Title: Wakefulness
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: Teen maybe
Length: 900 words
Content notes: Off-screen violence, injury, nightmares.
Author notes: Clef & Emeraude, spies!au, the aftermath of a mission.
Summary:
“Wake up!” snapped a familiar voice, and Clef’s eyes came open for real as he hit the floor, the jolt rattling through him.


oOo


Clef was asleep when they burst in, though he was the only one of their small party not severely injured – he startled awake as the gunshots started, rolling off the horrible ratty sofa in the little safehouse and reaching for his own gun which wasn’t there, legs refusing to hold him, and-

“Wake up!” snapped a familiar voice, and Clef’s eyes came open for real as he hit the floor, the jolt rattling through him.

For a moment, he just lay there, disoriented at the difference between the cabin he’d just been in and the reality of the familiar rug he lay on, the textured ceiling overhead, the small collection of keychains hanging from the light switch.

He suddenly squinted at the last of those, frowning, before tipping his head back to look at Emeraude where she stood in the doorway. “Did you stop and buy a keychain to commemorate almost getting blown up going to a conference?” he asked, voice sounding as rough as his throat felt.

Emeraude raised an eyebrow at him. “I picked it up while I was at the conference,” she said, just about as dry as him. “The explosions came later.”

“But you still went and hung it up.”

“I made it home.” She shrugged, but her expression…

Her expression said that they had made it back – but one of the agents who had been with Emeraude hadn’t, and neither Em or the second agent had been in one piece by the time Clef got to them.

Clef rubbed a hand over his face, and made himself get up off the floor, untangling his legs from the blanket he’d been wrapped in on Emeraude’s sofa. “Do you want a cup of tea?” he asked, heading for the kitchen; Emeraude’s place was a little larger than his, but the kitchen was just as compact, and just about as familiar as his own. “Or do you need to eat something?”

He glanced back, at the arm she had wrapped about her side, the bruise currently very visible across her temple while she was without any of the camouflaging make up she’d been wearing during the day. If she needed to take something he wasn’t sure what was left in the cupboards, but there was a conbini right on the bottom floor of this building, he could always go down and-

Emeraude sighed, and rolled her eyes, walking around him into the kitchen and picking up the kettle. She winced a little, doing it, but it wasn’t heavy enough that it would be worth scolding her for lifting things before she’d healed. “I’m making it. You sit down – you’re shaking like it’s minus ten in here.”

They’d been back home for just over a week. Clef had been sleeping on Emeraude’s sofa since she was released from medical, though she didn’t need watching over, or any actual help.

The nightmares had started, predictably, three days after they got back into the country. And here was nearly the only place Clef felt safe enough to sleep without a weapon in easy reach, so here he was, again, to save himself from getting kicked out of his apartment building due to causing massive property damage, or harming someone else, or-

The kettle went down on its base with a thump that made him flinch and Emeraude flicked it on, turned around, and wrapped her good arm about his shoulders. “We’re here. We’re okay. …Ryuuzaki’s doing okay, too.”

“Oh?” He closed his eyes and leaned into her, forcing himself to breath slowly, counting to seven with every breath in – eleven for every breath out.

“Yeah. She had a check-up today, and Medical were pleased.”

“Good.” That was good. She had the signs of being an excellent agent, if she survived long enough to actually get to real missions, not…

…Not the safe escort mission she’d been on, which should have been fine, only it hadn’t been.

He’d finally found the leak that had given away Emeraude’s travel plans the third day they’d been back home. The nightmares had started up that evening, as soon as his brain wasn’t preoccupied with that task.

Emeraude pulled away as the kettle came to a boil, getting mugs and teabags ready, and Clef wrapped his hands about the drink she offered him, breathing a little easier again. It would get easier – it always did. It would get harder again, too, after that; but they were as safe as they could be, right now, and mending. Eventually it would sink in, and his brain would manage to process it, and his sleep would go back to being merely bad instead of terrible.

“Come on,” Em said, picking up her own drink and heading back to the living room. “There’s got to be some absolutely awful tv on. Lets find the worst thing we can to watch.”

“Sometimes I don’t even know why we’re friends,” Clef grumbled at her, even as he followed obediently – and Emeraude grinned back at him, so much mischief and life in that expression that the knot inside his chest loosened a little.

“Drink your tea,” was all she said, as she settled on the sofa and picked up the tv remote.

He crossed the room to sit beside her, yawning, the tea comforting in his hands but far too hot to drink yet. “All in good time,” he murmured, and pulled the blanket back up over his legs again.