Ender's War

Chapter 25 - Back to Work

One week later

As time went on, Ender began keeping to himself. Valentine wasn't too happy about being dismissed, but she understood why he decided to do it. She had seen first-hand that her brother wasn't in a good place. He'd been crying on her shoulder every night whenever he'd had a nightmare about Petra. At least, that's what Valentine presumed all of the nightmares were about. She didn't want to pry given that Ender's mental state was admittedly at a new low. She understood that he needed time to process his grief by himself, so she let his thoughts stay private. The last thing she wanted to do was drudge up more problems for Ender by getting him to open up about his feelings. Letting her witness his troubles had been a lot for him already. He was a naturally secretive person, and she wasn't sure how uncomfortable her presence was making him.

"I need to take my mind off of all of this." He'd said to her two days before. "I can't keep sitting here and crying."

It was just after Valentine had helped him calm down from another nightmare. This one, he had divulged, was about Petra.

"I know." She hesitantly agreed. "You do whatever you need to in order to get through this. And I'm here for you. No matter what."

As she said this, she knew what Ender was trying to say to her. He wanted to get back to work. It didn't matter to him that he was barely getting any sleep, or that the little he did get was plagued by nightmares. It also didn't matter that his mental and physical health had been metaphorically flushed down the drain. He was as broken as Valentine had ever seen him, but the mission was still what he deemed most important. And she didn't know what she could say to stop him from putting his own well-being on the backburner.

Ender moved a tuft of hair that had fallen into his eyes behind his ear, and gently lay his hand on top of his sisters. He looked directly into her eyes. Valentine could make out the dark bags that plagued them even though they were sitting in the dark. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot, but his gaze somehow remained focused.

"Thank you, Valentine." He said simply. She could hear the gratitude in his voice. "You've allowed me to grieve. Even if it was only for a little while. But the war hasn't stopped just because Petra is...gone. I need to talk to Graff, start training with the others, and lead."

Valentine shook her head. Doing this could quite literally tear him into pieces. "You already saved the world once, little brother. And at what cost? You lost your chance at a normal childhood, but you don't owe the world anything else. You can't sacrifice your life."

Ender gave her a sad smile. Those seemed to be the only ones he could give her these days. "I used to want to fight my destiny. But I realized quite a while ago that I have never and will never have a say in how I live my life. It's never been up to me. My entire existence was because of the government. War is what I'm here for." He sighed deeply. "As a third, it's the best I could have hoped for."

"That's not true!" Valentine was becoming sad herself. "I can see that you were planning on actually living. You wanted to live with Petra."

Valentine immediately regretted mentioning his recently deceased soldier? Girlfriend? Lover? Ender never really specified to Valentine what they were to each other. All she knew was that they'd loved each other in an environment where love seemed almost impossible. And because of that, she knew that whatever they'd had was something special.

If it was even possible, Ender's expression turned even more downcast than before. "Even if it was true, it clearly isn't going to happen now." He snapped at her, and she knew she'd deserved that.

"I'm sorry." She said. "I can't convince you to take any more time?"

"No." He said as he removed his hand from resting on top of hers. "I have to do this."