Work Text:
When Ender got to his own room he stripped off his clothes, climbed into bed, and slept.
~~~
March turned into April into May and Ender slept.
On May 1, they proclaimed him dead, and the nations wept for their hero. Valentine did not celebrate her victory; it hardly felt like one. Smartly, she had early on restricted any transmission of material showing Ender's face. She'd been fast and ruthless about her demands, blackmailing Colonel Graff, calling on I.F. command and the heads of state and, lastly - Peter. She had been preparing for this since the moment they took him from her.
And now, Ender was coming home. The backup plan had become the only viable option. Because Ender slept, ignored everything around him in exchange for whatever world he was trapped in. Valentine arranged for his transfer to Earth, a top-secret operation just a handful of people knew about.
On Earth, March 1 was instated Ender's Day. A new Hegemon came into power - one the world had grown to call Locke. Peter Wiggin, sixteen years old; his face was all over the news, taking the space that should have rightly been Ender's. She had made it possible. In those days, Valentine spent hours overseeing Peter's movements when she wasn't pouring over medical data.
May turned into June into July.
Beginning of August, they brought Ender to Greensboro, to the house by the lake that Valentine had taken to calling Ender's Lake in her head. She didn't recognize them until they said their names. But of course, Graff hadn't sent just anyone to accompany Ender on his journey. Alai, the boy said, and Petra, the girl, and they carried him into bed with such gentleness as if he could have woken up had their treatment been too rough.
"You don't have to stay," she told them when he was settled in the bed she had acquired. The house seemed almost cosy now, with the furniture and rows upon rows of bookshelves. Valentine had always preferred the smell of the pages to the desk, the feeling of dry paper under her fingertips.
"We will stay," they both said at the same time, and smiled at each other in that strangely intimate way that only friends could, in a way that Valentine had never smiled at anyone before. It made her heart ache for Ender to wake up and look at her.
He didn't.
~~~
The thought that Ender wouldn't wake never crossed Valentine's mind. She knew that he would wake when he was ready. It was in his very nature - their one common link, as different as the three of them might otherwise be - he was a fighter, a survivor."
On a warm September night, six months after the final battle of the Third Invasion, just when the stars emerged to accompany the moon in the sky, Ender opened his eyes.
Valentine was swimming in the lake when she noticed the figure slowly making its way down the well-trod path from the doorway of the house. Ender was naked as a newborn, his skin pale and bloodless in the dim light. He was almost thirteen now, but he looked smaller than when he'd come to Earth three years ago, younger. The muscle definition he'd developed in Battle School was almost gone. Instead, he looked slender, almost worryingly thin.
She could see, suddenly, in that second when her eyes took in his frame, why Alai treated him like he might break at the slightest touch. She'd never seen it before - she'd never even considered the possibility before that Ender could be anything but the familiar, strong, solid presence by her side.
Valentine was out of the water when he reached the shore. His eyes were empty, until he looked at her. The haze cleared. "Valentine," he said quietly.
She caught him just as his body crumpled. She felt his skin on her own, his hot breath on her neck and thought, he's alive. And at the same time, her arms and legs were already working for her, heaving him up and against her to carry him back inside. The effort left her puffing and sweaty.
His eyes were glazed again when she laid him down on the bed, and the bubbled-up, gurgling, ricocheting hope in her chest almost died - but then his hand gripped hers, held it, squeezed once, like it took him all his strength, and Valentine knew it would be all right.
Ender would be all right.
~~~
In the morning, she was woken by a hand on her shoulder, shaking her. Her neck (where Ender's breath had brushed my skin) was cramped and strained; her head ached. Alai's eyes were kind when he helped her stand.
"Why you not go to bed, eh?" he asked.
She considered for a split second not telling; he wasn't supposed to be here, Ender wasn't his. She'd never known he existed, such a boy to replace her in Ender's heart, as much, she guessed, as Ender could still love at all. But there he was, true and loyal to his friend, aagreeing to stay with Ender whenever Valentine had to leave him for a while, and sometimes even when she didn't.
She couldn't fairly keep anything from him. "He woke last night," she told him, her voice tired to her own ears. "Just for a few minutes. I was swimming, and he walked out to find me."
Alai's eyes widened. He looked to Ender, a fervent longing in his gaze that dimmed when Ender didn't move. Valentine found herself saying, "He'll wake again. I'm sure of it."
He caught her gaze, smiling in a way that made her cross her arms before her chest. "Thank you for telling me, little sister."
Valentine scowled. "I'm older than you. And taller."
Alai grinned. "I know."
She watched him later, after she had slept a few more hours in her own bed. He didn't know, hidden as she was by the shadows of the doorway, couldn't see her from where he was sitting on the foot of Ender's bed, a book in his lap. He was reading aloud in a melodious, soothing voice. His right hand was curled around Ender's ankle.
Ender was lying back, eyes closed, but suddenly she knew he wasn't sleeping; the even motion of his breathing chest betrayed him. He was listening to Alai's words, a recounting of old fairytales that he'd brought with him. Valentine had never owned a book of fairytales. Now, listening to him say,
... lacks three things to make it absolutely perfect."
"And what can they be?" cried the princess. "Only tell me, and I will lose no time in getting them."
"The three things, madam," replied the old woman, "are: first, the Talking Bird, whose voice draws all other singing birds to it, to join in chorus. And second, the Singing Tree, where every leaf is a song that is never silent. And lastly, the Golden Water, of which it is only needful to pour a single drop into a basin for it to shoot up into a fountain, which will never be exhausted nor will the basin ever overflow."
it seemed like she was missing something. And as she listened, Ender's breath hitched whenever Alai's voice darkened with rising tension, brothers riding out to find the treasures; his frame relaxed when everything turned out well, the story going on its lively course.
Valentine listened until Alai closed the book and put it aside. He slid off the bed then carefully walked over to the head of the bed where Ender had fallen asleep again. He tugged the sheet up to Ender's chin and pressed their cheeks together, whispering something. She couldn't hear what, but she saw Ender's mouth curl into a tiny smile - oh, not asleep after all - and there was a strange sensation in her throat at the expression, a weightless feeling, as if she'd lost something, and then a burn where she knew her diaphragm to be.
"Val," Alai said, catching her by the door. Sometimes, he called her Val, and always she hated it, but she had never brought herself to tell him so.
"Is Ender asleep?" she asked. Her voice was harder than necessary.
"Yes," Alai said. "He didn't open his eyes, but he keeps waking up for a few minutes at a time, I think." He grinned. "He hasn't soaked the bed with sweat for hours, so that's progress!"
Valentine felt herself soften at the humor in his eyes, belying the obvious concern. "That's good," was all she said.
They moved to the kitchen, which was tiny. It held only two stools around the little table. Valentine looked at the stools and had a sudden premonition of Alai and her battling it out for the stool once Ender was well enough to stand a proper meal. It made her snort.
"What's funny?" Alai asked, curious.
Valentine just shrugged, not telling.
~~~
Peter came once every month. He never entered the house, but he sat by the lake for hours on the spot Ender had sat, like there was something they shared by breathing the same air.
"Don't tell him I come," Peter said when Valentine cornered him once to ask why he kept coming back. "It wouldn't do anyone good."
Which was the truth, so she didn't. Maybe, she thought, one day, when Ender is better.
She didn't understand Peter's reasons. It was the only time she didn't, and he wasn't doing anyone harm. If he'd wanted to keep her, there would have been easier ways.
~~~
Travel no longer took as much time as it had, ten, twenty years ago, but it was still exhausting. Some days, Valentine would have preferred to stay at the lake house with Ender - but some days, she couldn't bear it and was glad to leave Petra with him, or Alai, or Bean, who had finally returned from space. Ender had been the first person he'd visited.
They were patient with Ender, soft and kind, never pushing him when he flinched from reflective surfaces, never asking more of him than he could give. It made her seethe sometimes to see Ender, who'd always been so full of intent, so animated, sit at the lake shore, staring out into the skies, lost in thought.
She wanted him to be better; she wanted him to be whole, and she knew, in her mind, that it wasn't how this worked. But in her heart, she couldn't help but long to be with the Ender who fought back.
She didn't leave often, but she was glad that she could. She was always happiest to return to him anyway.
There were peace talks in the works, a World Alliance plan crafted by Peter - not so subtle, Peter, she'd told him, but it was only obvious to her, of course, because no one else suspected Locke would want to become the ultimate sovereign, not Locke, surely. There were human operators installed everywhere to enforce the peace against the enemy: the terrorists, warmongers, the opposing group formations. She was appointed to look after parts of North Carolina; she had mission out of nearby towns.
At the beginning of winter, Valentine returned to the lake house one evening to find Ender on the floor, curled into himself, shivering. She'd only been gone for a few hours, an emergency in Charlotte.
After that, she called the other three to help. Together, the four of them gathered to install proper heating for the colder months to come. Beside themselves and Graff (and maybe two or three other commanders), no one knew Ender was here, but Valentine still thought it might be too early to call someone else to work in the house. They managed anyway. Valentine and Alai were good at figuring out the plans. Petra and Bean worked on the practical application. It took them a few days, and then it was warm inside all the time. No one blamed her for her lapse in judgment.
It was strange to have people around her suddenly who kept up; it was strange to have people for whom she did things she'd never have considered before. When Bean tried his hand at cooking a variety of dishes ranging from revolting to quite delicious, she tried every single one, and the others all laughed at the grimaces she made from some of the tastes. Valentine never once minded. When Petra showed her how to use her body, how to make it sing with confident, easy touches, she realized she'd been living half-asleep. Afterwards, everything felt clearer, like the blue-skied morning after the first snow storm of the year, crisp and terse.
One evening, when Petra and Bean were sledding outside in the rare winter snow, she went to get Ender tea and found Alai already seated by him, perched on the edge of the bed. He was holding Ender's hands in his own. Ender looked peaceful. He was sitting up as well, no longer as weak as he'd been. His head was tilted like Alai's. Alai was murmuring something in a foreign language, but it didn't seem to matter what it was he was saying, just that he was speaking at all.
She waited until they were finished and asked, "What are you doing?" making them jump in surprise. The tea was cooling in her cup, so she stepped over to Ender and handed it to him. His hands were stable. Sometimes she caught him hiding his shaking fingers from himself, and wanted to ask what can I do?, because there had to be something - but there was nothing, they both knew, so she never did.
Ender smiled at her in thanks and sipped even as he said, "Praying."
"Praying?" Valentine repeated. "What for?"
"Alai's been teaching me what they did before the ban on religion," Ender said. "It helps calm me down inside."
Valentine stared at him and felt like another piece of the old Ender was slipping through her fingers.
"It's - it did use to be a part of the religion," Alai explained, "But you can just do it to find peace."
Valentine nodded as if she understood, but she didn't. Later, she thought about mother, and how she'd sometimes hidden away in the pantry with a chain around her fingers, and thought, maybe it is a memory they share.
~~~
The nightmares never stopped, but they became milder with time. Ender didn't wake up screaming anymore like he had at first, and though he often looked excruciatingly tired in the mornings and stayed the rest of the day in bed, reading or staring at the ceiling with empty eyes, he had better days, too.
He had days in which he wanted to go outside despite the snow and freezing temperatures. He never went on the lake, avoided the surface reflecting his face, but he pulled on a scarf and a thick jacket and just walked into the wilderness for an hour. He never minded her company whenever she joined him, though they hardly talked.
It was hard, Valentine thought, to understand him when he never told her what it was that made him the way he was. She could never find the right words to ask him, and she felt, deep inside, that even if she'd asked the right question, the answer wouldn't have been anything she was looking for. Maybe the answer would have been in a language she didn't understand, the language he'd learned in Battle School.
Maybe it was the physical exertion that helped him sleep better, or maybe his mind was beginning to heal, but Ender ate more as the year changed into the next, started to do some exercises Petra helped him figure out for his threadbare body. He grew four inches in two months, and Valentine started to wonder if he'd outgrow her soon.
She asked Petra once, when they were lying in Valentine's bed together. Her hand brushed Petra's hip almost by accident and Petra pulled her closer, kissed her forehead. "You don't want to know what they did to us," was all she said, and kissed Valentine's mouth.
"But I do," Valentine said. "Don't treat me like I'm delicate. I know about war."
"So you do," Petra nodded, "but that don't make you a warrior." Her voice was harder now, her touch as gentle as before. "I know that brain o'yours is twice as smart as I, but they got their reasons for not taking you up to school."
Valentine pulled away. "I'm not soft -"
"I never said that," Petra corrected, and reached out for her again, drawing her into an embrace. Petra was warm and naked, all angles and flat chest. Valentine always wondered what that said about her, that she liked this. It didn't matter, not to anyone that mattered; but to Valentine, it was a constant buzz in the back of her brain whenever she thought about Petra's mouth between her legs, of their feet and legs and arms entangling for those precious hours whenever they cared to do this.
"I don't think I'm enough," Valentine whispered one night, and Petra whispered back, "Oh Valentine," and then, "none of us would have you any other way. Especially Ender."
~~~
The weather cleared in March. The heavy rainfall left torrents of water streaming into the lake as it rained. Valentine tried to keep Ender away from his desk on March 1, but of course, he found out anyway.
She had gotten so used to having companions in the house that it didn't occur to her until Ender was screaming that she was alone. It was March 1, Ender's Day. Valentine was the only operator allowed to grieve privately for the brother she'd lost.
"I killed them, I killed them all, their queens, all their children, their planets their homes their lives," Ender screamed, crumbling to the floor (like that first time when I caught him, but I wasn't fast enough this time), and then he cried. Valentine realized then she had never seen him cry, except in his sleep when he couldn't stop sobbing. This was different.
She kneeled in front of him and stared helplessly as he whispered, "I didn't want to kill them, not anybody, but you made me do it, you made me, you made me a murderer, and now they're crying every night, haunting me, making me feel what they feel, I killed them I killed them I killed them!" Then he was just mumbling nonsense or the same thing over and over except it just sounded like illdemilldemilldemilldem.
"Ender," Valentine whispered, and when he didn't hear, when he shoved at her, hurting her chest, she said, "Andrew," and that was better.
He just cried then, stopped mumbling, and let her get close, let her embrace him, take him into her arms and hold him until he had no tears left to give.
After that, he fell into deep sleep for days, slept through Peter's visit even though he, for the first time, came inside and almost touched Ender's cheek before he pulled his hand back as if the touch might burn him to ash. He left right after - his shortest stay to date.
"'s frightful, innit," Alai said when they were sitting outside on the doorstep, side-by-side, and Valentine hugged herself because she didn't want him to hug her. It would have felt too much like comfort, and she wanted no consolation. She wanted to feel the sorrow in Ender's heart and share it. She didn't know whether she'd be able to bear it; but in her mind, it was like the test she had to pass to grow close to him once again. "How they gave him a day of honor - how they gave us all days of honor, men and women of honor, when we fought with none."
"I don't understand," Valentine said and hugged herself harder.
Alai put an arm around her and didn't let her shake him off.
"I'm glad of it," he said and smiled at her, that bright, trustful smile that made Ender light up every time. Even in her, it made her come aflame like she rarely did. "I'm glad you never will, if they keep their peace."
"You're not like him," Valentine accused him, and then swallowed because it was unfair. She knew he felt the sorrow, too, just not as deeply.
"I'm the lesser man then, ain't I just," Alai said, and put his head on her shoulder. And then he told her how Ender had broken his heart, just like he'd broken hers when he'd left her, and in the silence that followed, she realized that she sometimes hated him because he was too much like her.
She almost wished someone was there to tell her, don't, and then understood why Ender hadn't wanted her to.
After that, she treated him kinder, and, in return, herself.
~~~
After the outburst, Ender got steadily worse - and then, in a surprising turn of events, he got rapidly better. Valentine asked Bean if he'd done anything, and then Petra when she dropped by, and finally Alai, who seemed to be always responsible for something, even if it wasn't to do with Ender.
But it wasn't anything anyone had done. Ender just... got better. Maybe it was as simple an explanation as the sun shining almost every day now, making it possible to take long hikes into the woods, to dip toes into the lake while they sat on the shore in thick jackets to protect against the bite of the wind, letting the sunrays burn their faces. Or maybe the breakdown had unlocked something in Ender, made him become aware of his surroundings when before, it had felt like he was sleepwalking with his eyes open.
"I like being here," Ender told her on one such day while they were sharing a bowl of strawberries outside on the little bench Petra and Bean had put together from planks and nails and other wooden pieces they'd found around the house. It was quiet that day, no one there but the two of them - as it was supposed to be.
Sometimes, Valentine wondered whether she should take him home when she visited mother and father. He wasn't Third anymore. The repeal of the reproduction law was long in the works, and the social stigma, though not gone, was lessening. But it was like he could sense any approaching disturbance of his carefully constructed reality, because he then said something like this and she realized that he couldn't come. It would rip open wounds that were best left closed, scarred and clean.
"I always wonder how you aren't bored out of your mind," Valentine offered instead, because she did wonder, of course, but she also knew the answer.
Ender just smiled, knowing she knew. She took his hand and smiled back and it was like when they'd been little, sharing a secret, like a telepathic bond between them, I know that you know that I know that you know that I know.
"When I dreamed," Ender said when an hour had passed and the strawberries were eaten. His nose had reddened from the cold and there were clouds blocking the sun. It would be time to go back inside soon. "Sometimes, while everything was happening in the dream – you were there and I couldn't save you."
"You saved me," Valentine replied, leaning against him, breathing out. "You saved everyone."
"Except them," Ender murmured. He hadn't saved them.
Valentine had nothing to say to that. She felt that he'd made a connection with them, with the buggers, that he'd let them into his heart, and then, when he'd loved them, he'd killed them all and it had almost killed him.
"You'll be all right," she said, because she didn't want him to be broken. She wanted him to be Ender, endlessly hers.
Ender gave her another one of his sweet smiles and didn't say that he wouldn't be.
Maybe, Valentine thought, he doesn't want to cause any more pain.
~~~
"He's been coming here," Ender said, looking out the window, and Valentine knew immediately whom he'd spotted. She wondered if he'd just never noticed before, or if he hadn't been ready to talk about it.
Alai was mixing pre-processed food into something vaguely nice-tasting. He looked up at the words. "Who - oh. Peter. He drops by 'bout once a month, doesn't he?" Ender gave him a strange look that Valentine couldn't read, but Alai went on, unconcerned, "Weird one, he is. Think he'd want a bite of this?" He held up the colorless porridge.
"No," Ender said at once, and turned to Alai fully. He looked like he wanted to touch, but then brushed past him and went to his room instead.
Valentine followed him with her gaze until he was gone. "Tell him," she said, and squeezed her eyes shut. "Tell him I won't let him get hurt again."
When she opened them, Alai was looking at her, shaking his head. "Not what he wants to hear."
"Tell him I love him, then," Valentine pressed out, angry.
"Still not it."
"So tell him what he needs to hear," Valentine snapped, and turned back to the window. Today, she had no brothers. "I'm going out. Don't expect me back until evening." She wanted Petra, suddenly, craving the contact if not the sex; playing operator would do.
"Petra's down in Columbia," Alai called after her, and she almost went back to strangle him.
She drove to Columbia instead.
~~~
When she came back late in the evening, clean and showered, but not less exhausted for it, the house was quiet, no creaking floorboards, no footsteps walking up and down the living room.
Only when she crept towards her own door did she hear the low murmur of voices from Ender's room and thought, huh, because it was long past sundown outside and Alai had been supposed to fly out to Arabia for a fortnight today. The door was cracked open the width of a hand, just enough to let in fresh air; it was enough to catch a glimpse of Ender lying curled against Alai's side as they talked.
"You should go to sleep," Alai was saying in the tone of voice of someone who had repeated it a handful of times to no avail.
"But what if she doesn't come back?"
"She'll come back," Alai whispered. "She'd never leave you alone with me." It was said in a teasing manner, but there was something hiding underneath, half-wistful, half-relieved.
Valentine didn't think Ender heard. He just said, "She left with Peter, didn't she?" as if it was inevitable that one day, she would.
Valentine was a step away from storming inside and telling him that no, I'd never, and if I'd had the choice I would have joined you in Battle School rather than stay with him, but Alai was ahead of her again when he said, "Peter would never do that to you."
Ender let out a noise like a puppy would make when it was kicked, and moaned, "Alai, Alai, don't -"
"Don't you see, you're his peace, Andrew." Alai touched Ender's cheek and moved the lock of hair out of his eyes where it had grown long enough to fall past Ender's ear into his face. He hadn't had it cut since he'd come to Earth, or maybe even before that, maybe not since the last time he'd glanced into a mirror.
Ender was crying and Valentine stepped back, unable to watch longer. She heard Alai say, "Sometimes, people need to grow into love," and then she was in her room, closing her door against him because she'd known what he wanted most was for Peter to love him, Ender had told her himself; but she had never thought to make it so simple.
~~~
It was Ender's greatest gift, his ability to know what other beings knew, to see what other beings saw, to feel what other beings felt.
They had been wrong about Valentine when they'd taken her monitor out, calling her too empathic; she wasn't the one with that gift. They'd called her too gentle when what they'd meant was that she felt too strongly. They'd been right, of course, not to choose her, but it was always her own emotions that made her stagger, when it was other people's emotions that made Ender strong.
It was her mistake, she realized; but that didn't mean she could change her spots.
They were running together through the woods and down the hill towards the lake house as the rain poured over them, a surprise shower as only April could bring, and Ender was laughing, honest and loud like she had not heard him laugh since he'd been a little boy.
She tumbled him into the warm, squishy grass when they were almost home, she rolled them both around to Ender's breathless, ruthless joy and said, "I love you, Ender, by the wetness of my socks, I love you best," and kissed his eyebrows and the top of his head and held him and didn't tell him at all that the water running down her face wasn't all raindrops.
~~~
Peter came back in April, and in May, and in June, and Ender let him. Valentine spoke with him now and then, but Peter never said much on his visits, and her involvement in his plan to unite the nations grew less and less as it became clearer that Peter had found a new purpose in life that wasn't power as much as it was peace.
It confused her for a while; it had always been the other way around, peace as a purpose to get to power. But now power was the purpose to get to peace, and that was - it wasn't Peter at all. It was something new, as if he'd learned something on his long days sitting in Ender's spot by the lake, seeking whatever it was that he sought.
Valentine didn't believe for a second that it was forgiveness. They all knew he'd had Ender's forgiveness long before he'd set out to hurt Ender for the first time.
~~~
In July, on the hottest day of the year, they went swimming.
It had taken her a long time, but Valentine understood now what this meant for Ender, these long months of rest, of unlearning the nightmares and doing whatever he pleased. There was still pain in him, and maybe always would be, but he could laugh now too, she saw: when Bean splashed him with water and when Petra fought to dunk him only to be one-upped by Alai attacking from behind, a loud eruption of shrieks and yells of, "This is so unfair, you are not getting any dinner tonight!" She saw Ender look down, touching the water's surface in wonderment where his reflection was laughing back at him, and stand it.
And then, when they all lay in the grass tanning themselves, the sighs of contentment and tired laziness.
Most people, Valentine thought, lived through their childhood like this, careless and happy, playing with their friends, spending their days in idle company until they left for their first battles in adolescence. Ender had already lived through his battles - all of them, Valentine hoped; she had long ago made it her personal mission to ensure that this was indeed the case. Now he was living his childhood, and slowly but surely forgetting the horrors, overlapping those memories with news ones, creating a new puzzle that would make him whole.
She laid down on Ender's right side, took the hand that wasn't holding Alai's, entwined the fingers of her other hand with Petra's, who was holding Bean's – and she breathed deeply.
In a month, she'd look out over the lake through the window and find Peter, sitting in peace - and Ender next to him with just enough space between them; never talking, not yet, not for a long, long time, but there, mending something, slowly.
In two, she'd catch a glimpse of Alai's mouth on Ender's, kissing him the same way he talked, in that teasing, half-amused way that always held an edge of undying truth and endless love.
In a year, she'd leave them for a month, leave them alone while she lived through adventures of her own; and then, in two, she'd leave again, taking Ender with her this time, heading for the Northern African countries where they'd surprise Alai at home.
There was nothing for her to do but love him, really, and although he'd never go back to being the Ender she'd known before, maybe it was better that way.
Maybe it was time for her to let go of him, and heal.
~~~
The End.
~~~