AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

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Andrea quickly adopted very much of a "look but don't touch" motto with the baby. She begged and pleaded to be released from the hospital with so much desire that Alice had proclaimed that denying her that would probably prove to be bad for her health. Milton got her released and, on the evening of the baby's birth, the same ambulance that had removed Andrea from Woodbury returned her to her home. Several guards had insisted on meeting them outside—as though Andrea were going to stage some kind of hostile takeover in the distance between the street and the door to the house—but Willomen had ignored all of them. He'd walked through the crowd of guards and gathered Andrea and her offspring up in his arms as though Andrea had weighed no more than the tiny baby that she was holding. He'd carried her straight inside and put her safely into the bed that she'd begged not to leave before.

Samirah was keeping Andrew for the night in a house within the walls of Woodbury—a house that she'd requested for herself as long as she was submitting herself to becoming a part of the project—so that they could lessen some of the strain on Andrea. She needed rest, and she needed to focus on her newest arrival for the data that was constantly being collected about her actions and reactions.

Andrea didn't argue about Andrew spending the night with Samirah. He was fond of the woman and she seemed to care for him with as much affection as they could really ask of anyone who wasn't directly related to the boy. Willomen, too, would be responsible for checking in and making sure that all was well.

Samirah had called Andrea on the phone to congratulate her on her new arrival. Per Milton's instructions, Andrea said nothing about what had happened at the hospital. She'd been allowed to speak to Andrew—who had absolutely no interest in speaking to anyone at the moment because he'd been occupied with something he found far more fascinating—and then Samirah had given her solemn oath to both Andrea and Michonne that all was well with their son and he would be returned to them in the morning, just as soon as Alice said that they were ready for him to come home and Milton agreed.

The baby still had no name. Andrea wasn't ready to name her yet, and she wasn't really ready to share her with anyone. She allowed Michonne to peek at her, she allowed Alice to inspect her at intervals to insure that she was healthy, and she'd once allowed Milton to see her without touching her, but Andrea simply wasn't ready, at the moment, to do more than hold her child near to her, nurse her, and try her best to protect her from anyone who would dare to try to remove the baby from her mother's arms.

And, for the time being, they all agreed that the best thing to do was to let Andrea have a little time to simply mother her baby. Michonne felt as though Andrea was being driven by some strong instincts doused in a veritable sea of hormones, and she took nothing to heart. Nobody else seemed to take Andrea's need to be alone with her baby to heart either. On the contrary, they all gave her the space and the time that she needed. Alice was the only one that insisted on intruding upon Andrea's sanctuary, but that was only to keep checking to be sure that—so soon after the delivery—mother and baby were truly doing as well as they appeared to be doing.

When Alice was satisfied that Andrea was doing as well as could be expected, and that all she needed to feel like herself again was some time to be quiet and rest, she'd bid them goodnight with the instruction that they should call her if they needed anything.

She'd left Melodye there with Milton and Michonne—since Melodye wanted to stay and talk over a few things with Milton—and she'd headed home for the evening. Milton had ordered a few bottles of wine for everyone to choose from for the evening meal that he had delivered to them, and Michonne had taken Andrea her own celebratory plate of food and glass of wine.

Andrea, already feeling a little better, had offered Michonne a kiss and a chance to nuzzle the baby quickly, but she'd requested a little quiet and Michonne had assured her that she wasn't taking it to heart. She'd be back to share the bed later, but she didn't want to intrude too much and she refused to have her feelings hurt by Andrea's simple need to rest and nurture.

After Michonne sat down at the table to eat with Milton and Melodye, there was silence for a while. Finally she'd pressed both of them to speak to her.

"If I'm no longer important to the biological side of this experiment," Michonne said, "then I feel as though you should be open with me. I know too much already. If they're going to kill me, I at least want to go to my grave with some understanding."

"Our hope would be that nobody is getting killed," Milton said.

"I don't know what good I am alive," Michonne said. "Not if I can't contribute."

"You can contribute in other ways beyond procreation," Milton assured her. "But if it's understanding that you want—and if you've been unable to understand until now..." He broke off and helped himself to some of the meal that he'd ordered especially because it had been what he'd desired. The plate that had gone to Andrea had been her own special order. Melodye and Michonne had simply seconded Milton's order to simplify the workload that fell on the community chefs. Michonne didn't know if Milton was going to say anything else, but she knew that pressing him wouldn't get anything out of him. He spoke when he wanted to speak and he was quiet when he had no intention of sharing. He did finally speak again, though, once he was satisfied with a few bites of food.

"Kreegan's experiments and data were all recorded manually and by one man. Kreegan was the only one who created his experiments and collected data. He was the only one that analyzed the data, and he was the one who decided what the data meant. Everything in Kreegan's work was based solely on his opinion and perspective. It was presented to a public who, at the time, desperately needed something to believe. They needed answers. Kreegan gave them the answers that the vast majority of the public wanted at the time. He backed those would-be answers up with data that he collected from his self-created, self-run, and self-analyzed experiments, and he quickly made himself a scientific god for the new nation."

Milton paused again and returned to his food. Michonne glanced at Melodye, but the blonde wasn't giving away anything other than the fact that she was content to wait for Milton to continue. Michonne assumed it was his place to decide how much she could and couldn't know, and Melodye was being careful not to overstep any boundaries.

"Part of what I'm hoping," Milton said once he was ready to speak again and had washed down his food with some wine, "is that my experiments will be seen as more legitimate than Kreegan's and, therefore, that my findings will be more legitimate than Kreegan's, simply because I'm following correct scientific protocol. I'm recording things. I'm allowing others to be involved in data interpretation and collection. I'm collecting data from a number of sources. I know that you find the experience difficult, but it would be beneficial to the project if you would agree to record your reactions. You would, essentially, add another dimension to the information gathered. You would remain a part of the project, but you would take on another role within the project."

"I'm not sure that any of you would find my reactions flattering," Michonne said bluntly.

"I assure you," Melodye offered, "that we would be seeking only your truth—not to be flattered. This is about saving people. A lot of people. Our own lives included. If Wave Thirty Three fails, everyone who was involved with the project will be exterminated. Everyone."

"Why?" Michonne asked.

"Hasn't it always been simpler to remove mistakes from history if there were no witnesses left to prove that they happened?" Milton asked. There was no menace to his voice. On the contrary, he said it as matter-of-factly as he might have said that there were no bread rolls left. "I'm hardly promoting the practices that are taking place in our experiment as enjoyable. Practical, yes. Necessary, yes. Enjoyable, not at all."

"Why would the government or anyone else care about my opinion?" Michonne asked. "I'm a Wild. I'm nothing but a Wild to them. For everyone out there, it would be like asking for a testimony from a rabid rat or something equally ridiculous."

Both Milton and Melodye laughed at that remark, and Michonne found herself serving more wine from the open bottle to everyone at the table.

"You were once a lawyer," Milton said. "Someone very reliable."

"And now I'm a wild animal," Michonne said. "Tamed, you could say. But when they look at me? They see a Wild and that's it. I saw it on their faces at that hospital today."

"We're not arguing that the majority of society will see you as wild right now," Melodye said. "But we're working to restore the idea of humanity in those that were identified as Wild. We're collecting data from every possible tier of wildness or tameness as Kreegan identified them. We're trying to prove that Wilds were never wild to begin with. That's what Milton is attempting to prove. The best way for us to go about that is to prove that Kreegan's experiments were poorly conducted and his findings hold no water. We can do that by showing that experiments—run according to the expectations of our modern science labs—prove Kreegan's findings to be falsified. His experiments on Wild A are what he used as a basis for all of his findings. When we explore those experiments, we find that they were done completely unethically. Everything he found was based entirely on his own opinions and perspectives. And—even if his experiment had been legitimate, it was a case of one Wild. Everything was based on his findings with one Wild that we believe to have been influenced by other things beyond the simple physical and psychological torture to which she was subjected."

"And so you torture all of us to prove that anyone, under such torture, would behave as what Kreegan deemed to be the generalized behavior of a Wild."

"Among other things," Milton offered.

Melodye didn't say anything, but she said enough with the fact that she flicked her eyes away from Michonne and toward her plate when Michonne looked at her. Michonne sucked in a breath and nodded her head.

"So—even though I'm supposed to help you, I don't get to know everything. Is that the case? I'm still a Wild and I can't know everything."

"You're still part of the project," Melodye said. "Every one of us—we're somewhat limited to what we know and don't know. There are, essentially, holes in everyone's knowledge. That's part of what makes the project work. It's what makes our data reliable. Nobody knows enough to truly tamper with anything because there's always some knowledge missing from what you have. Listen—we're not stupid. We understand there's going to be some compromises that have to be made in the project. There have already been a ton of changes made from the original plans that were presented. We know that information is going to get leaked, sometimes, before we have the opportunity for a genuine and honest response to everything. The most we can hope is that everyone responds as close to their natural way as possible. We know, for instance, that Andrea's reaction to what happened today was the purest reaction that we're going to get to the children being taken after birth. We know that it won't take any time before the rest of the expectant mothers get some insider information on what's going to happen. They'll be anticipating it when they go in. They'll still suffer anxiety, and maybe even upset, but not the same way that Andrea did. We're anticipating that leakage to some degree. We realize that their responses won't be entirely genuine, but we're hoping they're still responses that we can use to prove the humanity of the citizens of Woodbury. It's Andrea's reaction that's the most important to our project since she is, in essence, our chosen Wild A. If we told you everything that was going to happen before it happened, then she'd be aware of what was going on and her reactions would be tainted. Her reactions are already compromised simply because we can't bear to recreate the project exactly as Kreegan performed it. If we did, she would be entirely isolated. She'd be locked in an observation cell that was barely large enough for her to lie down in. She would not have been given the opportunity to consent to the conception of her daughter, but that interaction would have been, essentially, the only interaction that she would have had with another human."

Michonne winced at her and Melodye nodded her head.

"Kreegan's original experiment—all of his experiments—were terrible. We couldn't recreate them exactly. We didn't feel we could hold onto our own humanity if we did. So Andrea's experience is already quite diluted. We have to protect certain aspects of her reactions so that we don't lose all credibility when we try to compare the experiment to what Kreegan did. We can't let you know everything about the project and risk—even more. If we do, then we'll have little more than speculation and weak data to present, and we can't win with that when we're presenting it to a public that believes what Kreegan presented to them as scientific findings about the differences between Wilds and Non-Wilds."

"I understand," Michonne said after a moment. She found the whole thing difficult to swallow, and it weighed heavy in her stomach with the food that she no longer wanted to eat. She tasted the wine and, finding it somewhat pleasing, she used it to wash down some of that which she was finding it difficult to swallow.

"You don't have to pretend you understand," Milton offered. "It isn't necessary that you understand. It isn't necessary that you like us or support us. We will still attempt to save your life."

Michonne nodded her head again.

"I understand that it's not necessary that I like you," Michonne said. "And I understand why it is that you can't tell us more about the project. And even though I'm—I'm angry—with this project, I realize that I would be much, much angrier with Kreegan's project. I suppose that—I understand that this is a case where the end justifies the means. I'll give you my testimony. My opinions. Whatever it is that you need from me. I'll help you in whatever way I can. Because I believe you. I believe that—whether we understand it or not, this is for our own good. And if we die—we all die together. I understand, then, that your lives are on the line for us. You have a proverbial dog in this race. So you have my cooperation. But..."

"But?" Melodye asked.

Milton looked at Michonne when Melodye asked the question as if to say that she was asking it for him. He tasted his wine and Michonne mirrored his action.

"Experiment or not, she's your biological daughter," Michonne said, speaking directly to Milton. "She could be more. One day the experiment comes to an end and, if we win this, there's a life waiting for all of us. You decide, today or tomorrow, how you want that life to look. Because whatever you do—here in the privacy of our home—whatever you do in the next few days regarding that baby? Andrea's going to remember it for the rest of her life. I know sometimes you look to me to tell you what to do. I can't tell you what to do, Milton. All I can tell you is—think carefully about how you want to proceed and whether or not you ever want a relationship with that little girl. Or with Andrea and I, for that matter, that extends beyond this house and this project. Because if I have anything to do with it—we will make it."