AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

"Are you OK? Andrea—are you OK?" Michonne asked. Andrea winced and closed her eyes again. "Is she OK?"

"Scoot over," Alice said, dropping to her knees beside Andrea. She slipped her hand under the back of Andrea's head and somewhat lifted her head. Andrea opened her eyes again. Alice smiled. "That was a helluva bump. Milton's the smartest man I know, but he's sometimes not too smart about delivering information. Everything OK in there?"

When Milton called Alice, she'd gotten there so quickly that Michonne might have been convinced that the brunette had super powers if she hadn't been out of breath when she burst through the door. The news had almost taken Michonne off her feet as well. It had certainly knocked the wind out of her, but Andrea had gone down before any of them realized that she would. Milton had immediately called for Alice, worried that the fainting spell had been caused by something more serious than possibly the greatest shock that Andrea had suffered in years.

Andrea started to sit up and Alice pushed her down with her hand on her chest.

"How about you just stay there a minute, OK? You hit your head pretty hard, didn't you? You've got a pretty good knot." Alice said.

Shock or surprise came over Andrea again, all at once, and she went rigid. She tried to sit up again, but Alice held her in place.

"Pillow, Michonne?" Alice asked, waving her fingers in Michonne's direction.

Without hesitation, Michonne crawled across the floor from her spot beside Andrea and fetched one of the couch pillows that Alice tucked under Andrea's head.

"My baby..." Andrea said. "Mich?"

"I'm here," Michonne confirmed, crawling back across the floor instead of bothering to put effort into getting to her feet.

"Baby is fine," Alice said. "She's just fine. I don't think she got hurt. But still, if you think you're going down and you get a chance, warn someone."

"She didn't have a chance," Michonne said. "And unless Milton was going to catch her? I don't think I was moving fast enough to get to her. I got a little lightheaded myself."

"Big news needs to be delivered when everyone is sitting down," Alice said, looking over her shoulder at Milton who was watching the whole scene. "Just a precaution?"

"Where is he?" Andrea asked, giving up on trying to get up until Alice moved her hand from her chest. "My baby...I want...I want him."

Alice nodded her head at Andrea.

"That baby," she said. "That one—we'll bring Andrew to you as soon as we can get him. We thought he was with a family and—you know I came yesterday for the blood?"

Andrea nodded.

"We tested the first boy we found and it wasn't him," Alice said. "But he belonged to someone else in the community so that was a plus. They get their baby back too. Turns out, though, that we found your son when we ran the databases of adoptions and tested a few more children we found. We found him, but he's with a family. They have to dissolve the adoption. To get him back. Then he's here."

Michonne almost felt a little lightheaded again and she dropped back on her backside on the floor and put her forehead against her knees.

"You alright there, Mama?" Alice asked. "I guess—Andrew's kind of important to you, too."

Michonne didn't want to lift her head, so she hummed her agreement.

"He was—my baby too," Michonne said. She sucked in a breath. "From—the moment I knew he was there. He was—he was just my baby too." She laughed to herself. "I held him when he was first born. I heard him take his first breaths." Michonne choked up and wiped her face against her leg. "I—I was there when they took him, too. He was my baby—too."

Alice moved her hand away from Andrea's chest, apparently confident the woman would stay down until instructed to sit up, and reached a hand out to rub at Michonne's arm.

"I guess we forget that sometimes," Alice said.

"Yeah," Michonne said. "I guess you do. You're sure it's him?"

"DNA is a match," Alice said. "He's Andrea's biological child."

Michonne nodded her head to acknowledge the information. She wasn't sure what to say. She wasn't sure there were any words for the way she was feeling at the moment.

"He'll be here—forever?" Michonne asked.

"For as long as you're here," Alice said. "I mean I don't know about your plans for forever. He's being returned to you. To both of you."

Andrea broke, then, and started to cry. Michonne pulled her up, giving her permission herself to sit up, and she moved around so that she could hold Andrea against her. Andrea pressed her face against Michonne, dampening her chest with tears.

"The last time either of us saw him," Michonne said, rubbing Andrea's back, "was when they took him. I don't even know if Andrea—I can't remember if she was even conscious when they got through with her."

"I was," Andrea said. "Jesus—I was. I remember—he was crying and I was so scared they were going to hurt him."

"I thought they were going to kill Andrea and Andrew both," Michonne said. "I was so scared because I didn't want to see any of it. You've seen him?"

Alice nodded her head.

"Just for a moment," Alice said. "He's—healthy. He's beautiful. Andrea—he looks like you. Green eyes. He's got dirty brown hair. He's a cutie."

Andrea straightened up and wiped at her face. She was finally starting to accept it all. She was starting to get control of herself. Michonne let her sit up, but she didn't take her arm from around her body. She needed the support of touching Andrea as much as Andrea might need whatever she had to offer her.

"I got him something," Milton said. "Alice suggested that it would be customary for me to offer a present to him. Something to say that he's welcome here."

Milton brought over the brown bag that had started the whole thing. When he'd gotten home from work, carrying the bag, Andrea had asked him what was in the bag. She'd assumed it might be something for the baby she was carrying. From there Milton had gone, somewhat roughly, into telling her that Andrew was alive and well and that he'd be returned to her soon.

Milton tried to hand the bag to Andrea, but it was Michonne that reached and took the bag. She rested it on the floor and using the one hand that she had free, she pulled out the item that was on top of the somewhat packed bag.

"It's a—train," Michonne said. "An engine."

"You connect the cars," Milton said. "Alice suggested that it would be customary to offer the boy a present. I enjoyed trains when I was young. It's a very nice train. All wood. Very well carved by hand."

Michonne passed the piece of the train she was holding to Andrea and tipped the bag to look inside it. Inside there were several more pieces to make the wooden train longer and more impressive.

"I'm sure he'll—he'll love it," Michonne said. "Thank you, Milton."

"I'm sure he'll grow into it," Andrea said. "But we don't have anything for him."

"Milton's already ordered a bed," Alice said. "They'll set up a room for him tomorrow. That little room that—well, that room that Michonne pretends she uses? We thought it could be a room for him. You can order whatever you'd like for it. He'll be good for you. He'll give you something to—keep you entertained."

"He'll need a crib," Andrea said. "Clothes. Diapers. He doesn't need much. He's not demanding. But—milk. I don't—I don't have milk anymore."

Alice frowned and looked at Michonne before she looked back to Andrea and shifted around, taking a more comfortable position on the floor in front of Andrea.

"Andrea—you remember Andrew as...a baby," Alice said. "But—he's not a baby anymore."

Michonne felt her own muscles tense up. She knew it. She knew it as well as she knew her own name that time had passed. It had passed for them so it had passed for Andrew. He wasn't a baby. He'd grown up without them.

But still it was difficult to know it, even when she did know it.

Andrea shook her head at Alice.

"No," Andrea said. "No...he's...no..."

Michonne rubbed her back. Andrea knew it too, but it didn't mean that it wasn't going to take her a few minutes to digest it when it was blaring reality.

"He's about four years old, Andrea," Alice said. "He's a sweet little boy. So handsome. You're going to—you'll be amazed at how big he is. And how—how smart."

Andrea covered her mouth with her hand and looked at Michonne wide-eyed. Michonne simply nodded at her.

"He would be about four, maybe," Michonne said. "We've been in captivity for a while."

"He was just a baby," Andrea said.

Alice nodded.

"He was," Alice said. "And—maybe you need to take these days to prepare yourself, right? Because—he's about four now. And—he's grown up with a family. You know? And I know that—shit—they're not his family, Andrea. They're not. And they never had any right to be his family and you never should've lost him. That wasn't fair. But they were his family to him. And he might...well, he might miss them. At least for a little bit."

Michonne's stomach twisted when she heard the words. Realization ran over her and it was almost painful.

"He doesn't know us," Michonne said. "He knows them."

Alice nodded her head.

"My baby doesn't know me," Andrea said, more to herself than any of them.

"He might," Alice said. "He might. We don't know. We don't know how much he'll remember or—what he'll recognize. He might recognize your voice or even your smell. But—you need to prepare yourself in case it takes him a little time to adjust. It's OK if it takes him a little time to adjust. It's OK if it takes you a little time to adjust. You've just got to hang in there, though, OK? Because..."

Alice broke off.

"Because what?" Michonne asked.

Alice immediately got the expression on her face of somebody who put their foot in their mouth and knew it. She looked like she instantly regretted it. She glanced over her shoulder at Milton.

"What is it, Alice?" Michonne asked. "You've got to be honest with us so we know what we're dealing with."

Alice sighed.

"If Andrea rejects Andrew, then we're going to have to report it," Alice said. "They'll remove Andrew if she doesn't want him. But he's already been introduced into the project files so he won't go back to his family. Basically, he's either with you or he's a warden of the project. He's a wild-born child. And—if Andrea rejects him, then it's proof she'll reject her child and...it means she stands a good chance of losing custody of this one and the next one."

Andrea started to protest, sitting forward, and Michonne caught her.

"She's just telling us what not to do," Michonne said. She looked at Alice. "And you don't have to worry about it. We'd never reject Andrew. Never. He's our son. Whether he's six months old or—sixty years old. He's our son. We'll figure it out. We'll work through it. But—I have to ask this. What do we do if he's not happy with us?"

"Melodye's going to work with you," Alice said. "As much as you want her to. He's young. He's going to adjust. It's just going to take everybody being, you know, patient with each other. Can you do that, Andrea?"

Andrea nodded her head.

"I don't want to lose him again, Alice," Andrea said. "I can't. If you bring him back? I can't—lose him again."

"I understand," Alice said. "We don't want that to happen."

"I can't lose her, either," Andrea said.

Alice shook her head.

"We don't want that either," Alice said. "So—how about you take a couple of days and Milton's going to lift your solitude rule, OK? Michonne gets to stay home from work with you for a couple of days until he gets here and then a couple of days once he's here, OK? You can't leave the house, but Michonne can stay with you. The two of you just focus on—getting ready for him?"

"We can do that," Michonne assured Alice, hugging Andrea to her. "We can do that. When he gets here? We'll be ready for him."

"Good," Alice said. "And—don't let her go to sleep for a little while? Just in case she hit her head a little harder than we think she did. I think she's OK, but just as a precaution."