Title: Misread
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: PG
Length: 2000 words
Content notes: Er. Age gap? (It's not 720 years in this version at least? XD) Bloodstains. Healing injuries. Kissing?
Author notes: Giant Robots AU snippety fic because I can. Umi/Clef. Technically just after 'keep breathing'
Summary: Umi misreads a situation.

oOo

Night was a quiet hum through the corridors of the base, few people on shift but most of them asleep. No one noticed Emeraude half falling through the corridors, all the doors heavily reinforced and more than capable of hiding the unpleasant damp sound of her cough, even muffled against Clef’s shoulder. She was dragging by the time they reached the pilot’s quarters – his rooms were closest, and she made no protest when he ushered her inside, dropping on the bed while he went to the tiny attached bathroom to find her some water.

She was trying to control it, one sleeve pressed to her mouth and her whole body curled over, shaking with the force of the suppressed coughs, knees drawn up to her chin. Clef sat beside her, wrapping an arm about her shoulders and pulling her against himself. She resisted, for a moment, then slumped into him. “Was trying to stop coughing on you.” She murmured, when sipping at the water had let her start to breath a little more easily.

“It’s not like I’ll catch it off you.” He pointed out, somewhat wryly. “Besides, they keep everyone who was at Eleru so well inoculated that even if there’s a cold going about base neither of us get it.”

“Your results are still-“ Emeraude looked up, then, and Clef sighed.

“Just as they always have been. Nothing to worry about – nothing likely to degenerate anytime soon.” Which she knew. Patient confidentiality was one thing, but if there was a problem with a Pilot’s health then there would need to be plans put in place, agreed, actioned…

“Clef, are you still mad at me?”

She sounded so small, then, so much like the girl he remembered from the first days of their training, before she grew into her skill and confidence. He rested his head against hers. “Yes.” He told her, and he meant it, for all there was no anger in his voice. “It was my work putting her in danger. Putting all of them in danger.”

“…And it was Umi.”

He closed his eyes, stayed quiet, and that was enough of a response for her to pat his arm gently. Emeraude had been his friend for years before she had been his boss, after all; she and Ferio were his family. And he might be mad at her still, but he’d missed her, too.

“I didn’t mean for them to go out with the upgrade in place.” She admitted, softly. “I needed – I wanted to see how close it was. They were scheduled not to pilot for a few days, and we’ve not had so many attacks so close since- before Eleru. But then the alarms went, and there wasn’t time to take it back again.”

Clef sighed. “You should have told them. If they’d known what to expect – well, I doubt it would have helped. They all came home alive. But…”

“I know.”

She couldn’t have been sleeping well, because her head was getting heavier and heavier on his shoulder. Enough he was wondering whether they’d fall out of bed if they fell asleep sat on it like this when there was a faint knock on the door, enough to snap him out of his own growing drowsiness.

“Wha- yes?” He called, automatically, far too used to being called out of bed – and then he remembered the blood on his clothing, on Emeraude’s, and swore under his breath viciously enough that Emeraude blinked her eyes open and looked up into the sliver of light from the opening door.

“Clef? It’s me – Umi, I mean – I just, if you’re awake, I wanted to know-“ The door opened far enough to cast light across the narrow bed. Umi froze in place, staring at the two of them. “I- I’m sorry! I’ll- sorry, I’ll just-“ She stammered, and then she was gone, the door slamming shut behind her and the light cutting out.

Clef untangled himself from Emeraude and shoved the door back open, leaning out into the corridor and squinting against the light. Umi was already vanishing about the corner – moving fast for someone whose leg had been broken not so many weeks ago, even if the doctors here could borrow from Mech technology to build walking supports. It clanked on the floor as she went, and she didn’t look back when Clef called after her.

He hesitated, looking back at Emeraude – the smudges of blood were blatantly visible on the ends of her pale grey sleeves. She nodded. “Go. I’m fine.”

“You’re sure you-“

“Go!”

He went.

oOo

Umi was headed back to her rooms, he thought, and so he nearly missed her when she turned aside – he had to double back, and finally caught up with her outside the lift which could take the pilots straight down to the hanger bay. “Umi! Stop- please, we need to talk!”

She nodded, slightly, and when he opened the door to the observation room beside the lift, she walked straight in. Clef stopped long enough to turn the lights on.

The back wall was mostly window, looking into the hanger bay, where even at this time of night there were several people still at work. The Mark Nines loomed up into the darkness overhead, silent and still right now; the older mech were hidden behind the three new ones, from this angle. Umi crossed to look out the window, resting one hand against it as she stared at Selece. There weren’t many marks left on the mech to show the damage he’d taken – she was slower to heal. The bandages still about her shoulder were bright against the gold of her skin, visible over the slipping neckline of a too-large sweater.

“How long has it been- like that?” Umi asked, quietly, still looking away.

Clef sighed. “Nearly five and a half years now. Since Eleru.”

“And… no one knows?”

He voice was very small. Clef supposed it was shock; well, people didn’t cough up blood for any good reasons. “She doesn’t want anyone to know.”

“That’s- that seems hard. On you.”

He shrugged. “It’s not- I don’t like it, but it’s not my choice to make.”

“Not your choice?” Umi’s head shot up, and she twisted back to face him, face a mix of confusion and indignance. “But both of you are-“

She stopped, staring at the blood on his shirt, and drew in a startled breath. Clef shook his head.

“It isn’t mine. None of it is. I was a lot further from the blast when it went off, I only caught the edge of it, Emeraude was a lot closer – the closest who survived.”

“That’s-“ Umi swallowed, stepping closer, reaching out but stopping just before her hand could touch the stains over his heart. She looked more confused now than she had before, and surely it was common knowledge that they were both survivors of Eleru? “Emeraude – the Director is ill?”

There was a moment when Clef’s mind stalled, and then he was running back over the conversation they’d been having – the conversations, because she’d been having an entirely different one to him, and it was his turn to be startled. “You thought I meant – no! No, Umi, we’re not- no!”

“But, just now-“

“Emeraude’s one of my oldest friends, pretty much my sister. We –argued, and-“ He stopped. Ran a hand through his hair. “Then we stopped, I guess. Umi… you have to know we’ve been fighting. The whole base knows it. Arguing over… over what happened to you.”

“…There was something different about Selece, then.” Umi’s hand withdrew, pressed to her own chest, creeping towards her injured shoulder. “It wasn’t just- what was it?”

There was a frightening sort of calm resting on him as he spoke. “The next stage in the development of the AI system – a deeper level of interaction. Not just monitoring the signals from the brain to help interpret physical commands, but to act on thought alone – and to feed information to you when you need it, without needing the visual displays. We’ve been working towards it for months. Your first drifts already had some of the new technology integrated, but not the whole of it, because it hasn’t been ready – it still isn’t, and neither were you.”

“Emeraude uploaded it.”

It wasn’t a question, but he nodded anyway. “Without my knowing. If I had – I would have pulled the Mark Nines. She was running tests, and then we were called out, and… that was it.”

“Why would she-“

Umi looked down again at the bloodstains, and Clef’s voice dropped low. She knew too much anyway, now, explaining it was only fair. “Emeraude is worried she doesn’t have enough time left. I… understand the impatience. We’re getting so close. But – she put you in danger.”

“We’re mech pilots.” Umi pointed out, moving closer, watching him, one corner of her mouth trying to pull into a smile. Metal clinked with her second step. “Rather a dangerous profession. Hadn’t you noticed?”

“She put you in danger with my work.” He murmured, and very carefully didn’t shudder when Umi’s hands came to rest on his arms, when she stepped in again.

“And you argued over that? Over us?”

“…We argued over you, Umi.“ He said, and he had been avoiding Umi almost as much as he had Emeraude, but hadn’t admitted so even to himself. Now, he let one hand hover in front of her injured shoulder, seeing her using it but still not daring to touch, even when she stood so close.

“Oh.” Umi whispered, softly, nonsense sound while she stared at him and bit her bottom lip – while she watched him watching the motion. She stepped forward carefully, once more, until her shoulder was pressed softly to his hand and her head was inches from his.

Her shoulder was warm, and solid, and she didn’t flinch under his hand. Clef exhaled, shakily, and every scrap of tension from the last month he hadn’t managed to shout at Emeraude seemed to hit him on the way out of the door as he stepped all the way into her space and wrapped his arms about her, burying his face against her hair.

“Thanks for saving my life.” Umi told him, her better arm wrapped tight about his back. “But you can stop worrying now, you know. I’m not that breakable.”

“We all are.”

“I haven’t broken yet, then.” She pulled back, and he made himself let go – but she didn’t move far. Just leant so she could see his face again, and now when she started moving it was slowly, so slowly, he had plenty of time to move away if he wanted to.

Instead, he met her halfway in a rush.

He should know better than this, said a small part of him. She was less than two thirds his age, he should- But what did age matter to a mech pilot? Their average life expectancy topped out at twenty five. He was well into borrowed time, and she was spending all of hers trapped in the mech program. Even if this turned out to be a mistake, there were far worse ones they both could be making…

Her hand slid up to the back of his neck, fingers tangling in the ends of his hair, and his whole mind went quiet; drowned by the force of the moment.

And the next.

(And the next.)

oOo