when Jem would wake and look for him, for he was the only person who was not deterred from Will’s sharp tongue. And he would be another person Will would have to lie to about what day it was for him.

He could hear Henry clanging his way about the Institute, no doubt showing off whatever latest contraption he had conjured. Henry always tried to get him to talk by using those death traps. Didn’t he ever give up?

Despite his best efforts, Will could not stop thinking about Cecily. Had she grown much? Was she still as stubborn? Worst of all, would she come back with the Clave representatives?

Thud. He sunk another knife into the target at the other side of the room and glared. He missed her. His sister. He missed both of them, if he was honest. He had little right to miss them.

“Any harder and the board will split in half,” joked a voice behind him. Will closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

“Go away.”

Henry did not, in fact, go away. “You know, I’ve wondered if putting the target on a pulling system would be a better training mechanism. Very seldom does a demon remain in a single spot and unmoving.”

“Fascinating,” Will muttered. He threw another knife.

...

Cecily knew exactly who was at the door when she heard the knocking. She sat in her room, staring blankly at the window that faced the front of the house and into the vast hills that surrounded it. The last time she faced those people, she had her siblings to welcome her after she refused the offer. What did she have now?

Her father’s voice boomed through the walls. “Haven’t you enough of my children?”

Cecily could not hear the response of the others at the door, but she knew where her mother was. In town, away from the possibility of crossing paths with those people again. She’d told Cecily it was to collect the ingredients she needed to bake Cecily her birthday dessert that evening. Cecily knew better.

Her father called her name, less of a command and more of an empty sound. Cecily stood and calmly made her way into the hall and down the stairs, where she saw two men dressed in normal clothing opposite her father. She could see those markings on their skin beyond the collars of their shirts. It had been years since she last saw them, but she did not forget them.

“You know the Law, Edmund,” said one of the men. Her father scowled, his pale blue eyes darkened in anger and grief. Though, Cecily had to admit, they almost always were nowadays. “She is Nephilim by blood.”

Cecily stood at her father’s side and remained silent, her face even, giving away no expression or emotion in any manner or direction. “You think that in six years her decison will have changed?” her father asked, spiteful.

“A great many things have changed in six years, as we see it,” said the other man. Cecily forced herself to remain silent and calm. For a group of people who claim to be so uninterested in the lives of so-called Mundanes, they sure knew a lot about her family. “You’ve made your position quite clear, Edmund, but it is your daughter’s choice.”

“I will save you the time of walking me through a tedious interview,” Cecily finally spoke, staring down both men unabashed. She remembered the tone she had taken with them six years prior, when she’d still only been a small thing, and how angry it made them. It was satisfying and there was nothing they could do to a six-year-old girl about it. She took the same tone with them now and saw the same flicker of annoyance in their expressions. “My answer remains the same. No.”

“Your dedication to your parents is admirable,” said the man in the lighter suit. If he had shared his name, Cecily did not bother to remember it. “But you were gifted blood of the Angel by birth. A duty most would find to be an honor.”

“I do not choose how I am born,” Cecily replied. “And I do not find it an honor. My answer is no. I shall see you again when I am eighteen, to tell you yet again that I will not be a Shadowhunter.”

The other man, the one in the darker suit, shrugged and began to turn. “This is a waste of time, Hightower. Let us return to Idris and give our report.”

The men went back out the door, but not before the other man, Hightower, shook his head. “At least your brother made the wiser decision.”

Cecily was ready to explode, but her father slammed the door in their faces before she could. He said nothing to her. Instead, he patted her shoulder, kissed her head, and returned to his study. He closed the door behind him, but Cecily knew what he kept in there. She could smell it on him.

She turned and went back up the stairs, back into her room, and sat back down on the bed to look out at the same window. She hated them, the Shadowhunters, for tearing her family apart. She didn’t want to be one of them, but this was not a preferable life, either. Every day was the same. Her father, locked away in the study, drinking. Her mother, in the gardens all day long, weeping every time she came across the bed of wildflowers that grew just outside the fencing that Ella used to pick and keep in her room.

One day she would find him, her brother. She would march him back home and put her family back together again. It was this reason that, despite refusing to be one of them, she ached at her decision. Was she right to say no? Should she have said yes, and gone with them, for the sole purpose of finding her brother? They would take her right to where he would be.

Life was full of choices. Cecily feared she made the wrong one.

...

The day came to and end with dark cloud cover and silent drizzle. Charlotte awaited anxiously by the foyer for any news from Ragnor Fell to no avail. She supposed that no news was good news; that Cecily had refused the Clave’s offer of joining the Nephilim. That was what Will wanted, right? But who wanted never to see their family again when it was obvious they loved them? Charlotte could not understand Will’s choices, but she would accept them.

A gentle hand came to rest on her shoulder, followed by her favorite voice. “No news?”

She shook her head and sighed. “None. I fear we may not hear anything for a day or two, regardless of the outcome. It’s such a journey from northern Wales to London.”

“Come to bed, then,” Henry urgered her. “No sense in making yourself unwell with worry if there is nothing that can be done.”

He was right, but it broke Charlotte’s heart. “How is Will?”

“Locked up in his room. Been there since dinner. I don’t expect him to come out.”

Charlotte turned and looked up at Henry, taking comfort in his support. “It could not have been an easy day for him. I hope he is better by the morning.”

Henry gave her a rueful smile and gathered her up in his arms. “I’ll wager that he will not be until time has passed and the window for a hypothetical arrival has gone and she has not come. TIme, darling.”

Charlotte closed her eyes. She had a sinking feeling, deep in her stomach, that Will wanted to see his sister. He never spoke of her, or his parents, but every significant day--whether it be a birthday or anniversary--he became withdrawn. That was not the behavior of someone who did not want to remember.

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