Piercing blue eyes sparkled as they followed the floating figures with intense interest. Flashes of orange light reflected off of dark irises, creating an ethereal glow every time one of the figures came close enough to the window.
Peter watched carefully, analyzing every bit of tactical information from the launchies as they carted Valentine around as if she were a princess. The exercise looked stupid. More than stupid, it was absolutely ridiculous, but Peter understood the purpose before it had even begun. His darling little brother had created this 'drag around the Valentine' as a way to prepare the soldiers for the inevitable dragging around of their comrades on the battle field. If it were anyone else, Peter would have commended them for their insight, but Ender certainly didn't need anymore praise. As far as Peter was concerned, Ender had already gotten enough of that for a lifetime.
He could see that Valentine was struggling. It wouldn't be obvious to someone who didn't know her as well as he did, yet her feet instinctually kept attempting to find a foothold where there was none. It was something that Peter had found himself doing his first time in the battle room a few days prior. He had lengthily argued in favour of his own training, expressing that he would be better equipped if he was allowed to train in the same environment as the others. Graff had begrudgingly given him clearance but only during the most unaccommodating hours of the night. Peter was certain that the old man did that to spite him.
A fairly skinny child glided along the one way glass, creating a screeching sound that made Peter shudder and insult the soldier under his breath. He had seen more than enough of that particular snot since the exercise started, and was growing tired of the child's obviously evasive technique. That kid won't be any good to anyone out on the field. I wouldn't trust him to have my back in any situation, the dodgy little shit. Peter made a mental note to himself to trip that one at the beginning of the mission if he happened to be unfortunate enough to be in the same team.
The annoying distraction prevented Peter from watching a brown haired girl deliver Valentine to Ender in the cluster of stars he was so dutifully lounging in. Of course, during the one time Peter had managed to sneak away from his tactical meetings to observe his little brother at work, he had just sat on his ass the entire time. Typical. Though, as the battle room began to clear out, Peter noticed that only half of the soldiers were leaving. The other half, including Ender were gathering in a circle in the middle of the room. Maybe this little excursion would be worth the wait after all.
Drills upon drills later, Peter wondered if Ender was ever going to do anything. As far as he could tell, his little brother was simply verbalizing what the soldiers were to do. There were no demonstrations, no walk throughs, or examples. Just words. Peter wanted to groan. He almost did. After everything he had heard about the Great Ender Wiggin, nobody had prepared him for how utterly boring he would be. And Peter had been too busy with planning his brother's downfall that he didn't realize how...mundane everything in Ender's world was. How odd.
He was just about to consider cutting his losses when a voice cut through his thoughts.
"If you're waiting for something amazing to happen, I wouldn't bother. Ender was told to take it easy after getting out of the hospital. Same as you."
Peter chuckled. "You don't think I figured that out by now?"
"Oh I do." The figure made their way out from the shadows of the corridor, and sat beside Peter on the lone bench he was seated at. "I just thought I would remind you."
"How thoughtful. And here I thought my little sister had forgotten all about me." Peter turned his head and was met with Valentine's intense stare. She was still wearing the Dragon army flash suit, but the helmet was no where to be found.
"I wish." She clapped back. "But I could never." Her expression changed to one of thoughtfulness before she continued. "In all seriousness, I was a little worried about you."
"Worried about me? Please, don't make me laugh Valentine. You don't have to pretend you don't hate me for killing Mazer Rackham. Just tell me how much you want to hit me, or better yet, do it and then leave me alone." He turned away again, continuing to watch the boring routine in the BattleRoom.
Valentine was silent for a long moment before she spoke again. "I don't hate you, Peter." Her voice was oddly soft and full of an emotion Peter wasn't sure he understood. It caused him to look over at her, but she was also looking through the glass.
"Why not? What I did was unforgivable. Even I know that. Don't be stupid."
His insult made her look at him. Her glare pierced his own, but Peter had never been one to back down. "You're right." She sighed. "What you did was awful and it broke our brother in ways I'm sure he doesn't even know how to begin to fix."
"I'm pretty sure the death of his - whatever she was - hurt him more than the old man."
She glared at him again. "That was extremely insensitive. But we are talking about you, not our brother."
That caused Peter to raise an eyebrow. Valentine was prioritizing him over their little brother? He thought he would never see the day. Though he still didn't entirely believe that what she was saying was true. Ender was and would always be the most important thing to their family. That was just how it went.
"Then go on. Don't let me stop you." Peter urged her.
"Do you hate me?" She turned his own accusation against him.
"Now why would I do that?"
"That wasn't an answer."
Peter sighed. "Of course not. I'm surprised you felt like you had to ask."
Valentine shrugged. "How am I supposed to know? The brother I grew up with wasn't a heartless murderer. This, whoever you are," she made a large gesture to his person, "I don't know."
Peter raised an eyebrow, a mask he used rather than showing her the obvious hurt she had caused him. "You really don't understand why I did it? Why I killed the Admiral? Why I bothered to do any of it?"
"I already told you, and you said it yourself. You wanted to be Hegemon. You still want to be, so you can rule the world. Because you have to rule over everyone, Peter. Isn't that right? You need complete control over everyone and everything. That way there can be no unpredictable variables preventing you from accomplishing everything that you want." Her voice was harsh, and Peter found himself shaking his head.
"No." He said before she could continue. "That is not–" Valentine cut him off.
"That is exactly what you have wanted!" She rose her voice at him. He let her. "For our entire childhood, when mother and father were concerned about Ender, and we were all looking out for him anyway we could, you were plotting world domination. You never cared, and I was okay with that. You didn't love our brother like I did, and you don't have to. But killing a human being, one that Ender cared deeply about, just so you could get closer to achieving your messed up personal goals, that was too far. Even for someone like you."
Peter found himself chuckling. Better to laugh than to cry. "I thought you of all people would understand, but you're just as blind as our brother." He turned toward the glass again, and gestured toward Ender who was instructing a small black haired girl. "He is praised for being the smartest person in the military, even the world, but I knew he wouldn't get it. His mind is too wrapped up in battles to see the truth of our family. But you," he turned toward her again, his eyes shining with a vulnerability Valentine had not seen in years, "you lived it just as I had."
He could tell he startled his sister. Just like Ender, she always thought she was right. How typical, Peter thought to himself. Even her, the great Demosthenes did not understand what had happened under their own roof. Why he was the way he was. Why it wasn't just him to blame as to why he turned out how he did. Why it wasn't something as simple as selfishness or greed that drove him to kill Mazer. Instead, it was years and years of hurt and neglect and expectations, and loneliness.
"Then please," She looked at him sternly, but had noticeably dropped her hostile tone. "tell me why."
Peter sighed once again. This was exhausting. The last thing he wanted was to explain his motivations to his sister, but it seemed like he had no choice. "I have worked my entire life to free myself from our little brother's shadow." He repeated to her what he had said at least a dozen times before. "Mother and father were always so proud of their Andrew when we were growing up. Even though he wasn't there, he was a reminder that they had had at least one good son. That at least one of us mattered. Don't you remember how they would talk to me? Peter, if you worked harder like your brother you might have friends. Peter, maybe if you weren't so violent you would have gotten into battle school too, Peter, why don't you tell our friends about your brother Andrew?, Peter, aren't you interested in developing spacecrafts? We got Andrew's test results and Colonel Graff says he is well on his way to becoming a certified engineer. At age 8!"
Valentine grimaced at the reminder, and it didn't go unnoticed by Peter. So she did remember. How convenient. "But that wasn't all, was it Val? Don't tell me you thought I didn't notice? Sure, you always remembered my birthday, but our parents forgot almost every year. I knew that you reminded them at the last minute, so they could procure some half-ass gift and I would think they still loved me. It was considerate of you, but made me envy our brother even more."
Valentine spoke up. "You know that they never celebrated Ender's birthday."
"But does that make it any better?" He growled. "Ender was on their minds because of his sacrifice for humanity. He was their golden son, and I, no matter what I did, was the failure. I became more of a third in that household than our brother ever was!"
"I...look, Peter I know that what our parents did wasn't right, but it wasn't Ender's fault. It didn't give you the right to take someone's life." Val, gave him a sympathetic look. He didn't want or need her sympathy.
"But," he started again, "I need to prove to them that I was worth it. That I am not just the waste of space they always thought of me as. If I..." he wanted her to understand the importance of his fight, "if I become Hegemon, they can't say that I am any less than him. They can't ignore me because I will rule over them. I will rule over everyone and keep them safe like Ender never can. If I do that, I will finally be given the recognition and...the love I always wanted from them."
Valentine was silent. Too silent. Peter wanted to say something more, but there wasn't anything else for him to say. He had put his true intentions out there and it was up to Valentine whether or not she chose to believe him.
"So, this is about our parents. Not our brother?" She finally asked.
"Don't get me wrong, Ender is an annoying shit and I don't think we will ever see eye to eye on most things, but...yes. It has always been about our parents. As far as I am concerned, they did this to me. They created this unhinged desire to take over the world within me. Because that is the only thing in this universe I can do in order to be in the same league as Ender. If there were any other way, I would have done it years ago."
Valentine was silent once again. Peter wanted to smack her. Was it really that shocking to her that he didn't hate his brother? That he had been somewhat exaggerating the extent of his loathing? Peter didn't think so. Especially when you consider that expressing hatred toward the people who kept him from living on the streets would have had dire consequences at the time.
Valentine still wasn't speaking. Peter had to turn back to look at her, and was a little shocked as he met her eyes. She was eyeing him in a way he had never seen her look at him before. It was unsettling.
"I thought Ender was the one I hated, okay?" He wanted to get her talking. He really didn't like that look on her face, whatever it was. "With mother and father bringing him up all the time, I thought that my hatred ought to be directed toward him. If he were gone, there wouldn't be anything else keeping them from me."
Valentine still didn't say anything, but Peter was well aware that she wasn't ignoring him. If anything, she was analyzing him. Deeply. Uncomfortably. If she didn't stop soon, he was going to push her.
"But then," he begrudgingly continued, "I realized how dumb that idea was. The government sanctioned Ender's birth because I was worthless. So I didn't have anyone to blame but myself."
Finally, Valentine spoke. "That isn't right either. If that were the case, that makes me worthless too."
"I came to that conclusion the year Ender defeated the Buggers." Peter was becoming frustrated. He really had to walk his sister through everything step-by-step. How dense was she? "And I knew that that wasn't it either. Our parents were the problem. They were the ones who made me the way I am. Like I said, they created the dynamic in our house, they planted it in my head that Ender was better because they believed he was. It was all them."
"So you think that killing people and becoming Hegemon will make them proud? You want approval?"
"God no!" Peter snarled. He was appalled that Valentine would think so low of him. "I wanted to be Hegemon to prove to them that they were wrong. That Ender isn't the only one of their children who is capable of doing great things. I wanted to see the look on their faces when they realized their mistake. That they had a genius under their own roof for years, and even though they didn't give him a second thought, he still rose above everyone. I wanted to have the satisfaction of denying them something that they wanted because I was in charge."
Valentine rose a skeptical eyebrow. "What were you going to deny them?"
Peter smirked. "I wasn't going to do anything extreme. Just raise their taxes, make their lives tough, revel in seeing them sweat as they fell further down. Definitely make sure father got fired from the stupid job he valued more than his family. I wanted to give them a taste of what I went through under their roof."
"That's it?" Valentine asked.
"What?" Peter was immediately defensive. Her tone had become accusatory. "I wouldn't even think of killing our own parents Val. Don't you know that?"
Valentine hummed. She was looking at him, all of him, just as she had been doing before. Her eyes appearing cold and warm at the same time, no doubt hiding whatever situation she was determining in her head. Recognition flooded Peter. He did know that look. It was the same look she had used when decoding political agendas as Demosthenes. She was scrutinizing him as if he were a sleazy politician.
"Okay." She looked right into his eyes. " I believe you."
That was not what Peter had been expecting. "You believe me? Just like that? Really?"
Valentine smiled, sadly. "I do. Based on everything you said, it makes sense. I know what our family was like. I was right beside you as it happened. I just...I was convinced that you had an unfounded hatred toward our little brother. I didn't even consider it could be for our parents instead."
"The one time you decide to take my words at face value." Peter couldn't help but smirk. Then he sighed, relaxing onto the bench a little more. "Well now you got what you wanted little sister. You know all of my secrets. So what are you going to do with me? Push me out of the plane when we are over the Atlantic? Tie me up when we get to Poland and let the Warsaw Pact have me?"
Valentine scoffed. "You really think the absolute worst of people, don't you?"
"After what I did, I don't expect anything less from you."
"Well I'm sorry to disappoint you, Peter. But not all of us are like you. Not everyone in our family is a murderer."
Peter rose his eyebrows at that. "No? Ender annihilated an entire plant, got Court Marshalled for killing two children, and I killed an old man. And I'm sure mother and father have some skeletons in their closet too."
"You know what I mean!" Valentine rose her voice again. "I won't stoop so low...besides, I get it."
This caused Peter to whip his entire body around so he could face her completely. He instantly regretted it. His body was still sore from his fight with their brother."What?"
They were mere inches from each other now. Her strawberry curls brushed against the arm Peter had resting along the back of the bench, and Valentine could see every detail in Peter's serpent like eyes. "You heard me." She didn't back down. It was obvious that Peter was trying to intimidate her. Trying to see if she would rescind her words. She didn't.
"I can't just forgive you for what you did, but I understand why you did it." She was no longer yelling. She didn't need to. Peter's glare was close enough to her face that it would have trampled her confidence if she were anyone else. "Our family was never normal," she continued, "so I can't expect that of my siblings."
"You're saying that I'm a freak?" Peter was astonished. Valentine had managed to both insult and comfort him in the same sentence.
That caused his little sister to laugh, sharply. She stood up and walked toward the glass of the battle room. The lights from the room cast a strange red glow across her face. It was fitting for her, somehow making her appear menacing herself. A word that Peter wouldn't normally use to describe his sister. "We are all freaks." She gestured toward Ender in the BattleRoom without turning back to look at him. "Our little brother is the most dangerous person in the world, we single handedly took control of the nets as teenagers, and you helped start a world war."
That made Peter smile. "Touché."
Valentine chuckled again, made a show of checking something on the hand held ansible Peter just noticed she had been carrying in her left hand, and made to walk away.
"Where are you going?" Peter called after her.
"I have a class to teach." She called over her shoulder. "But I will be seeing you later. Graff wants both of us to help him with flight logistics."
"So you came to make amends before that started?" Peter couldn't help himself.
"I thought that was obvious darling brother." Valentine said before turning a corner. Peter could no longer see her after that. She was off to teach her class and he was left with his thoughts. Thoughts about their family and his place within it.
* * * * * * * * *
Bean's hands were clutched tightly into fists at his sides as he made his way down the dark corridor toward meeting room B. The halls were quiet. Bean didn't come across a single soldier on his journey, as it was way past lights out. His footsteps echoed throughout the Battle School. They were the only thing to break the silence other than Bean's own harsh breaths. His body was rigid with the stress of the past week, his shoulders hunched high while his head was slightly hanging.
The sliding doors opened as soon as Bean stepped in front of them. The light from the room immediately engulfed him, his casual black pants and white tee-shirt now on full display to the occupants of the room. He stepped inside and was only a little surprised to see Colonel Graff, Valentine, and Peter Wiggin all sitting at a table hunched over an ansible. Graff, who had been typing something on another ansible that he was holding in his hand, looked up as soon as Bean crossed the threshold.
"Sir." Bean nodded toward him, coming to stand in front of all three of them.
His voice caused the two siblings to look up at him as well. Valentine nodded, while Peter looked a bit curious.
"What are you doing here?" The eldest Wiggin asked. There was no malice in his voice like there often had been when Bean was working under his command on Earth. "Didn't my little brother relieve you of your duties?"
"He did." Bean agreed with him. If Peter was being professional, he could choose the same course. "But I don't need it. I'd like to help the Colonel with anything I can." Bean turned his attention to Graff, who had gone back to typing. "Sir, I would like to be put to work."
Graff lifted his gaze from the ansible and smiled oddly at Bean. "It took you long enough, soldier. I thought that you would have come here days ago asking for something to do."
At Graff's approval, Bean felt his hands unclench, his arms now resting softly against his sides. Some of the tension in his shoulders dissipated, and he felt as if he could almost breathe again. Almost. "What would you have me do Colonel?" He asked.
Graff began to rustle through a pile of papers that started out having been neatly stacked on the table. As Graff continued to search, however, the pile began to look more like a tornado had blown through it than anything tidy.
"Valentine, where did we put the coms plans?" Graff asked, the pair of glasses he had resting on the bridge of his nose sliding down slightly as he persisted to search.
Immediately, Valentine grabbed a black folder that had been laying on the other side of the table, not anywhere near the pile. "I organized them into this folder this morning." She explained to him before handing the object to Bean.
Bean opened it and started to rifle through the folder's contents. He could hear Peter grumble under his breath about how unorganized and messy Graff was. The folder contained at least two dozen sheets of paper, all filled with different calculations and graphs front to back.
"We put this together for you at Colonel Graff's insistence." Valentine gestured to the folder. "You just need to finish the codes and calculations. Then you can intercept the Warsaw Pact's coms to stop their calls from leaving Poland."
Bean nodded, still leafing through the folder. He pulled up a chair from another table, and sat down. Valentine handed him a pencil and he thanked her. It wasn't too long before silence enveloped the room. The only noise being the scratching of Bean's pencil across the pages, the tapping of Graff's fingers on the ansible screen, and the occasional that won't work, try this instead, from Peter and Valentine who were working on designing war plane upgrades.
This was what Bean needed. Not to sit inside a stuffy room and wallow in his grief about Petra. Yes, she had been a close friend of his, but he knew that they needed to start their attack as soon as possible. They could not afford to waste any more time, so Bean was prepared to push Petra's death to the side to move the I.F.'s plans forward. That was what soldiers did, and Petra understood that. He would fight because that was what he was trained to do, and he would win to give her the peace she deserved.
* * * * * * * * *
-AN
Hey all! Here is the next update. The editing process took a little longer than I anticipated, but here is the final version of this chapter. I worked really hard on bringing to light what I imagine Peter's problem is with his family. I haven't ever really believed that Ender was the sole cause of his anger, and I am happy I finally got to express that here. I hope you enjoy it!
Please, like, comment, share this with other Ender's Game fans etc. Every little gesture no matter how small means the absolute world to me. Thank you for reading! I appreciate it more than words can say.
Until next time (which will be pretty soon),
Jess xx