notabilia

plural noun | pronounciation : noh - tuh - bil - ee- uh | meaning - matters, events, or items worthy of note. 

chapter thirteen 

Beckett Jackson had his arms crossed tightly as he leaned against a wall in the police precinct. Across from him was the Captains office which was currently being scoured by the CSI unit. The Captain herself had just been rolled out in a body bag, and Beckett watched with a blunt frown as the coroner took her a way. 

"The Captain was a good officer." A man had walked up to Beckett. Having hieghtened senses, Beckett had noticed him a while ago, but he'd been ignoring him in hopes that he'd go a way. Obviously, he hadn't. 

"And she was a good friend," Beckett responded. He looked over at the guy, noting that he was about half a foot shorter and had limited hair left on his head. If Beckett had to guess, he'd say the guy was the Internal Affairs officer that was detaining Luke. Beckett saw a chance to make a verbal jab at the man. "Luke is a friend of mine, too. He's also a good officer." 

"Friends, huh?" The officer raised his eyebrows, suddenly studying Beckett. "You're the kid Luke brought in to join the force, aren't you? Yeah, I heard about you. What was it, Bennett Johnson?" 

"It's Beckett Jackson, sir," Beckett said through gritted teeth. "Look, Mister Internal Affairs, what you're framing Luke for obviously is falling through because between the time I last talked to Vargas and the time I found her body, you had Luke locked up, so obviously he couldn't have done it. In fact, I think that even makes you his alibi." 

The investigator's receding hairline frowned condescendingly at the much younger petty officer. "You're the one who found the body that could prove your friends innocence? Convenient how that worked out, isn't it?" 

"You've got to be kidding me," Beckett huffed in exasperation before leaning back against his wall. 

"I didn't accuse you of anything just yet, boy," The investigator pointed out. "But just know, even a blind man could tell something strange is going on here. I haven't figured out your deal yet, or Officer Garroway's, but I will." 

Beckett didn't even bother with granting the investigator a response, and instead he went back to looking straight ahead and didn't bother covering up his disdainful scoff. Leave it to the Mundane's to show up to the party way too late and act like they are capable with understanding the Shadowworld. Beckett honestly didn't understand why they tried so hard to intervene in the first place, the Shadowworld sucked. Sometimes he even wished he could be an ignorant mundane with out having to worry about full moons or murderous shadowhunters or homophobic and downworlder-phobic beliefs systems. 

Looking back on all of his insane problems that he'd been dealing with for far too long, Beckett realized the odds were so badly stacked against him that the world earned a second unamused scoff from him to reiterate his unfailing displeasure. 

"Look, Jackson, if you want to do right by Vargas, you'll help me get to the bottom of things here," the older man offered. 

Beckett rolled his eyes. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he murmured under his breath, but the officer could still here him. 

"Try me." 

Instinctively, Beckett began racking his brain for a sarcastic comment to spit back at the man, but before he got the chance one of the other internal affairs officers called the investigator over. 

Beckett continued to lean against the wall, looking like his usual brooding and annoyed self to most onlookers while he was actually concentrating on honing in on the conversation the internal affair officers were having. Luckily enough for him, he'd been a werewolf long enough to be able to do so easily. 

"So we checked the body for any odd wounds, defensive or otherwise, and didn't find anything. Nothing on her wrists," The officer told the investigator in a low voice. "She wasn't drained of blood." 

Of course it wasn't a vampire, Beckett thought to himself. 

"The M.E. have a time of death?" The investigator questioned. 

"We're waiting on forensics but the guess is a couple of hours." 

"A couple of hours? No way... I'd just talked to her forty-five minutes ago," The investigator argued. His frown lines deepened. "You guys are killing me." 

Beckett straightened out his uniform and pushed himself off the wall. He turned on his heels to walk back to his desk, his mind currently buzzing with idea's of what awful thing could be lurking around the precinct. The idea of having to fight of a demon made his still sore body ache, and he was so busy dreading having to kick some downworlder ass that he nearly missed Luke standing at the end of the hallway. Apparently Internal Affairs had wizened up and released him. 

"You over here that, too?" Beckett guessed as the two werewolves hurriedly huddled together. 

"Yeah, we need to check the body for venom," Luke decided. He briefly looked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was trying to listen in on them. Then, in a low voice, he continued. "If this is a demon, like my gut is telling me it is, then I need to know exactly what I'm looking for." 

"Okay," Beckett nodded. "I'll see if I can catch up with the M.E. before they leave." 

Discreetly, Beckett and Luke nodded at each other before parting ways and heading in their separate directions. Beckett headed to the elevator and waited impatiently for the mechanism to bring him his ride. If he wanted to check the body, he needed to get to the ground floor quickly. 

The elevator went down slower then it had ever moved before and Beckett, being the impatient man he was, murmured under his breath remarks that very much needed to be censored. His fingers tapping away harshly on the railing, he nearly blew right past Clary and Jace when the elevator doors opened. 

Beckett came to a jolting stop after he propelled himself to the elevator doors as soon as he had heard the high pitched ding that told him he had arrived at his desired floor. He took a second to disrupt his own mission to look at the two shadowhunters, assessing their expressions and trying to figure out their motives. He knew they must be back with another idea on how to get the Mortal Cup, but he saw to clear way on how they were going to do that. 

After a silent moment consisting of Clary raising her eyebrows expectantly at Beckett and Jace trying to decide whether he could just walk past Beckett without having to talk to him, Beckett finally frowned and said. "Tell me the genius plan you just spent all that time coming up with isn't  you climbing up the elevator shaft to get to the cup." 

"That actually sounds like more fun then what I have planned," Jace decided absently. "Then all we have to do is wait for the Alec and Izzy to do the rest and give us a signal." 

"Alec and Izzy are here?" Beckett asked, mildly intrigued. 

"Yeah, they're probably still at the front desk," Clary nodded. Then she looked uneasily over at Jace. "We're not really climbing up an elevator shaft, are we?" 

"It doesn't sound like the best plan," Beckett admitted with a shrug. "But it has to be a better plan then whatever Blondie came up with." 

"At least my plan didn't involve anybody being slapped," Jace murmured defensively, shooting a glance at Clary who, in response, rolled her eyes and wondered if Jace was ever going to let that go. 

"As much as I'd love to change that, I have other things to attend to," Beckett sighed, finally stepping out of the elevator. He reached out to Clary and gently squeezed her arm. "Be careful." 

"I will if you will," Clary offered. 

Beckett gave her an amused nod before letting the elevator doors close between them. With a long sigh, he realized that somehow in the past few days his life had gotten even less normal then it had been, which in itself was quite the feat. Knowing better then to throw himself a pity party, Beckett began walking to the morgue, only for an idea to flash through his mind and change his course of direction. The next thing he knew, Beckett Jackson was standing in the lobby, scanning the area for to very particular faces. 

Beckett's eyes first made contact with Isabelle Lightwood, who gave him a small smirk when she caught his gaze. The Lightwood girl was hovering near the edges of the room, obviously trying to blend in, which she happened to be doing admirably well. 

Beckett followed her gaze to the front desk. There stood Alec Lightwood, but not the same Alec Lightwood that had sat on the end of Beckett's bed and patiently listened to his life story the night before. This Alec held a different persona, one that bordered between charismatic and awkward as he fumbled through his vocabulary in an attempt to talk to the woman at the front desk. Already knowing where this was going, Beckett took it upon himself to step in. 

"So, uh, you come here often?" Beckett heard Alec ask the woman clumsily. 

"I work here," The woman dead-panned. 

Beckett surprised Alec by clamping his hand down onto his shoulder. Alec looked up in surprise, his eyes widening when he saw that it was Beckett touching him. His struggle to find the right words only worsened as he tried to figure out what was going on. 

"There's got to be better places for a nice-looking guy like you to pick up chicks, pal," Beckett mused. He gave the woman a amused look, who chuckled gratefully at the young officer before getting back to her work. Beckett gave Alec's shoulder a gentle tug, signaling the shadowhunter to walk with him. "Come on, I'll show you the way out." 

Not knowing what else to do, Alec allowed Beckett to pull him away. Beckett resisted the urge to smirk at the younger boy's bewildered expression as he tried to keep up his act. 

Once Alec was sure they'd gotten far enough away, he shrugged off Beckett's hand, which he was sure he wanted gone until he felt it's absence much more strongly then he expected. Trying to keep his mind focused, he began talking to Beckett in a hushed tone. "What was that? I was trying to-" 

Sighing heavily, Beckett cut off Alec's ridicule by holding his hand out, a key card nimbly tucked away between two of his fingers. Alec's eyes widened once again, looking back and forth between the card and Beckett a few times in an attempt to try to figure out what had happened. Alec, who constintly had his guard up and was always prepared for the worst, had admittedly been slightly blown away by Beckett not once but twice in a mere matter of minutes. 

"How did you-" 

"I saw your hand not-so-discreetly trying to inch towards it while you were - what was that supposed to be? Smooth talking?" Beckett asked, his tone showing hints of amusement. "Anyways, I didn't see that ending well so I stepped in. You're welcome, by the way." 

Alec pursed his lips as he took the card nimbly from Beckett's finger tips. Silently, he held the card out behind him, his eyes never leaving Beckett's. In a swift movement, Izzy plucked it from her brother's hands and, just like that, kept walking. It was a nearly unnoticeable transaction that, Beckett would admit, was pretty impressive. 

"You didn't have to step in. I had it handled." Alec assured him. 

"Take it as a thank you for listening to me last night. The alpha venom in my system had me out of sorts," Beckett explained. Of course that wasn't the real reason he'd spilled his heart and soul out to Alec, but it was an easy excuse. "You were there to help me through that so I helped you just then. We even now?" 

For a moment, neither of them said a word. Alec didn't bother mentioning that he never expected Beckett to try to pay him back, nor did he want him too, while Beckett failed to vocalize that he was never going to be able to repay Alec for how he had sat there and listened to him and just understood him in a way Beckett never thought he could be accepted. 

So, with both of them being silenced by their own demons that forced all of their feelings to stay at bay, they just looked at each other for a second longer, both knowing things they were going to try to pretend not to know and feeling things they knew they needed to repress. One more second, and they broke their eye contact and went their separate ways quietly, a million thoughts racing through their minds and all of them somehow managing to pertain to the person they were trying to walk away from. 

Beckett was only concerned for a second when the power had cut off. Then, he remembered Alec and Izzy had taken the key card so shutting off the power must've been their plan all along. Still, Beckett had seen enough movies to know he didn't want to being hanging around the morgue any longer then he needed to be. Gaining the necessary knowledge that he needed from both his own quick examination of Captain Vargas's body and what the medical examiner had deducted, Beckett was ready to regroup with Luke. 

Luckily, it didn't take long for Beckett to find Luke as the detective had gone out to look for Beckett when the power surge had initially started. Apparently, he was more weary of the black out then Beckett had been. 

As the entire precinct bustled around them trying to figure out was going on, Beckett pulled Luke to the side to make sure he wasn't overheard. 

"You were right about the killer," Beckett said in a hushed tone. "There were huge amounts of demon venom in Vargas's blood. It's a shape-shifter." 

"Naturally," Luke growled under his breath. Taking a moment figure out what their next step needed to be, he finally decided. "We need to go after this thing. I think I'm going to tell Alaric to alert the other wolves about this. My guess is Clary and the other's have their hands on the cup now. We need to kill this thing before it can figure out about Clary and the cup and tries to get to her. The pack should be able to help with the what ever other demons try to interfere." 

"The pack," Beckett murmured to himself, trying to see how it tasted on his lips. It felt different to say, that much he was sure. "Kind of a switch up for us, huh?" 

"Yeah, tell me about it," Luke murmured under his breath. Being a pack leader was as foreign to him as being a part of the pack was to Beckett. "I'll go talk to them. Can you go find Clary and make sure she and the cup get back to the institute safely?" 

"Of course," Beckett nodded obediently. Then, in a mildly sarcastic tone, he added, "Wouldn't want to let down my Alpha now would I?" 

Luke tried not to smirk and fell just short of doing so. Shaking his head at the younger wolf, he patter Beckett's shoulder before backing away. Once again, the two werewolves were going their separate ways in hopes of saving the greater good. It was all starting to become exhausting, in Beckett's opinion. 

i think it's important to address the fact that in this chapter alec saw beckett in his police uniform for the first time and so we all know what he was thinking ;)))) and also i feel like this chapter had a lot going on and i'm??? sorry??? i guess it was kind of a filler for me to get back into the groove of writing this story. but hey, the angst between alec and beckett is real so that's always fun. anyways, you guys know i love to hear your thoughts so please don't be afraid to leave them! until next time my loves!