Disclaimer: None of the OSC characters belong to me. What I am creating here is a fanfiction- which means that it is either a) pure speculation, or b) pure BS. Also, I am not making any money off this so it'd also be pretty pointless to sue me. Please don't. I can't afford a laptop, let alone a lawsuit. Thank you.

Warning: For those of you who have not read Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon, both by Orson Scott Card, this story will be a massive spoiler, not to mention _very_ confusing. In fact, it'll be so confusing in later parts that I wouldn't recommend you read this story unless you've read the books mentioned above.

~To Angelette a.k.a. Peter~

Thank you for long discussions over E-mail and highlighted grammatical errors, for dragging me out of my aforementioned writer's block and being brave (and perceptive) enough to point out blatantly huge plotholes to me. You're a wonderful, wonderful person.


Streetwise

IV. SERGEANT

\" Of all the stupid, idiotic things to-"\
\"Well, if you're done insulting me now..."\
\"No, I'm not done 'insulting' you! God, Peter, you know you shouldn't go out without a bodyguard!"\
\"The information I found out-"\
\"That information is worth _nothing_ if you got yourself killed out there on the streets last night! You should've-"\
\"I should've what? Let one of your people take care of it? Right. You know that second-hand information is rarely accurate, especially second-hand information twisted by the bearer to protect the receiver, so why settle for imprecision when you can easily-"\
\"It's not a question of how _accurate_ the information is, damn it! It's your safety I'm- My God! You really don't get it, do you? What you did was reckless, irresponsible, and-"\
\"Funny. As I recall, I was saying those same words to Petra just the other day. And her response was somewhere along the lines of 'cut the crap.' So cut the crap, Bean. I can take care of myself. And if I can't, there's always the panic button in my back pocket."\
\"Peter, you-"\
\"Now, if you don't mind, I have a meeting with the good General Brinker that I can't miss. See you later."\
\"Peter..."\
\"See you later."\

* * * * *

Bean was disgusted as he watched the Hegemon stalk out of the room. So this was Ender's brother? This was the man he was supposed to make the future leader of the world? This twenty-two-year-old whose expression, at the moment, showed a definite resemblance to a rebellious teenager who had just had a fight with his parents?

["Cut the crap, Bean," he says. How mature, Peter. How utterly grown-up of you.]

Dammit, once that man got an idea in his head, it was so _hard_ to talk him out of....

["I can take care of myself."]

[No, Peter. That's the thing. You can't take care of yourself and you don't even know it. You're still used to living in the world of the Internet, the world of false aliases and electronic words, of ridiculously easy-to-break rules and relative safety.]

[This is the real world, where bullet wounds mean more than a "game over" message and a slip of the mouth can't be erased with the backspace button. And if you think that you understand how to protect yourself against possible enemies who aren't just names in your little electronic address book, against children who do anything to get a few hotdogs, against the worst of Rotterdam, then...]

With a soft exhalation of air to calm himself, the Stratego shook his head and headed down the hallway. He had to find the head of security. Get him to tighten the surveillance on a certain rash young man whom, incidentally, Bean had sworn his loyalty to.

[You're a goddamned fool, Peter.]

* * * * *

"Ajena?" said Petra as she opened the door to her room, "Sorry about leaving you alone last night. I had some things to talk over with-" She stopped. Wasn't the room much colder than it should've been? She stepped in, and the first thing that met her eyes....

* * * * *

Ajena grinned to herself, breaking into a run to put more distance between herself and the Brazilian Embassy. It had been almost stupidly easy to escape the room- all she had to do was open the window and jump out. She'd felt a little light-headed afterwards, the nausea in her head not being completely gone, but that soon went away. Then she'd flashed the ID card she'd stolen from Petra, quickly enough so that the guards didn't have time to take a close look at it, slowly enough so that they'd recognized it for what it was.

So fucking easy.

Passing a shop window, she quickly checked over the clothes she was wearing. They were smaller than what Petra usually wore, but loose on her; she was still too skinny to fit them well. The fifteen-year-old strategist gave her more than enough food to eat, but Ajena had only stayed at the Embassy for a week- not enough time to regain the body weight she'd lost starving on the streets.

The jacket had to go, though. The telltale Hegemony insignias on her shoulders only attracted looks from the bystanders, made her unforgettable. She would be remembered as the Spanish-looking girl who ran down the streets in a military uniform. So, as soon as she ran by one of the enormous green dumpsters lining the alleyways of Rotterdam, she tossed the jacket in. Problem solved.

Now she could pass (relatively) unnoticed as she walked quickly past the mothers clutching their babies, the tentatively smiling young children, the businessmen who shot irritated glares at her. Soon, she was in a deserted area, far from the populated areas of town. She slowed down and allowed herself to stop for a few seconds, breathing a deep sigh of relief.

That's when she noticed the footsteps that were following her own.

* * * * *

"How the hell could she have escaped?" said Peter viciously, slamming the door to the conference room shut as soon as Bean had plugged in the debugging device, "Don't you have an _alarm_ on that window?"

"I did," said Petra, forcing herself to sound calm despite the defensive flare of anger and the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, "It got taken off a week ago."

"Why?"

"Because it kept on sounding whenever some bird flew by."

Peter's mouth formed several unintelligible curses as he sat down heavily. [I don't need this. God. I can not deal with this right now...]

"How'd she get out?" said Bean, sounding a lot calmer than Peter felt.

"The window was cracked open when I came in, and the dirt beneath my window was scuffed, so I'd assume she jumped out."

"She _jumped_ out of a window twenty-two feet off the ground?"

"Looks like it." said Petra, the tiredness in her voice showing through as she sat down, slumping into the chair, "Also, she's taken one of my uniforms. It'd be a bit big for her, but...."

"Was there a bug in it?" said Peter. The three of them had gotten into the habit of placing tracers in their clothing, so if any of them ever went missing, they could be hopefully be found.

Petra shook her head, "It was an old set I accidentally packed from Brazil that was too small for me. And since I didn't wear the uniform, I didn't put a bug in it."

A long silence.

"How hard would it be," said Peter, "To find one Spanish-looking girl in a Dutch environment?"

"Pretty hard, if the one Spanish-looking girl knows how to hide." said Bean.

That was true. There were a million nooks and crannies on the streets that the average urchin could retreat to in case he pissed off another family or a cop, and Ajena, being Ajena, would've already found a safe refuge.

Petra stared down at her fingers, unconsciously intertwined so tightly that the knuckles were going white. Bean reached over and gently pried her hands apart, immediately causing first a wave a disgust to wash through Peter- sentimentality did not suit his Stratego- followed closely by a wave of guilt. Bean understood. Bean understood that there was really nothing much Petra could've done to prevent this, and he controlled his emotions well enough to conceal his anger. So why couldn't Peter do the...?

"Petra, I apolo-"

"It's all right." She managed a weak smile, "I understand."

Silence again. Peter groaned softly to himself, rubbing his temples tiredly.

So what could they do? Couldn't involve the public (they'd panic, thinking that the government had allowed yet _another_ brilliant juvenile delinquent to slip into their midst). Couldn't involve the courts (since none of the judges would agree to issue a warrant for a thirteen-year-old girl who hadn't really _done_ anything). Couldn't involve the police (Rietveld and Peter had agreed on that, and anyway, any information given to the police would inevitably leak to the press, then to the public, which would be a disaster).

Peter smiled wryly, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. Relax, Petra had said when he had tried to question her about Ajena, She's thirteen. Barely more than a child. How much trouble could she be?

[That's a good question.]

* * * * *

Ignoring the insistent aching in her shoulder- dammit now was _not_ the time for her body to cop out on her-, she broke into a run, hearing the footsteps behind her grow quicker and heavier as whoever was following her began to sprint. She tried to remember the twists and turns of this alleyway and the streets it led to, referring back to distant memories of living here, years ago. If she was right, there'd be a soup kitchen six or seven blocks down. There would be lights there, and people, and the tail would have to call off the chase, at least for a while.

She skidded to a halt and turned left, taking a shortcut through an old abandoned warehouse that her family used to sleep in before the group had broken up.

[And whose fault was that, huh?]

Ajena snarled in disgust, shoving that thought out of her mind. The guilt could come later. Right now, she had to shake off the person trailing her. She closed the only door leading into the building and pushed a few things against it- not enough to keep a truly determined person out, but enough to slow him down a little.

Breathing harshly, glancing behind her every few steps with instinctive stupidity, she left the warehouse and made another turn, then another, then another, hoping to keep her follower confused by moving along an unpredictable path. Finally, when she couldn't hear the footsteps behind her any more, she slowed down, head dizzy, sides aching from running so much.

She glanced back, surreptitiously, to make sure that there was no one around, then walked the rest of the way to the kitchen, her heart beating much harder than she would've liked to admit. Before she touched the door it slammed open of its own accord and a pair of hands reached out for her.

* * * * *

"All right, let's stop pointing fingers here," said Bean, ignoring the glare from Peter, "...and talk about what we're going to _do_."

"Can't we pick off another urchin?" said Petra. "There are plenty others of street kids-"

"None who have been 'exiled' from their families," said Peter.

"Bribe another urchin. Make them give us a few of their exiles."

"But none of them are going to talk," said Bean, quietly.

The Hegemon raised an eyebrow, "Why not?"

Bean got up, went to one of the computers in the back of the room, and tapped a few keys to snap it out of its standby mode.

"What're you trying to do?" said Petra.

Bean was typing in his username and password, "Get today's local news." He said simply, watching the system log him in.

The Hegemon glanced at Petra, "You read the newspaper today?"

"I access the nets, Peter. Same as you."

A few moments later, after clicking a few times, Bean found what he was looking for and stood aside so that the other two could see. "Young girl found in a dumpster behind the Hotel Hilton. She look familiar?"

* * * * *

She panicked and tried to scream, but all that came out of her mouth was a choked off little gasp of surprise before strong arms wrapped themselves around her body, effectively restraining her arms, and a hand clamped over her mouth. She let out a muffled cry and began to struggle, kicking out wildly until the guy holding her was forced to pin her against the wall, hold her body down with his own. It took her a long time to realize that he wasn't fighting her, but repeating the same words over and over again.

"For Chrissakes, Ajena, calm down!" His voice breathed into her ear, surprisingly calm in contrast to her loss of control, "Relax, it's me. It's me. Ajena, relax...." Her eyes widened.

[What the-]

* * * * *

"Since she was beaten and raped prior to her death," said Bean, crossing his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall. "Police assumed that she was another child prostitute who happened to pick up the wrong guy. It's not an uncommon event. But the thing that got my attention was here."

He highlighted a line of text with the mouse. "Official reports say the victim is- _was_- seven, eight years old, short, skinny, with dark blond hair cropped close to her head." Bean looked up at Peter, raised an eyebrow, "Doesn't that match the general description of the girl you bribed yesterday for information on Ajena?"

It took a full two seconds for the Hegemon to react, flinching like he'd just been slapped, "My God..." He muttered, pressing his eyes against the heel of his hands.

"I'm not making an accusation here, Peter," said Bean, quietly, gaze never leaving Peter's face. "I'm trying to ask a question. Is it the same person?"

The Hegemon looked up and shook his head, disbelievingly. "I don't remember," said Peter finally. "The hair was blond, yes. Cropped short. But other than that..." He shook his head, eyes straying back to the line of text. "I don't remember. I didn't think I would _have_ to remember."

"Wait a second," said Petra, holding her hands up. "Wait. We don't even _know_ it's the same girl, so why are we making so many assumptions here?"

"The fact is," said Bean. "It wouldn't _have_ to be the same person. The murderer, or whoever put the murderer up to this, is only trying to make a point here: anyone who gives information on or tries to help 'exiled' urchins dies. So, whoever gave Peter the information on Ajena last night knows now to keep her mouth shut."

"That doesn't make sense," said Petra. "We don't know that they killed this girl to prevent her from saying something."

"But we don't know that this murder is just a fluke," said Bean flatly. "So it's a coincidence? They just _happen_ to find a girl who looks like the kid who blabbed yesterday dead in a dumpster today? Unless they're bribed, the street kids just _happen_ to refuse to talk about the people who've been exiled from their families? And what did Rietveld tell us the other day in one of his conferences? 'The social worker who brought a young boy home with her was killed the following day, along with the urchin.' It fits."

"It's speculation," insisted Petra.

"But it fits," said Bean, just as stubbornly. "And it makes sense, and if it's true..."

"_If_ it's true," said Petra.

Bean smiled, but it wasn't out of amusement. "Well, then. _If_ it's true, then what do we do about it?"

* * * * *

"You okay now?" said the voice, his voice. Ajena nodded, stupidly- it was the only thing she could think of to do. He laughed, his breath tickling her ear, "Jesus. Don't ever freak out like that on me again. I'm going to have bruises tomorrow." The hand came off her mouth and she breathed heavily, taking in as much of the cool night air as she could, her mind reeling. The arms around her loosened to turn her around so that she was looking up at a familiar face that she'd thought she'd never see again.

"Mien Gott...." She breathed, reaching up to touch his cheek, not daring to believe, not daring to disprove the boy standing before her, "Sergeant?"

* * * * *

"She escaped." repeated Rietveld.

"Yes."

"By jumping out an window."

"Yes."

"On the third floor."

"Yes."

"Then what did she do? Just walk out?"

"Probably."

"Probably? How did _that_ happen? We have security on all the exits!"

"Arkanian occasionally sends soldiers out on errands for her," said Peter tiredly, already wishing the conversation was over. "So, if the girl got hold of a uniform, which she did, she could easily leave the building at any time on pretense of going on said errands."

"I see." The words came out in a sigh, "And the guards didn't stop her? After all, she is a bit...young."

"Lately, we've had child strategists from Battle School joining up with the Hegemony. A few of those strategists came to Holland with us. So the guards must not have thought it unusual that it was a girl running the errands."

Rietveld shook his head, "And just when I was going to request you to bring her in for questioning, too...."

Peter looked at him sharply, "Why?"

"The DNA results just came in."

* * * * *

"They told me you were..."

"Dead?" He flashed that grin of his, and kissed her, once, "Well, I thought that I was going to die for a while, too. But here I am, neh?"

She slapped him.

"Don't joke about something like that!" Ajena shouted, kicking at him to make him let her go, "Jesus, Sergeant, do you have any idea how goddamn _worried_ I was? You didn't bother to send a message through Helga, you didn't bother to write a letter to the church that I could pick up, you didn't bother to...." She threw her arms up, furiously, "I thought you were _dead_, you know that? You _let_ me think that you were dead, you crazy, unreliable son of a...." She trailed off, breathing hard, glaring at him.

Sergeant stared at her for a few seconds, dark eyes wide with surprise, then, unexpectedly, began to laugh. She crossed her arms over her chest and gritted her teeth.

"Somehow I fail to see what's so funny."

He grinned at her, "You haven't changed a bit, you know that?"

She looked at him for a second, looking at the grin, the hair, the smile, and suddenly, she exhaled something under her breath in German and walked over to him in two quick strides, pressing her head against his chest, "Damn it. Damn it all to hell."

His arms went around her, but the tone of his voice was still amused, "Yeah, I missed you too, Ajena."

"Scher dich zum Teufel..." She muttered halfheartedly. Go to hell.

"Well, if you put it that way..."

"I didn't mean it literally!" said Ajena, her voice muffled by his shirt.

"You know, if this is how you're going to greet me from now on...."

"Halt den Mund," Ajena said, but there was an affectionate tone behind the words that took away the harshness in the meaning. So Sergeant shut up, closed his eyes, and pulled her closer to him, savoring the feeling of her body in his arms.

God, he'd missed this.

* * * * *

"Already?" said Peter. He shook his head. Even with the now-globally-computerized databases, it normally took a few weeks for a DNA sample to process, longer when no information was known about the person.

The mayor of Rotterdam smiled thinly, "Yes. Already. The reason?" He opened a desk drawer and took out a photo without letting Peter see it, turning the snapshot over and over in his hands, "The physical description you gave us- Spanish features, blue eyes- wasn't exactly...common. And, on top of that, it seems as if your street urchin is something of a, ah, celebrity." He took a final glance at the picture before holding it up, letting Peter take a good look at it, "See anything familiar?"

* * * * *

"You're not off the hook yet, understand?"

"Yeah, yeah," Sergeant said, pushing her away gently to look at her face. "I figured as much."

Taking a second glance at her, the smile dropped off his face as he saw how the cheekbones jutted out too sharply from the rest of her face. He took hold of her arm, wrapping his fingers easily around the small wrist. Far too easily. "Jesus, Ajena. Hasn't Riki been feeding you?"

Then, a little too late, looking at the expression on her face, he realized the answer to his own question. "Shit." Sergeant growled through his teeth, jamming his hands into his pockets, "I am going to _kill_ that motherfucker...."

"Don't bother."

Sergeant whirled around, "Don't bother? Don't bother?" He threw his arms out, "The bastard tries to... tries to kill you, then, and you tell me not to fucking _bother_?"

"He's already dead."

* * * * *

Bean finished plugging in the anti-bugging device and turned around, hands on his hips, "So what was so important that you had to call Petra and me out of a press conference?" he demanded, "You know that we have to give those damn reporters _something_ every once in a-"

"This," interrupted Peter, "Is a picture of Ajena's mother." He took one photograph out of a manila envelope and put it down on the table. The picture was of a smiling young Spanish woman, with hereditary dark hair and eyes.

"Pretty." said Petra, staring at the picture. The woman looked so _familiar_ for some reason....

Peter nodded, "So now we know where she got her skin and hair color from. Fine. Now this..." He reached into the folder again, "Is Ajena's father."

Another picture, this time of a tall, slender man in his early twenties with dark hair and blue eyes, standing with a group of friends.

"European," said Bean. Petra shook her head, standing up to get a better look at the photos. This man... she had to have seen this man somewhere before.

"German, to be exact." said Peter, "And this..." He put the last picture down, letting everyone see it.

* * * * *

Sergeant stopped in the middle of his diatribe, anger melting into shock, "You..."

"Don't really want to talk about it." She said shortly.

The sixteen-year-old looked at her, worry and concern and fear melting together in his gaze, "Did he...touch you...?"

"No."

He exhaled a breath that he didn't realize he'd been holding, "Damn." He said, the incredulity clear in his voice, "Damn."

"Yeah, that just about sums it up." said Ajena as casually as she could manage. He stood there, regarding her for a long time, dark eyes boring into her own, examining her. Finally, he shook his head, and, to her immense relief, changed the subject.

"You're way too thin." He said decisively, opening the door to the soup kitchen and making an only half-mocking bow, "C'mon. My treat."

She raised an eyebrow, "In case you've forgotten, there happens to be the minor issue of money...?"

This time, Sergeant's grin was self-satisfied, "No problem. I got a job."

"Really?"

He nodded, feeling the edges of his lips tug up when he saw the smile that bloomed across her face. Then he forced his mind to turn to more serious matters. Like how she'd gotten so skinny. And what she was doing with obviously military issued clothes. And why she wasn't in her family.

He put an arm around her shoulders, pulled her closer to him, feeling her arm going around his waist as he did so. Her hair smelled nice and he planted a kiss on the top of her head.

The questions could wait, he grinned, sliding an arm around her and propelling her into the brightly lit room. Right now he wanted to make her laugh.

* * * * *

It was a small color snapshot of a young Spanish girl, skinny, small for her age, with startlingly blue eyes, unsmiling, staring up at the camera lens as if she were surprised by the attention.

"This is Ajena at age five."

Petra sat down, exhaling heavily, "I thought her parents looked familiar...."

"So..." said Bean, "What's the big deal?"

"You didn't see the news?" said Peter, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

Bean shook his head, "I was on the streets. Didn't really have Net-accessible desks there."

Peter smiled grimly, "You might know her name though. Raeka Chavelle Schneider Delgado."

"More commonly known," said Petra, "As the only person in history to turn down the offer to go to Battle School."









Author's Note (yes, another one. This one's really, really long, though, so you have been warned): Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out. What between writer's block, winter break, writer's block, midterms, writer's block, lack of a general plotline (lol), and writer's block, I never got around to editing and posting this until now. So gomen nasai to all. For anyone who cares, I promise I'll get the next chapter out faster, K?

Um, now, explanations. To the best of my knowledge, Spanish names can consist of four parts- two first names and two family names. In this story, Ajena's first names are Raeka and Chavelle, her first family name- her father's last name- is Schneider, and her second family name- her mother's last name- is Delgado.

All right. Now I'm going to try to refute a couple of the statements people made in the reviews for Chapter 3.... Please don't get mad at anything I say- the following section was not written to offend, but to explain my reasons behind what I wrote.

After thinking about it for a while, I agree that the E-mail thing from Bean to Petra _is_ unrealistic, and a major mistake on my part. Is it really _that_ unbelievable, though? I mean, in "Shadow of the Hegemon," Carlotta sent E-mails containing Bean's past and genetic heritage to Graff and Peter _every single day_, up until she died, and, as far as I recall, besides a coding/decoding password, she had nothing to prevent hackers from going in and taking a look (and I'm sure that quite a few would be interested in the contents of an E-mail sent from a Vatican-protected account [in "Shadow of the Hegemon," I think it mentioned somewhere that Carlotta's account was secure because it came from the Vatican]).

Bean and Petra, on the other hand, are not only members of the government, but graduates of Battle School, meaning that they probably have layers of security, either written by others or themselves, all over their computers. Because of that, it seems to me that sending a private E-mail between the two isn't that unlikely.

Also, I believe that Bean _would_ send/give information about his past to others. In "Ender's Shadow," during training at Eros, Bean had already begun to open up to the other children in his jeesh. He told them about Poke, about his life on the streets of Rotterdam, about Achilles...and he didn't even know or trust them that well yet. Now Petra is his best friend, his confidante, his romantic interest (?). I think that he would trust her with his life, with details of his life story. But then again, that's my own opinion.

Okay. Rant over. Sorry for the holes/errors in the plotline, and please review... Need it badly, lol.

Next chapter: A history, a gun, and an odd request.

Quote: "You mean I have to have a reason?"