Room 204; Monday Morning [ 08/03 ].

[a_demosthenes]

Valentine, half asleep and half awake, found herself stretched, long and lean, quite like a cat, and comfortably so, except that wasn't actually much of a cat anymore. It didn't even registers until, pressing out the length of her limbs, she instinctively, almost habitually now, brought her hand to her mouth, intent to smooth out some rogue strand

Comments

[endsthegame]

He had been lapsing into sleep, it'd seem. He could tell by all the images that flashed by him, the worst of his memories, a never-changing, never-ending collage of death and abandonment that only ended once his eyes blinked open and he caught the lines of Valentine's collarbone by his face. Oh. The island must have worked its magic overnight.

He exhaled once. Proximity, touch, they were difficult subjects, even with Valentine: Ender was trying to keep her at, maybe not as much of a distance as Ben or Karla, but certainly a distance. And yet here he was: curled into her body, warm, safe, and for a moment, he could almost pretend everything was all right. She loved him, he knew that.

He could've made a joke, but he couldn't think of any that were funny.

[a_demosthenes]

Valentine caught the shift in his breath that made it clear to her that he was, if anything, awake. She would have used the word aware if it weren't for the fact that she knew even in sleep, Ender was aware. She didn't say anything right away, though, liking the quiet and liking the feeling of being trusted (somewhat; as much as Ender would allow, anyway).

[endsthegame]

He lifted his head. It was enough to catch sight of her face. He studied it.

[a_demosthenes]

Valentine tried to keep her expression impassive for as long as she could, feeling Ender studying it, but she couldn't maintain it for very long. She cracked open an eye, looked down toward him, and arched an eyebrow.

Unlike him, however, she actually could think of something funny. Or that could pass as such.

"I threw up on your floor," she informed him, which was as good as any good morning, if not better. Her impassive gaze remained although she wrinkled her nose a little. "Hairballs."

[endsthegame]

If his ability to banter had been operating, he might have been able to lapse into that patter, too. But Ender still couldn't manage anything funny, so he reached out to find a strand of her hair, and pushed it back. "It was the island."

[a_demosthenes]

And that inability to banter was all Valentine needed to measure exactly how bad Ender was right then, and it just made her chest tighten. It was like some fist reached up through her stomach, took a hold of her heart, and just started pulling at it, but it kept getting stuck on her ribcage. It made it worse the way he pushed her hair back like that, and she resigned to just watch his finger before she looked over at Ender. "I know," she said, lamely, and knew that what she was going to say next was even lamer, not to mention entirely superfluous. "You okay?"

[endsthegame]

"I'm back where I started," he said, "The end of the world. It keeps flashing before my eyes like I never left."

[a_demosthenes]

"I don't think you ever really could," Valentine said quietly, lowering her head toward his again. And she really didn't think he should, either, but that didn't stop it from hurting to know that he had to go through this again.

[endsthegame]

"I killed them. In the mindgame, and then-- They used to be children, and then they became wolves-- so I dragged them to the well, and I drowned them," he continued. He didn't move, or react, much. "And I can't leave them behind-- I see them all the time, with all the other bits and pieces of my life."

[a_demosthenes]

Riddles and bits and pieces of whatever happened to him in Battle School that would have broken her (she felt broken just hearing them, even when they didn't make sense, but she could make her conjectures) and Peter would have slipped through without batting an eye, but Ender...

Her arms tightened, just a little. "You shouldn't leave them behind, either," she said. She would have warned him about carrying them around with him all the time, too, but he knew that. And he hadn't been. Too much. This was just a lapse. He was allowed that, she felt. The IF might not have agreed with her, but since when did she care about that? They sent her for therapy, didn't they? They put him back in her hands. For now.

[endsthegame]

"Of course not," he said, "I can't."

He closed his eyes again, trying to wipe away nightmare visions that were never too far away. "They're my memories; that's the essence of age, isn't it? All the memories you pack up inside yourself, the ones that never absolve you."

[a_demosthenes]

"No," Valentine said, "the essence of age is how many years you've lived through. Some people just wind up having to stuff more into those years than others. Even then, what those memories are don't count as much as what you end up doing with them..."

[endsthegame]

"One of these days, I'm going to look back, and my memories will be all I have."

[a_demosthenes]

"And you'll go crazy," Valentine said, "if you look back and only see those ones, Ender."

[endsthegame]

"I would never go that crazy," he said, simply, glancing at her. "I'm aware I have other memories, Valentine. I don't dwell."

Except on I'mnotPeterI'mnotPeter, and the confusing dissonance of being part-him and part-her, and this-- was tangled.

[a_demosthenes]

And Valentine, simply, glanced back. "Good," she said and gave him a small, weak smile, meant to convey that if he needed to talk about it, talk about it, but not if talking about it meant dwelling. Her point was, simply, that getting wrapped up in it now would not likely do him any good.