"It's Ender. If you hear this, I'm not here. Leave a message."

Beep.

Bean had no doubt that the visitors Peter had told him to take would take the same path as he and Petra had: to Prague, and then through Katowice to Warsaw by train. It was a massive security risk Peter was taking, but of course he'd been dangling hard-to-ignore bait. Ender.

Like Bean needed things to get more complicated while he and Petra made their way on the run from Achilles. (As if that, him and Petra, wasn't complicated enough yet)

They were walking through the park, ancient as it was, in random patterns that managed to keep dragging them past the same few spots. There were three people they needed to meet today - all of them would be somewhere along these patterns.

Petra noticed him fidgeting. "Have you been here before?"

Bean exhaled. "Once," he said. "With Sister Carlotta."

( In which everyone is bitchy at each other. But now with added cryptic! AKA Three Battle School Brats, A Jedi Assassin and a Black Widow Healer Queen Walk Into A Park... )

[[ NFB, NFI, OOC-okay, and preplayed with the awesome glacial_witch and the splendiferous momslilassassin. Welcome to the Enderverse, folks. Brains hurt yet? Mine do. Some dialogue taken from Shadow Puppets, third novel in the Shadows branch of the universe ]]

Peter Wiggin had and hadn't expected the notice he'd been given by Admiral Chamrajnagar earlier that day. On one hand, it meant he'd misjudged Valentine: she cared about influence enough to come back from her niceness spree and see the brother that had actually bothered to build her some acclaim. On the other, he would've done the same if he'd been her: she was always too worried about being nice, sure, but he'd known that deep at heart she loved the power as much as he did.

He'd thought her gone, and missed her, but he'd been putting that aside now that he had his work as Hegemon to focus on. Even when he'd heard the news, that the IF had called her back and she was now relaxing somewhere so close within his grasp - because there was a lot of work: even the desk in his audience chamber was stacked full of useless forms that let him pretend like the office of Hegemon held actual power in the world. (The thing about the pretense of power was, that if it was handled well, people would start giving you actual power, a fact that Peter had been exploiting)

Before, Peter hadn't had time to reach out to a sister who clearly didn't want a piece of the pie. Now... well. He hoped that she'd left the constant whining back on whatever asteroid she'd been hanging out on. The last thing he needed was anyone else dropping his brother's name every two seconds.

He did wonder why she'd brought anyone along, though. If she thought he was just going to let her sneak some people into his organisation without letting them work for it, she was mistaken, and by a lot. Nepotism never maintained empires in the end.

"You can let them in," he called. The doors opened.

( Hello again, Val! )

[[ nfb, nfi, ooc-okay, and preplayed with the wonderful glacial_witch, colourfulscents and momslilassassin ]]

Ben slept better now that the Tahiri situation had resolved, that much was true. It didn't affect Ender much, though: his insomnia was born of other worries, and other memories to be avoided. So while Ben slept, he worked, checking his email, running his data--

He paused, glancing at the unfamiliar email address that popped up in his tray. It took him a minute or two to decipher the joke in the address, and then he was clicking on the file like it was a fire he had to put out.

He glanced over at Ben as soon as he was finished reading it. Sigh. He'd have to make arrangements now and then wait until the guy was gone-- He got to work. Quickly. Then he laid his head down, and forced himself to rest for a few, stressful hours. It didn't quite work, but at least his roommate left the room, in the end.

He scribbled down a ( Note. )

With that, he snagged his bag. He couldn't take his laptop: the tech wasn't compatible, and it would probably be trackable. He'd wasted too much time already; for all he knew, they were already waiting for him at the causeway, and it'd be too late.

He was out the door like the wolves were at his back. In a way, they were.

[[ 'stablishy. and off we go on our canon-catchup plot of FH made us AU ]]

It was pretty cold with the electricity out, but Ender was pretty used to cold, and he had enough layers of clothing to keep himself mostly insulated. The lack of power was a bigger problem: he put his laptop aside to be saved for another time.

He was starting to feel a little annoyed about the whole thing. Not even the tableau of snow outside the window could soothe him, although he did spend a minute or so looking outside.

He didn't remember winter very well. He'd gotten a healthy dose of snow since coming to Fandom (especially since he'd boarded in Alaska) but watching the snow fall down was something. For a little bit.

So in the end, he poked around the insides of his mousedroid, and considered dropping by the library to get a book.

[[ open, sure ]]

It had been another quiet week, despite his classes. Work and school, pretty much. If he'd been anyone other than Ender, he might have been getting bored, but the influx of data had yet to stop and he was starting to really piece together the major players on Earth.

The last few years he had often been accused of being passive, and he was happy to leave people in that assumption. Now, though, a few things were starting to move around, and he was having more trouble dealing with the twinges of worry in his heart.

Maybe if they weren't this close to Earth, he wouldn't have to; it would be past tense, something he couldn't change. Right now, it was gnawing, just a tiny tick-sized thing, but it was there.

He frowned, put the laptop aside, and hit the Enter key so he could hear some of the music - from some recent local musical - pouring out of the speakers and glanced up at the ceiling.

[[ open door, oopen post ]]

Ender had gone through the motions of his life with his usual sense of self-possession and quiet stoicism. It didn't mean his dreams weren't starting to pile up on each other again, every one a little more vivid than the other - but he was still a quiet sleeper.

( It was nothing literal. )

[[ mostly 'stablishy, but open to the roomie if he is thusly inclined ]]

Ender would've liked to say he wasn't surprised at all when he heard from Valentine that morning, but the truth of it was that part of him was: surprised that they'd pulled her so quickly, suspicious at the motives behind it. Had Valentine's purpose here been completed? Were they trying to hurt Ender, or had something happened on Earth to stir up some paranoia at IF?

He didn't bother to mail Graff about it; he had a feeling he wouldn't get a decent answer if his life depended on it.

Instead, Ender threw himself back into his research, opening up the latest batch of intel from the colony and digging through it on his laptop, working at the desk.

[[ door half-open, post open, sure ]]

Ender had the entire morning off - not that this was particularly new, because he only had two classes, and they never came to much work anyway. He'd pushed open the door that morning, then sat back down behind his lapop, scrolling through emails.

The line and that whole mess with China passed him by on one read-through, but the writer hadn't elaborated. It confirmed his suspicion that they were keeping a lot from him - but Earth, as always, was of little interest to him anyway.

Even if he did keep that line in the back of his head, stewing.

[[ open door, open post, today brought to you by a case of a sticky 't' key ]]

The laptop's screen cast a dim white light on Ender's features; dimmed for the sake of casting the illusion that he thought his roommate was going to fall asleep at any time. His fingers flew lightly over the keys, each letter constructing another line in the email he was writing.

He should probably try to catch an hour or three of sleep, maybe more, to keep his physical processes operating at optimum efficiency-- which was a thought that made his lips curl up into half a smile. Sometimes, I think of myself as a robot-- plugging away until it's time to put me back and recharge. But that's not the word for this scrap of a body of mine, put to work through the pounding engine of my heart.

He was quiet, but he was not a robot. Whatever accusations were levelled against him...

He finally cast a look across the room, at the thing that was, for all intents and purposes, actually a robot.

[[ for the roomie. nfb due to time, yo ]]

When Ender had received Karla's voice message, he'd been slightly confused, but eventually he'd put down a handwavey return message inviting her to come over that morning. With that in mind, he sat down with his laptop after waking, fully intent on taking a moment to check his email before preparing himself for her visit.

That's when he found that Graff had relayed to him a message, originally gotten through ansible, from the colonies. He hadn't been entirely sure that request would be put through, but here it was, the evidence of a world far beyond their Earth--

--he dedicated a good chunk of the rest of the morning to drafting up a reply, letting Karla drift to the back of his mind.

[[ expecting one, but open for all, sure! ]]

It was now exactly a week to the date that he'd woken up on, and while things with Karla had been cleared to the point of peaceful coexistence, there was still the case of an errant Skywalker. While Ben would no doubt brush it off with a simple 'I was just going to visit my father' in the long run, it didn't take a genius to determine the cause behind the lack of communications.

Ender had been patient about it - he had plenty of other work to do, and Ben's avoidance wasn't something he was particularly inclined to disturb. However, on Saturday morning, it seemed that more sentimental forces had taken hold.

So Ender paused in the middle of a brief correspondance with another official from the Ministry of Colonisation to type up a short note, directed at the desk he'd given Ben. If the boy was fully avoiding him, he wouldn't see it at all, and then Ender would determine whether or not it deserved enough effort to go for something bigger - but at least this would keep him preoccupied.

Ender Wiggin might not have enjoyed conflict overly much, but he was, by nature, a boy of no small will. It took him a few minutes to come up with the best possible line to send. It was simple, to the point, and it engaged enough injokes that he wouldn't have to sign it.

Poked the kreetle-dad out of his funk yet, emo oomo?

He clicked the message program back down again, then went back to his emails.

[[ half-open door, open post, yadda yadda. I blame rereading Children of the Mind this weekend ]]

Ender hadn't seen Ben since Friday. He wasn't particularly surprised, and he'd busied himself working instead. There was a good reason for his disconnect, and this suddenly disappearance just helped to reinforce the notion that while he and Ben might share this place and time right now, there were a lot of things that they didn't.

Like his commanders.

On Wednesday, he'd stopped clinging to his room, even if the nightmares were still there, pricking behind his eyelids. They were starting to die down to their usual strength, although they weren't quite there yet, feasting images of death and pressure and pain onto his subconscious.

Working was better.

So on Wednesday morning, he opened his door to let some air in, then sat back down behind his computer to work on the arc reactor.

[[ open, yes ]]

In room 204, a young teenage boy laid curled up with a cat. He wasn't sleeping - he hadn't been sleeping in two days yay disturbing and still in SP death thread of doom but after waking up and spilling what he could, he hadn't really found it in himself to get up. He could still smell blood, and death, and see the bodies; it was the end of the world, where he'd never wanted to go, and yet he always wound up there.

It should be ridiculous, to wallow like this. There wasn't any point to it. But Ender just didn't want to get up. Not when he was curled around Valentine, clinging to the starkness of awake reality so he wouldn't get sucked straight back into his nightmares.

[[ mostly establishy, but can be open if need be! ]]

Ender hadn't quite appreciated how empty the room was, void of Ichigo, until his return from the cabins. Ben's mouse-droid was the last thing to come up into the room with him; he released it onto the floor, where it slid easily into place under the extra bed with a few beeps.

He stretched, then moved to shut the door behind him, allowing himself to relish some privacy just this once. He smiled indulgently at himself - silly, silly Ender, how the mighty have fallen, indeed - as he pulled up a chair behind his desk.

He wouldn't have any new email, no, but there were a few findings he wanted to write down, and a few notes to make about the arc reactor project that Stark had put him on. Soon enough, he'd fallen into quiet, rewarding busywork, theorising on the use of some of these findings in the colonization projects.

[[ closed door, but open post ]]

Ender had come out here to find a little peace, as he often did. Maybe he simply had a sense of when the island decided to act up; maybe he just liked his raft. Either way, he was there, his fingers curving into the wood of the raft and pulling it down the beach.

And then it started.

"Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight
Someone's thinking of me and loving me tonight..."

Ender frowned lightly. He hoped this wouldn't wind up like the truth telling bug that had struck them a few months back, or he'd have to find somewhere else to go.

"And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky."

He glanced up at the sky. Not a truth telling bug. It was a song, and it was stuck in his head and it refused to go anywhere until he was through singing. His voice was a little scratchy, and certainly not experienced, but as long as he didn't run into anyone it wouldn't matter, much.

He felt a spot of irritation for Fandom's whimsical interruptions.

"Somewhere out there if love can see us through
Then we'll be together somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true..."

Well. It was going to be interesting.

[[ open if anyone would like to overhear or run into Ender, sure ]]

After spending some time on the raft with Ben, Ender retreated to his room to put some of his things aside. He did have plans for the afternoon, after all, but that didn't mean he couldn't take a moment to sit down and take his laptop out of his bag, set it down and check his email.

ColMin had left him another email. Ender didn't hesitate to click on it. Out of everyone back home, Graff was one of the few he could actually manage to deal with - he tended to come with whatever information Ender had requested last.

[[ door is half-open, post is open, but i am probably on sp soon, la ]]

It was Val's radio night. That alone would be reason for Ender to consider closely what he was going to do (not that she didn't listen to anyone else's radio, he was pretty sure, but this was the one where she got the unfiltered notes).

It didn't help that his hormones were still skvetching like no one's business, despite yesterday's decisions. Right now they were ambling aimlessly along, trying to draw his attention to mental images he didn't feel the need to deal with. It made him restless, but he'd determined the best course of action was to remain in his room with his laptop.

It was still a little hard to focus on what he was doing, but as it turned out, it was pretty easy to subliminate into programming if you simply tried hard enough. If that kept his mind off of Ben and whatever else drifted nebulously through his body, well, that was only right.

Maybe he should consider a swim. It might be more private than the showers, at this rate.

[ establishy and door closed, unless the roomie's around ]