The Other World (A Shadowhunters Fanfiction)

Chapter 3: All I Want

He knew he was dreaming when he wrenched that door open and saw her.

He wasn't sure what strange dream this was. He was supposed to be on a mission, supposed to be seeking out the source of commotion that had brought radiating waves of dark magic so close to the Shadow Market where the survivors were supposed to know safety. Christopher and Lucie were waiting at a nearby campsite where they were trying not to attract demons, only staying long enough that they could find out what was going on and report back.

He knew this couldn't be happening in a world so cruel. He'd fought tooth and nail to survive since she died, survived demons and automatons and his own brutal grief. He knew it couldn't be real. Layla couldn't be here, not really.

He crumpled to her feet in the carriage. A strange sound came up his throat.

"Layla," he whispered, dropping the witchlight with an unceremonious clack. Hesitantly, he cupped her face in his hands. "Layla, is this real? Are you—"

His fingers were trembling. He held her face gently, slowly, not wanting to force unsolicited touch, but she didn't pull away. She looked like she'd been through hell—Raziel help him, James couldn't stop the images that began to roll through his mind. Where was she all this time, if not dead? Had she been in pain?

But she tore him from his thoughts, then. She brought her hands up to cover his own. Strong hands, the hands of a warrior, but they were also strangely... small. He'd forgotten how that felt.

"James," she said, and the way her voice cracked broke his heart.

He gathered her in his arms and held her there. Wound his fingers through her hair, breathing in the scent of her, swallowing against a newly formed pain in his throat. He could barely dare to believe this, but it felt real, not like the nightmares he'd dreamt since she died. As fiercely as he loved his broken family—Alastair, Zachariah, Lucie, Thomas—he knew that even they could not love him powerfully enough to protect him from the grief he would feel if he lost her again.

"James," she said. "How—how did you find me?"

When he drew back to look into her eyes, to touch her face, he saw confusion there. And then a cold, creeping realization began to take slow hold of him.

Of course. It made sense. There was a logical explanation for how she was here, and that was that she was not from here. This Layla was from another realm, a kinder one. She was dressed in the kind of luxurious fabrics James had only read about in books—though, he realized, they were stained in blood.

She was no his Layla, but she was bleeding, he thought with a rush of fierce anxiety.

"I didn't find you," he said. "Not purposefully. I—" A cold, numbing despair washed through him. "I—I do not believe we have met. You're—I see now, you are not from this place. You're from another."

"You're..." Layla hesitated. "Oh, James. This is your world?"

He heard the pain in her voice, and hated it. Anything but to have her in pain.

"Yes. And you—" His voice broke. "The version of you from my world died. A year ago."

Her voice was soft. "She was your friend?"

A new flicker of realization.

Was the James of this other world merely friends with Layla?

What was wrong with him?

"No," James said. "She was my... I loved her. I was in love with her."

A look of intense pain stole over Layla's face. Pain, and also jealousy. Yes, something was most assuredly amiss about this other James Herondale. Perhaps he was a bit... dimmer for not having been through the apocalypse?