AN: Here we go, another chapter.
I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Andrea opened her eyes without fully knowing what it was that had woken her from her sleep. She could say that it was simply the arrival of morning, her body's internal clock telling her it was time to rise, but she was getting out of the practice of waking early and naturally in quite the same way she had in the past years. She stretched gently and smiled to herself when she felt the soft brush of Michonne's lips on her face before the woman brushed back her hair.
"Breakfast just got here," Michonne said. "I heard the knock."
Andrea rolled enough to look at Michonne and groaned.
"He ordered in again," Andrea said. "I'm never, never leaving this house."
Michonne laughed in her throat.
"Well, at least we're not leaving it together," she said. "Let's get up—get some breakfast."
Andrea didn't keep track of the days here. Every day was like the one before when she wasn't able to go anywhere. They had none of the promised jobs. They had none of the promised freedom. She wasn't allowed, unlike most of the other prisoners, to leave the house for the community meals. Every day, for Andrea, was spent inside the same walls.
The only thing that was saving her from madness was the fact that, since the night she had hopefully conceived a child, Milton hadn't made Michonne leave the house.
Hopefully conceived.
Andrea was hopeful that, though it was still too soon to know for sure, she was going to have a baby. She'd turned it over in her mind—and talked it out with Michonne—more than once, and now she was hopeful. Her anxiety was still there, but there was another little something there—a flutter that she got whenever she thought about the possibility that didn't immediately make her think the worst. At first she'd thought her feelings came from the fact that she wanted to contribute to this project that was, apparently, for the greater good, but she was slowly starting to think it was something more.
She wanted to be a mother. She always had. And though her son hadn't been born of the best circumstances, she'd loved him dearly. This baby wouldn't be him—she'd never get him back—but it could be hers. It could be her chance to be a mother again.
And Michonne was optimistic. Surely, if Andrea wanted it, she was pregnant. And if she wasn't? Milton wasn't going to rest until she was so neither would they.
Milton.
The days ticked by in her new home and Andrea was growing accustomed to Milton. It was difficult to say that there was anything else there. He was difficult to know. He was virtually obsessed with keeping this project a secret from her until she confirmed the presence of a baby. He could make conversation, but sometimes it wasn't the kind of conversation that Andrea wanted to have.
And yet, Andrea was growing accustomed to him. In some ways, she was even growing comfortable with him. She was starting to truly trust him.
And, it seemed, they had a lot of time together ahead of them to grow even more accustomed to one another.
Michonne led the way into the living room, tugging Andrea by the hand, and Andrea shuffled behind her. Milton sat at the small dining table they had with a laptop, a notepad, and his breakfast. He looked at Andrea and Michonne when they came into the room, but he offered no morning greeting, so Andrea took responsibility for starting the morning exchange.
"Milton," Andrea said. "Good morning."
He nodded at her.
"You slept well?" He asked. Andrea smiled and nodded at him.
"We did," she said. "I was hoping we could go out for breakfast."
"I had it brought in, Milton said.
The other two breakfasts, boxed up just as they were when they were delivered, rested on the far corner of the table.
"I can see that," Andrea confirmed. "Aren't you supposed to be working?"
"I'm working," Milton said.
"From home?" Andrea asked.
Milton looked at her like she was having trouble comprehending the simplest piece of information known to man. She laughed at herself in response and shook her head at him to indicate that she expected no actual response. Sarcasm, maybe, would be nice, but he wasn't interested in giving her some sarcastic reply. He really was working and he was, as he often was, focused on what he was doing while he wasn't eating.
Andrea took one of the boxed breakfasts, passed the other to Michonne, and headed straight for the couch. She flipped on the television and muted the sound so that the repetitive and somewhat annoying music would neither bother Milton nor grate on her nerves so early in the morning. The channel that she referred to as the "Weather Channel" was the only channel that they had, so she'd come to think of it as her favorite to watch. Michonne settled in one of the chairs near her to eat.
"Oh look," Andrea commented, reading the screen before it could change. It would come back around again, of course, but she preferred to catch the "news" the first time around. "The jobs are being assigned. We just have to be patient."
"Patience is my new middle name," Michonne responded.
"Milton? Are we ever actually getting jobs?" Andrea asked. "Or—is it best to stop waiting for them?"
She only had to repeat the question twice before Milton looked up from his computer screen and stared at her with a little show of annoyance on his features.
"Jobs are a vital part of the program," he said.
Andrea laughed to herself and made eye contact with Michonne who smirked. When it came to something about the "program," both of them had joked that Milton was a lot like one of those children's toys where you pulled a lever or twisted something and it gave you a pre-recorded message. There were only so many to choose from and you were likely to hear the same response over and over before you got something new. He'd memorized, clearly, a given number of lines that he could use to avoid actually saying anything at all about that which he preferred to keep secret.
"New name," Michonne said quickly, gesturing toward the television. "We got a name. Woodbury? What kind of a name is that? I put in six better than that."
"Fuck!" Andrea growled. "I put in like seventy five choices! I should've won that! Who put Woodbury in?"
"What's Woodbury?" Michonne asked.
"Was a town," Andrea said. "About an hour outside Atlanta?"
"Are we in Woodbury?" Michonne asked.
"Maybe not the original one," Andrea said, "but apparently we're in the new one."
She watched the screen as she worked her way through her breakfast. Most of the news was old news. They repeated the same things all day, every day. They only added in new pieces of information when there was something new to add, which wasn't very often, and instead of adding all the "new" information on one screen, as Andrea would've done it, they included bits and pieces throughout so that you had to go looking for them like eggs at an Easter egg hunt.
"Pregnancy announcement," Michonne said, quickly pointing her finger at the screen again.
Andrea almost missed it and nearly hit her feet to get close enough to the television to easily read the text. She stared at it and then looked at Michonne to see if she'd seen it too.
"8294F?" Andrea asked.
"8294F," Michonne confirmed.
"But that's..." Andrea said, letting her words trail off because she didn't trust her own memory enough to make the assertion that they knew the tag number of the citizen mentioned—since the channel wasn't warm enough to include the fact that the Wild-turned-Woodbury-citizen had a name.
"Carol," Michonne finished for her. "That's Carol."
Most of them knew each other's tag numbers as well as they knew each other's names. They'd heard them constantly in Region Thirty Three. A tag number was, in all actuality, more unique than a name. You might know more than one Carol, but you only knew one 8294F.
"Carol's pregnant?" Andrea asked. Michonne shrugged. There was nothing else she could do. She had no more information than Andrea and all they had to go on was what the television told them. "Carol's pregnant," Andrea repeated, this time marveling over the information.
"I'm not surprised," Michonne pointed out. "They've been going at it like bunnies since we got here. If it was going to happen?"
Andrea didn't know why her stomach sank, but it did. It wasn't like there was only one pregnancy to go around the community. It wasn't like, now that someone was confirmed as being the first person pregnant in the new town of Woodbury, there would never be another—the hope was quite to the contrary—but still her stomach sort of oddly sank. She almost felt like she'd failed at something. Still, she would've liked to congratulate Carol—and Daryl too—if it was something that made them happy, but she doubted she'd ever see them to offer such a thing.
"Milton?" Andrea called, repeating his name until he finally looked up again from his screen to somewhat glare at her. She ignored his irritation at being interrupted. He needed her for something or he'd be working in his office. His choice to remain there was a clear sign that he was simply getting to the point in his work where he was going to ask something of her. When he was done, he'd retire to his office. "What does it mean? Now that someone's pregnant? Does that mean you can go on with the project?"
"Eventually," Milton said.
"Does it mean it's not really important for me to be pregnant anymore?" Andrea asked.
"Your case is particular," Milton responded, glancing back at his screen.
"Because it's your baby?" Andrea asked.
"Among other things," Milton replied. "You have to answer these questions."
Andrea sucked in a breath and put her plate on the table. She'd eaten all she wanted of the breakfast for the moment. Milton's reason for lingering in the social rooms of the house were clear now.
"About the project?" She asked. He stared at her. "Go ahead," Andrea said.
"Do you want both of us to answer them?" Michonne asked.
"You're going to your home soon," Milton said. "I've called ahead for a guard. You and T-Dog have permission to request a guard for a visit when Andrea would like. But you can't live here."
"Does that mean no to answering the questions?" Michonne asked.
Andrea shook her head at Michonne. The questions were, apparently, just for her. She'd answer them—just as she answered anything else that Milton asked of her—and hopefully soon she'd understand why it was that he had so much to ask of her.
"Questions," Andrea said, reminding Milton, in case he'd forgotten, of the questions that he was supposed to ask her.
He leaned slightly toward the screen of his computer like program he was reading from was difficult to see.
"Do you like your house?" He asked.
"Yes," Andrea said.
"Do you like your quarters?" Milton asked.
"Yes," Andrea responded.
"Do you like the community?" Milton asked.
"I don't know much about it," Andrea said. "I'm never outside of the house. But—from what I saw the maybe two times I saw it? I liked it."
"You're not outside the house often," Milton said, typing. "Do you feel isolated?" He ticked the questions off like he was reading from a list. Were the content different, Andrea might have felt like she was taking a quiz out of a magazine.
"Not as much," Andrea said. "Not now that Michonne is here."
"Michonne is going home," Milton said, not glancing up from his screen.
"Yes," Andrea corrected.
Milton nodded to himself like she'd given him the correct answer—the one that he was searching for. She had an urge to go and read the questions over his shoulder to see what was coming next. She could tell that they were prepared. He wasn't making them up as he went along. That meant that, in some way, he'd already anticipated some of what she might say.
"What does the isolation make you feel like?" Milton asked.
"Is this a psychological survey?" Michonne asked. Milton ignored her and Andrea did too, for the moment.
"It makes me feel like I want to go outside," Andrea said. "Like I want to see people. I want to do something. I want to—exercise."
"Does it make you feel violent?" Milton asked. Andrea stared at him, in silence, until he looked at her and repeated the question.
"Why did you ask me that?" Andrea asked.
"I'm asking you the questions," Milton said. "Answer them, please. Honestly."
"What if I answer them wrong?" Andrea asked.
"There are no wrong answers," Milton said.
"Are you sure about that?" Andrea asked. "If I—answer something wrong, is something going to happen to me?"
"There are no wrong answers," Milton repeated. "Answer the questions. Honestly."
"Not violent," Andrea said. "But irritated."
"Irritation has the potential to develop into violence," Milton said. Andrea wasn't certain, given the tone of his voice, if it was a question or simply a musing about irritation and violence.
"I'm not violent," Andrea responded.
"Are you pregnant?" Milton asked.
Andrea swallowed.
"If I am, it's too soon for a test to say," Andrea said.
It took Milton a moment of playing on his computer to continue. He was, apparently, searching for something. Maybe there were several possible ways the questions could go—like following a flow chart.
"Do you want to become pregnant?" Milton asked.
"Yes," Andrea responded, her stomach flipping once again as it had when she'd seen the announcement on the screen about Carol and Daryl.
"What do you believe you would do if you had a child?" Milton asked.
"Raise it?" Andrea responded, shrugging. He stared at her. "Raise it," she repeated, giving him a concrete answer.
"And if you didn't keep it? How would you feel?" Milton asked.
Andrea's stomach almost lurched to the point of making her believe she'd see her breakfast again. She swallowed it down.
"Betrayed," she responded. Milton must have heard something in her tone of voice because he looked up at her and then dropped his eyes back to the computer screen. "You said that wouldn't happen."
"Answer the questions," Milton said. "Do you believe that you would become violent?"
"Yes," Andrea said, swallowing. "I would feel—angry and betrayed and I would become violent. You said that wouldn't happen." When Milton didn't answer her, Andrea felt herself getting stirred up. "Milton? You said that wouldn't happen. Will it happen or not?"
"Questions are questions," Milton responded. "They are meant to be answered. Thought about. Talked about. Answered."
"Why are you asking me these questions?" Andrea asked.
"I can't tell you," Milton said. "Not yet."
"Right—I've got a question for you, Milton. If I'm pregnant," Andrea said, "are you or anyone else going to take my baby?"
"It's not part of the project," Milton said. "That's all I can tell you right now."
Andrea stood up. She walked toward the table and she didn't miss the fact that Milton backed away from her, leaning deeper into his chair, as she approached him, despite the fact that there was still a wooden table between them.
"Then I've answered all the questions I can answer for you right now," Andrea said. "Until you can tell me something? There's nothing else that I can tell you, Milton."
"You'll have to answer the questions," Milton said. "Today and numerous other times. I'm going to ask you the questions. Other people are going to ask you the same questions and more of them. You have to answer the questions. That's part of the project."
"Then explain it to me," Andrea begged. "Explain it to me and I'll answer questions for you all day long, Milton. I'll answer anything that you want me to answer. Ten times a day if that's what you want. But—explain it to me! Tell me why you want to know these things. Tell me why you're asking me this. And I'll answer it!"
"I can't," Milton replied, not surprising Andrea with the repetition of his Magic Eight Ball commentary. "Not yet."
