AN: Here we go, another chapter here.

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

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"I thought it went well!" Carol said. She was walking Daryl back to work, though they didn't have too far to go. He had to check in with Grady and then Grady would decide which of the projects was the one that Daryl should work on for the rest of their "on the clock" day.

"He didn't have to be an asshole," Daryl muttered.

Carol laughed to herself.

"You told me he's always an asshole," Carol said. "So I don't know why you expected any different."

"He was meetin' you for the first time," Daryl said. "I told him about the kid. He didn't have to be an asshole about it."

"Are you mad because he said they gave me to you?" Carol asked. "Or are you mad because he asked if I was knocked up? Because—you've got to tell me what exactly he did that made you so angry if you want me to respond to it either way."

Daryl huffed.

"I ain't really pissed," he said. "Hell—I should know better'n to expect anything but shit from Merle. I guess I just wish things was different. And I woulda liked him to have acted different. That's all. Would've like you to see somethin' different than just—my asshole brother."

They neared the construction site where Carol would bid Daryl farewell for a few hours while they both returned to work. She didn't miss that, seeing how close they were getting, Daryl slowed his steps. Finally, he slowed them to the point that they were standing still in the middle of the walkway.

Carol licked her lips and tried to hide her smile.

"I don't care that your brother is an asshole," Carol said. "In fact? He seems like the most harmless asshole I've ever known in my life and—I've known my share of assholes."

Daryl chuckled at her.

"He broke a man's neck," Daryl said. "And then he shot another."

"Because he thought they killed you," Carol said. "And—maybe that's something I can sympathize with. Maybe I'd do the same. Or at least—try to."

Daryl glanced around and then brought his eyes back to settle on Carol. He shook his head gently.

"Maybe that's something you don't let nobody hear," he said.

Carol nodded her understanding.

"He's good to Sadie," Carol said. "If he wasn't, she wouldn't want to stay with him. And they didn't know each other before. They didn't even see each other until we took Merle to the house. That's got to get him some credit, right?"

Daryl sucked his teeth.

"You gonna defend him?" Daryl asked.

"I just want you to understand that I don't think badly of him," Carol said. "And I certainly don't think less of you for anything he might say or do. Words won't hurt me. I've been hurt by plenty worse things in my life."

"I don't want even the words trying to hurt you," Daryl said.

Carol smiled at him. She felt her cheeks grow warm and she realized, right out there in the middle of the sidewalk, she was blushing at him like a schoolgirl over the fact that Daryl was one of the only people—and in the most unlikely of places—who had ever truly wanted her protected from anything that could do her any kind of harm. And he wasn't just saying it. It was really what he wanted for her. He wanted her to be safe and happy.

And that was a feeling unlike most any other feeling she'd ever had before.

Carol leaned in and offered him a kiss that she hoped would carry him through the rest of his work day with at least a little of the warm feeling that she had at the moment. He returned the kiss, maybe even a little too enthusiastically for the fact that they were in public, and when she pulled away from him he was smiling.

"What'd I do to deserve that?" He asked.

"Go to work," Carol said. "You don't want to get in trouble and neither do I. We'll order dinner in tonight."

She walked off, before he could say anything, and she almost felt like skipping down the sidewalk. She restrained herself, though, and only allowed herself one quick glance over her shoulder to watch him as he headed onward toward where Grady was overseeing one of the construction jobs.

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Michonne sat on the couch and held Andrea's hand in hers. They couldn't tell them that they couldn't touch. The rules from Region Thirty Three didn't apply here and they weren't doing anything that they weren't allowed to do. They were just holding hands and it couldn't be misconstrued as anything that might cause harm to anyone.

Across from them, in what they both considered to be Milton's chair, Hurricane Maggie sat. Behind her, leaning against the wall like something of a bouncer, an officer that had been appointed to her stood and waited to see if they'd do anything that required intervention. He looked mostly bored by his required presence there. His boredom, honestly, was a welcomed contrast to the overenthusiasm for their jobs that Maggie's chosen officers had shown.

They were having their first "meeting" with Maggie. It was supposed to be informal and informative. It was just for her to gather information as a "starting point" for her therapy sessions with them. She needed to know a little about them. She needed to know about their experiences. From there, she would be able to prepare a little better the ways in which she might later steer their conversations for evaluation.

At least, that's how she explained it to Michonne and Andrea. Michonne didn't know what Andrea was thinking, but Michonne was pretty much inclined to not trust anything the woman said, not even when she was telling them that this was solely for her to get to know them and clarify some of the things that were stated in their records.

Michonne could barely breathe at this point, solely in anticipation of what might come and her residual stress from their last meeting with Maggie, and she kept feeling a tremor run through Andrea's body.

"Andrea? I asked you a question," Maggie said. "This isn't going to work if you don't cooperate."

Andrea looked at the woman and Michonne squeezed her hand to remind her that she was there.

"I'm sorry," Andrea said. "I didn't hear you."

"I'm not sure you're paying attention," Maggie said. "And I told you that whatever happened before? You're going to have to get past that. You looked like you had a weapon and the officers reacted like they've been trained to act."

Andrea nodded her head.

"I understand," she said. "I had a—bottle. And they—made sure that I didn't do anything with it."

"If you don't cooperate," Maggie said, "then I can't go ahead with our meetings. And I'll have no choice but to tell them that I can't evaluate you because you can't even cooperate with something as simple as—as simple as answering a few questions."

"I didn't hear the question," Andrea repeated.

"I didn't hear it either," Michonne said. "I heard you say that I wasn't originally supposed to be here and that you'd prefer if you met with us individually. I heard you say that—from what you knew, Wild A wasn't supposed to have any contact with others. I heard you say that—if Andrea didn't cooperate then you'd have to turn her in as non-cooperative, but I didn't hear the question."

"I asked how you thought your part in the project was going," Maggie said.

Andrea stared at her for a moment and then she did her best to replace the slightly terrified expression she'd been wearing since Maggie arrived with a more pleasant one.

"It's great," Andrea said. "Everything is going—great. I'm pregnant, and the baby is fine. That's really about as much as I know about the project at this point."

"We don't really know what we're supposed to do," Michonne said, "except grow the population of Woodbury and do what's asked of us. We don't know how things are going."

Maggie's expression changed slightly and she wrote something down. She looked surprised and Michonne, for her part, wasn't surprised in the slightest. She felt, as had Andrea more than likely, that the question was a test question to see how much they knew—and how much they might be playing into things.

"Tell me about your time here," Maggie said. "What's your life like in Woodbury?"

Andrea relaxed a little and sat back against the back of the couch. She looked around.

"I get up in the morning," Andrea said. "So far—I've been sick every morning for...most of the time I've been pregnant. So that pretty much fills up the first part of my day. I eat something when I can. Milton has already gone to work. I—read a book or I watch—I watch the news channel. I eat again when they bring me food. It's really—pretty much the same every day. I don't do much that I can think of that you would find interesting."

Maggie jotted something else down on her pad and flipped back through a couple of pages where Michonne could see scribble, though she couldn't make it out from the distance that was between them. More than likely she was working from a list of questions and facts.

"Michonne?" Maggie asked, clearly redirecting the question to Michonne to answer.

"My day is pretty much the same," Michonne said. "I do have a job, though. I've had a couple, actually. I go where they need me. Right now I'm working with stocking in the warehouse. I work when they need me. I never know when that's going to be. But—I like it. I like all the people I've worked with."

"Tell me about your time in the wild," Maggie said. "How long were you out there?"

Andrea shook her head.

"I don't know," she said. "When the turn happened, I was travelling. With my sister. We didn't pay it any attention when it started on the news. It wasn't happening around us. We didn't see any of the Dead until we were on the road and—I was out there from that time forward."

Maggie glanced at Michonne.

"Since the turn," Michonne said. Andrea was editing her story a little. Michonne would do the same. "I was at work when the chaos started. Right inside Atlanta. It was madness from the first moment I saw some of the Dead. As soon as I saw the first one? They were everywhere."

"Why didn't you go to any safe zones?" Maggie asked Andrea.

"I didn't even know there were safe zones," Andrea said. "I was on the highway. There wasn't any indication of safe zones. There wasn't anything but us, the Dead, and some other people who were trying to survive. The radio signal was one of the first things to go out. We were cut off."

Michonne shook her head when Maggie looked at her.

"I didn't know about safe zones either," Michonne said. "I left my office to try to go home. When I got home and saw that my neighborhood was overrun? And I knew that Atlanta was overrun? I just—headed out of the city. I was looking for somewhere safe. I thought it would be away from the Dead."

"You weren't travelling together?" Maggie asked. "Because your files say you were together."

"We met on the road," Andrea said.

"You met in the wild," Maggie corrected. Andrea accepted the correction. "Tell me about how that happened."

"Nothing to tell," Michonne offered quickly. "Andrea was alone. I was alone. We met up and we decided there might be safety in numbers."

"You failed to comply with relocation notices that asked you to report to safe zones," Maggie said. "You didn't check in with authorities to make your survival known."

"I never saw a notice," Andrea lied. Michonne shook her head to go along with it.

"If there were notices where we were, they were torn down or missing," Michonne said. "Maybe they got rained on. We never saw anything."

"No signs of government or—anything," Andrea said.

"You were picked up not eight miles from Zone Seven," Maggie said. "It was a major zone. Surely you saw something. You heard traffic or you saw the lights? You noticed construction?"

"We weren't out at night," Michonne said. "The Dead were more active at night. It wasn't safe to be out then. Before the sun went down we always took cover. We never saw any government officials. We didn't know about any zones."

"You had a child," Maggie said, seeming to redirect things. "A boy that was relocated to a children's home." Andrea nodded her head. "Examinations confirmed he was your biological child." Andrea nodded again. "How did you get pregnant in the wild? When you didn't even know there were other people around besides yourselves?"

"I never said we didn't know there were other people out there," Andrea said. She shook her head. "There were people. We just—didn't see anyone from the government. We didn't see anywhere safe. But there were a lot of other people out there. There were a lot of small groups."

"And the baby's father?" Maggie asked.

"Didn't survive," Michonne said quickly. "A lot of people just—didn't survive."

"How many people have you killed in addition to the guard that you murdered, Andrea?" Maggie asked.

Andrea swallowed hard and Michonne felt her pulse pick up. The guard's death wasn't Andrea's doing. It never had been.

"None," Andrea said.

"You never killed anyone besides the guard?" Maggie asked. Andrea shook her head and, once more, Maggie directed the question to Michonne.

"I don't know," Michonne said. "I blocked it out. I never killed anyone that I didn't have to kill to survive. That's what it was all about. Survival."

"How do you feel about being in a safe zone now?" Maggie asked.

"Is Woodbury a safe zone?" Andrea asked.

"It's a type of safe zone," Maggie responded. "How do you feel about being brought in out of the wild?"

"I'm happy for the chance to—become civilized again," Andrea said. Her words came out with a slight hint of question to them, but Maggie jotted them down anyway.

"Me too," Michonne added. "I'm happy for the chance to start over. Have a new life. Return to being the person I was before the turn."

"Andrea, were you angry about the loss of your son?" Maggie asked.

Andrea stared at her. Michonne knew that their instinct was to answer everything in the most positive light possible, but there simply wasn't a positive way to answer that question. And to say that she hadn't been upset would be to lie too obviously. Maggie would know that she was keeping the truth from her.

"He was my baby," Andrea said. "I don't think—any mother is ever happy to lose her baby. Would you be?"

"I don't have any children," Maggie said.

"Maybe you will, one day. You're a woman," Andrea said. "At least you could imagine. Because, I hope, you don't—I hope that you don't ever know. Not from experience."

Michonne's stomach tightened and she had to admit that she was proud of Andrea for the answer. It was honest, but it wasn't accusatory and it didn't attack anyone. It didn't even attack the system. It simply spoke about Andrea's own personal feelings of loss.

"Are you happy about this baby, Andrea?" Maggie asked.

Andrea nodded her head.

"Very," she said. "I don't think I could be any happier. I think—maybe you'll find that's true of a lot of people in Woodbury. Especially if they lost children."

"The baby's like everything else," Michonne said. "We're happy for a chance at a new beginning. We're happy that Woodbury is giving us that chance."