Ender Wiggin's Last Game

Confessions

Ender's heart ached the following days. There had always been a dull pain somewhere in the back of his mind where it was easy to overlook, but with the events of that night with Penelope fresh in his memory, Ender couldn't seem to shake it. Not even for a moment.

When Ender and Meiji joked-- played, really-- (childish games that were mostly teasing), he just could not keep the feeling from overtaking him.

The worst part was that Ender felt sure everyone else could feel It. The sudden change in him. Ender knew it had always been there, somewhere, but they didn't. They had no clue.

Penelope certainly felt it and Valentine could always see right through him. It was her... talent.

Meiji felt the change too, though Ender suspected it was more of a subconscious thing for him. He may have been Alai's brother, but he was adopted. He didn't share the same genes as Alai. Meiji didn't come with the overwhelming insight that Alai had been... blessed with.

Empathy and caring nature, however, was apparently a learned attribute.

This was so scary to Ender, not because he didn't want to let them in, no. With his whole heart, he desperately wanted to be open with at least two of them.

It was scary to Ender because what he did, what he felt, was reflected right onto everyone else. Even here, speeding away from Earth at a speed thought to be impossible not one hundred years before, he still holds the most responsibility.

So now, while he sit at the dinner table they had chosen from the many in the mess hall, he found it stupidly funny that he had been unanimously chosen to be the makeshift father of such a broken household.

Ender could take it further, too. If he were the father, then the mother would be Valentine, because she was so well kept and seemed to be the only authoritative voice on the stolen vessel.

Penelope would be the teenage problem child, with her ridiculous and sudden outbursts followed by hours of angry silence. Though, the tantrums has decreased in intensity and frequency after her chat with Ender.

Then there was Meiji. He most closely resembled the weird uncle more than anything. He didn't have a set place in this make-believe family because he didn't fit into one roll or the other.

He watched over everybody like a father, but stuck to Ender like a child. Meiji flirted with Ender only to get on Penelope's nerves (which worked more often than not).

Not that Ender minded the flirting. It was a little bothersome, sure, but to him to was just banter. Maybe it would have been different if felt something toward Penelope like she did him.

But none of it was real.

It was stupid. A game. Ender was tired of games, but he had nothing else to do. It was the only thing to do on this ship that didn't include showing off his real emotions to the world like some sick rock-star.

Well, he thought, maybe not the world necessarily, but at the very least the three people in front of him and for a time at least, they were his world. Up until they get to their destination, that is.

The only one he was sure would stick around was Valentine.

After they landed, Penelope would get over her little crush and eventually find a man to marry. Eventually. She was still so young.

And Meiji would sell the ship in order to afford a real house for him and some nice girl to live in. He might even build it himself, knowing Meiji.

But none of this, the feelings Ender had toward any of the two were real. There would come a time in Ender's life where he would have to say goodbye to them, rendering everything here useless.