Title: On your feet
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: Teen
Length: 1100 words
Content notes: Off-screen violence
Author notes: pre-Umi/Clef, spies!AU, just after they've first met on a mission-gone-wrong
Summary: Whatever painkillers they’d given her, they were long gone now.


oOo

Umi woke up slowly, and with reluctance. Her side hurt, enough she remembered, instantly, the complete mess this first mission had become – her Director injured, their colleague gone, and a stranger turning up with a car just when they needed saving.

It was dark, and she was lying in a bed she remembered, fuzzily, from earlier in the day – when she hadn’t hurt half as much.

Whatever painkillers they’d given her, they were long gone now.

She was alone in the bedroom, still, but the door was open a little, and a dim, warm light was pooling through it on the dubiously patterned carpet. A clack-clack-clack came through, too, the slightly irregular sound of someone typing fast, and outside the cicadas were almost as loud as they were back home.

Carefully, she got herself upright. There was a bottle of water, unopened, on the bedside table – beside her gun. She got it open with a wince for how that pulled at the injury to her side, and sipped cautiously, listening. The typing paused for the smallest moment at the sound of the lid breaking away from the sealing ring, and then continued.

Mouth a little less dry, she set the bottle aside, and got even more cautiously to her feet. The world stayed where it should be; she was giddy enough that either she hadn’t lost all that much blood or someone had replaced it, and given the small plaster on the inside of her elbow, she was betting she’d at least had fluids.

(She would have worried more, but – one, she was alive, and two, she’d signed a lot of agreements about letting decisions be made about her welfare when she was in the field. And, three - she was alive. That hadn’t seemed likely for a while, earlier in the day.)

Heading to the door, she paused just on the threshold, leaning against the frame. The room she was looking into was most of the rest of this little house – a living area with a kitchen against the far wall, a door to the side which stood open to show a bathroom, another door her other side which was open further than hers had been, the Director visible asleep on the bed inside.

The man who had shown up just in time was sitting on the worn-out sofa between both their doors, laptop on his knees, typing away with a frown on his face.

“There’s food on the counter – some fruit and sandwiches, snack bars. Or I could heat you some soup, if you’d prefer,” he said, voice low, not looking up. “You had an IV infusion earlier, when our doctor was here and painkillers – you’ve surgical glue holding your side back together, you aren’t to get it wet. You’re okay for another dose of painkillers now, but you should eat something first.”

Umi considered him a long moment, until he did look up at her, blinking.

“What is it?”

“You’re typing so much it’s almost white noise, it’s impressive,” she said, and winced slightly. Probably she shouldn’t be instantly slightly rude to someone who, from all she could tell, out-ranked her. Also he’d saved her life earlier.

Then again, she’d pointed a gun at him and made him take his boots off, so.

He didn’t seem offended. If anything, he looked like he was trying not to smile. “You know, Em tells me that it’s soothing, sometimes. If I’m typing, she knows I’m not off somewhere getting in trouble. I’m right here getting other people into trouble instead.”

“…Who are you?” she asked, giving in and being blunt as she could be. “You’re Clef, you work at HQ – at our HQ – and you know the Director really well.”

“We grew up together. Got recruited together.” He shrugged. “We were partners a lot when we were both field agents, too. Now I’m- I think my contract says Head Technical Analyst, at the moment? I put the data together and co-ordinate missions. I’m retired from field work.”

She looked at the gun on the table in front of him, the rucksack by his side that she recognised from the field. “Interesting definition of ‘retired’ you have.”

“I came to find you to see if I could head back on your transport. I wasn’t expecting trouble.” He frowned down at his laptop, at that. “No one was, in fact. I need to find what we missed.”

Umi looked around again, slowly, at the house – the very small house, in the middle of nowhere, which very obviously had no one else in it, given from here she could see into every room and hear every floorboard creak. “So why,” she said, standing up a little straighter as a flicker of something ran down her spine. “Why don’t we have any reinforcements? Local agents on guard?”

Clef stopped typing altogether, and sat back to look at her. His voice was very soft. “How did someone know your route this afternoon?”

It had been an ambush. It had been a carefully planned ambush, on a Conference trip which was meant to be low-risk. Umi grit her teeth, and nodded. “You think there’s an information leak. Our own people are the only ones who should have known where and when we would be travelling with that much detail.”

“I don’t know if there’s a leak. But there might be. Until I know for sure… I do know the doctor who owns this place. I trust him. He treated you and Emeraude, brought a variety of supplies, and left before anyone missed him.” Clef shrugged. “He’s bringing a car tomorrow morning, one without blood all over it.” That came with a sharp glance at her. “Some less-bloody clothes, too.”

“I didn’t realise I was hurt until I tried getting out of the car,” Umi protested.

He just snorted, shaking his head. “Adrenaline. Best and worst of drugs.”

At that, Umi eyed the packet of painkillers on the coffee table – and the bag, where she remembered a first aid kit that had a box of standard painkillers, ones less likely to knock her out.

“Soup would be good,” she said, kneeling carefully down, mindful of her side. “And I’ll take a couple of these.” She reached into the bag, pulled out the box.

Clef was still watching her, one eyebrow going up now. “You’re sure?”

“Well, if you’re going to get any sleep tonight before driving us out of here tomorrow, I’m going to need to stay alert.” She shrugged. “I don’t think the Director is going to be driving or keeping an eye out for trouble while we’re on the road, so both of us need to have had some rest.”

He paused, but nodded, slowly. “If you’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“…Thank you, Agent Ryuuzaki.”