AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"Just tell me why. If I'm no good to you anymore, and I'm no good to this project, you're probably just going to have me exterminated anyway. At the very least, I just want to know why," Michonne pleaded.
She couldn't stand to watch what was taking place, but she couldn't stand to look away, either.
Milton glanced at Michonne before he turned his attention back to watching Andrea.
"You won't be exterminated. Nobody will be," he said. "Unless, of course, the project fails. In that case, everyone involved will be exterminated. Clearly that's not what any of us want."
Michonne felt her muscles relax a little at Milton's tone of voice.
That was something that none of them wanted.
"Why does she have to be restrained?" Michonne asked.
"The restraints are for her safety," Milton said.
Michonne laughed to herself. Honestly, though she found nothing about the situation funny. It was simply that it was all so absurd—so absolutely terrible—that she felt as though there was nothing left for her to do but laugh.
She'd already shed more tears that she cared to count.
"Since when has anyone ever been tied up for their safety?" Michonne asked.
"Since physically lashing out could earn them a bullet to the brain," Milton said blankly.
"It happens a great deal when we're dealing with something that may impact someone emotionally and may cause them to act in a way that they would normally not act," Melodye said. "It protects other people from Andrea, but it also protects Andrea from herself. We must, sometimes, be cruel to be kind."
"What are you going to do to her?" Michonne asked.
Nobody answered her, but they didn't have to. She was capable of watching what was happening just the same as anyone else. The sound was muffled by the wall between them, but Michonne could hear enough. She really didn't want to hear everything. As she watched, their daughter was born. She took her first breaths in the arms of a stranger—a doctor that hadn't watched her grow and didn't know what she meant to her mother. She howled out and demonstrated to everyone that her lungs were strong and good. The child was swaddled and quickly taken from the room, despite her mother's almost inhumane screams that she be given to her. Her mother howled out, louder than the baby's cries had been, that her daughter should be brought back to her.
If they heard her, though, those attending Andrea acted as though they were deaf.
Michonne closed her eyes and physically plugged her ears against the sound of Andrea's desperate pleas for her child. Her chest felt like it was closing in on itself. She couldn't breathe and the small room filled with too many bodies suddenly felt unbearably claustrophobic.
"This is inhumane," Michonne protested, still refusing to open herself up to the reality of it all. "You're all animals. You think we're the beasts but this is inhumane."
"The whole thing is inhumane!" Alice barked out from somewhere close to Michonne. Michonne thought she could feel Alice touching her, but it felt distant.
She wanted it to feel distant. She wanted to be as far away from where she was as was absolutely possible. She didn't want to be there any longer. She didn't want to wonder what they would do with the baby that she'd felt moving in Andrea's belly for months—the baby that had kicked her in the back through numerous nights when Andrea pressed herself against her. She didn't want to catch snatches of Andrea crying out in blood-curdling agony for them to return her child.
She wanted to leave in the most complete way possible.
"Please...please..." she heard herself begging, not even really realizing she was forming the words. "Please...it's inhumane."
"That's precisely it," Milton said. "It's inhumane because Kreegan decided that those who were wild were not human and, therefore, they never needed to be treated as such."
Michonne heard Milton's voice piercing through the fog that she was trying to create for herself. She kept her ears plugged against Andrea's screams, but she opened herself back up to the reality of the small room enough to address him.
"How does this change that?" Michonne asked. "How does this change any of that? Where are they taking her? Where are they taking the baby?"
"The child will be fine," Milton said. "She is simply being taken to a nursery where she will be evaluated, cleaned, and dressed. She will be returned to Andrea as soon as Andrea's evaluation is complete and we've gathered the necessary data for the project."
"How long will that take?" Michonne asked. "How much suffering is enough suffering to quantify whatever the hell you've got to quantify?"
Whatever data they were gathering seemed cruel to Michonne. In the sterile room, howling and chained to a bed, Andrea had been left alone. She was naked and abandoned, moments after the delivery of her child, without anyone to answer her questions or offer her comfort.
She was being treated as though she didn't matter at all. She was discarded—simply an empty container that had been used to bring a baby into the world. She hadn't even been cared for after the delivery. They'd taken the child and they'd abandoned the mother, chained up like a dog.
Andrea thrashed against her restraints. She screamed, cried, and begged, but nobody heard her—at least nobody that she could see. She didn't know where they were taking her baby. She didn't know if they ever planned to return the child. She had every reason to believe that she would never see her again.
Michonne wasn't sure how long they watched the spectacle, but it felt like hours. It was probably only moments, but they were very difficult moments for Michonne to survive. She couldn't even imagine how long they probably felt to Andrea.
"It has to stop!" Alice finally screamed. "It has to stop! That baby needs to bond with Andrea. It needs to start learning how to nurse. Andrea needs to bond with her child. I'm not even a psychiatrist and I know that it's already going to be difficult for her because of past trauma and now...now this? She's not going to trust anything. She's not going to trust anyone. She's going to be suspicious. She might not even respond well to her own child at this point."
"Andrea won't reject her child," Melodye said. "She didn't reject Andrew and she won't' reject this baby."
"She is bleeding," Alice said. "I'm already going to be fighting against infection. And you've said yourself that you want to put her through this torture again. That's her lot in this whole damned thing. Well it's not going to happen if something causes a massive infection and we're forced to take drastic measures. She needs care and she needs it now."
"We have enough, Milton," Melodye said. "I think we can prove that her reaction is extreme. I think we can easily argue that, were it not for the restraints, she might prove to be violent. As it is, she can really only injure herself."
"And from the looks of it, she has," Alice said. "Jesus—has she dislocated her fucking shoulder?"
"You can't tell them she's violent!" Michonne protested even over Alice's words. "You'll have her killed if you tell them that! She'll lose the baby! They'll take her away! They'll take Andrew away! They'll kill Andrea!"
"We won't have her killed," Melodye assured her quickly. "Quite the contrary. That's one thing that Milton meant when he said that the restraints were for Andrea's own good. We need to be able to prove that she was capable of violence in this given situation—a situation that closely mirrors the experience of Wild A. But the restraints have kept her from actually acting in a way that would put her at risk. The restraints keep her from acting out what her instincts are telling her to do. We have to prove that the violent instinct is in every mother—not just the wild ones."
"And how will you do that if we're the only people you're torturing?" Michonne asked.
"Samirah doesn't know everything about the project," Melodye said. "She understands the basics, but she's been kept voluntarily blind to the details. She's agreed to carry a child to term for the project. Milton's child. A non-wild match to Wild A."
"Scientifically we'd benefit from more non-wild specimens," Milton filled in, "but the non-Wilds don't procreate. Samirah is the first to do so since the turn."
"Why?" Michonne asked.
She could tell the exact moment when she'd gotten all the answers that they intended to give her.
"Let's go," Milton said. "You and Alice will be escorted to the birthing room. The baby will be brought in soon."
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Alice had refused Andrea the baby just long enough to treat her. The baby had been something like a promised prize—at the end of all the suffering, there was something worth it.
Andrea's restraints had been returned when they'd brought the baby in, but she made no move to lunge at anyone. One of her arms was bound and the other she needed for holding her baby—not for attacking the person who brought it.
"Help me, Mich," Andrea requested hoarsely as the baby was eased into her arm and they were left alone for a little while. "Oh—oh help..."
Michonne quickly went over to see what Andrea—now temporarily reduced to using only one arm—might need help with. She needed help getting the baby adjusted. She needed help with the baby. She needed something, though she hadn't exactly voiced what it was that she needed.
It was the first time that Michonne had seen a hint of the animalistic nature that they were all accused of having. Andrea was seized by the animal need to see her young—to experience her in every way possible.
Without giving voice to her need, Michonne understood it. Keeping the baby close enough to Andrea to touch her, Michonne raised her up and offered her face to Andrea. Andrea nuzzled her.
Michonne unwrapped her, declared her beautiful and perfect, and bared her tiny fingers and then her tiny toes for Andrea's inspection before she put socks back on tiny feet and bundled the baby back in the blanket that someone had chosen for her in the nursery. Michonne helped Andrea get her back in the crook of her arm and then she helped her guide the newborn to her breast.
It was only then that Andrea leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and breathed out a sigh of something that sounded like choked relief.
"She's OK," Andrea said.
Michonne touched Andrea's face, her own need to be sure that Andrea was OK kicking in, and then she kissed her forehead.
"She's perfect," Michonne assured her.
"We have to go," Andrea said. "You have to tell them to let us leave. Before they come back for her."
"They won't take her again," Michonne said. "They promised. She's not going anywhere until we leave. And then she's coming with us. You just have to rest and get your strength up and we can go home."
"I want to go now," Andrea said. "I can rest at home. I can get—I can get as strong as they want me to there. I need to go home, Mich. I need to see her at home."
Michonne nodded her understanding.
"She's going home with us," Michonne said, completely confident in her words for once. She'd asked for the solemn oath of both Melodye and Milton. And neither of them had so much as seemed nervous when they'd given it. She only hoped her confidence could be transferred to Andrea during a time when she most assuredly needed it. "She's going home with us. You just have to rest and let her feed. OK? Let her rest and bond with you a little while, and then she's going home."
"What about Milton?" Andrea asked. "Does he care, Michonne? Has he seen her?"
"I don't know if he's seen her," Michonne said. "But he cares. In his own way. You know Milton. I'm sure he'll see her when we're at home. When he can—when he has time to know her a little better."
"I'm ready to go home," Andrea insisted. "I'm ready to get to know her there. I can't rest here, Mich. Alice can stay in the house if she has to. If that's what it takes. But I want to go home."
Michonne nodded at her.
"I'll see what I can do," she said, already certain that there was very little that she could do. They had no power. Andrea knew that, but not at this moment. "Does she have a name yet?"
Andrea frowned and shook her head.
"I was so afraid," she said. She didn't have to finish. Michonne understood. She gave Andrea the best reassuring smile that she could. She wasn't the only mother-to-be, Michonne was sure, that had refused to come up with a name for her child out of fear that something would happen to take that child away.
"It's OK," Michonne assured her. "We'll come up with a name. I'll ask about Milton. I'll see when we can go home. You just hold her. Nurse her. I'll see what I can find out."
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AN: So, just as a note, I'm taking name possibilities for this little one and for twins.
