Room 218, Tuesday Evening

[glacial_queen]

As part of her resolution to 'spend as much time with graduating friends as possible,' Karla was getting ready for Ender's visit. They'd planned to get together Friday at the picnic to exchange presents--and also to have a Serious Talk, but Karla was focusing on the more enjoyable aspect of the evening instead. His presents were wrapped--like everyone else this Christmas, he was getting the hideous Christmas sweater that was apparently a tradition no one had told her about yet, though his was a little more understated than the one she'd gotten for, say, Momoko.

She'd gotten him a few other odds and ends, too, but obviously the sweater was the best part. It was traditional!

[Specifically for one, but can be open!]

Comments

[glacial_queen]

Karla also bit back a comment, but it was one that would be spectacularly unhelpful and only illustrate how hurt angry upset defensive unsettled she was right now. Not that Ender had ever needed to wait for her to speak before reading her like a book, but she didn't need to go out of her way to up more of herself for his analysis.

"Excellent," she said quietly. "Then this talk was clearly a productive one. Please feel free to inform Ben, Topher, and Tony that we've chatted, I realize my error, and that Topher never needs to worry about any danger I may present to him."

Again, she struggled not to comment, to add a protest, but managed to leave it unsaid. It hadn't mattered any of the other times she had said it.

"Please also pass along my apologies to Ben for...unintentionally misrepresenting his reactions. I never meant to cause him distress. As for Topher, I will simply avoid him as much as possible within the confines of school and the slightly mixed social group."

And if that were all...?

[endsthegame]

Ender's eyes flicked across her face, reading her expression, and all the moments she didn't speak.

"I'll speak to Topher," he said finally. "I don't want him to upset or endanger Warren any more than you do, Karla."

[glacial_queen]

Oh, there were soooo many things she wanted to say to that. Petty things, sarcastic things. But to do that would just burn through her tenuous hold on all of her emotions. So instead she simply nodded. "If you'd be so kind."

[endsthegame]

Ender felt an almost inexplicable sadness-- at hitting a whole new kind of wall, at the evidence of months of estrangement...

He dropped his other gift on the bed next to him. "I'm not doing this because I think poorly of you," he said, sounding a little tired.

[glacial_queen]

Karla glanced upwards for a moment, swallowing quickly. "Of course not," she said, drawing on old, old lessons to keep her voice even. "You're doing it because you have to. I understand."

He always did his duty, after all.

She had other presents to give him, besides the awesome sweater. She'd...pass them along later. When things were a bit easier.

"Thank you for coming by. I'm glad you're both back from Naboo."

Polite words, almost offered by rote, but still true. Still painfully true.

[endsthegame]

"Thank you," Ender said. He pushed the wrapped gift further away from him, onto the bed - whatever happened next, he was planning to leave it here.

He considered taking the opening, getting up and leaving while they were at something of a detente. He discarded that idea. He thought of bringing up their previous confrontation, but discarded that much quicker.

"I'm worried about you," he said finally. "If I speak out too harshly, then that might mean I'm letting that feed my words too strongly."

[glacial_queen]

EEEEE LUUUUKE!!!

Karla's jaw tightened slightly, whether at the sentiment or because Ender was not taking the proffered out it was hard to say. "I appreciate that," she said sounding a little more stiff than she had a moment before. "And that's definitely what I'm feeling right now. Worried over."

[endsthegame]

"You're angry and hurt, I know that," he said. "Or you wouldn't be trying to get me to go right now."

Unspoken social cues only worked if they remained unspoken; Ender was fairly sure he'd just waived his easy out.

[glacial_queen]

"I simply fail to see what more there is to talk about," Karla said, not acknowledging his first sentence. "You have made your point. I have agreed with it and asked you to pass it along. And while you have yet to let me know your full feelings on my attempted trip home--again, I should say--you can rest assured I still remember them from our first conversation. So, conversational topics exhausted and your worry expressed, I'm sure you have other things to do."

[endsthegame]

That hurt.

He didn't show it, but he knew she'd sense it.

He could attempt to appeal to her feelings again - her hopefully not yet entirely unkind ones towards him, or her rage and anger, or something else.

"And what if I don't?" he asked. "Shall we sit here looking each other in the eye for another half-hour? Wait for one or the other to crack? I think between you and I we could sit here for a long time."

[glacial_queen]

Her own control wavered as that hurt rippled through him; her hand twitching outwards for a moment before falling back to her side. She shoved them into her pockets before they could betray her again.

"Why," she asked instead. "Just to prove some kind of point? To make sure I am well and truly penitent? To wait for my grand realization that I am so much better for this talk? Why do you want to stay, Ender?"

More importantly, why should she let him?

[endsthegame]

"Because I came here to talk with you," he said, "And somewhere along the way the both of us ceased to do it, whether by my fault or yours or, I suspect, ours. It seems rather counter-productive for me to leave when I haven't quite done what I came for."

[glacial_queen]

"No, Ender," Karla disagreed. "You came here to lecture me. To tell me that I did wrong and what and why and how badly. Talking means you give a damn about my whats and whys and reasons. It means listening and realizing that maybe, just maybe, I have points, too. Not necessarily agreeing with those points but at least acknowledging that there are more sides than just yours."

She drew in a long, ragged breath. "At no point did I get that from you. So, forgive me, but I am tired of being lectured."

[endsthegame]

Ender digested that without any loud counter-argument for a moment.

"I know that you were afraid Topher would hurt me or Warren," he said. "That you felt you'd gotten enough evidence that Topher was beyond reason, and that at the time, you thought threatening him with violence that you wouldn't commit was the only way to keep the situation from escalating."

He looked up. "I also know that you didn't feel it would hold up to moral scrutiny, or I wouldn't have had to hear from someone else. Is that assessment fair? Or is there something more I haven't heard because I was too busy speaking?"

[glacial_queen]

"I knew my threat crossed over the line," Karla agreed quietly. "I knew that before we finished our conversation. It's one of the reasons I didn't let you know--because I was ashamed of having used that as a threat."

And had felt even worse when she'd heard that he was really, truly, almost pants' wettingly afraid of her. At the same time, if it meant that he left her friends alone, she'd been willing to take it.

"But reciting back to me what I said only means you heard me, not that you listened. And you couldn't even give me that much, a bare recitation of fact, without making sure to point out that, by the way, Karla is still wrong."

Ender was running out of time before Karla would just turn and walk out of the room herself.

[endsthegame]

"I wasn't pointing out you were wrong," Ender said. "Merely asking you, honestly, if I had heard you right."

He was starting to wonder if this conversation was simply poisoned beyond salvaging - maybe he should have walked out after all.

"I understand that you were worried," he said. "That you wanted to protect us."

[glacial_queen]

"Do you understand why?" Karla asked, tilting her head at him. "I mean really, truly understand why. Do you understand not just where I was coming from, but how I got there?"

[endsthegame]

Ender quirked a slight smile. "Why don't you tell me?" he asked. "I fear me rattling off an answer might come across as more presumptuous than understanding."

[glacial_queen]

"I've already tried to tell you," Karla said quietly, shoulders slumping a little. For a moment she'd almost thought-- "Over and over again today."

[endsthegame]

Ender sighed. "What I mean is that telling you things you've already said is one thing," he said. "Presuming your motives - ignoring your voice in them here and now - is what got you this upset to begin with. I'm trying to avoid giving more offense."

Though god knew all his attempts in that direction were going terribly wrong today.

"You noticed Topher's inability to understand why people would have problems with what he wanted to do," he said. "And you felt that there was a real chance he wouldn't be dissuaded from doing one of us harm. So you decided, after several attempts, that the only method left to you was to give him something to fear as a consequence. Am I wrong thusfar?"

[glacial_queen]

Karla shook her head, relaxing against the wall, slightly. "And I will concede that I should have taken more time to find other, possible options first," she said. "I let my already-negative feelings about Topher color my judgment and jumped further and faster than I should have."

[endsthegame]

"You did," Ender said, though there was no particular judgement in his voice this time. "But I'm also certainly not telling you Topher Brink is an easy man to deal with. Trust me, I know that."

[glacial_queen]

"But that aside," and Karla for real wasn't sure that Ender was getting this, "do you understand why I thought he was a threat? Why I didn't just write him off as one more annoying nuisance like Nathan or some of the other people I've met at this school?"

[endsthegame]

"Because he wasn't aware that what he wanted to do was wrong?" Ender suggested. "And you couldn't seem to get him to understand otherwise?"

He pushed down on some bubbling annoyance of his own, because it wouldn't be useful - it'd just throw Karla back on the defensive.

[glacial_queen]

"More than that," Karla said with a purely internal sigh, also keeping a tight reign on her irritation. "Topher trips the exact same concerns and feelings that I get when dealing with other, real threats. The same unconcern for people as individuals. The lack of empathy. The willingness to do whatever he wants, regardless of the way it affects anyone else. And--at least in the times we've spoken, which I will admit are probably not his best--showing no willingness to change or even acknowledging that there is anything amiss with that."

She looked at Ender, trying to find even a hint of comprehension there. "You claim there is something wrong with him--some skill he does not have. Maybe that's true--but if it is, this conversation is the first time I've ever heard of it. First time I knew this...whatever it is...is possible. So up until you walked into my room and proceeded to lecture the ONLY basis for comparison I had for him were other, legitimate threats. This is the first damned time anyone had given me an understandable reason for why he is as he is besides the fact that he just doesn't give a damn about himself."

Did she think he was a monster? No, of course not. Otherwise she wouldn't have threatened with something she didn't intend to follow through on. But had she seen him as callous and malicious and stalkerish and breezily cruel?

Yes. Yes she absolutely had.