Hiya. Me likey Ender. R&R, plz. Weeeeeee.

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Ender laid in bed beside his wife, on his side. She was facing him but she had drifted off to sleep some time ago, and he had spent every moment afterward staring at her face. She was beautiful. Even more beautiful than the first moment he'd seen her careworn, seventeen year old face on the monitor of his ship. She had been his wife for almost a decade, now, and the two of them were pushing forty. After all this time he had never grown bored of the gentle rise and fall of her slow breathing as she slept. He had never gotten tired of watching her brows furrow or her lip tremble as she was dreaming. He smoothed the hair out of her face. He loved her. Oh, how he loved her. She was the perfect picture of tragic beauty to him. The only woman who could still the roaming desires inside of him. She was attractive, intelligent, and although her mothering skills lacked reliability, her maternal instincts were a powerful and sturdy thing on which all of her children could depend.

"Novinha," he said quietly, cupping her ear tenderly, hoping her name would hit the palm of his hand and bounce gently against the side of her face, where she could hear him. "I love you..."

She shifted, coming up layers of sleep until she could speak: "Libo..." she cried softly.

Though Ender recoiled harshly mentally, though his heart hammered hard in his chest, ready to burst; though his body broke out in a cold sweat and the lump in his throat threatened to choke him... he continued to stroke the side of her face, carefully, betraying nothing. When she called her first love's name again, the name of the father of her children, he noted the urgency in her voice. He felt the shaking of tears just beyond her closed eyelids through her cheek. No, it was his hand that was shaking. He willed himself to be steady and traced her jaw. Her teeth were clenched. Was it a nightmare? Surely not a dream of passion, for the name she uttered through sleep was produced in hand with a near sob. He ran his palm over her forehead to calm her.

"Libo.." she spoke again, as if she had awoken, but she had not, "Is it you? Don't leave me again..."

Ender swallowed his pride and collected her in his arms as best as he could without waking her. It was a perfect fit; she slid comfortably into his arms and against his torso. It made it all the harder for him to accept his place. He stroked his fingers through her hair, and though it was tangled he never snared his digits on any of it, merely he worked the knots out with astonishing speed and without conscious effort. "Yes, Novinha," he said, just above a whisper. "It is me, and I will never leave you." He barely sounded like himself, but wasn't that what he was going for?

Her breathing immediately slowed, and she was deep asleep once again. He pulled quietly out from underneath her, turned his back to her, and began to tremble. The tears, against his will, drooled out of his eyes and wet his pillow. His fists were clenched and shaking. Now his teeth were clenched.

"Ender," a tiny voice whispered in his ear. Novinha? No. It was the jewel that encased his computerized companion, Jane. He had forgotten during all of this that she had undoubtedly been listening, even after she had heard every moment of his life for years. He didn't want to talk right now. He couldn't talk right now. His jaw was stuck shut with anguish. But he forced himself to subvocalize: Go away.

"I'm here for you."
Go away.

"What you did was very noble."

Go away.

She went quiet, but she did not leave. He woke twice during the night, a muffled sob on his lips. Novinha stirred but never did wake. Jane stayed with him all night, alert, listening to his heartrate, checking his vital signs. Once she hummed a lullaby in his ear. He heard it and had always had a hard time falling asleep to music, but he never told her to go away again. Jane knew all of this. Long before she wanted to, she stopped singing and watched him slip back into dreams.

"Goodnight," he finally whispered to his loyal friend sometime in the early morning.

Novinha, waking for once, shifted jealously in her sleep but made no sound.

"Goodnight," Jane said to Ender. She loved him. Oh, how she loved him.