AN: Here we go, another chapter here. There's plenty more to come.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Carol watched as the doctor passed off the vial of blood to someone waiting just outside the door and the person traded her a fat manila folder. The doctor went to her computer to type something—on a profile she'd made magically appear by scanning Carol's chip—and then she rolled her chair over to place herself directly in front of Carol.
"They're super-fast," the doctor said. "We'll know before you leave."
"I think I'm just—a little amazed that you haven't asked me to take off my clothes," Carol mused. The most she'd been asked to do was roll up the sleeve of her shirt to allow her chip to be scanned and the blood to be drawn. Despite the fact that she was still shaking from her initial nerves of being escorted to the clinic, it was the most relaxed that Carol had felt in a clinic since she'd been captured.
The doctor laughed to herself at Carol's observation.
"Well, I'm not going to promise that it doesn't happen at all in the course of your visit, but there's no need for it just yet," the doctor said.
"At Region Thirty Three?" Carol responded. "It was every visit. No matter what. Strip, inmate."
"I know," the doctor said. "I worked there on rotations. I've seen you a few times. Coming out of taming. I did the workups for Wave Thirty Three. But—you probably don't remember me. I wrote you down as a high-trauma, high-stress case. You were worked up enough to risk dissociating on me."
"It was you?" Carol asked. "I remember—the appointment but..."
The doctor nodded.
"Dr. Walker," she said. "And you're Carol. And you're with..."
"Daryl," Carol offered. She got a smile and a head nod.
"The nudity was a practicality in most cases," Dr. Walker explained. "Some of the inmates that came in could get violent. They could—lose all rationality. So often you ended up cutting the clothes off them for one thing or another while they were restrained that—it just became law that all medical exams were done after stripping the patient."
Carol swallowed.
"And more than a little bit of it, don't you think, was to remind us that we're animals?" Carol asked. Her stomach churned. She wondered how the doctor might react. She might, for such a daring comment, call someone to come and restrain Carol even now. She didn't, though. She just barely nodded her head.
"Do you think you're an animal?" Dr. Walker asked, rocking in the chair.
"Sometimes I have," Carol admitted.
"Sometimes we all are," Dr. Walker said. "We're the highest animals on the food chain, perhaps, but we're all innately animals. I don't believe, though, that you're any more animal than I am. Do you? We're both capable of reason. We're both capable of—intelligent conversation. We both have thumbs."
"Have you ever been tied up in a dark room?" Carol asked. "Ever been tortured until you—blacked out because your brain finally had mercy on your body? Ever been made to—use the bathroom on yourself because no one would untie you to let you go with dignity?"
She realized she was shaking again and the doctor must have seen it too. She cast a glance at Carol's hands before she looked back at her and shook her head.
"No," she said. "And I'm—sorry for that. I'm sorry for—what you've been through. But you can't hold it against me that I wasn't out there for very long because—I'm here to try to make sure that you never go through that again. That's why I'm here." Carol swallowed and nodded at her. Dr. Walker flipped over her folder and turned her attention to the pages inside. "Let's talk about why you're here. Can we talk, for a moment, about your previous pregnancies? You reported—miscarriages and a successful pregnancy. Can you tell me about that?"
Carol sucked in a breath.
"I don't know what you want me to tell you. The miscarriage—and there was just one that I'm aware of—was a long time ago. After that? I had Sophia," Carol said. "The government took her at capture."
Dr. Walker nodded.
"Was Sophia born before or after the turn?" She asked.
"Before," Carol said. "I don't think I would've wanted to do that out there. Andrea—I know her son was born out there. From what I've heard, he was born in a meat locker while the Dead scratched at the doors and tried to get in to them. I had my baby in a hospital. I wouldn't want—to do it any other way."
"Here you'll have that option," Dr. Walker said. "The hospital option, not the meat locker. In the hospital or—if you prefer and everything's going well enough? At home. The choice will be up to you if there aren't medical concerns coming into play."
"And then what?" Carol asked. The doctor cocked an eyebrow at her. "After the baby's born. What happens? Walk me through it."
"You've had a baby before," Dr. Walker said.
"Humor me," Carol said. "While we wait?"
The doctor stared at her and finally nodded her head.
"You'll deliver. I'll probably be the one assisting you, but if I'm not? We'll just say I am. I'll cut the cord. Or Darren?"
"Daryl," Carol corrected.
"He'll cut it if he's so inclined," Dr. Walker said. "If there are no problems with you or the baby? We'll give you about half an hour to an hour to just be there. I'll clean you up and—do whatever I need to do be sure that you're on the way to recovery. When you're ready, the baby will be taken to be cleaned up and checked over again." She held her hand up quickly to Carol to stop her if she was considering saying anything. "And then the baby will be returned to you. Yours. For good. To keep. I'll pinky promise you or—swear a blood brother oath or whatever—if that's what you want from me."
Carol's throat ached badly enough that if she didn't know what it was coming from, she might have asked the doctor to make sure that she wasn't suddenly developing some kind of rapidly growing tumor.
"That's it?" Carol asked.
"I understand your concern," Dr. Walker said. "I do. Believe me. But the only way you lose this baby? Is if you reject it or you threaten its well-being. We have to have that clause in place because—while we suspect that we know what we're working with? We don't know."
"You said you believed I was human," Carol said.
"I do," Dr. Walker said. "But humans are animals. And some animals? They eat their young."
Carol swallowed again. She didn't want to admit that everything stirring around inside of her almost made her want to vomit, so she simply kept swallowing it all down.
"I don't know if I can get pregnant," Carol said. She shook her head gently. "I don't know if I'm too old or—I just can't. And before? I never would've even thought of that as a disadvantage. But right now? I don't want to leave this project. And—more than that? I think—I want to have a family with Daryl. If all this is real? If this world is real? I really want it, but I don't know if I'll get it."
"It's still early," Dr. Walker said. "There's still plenty of time. They won't ask you to leave the project if you don't, but it's—better for all of us if you do."
"Then can you help me?" Carol asked. "Do something to help me make sure?"
The doctor sucked in a deep breath and pushed back her chair a little. She got up and put the file across the room, near the computer. She scrolled through whatever she had there on the screen and Carol watched her as she flicked through some windows like she'd forgotten that Carol was sitting on the table, still holding the cotton ball in the crook her of her arm though it was unnecessary by now, waiting for a response to a question.
Then the doctor got up, went to the phone on the wall, and lifted the receiver. She dialed a few numbers and then stood there, twisting the cord around her fingers, and spoke to someone quietly that had answered from some other location. Carol focused on the floor and the empty walls of the room. She focused on everything she could except for the doctor. Finally, the woman hung up the phone and returned to her computer. She picked up the file she'd only recently discarded and turned back to Carol, crossing her arms across her chest.
"No?" Carol asked.
"I need you to tell me—that you're pregnant," Dr. Walker said. Carol didn't try to hide the question in her expression. "I need you to tell me—that you're pregnant," the doctor repeated.
"You're the one that just—took the phone call," Carol offered.
The doctor sat down in the chair again and rocked it with her foot. She was nodding her head to herself, but she didn't address Carol for at least a couple of moments. When she did address her, her expression was serious.
"You seem like a very rational and reasonable person," Dr. Walker said.
Carol swallowed.
"I like to think I am," she said. "Most of the time."
"You seem like—the kind of person that wants to be as helpful to everyone as she can be, especially if it doesn't hurt anyone," Dr. Walker said. Carol nodded.
"I can accept that," she agreed.
"You seem like the kind of person that would be willing to make a deal," Dr. Walker said. "What you want or need for what someone else wants or needs. All parties benefitting, of course." Carol nodded and the doctor rolled her chair closer to her with the toe of her shoe. "You seem like the kind of woman that can keep a secret," the doctor said.
Carol's stomach churned. Of course she could keep a secret. They could all keep secrets. The only way that many of them survived captivity and had even a shred of positive experience was being able to keep secrets.
"What do you want?" Carol asked.
"I want you to tell me you're pregnant," Dr. Walker said. "I want you to be pregnant."
"If I am—I am," Carol said. "If I'm not..."
"Are you?" Dr. Walker asked.
"I don't know," Carol said. She laughed to herself. "That's—at least partly what all this was about."
The woman sucked in a breath and let it out as a sigh.
"How well can you keep a secret?" Dr. Walker asked.
"As well as you want me to," Carol said. The doctor nodded.
"Wave Thirty Three needs confirmed pregnancies and it needs them soon," Dr. Walker said. "They don't have to be successful. The government isn't entirely unreasonable. Things happen and pregnancies spontaneously terminate. But to prove that things are in motion? To prove that there's forward progress and they should keep funding this—instead of going ahead with the extinction act? There need to be confirmed pregnancies."
Carol's stomach twisted a little more.
"And you want me to be a confirmed pregnancy," Carol said. She got a nod.
"The first," the doctor said. "My pet project. My most important patient. Well, my second most important patient. Milton is still the head guy in charge and Andrea's..." She broke off. "My most important personal patient."
"I'm not, am I?" Carol asked, lowering her voice. She was sure they were alone, or the doctor wouldn't have dared to tell her this much, but she still felt like she was always under observation. The doctor's eyes told her everything she needed to know. She wasn't pregnant. "Then I don't understand."
"Tell me you're pregnant," Dr. Walker said. "Then be pregnant. I'll back you up. You can't tell anyone, though, what's going on. You can tell your—Daryl? You can tell him, but neither of you can tell anyone. As far as everyone else knows? You're pregnant. I'll help you. See you regularly. Eventually? We just—say that something went wrong. It was terrible. Tragic. But something went wrong. You start over—trying again."
Carol understood what the woman was asking of her. She could've asked her why she was asking that of her and not someone else—someone was likely to show up pregnant soon anyway—but she didn't. She simply took it at face value. It was better, she supposed, to be in with the authorities here than it was to be out with them.
"What about your lab people?" Carol asked.
"Believe me, they know how to keep a secret," Dr. Walker said. "Especially an important one."
"You said something was in it for me," Carol said. "What?"
The doctor smiled slightly and wiped the smile away. She shifted around in her chair.
"Science has done a lot of covering ground that we covered before," Dr. Walker said. "There's a lot of reinventing the wheel going on. Here? There's a whole lot of that going on. It's easy to get a line to open up for more experimentation in the name of science here. All you need is a test subject, or a few test subjects, and the assertion that it'll benefit the government. It'll benefit our society. Fertility treatment is something we need to work with again. Just to reestablish the practice. Anonymously? You'd be my test subject. I'd finish the preliminary research on it—tonight even—and get what we need. You'd benefit from the treatment. I'd benefit from the scientific accolades of reintroducing fertility treatment as a viable option in society. And Wave Thirty Three? The project gets its first confirmed pregnancy to keep the government from thinking quite so hard about shutting it down and exterminating all of you."
"When you present it like that," Carol said, "then I guess everyone wins, right?"
"I know you probably don't want to be my guinea pig," Dr. Walker said, "and you don't have to be. I'm just offering that to you because it's the best I've got outside of just—telling you to wait for it to happen and hope for the best. Give it time."
"I have a feeling I've been an un-knowing guinea pig for worse," Carol said. "I'm on board."
"For real?" Dr. Walker asked, raising an eyebrow at Carol. Carol couldn't help but smile at her. She extended her hand in the gesture of handshake. The doctor took it and shook her hand firmly.
"For real," Carol said. "Let's do this. And I won't tell anyone except Daryl. And—he'll be sworn to secrecy."
The doctor smiled at her and released Carol's hand.
"Your hands stopped shaking," she pointed out. Carol hadn't realized it, but she could see that they had when she held them in front of her.
"Is there anything you want to tell me?" The doctor asked.
Carol swallowed.
"I'm pregnant," she said, smiling and shrugging her shoulders. The doctor chuckled.
"Congratulations," she said. "I'll get that entered into the computer and—in a couple of days? I'm going to call you in for an appointment, OK? We'll just—check on things? Get things started?"
Carol sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. She wasn't as tense as before, but she still felt tense. Now, though, it was an entirely different sensation of tension.
"When do I start to tell people?" Carol asked.
"As soon as you want," Dr. Walker said. "I'm going to let them know as soon as they ask again. You can tell the guard on the way back to your house if you want. They might even take you on an excursion or something nice—get some sun. You're about to be a pretty big deal around here." Carol laughed to herself and nodded her head. "Relax. Enjoy it. In a couple of days? I'll call you for an appointment."
"Sounds perfect," she said. "I'm sure the guards will know where to find me."
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AN: So as I'm working on this and planning ahead (because I've planned quite a bit ahead), I just wanted to let everyone know that I've made a few mistakes here or there in the previous chapters (particularly mathematically) and if they bother you when they come up again, you have my sincerest apologies. Math is not my strongest point. I ask for your suspension of disbelief on that.
In fact, I ask for your suspension of disbelief on everything, LOL. But I still hope that you're enjoying and enjoy what's to come.
