6 May 2019: As always, a big thank you to Dragon of Winter Nights for being a wonderful beta reader and editor. This fic would not be the same without her.

Content Note: This chapter has not been censored. It appears exactly as it does on AO3.

Chapter 23
In which plans will have to change

Clef lay his head on the desk and sighed. He didn't need to be working, it was still very much a holiday. But if he didn't, it would only be worse tomorrow - a fact which was not helping him concentrate.

One of the stacks of paper near his left hand was jostled by the movement and came rustling down on his head with a thousand sharp edges. When he swore and shoved it back, the whole lot slid off the side of the desk. He watched it go, frozen, then let out a sharp sigh and leaned back, rubbing his hands over his face.

"Well, that's one thing to do with all that," came Ferio's voice from the doorway. "It's not like any of us could say your mind's been on work lately, but I don't think that's going to help much."

Snapping upright, Clef shot a glare at him over the remaining paper ramparts. "Spare me any lectures. I'm in no mood to hear them."

Ferio came in far enough the door closed behind him and leaned against the wall. "I'm not here to lecture you. I came to help you get your blasted repeal finished to save us the trouble of your removal from the Mage's Guild when this all comes out."

"There are hundreds of texts you'd need to read-" Clef started, but Ferio cut him off.

"Not the research bit, but I can crawl through some of the Council stuff at the very least, and work out what you actually need to know in all the extraneous words people like to drown us in, what can be handed off." Ferio waited for Clef's startled nod, then helped himself to the chair on the other side of the desk and took an armful of paper from the top of one pile. "Did you really marry her?" he asked.

"Given the number of documents I signed this morning, I've either married her or given her everything I own." Clef shrugged, getting down on the floor to pick up the cascade of… hmm. Financial reports from the Mages, by the look of it, a lot of lines marked out in red and queried for possible investigation. "You don't have to spend your holiday in here with me."

"Well, it's not as if I have anyone else to spend it with. If anything, helping would be a distraction." Ferio shrugged, the gesture awkwardly lopsided. "Fuu wants to 'slow down and take a step back', not that we were going anywhere fast. I think Umi's pregnancy's rattled her a bit. Anyway!" He moved on with forced cheerfulness. "Half of this is rubbish. You need people to go through this for you; there's no reason for you to even see half of it. Don't you have underlings or something in you Guild? Administrators, I guess."

"They have more than enough to do," Clef muttered, setting the finance report over on a side table where he wouldn't have to look at it yet. "Especially with all the mess around Corvair. Before you suggest I hire someone new, I've not got time to run a recruitment and get someone settled in right now."

"Aren't there even any students who want an administrative work-experience role?" Ferio grumbled but held up a hand before Clef could say anything. "I know, I know, they'd take even more of your time to get them up to speed so they're actually useful."

"Ascot has been helping out, and Aveo's taken on most of the Warden's work she wasn't already doing" Clef admitted. "It's made a difference. Enough I'll look at it seriously when I have time to - which will be when it's no longer treason for me to recognise my partner and child."

"I guess that's a reasonable priority."

They'd been working in a silence broken by Clef's irritated muttering every now and then for nearly half an hour when there was a knock on the door. Presea walked in, a small parcel in hand, which she offered up to Clef saying, "In the hope that you might manage some sleep while you can."

Inside a formal decorative wrapping cloth were two paper packages filled with- "Tea?" Clef asked, peering at the mix of dried leaves and petals in the first. Even the scent of the unsteeped blend was calming; it was of the highest quality.

"Well, my first instinct was to give you a large bottle of alcohol," Presea admitted, with a grin at Ferio.

"In celebration or sympathy?" Clef asked, folding the tea away.

"Both, I suppose. This is a right mess, isn't it?"

"That's for sure," Ferio agreed.

Clef wished he could kick Ferio under the desk, or at least try to, but it had a solid back. "At least we know, now. For a while, I thought she-" He shook his head and shoved up and away from the desk towards the kettle on reflex. He needed a drink. "Thank you for this, Presea," he called back. "Would either of you like a drink?"

"That would be nice," Presea agreed, and Clef heard her move a chair closer to the desk, and a rustle which sounded suspiciously like Ferio handing her a sheaf of papers. "I am worried about these headaches of Umi's. With all that power thrown at Honda - she is being seen by the Healers here as well as her Tokyo's Doctors, right?"

"The last time I suggested it, she shouted at me and then Caldina accused me of taking advantage," Clef grouched, then winced. "No, she hasn't, but so far as I can tell whoever she has seen did say that the headaches could be due to the hormonal changes she is experiencing."

"She's not seen the Healers?" Ferio sat up straight, horrified.

"No one's checked her since Getz when it happened." Clef sighed. "It's not like I haven't tried. You know how Umi is when she doesn't want to do something."

"Right. Well, I think I can get her to the Healers." Ferio raised an eyebrow and looked straight at the two of them, the expression sharp. "But she's not going to like it."

.*.*.*.

By the time they made it home, Umi wanted nothing more than to go straight upstairs and collapse into her bed. Instead, she found herself sat on the sofa, with her arms full of an attention-starved cat who kept headbutting her chin while she tried to listen to her parents suggesting she wait to file the marriage form.

"You don't need to worry about the Ryuuzaki reputation," Mama assured her. "We can handle the press. It's not as though an unmarried mother is so much of a scandal these days."

"Why'd you let me sign if you weren't going to let me submit it?" Umi demanded, batting a fluffy tail out of her mouth. "You went to all the trouble with Clef's documents- Peach, stop it!"

"If nothing else, your Clef's signature ensures we can motivate him to stand by his word," her mother said, with a calm smile.

"I'm not blackmailing him into taking care of me!" Umi gaped at her parents, shoving Peach until he lay down. "No!".

"I doubt you'd need to," Mama said. "Think of it as insurance. Something which proves his intentions."

"I'd rather think of it as him just wanting to marry me. Not - that's not romantic!"

"You've signed the paperwork, and we have it. You can file it whenever you're ready - why not take a while? Mama and I don't want you rushing into something you might regret," Papa said.

Umi crossed her arms over her chest. "Do you regret marrying Mama?"

"Never," he said. "That doesn't mean we couldn't have waited another year first."

"It definitely would have been easier if we'd waited, instead of rushing into things," Mama said, casting a look at Papa.

"I had already decided I want to move to Cephiro after school, and that I want to be with him. I decided that ages ago, it just - took a while to get him to agree to that bit, and then things got complicated, but- I'm not rushing." Umi gestured a little wildly. "I told him we were getting married. I want us to be married."

Papa and Mama exchanged a look before Mama nodded. "Very well, then. I'll take you to the ward office on Wednesday."

"I suppose it's not as if delaying your marriage is going to delay the baby," Papa added.

Umi bit her lip at that, wrapping an arm more firmly around Peach. But at least that ended the conversation.

She did try to actually think through the consequences of making it legally official that she had married Clef - what it might mean for him, at least. But all she kept thinking about was the impossibility of delaying this baby arriving in half a year's time.

Compared to being a parent, a bit of paperwork about their relationship didn't seem nearly so important, just… reassuring. She kept taking the form out of its envelope to stare at Clef's scrawl of a signature, trying to decide if it looked even more of a mess than usual because he'd had to use an unfamiliar pen from Tokyo so the signature stayed.

She wanted to ask her mother if giving birth was really as bad as she thought it might be, but Mama had always said "And that's when I decided one was enough" about Umi's birth, so maybe she didn't want to know.

.*.*.*.

In the end, submitting the form and legally marrying Clef was a strange combination of anticlimactic and terrifying. She'd thought she'd just be bringing him onto her family's register, that's he'd be the fourth Ryuuzaki in Tokyo. She didn't realise she'd end up with her own register, despite being only seventeen, until the paperwork was in front of her. A new family register with just the two of them on it, and space for their new family to be added.

Umi didn't think she was grown-up enough to be the head of her own household. She certainly didn't feel like it.

.*.*.*.

Once the week got properly underway, Clef lost most of Ferio and Presea's help beyond a few hours scattered here or there. Ascot pitched in a few times when he could, too, but the volume of work coming across Clef's desk was ridiculous.

As soon as he got these blasted repeals through, he needed to get the whole guild set-up completely overhauled; the current system was not reasonable. Ferio was right, he shouldn't be in charge of signing off on as much of this stuff as he was. There were committees for a reason.

He'd just got back to his office from one of those committee meetings and was busy setting the mess of the accounts aside again - he just couldn't get his head around the state they were in, now that huge sections of them were in doubt and half the underlying paperwork had vanished with the rest of Corvair's erratic attempt to destroy evidence, or at least make a lot of work for the rest of them - when the door opened with barely a knock and Caldina walked in.

"Ascot and Lafarga insist I come apologise," she said.

Clef set down his pen. "Oh?"

"You're still too old for her, it's still illegal, and she's still pregnant." Caldina crossed her arms, stood glaring at him - but she wasn't shouting. Even if she wasn't, technically, apologising. "And don't get me started on how you brought her to Ouran's ball dressed like an open invitation."

"The only hand I had in that choice of clothing was in the buying of it," Clef snapped.

"You obviously had more than a hand in her clothing, or she wouldn't be pregnant, would she? Pregnant! At her age! I'd have thought you, of all people, would have made sure to stop that, being as how it's treason."

Sighing, Clef rubbed his hands over his face. "We did. Protection charms included. But I wasn't expecting Umi to go and break her contraceptive spell and anything else on her by grabbing the entire ocean and using it as a hammer!"

Caldina blinked, then swore, closing her eyes. "Still! You didn't have a healer check her out after all that? I thought your vaunted healers could detect issues like that early enough they don't become a problem!"

"The healer who was looking after her was slightly more worried that she might have burnt herself out!" Getting into a shouting match with Caldina wasn't going to get them anywhere, not when he knew she was on Umi's side in this, as he was.

Plus, he agreed with a lot of her worries.

"I don't disagree that Umi would be better off with someone else, but the one person I can't seem to persuade of that is Umi. I'm certainly not going to let her down now this has happened and she's decided to have the child. I'm going to do whatever she wants me to - including marrying her, including giving her whatever support I can. But so far as I can see, what's best for Umi right now is for things to be fixed so I can give her full access to everything I have - my house, my money, all the resources she might want. It won't help her to have a child only for me to be brought up on charges and all my assets seized, out of her reach."

"Money's not going to make a child vanish," Caldina told him, flatly.

"No," he agreed. "But you know how many things it can smooth over. She'll be looked after, whatever happens. If I'm imprisoned and she doesn't want to raise the child, Aveo is willing and more than capable of stepping in to look after them, as much or as little as Umi wants. She will get to attend the Academy, she will get her qualifications, she will be able to do anything she wants - I swear it. But it would be a lot easier to help make that happen if I'm legally allowed to do it. So if you've got nothing more to say to me, I need to get on with this work."

Caldina tapped her foot on the floor. "She's my friend," she got out, the words sharp about the edges. "She's barely more than a child. This isn't what she wanted, and it's your fault."

"Yes, but I can't fix it, so I have to make it right for her." He looked straight at Caldina. "As her friend, you could always help, instead of just yelling at me."

"Fine." Caldina waved a hand. "I'll stop yelling. But you better know that if I hear you did something to hurt her, I'll cut your prick off. Then there'll be no more of these 'mistakes'." With that, she turned on heel and strode out of the room.

.*.*.*.

Umi took her time before heading to Cephiro after school the next Saturday afternoon. With Cephiro's festival last week pushing the week ahead by a day, she was pretty sure Clef would be in the fortnightly Council meeting for hours still, at least until dinner time. So she spent the afternoon with a few of her friends from Tokyo, getting the ramen she was craving for lunch then doing some shopping before heading to the Tower to send herself across.

When the magic grabbed hold of her, her stomach twisted, and she had just enough time to regret not having caught up with Hikaru or Fuu to come across together before she was being dragged between worlds with no finesse at all. The spell slammed through her so hard it stole her breath away and left her reeling as she dropped onto the floor of the receiving hall, her bags thumping down about her.

She sat on the cold floor for a long moment before she pulled herself together enough to grab her things and head upstairs, moving slowly. The corridors were quiet, but as she walked up to Clef's office, he was just opening the door.

"Hey, Clef!" she called and then winced at the sound of her own voice.

Clef smiled at her, though he looked like he hadn't slept in days, dark bruising under his eyes. "I have three reports to review and sign off before dinner, and then a meeting I need to get to after, so I hope you didn't expect me to be much company," he said.

"That's fine," Umi said. She didn't think she was up for much conversation yet anyway. "I can just do my homework, if you don't mind me being in here."

Clef just waved her toward her usual chair while he picked up a pen and started shuffling through the ever-increasing mountain of papers that covered his desk. "Just tell me if you see anything which looks like a set of accounts. I've misplaced them, and I really do need to work out what we can do to fix them this week."

"Your desk probably ate them," she said, dumping her things on the floor and staring over at the kettle, before realising she could be rid of another discomfort of the day.

Using the chair for balance while she pulled off her boots, Umi then stood up and reached under her skirt. She'd just hooked her thumbs under the waistband of her tights when Clef looked up.

"No," he said. "I meant it about getting through this before dinner. I don't have time to entertain you."

"Don't get excited, I just want them off." Umi yanked a little too hard and nearly fell over. "I really do have homework. We've got more exams next month. I don't know why when nearly everyone at school is studying for university entrance exams."

"Your instructors will still want to know how well you understand the material they've taught you before you go out into the world," Clef said, not looking up from his work.

Umi scoffed and found the headache tea on the sideboard, adding it and hot water into a small teapot that seemed clean enough, digging out a cleanish cup for herself and one for Clef while it brewed.

"I'm sure you aren't the only student not going on to one of these universities."

"I guess. I've heard that one or two other girls are planning to get married soon after graduation."

If Cephiro hadn't happened, she wasn't sure what her future might have looked like. Umi was pretty sure she wouldn't have wanted to take over the Ryuuzaki company, even if she did go to University, she wasn't sure what she would have studied. Maybe she would have gone ahead and married Huki to give him the job, securing both a take-over of the Aihara Group and someone who would be well trained to run the company once her mother stepped down, while she could be the darling little wife she'd planned to be, doing things she found more interesting.

Darling wife…

Umi stared over at Clef. She was his darling wife. That was supposed to be something special, but absolutely nothing felt different. This afternoon felt like the hundred other afternoons she'd spent sat across from him just like this.

Maybe the only real difference was that her parents actually knew where she was and who she was spending the night with tonight.

Things would change a little more when she moved over for good and they were actually sharing a space for more than a week. Maybe it would feel real then.

"Are you okay?" Clef asked, startling Umi enough she nearly dropped her teacup. "You're staring. What's wrong?"

"We're married," Umi blurted out before she could stop herself. "That's so - so weird."

"How's it weird?" Clef asked.

"Because nothing's changed at all," Umi said.

Clef took a breath. "In a lot of ways, they haven't. I gave you this three months ago, in front of witnesses. Well, Holbio." He drew the promise box out of his ring, turning it around in his hands. "This gift probably gives you just as much legal ammunition as your paperwork, when you think about it. Possibly more; it implies more emotional engagement than your legal agreement, at least. There's plenty of precedents where they have been used as evidence that a party can reasonably expect the care and rights due to a partner; I've been finding them in my research the last few weeks."

Setting down her teacup, she reached out and took the box from him. "I didn't know," she murmured, staring down at the box in her hand. "You said Cephiro didn't have an equivalent to marriage."

"It's not the same kind of agreement, but it is… well, a promise, on the part of the giver. I didn't want to think too hard about the implications; not giving it wouldn't stop what I feel for you, which is just as illegal as any support I offer you."

Umi bent over to drop the little box into her bag - she'd put it away somewhere safe later - and look back at Clef.

"Thank you," she said, and leaned in - nearly knocking over a few of the mountains of paper - to kiss him softly before digging out her mathematics textbook and notebook. Throwing her legs over one arm of the chair while she leaned against the other, Umi propped her books on her legs and got to work.

Sometime later, after Umi had finished her maths work and moved on to easier things, like English, Caldina walked into Clef's office unannounced before stopping to stare at Umi and demanding, "What are you doing in here?"

"My homework." Umi waved her notebook as evidence. "Just like I do every week." Clef snorted out a laugh, and Umi chucked her eraser at him.

"And you take off half your clothes for that?" Caldina asked, pointing at Umi's abandoned tights and boots.

"You try growing another person inside you and see how you feel about tight clothes." Umi rolled her eyes and turned back to her work.

"You won't even give this girl a corner of your desk to work on?" Caldina turned on Clef, but it was Umi who responded.

"Nothing goes on there if I want to have it with me the next day. That desk eats paper. It stole my homework once, and I had to do it all over again when I got home that week," Umi answered, looking back up. "Clef's busy. What do you need?"

"No one had seen you yet, so I was coming to see if he knew where you were."

"You came to look for me, but you were surprised to find me? That makes no sense." Umi snapped her book shut. "And just so you know, I may be talking to you, but I haven't forgotten how awful you were last week. Here I was trying to show my parents that Cephiro's not a bad place to raise their future grandchild, and you come in calling Clef all kinds of horrible things. In front of my mother! Anyway, I have homework to finish. If that was all you wanted, you can see yourself out."

"Not quite," Caldina said, and there was something in her voice which made Umi look up just before Caldina pulled a bound sheaf of paper from a gem on her hand, and dropped it with a ceremonious thud in the middle of Clef's desk. "There. They'll stand up to an audit. They even match the amount of money in your accounts."

"What-" Umi abandoned her books to come over, staring at the papers as Clef, wide-eyed, opened the first page. It looked like… lists and numbers? "Clef, is that the accounts you were missing?"

"Yes, but- you've fixed them?" He stared between the paper and Caldina. "How?"

Caldina snorted, looking both smug and pleased at the same time. "Because I actually understand how money works?" She shook her head. "You were all running about trying to find missing internal paperwork. Did no one think to go talk to your suppliers about their records?"

"...I don't know that they did. But Corvair-"

"The appendix at the back deals with all that." Caldina waved a hand. "Oh, and if that Livina asks, you sent me to sort it out. Anyway, that's all done. Get on with something more important." And with that, she walked out, leaving Umi and Clef to settle back down to their work.

.*.*.*.

Umi must have fallen asleep with her biology book open because Clef startled her awake when it was time to go down to dinner before he had to head off to a meeting with Lantis and LaFarga.

When Umi volunteered Clef's place for the studying session she had planned with Hikaru and Fuu that evening, Clef was the only person not startled by her co-opting his rooms.

"As long as you don't leave tea all over the counter again, I don't mind what you do," he said, not looking up from his meal.

"Maybe your tins shouldn't be so hard to open," Umi retorted. "Those lids are far too tight."

"If they were looser, the tea wouldn't be as fresh."

"There must be spells for that."

"It doesn't taste the same."

They cheerfully bickered about tea until Clef had to leave, and Umi led the others upstairs.

Any lingering reservations about using Clef's rooms were forgotten not a quarter of an hour into their little study session. Books and papers were strewn across the surface of the table; it gave them far more space than the little table crammed in the corner of their shared bedroom. Quick access to tea supplies and snacks was merely a bonus.

Flicking through Hikaru's English workbooks, Umi stopped and picked a new-looking one up to examine the cover. "I didn't think your school was using this one?"

"That one's for cram school," Hikaru said.

"What are you going to cram school for? It's not like you're going to need to know English sentence structure for your magic lessons."

Hikaru and Fuu exchanged a look, and then Hikaru took that long breath that meant she was about to say something she thought Umi wasn't going to like. Umi realised what it was a moment before Hikaru spoke. "No. Hikaru! I thought you were coming to the Academy with me. What happened to beating me at becoming a Kairu?"

"It's just a few extra years in Tokyo," Hikaru said. "We'll have all the time we want in Cephiro, afterward."

"But we were moving to Cephiro together. We had a plan! Racing to become Kairu!"

"You have to admit that plan has changed," Fuu said.

"No, it hasn't!" Umi snapped. "I'm still moving to Cephiro and going to the Academy after graduation. And I know I haven't been doing much of it lately, but I'm going to keep up with my sword training. I - I'll even go with Hikaru to Guard practice in the morning."

"Is that a good idea?" Hikaru asked, face worried.

"Why wouldn't it be?" Both of her friends just looked at her. Umi let out a groan. "My doctor said I can keep doing everything I normally do. It's not like I'm ill or anything. And I'm feeling a lot better than I was."

Fuu pushed her glasses up her nose. "What about those headaches?"

"It's just a headache." Umi waved Fuu off before focusing on Hikaru. "When did you even decide you were going to university? Why didn't you tell me?"

"You haven't exactly been around," Hikaru said, gathering up her papers. "We haven't had much chance to actually talk the last few months."

Umi swallowed. Hikaru was right. Since the summer, she hadn't really spent much time with Hikaru and Fuu, just the three of them. Staring down at her hands, Umi made herself ask, "What do you want to study then?"

"Veterinary science," Hikaru said, with a fresh burst of enthusiasm. "Plus I've been talking to Ascot a lot about his Paru studies and what sorts of things they do, and it sounds like a lot of fun."

Umi just stared at her. "You're not even planning to be an Iru anymore?"

"I can do mage training concurrently - I think. I need to talk to Clef about it sometime, probably. It's getting late. Fuu and I should probably get out of your way, so you can get to sleep - you still look tired." Hikaru bent over and picked up her bag before neatly starting to put her stuff in it, while Fuu was still gathering up her own papers.

Umi watched her friends putting their shoes on, lost for words.

.*.*.*.

Clef was expecting to come back to the girls sat around the table engrossed in their books, so opening the door to find them standing right in front of him was surprising.

"Oh! Good evening, Master Clef," Fuu said with a small bow. "We were just leaving."

"So you'll have Umi all to yourself," Hikaru added cheerfully before turning to wave back at Umi. "See you tomorrow."

"Bye," Umi answered flatly. She didn't greet Clef, just looked away as he closed the door behind the other girls.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," Umi said, clearing the cups and teapot from the table. "Nothing you can fix, at least. Don't worry about it."

"Want any more tea?" he asked. All he got was an affirmative sort of grunt from Umi as she sat on the settee and picked up one of the baby books he'd left on the low table. She flicked through it and pulled a face before reaching for the next one. "If you're looking for any of the illustrated novels, they're on the bedside table," Clef told her before turning his attention to filling the teapot.

"How many baby books have you read?" Umi asked, putting them back down. "I've read the booklet the ward office gave me, and I'm supposed to attend some classes in a few months, but I don't even know how useful they could be, given I'm going to raise the baby here."

"Infant care can't be all that different," Clef said. "It's mostly keeping them fed, warm, and dry at first, so far as I understand." He handed Umi a cup of tea and sat beside her.

Umi's fingers went white from her tight grip on the cup. Her voice wobbled slightly when she spoke again. "Hikaru's going to university."

Ah. There it was.

"We were both supposed to move here after high school, but now she's going to university with Fuu, and-" Umi shook her head hard enough to jostle the cup in her hand, very nearly spilling the tea on herself.

"I did mean it about caring for the child if you wanted to study in Tokyo," Clef offered, softly.

"How's that supposed to help?" Umi snapped. "The baby's due the month after classes start!"

"Can't you start at a later term?"

Umi set her cup down on the table and scrubbed at her eyes with the back of one hand as a tear slid down her cheek. "It doesn't matter. I don't even want to to go to university! But both of them going…"

Clef wrapped an arm about her, pressing a kiss against her forehead. "I'm sorry," he said, and meant it.

Rubbing her hands across her face again, Umi jolted up off the sofa. "Come on. Let's just go to sleep. I'm going to practise with the Guard tomorrow, whether or not Hikaru is," she declared.

Clef held his tongue to keep from asking if that was a sensible plan. He knew perfectly well that there were members of the permanent guard who'd kept up with physical training while expecting children. "Then we definitely ought to get ready for bed if you're getting up that early, but I'm free to spend the rest of the day with you, if you'd like."

That at least got a smile and a watery nod from her.

.*.*.*.

The beeping of Umi's wrist timepiece was not the most pleasant way to wake up on his day off. Clef grumbled and rolled over as the mattress shifted. Umi clattered about a bit before leaving the room, only to come back a short while later to clamber back into bed.

"I'll see you later," she said, pressing a kiss to his cheek before vanishing.

Rather than give in to the desire to drift back off, Clef crawled out of bed and got himself breakfast at a slower pace before heading out to the little cafe he had often ended up watching the training sessions from.

He claimed one of the little tables out in the gardens with a decent view of the training fields. Only, caught sight of Hikaru near the front row of the set of apprentice guards that were taking their places, but he couldn't spot Umi.

Setting down his cup, Clef squinted to try to see if she were just a bit further out than usual, but he still couldn't see any sign of her. He was just about to cast a tracking spell when Umi came bursting out of the Castle and stormed across to him with Ferio trailing behind her.

"Tell him he's being unreasonable!" she yelled. Umi stormed over to Clef, pointing back at Ferio. "He and Lantis won't let me train because I'm pregnant!"

"You have to be cleared by the Healers." Ferio turned a sharp look at Umi. "No note: no training, same for you as any other Guard."

Clef just stared for a moment. Ferio had said he could get Umi to the healers, but Clef hadn't realised it would be this straightforward. Knowing he was possibly going to regret the words he was about to say before he said them, Clef nodded. "I do think that's the rule the Guard have. The mage's Guild certainly does. It's generally considered a reasonable precaution."

"My doctor said I'm fine only a week ago." Umi flailed her arms at both of them. "And I do not want to subject myself to anymore poking and prodding than I absolutely have to! My first appointment at the clinic was bad enough with that wand-thing and all; I can't imagine what it's like here."

"Wand-thing?" Ferio asked, looking wary.

Umi flushed. "To get pictures of the baby - to check it's growing right, and all - they use a machine. As it was my first appointment and still a little early, to get a good picture they have to - um - stick it-" She made a vague gesture that was enough to get the idea before she even said, "up inside."

"You know what, nevermind. I didn't want to know that." Ferio put his hands up and backed away. "Get a note from a Cephiran healer clearing you for practice and you can come join us again." With that, he disappeared back into the castle.

Clef sat there a moment looked at Umi, who was still bright pink. That procedure sounded particularly unpleasant. "That sounds… uncomfortable," he said, finally.

Umi shrugged and dropped into the seat across from him. "Well, I don't think it helps that I am kind of small."

"I suppose it's a good thing I'm a little below average in size, then?" Clef said, raising an eyebrow, and Umi snorted. "After I finish this cup of tea, I'll walk you up to the Healers. It won't be invasive like your doctors back home, I promise; magic can be useful for some things."

Wrinkling her nose, Umi sighed. "Fine." She slumped further in the seat as he finished his drink, giving her time to calm down, before she rubbed a hand over her face. "You shouldn't come with me."

Clef paused. "Pardon?"

"You shouldn't come with me to the Healers. Not when I'm going because I'm pregnant with evidence you may have accidentally committed treason!"

Opening his mouth, then closing it again, Clef struggled to find a response beyond 'I don't care'. "It's not as though it's written on our backs why we'd be going. The Healers will keep any patient information completely confidential."

Umi eyed him. "Half the Guard probably heard me arguing with Ferio about needing a note," she muttered. "It's not going to be that hard to guess, is it."

"That could just as easily be so you can be cleared as fit after nailing Honda back onto the side of Cephiro, which is absolutely public knowledge," Clef countered. "In fact, if I were your teacher, I'd have sent you before restarting lessons for that reason, and never mind any pregnancy."

"But you're not my teacher, and you need to not look like my teacher either, so that makes it worse!" Umi declared, standing. "No, I'll go and get it over with, I guess. You stay here. I'll see you in your rooms afterward."

She turned and marched off, shoulders hunched, without Clef having a chance to respond. He watched her go, feeling his own heartbeat quicken with useless nerves, hoping she would be back in half an hour with a smug smile on her face and a note in her hand.

.*.*.*.

Everything about going to the Healers was wrong, even down to the way they wrote her name. She didn't know how to explain how Clef wrote it differently than what the receptionist-person wrote down.

The examination was even worse, but for different reasons than she feared. While she didn't have to take any of her clothes off, she knew something was off when the healer seemed to spend far longer than normal checking her pulse.

"How long ago did you exhaust your magic?" the healer asked, still not letting go of her wrist.

Umi swallowed, remembering laying in bed at Clef's house with Getz fretting over her."Three months ago?" she said. "About the same time this all happened." She pressed her free hand to her middle.

"That strain hasn't fully healed. I would really like to see you taking time away from any intensive training - both physical and magical - you're currently doing. Focus on resting and healing these stretched connections, or they will not repair themselves properly."

Her vision narrowed down, going dark about the edges. "I need to use magic to get home from here," she protested, her voice wavering. "I come from another world."

"I'm not going to suggest no magic usage yet, but you should keep only to necessities. As it is, I am going to note a recommendation you be restricted from any training until after you've fully recovered, which may take until after delivery."

"That's months!"

"Magic exhaustion doesn't heal overnight, especially when your body has another new strain being placed on it." The healer looked at her sharply. "I know it's frustrating, but you'd hate to cause yourself any permanent damage. Care for a few months now will save you centuries of trouble down the line."

Taking a deep breath, Umi ventured, "I've been invited to stay with friends in Chizeta next month. Will I be able to go?"

"Is it a long visit?"

Umi shook her head. "A week. Maybe two."

"So long as you rest and avoid doing anything too strenuous between now and then, I don't see why you shouldn't be cleared to go - but you will need to be careful until then."

That was something, at least. Aside from confirming the baby was developing fine, it was the only positive point.

Umi stepped back into the main corridor clutching notes for her 'instructors' that explained her current restrictions. Her eyes burned and her lip wobbled, but she wasn't going to let herself cry.

But the walk back up to Clef's rooms seemed so much longer than it had last night, and when she got there, she was going to have to admit everything was wrong - again.

.*.*.*.

To be continued...

A big thank you to all my loyal readers. I am glad you have been enjoying this story so far. I hope to see you all continue this journey with me.

Fuu's birthday happens in the next chapter, and Umi has been making plans for the celebration. I've had fun writing that so far. I hope you will enjoy reading it.