A/N Hello readers xD Thanks a ton for all the reviews. I sent out the responses. If I for some reason missed yours, PM me or leave another and I'll send my apologies with the response.

And now, what you've allllll been waiting for. 29/Kae/Experiment 29 is back. Not quite with a vengence, but back all the same.

Enjoy, happy reading!

-ellie

(This chap is meanwhile to the last one, at the last School.)

29 (she's baaaack

"Did you tell them?" I asked. My voice still sounded hollow. I guess after not really using it for about 16 years, to suddenly speak in full sentences often is kind of strenuous.

Since my return, the School was slightly more hospitable. By hospitable, I mean they didn't gleefully try to kill me every waking hour.

Hey, progress is progress.

The tests to get me to speak were over. The Whitecoats (thanks to Jeb) had been convinced that I had been experimented on so much that data from me was now useless.

Pretty much they observed me. I got to speak with Jeb a lot, and I answered his questions about the Flock.

I kept the "thing" between Iggy and I a secret. I still wasn't even close to healed about that, so why advertise it?

Still, Jeb was continuing where Iggy had left off in reversing most of my treatment. He still gave me the whole speech about how the School is not a terrible institution, blah blah blah, but I mostly tune him out when he begins that monologue.

I was sitting across from Jeb in a conference room. He told me the Flock was coming here. To finish the deed. I felt weirdly proud of them, especially the younger ones, when Jeb lovingly recounted the first two branches they demolished. Angel was becoming more powerful by the minute, and Nudge was becoming quite the fighter. Almost as good as Max, Jeb said.

As for Gazzy, well he had learned a lot. His bombs were now far more sophisticated, normally setting of multiple explosions per bomb.

Max and Fang were closer than ever, (I take some credit for that), with Max methodically destroying the final branches of the dark company that had haunted her and everything she loved.

And here I am. One year later. 17 years old and still just opening up to people. At least I have more emotions than a rock. Well, almost.

"About you?" Jeb asked. I nodded. "No, not yet." (A/N If this is confusing, go back to the very beginning of this chapter. That's what she's asking.)

"Good." I said with a sigh. "That means I can escape when they are breaking in." I said, speaking to myself more than him.

"Absolutely not." He said it so casually I barely registered he was saying I couldn't do something.

"What?" I hissed. Look, he may have helped me come out of my iron cage of emotionlessness (A/N I'M IN A GLASS CASE OF EMOTIONNNN!! Okay I'm done now xD...anyone seen Anchorman? good move. okay sorry for the interruption. back to the story.) but I still choose what I do, and when I do it. I owe Jeb nothing, considering he was the one who had dug me this hell-hole of emotionlessness.

"You will be here when they finish, and you will go to the President of the United States with them."

"Jeb, you don't understand—"

"I think I do. It's about Iggy, is it not?"

I sat in stunned silence. I had told nobody about that. How did he know?

"Max told me when I asked about you. She didn't know you were here, so she filled me in."

I remained stubbornly silent.

"Kae," Not this again.

"29!" I said venomously. I was not a person. He had seen to that.

"Kae." He said just as firmly. I waved it off. I'm sick of this argument.

"Kae," he continued, "You have no idea what he thinks of you."

"God damn it, yes I do! I can't see him again, Jeb! I won't be able to leave him. I love him too much. That's why I can't see him." Even to my ears it sounded weak, and unconvincing.

"That's not a bad thing, Kae!" He said gently.

I snorted. "Could've told me that before you spent 6 years teaching me that feeling anything at all was a weakness." He stiffened. I knew that would get him.

"As you very well know, I was unaware of you're training. I did not approve of it. I completely disagree with that to this day, hence why I am helping you reverse the effects." I said nothing. I saw no need to enlighten him that I didn't blame him. He continued, softer this time.

"Kae, you don't know what he is thinking. Perhaps he really does love you as much as you love him." He suggested.

"Never." I said. "I'm not a moron."

Jeb shook his head again.

"Max has told me what he's been doing. He's killing himself, Kae. He's withering away. Each day, it becomes harder to bear. He doesn't build bombs for fun anymore—only out of malice, and self-loathing. Max is afraid he will hurt himself, if he hasn't already. He's at the edge, Kae. You can bring him back. Only you can."

"But I can't." I said softly.

"Give him a chance." Jeb suggested. "Worse comes to worse—"

"Worse comes to worse he gets over this stupid infatuation and leaves me. He goes off and has a life. I live miserably for the rest of my life in a hellish depression, and lock myself in a high-walled pit of darkness. At least there, the lack of light would be some solace." I almost laughed. For the mute person I had been, I liked to think I had a way with words. "Actually, no. I would just kill myself. I couldn't physically deal with that, no matter how many enhancements you did to me."

"It's called heartbreak, Kae. I myself have felt it many times—"

I felt my anger bubble over.

"Over high-school sweethearts! That's disappointment, not heart break. You mend, you heal. Mine is different. My heart wouldn't be able to take a break. It's hard enough to accept love. To lose it would kill me!" I screamed.

He was unfazed by my yelling.

"Just give him a chance. That's all I'm asking."

"A chance will only end in his moving on and my slow demise." I said bitterly.

"Kae, love is never perfect. Never. Disney and all other industries distort love until it barely resembles the real thing again. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, any love-movie you've ever seen… they paint love as this beautiful thing. Which it is, but for entirely different reasons. When someone loves you and you love them back, you think you feel so complete. But only when you disagree, or fight, or in some cases break up, and you are apart do you feel how much they complete you. When you are with one another again, it makes it that much more perfect. Trust me, Kae. I may be an old man, but I know something about love. I know what its like to love and be loved, and I know what it's like to let it go." For a second, tears filled his eyes. When I took a closer look, they disappeared.

"Just a chance. If not for yourself, for Iggy's sake. For my sake." He pleaded.

I thought about his words. Without knowing why or even that I did so, I nodded.

A/N Review, or see you next Saturday.

If I get more than 4 reviews by the end of Sunday (haha--that'll make it 29 reviews for the story 29. Ha.), then I'll the next one.

Enjoy your week xD