Summary: There are so many universes out there.

-
1- In another Universe you killed me...

He waited, watched, and when the right moment came, when the Warlock was weak, tired, distracted, and drained of his magic, he moved.

Somehow the Warlock managed to summon enough power to fight back. He'd fought hard but had been disadvantaged, he had played it that way.

Finally the Warlock was on his knees and he stared down into demonic golden-green cat-like eyes, and he had carved them out reveling in the screams the abomination let free.

Once finished he had watched the now blind, eyeless Warlock bleed and cry until the demon spawn gave him only whimpers.

It was almost a mercy to kill the Warlock, almost, but not quite, instead it was a vindication and righteous.

After he left the Warlock dead on his floor he wandered the streets awhile, glancing down occasionally at the eyes he had taken from the Warlock.

Alexander Lightwood smiled at them, they really were lovely, perhaps Valentine would allow him to keep them, to gift them to his wife, Clarissa, they would look quite beautiful hanging from her ears and serve as a warning to all that not even Warlock Bane had been able to stand against them.

(Circle member Alexander Lightwood kills Magnus Bane. Alec is also married to Clary in this snippit and is Valentine's right hand man, either Johnathan is dead or is the general of Valentine's army while Alec is the second in command.)

2- In another Universe we were a tragic impossibility...

Alec felt a smile on his lips as he passed the tattooed man his coffee, he was handsome in a bad boy type of way and Alec quite liked that. His last boyfriend, of course, had been too much of a bad boy though.

"Thank you." The man smiled, hazel eyes brightening.

Alec nodded and hit his head on the counter once the man had gone.

"Still can't talk to him, huh?" His adoptive brother, Jace, asked.

Alec flipped him off without lifting his head.

Jace chuckled, "You know what, next time, I'm going to cover for you for a few minutes, run after him."

"Never." Alec vowed.

He came back the next day for coffee. When the man left Jace grabbed Alec and shoved him out the door.

"Don't come back until you have a date!" He'd shouted.

At a loss Alec had been tempted to ask some random person but his feet ran after the man he'd been giving coffee to.

He'd stopped short at the mouth pf an Alley, watching the man fight something terrifying and impossible. Alec hardly even felt the pain from the injury the thing gave him before it burst into dust.

The man caught him as he fell and he was lowered gently to the ground. The other's eyes were shiny with tears and for a moment they looked gold and green and Alec smiled.

"Pretty." He whispered before he faded out, breath halting moments later.

Magnus Bane, Shadowhunter and Nephilim stared at the young mundane that he'd get coffee from everyday, it was sad that he was dead, that Magnus had failed to protect him, but Magnus had to wonder why the mundane had even been there.

Magnus took the young man in his arms and lifted him up, and carried him deep in the woods where he burned the body, the man would never be found now as they made sure demon victims weren't.

And Jace always regretted telling Alec not to come back without a date, maybe then Alec wouldn't still be missing.

(Shadowhunter Magnus and Mundane Alec)

3- In another Universe I only keep your sheets warm...

"I have to go now." Alec said, "Be gone before Lydia gets home."

Alec then dressed and left the house.

Magnus sighed as he rose from the bed, why did he do this to himself? Why did he expect tenderness or love from this Shadowhunter, this married Shadowhunter who was only just barely civil when they saw one another outside of the bedroom?

Magnus dressed, tempted to stay and burn the Shadowhunter's life down, to announce to the wife that he was fucking her husband when she was away in Idris, Alicante, or where ever she was that week but...

Magnus left the house.

It was only one lifetime for him and Magnus had plenty to spare. It meant little to him in the long run, and Magnus would eventually be able to boast having had a Shadowhunter in his bed, so for now he'd stay silent.

Shadowhunters died young after all.

(Warlock Magnus, still closeted and married Shadowhunter Alec)

4- In another Universe I don't recognize you anymore...

Magnus Bane sighed as the doorbell rang insistently. Stupid Shadowhunters, don't they understand privacy?

"Now what?" Magnus snarled at the Nephilim.

It was always the same one, at the same time, everyday, every week, for the last year.

The man smiled, he always smiled at Magnus, Magnus hated his smile, it never quite brightened the man's eyes like proper smiles should, but he never failed to smile.

"Hello, Magnus." Lightwood said.

"That's still Mr. Bane to you, Shadowhunter." Magnus said for what seemed like the thousandth time, it was always the same correction, and the Nephilim's eyes would look to the ground, shiny and wet before he forced the smile back to his lips.

"Just checking in to see you." The Shadowhunter would say.

"Don't you have anything better to do with your time?" Magnus would ask and the Lightwood boy would use that as an excuse to leave.

Magnus would always shut the door with another sigh, knowing the Nephilim would return the next day and Magnus would return to his own work, the Shadowhunter banished from his mind.

Like everyday for the last year Magnus Bane's doorbell rang.

With a resigned sigh Magnus opened his door only to pause with a frown.

"Who are you?" He asked, staring at the strange young woman that stood on his doorstep where the Lightwood boy usually was.

"My name is Izzy." The young woman said, "My brother comes to see you at this time everyday."

"Yes." Magnus said, he motioned for her to enter his home, something he'd never granted her brother, "Why are you here?"

Izzy looked at him, "Did you ever wonder why Alec would come here everyday?"

"No." Magnus shrugged, "The whims of Shadowhunters are often strange, I had no desire to waste my time trying to figure one out, I suppose he was trying to catch me doing something against the accords."

Izzy looked angry, "Alec would never... How dare you!"

"Excuse me?" Magnus glared down at her, "He comes to my home everyday and makes a two minute small talk, why else would he come here?"

Izzy stared at him and then looked away, "You don't have to worry about that anymore."

Magnus raised an eyebrow.

"Alec's dead." Izzy said softly.

Magnus shrugged, "Why should it matter to me?"

Izzy opened and closed her mouth twice before setting her jaw and nodding once firmly, "It doesn't, I suppose, I'll be leaving now."

Magnus walked her to the door, "I am sorry for your loss, Miss Lightwood."

Izzy turned to look at him before Magnus shut the door, "It's been a year, you know, I thought if he could make it a year he'd be fine, you know, that he'd be able to accept it and move on, but he came here everyday, everyday at the same time and he died inside a little more as each day passed. It makes me wonder..., what did you say to him, Mr. Bane?"

"Nothing of importance." Magnus said and it was true, there had never been a single conversation that lasted longer than two minutes, they had always ended their conversations with Magnus rudely shutting the door on the Nephilim's face and Magnus would ignore the sad eyes and the devastation in the Shadowhunter's eyes when he'd correct him on what to call him.

The Shadowhunter never had called him Mr. Bane, always Magnus, his name almost a caress in itself, the way the Nephilim said his name was soft, intimate and full of an emotion that Magnus didn't know, but somehow the way the Shadowhunter spoke his name did not make Magnus uncomfortable.

Izzy searched his face for a moment, "I believe you and I am sad for that, Goodbye, Mr. Bane."

Izzy turned from him and left, Magnus shutting the door with a soft click.

Magnus looked around his apartment and felt dizzy and had to sit down, he wondered at the feeling of loss that hit him, the Shadowhunter would not be back, no more being interrupted in the midst of something important, but then why... why did it feel like his heart had stopped beating, why did it feel like nothing was right in the world anymore?

(Shadowhunter Alec, Warlock Magnus, in order to save Magnus' life Alec allows the Clave to remove Magnus' memories of their meeting and their relationship, he's ordered to leave the man alone but Alec can't leave Magnus and visits everyday, hoping that one day Magnus will remember him but on their anniversary Alec goes to see Magnus one last time with only a single hope left and then Magnus doesn't remember, corrects Alec once more and Alec can't, he can't anymore and commits suicide via Demon.)

5-In another Universe we never met...

Alexander Lightwood dies on his first hunt. They say it is an accident, that it was just too soon, and it was. Alexander Lightwood was young on his first hunt, much too young, it would later be said, the Lightwoods should not have allowed the eleven year old out so young.

But they had and the young boy had died.

They said it was an accident, that the demon was just too quick, his father too far, but the only witnesses were the two, a Father who had watched his oldest die... and a boy who had glanced over at his father the moment he'd been hit and saw the man just watching, a boy who had stumbled against the cold wall and slid to the ground.

A young boy who had looked up as his father came over to him and asked, begged for help only to meet the cold eyes of his father as the man watched him bleed out for a long moment before he'd turned away and left the young boy in that alley alone, the cold creeping ever closer until it wrapped him up and consumed him.

Alexander Lightwood dies on his first hunt, they said it was an accident, that it was too soon for him to be out. They never did recover a body.

Magnus Bane wonders, wonders about the silent woman who does not speak but follows young Clary Fray into his home, wonders about the golden haired young man that stares longingly at the young Miss Fray but never says anything to her, he can see his want, can see the words that hide in Miss Lightwood's eyes but never leave her mouth.

Magnus wonders what it was that broke these two Shadowhunters in a way that Magnus had never seen before.

And sometimes Magnus glances around as though searching, for what he does not know but it feels like...

It feels like something is missing and Magnus cannot figure out what it is.

The Shadowhunters leave and Magnus does not see them again, leaves the U.S, to accompany Caterina and Ragnar on an expedition into the tomb of a Warlock far older that Johnathan Shadowhunter; in India he hears that the New York Downworlders had been massacred by Valentine and that the Institute was gone along with half of New York and he wonders why it surprises him that the Nephilim caused so much death and destruction.

The three Warlocks vow not to return to the U.S. for five hundred years and separate to mourn those they lost in New York.

Magnus does not mourn the three Shadowhunters that asked to summon a memory demon, he does not remember their names by then.

He forgets the feeling that something is missing within the year.

(Alec dies as a child, he and Magnus never meet.)

6-In another Universe the two of us could have worked out...

Alec smirks to himself, mutters 'I love a challenge.' and chases after the strange awkward man.

He later learns he's a magician and laughs about it later, jokes that Magnus cast a spell on him.

They date and Alec falls in love and Magnus smiles so sweetly and shyly and they dance at Izzy's wedding.

It's a surprise that ends it, a shock.

Magnus sits with Alec in the hospital, charms the flowers to never wilt, they stay ever fresh, but he brings a new bouquet everyday he visits.

One day he comes in and Izzy is sobbing, as is everyone else and Magnus knows, he knows that Alec is gone, that the young man has gone where Magnus never will.

Magnus attends the funeral in white, it makes the Lightwoods angry, but Magnus remembers traditions that have been lost through time, as unnecessary as the Shadowhunters were. Magnus wears white to honor what Alec might have been and he ignores the glares he receives.

Two hundred years later and Magnus Bane- Lightwood still wears white and visits a full graveyard where he buried all of the other Lightwoods. He removes the ever fresh bouquet and replaces it.

Seven thousand years and Magnus no longer remembers why he wears white, but continues to do so, he no longer knows why he brings a bouquet to a single grave in an ancient graveyard but he does every week, the flowers wilt between his visits.

Ten thousand years and Magnus forgets the way to the graveyard, he does not try to remember.

Fifteen thousand years and Magnus grabs a red coat, it feels strange to wear such a bright color after white for so long, but it looks good, Magnus likes it, he vows never to wear white again.

He never does.

(This was supposed to be a World Inverted Au, but well... I'm not sure that came through. Alec gets a terminal illness and dies but they were happy for a time, Magnus never told Alec the truth, there wasn't enough time for that.)

7- In this Universe...

Alec loves Magnus, they dance in the moonlight in Paris, they steal fireworks in China and set them off in Australia.

Magnus watches Alec the first time he sees the Northern Lights, he swears to himself that he'll never forget the way the lights made Alec's eyes shine, the glow they cast over him, he knows that Alec never looked more like a Angel than in that moment.

Magnus does not know if it was the lights that made it so or the answer that Alec gave him as Magnus slipped the ring on his finger, the shine of the Northern Lights making the gold sparkle like stars.

It snows the day they get married, it's cold and Alec cuddles close, refusing a coat and snuggles into Magnus' warmth. The crown of flowers that Clary insisted Alec wears are lovely and Magnus charms them to never die, never fade, from that day on those flowers remain as they are and Magnus wishes many times that it was so easy to keep Alec as he was.

They dance on their wedding day, the snow falling lightly around them, Alec doesn't dance so much as flail to the music but eventually Magnus manages to draw his husband into his arms and they sway in time to the beat until at some point Jace calls out that they can leave now and they vanish between that moment and the next.

They dance on the beach, their feet sinking in the sand, waves lapping at their ankles, Alec burns like a lobster and is red and pealing for the first few day of their trip before Magnus finds a protection spell for him. Magnus tans and Alec scowls at him until he stops shedding skin like a cat sheds fur, Magnus spend so much time rubbing lotion into his husband's skin and gets no relief from the pleasure it brings him, Alec is in too much pain from his sunburn and Magnus can't find any pleasure in that.

They return to New York and it's still standing, somewhat surprising, and Alec convinces Magnus to dance with him in the training room and they laugh when Alec trips over his feet and they hit the mats, Jace tells them to get a room as he enters the room.

Magnus laughs and kisses his Husband goodbye and leaves to check on the other Warlocks.

Alec Hunts, Alec comes home for dinner and sometimes lunch, they do not eat breakfast together, Alec wakes too early for Magnus.

Magnus portals to Alec for quickies everywhere in the Institute. Any locked door remains that way until a ruffled Alec exits, Magnus having portaled away.

Their friends laugh at them, some ask Magnus how many lifetimes he's trying to get in and Magnus tries to forget that one day he'll bury Alec and be alone once more.

Alec brings home a tiny bundle of blankets seven years into their marriage, the child is a Warlock and the mother was dying, she hadn't been able to birth her naturally. Alec had cut the girl from her mother at the request of the mother, she'd begged him to take care of her and Alec, Alec couldn't let the little girl go.

Seven years into their marriage, Magnus became a Papa and Alec became a Dad, they named her Maitea and knew that their lives would never be the same.

Magnus carried a little boy home later that year, a Nephilim that he had rescued from a Warlock that had been trying to find a way to kill Shadowhunters and had been using the boy's blood in his potions and experiments, the boy would never be a proper Shadowhunter, his ankles weak from being chained and one of his legs twisted and bent in a way that would be painful to correct, so they decided to wait and ask the child when he was older.

His name was Lucas and Alec didn't so much as flinch when he arrived home for lunch and saw the boy sitting next to Magnus, it would take seven years before Lucas called Alec Dad and Alec cried that day, cried because Lucas called him Dad, cried because Magnus was in a medical bed having been injured protecting Alec.

Sarah followed Lucas two years after that, Clary unable to keep the child of Jace in her arms and life after the man died protecting them from Neo-Circle members.

Clary had gone after the Neo-Circle and never come home and they mourned her and told her daughter stories about her real parents but she, like Maitea, never called them anything but Dad and Papa.

Sarah was three when Izzy came home from a trip abroad pregnant, she never told who the father was and Alec and Magnus never cared to know, the man wasn't there for her and he didn't deserve the right to be called a father or to be acknowledged as a contributor.

In her eighth month Izzy asked Maia on a date, and when Izzy's son was born she penned Maia Roberts where one would write the father's name and refused to change it no matter how pressured she was.

It was nearly twenty years after their wedding that Magnus found himself looking at his husband and realizing that their time was running short, Alec was growing older, his hair greying and there were more laugh lines at the crinkles of his eyes and Magnus felt pains in his heart.

Their time was running out, Alec's time was running out.

They danced that year in the streets of New York as a street band played their song and the stars danced and Magnus ignored the Seelies that watched them as they stumbled through the trees and the flowers were crushed beneath their bodies.

They danced when the rains fell around them and Alec spun Magnus in circles and dipped him and little old ladies sighed at their sweetness, young girls watched them with envy in their eyes and children laughed and joined them to splash in the puddles.

They danced in the Institute, ignored by the veterans of their leadership and stared at by the new arrivals. They danced beneath the Northern Lights on their anniversaries and they danced under the moon in Paris.

The day Alec died Magnus returned to their bed after Izzy told him, Lucas had dressed Sarah and Maitea in their pajamas and climbed in with him and for three days they stayed there, Magnus or Maitea summoning food for them and they cried until they fell asleep or they whispered stories about Alec.

Lucas spent three hours stumbling through the book Alec had been reading to Sarah and had had tears running down his cheeks the whole time.

Sarah had asked Magnus if there were spells to bring Daddy back and Magnus had had to explain that yes there were but Daddy wouldn't be the same, he wouldn't be right, that magics like that came at a cost and it was the very essence of what you wanted back that never returned.

Maitea had been solid those three days and Magnus had waited for her to break and she did.

The funeral was all Magnus expected for Alec, for Alexander Lightwood.

Seelies, Vampires, Werewolves, Warlocks, and Nephilim arrived at the Institute, several Warlocks had to expand the room to fit them all and Magnus couldn't find Maitea.

It took hours to find her, and she had sobbed that she couldn't go, she couldn't watch them take her Daddy away from her and Magnus... Magnus couldn't make her go.

They sat together on the doorstep of the Institute, and watched the rain fall in front of them, it was fitting that even the Angels were crying at the loss of Alec and Maitea shivered under Magnus' arm or perhaps it was the shuddering of her sobs, it didn't matter.

They wore white that day, and while eventually the children slowly reintroduced color to their wardrobes Magnus continued to wear white, there was no grave to visit but sometimes Magnus would find himself dancing a step or two, hand reaching out for a partner to join him.

He'd catch sight of the flower crown where it hung from their bathroom mirror and find himself holding it in his hands for hours.

Every year he'd go to sit beneath the Northern Lights and remember the way Alec had looked when he saw them that first time.

They say the first year is the hardest, they are wrong, it's hardest when you remember those little moments you used to share, when you'd reach out and just brush hands together, when you'd glance over to see them smiling and staring at you, entranced by your very being.

Even years later Magnus would find himself reaching out to drag Alec into a dance only to remember that Alec was no longer with him.

A hundred years later and Magnus had seen their mortal son and daughter marry; Sarah had worn Alec's flower crown instead of a Veil; have children and die, he attended their Shadowhunter funerals in his pressed white suit with Maitea by his side, she wore the white color for two years for each of her siblings before she brought colors back and Magnus still wore white.

When Maitea turned three hundred she went on a world trip, climbing aboard a boat, promising to come home for her birthday. She never returned, lost to a storm at sea, Warlocks were only immortal in that age would not touch them or take their lives but death could come for them in other ways.

Seven hundred years later and Alexander Lightwood's line finally died out, Magnus sat next to the young girl as she expired, not from a demon but rather the cruelty of the world, a group of Mundanes had found her and beat her to death, Magnus had been in Norway and had not returned in time to heal her but he had eased her pain and she'd eventually just fallen asleep, never to wake.

He attended her funeral and vowed there would be no more funerals for him.

One thousand years later and Magnus watched the fall of the remaining Nephilim, he tried to help them but there had been nothing to do, a disease from the Mundanes wiped them from the face of the earth, it had not affected the Mundanes so, but it had turned out to be deadly for the Nephilim, why Magnus didn't know and never figured out.

There's an old man that lives at the edge of the cities, in the last expanse of nature's beauty. He guards it with power that no one knows how he got.

Some say he sold his soul for powers and youth for eternity. Others claim he's a God, the last of the old ones, the ones that bled fire and drank the blood of sacrifices and fed on the souls of the dead.

They say that if you see him you should prepare for death for you will soon meet him.

They say he has the Devil's eyes, that he stole them away when he beat him for the fires of hell and the power to destroy.

They say he only has kindness for children with blue eyes and boys with crooked smiles, for little girls with fire in their hair the devil in their souls.

They say he once danced among the faded stars, that the lights from the North were once in his hair and when he fell to the earth the colors remained in the sky and he watches them because he remembers that they were once his.

They warn that you should never take the hand he offers you when he dances across your path, for it is not you he reaches for but the lover he once stole, long ago, before the world was burned to ash and rose up from the ashes.

They warn that if he looks at you to look away, lest you be lured away and are never found.

They warn if he speaks to listen carefully for when an ancient god speaks to you it would do you well to head the words given.

They whisper that it storms when he is sad, that it rains when he cries.

They whisper that his lover died long ago and that he mourns him still

There's an old man that lives at the edge of the cities, in the last expanse of nature's beauty. He guards it with power that no one knows how he got.

He does not look old, he is youthful and lovely, but his movements are aged, he walks slow, he rests against trees often, he closes his eyes, presses his hand to his chest and gasps for breath and his crown of flowers never changes and never dies.

He's an old God, the last of any god, once he must have had many worshipers, once he must have been vengeful and cruel as all old gods were. Now he is a sad god, a piece of the past that still withstands the test of time, he's a peaceful god, a dying god, with powers that are beyond their understanding but that he never uses unless he defends his greenery.

At the edge of the cities were the last remaining beauty of nature spreads over the land there lives a god, he dances beneath the lights from the north and fell from the stars he once danced with, he stole the Devil's eyes and the fires from hell. His lover left him for death long ago and the god makes it rain for sorrow of his lost love.

You'll know him if you see him for he is the only being left in the world that covers himself in white.

(Normal verse and beyond. I got a bit distracted there at the end, basically it's been centuries or even millennia and society has fallen a few times but some how Magnus is still alive and has become more of a myth/legend than a person.)

So... Seven snippets of worlds that might have been, beneath each is a bit of an explanation about each universe, I thought about having the explanations here but I thought it was better to have them with their universe.

I hope you enjoyed and I'm sorry for how sad some of them ended up being but well... happy is not something that is very easy for me to write without it ending up long and unfinished.