Stark Industries, Monday

[endsthegame]

Homecoming had come and gone, bringing relative peace back to the island. Ender took advantage of the early morning quiet to catch up on his emails - as per usual - frowning at the lack of correspondence rolling into the folder he'd reserved for Ben's universe. A time freeze seemed increasingly more likely; Jane claimed she wasn't picking up any signals either.

Of course, since his email worked via Jane, it was also possible they were cutting her off. Not likely, but possible.

She babbled in his ear all through the morning about new ansible connections being finalized back home, increasing her cognitive abilities. He found he liked it; it felt as if they hadn't spoken much lately, and strangely, he'd missed it.

[[ open! ]]

Comments

[momslilassassin]

Lunchtime meant that Ben was arriving with Chinese food and coffee (and would not listen to the reasonable arguments that they didn't go together at all).

"Ho, kreetle."

[endsthegame]

"Ho, Ben," Ender answered, glancing up. "What's on the menu?"

[momslilassassin]

"Chinese," Ben replied with a grin. "Sound good?"

[endsthegame]

"Chinese and coffee," Ender said. "Sounds awfully esoteric."

Not that he wasn't getting up to put the closed sign on the door.

[momslilassassin]

"Well, tea is what everyone does with Chinese," Ben said.

[endsthegame]

"So what you're saying is I should give you a pat on the head for thinking outside the box?" Ender asked, locking up the door. He walked past Ben into the workshop - there were a couple of tables, and he could easily clear one for lunch.

[momslilassassin]

"Yes," Ben decided, moving to the nearest table that didn't look like it had been covered in solvents recently.

[endsthegame]

Ender snagged a clean-looking rag and ran it over the table. "Maybe if you'd gone more creative than coffee," he decided. "How's the morning been?"

[momslilassassin]

"We got to talk about death ceremonies in class today," Ben replied, "which wasn't exactly cheery, but was interesting."

[endsthegame]

Ender quirked a slight smile. He remembered Ben's mother's funeral. "Must've dug up some memories," he said.

[momslilassassin]

"A fun couple of weeks in a hole pretending to be dead," Ben said, busying himself with opening the cartons of Chinese food so he didn't have to meet Ender's eyes, "some time in Force heaven, Mom's funeral..."

Nothing he'd mentioned specifically in class, of course.

[endsthegame]

Ender pulled up a seat on his end of the table. "Fun stuff like that," he agreed gently. "What did you tell them?"

[momslilassassin]

"I told Raven about Master Yoda and how he'd been able to hold off his death until he could talk to Dad first," Ben replied.

So nothing about Ben at all, really.

[endsthegame]

Ender took a container of food. "Understandable," he said, "In front of the whole class isn't always the best place to get personal."

[momslilassassin]

Ben nodded as he scooted his chair closer to Ender's and reached for a carton of something spicy and full of beef. "They don't need to know the specifics of my life. Only how it works culturally, right?"

[endsthegame]

"That's the name of the class," Ender agreed, opening up his container - it held a lot of vegetables - and something to eat from it with. "But it's on your mind now."

[momslilassassin]

"Well, you can hear about it," Ben said quietly. "But that's because you're you."

[endsthegame]

"I know," Ender said, his lips briefly twitching into a smile. He popped some food in his mouth. "Just consider this opening up the floor."

[momslilassassin]

"I'm not sure what you want to hear about," Ben admitted after a moment. "You were there for all of them."

Which, he was realizing, was kind of comforting.

[endsthegame]

Ender gave it half a shrug, and pointed at Ben with a piece of carrot. "I was there; I wasn't in your head," he said. "But I'm not looking for anything, really. Just curious which way your head's going."

[momslilassassin]

"I'm not really sure," Ben replied. "Mostly back to Jacen and Anakin, I think. And Mom."

[endsthegame]

"The lake you saw them in?" Ender guessed. "Purgatory - whatever name we're going to stick to it."

[momslilassassin]

"The Lake of Apparitions," Ben recited. "I promised our guide I'd remember it."

[endsthegame]

"By what you've told me, I'd think it would be hard to forget," Ender commented.

[momslilassassin]

"Yeah, the Mind Drinkers were big on capital letters for the stuff we saw," Ben said as he avoided the main issue. "Other than naming whatever it was that had been my weird tentacle friend as a kid."