AN: Here we go, another chapter here.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

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T-Dog was almost certain this wasn't what their benevolent project leaders had in mind when they'd locked them in the house together, but it was as close as he and Michonne were ever going to come to the act that they had in mind.

He'd been sitting on top of her, her arms pinned behind her back, for at least five minutes. It had taken him a great deal longer than that to get her pinned, but now he was just waiting for her to calm enough that she accepted the fact that, without the use of her arms, she simply couldn't shift his full weight. In fact, she had a much better chance of simply being crushed to death. At the moment, though, he didn't care if that happened as long as she calmed down.

"You break out of here and your dumb ass is getting us both on a bus and getting us killed," T-Dog reiterated once he was sure that she was going to hear him. She was panting, but he wasn't sure if it was from exertion or the fact that he was at least lessening the amount of oxygen she could take in. "And that won't do any good to anyone for you and me both to be dead. Not Andrea. Not you. And certainly not me. I'm not dying just because you're crazy."

"You don't understand!" Michonne coughed out.

"Maybe not," T-Dog accepted. "Hell—I'll let you tell me about it. Every dirty detail. But not until you agree to stop trying to get us killed."

T-Dog knew the exact moment that Michonne gave up the fight. He felt, under him, her entire body relax. She went limp against the floor and he was aware of the shift of his body. He moved enough to lift himself off her some, knowing that he'd press down harder on her when she was relaxed, but not enough to let her gain control of herself entirely. She made something of a gasping sound and tried to get in enough air to make up for all that she'd been lacking.

Outside they'd split Michonne and Andrea. As people who had "nobody to go with," they'd been put in something that was almost as disgusting as an auction line. The man that was their mayor—or whatever they were calling the dude that had chosen to live among barely-humans—was allowed his pick of the women in the rudimentarily gathered together bunch. As luck would have it, he'd chosen Andrea—possibly not the wisest move—and she'd been police escorted out of the area to be taken to the man's house.

T-Dog had jumped then and declared that he wanted to be put with Michonne, calling her by name, and he'd been granted his request since he'd made it before anyone else had even realized that, perhaps, bidding was now open to the loudest and fastest bidder.

He hadn't done it because he had any real affection for Michonne. Honestly, he couldn't even pretend that he knew her that well. She and Andrea were pretty well known at Region Thirty Three—late captures always were—but they weren't exactly his best friends in the world. He'd done it because he'd known, simply, what it was going to be like for the women and he hoped to at least buy Michonne a little time and whatever peace of mind he could offer her until they knew a little bit more about what was happening.

And, maybe, because he thought he had a few ideas to share with her.

What it had gotten him, though, was something he could expect from a late capture. As soon as she'd been locked in the house, with no hope of escaping easily out the door or window, Michonne had found something she could use and had begun to try to jimmy the window in the small bedroom to plan her escape—not that T-Dog was sure she knew what she intended to do once she was free of the house. She was acting on adrenaline. It was that adrenaline that had gotten him a busted lip and had caused him to have no choice but to fight her to the ground.

"Getting your ass killed ain't gonna save Andrea," T-Dog said. "You gotta use your head for that."

"They won't kill us," Michonne said, flopping around a little to protest her position. T-Dog didn't let up enough to let her have her hands back. He knew better than that. She was calmer, but she wasn't calm. "They'll send us back to Region Thirty Three. Both of us. At least there—we'll be together."

"They'll kill you," T-Dog said. "Michonne, you're an intelligent woman. When you're not so blind with whatever you've got going on. Let me just talk this through with you. What's the purpose of this whole thing? The whole project that's got us here in this fine house you're trying to break out of?"

"To make babies and repopulate the world," Michonne growled at him. T-Dog laughed to himself.

"Point for you," he said. "But not just any babies. Non-wild babies. Babies raised up by government respecting parents that raise babies to be government respecting citizens. That's one purpose. But what's some of the other purposes? Think deeper."

"What are you? Rafiki?" Michonne snarled. T-Dog laughed.

"The Lion King," he said. "Good one. I didn't take you for a Disney person."

"I wasn't," Michonne said. "My kids were."

"You had kids?" T-Dog asked. Michonne hummed. "I didn't know that."

"There's a lot you don't know," Michonne responded.

"There's a lot you don't think about," T-Dog said. "The main purpose of this project is to show that common tamed wilds, like ourselves, can be rehabilitated enough to produce these government respecting babies. To do this, they need—well—babies. But—we also know the government's doing this shit because they got too many wilds and not nearly enough government respecting people."

"Aren't you just a brochure full of information," Michonne said. "Are you going to let me up?"

"Are you going to listen to me and stop trying to get a bullet put in my brain for fraternizing with the enemy?" T-Dog shot back.

Michonne nodded and he decided to trust her. If she tried anything, he'd already decided that his next move was going to be to knock her unconscious. She didn't fight him, though, once he let go of her. Instead she simply shifted around and crawled toward the wall. She sat and put her back against the wall, working her wrists in her hands, one at a time, while she glared at him.

She could be intimidating, but she didn't really frighten him. She was a force, alright, but he didn't doubt his own strength either.

"They won't kill you," Michonne said. "They don't want to kill us."

"You can't be that dumb," T-Dog said. "Come out of your daydream a minute and think about it. If they're killing wilds in other prisons to lower the populations, then they'll kill us. This place is to show that our happy asses can be turned into card-carrying members of their little civilized world. This place? It's like the pearly gates. You either stay and you're in heaven, or you go and...well you know what your other option is." He held his hand up to her the moment that he saw her lips even twitch to interrupt him. She glared again, but she closed her lips tightly. "If you can't make it here, then you can't be rehabilitated. If you've proved you can't be rehabilitated, then why they gonna keep you locked up in Region Thirty Three? There's no hope for you." He hummed and shook his head. He saw her eyes widen and she glanced around at nothing. That was the precise second that Michonne realized, and accepted, what T-Dog had realized at least four days ago. He nodded at her as if her expression was an actual verbalization of things. "You got it," he declared. "Buses leaving outta here? They don't go back to the prison. We'll never see the prison again. Buses leaving outta here? Go to a ditch somewhere where they shovel dirt over a whole pile of us nameless animals."

Michonne's mouth fell open slightly and then she closed it quickly enough that T-Dog heard her teeth clack quietly together. She didn't say anything, though. Maybe it was because there really wasn't anything to say.

"I know," T-Dog said, moving himself until he could sit with his back against the couch, facing her, to be more comfortable. "I felt a little sick when I figured it out too. Got my first clue when they showed us those videos. We're saving everyone else from that fate if we can prove that we can be rehabilitated. We're guaranteeing ourselves that fate if we fail."

Michonne was quiet and T-Dog followed suit. For a moment they just sat there, facing each other, each of them thinking what they would. T-Dog wasn't going to push her to react. He knew that he'd been stewing over this, she deserved at least a moment to take it in.

"But...Andrea..." Michonne said finally.

T-Dog swallowed. He had known from the time he met them that there was something there that was stronger than people maybe gave it credit for being. He didn't know their story, exactly, though he'd heard gossip-mill versions of it. Maybe, one day, he'd know the whole thing. What he did know, though, was enough to tell him that the love between the women was stronger than he'd seen between most people in his life. They didn't mind going through taming time and time again for strikes they got, as long as those strikes meant a stolen moment of some kind of affection. And Michonne had meant what she'd said earlier. They'd rather live in prison for the rest of their lives, hard as that life was, to be together if the alternative was living in a practical paradise but being kept apart.

And seeing the look on her face right now—the broken look on the face of a woman who had very nearly bested him in hand to hand combat—he wanted them together as much as they wanted to be together. He sighed and dared to crawl toward Michonne until he was sitting beside her. He extended an arm, thought better about it, and then went against his better judgment to offer it again. He slipped it around her neck and she accepted the embrace by leaning into him. For just a moment, she was going to take the comfort that was being offered to her.

"They want babies," T-Dog said. "And they're not thinking about how they could get that with the two of you together. They're just looking at you and seeing that—if you were together? That's two uteruses not putting out." Michonne didn't respond, so he continued. "But—there was shit that you could do before this to get pregnant, right? Two women? That means there's shit you can do now. Whether you agree to do it the old fashioned way or not. You gotta earn some trust. Show you're dedicated to this. Then present your case. Tell them you want to do it, but you want to do it together. Both of you, but together. They don't lose out on production—you just don't need quite so many men around."

Michonne leaned up a little to look at him. He thought, though he might have imagined it because it's what he wanted to see, that she looked a little lighter.

"The mayor?" Michonne offered.

T-Dog couldn't help but laugh in response.

"I've seen Andrea when she doesn't like something," T-Dog said. "And that man didn't look like much. Besides—he's soft. Never even been on the inside. He won't get anywhere fast. And by then? You'll have talked to them and you'll be ordering curtains for your house."

Michonne considered it a moment.

"If we both agreed," Michonne said, "to contribute to their project? It just might work."

T-Dog nodded.

"If they need a donor that won't get his feelings hurt because he's not in the household? Just—give them my house number," T-Dog said. Michonne made a face at him and he laughed. "Kidding," he responded. "But not really. Not if that's what it takes."

"What about you?" Michonne asked. "If I go, then you'll..."

"Get someone else," T-Dog said with a shrug. "They'll find someone else. Don't doubt that. I'm a government respecting citizen. I put your ass under citizen's arrest."

Michonne laughed at him.

"Why do you want to help me?" Michonne asked. "There's nothing in helping me—or Andrea—for you. Why do it?"

T-Dog swallowed and thought about his answer before he offered it to her.

"Maybe because—in a world like this? If there's real love? The kind that makes you take on all the police that are out there for a chance at breaking her outta that big ass house? I just think it oughta have a chance..."