Énouement

Chapter Sixty One

The "tests" came every few days, and each battle lasted longer.

We had been sitting in the common room when Alai joked, "they should fit us with diapers, so we don't get distracted with a full bladder during battle!" Yeah, the battles were that long. The boys all laughed but Petra and I scoffed. I rolled my eyes and looked towards her.
"Somehow I'm not surprised that they're disgusting." Petra snorted and simply said, "They're boys. They're always disgusting." I giggled as she gave me the barest of smiles.

"What would you have done if you were here with them alone?"

At some point in our Forced bonding, Petra had decided that she no longer needed to be one of the guys when there was another girl near by. She no longer pretended there wasn't a difference between the boys and her. While I was grateful for the kinship she and I had found, I wondered if she actually liked me any more than before.

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As always the adults had been monitoring us, and the next day after breakfast the boys were fitted out with catheters.

Amid my and Petra's laughter, it was Crazy Tom who put a stop to that. "Come on, just get us a jar to pee in. We can't play this game with something hanging off our dicks."

Petra and I shared a look, and the boys had jars after that. I had never asked if anyone used one, though. When they tried to give me one I had thrown it at the wall, and I imagined Petra had done the same; but we refused to talk about it and the boys didn't have the courage to ask.

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It had taken me a few games before I realized there was something wrong with Ender, at least I thought there was.

I watched the simulation monitor, I hardly had much else to do. Ender wouldn't give me more than a few squadrons, and definitely none that would make a difference to the game. I didn't know why he refused to trust me with anything more, but it gave me the opportunity to watch him and his decisions.

He was relying too much on Petra. She had command of the core force, a hundred different things at once, and it was breaking her. Why couldn't he see that?

I managed to corner Bean after practice. I didn't have to say a word, just a look was enough to convey what I wanted from him. Bean followed me around to a deserted corridor, far from the jeesh.

"Do you see it?" Bean stared at me blankly. "Can you just answer me, and not be cryptic for once?" Bean sighed.

"Yes. From the beginning." I rolled my eyes.
"You don't have to handle everything on your own Bean, I'm here with you." Bean blinked slowly.

"I don't like to talk about things until I'm certain."
"Okay, well, I'm certain that Petra is being pushed to her breaking point by our dear commander. He's given her a core portion of the force, and the perfectionist she is slowly eats away her mind with every mistake and loss she's taking on! Petra isn't that tough, she stone and rock like her name, but she is not a diamond. She has a limit Bean, we all do."

I stared down at Bean, not as far down as before I noticed minutely, he was growing.

Bean frowned and tightened his fists against his sides. "And just what do you expect me to do about it Torie? He didn't just freeze you out, ya know!" Bean closed his eyes and breathed out a long held breath. "He froze me out too."

I placed my hand on Bean's shoulder and squeezed with the only amount of comfort i knew he'd accept from me right now.

"She isn't sleeping. Her anxiety is going crazy with this, she's fatigued during battles, she isn't reacting as quickly. She's tired-"
"We're ALL tired-" Bean cut me off.

"Kuso, don't give me that! These tests are getting harder, and longer, and damn it sucks, but she's in the worst position for it."

"I'm trying to help Torie," Bean said softly before walking away.

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Because the battles were harder with each new "test," Ender was forced to leave more and more decisions up to us.

Instead of smoothly carrying out Ender's detailed commands, we all had more and more of the battle to carry on our own shoulders.
Ender was too busy in one part of the battle to give new orders in another. We had to use crosstalk to determine their tactics until Ender noticed us again.

And that's when I saw how Bean was helping.

I could her the others ask Bean what to do, how they should move. Even when Hot Soup or Crazy Tom had their own plans, they still ran them past Bean. And Bean always knew exactly what to tell them so that it still fit into Rnder's overall plan. As if Bean was watching his battles, ours, and Enders.

Sometimes they would ask me, but only if Ender was thoroughly distracted and wouldn't notice. The one time he had noticed, when Alai had asked a question, Ender immodestly shot down my answer and told him the opposite. Alai ended up doing a maneuver that took twice the time and man power than the one I had suggested. No one asked me a thing when Ender was alert again.

Now and then Ender praised Tom or Soup for decisions that came from Bean's or my own advice. It was the closest thing to praise that he and I ever got heard.

But the other toon leaders and the older kids simply didn't turn to Bean at all. As if they still resented the teachers putting him in charge in Ender's absence. And why wouldn't they? When they had their true commanders ass to kiss instead of some kids. It must've stung, no matter how emotionless Bean wanted to pretend he was.

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Hey guys!

I won't apologize for not updating sooner because this is a lot of work and I'm combing through two different books here, and I do have a life right? But I understand you guys love this story, I do too. I'll try harder okay.

So the next chapter will be in Ender's pov, which I'm excited about because Torie's chapters have so many people in them interacting with her and they have those moments of happiness, but Ender just has Mazer and they're solemn and sad and angry and that perfectly describes what's going on with the two of them right now.

Questions, comments, concerns?