Welcome to my notes chapter. I've pulled all the notes I've written throughout the story here so that the story flows better for those who read/reread it. There's a new bit of news at the bottom, so bear with me.

I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed. Your comments helped to shape this story as I posted it. I'd thought it was finished when I started posting it here, but there was still another rewrite to make, and another one to do once I get more skill.

I'll always listen to constructive criticism. The way I see it, if someone is gonna take the time to read and write a response to my story, I'm gonna take the time to respond. So, if any more reviews come in, I'll add to this chapter to reply to them.

NickNova's comments made me take a long look to a couple daydreams Matt had, one in Chapter 5 and another in Chapter 12. Those only make sense if you know me (Since Matt is based heavily on me. All the characters I create are... I'll work on that.) So, I dropped them. I also added to the mission in Chapter 15, putting in an Alucard battle. I'll admit, with Matt being my main character I didn't focus on Alucard that much. He got a couple battles, though.

the son of duress's comments will probably be resolved in a future rewrite, but here's my reply to what he said. Matt is very human, yes. His humanity is both a strength and a weakness. It's a weakness in that he wants... even needs to keep it. His strength is that he finds a way. (Those times he acts a little weird. That's just him being who he is.) In keeping his humanity, he remembers what he's fighting for. Why he hasn't given up.

His getting along well with Walter stems from two things. First, I'm trying to keep Walter in character. Walter always tried to help Seras as she adjusted to being a vampire, so it made sense he would help Matt. Second, Matt's been cut off from his entire support structure: his family and girlfriend. Walter and Seras became his new support structure since they essentially extended a hand to him.

As for saving the soldier, well... A smash to the head with the butt of the M-60 seemed like an interesting way to take out a ghoul, and that was the only excuse I could think of. As for the room of ghouls, it's a longer explanation. By this point, Matt's mostly adjusted to what he'd become. He's not really accepted it yet, though. What he needed to do right then was give his system a shock. He needed to tell himself that this was what he did now. This was his job. If he couldn't handle it, he had to figure that out really quickly so he could work on it. Hence the line he says to Seras, "I need me to do it."

So, I wasn't trying to make him a saint, just making him him. As for flawed characters... well... I'm still working on that idea. Most of my characters tend to have a lot in common with me, Matt included.

I'll be removing della's comment. The only reviews I ignore are those that don't tell me anything other then it's bad with no explaination.

I'd been expecting complaints about Chapter 15. I know that under normal circumstances Andersen would be more likely to attack Seras and Matt before saying word one to them, but for this plot I figured on using a 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' sort of thing. So, for this story, he'll work with them. More on this later.

My chapters in this story were rather short, I know, and moving the notes here makes them shorter still. I'd written the original story as one long 39,000 word thing separating it into sections rather then chapters. (It was written for me and a few others, family and friends.) When I posted it here, I had to divide it into chapters, and I used the original sections as a basis. So, this was the result. From now on, I'll try to plan my stories around chapters, or at least longer sections, to fix this. Nothing I can do for this story, though.

Visual description has never been my strong suit, I'll admit. I'm kinda surprised the character descriptions came out as well as they did, though I'm getting more practice at details and in a future rewrite I'll try to add some into this story. Might help the length problem too.

And there's a scene in Chapter 24 I lifted directly out of the series. I just had to. I like the scene too much. If nothing else, it'll remind you all of the original scene and get a smile, I hope.

Anyway, time for the new bit. I've decided to start working on a sequel to "A New Child." It'll be slow going, as school needs to take priority. Well... that and the fact that I really don't know what I'm doing yet. I've got a few ideas I'm messing with, isolated events here and there, including a nicely forming Matt/Andersen battle. I'm gonna try to make the chapters something like twice or three times as long as those in this one. I've got a chunk of the first chapter and another one for nearly 2/3rds in. It's already got more detailing in it then what I had here. Once I get the first chapter done, I'll post it here as a kind of experiment, see what you all think. Again, progress on that one will be a lot slower. I have an idea on what I want to do and a possible title, but I don't have everything worked out. So, I'll get to work on chapter one of the new fic, and we'll see where things go from there, all right?

Well, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed "A New Child". Feel free to review! I do reply!