DISCLAIMER: Not mine. No money made. Maca, Esther and (to my great disappointment also Cruz), along with the entirety of Hospital Central, belong to Telecino. All I own is my brain and a very vivid imagination. I only lay claim to the journey I'm sending the characters on.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: After taking refuge in the Hospital Central fandom almost a year ago, I am delighted to see the growing interest for Maca and Esther in the international community, where Ralst's call for submissions finally convinced me to post this story here as well. It is originally being written in single chapters on the Spanish Maca y Esther board at miarroba (Ralst has kindly added the link to the HC link section, and if any of you speaks Spanish, I'd advise you to run and don't walk over there and take a look at the fan fic section) and is as of yet unfinished.
TIMEFRAME: uh… let's call it al Alternative AU, which is like an Über, but not quite. The Spanish folks on miarroba write nearly exclusively in this form.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.

By Nordica aka Nique Bartok

41

The noise sounded terribly close by, tearing through Esther and making her ears ring. Reflexively, she moved her free arm over her own body, hastily reassuring herself that she wasn't hit.

The soldier pressed them both against the next wall and past his shoulder, Esther could see Maca and Begoña who were trying to duck out of sight – Begoña had dropped to a crouch immediately, using the next hut corner for meager protection and Esther saw across the distance that a line of holes had appeared in the loam wall where she had been standing.

For one wild moment, Esther hoped that if one of them had to be hit, it would be Begoña and not Maca, anyone but Maca – and Maca was still standing and Esther wanted to shout that she should duck out of sight faster, and even though it couldn't have been more than a second, she breathed in relief when Maca started to move – until she realized that Maca wasn't moving, but toppling backwards against the wall.

Maca was still looking at her, and she seemed more puzzled than shocked, as if she couldn't believe this was happening.

Esther could only watch helplessly as Maca slowly slid down the wall to her knees, as if her legs had stopped functioning, until Begoña reached up and pulled Maca flat down next to her, into the shadow of the next hut.

On the wall, a streak of red was left behind, glistening brightly in the sun.

And Esther realized that up until this moment, she had not known what fear was. Anything she had ever felt before was nullified faced with this terror that raged through her like a wounded animal, blinded and deadly, tearing her whole being open with fright and invading every part of who she was.

"Maca, nooooo!" Esther screamed in a voice that she didn't recognize as her own, wild with panic and frightening even to herself. "Maca!!"

Even the soldier who escorted her seemed shocked by her reaction and his hold on her slackened as Esther moved to hurry across the courtyard, at first not realizing why she didn't move forward until she realized that the soldier held her back.

"Are you crazy? Do you want to get shot as well?" He yelled at her angrily, but even though he spoke, the meaning of his words didn't translate to Esther. She was in a state beyond words, screaming and clawing at the body that help her captive, tears of rage springing to her eyes as she realized that instead if advancing, she was pulled farther away from where Maca was.

Across the distance, Esther could see Begoña's blonde head, bent over a figure on the ground, and all she could think was that this was wrong, that this was her place, with Maca.

And Esther swore she would get there – her place was with Maca, no matter what, whether things were good or bad. She had promised her. Not in so many words, but with all of her heart. And so Esther tried to yank her arm free, her body trembling with exhaustion and wild adrenaline, but the soldier who held onto her simply used both of his arms and lifted her up so that her feet were uselessly kicking against thin air.

He dragged her over to one of the trucks, always mindful of the firing line and cursing his struggling charge under his breath, sweat breaking out over his skin. It seemed like hours, even though it couldn't have been more that a minute until he lifted her onto the truck platform and kept both arms locked around her as Esther kept trying to break free, her gestures now imprecise with weakness, but she didn't stop fighting.

Barely, Esther noticed an unconscious Maria being lifted into the truck next to her, and there was Vilches, pale with ire and fear. "I'm not leaving without my team – and by that I mean every single one of them!!" he yelled at someone who had to be the leader of the military operation, but Esther had no time for lengthy discussions.

Letting herself sink down a little into the soldier's hold, she buried her teeth in his hand. She heard him yell in surprise and hurt, and then the hold around her was gone and she stumbled forward, toward the edge of the platform, always closer to the courtyard, and to Maca…

Next to her, suddenly a loud boom resounded and Esther saw Vilches being thrown backwards, screaming in pain. The soldiers around them toppled over like figures on a chess board, some uprighting themselves again, some remaining where they had fallen.

Esther hardly noted that she was thrown backwards herself, connecting harshly with the side wall of the truck. She blinked at something wet that was running into her eye, and unerringly moved forward again, not caring that she had to crawl on all fours. She only knew she needed to get to where Maca was and she ignored the strain she put on her body as she slid off the platform of the truck and onto the ground again that was hot and dry against her knees and palms. Shards cut into the underside of her forearms, but she didn't even notice it.

She knew she wouldn't be able to stand and walk if she tried, but she would move any way she could. Anything as long as she kept moving forward. Like this, perhaps she was out of the firing line, although she was past the point of caring whether anyone shot her, as well. All that counted was getting to where Maca was, and that one desire dimmed out everything around her, making her crawl onwards with reserves of energy she shouldn't have possessed after the ordeal of her illness.

She was spurred on by the thought that when she reached Maca, it would all turn out to have been a terrible error, just a small graze shot, and Maca would be all right, and she would smile at her, and then they would go away from here, together.

Because Maca couldn't be hurt. It just couldn't be, because a world without Maca was unimaginable.

A shadow fell over her and hands grabbed her from behind, lifting her up from the ground, and she struggled against the hold, trying to kick out blindly and damning her own weakened state. Vaguely, she heard cursing and yelling, but nothing could reach her, not when there was only room for one thought: Maca. She didn't understand why they didn't let her go. Didn't they realize that she had no place to be other than with Maca?

Then there was a dull thud against the back of her head, and a sharp pain rang outward from it like a gong, making spots of orange and violet appear at the edges of her vision, and blackness swept up from underneath.

Esther tumbled, fighting against the nausea and the heaviness in her limbs even as her own legs gave way under her. She needed to stay awake, she reminded herself frantically. She needed to get through to Maca.

Maca…

It was Esther's last thought as she spiraled forward into the abyss.

42

A double rip tore through Maca's body, sending pain flaring out from her side and she tumbled backwards against the wall of the hut, trying to breathe through the searing hurt.

She looked across the courtyard, at Esther who seemed so frightened, and she was angry at that soldier for touching her. More green figures were scurrying along the outer edges of her vision, but Maca had only eyes for Esther, thinking that she was indeed the most precious woman she had ever seen. She wasn't quite sure how she had gotten so lucky to gain her love and Maca thought that there could scarcely be anyone who was happier than she was herself.

The wall of the hut felt cool against her back, and Maca wondered why she felt tired, until she remembered that there had been shots. In that instant, Begoña hastily pulled her down and she tumbled gracelessly to the ground, a new jolt of pain shooting up from her side.

She found Begoña looking at her with worry, but lying down like this, it didn't hurt that much anymore. Now the only thing that counted was getting all of them out of here.

"Begoña…" Maca's fingers were digging into the other woman's forearm as she tried to raise her head from where she had fallen. "It's just a small wound," she ground out, her breathing shallow. "Nothing more than a graze… You should run! And Esther…" She gripped Begoña's arm more tightly. "Get Esther out of here… promise me that…"

Begoña nodded, unable to do anything else faced with the expression on Maca's features. "I will," she promised.

"I'll get onto one of the other transporters," Maca said hastily. "Just give me a minute until this calms down… And if we get split up… Tell her… tell her to wait for me in Mbuji-Mayi… I will meet you there…" More shots rang out around them. "Go!" Maca yelled at Begoña. "I'll be fine!"

Begoña stumbled away and Maca watched her dodge out of sight past the next hut. More people were streaming into the clinic area, but lying there, watching the green shadows rushing past, Maca noted the screams and the gunfire as if it didn't really concern her. The thick acrid smell of fire increased and Maca observed how the air above the earth was trembling.

Across the distance, through the air that was quivering with heat from the fires, Maca could see Esther being lifted into a military truck, and she breathed in relief. She thought she should get up now, see if she could help anyone, but her legs didn't really move. Puzzled, she looked down her own body, not quite understanding why her hand was covered in something warm and red. With detached curiosity, she took note of the odd, dark red spot that was soaking her doctor's coat, expanding along her side.

I got shot, she thought dizzily, and even though she could smell the smoke of fire close by, she felt strangely cold. "Shock due to blood loss," she murmured, her medical knowledge kicking in. Thinking was so hard right now, as if she had to carry her own thoughts through muddy water that reached up to her hips. "This is not good…" Tendrils of black were clouding the edges of her vision and the noises around her sounded from farther away. Maca was thankful for the momentary quiet, and she thought of Esther, and the way she always smiled at her when they woke in the mornings. She wanted to curl her arms around her now, just holding her and pressing a kiss to her neck, and then everything would be good and peaceful.

But Esther wasn't here right now… She wasn't with her…

And just when Maca was beginning to feel really scared, struggling against the heavy dizziness in her mind, the blackness closed in around her from all sides.

43

Her head felt woozy when she opened her eyes to stare at a foreign ceiling. This weren't her quarters, or the brushwood ceiling of a patient hut. These were cold, even walls, painted in white.

The light was harsh, making her head pound. Esther needed a moment until she realized what was wrong with the light – it wasn't the glow of oil lamps, but the stark whiteness of electrical light.

She blinked in disorientation. "Where…?"

"We're in the military hospital in Mbuji-Mayi," a voice to her left stated and Esther turned her head to see an ashen-faced Begoña, tiredly sitting on a chair against the wall. She had a taped cut across her forehead and was cradling her right arm in a sling. "We'll be flown out to Kinshasa in about an hour," Begoña added mechanically. "And from there back to Spain. They burned the clinic." Her eyes were empty with shock. "There is nothing left."

Esther sat up in the small bed, the room around her seeming to shift and move. Her head hammered as if it was about to explode. "Where are the others?" she asked, rubbing a hand across her forehead and encountering a line of band-aids or stitches above her right eye. She winced. Her head hurt, and she felt so incredibly tired. When she combed a hand through her hair she hissed in pain when she came across what had to be a large bruise at the back of her head. She had no idea how she had gotten it.

"Vilches is out there, trying to get a call through to Cruz," Begoña stated absently. She shook her head, looking down at her unbandaged hand. "Maria and Pablo are dead. They shot Pablo right there… I guess they were afraid of him because he is so tall. He wasn't even armed, he was just trying to get the patients out of the huts…" She shrugged helplessly. "We lost Maria on the trip here," she said, her expression hardening. "We drove for twelve hours straight, and they didn't even have a doctor with their convoy! She hung in there for about eight hours, but there was no equipment… You were out… Vilches can't see… and I can't move my fucking arm. And I have no idea where Karim is, it all happened so fast…" She nodded towards the window. "We aren't even allowed to fly out the bodies," she stated bitterly. "Risks of an epidemic."

And Esther knew that there was something else she should be aware of, something that lingered on the edges of her mind like a deadly reef underneath the rippled surface of the sea. "…Maca." She remembered noises and shots and the smell of fire. "Where is Maca?" She was surprised not to find her by her side, and she turned to look at the door, expecting Maca to enter at any moment.

Begoña stared at her oddly for a moment before she shook her head. "No," she then said tonelessly, her face gray. "Don't you remember? She was shot."

Esther whirled around to look at Begoña, nausea rising up her body at the quick movement. "…shot?" she echoed uncomprehendingly.

"I saw her fall, Esther…" Begoña sadly shook her head. "She was dead right away. Not a chance."

Esther stared at Begoña for another moment, trying not to believe what she was hearing, but then the images came back.

Looking at Maca across the distance of the courtyard, and then the jarring noise of shots. The relief when Maca remained standing, and the utter horror when she tumbled against the wall behind her and slid to her knees. The puzzled look in Maca's eyes. And trying to get through Maca, struggling to get through her and being hindered by iron arms, no matter how hard she tried.

She remembered breaking free, trying to get through to Maca. Esther absently stroked her hands over her forearms and felt bandages up to her elbows where she had crawled through shards and shrapnel.

But it all had been in vain. She had not reached Maca. She was here, on her own, and Maca…

"Maca… no…" Esther whimpered like a child. "Not Maca… not Maca…"

She could almost feel Maca's hand against her skin, gently brushing the hair away from her forehead, and in her mind, she could hear Maca's voice –

…I swear… You and I… we will be sitting in our apartment at age eighty and dunk cookies in our morning coffee and bitch about the stairs being too steep, and about the children not dropping by more often…

Maca had promised her. She had promised her. She couldn't be gone.

From far away, she heard Begoña's voice. "I'm sorry. I know you loved her."

Begoña looked down at her feet. "So did I," she added in a whisper, but Esther didn't hear it. She stumbled out of the bed towards the square of light of the window, unable to breathe. But how could she be expected to breathe when all the color had just been sucked out of her world?

Underneath the window, there was a military courtyard, transporters in camouflage colors on a sandy square, and in the open hatch of one of them, she could see something stashed underneath a canvas cover.

A jumble of legs showing from underneath the canvas covers… the too sweet smell, and the flies… Pablo's body thrown across the courtyard… not Pablo… Maca… blood soaking her white doctor's coat, and more blood glistening on the wall she had been leaning against… Maca's eyes, her radiant eyes, dull and motionless… unblinking…

Like through a fog, she heard Maca calling out to her.

"You won't die on me here… God, promise me that you won't leave me…"

And Maca wouldn't leave her. She wouldn't.

"Because we need you… I need you."

"Maca… Maca…" Esther's voice wasn't human, the sound more a wail than anything, like an animal that knew it was dying. "Maca…"

She choked on her own breath, a violent cramp tearing through her body and clear liquid broke from her lips and her nose. She swayed precariously for a moment, her eyes unseeing, and then she collapsed, coiling into itself as she fell.

For a long moment, Begoña looked down at the awkwardly curled body of her colleague with a detached expression. Only then did she alert the nurse on duty.

44

Hurt. Hurt and heat, clinging to her body like flies to a corpse. Her side burned, and the air was so thick that it felt like inhaling water.

She was so thirsty…

Lifting her eyelids cost supreme effort and she could barely make out shadows around her, silhouettes that were moving, and, far above her, far away, there was a roof of weltering green. The air around her smelled of earth, heat and dampness, of foreign herbs and wild flowers. Alien cries sounded in the distance, birds perhaps, or monkeys.

Under her fingers, she felt brushwood; she seemed to be resting on a pallet of sorts. She tried to turn her head to figure out where she was, but found that she was too weak to accomplish even that tiny gesture.

Her tongue lay thick and parched in her mouth as she tried to swallow, the small movement sending screaming pain up from her side, shortening her breath and making her stare in a daze at the softly surging green high above her.

The things around her seemed to hiss and whisper, even though she did not know what they were. Were there voices? Steps?

Maca drifted back into unconsciousness before she could make anything out.

When she came to again, somebody was pressing a sponge to her lips, and the heavenly feeling of water drowned out any other thought for a minute as she tried to swallow despite the burn that shot up from her side at every minuscule movement.

There were hands on her forehead, stroking the hair away from her face.

"Esther…"

She wanted to reach up, but she was too weak, her own hand not obeying her command. And the fingers on her face were the wrong ones, they did not belong to Esther. Esther's hands, she would know by the slightest touch.

She blinked, trying to see who was with her, perhaps it was Vilches, or Pablo, but she could only make out three dark shadows over her. Instinctively, she tried to press back into the pallet she was resting on, as if she could have escaped, but her body was far beyond the capability of moving.

There were voices, but she couldn't make out the words.

Maca tried to remember what had happened, noticing the hands on her body through a haze.

And she remembered, the image jumbled at first. – Esther's fever had been down, and then she had gone to see what the noise outside was, just leaving for a minute. She had stumbled into the Shaba rebels attacking the government military trucks that had come to evacuate them, and from then on, everything had been chaos – screams, and bodies and panic. She had helped a few patients out of their huts, trying to rush back to Esther when the first rounds of shots had rung across the courtyard. Then there had been Esther, led by a soldier, still weak from the malaria, and she had wanted to rush over to her, but Begoña had held her back and then there had been more shots… and she had fallen, and nothing had mattered anymore, and Esther…

…where was Esther?

Maca tried to speak and the murmuring voices around her became soothing, trying to keep her from talking.

"Esther…" she struggled to make herself understood, trying to raise her head and then falling back limply as the sharp ache that tore up from her side made her vision go white.

Once again, Maca succumbed to unconsciousness.

45

The plane jolted when it passed through another air turbulence and Vilches bit his lip to keep from yelling out in hurt when his thickly bandaged, burnt hand was pushed against the seat with the movement.

He didn't want to rouse Esther who was sleeping fitfully in the seat next to him, the fevers having returned with a vengeance. Vilches assumed that most of it was the shock. He had seen nearly healed patients having relapses upon learning of the loss of loved ones, relapses that couldn't be explained medically.

And Vilches thought he'd be damned if he lost Esther as well. Forlornly, he stared at the small square of the window, out into the spotless blue of the sky, knowing that somewhere deep down, they were leaving Africa behind. He still wasn't used to his vision being this two-dimensional, blinking underneath the gauze that covered his wounded eye in reflex and biting his lip again when he remembered that, yes, that hurt.

This was not how he had envisioned to come home. He had imagined them, all of them, sitting together on a regular plane, happy and with gifts stashed under their seats, not cramped into this military plane all somber and helpless.

Begoña, who was sitting pale and silent behind him now, would perhaps even have talked Malik into coming along, and Maca and Esther would be holding hands between their seats, and he and Maria would tease them about it. That was how he had pictured it.

He had imagined this so often, the plane touching down, stepping out of the hall into the reception area, and there she would be – there would be Cruz, with little Maria in her arms, and it would be the first time he would get to hold his daughter…

Cruz had cried terribly when he had called her earlier – or had that been yesterday? – even though he had assured her over and over that he was all right, but it had only made her cry harder.

He was all right, he reasoned. There was just that bit of a burn on his hand and that stupid scratch of shrapnel in his eye, but that was nothing. Cruz would probably hit him over the head first thing when she saw him, angry for not telling her right away, or at least he hoped she would do that because he didn't think he could see her cry any more without falling apart completely himself.

And even though he was coming back with only half the team, he was still the boss and this was his responsibility and he would do his damnedest to get at least Begoña and Esther home safely. For everything else, there would be time much later, when it would be only him and Cruz, and when he wouldn't have to pretend anything anymore.

For the thousandth time, Vilches asked himself whether he could have done anything to prevent the outcome of events. He should have fired the signal pistols sooner. He should have made all of them leave as soon as the malaria became an epidemic. He should have pulled Pablo and Maca onto the transporters by their hair before they could run off helping their patients. He should never have brought them down here in the first place.

He felt useless. Not only had he lost half of his crew, he had also not been able to get through to Mbele and Malik during their few hours in Mbuji-Mayi. Word was that they were still in quarantine, but Vilches knew how the government administration worked and had alerted their own headquarters, afraid for their safety. And there had been nothing else that he could do.

He had not even seen Karim anymore. Pablo, he had watched drop on the courtyard with his own eyes, staring in helpless rage at the thin, youngish shots across the distance, not even half Pablo's age, with their eyes just as scared as his own.

Esther, even though terribly weakened from the malaria, had been screaming for Maca when they lifted her into the truck, trying to break free and then he had lost track of her when the first grenade explosion rocked the truck. The approaching Begoña had been smashed into the tires, breaking her arm, and she had stammered something about Maca being out behind the patient huts, with a gunshot wound, but alive, and then a second grenade blast had hit the huts, the brushwood roofs catching fire and both he and Begoña had watched in horror as the exact spot where Maca had to be was consumed by flames.

Vilches had been trying to blink past the blurriness of his vision, blindly ordering one of the soldiers who remained standing to get Maca – they had bullet-proof vests, for God's sake, Maca only had a doctor's coat – but the two military details who stumbled back breathlessly a minute later reported that there had been nothing but fire, fire and body parts.

He had tried to call for Karim, but had to assume that he had been in that same blast that had also killed Maca, if she hadn't bled out from her gunshot wound beforehand. A terrified Begoña had stammered something about a shot to the stomach, and that it hadn't looked good.

They had hightailed it out of there, and when Vilches protested about leaving Pablo's body behind, the clinic – their clinic – was already nothing but a pile of dark smoke growing smaller in the distance even though the screams and the smoke followed them across the planes for a long time. Vilches knew he would never be able to forget them.

He couldn't even bring the bodies back to the families. With Maria, he would try, fighting the superstitious authorities to get at least her ashes to be flown out. Maria only had her father and a sister left; he didn't know how he was supposed to look them in the eye, telling them that Maria had died under his command only because there hadn't been a doctor with the convoy, and because none of their colleagues had been able to help, all of them dead or wounded or unconscious. It was fucking pathetic.

Vilches hoped that Pablo's body had been consumed by the flames as well in the end, that he wasn't lying in the planes, left for the vultures. And Maca… Vilches shook his head, once more looking at Esther who was moving aimlessly in her feverish sleep. There probably wasn't even a body left, not after that explosion.

Vilches felt sick to the stomach. Cruz had cried inconsolably when he told her that Maca hadn't made it, and he didn't really want to imagine what the loss of Maca would do to Esther. As weak as she was, he wasn't sure whether she would make it at all anyway, and for one horrible moment, he wondered whether that might perhaps be for the better because once Esther fully realized that Maca was gone, Vilches believed she might just die from the sheer impact of that knowledge.

Then, of course, he told himself that it was their duty to save people, and that enough lives had been lost, and that Maca would kill him if he didn't make sure Esther was all right. But looking at Esther now, reaching blindly for something in her haze, he wasn't sure whether Esther would even want to be all right.

Sure, Esther was a positive person who had managed to smile even on some of their most dire days in Kasaï-Oriental. Vilches had always seen her as smart and confident, refusing to give up on anything. But Vilches had also seen how deeply Esther loved Maca, to a point where even in his mind's eye, he couldn't imagine one without the other, so used was he to the image of the two of them holding hands underneath the dinner table or giving each other a quick kiss when they thought nobody was looking. And sometimes, they didn't care who saw them and kissed anyway.

He remembered the jarring scrape of the door each and every night, until they had finally made it official, and the breathless voices next door that had made him pull the pillow over his ear and miss Cruz even more.

But even though he had been on the verge of going crazy without Cruz at times, the knowledge that she and little Maria were safe and awaited him in Madrid made up for all of those endless hours where he had stared into the dark, hearing her voice in his mind, imagining her hand curled around his neck.

He didn't know what he would do if Cruz had been stubborn enough to stay and have the child in the Congo, and if something had happened to either of them.

Vilches looked at Esther again with worry, observing how the dark ebony of the leopard pendant Maca had given her stood at stark contrast to the near translucent paleness of her skin.

Just then, another air turbulence jolted Esther out of her uneasy rest.

"Maca…" She woke with a start, blinking at the small, rounded square of blue next to her in disorientation before she looked around expectantly, her feverish eyes trailing past Vilches and Begoña over the sparse decoration of the military plane.

"Where is Maca?" Esther blindly reached for Vilches' unbandaged arm, her touch weak, but with an edge of panic. "Maca… when will she come?"

Vilches cast a helpless, ashen look at Begoña over Esther's head, finding her glancing back at him just as helplessly.

"Soon, Esther…" He replied soothingly, stroking across her forehead. He noted how her fingers were even to weak to sink into his forearm. "Soon," he repeated.

He grasped the fingers that still rested upon his arm with his unhurt hand and gently held onto them until Esther fell back into a more relaxed sleep, and all the time he was thinking that it should be Maca who was doing this.

He sighed heavily, thinking that this might be the last bit of relaxed rest Esther would be getting for a very long time to come.

46

When Maca opened her eyes this time, her head was clear. The ache in her side had become a dull, constant throbbing, but the dizzying tendrils of pain that had been reaching throughout her body, clouding her mind, were gone. The heat seemed to have receded as well.

Maca had no idea how much time had passed since she had last been awake. She remembered drifting in and out of consciousness, the only sensations fever and pain. She vaguely recalled shadows moving over her, probing hands on her body, more pain and more heat. Had she imagined it, or had there been someone stroking the hair away from her forehead?

She had seen Esther's face, she thought, and the face of a dark-skinned woman she didn't know, but she couldn't see anyone now.

Listening into her own body, past the ache in her side, Maca found that she was feeling weak. And hungry. She was hungry. She blinked, realizing that the green high above her was a mass of treetops, filtering the day light and making it fall onto the ground with soft patterns. Around her were the sounds of moving trees and the birds that were apparently residing in them, a rolling cacophony of rustling and chirping, interrupted by the occasional cry of animals she didn't know.

Maca carefully turned her head, finding that she was in a clearing of sorts, huts nestled in between high trees, almost disappearing into the scenery in camouflage with their brown tint. But there were signs of other people – empty fireplaces and the carefully swept ground in between those huts, a faded green shirt thrown over a low branch to dry.

A glint in front of a tree closer to her left caught Maca's eye and she froze when she recognized the worn AK-47 that leaned against the trunk. Although she reasoned hastily that somebody had obviously taken care of her over the past hours – or had it been days? – she couldn't suppress a wild surge of panic. She knew a rebel weapon when she saw one; and she knew that falling into the hands of any groups soldiers, rebels or government, was the last thing a woman should do. She remembered the nameless victim at the clinic a few weeks ago and was paralyzed with fear for a moment, even as at the edge of her brain there was the crazily relieved thought that if anything might happen, it better happen to her than to Esther.

Steps, barefoot steps, advanced from behind and she struggled to move. "Sssh… you are safe." A young man's face came into view above her, a teenager at most. "We heal you now," he proclaimed with satisfaction and Maca needed a few long moments before she could place his face. "…Amobi?" she questioned dazedly.

Amobi nodded with a huge grin, the white of his teeth blinding against his dark skin. He was dressed in nothing but a faded pair of fatigue pants and Maca felt uneasiness for another moment. She was clearly in no state to defend herself against anything.

Amobi was reaching for something, nudging another teenager into her field of vision who stepped from one foot to the other awkwardly before he nodded, the gesture so respectful that it almost seemed like a bow. "Sefu," he said and put a hand against his chest. "You healed me. You remember?"

"It was an encounter that would be hard to forget," Maca muttered under her breath, but her sarcasm was lost on the boys who stared at her with proud, curious grins, their hands shoved into the pockets of their faded fatigues. Maca needed a moment to reconcile the face of the thin, but lively teenager next to Amobi with the near unconscious body on her operating table. Most of all, she remembered the gun about that night, and the gut-wrenching fear when Esther had stepped in front of the barrel, reasoning with Amobi to put his weapon down.

"I'm glad you're feeling better." She looked Sefu up and down, observing how he moved without any sign of a limp and her first thought was that she would have to tell Esther all about this.

"Where is…" Maca stopped herself. She didn't really know in whose hands she was and since Esther was no doubt out there looking for her, perhaps it wasn't smart to alert the rebels to that fact. "Where am I?" she demanded instead with more aplomb. "And where are my colleagues?…What happened?"

"They went away," Sefu offered. "There was an attack from the government troops, and they took them away. We brought you here."

"Why did you take me away?" Maca asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

"You were hurt. They left." Amobi shrugged. "You needed help. And you helped Sefu, so we help you."

"What did you do to the others?" Maca demanded angrily, remembering screams and gunshots. "Where am I now?"

"Two days from where your clinic was," Sefu offered, sidestepping the first question.

"Was…?" Maca echoed, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that her colleagues – and she prayed that this included Esther – were safe, probably waiting for her in Mbuji-Mayi, and that the clinic was no more, while she herself was apparently somewhere two day journeys deep into the jungle in God knew which direction. Something else occurred to her. "Two days…? How much time has passed since…" She didn't really know how to phrase it. "Since you brought me here?"

"Many days," Sefu replied earnestly and Maca wanted to roll her eyes at the lax time concept. She needed to find a way to get to Mbuji-Mayi, or at least to alert Esther and Vilches, or their headquarters.

"Our healer cured you," Amobi stated proudly, pointing at Maca's side. "The demons are gone now."

Maca tried to lift her head, wincing when a new blast of pain tore upward from her side. She was clearly in no condition to travel yet. Hell, she couldn't even sit up.

Looking herself down, Maca found that she was wrapped in a brightly colored skirt and a fatigue shirt that was torn at the edges. In the space between, she could see a greenish herbal compress covering her side and as she concentrated, she realized that a similar dressing was pressed against her back where the bullet had exited.

Nauseous for a moment, Maca realized for the first time how close she had come to dying. By all means, she should have bled out internally, especially since she apparently hadn't been operated upon in any conventional way.

Maca raised her head a little further, carefully probing with her fingers and immediately realizing that coming anywhere near the compress on her stomach was a bad idea. But there was another, sensitive area a little lower, right above her hip, and she winced in reaction. Then, she had to concentrate on breathing for long seconds since the impulsive jerk had once more moved the muscles in her side.

As she looked down, pushing the fabric of the skirt carefully a little out of the way, she saw lines carved into her skin and stared at her own hip in disbelief until she realized what those lines were – a tattoo. A healing tattoo, like the one Pablo had.

Only this one wasn't an elephant. Maca squinted. It was a lion.

"That's not my totem animal…" she said with confusion, it being the first thought that ran through her head as she stared at the starkly drawn lion's image that was now etched into her body.

"He saw the lion in his vision," Amobi hotly defended their healer. "So it is your guide now."

In her mind's eye, Maca saw the small lion's statuette that Esther had given her, and she had to smile. Perhaps the healer wasn't so wrong about the lion after all. "Esther…" Maca murmured, still staring on the tattoo on her hip as if transfixed. "I need to find Esther…"

"The medics are safe," a familiar voice stated to the side and Maca turned around in confusion when both boys drew back to a respectful distance. She winced as another pull strained her side, and then she recognized the man walking towards her.

"Karim?" she asked in shock, only slowly grasping what it had to mean to see him here, dressed in colorful native garb and adorned with a headgear that had to be ritualistic. "You? …you belong to them?" With nervousness, she looked at the long knife that dangled from his side, sheathed only in a short strip of leather.

"Not like that." Karim saw where her eyes had flickered and casually loosened his belt, sliding off the knife sheath and letting it sink to the ground away from the both of them. "I belong to this place," he explained. "I am the healer's aide. It is an old village, and the rebels use it for a camp. Since we couldn't resist, really, we arranged ourselves with them. The others went away. Like I went to work at the clinic." He passed his hands over her bandages, gently checking the wound. "Right now, most of the troupe are on another mission."

Maca snorted derisively. "Another mission like attacking our clinic?" Actually, she didn't really want to know. Not as long as she was here, dependent on the rebels' generosity to let her heal.

"That was a accident," Karim said sharply. "We thought the government troops had come for us… If the leaders had talked to me, I could have told them. I always told them you were harmless, and not working for the bastards from the government… although you wouldn't be here if you hadn't saved Sefu. His father is one of us, and he knows you saved his son's life. You will be safe here."

"What happened to the others?" Maca inquired anxiously. Not all of them had operated under duress and by sheer chance on the son of some crazed rebel leader. "Karim, where the others?" While Maca was worried about everyone of them, she was out of her mind when it came to Esther. Just to think of her in a rebel camp like this, on her own, in the middle of the jungle, made Maca's blood run cold.

"They took them all away in transporters from the military," Karim explained. "Everyone except Pablo… He… Some of the younger ones panicked when he was suddenly there and…" He trailed off, shaking his head regretfully. "I'm sorry. I never knew there would be so much shooting. Not in the clinic." He sighed. "The others are safe."

"Pablo… he's dead?" Maca inquired hesitantly, as if she didn't want to know the truth, but Karim's silence was answer enough. "Damn, not Pablo!" she swore, swallowing tears of helpless rage. Showing weaknesses wouldn't do her any good in a rebel camp. Amobi and Sefu were still watching her curiously from a little distance. But there was one more question Maca had to ask. "…how is Esther?"

"I don't know," Karim admitted calmly. "They took her away with the others. You know she was still very weak so it's better they took her to the city."

Of that, Maca didn't need to be reminded, but still there was the wild rush of need to be with her, right now, and if it would only be to hold her hand and watch her rest, or to feel her sit beside her in a meeting, and perhaps, if that wasn't too much to ask, to be able to turn her head and look at her, drinking in that cherished sight.

Frustrated by her own helpless condition, Maca let herself slump back against the pallet, hissing when a new wave of hurt sent beads of sweat onto her forehead. "She will be worried sick…" Maca reasoned anxiously. "I told her I would meet her in Mbuji-Mayi… She is waiting for me there…"

"I'm sure she is," Karim reassured her quietly. "And I will take you to Mbuji-Mayi when you're better… but you need to rest now. Some of the group aren't too excited that you're here and I'd like you to be better already by the time they get back."

"I need to let them know where I am…" Maca realized with a start and looked up at Karim who had sat down cross-legged besides her brushwood pallet. "Did you send note?"

"To whom?" Karim asked dumbfounded. "To Mbuji-Mayi? – It's four day rides even with a car, and we don't have a car at the moment." He shook his head. "Besides, even if they were here, none of them is keen on being seen in the city."

Maca didn't give up that easily. "What about the mail transport?"

Karim shrugged sympathetically. "Nobody out here gets mail …"

"Can't you send someone?" Maca pleaded. "At least with a note, to the next place that gets mail… nobody would have to go to the city. Please…" She gripped Karim's arm and tried to move and again had to stop, wincing in reaction. "I'll pay for it," she promised, breathing shallowly through the pain. "You know… you I can organize money…"

"The rebels have a transporter," Karim said after a moment. "Sefu's father can make them take you with them… to Mbuji-Mayi, or at least to a mail outpost. But you need to get well beforehand. It is a strenuous trip." He nodded at his own thoughts. "If they pass by beforehand, we can try to give them a letter…" Seeing Maca, whom he had only ever known as unflappable and tough, so desperate and helpless seemed to make him uncomfortable. He carefully lifted her hand from his arm. "You know Esther will not rest until she finds you," he offered in consolation, and for Karim, who had never understood how Vilches could let two women live together like that, this was a huge gesture of respect. "And now I will try and find you something to eat."

"Thanks." Maca smiled, more about Karim's comment than about his offer of food. He was right – Esther would come for her. And all she could do now was to do anything in her power to heal as quickly as possibly so that she could leave this rebel camp and head to Mbuji-Mayi, and to Esther.

Maca relaxed back against the pallet. Esther would find her. Anywhere.

47

Esther slowly rose towards wakefulness, smiling sleepily as she noticed the arm that was protectively slung across her waist.

From outside, first daylight streamed in through the window openings and she could hear the high chirps of the birds that resided out in the planes and the sounds from the cafeteria tent where Mbele's was no doubt preparing breakfast already.

Even breathing resounded close to her ear and the warmth of Maca's body was pressed against the length of her back. Around her neck, there was the slight pull of the necklace, the pendant resting on her shoulder.

For long moments, Esther just lay there with her eyes closed, not so much thinking that she was happy as feeling it with very fiber of her being. Only after a while did she become conscious of the fact that the breathing behind her had altered in rhythm, coming a little faster and a little less regularly.

The hand that had rested quietly slung across her waist began to draw light circles around her belly button and Esther bit her lip, trying not to squirm under the knowing touch.

"Dr. Wilson…" she murmured gravelly. "You wouldn't be taking advantage of me in my sleep, now would you?"

"You're not asleep anymore," Maca pointed out in a low voice and Esther felt those lips curve into a sensual smile against her back. "But if you want me to stop…?"

"Don't you dare…" Esther growled just before she grabbed Maca's teasing hand, interlacing their fingers. Slowly, she dragged their joint hands down her stomach, feeling Maca's breath becoming a bit more shallow against her shoulder blade with every other inch.

Esther curved into the touch in anticipation, but then Maca's hand was suddenly gone and she blinked her eyes open in irritation as the things around her shifted and moved.

There was just the thin blanket in her hands and the pajama against her skin, sterile like the rest of the room.

She was alone.

Reflexively, she turned and stared at the door, thinking that Maca had to enter every moment now.

But nothing happened, and Esther was still alone, in this nondescript hospital room that was too clean, too cool, too sterile. The air was too thin, leaving her dizzy at times, and the air-condition hurt her eyes and made her shiver despite the summer heat outside.

She knew that somewhere out there, low down in the streets, there was Madrid. But up here, in between the white and green walls of the tropical medicine quarantine ward, it was too quiet.

Esther wasn't sure how much time had passed, or even when exactly they had come back to Spain. She remembered disjointed things, hands and voices and masked people in green and the smell of disinfectant. She had suffered a malaria relapse, or so she had been told, battling new fever cramps, but this time there had been no Maca sitting at her bedside, anxiously waiting for her to recover.

Maca would never again be sitting at her bedside.

The fever was down now, but the vivid dreams stayed, both the good and the bad ones. Sometimes, she dreamed of being with Maca, feeling her touch so vividly that she clawed her fingers into the sheets in a vain attempt to hug her close, only to wake from the sensation of nothing but stiff, white cotton against her fingers.

And then there were the other dreams where she heard shots and struggled to get to Maca, only to reach her too late, always too late. Again and again, the image of Maca's beautiful body, marred by fire and predators. And every time Esther raced to her side in her dreams, Maca was dead, but her body was still warm, warm and bleeding, and Esther thought she couldn't imagine that body anything else but warm, because that was how she had only ever known it. And then Esther stumbled out of bed, barely making it to the bathroom, sick to the bone and bathed in sweat, across the cold linoleum floor that felt wrong because it wasn't warm earth, and it wasn't moving under her feet.

But she didn't cry. She never cried. She didn't even talk, really.

Her visitors were left looking at her helplessly, just as helpless as she felt. One of the first things she remembered, still in heavy quarantine, were the worried eyes of her mother, lined by sharp crinkles, looking over a green standard issue face mask.

And there had been Miguel, his curly hair protruding from underneath the green standard cap, but Esther hadn't really seen anyone in her delirious state, she remembered nothing but Maca, and Maca's eyes, those eyes that could span across an entire horizon.

She couldn't be gone, not when Esther remembered Maca's lips against her own so clearly that she could feel them tingle even now. She remembered the last time Maca had kissed her, just before she had hurried out of the patient hut where Esther lay and, unsuspecting, into the melee of the attack.

"I love you, you know," she had murmured, and then she had turned around again in the door and winked at her. "Just in case you forgot."

And this was the last thing Maca had said to her. Ever. And Esther damned herself for not holding her back, for not making her look first before she ran into the gunfire, and most of all, for not telling her she loved her in return.

"Hey.. you're awake," a voice sounded from just inside the door. It was Vilches, and Esther hadn't even heard him enter, even though the cushioned wheelchair he was sitting in today had tires that squeaked.

Vilches came by every day; the way was short for him since he was still under observation himself, a few stations further down. His hurt eye was now covered by a patch, giving him a raucous pirate's look, and his right hand was still heavily bandaged. Yesterday, he had gone through the second operation to transplant some of his own skin onto his hand, and he had joked that his thigh now looked as if it had had a close encounter with a swarm of barracudas, but Esther hadn't laughed, even though she distantly knew that what he had said was funny. She just couldn't feel it.

"The last thing she said to me was that she loved me," Esther murmured, more to herself. "We had such plans… and I wasn't even with her when she died!" She hated Begoña for having been in what had been her place. She should have been with Maca, in any situation, for better or for worse. She, and not Begoña. "I should have died with her," Esther mused bitterly. "Or from the malaria."

"After how she fought for your life?" Vilches asked in annoyance, now having arrived at her bedside. "Would you do that to her? – She'd kick your ass all over this room for even thinking that!"

"She left me," Esther stated plaintively.

"She would never have left you," Vilches contradicted angrily. "That woman loved you to pieces!"

"I know!" Esther yelled helplessly. It was the first outward emotion she showed in days and she seemed as surprised as Vilches was. She fell back against the pillows as if this little outburst had already cost her all of her energy, as if she couldn't face her own despair for longer than just the smallest moment. "I miss her," she stated with quiet anguish, staring at her hands that she had linked atop the covers. "I miss her so much that I can't breathe…"

"I know…" Vilches said helplessly. There was nothing else that he could add, and nothing that Esther could or wanted to say, either.

She didn't talk about what happened, and she hadn't talked about Maca to anyone at all, as far Vilches knew. To him, it seemed as if she couldn't talk, as if any word she said about it made what had happened more real to her, and reality was a thing she clearly couldn't deal with yet. Vilches had seen enough trauma victims and he had listened to many classes on the subject over the years, but it was something completely different to see a person he cared about and felt responsible for in such a situation, unable to accept what had happened. Esther almost seemed to think that she could undo the tragedy if only she kept it to herself, if nobody could reflect the horrible reality back at her.

Vilches was the only one she talked to about Maca, but even that only haltingly, in phrases that seemed to be torn for her lips rather than actually spoken. For a moment, Vilches wondered whether he was the only one left who knew that Esther had been involved with Maca. Of course, Cruz was putting two and two together, but the only other person who knew was Begoña who was off recuperating with her family. Everyone else was left in the Congo – in dubious quarantine like Mbele and Malik – or had been killed.

Another surge of helpless anger cursed through Vilches, and again he accused himself of not having protected his team enough. They had almost been a family of sorts, and now he had barely brought back half of them. And in what conditions!

Half the time, he felt guilty that he was the only one who had had a family to return to, a wife and a child, but the rest of the time, he was just so damn grateful to have them, whether he deserved them or not. Without them, he would be spiraling head first into a severe depression, much like Esther.

The first night, when they had hastily operated on his eye only to tell him afterwards that he would never get full vision back, he had exploded with helpless rage. About his hand, they didn't know yet, but Vilches was a doctor and he knew that the burns he had suffered would most likely leave his hand with limited mobility. It put an end to his plans to go back to working as a surgeon, and he knew it.

But that same night, Cruz had stayed in the hospital and she had calmly listened to him rage and vent, and then she had wordlessly put Maria into his healthy arm, bedding her on his chest, and he had fallen silent, watching in amazement as that small creature curled into his arm, one of his unmarred fingers in her tiny hand, and fell asleep.

He had cried, even though he had tried not to, and Cruz had watched the scene with a soft smile until she had stated, in her typical deadpan manner, that he better get used to it, since as things looked, she'd be looking into that job offer from the Central, and he would be the one to stay home with Maria.

And Vilches had known that he was exactly in the place he was supposed to be. Unlike Esther, who seemed wedged in between things that shouldn't have happened, detached from everyone around her.

He watched her absently caress the necklace with the ebony leopard's face that he would always associate with Maca. Esther caught his look and her hand stilled on the pendant. "It's all I have left of her," she said as if she realized it only now. They had taken it off when she had been admitted and it was the first thing she had asked for as soon as she had been halfway conscious of her surroundings again. "I don't even have a picture of her…"

Not that she really needed a picture, with the way Maca's every gesture, her every look was etched into her mind and body. But there was nothing she had to attach her memories to, everything else had been burnt – her turquoise shirt and the small bracelet with the beads Azuka had given her on her birthday, and the doctor's coat where she had had to reattach the buttons, to much of Maca's teasing.

There had to be more left of Maca, Esther thought – the wonderful warmth of her eyes, and the passion in every single of her touches… all this couldn't be lost, so suddenly and so irretrievably, leaving her feeling empty, devoid of everything, even of pain, as if she was drowning in an amorphous mass of gray. The people around her were like shadows to her – the doctors and the people who came to see her. She knew she should talk to them, react to them, but somehow she couldn't. The heavy gray fog that seemed to reside in between her and everything else, permeating every inch of her, was sitting on her chest like an animal, leaving her unable to speak.

There only was an arbitrary sense of peace when her mother visited, just sitting by her side and holding her hand like she had done when Esther had been sick as a little girl.

And there was Miguel. Esther didn't care whether he visited or not, but he came by every evening after shift anyway, even though she was unable to say a word to him. He asked no questions, just looked at her with worry when he sat by her bedside, and then he read her the newspaper and from her favorite books, all those that he knew she had enjoyed. He didn't demand anything, although she almost wanted him to, so that she could become mad at him and at least feel that again. But he never said an angry word.

Vilches came by at least once a day, just as he had now, and often he brought Cruz, with little Maria on her arm, but Esther didn't really care. Somewhere, in a place far inside herself, she wished she could care. In the end, when everyone left, she stared at the gray of the ceiling in the dark, waiting to fall asleep.

Vilches came back the next day in the evening again, Maria asleep in his healthy left arm. Cruz remained standing in the door, not wanting to intrude.

He walked closer, slowly and unsteadily, but he was walking.

"I've got something for you," he announced quietly, trying not to jar Maria awake. Reflexively, he reached out with his right hand only to shake his head in frustration. He turned around. "Darling, would you help out a cripple?"

"You say that again and I'll hit you," Cruz stated warmly, but firmly as she walked closer. "On your operated hand," she clarified, and he grinned at her in return, silently thanking his good fate that he had managed to convince this woman to marry him, and that she stuck with him now, keeping him with both feet solidly on the ground. Now she gently lifted Maria out of his good arm with a practiced movement and Vilches reached for a rectangular package with his left hand.

"Cruz wrapped it," he explained with a little embarrassment as he carefully leaned against Esther's bedside. He didn't sit down – his thigh was still sore where they had cut out the skin for the second transplantation onto his hand. "Since I obviously can't…"

"You call yourself a cripple again and you can sleep on the couch when you get out of here," Cruz interjected warningly, but she smiled at him as she said it, softly rocking Maria in her arms.

Esther only vaguely noted the little conversation, even though she recognized the warmth in it as something that she had only recently known herself, with someone else, but that had been torn away from her in a way that made it hard to remember that mere weeks ago, she had enjoyed it herself. Only weeks ago, she had been waking up happily in Maca's arms, every morning, and now Esther was angry at herself that she hadn't cherished these moments more, lost as she had been in careless happiness. If only she had known how limited their time would be, she would never even have slept, unwilling to lose a single second at Maca's side to Morpheus.

Lost in thought, she slowly loosened the ribbon and paper around the gift, and Vilches looked on uncomfortably as he sharply noted how different these weak, unfocused gestures were from the energetic, confident behavior that had always been so typical for Esther. But something seemed to change, like a small current running through her, when she finally held the uncovered item in her hand.

Vilches watched her expectantly. "They recovered my laptop when they evacuated us," he explained a little forlornly, gesturing at the framed photo that Esther was now staring at. "It was still on there… I thought you might like to have it."

It was one of the photos Vilches had made at Esther's birthday party, where Maca had surprised her with the small chocolate cupcake. Esther looked at herself, at how happily she smiled, and she didn't understand how she hadn't known back then already that she was falling in love with Maca. The precious weeks that they had lost tiptoeing around each other, weeks that were lost to them now and could never be recovered…

Esther kept staring at the picture, seeing nothing but Maca in it, Maca who was half grinning into the camera as she pressed her lips to Esther's cheek. Esther followed the contours of Maca's face with her fingertips, remembering in blinding clarity what this skin had felt like under her touch, the memory almost making the cool, even surface of the glass disappear.

"Thank you…" Esther murmured, and for the first time, there was something in her tone again that sounded like the Esther Vilches knew. She didn't look up as he retreated; she was still cautiously tracing the lines of Maca's face with her fingertips, as if she was afraid that she would disappear from the image.

Esther didn't notice when Vilches left the room, leaning closer to Cruz who shifted Maria to her left arm and reached with her right for his unharmed left, pulling him slowly towards the door.

Still staring at the photo in her hands, Esther didn't even hear the door click shut, instead hungrily drinking in every nuance of Maca's beautiful face, so infinitely familiar and now so infinitely lost to her. She remembered the scene so clearly that she could almost hear the voices and smell the warm evening air that had surrounded them – Vilches had asked them to pose for the photo, and Maca had played along, and she remembered the shiver that had run down her spine when Maca's lips had grazed her cheek. And later, the same night, she had kissed her for the first time, out in the courtyard with the rain pouring down around them…

The photo became blurry in front of Esther eyes, and before she knew what happened, the tears finally came, taking her firmly in their grasp and shaking her with helpless, violent sobs.

"Maca…"

She repeatedly tried to wipe her own tears off the picture frame, leaving salty smears across the glass. In the end, she hugged the photo against her, curling around it as a last, faint tangible link to Maca. She was unable to stop crying, holding onto the frame with such a desperate grip that the sharp corners of the glass pressed into her palms with enough force to draw blood.

She remained like that for a long time, crying desperately and coiled with grief, until she finally passed out from exhaustion.

48

The days passed and turned into weeks, and despite her state of impatient waiting, Maca was lulled into the rhythm of village life. Other than Karim, Amobi and Sefu, there were not more than a dozen people living here, some indigene, some disparate members of the militia group who disappeared for days on ends on obscure scouting trips or missions.

Maca didn't see much of them. Karim seemed to have enough of an influence to keep the rebels at a distance, even though they glanced curiously at the prone white woman when they gathered around one of the small fires in the evening. The few indigenes that remained in the village cut a wide berth around her as well, and Maca couldn't tell whether it was out of fear or lack of interest.

That left Maca alone for long hours where she could do nothing but lay on her pallet and watch the patterns in which the sunlight fell through the moving roof of green high above until it left her in a trance-like state of daydreaming where she could almost believe that Esther would step onto the courtyard every moment, with her hair falling freely around her face and that decisive edge to her expression that Maca secretly adored because it could leave her so weak.

It was strange that even here, where she should worry about her own safety, about the rebels, and about recuperating and getting back to civilization, her first thought was still of Esther. Often, especially in the early days where she couldn't even sit up on her own, Maca would doze off, and in those last moments before she was fully asleep, she instinctively tried to turn onto her side, reaching out with an arm – only to be startled awake again when her hand came away empty and the pain in her side reminded her that she was not at the clinic anymore, and that there was no Esther to curl up with as she went to sleep. Still, these brief, past months with Esther seemed to have etched themselves into her body in a way that, even though Maca knew she was alone, she kept reaching out for Esther. When there were steps across the courtyard, her first instinctive thought was that it might be Esther. Sometimes, when she had been staring up into the green for too long, she almost meant to hear Esther's voice in the rustling of the trees.

And she remembered how it felt to lay with Esther in her arms in the dark, to feel the small gust of hot air against her ear when Esther leaned in to whisper something to her, just before they fell asleep.

And again, Maca's fingers curled into fists in frustration at finding nothing but thin air against them. There was only the rustling of the tree tops above, and the deserted courtyard around her.

Maca didn't even know how much time had passed since the attack on the clinic. The days around here weren't measured in dates and hours, but by the light of the morning and the fall of dusk and the waves of heat that passed through the forest in between.

In the first week, she had still had her watch – a personalized chronograph that her father had given her for her eighteenth birthday – but she had given it to Sefu, together with a letter for Esther, to hand both on to one of the rebels, one that Sefu thought was the most trustworthy. Maca didn't care what they did with the money they could get for the watch as long as they mailed the letter on their next 'mission'. She didn't know whether they would even realize how much money they could get for her watch, or whether they would even care, but she had had to try it.

She hadn't told Karim about it who had warned her about meddling with the rebels, and while Maca was sure that he had a valid point, it was a risk she had to take. She couldn't leave Esther worried about her in Mbiji-Mayi and she hoped that Sefu or one of the others would mail the letter. She would have asked one of the rebels herself, but the two times the core of the group had stopped by for a brief night or two, Karim had maneuvered her into one of the huts, out of sight, and only through the gaps in the wall had she been able to make out their shapes by the fires.

At least if they were real thugs, they would pawn in her watch, caring too much about the money to disregard it, and perhaps they would be impressed enough to mail the enclosed letter. It was pure chance that she had been wearing the watch during the attack; usually, she hadn't worn a watch at the clinic, but when Esther had fallen sick, she had needed to measure the eight hour spans in between the antibiotics. And that last morning, she had still been wearing it when she had left the hut where Esther lay. If only she hadn't walked out of there then, they wouldn't have been separated and whatever would have happened, at least they would have been together.

Instead, she was condemned to waiting, lost in the jungle and dependent on a bunch of outlaws and she didn't even know what day it was, now that she didn't have a watch anymore.

The watch, she had taken with her from Spain as one of the good memories that linked her to her father, but she had still rarely worn it out in Kasaï-Oriental, bitter about the fallout with her family. Esther had seen it among her things one day, and had raised both eyebrows when she recognized the brand. "…and personalized, too?" she had asked teasingly. "You are such a snob."

"Yes, but you don't mind…" Maca had replied with a broad grin, much more interested in how the light that fell in through the window opening from behind made Esther's shirt almost transparent.

"A smug snob," Esther dryly corrected her earlier assessment, still dangling the pricey watch between her fingers.

"You still don't mind," Maca had challenged her, but she had been looking at Esther from half underneath her lashes. She couldn't help but notice how the outline of Esther's torso was tossed into relief by the light.

"Careful, Dr. Wilson…" Esther had shaken her head, only to yelp when she realized where Maca's attentions were actually focused. "Maca! I'm going to get you for that…"

And Maca hadn't had any protests when Esther tackled her to the bed, her own shirt flying across the room long minutes before Esther's.

After that day, she had started wearing the watch again.

Now, she could only guess at the hours. Again and again, she imagined how she would get out of here, as soon as she was fully able to walk again, and how she would walk into the headquarters in Mbuji-Mayi, asking for the address of Esther's hotel. Esther would have left note for her, or perhaps she would be in just then, asking whether there were news about her.

And Maca would silently walk up behind her, until Esther sensed her presence the way she always seemed to do, until she turned around and saw her, and she would finally be able to look into those eyes again. And then she would enclose her in her arms, carefully, savoring every instant and every minuscule detail, and she would never let her go again.

It was a fantasy that Maca painted each time in greater detail and it was the one thing that made her hold on when she became frustrated with her slow recovery, angry at everyone and everything. She had to be careful so she would heal as quickly as possible, which meant seeing Esther again as sooner. So Maca tried not to be impatient and overstrain her side.

She knew that it was more or less a medical miracle or a damn lot of luck on her part that she was recovering from an abdominal gunshot wound with nothing but rest, herbal compresses, a few leeches – Karim told her that they had cleaned the wounds like that – and some voodoo chants of the healer.

Maca still hadn't found out if he actually had a name other than 'healer'. He was a middle-aged man, or so Maca thought, because with the white chalk covering his chest and face and the other ritualistic adornments to his attire, it was hard to tell. He didn't really talk to her, either, humming his chants and moving his hands above her body while Karim assisted him or, sometimes, the healer's daughter, a heavily pregnant young woman – Maca guessed she was at eight months – whom the others called Adanna.

Maca was a rational person and had never given much on Mbele's talk on totem animals, much less on the myths of tattoos that were guarding wounds from demons, but her own recovery was humbling her. Of course she could reason that the shot by sheer luck had missed any vital organs, and that, just as much by sheer luck, she hadn't bled out internally, but all that was a little more luck than she was comfortable with.

Absently, she stroked her fingers across the tattoo above her hip. If there was anyone or anything out there, then she was alive because she was meant to get back to Esther. After they had battled and overcome the malaria, no deity could be so cruel to tear them apart again. And if all this really had been just pure chance, Maca would do her damnedest to make the most of this chance, for herself and for Esther. For the two of them.

It was Esther she thought about when she was able to sit up on her own for the first time again, grimacing and with cold sweat on her forehead, but she sat up on her own, leaning against the trunk of a tree in her back.

And when Maca, aided by Adanna, was finally able to stand up again and do a few first, uncertain steps she longed for the hands around her arm to be Esther's instead.

A few days later, Maca could walk out of the village for the first time, still aided by Adanna, but a lot more secure on her feet already. Only after a while, Maca had realized that Adanna's child didn't seem to have a father. She wasn't married and as Karim had said, most of the locals had left the village. Maca thought about the rebels, fearing the worst, but she didn't ask and Adanna didn't speak about it, her dialect being something far different than the basic Luba and Shaba Maca understood. They mostly talked with gestures their hands and feet.

Adanna seemed strained, though, and the pregnancy had apparently been difficult. Maca had told Karim that she would gladly try to examine her and see if she could help a little in return, but Karim trusted in the healer's abilities, pointing out that her own recovery was coming along nicely as well. Maca was still worried. Now that she was spending more time with Adanna, walking around the village with her and helping her with small shores – though nothing that would strain her left side – she had noted that Adanna had suffered from cramps and odd swellings over the past week and Maca feared preeclampsia. Of course, that was a concept that was hard to explain to Adanna. Maca had barely refrained from rolling her eyes when Adanna had told her the cramps were a sign of the baby battling demons. For that same – ridiculous, as Maca deemed it – reason, Adanna was not allowed to step into the river anymore to get water for the village because, apparently, the ghosts living by the water could take possession of an unborn child that way.

The only thing that kept Maca from banging her head against the nearest tree at all the superstition was the idea of imagining Vilches in her place, who would probably have thrown a fit already, swearing and blustering. Maca wondered whether he was back in Spain already, reunited with Cruz and seeing Maria for the first time.

Maca hoped to see them all again soon, as well - when she returned to Spain with Esther. For now, she tried to help Adanna as much a she could while she was waiting for the rebels to come back from their latest assignment. She knew she was almost good to travel again, and nothing would keep her away from Esther's side longer than absolutely necessary.

49

The three coffins were lined up dramatically, surrounded by huge flower arrangements and each covered with a flag. Since there had been a contract with the Congolese government about the work at the clinic, this rated as an official funeral service, even though none of them had ever as much as shaken the hand of a government official. Except perhaps for Vilches, Esther thought when she held onto Miguel's arm as they sat down in the third row.

But Vilches wasn't here today, and neither was Cruz. They had left for the States with little Maria to see a specialist and try another operation for Vilches' eye. He had felt terribly guilty to miss this, but, as Cruz had put it with acrid simplicity, it wouldn't bring any of them back if he attended. And the operation might bring his sight almost fully back, so in the end, Cruz and Esther had both encouraged him to go.

It was about the living now. The dead ones, no one could bring back anyway. And Esther had even had to chuckle for a moment when she imagined what Maca would have said if Vilches had cancelled the appointment with the specialist to stay for a funeral.

She could picture it perfectly – Maca, with the sleeve of her t-shirt rolled up and her arms crossed in front of her chest, glaring at her boss in that arrogant manner that made both of them act even more stubbornly.

"Risking your sight? For some obsequies? – Did that grenade splinter push right through to your brain, Vilches?"

Esther had to smile wistfully at the image, at the way she knew Maca would purse her lips and raise her eyebrows – she had witnessed it often enough. At least that was a memory that nobody could take away from her. As if to reassure herself, she reached up to her neck, fumbling for the leopard pendant that she wore underneath the high collar of her blouse.

Her mother had brought her the clothes into the clinic and she had been baffled by how big they seemed on her now. Esther would have loved for her mother to accompany her today, but Encarna had another doctor's appointment about her hip today, something Esther had insisted she didn't cancel. Everyone seemed to have medical appointments, Esther mused absently, trying to not look at the oppressive rows of black robes all around her, black hats and black gloves, black suits and black ties, while outside, it was July.

She was the only of their team who was here today. Vilches and Cruz were in the States, and Begoña was still recuperating at an uncle's place at the seaside. Esther herself had actually left the clinic against the protests of her doctors today who had deemed her too weak to attend the service, although Esther suspected that it was a gentle excuse and that they actually feared she would collapse or become hysterical halfway through.

Esther wasn't so sure about that herself, but she had wanted to be here, even though for her, it had nothing to do with Maca, not with the Maca she had known and would always know in her heart. These were strangers, people who hadn't lived with Maca out in the planes of Kasaï-Oriental, people who had never seen her yell at arrogant tribal leaders twice her size and who had never held her hand between their own while looking up into an endless array of stars.

Staring at the three identical, heavy coffins, Esther still wasn't able to picture Maca in one of them. She knew they were empty, all of them, but in walking past them earlier, Esther's first thought had been that they didn't fit – too small for Pablo broad frame, and much too big for Maria's diminutive form. They should have picked a smaller one for her, Esther thought as she saw Maria's father and sister in the row in front of them, crumbled with grief and staring at the casket just as forlornly as she was. She saw them cry and for a moment wondered why she wasn't crying herself, half ashamed at her lack of tears. Perhaps it was because overall, this still seemed absurd to her, as if she should wake up from it any time now. After all, how could it be that she was alive and breathing when Maca was not?

A representative from 'Médecins Sans Frontières' walked up to the lectern and Esther stared at the flag covering the coffin in the middle, thinking that Maca would most likely shake her head at the display.

"I don't really believe in nations," she had said one evening while they sat on the wall around the village, gazing at the sun setting out across the planes, the last visible shapes of gazelles dark spots against the bright orange horizon. "You belong to a place, yes, but it's about where you feel at home… about the people around you… not about a flag."

It had been during those difficult days after Esther's birthday when their conversations had been so awkward and their looks so guarded. Vilches was still in Mbuji-Mayi, and in the morning, there had been a fight at the clinic between a Tutsi and a Luba patient about who should be treated first, and who had more rights in this country.

"I'm not much for anything that makes people bash each other's heads in," Maca added quietly and Esther could only nod, transfixed by how the evening light played across Maca's features. Azuka lay curled across her lap, having fallen asleep a while ago and neither of them moved, trying not to wake him and secretly glad that they had an excuse to sit here, together, for a little longer.

It might be one of their last peaceful evenings. Esther knew she would be going home in six weeks, home to Spain, because that was home… or wasn't it? Again, she took in how the light played with Maca's hair, how she sat perfectly still as to not jolt Azuka. It looked like a scene in one of those old paintings Esther had been guided past on school trips to museums and now she wished she had paid better attention back then so that she would be able to appreciate this more now.

"Perhaps home isn't really a place," Maca mused softly, gently passing a hand across Azuka's forehead. "At least, not just one place."

"Perhaps," Esther echoed absently, staring at Maca's lips and trying to remember that she was going home to Miguel in six weeks and that Maca's lips were nothing she should watch with so much attention.

"Or perhaps it is people…" Maca trailed off, gazing out into the wilderness. "Do you think that is possible?" She turned to look straight at Esther and Esther swallowed, incapable of looking away, and wondering how she was even supposed to look at anything but those eyes, how she was supposed to go back to Spain when there was someone out here looking at her like this.

"I don't know," she replied with reserve, and finally tore her eyes away, focusing on the slumbering Azuka instead. She stroked a hand across his hair, looking at him so she didn't have to look at Maca and into those eyes that disarmed her so.

Azuka's hair was soft under her fingers, and Esther's hand passed dangerously close to where Maca's lay. "You mean that the people who live in a place are more important than the actual place?"

"No…" Maca brushed the short curls away from Azuka's forehead again, her fingers passing against Esther's as if accidentally. "I mean that the people… or one person… is home. No matter where you are."

"As long as you are with that person…?" Esther ran her hand across Azuka's head again, and this time, Maca held onto her fingers, leaving her own hand laying atop Esther's.

"Something like that." Maca put a tiny bit of pressure onto the hand under her own, but it was so minuscule that Esther might just as well have imagined it.

They were careful not to touch these days, and Esther didn't dare to look up, instead staring at their hands, at Maca's fingers half covering her own. She was oddly moved by the image, overcome with so much peace and affection and caring that her feelings alone seemed to fill up the entire planes around them.

Esther was smiling softly, only realizing what she was doing when she caught Miguel staring at her askance. Scheduling her features into an expression of appropriate earnestness, Esther looked at the lectern again where now some government official – she didn't care who exactly he was – had taken up stand to speak, in reserved and impersonal words.

And this was all that was supposed to be left of Maca, Esther thought bitterly: A brief ceremony and a flag for her family.

Maca's family was present, sitting in the bench next to Maria's father and sister. Even in their modest, understated outfits it was clear that Maca's parents came from a world different than most of theirs. They obviously didn't want any attention or press, but there was something about how Maca's mother sat in the simple church bench, with her back straight, or how her father looked in his black suit, as if he never wore anything else, that still made them stand out. Next to them, there sat three men who had Maca's eyes and who reminded Esther of Maca in a way that made her ache. Two of them had brought their wives, one of them with a young boy on her lap and another sitting by her side, and Esther thought that none of them even knew of her role in Maca's life. She should be sitting there with them, unified by the importance Maca held for them. And she couldn't even tell them just how much she loved Maca.

She had met Maca's parents before, in the clinic. They had come to talk to Vilches and Vilches had introduced them. Esther had still been under medication back then, she only remembered Maca's mother crying, desperately trying to keep a minimum of decorum, and she recalled how her father's hands had been shaking and Esther wished that Maca could see this, that she could see how much they obviously still loved her.

They had greeted Esther with polite reserve, as another victim of the attack, but one that had survived and that wasn't their daughter, and Esther had wanted to yell out at them that it had been her whom Maca had been falling asleep with for the past months, and that she was hurting just as much, so much that she could barely breathe.

But she didn't say anything, of course, and in the end they had talked a little, just as politely as they had been introduced and only when Maca's father had argued with Vilches about sending a team down to Kasaï-Oriental to at least try and recover Maca's body – money wouldn't be an issue, he had stated with quiet implicitness – Esther perked up. She had agreed with him so enthusiastically that they had all looked at her strangely, and she had swallowed her tears of frustration at not being able to say out loud that she had loved Maca just as much, and that without Maca, her life was so vast, even more vast than theirs, because Vilches had Cruz to go home to, and Maca's parents had each other to lean on in their grief, but for Esther, there was no one, because all that had been Maca for her.

And yes, she had insisted right along with Pedro Wilson that they send a team out there and find at least Maca's body, anything that might be left of her because there had to be something. She couldn't bare to think of Maca out in the planes, left for the animals of the wilderness, not Maca – Maca's body was hers, Esther thought possessively, it was her body and it belonged under her hands and to no other living being, and not to the earth either.

Pedro Wilson, perhaps impressed by her insistence or perhaps out of sympathy, had promised her to keep her informed about everything even before Esther had a chance to ask.

But then, when a letter had arrived in his stenciled handwriting – not unlike Maca's – she had opened the thick envelope with a heavy heart to read that there had been nothing they could have recovered. When the photos of the clinic side had slid out onto her blanket, Esther had stared at the images of blackened ruins without comprehension, quickly putting them away.

This couldn't be, she repeated over and over to herself, until a pale Vilches had shoved one of the photos right in her face in the evening, demanding that she accept the harsh reality.

"That is all that is left of the clinic!"

He had been near yelling and only later Esther had understood how much he had to be hurting himself at that moment, but staring at the distorted, blackened stones of the village walls where she had sat so often, at the remnants of hut structures and distorted equipment and charred lumps, everything covered in ashes, there was no other thought than that among all this, somewhere, there was Maca; beautiful, vibrant Maca, with her sensuous mouth and her soft skin and her warm, intense eyes; passionate, vivacious, abrasive Maca… some last hint of the woman she had held in her arms so often and yet never often enough.

50

The water played around her shins and Maca could feel the pull of the current against her skin as she bent down with practiced ease, slowly letting the empty water skins fill up that she carried balanced on a stick across her shoulders. A little upstream, Sefu stood in the river up to his knees, watching out for 'threats' under which he subsumed alligators and other predators, and – Maca had suppressed the urge to roll her eyes – malign water spirits.

Overall, though, Maca was surprised how good it felt to be able to do things again, even if it was something as mundane as fetching water. It distracted her a bit from the restlessness that plagued her while she was waiting for the rebels to return and to take her with them, out of this jungle. This simple life certainly had something idyllic, but Maca couldn't really appreciate it, not when she knew that somewhere across the planes, Esther was waiting for her.

Maca hoped that at least her letter had reached Mbuji-Mayi already. She had not heard back from Esther, of course, and even though she knew it was just an idle fantasy, she still thought about the possibility of Esther appearing with a convoy, right in the middle of the village, to get her back. And now that Maca was feeling better, her anxious mind had too much time to draw up worrying scenarios as well – what if something had happened to Esther on the way to Mbuji-Mayi? What if the military convoy had been attacked? What if Esther had suffered a malaria relapse, or another infection, as low as her defenses had been?

It was as if only now that she herself was feeling better, Maca could even think about the possibility that something might have happened to Esther in the meantime, and it left her all the more impatient to get to Mbuji-Mayi as soon as possible. Absently, she touched her fingers to the tattoo above her hip – it had become a habit of sorts – thinking against all logic that if something had happened to Esther, she'd know. She'd feel it.

She signaled Sefu that she was stepping out of the water, and when Sefu followed her, she took sharp note of the way he glanced at her body. Now that she wasn't the village patient anymore, she realized that the remaining rebels, among them even the teenage boys like Sefu and Amobi, had begun to check her out. Self-consciously, she looked down at the faded fatigue shirt she wore, together with one of the wraparound skirts that had to belong to Adanna, who was a lot more delicate than she was. Karim kept warning her about the rebels – a fact that only confirmed Maca's suspicion as to Adanna's pregnancy.

Adanna had looked so weak this morning, her slender face swollen, that Maca had motioned that she would go for the water, urging Adanna to lay down. She had tried to get Karim to at least let her do a cursory examination, but was powerless against the wall of superstition, worsened by the fact that she was a woman, a foreigner and that she was not a medic in the indigenes' belief.

The first thing Maca saw upon approaching the village was the metal glint of a car hood at a small distance, half hidden in the underbrush.

"They're back…" She turned to Sefu who automatically straightened, and she was surprised that after so much waiting, she was startled to actually see them back. Male voices sounded from the direction of the village, and Maca found herself smiling, acknowledging wryly that she was actually looking forward to seeing them – not for who they were, but for what they signified for her.

Her mood darkened, however, when she reached the courtyard, Sefu on her heels whose steps suddenly had a little more swagger. In the middle of the courtyard lay Adanna. Aided by the healer – her father – she was trying to sit up, but it was clear that she already had trouble breathing. Her eyes were bloodshot, nearly unseeing, and from the way the skirt clung wetly to her thighs, Maca deduced her water had broken. And around her, watching the display with a mixture of curiosity and condescension, were more than a dozen men, all of them in some kind of fatigues, many with weapons slung across their shoulders. They were smoking and talking, as if there wasn't a woman in mortal danger nearby.

"What the fuck are you doing?!!" Maca yelled, pushing through the crowd. At this point, everyone was staring at her already and Maca realized too late that this was perhaps not the smartest way to introduce herself to the rebels. From they way the looked at her as she stood there, tall and pale and furious, it was clear that none of them had seen a woman up close in a while.

Maca was too furious to be self-conscious, scanning the crowd for Karim while the healer tried to make Adanna resettle more comfortable into a corner of the courtyard, moving his hands above her body and chanting under his breath.

"You're not suggesting she has her child here? Like this? Half sitting up and out in the open? In her condition?!" Maca had found Karim and hastened toward him with an incredulous expression.

"The healer knows what he is doing," Karim tried to explain calmly, with a nervous gaze at the rebels. "Our women have been having children this way forever."

"Yeah, guess what, your luck obviously just ran out," Maca brushed his protest aside. "This," She pointed at Adanna who was clearly in no way doing well. "…is an eclampsia. Call it an attack of the blood pressure ghosts, I don't care, but tell him that if he wants a daughter left to chant for, he better move over and let me help!"

"Maca…" Her former colleague was clearly hesitant to question the healer's authority.

"Karim, you've been around the clinic long enough, for God's sake!" Maca exploded, seeing how Adanna now had problems to even lift her head. "How many complicated births have we had? And how many times did we succeed?"

Karim looked at her for a moment longer, but then he bowed his head and stepped away.

"Oh no," Maca called after him, waving him right back. "You stay."

She walked up to the healer, taking a deep breath. "You healed me your way," she said, hoping to sound less nervous than she was. "Now let me help your daughter my way, okay?" He looked at her helplessly, clearly scared for his daughter's life, and Maca turned to Karim, motioning for him to translate. "I promise, no evil eye, no voodoo, no sacrifices." Karim began to speak, but Maca already looked for a hut that was empty. "Although I would kill for some blood pressure relievers right now," she muttered under her breath.

"Sefu! Amobi!" The teenagers tried to shrink into the background, their companions staring at them as Maca called them over. "I'll need help!" She hoped that she could reason with the boys, she trusted them more than any of the thugs around them, even though she knew that they had a reputation to lose when they listened to a woman. She shook her head, looking at Karim again. "She's young, this is her first child, and since she didn't rest and it's probably too soon… It didn't even turn yet."

The last time, she had assisted in such a birth with Esther, and she would have given an arm to have Esther with her right now, not just because her presence calmed her during difficult operations, but because Esther was the most competent nurse she knew and looking at Adanna right then, she had the sinking feeling that in Esther's absence, they would need a miracle. Karim wasn't a medic in the strict sense, but at least he had seen them practice Western medicine. And he and the healer had to know some relaxation techniques at least, or anything to help, whether the ghosts had whispered it to them or by whatever reason, Maca didn't care.

"Help me carry her," she nodded at Sefu, who had slowly ambled over. To Karim, she added, "And get those thugs out of the way – I wouldn't get my blood pressure down, either, if I had to give birth this way!"

Karim looked at the row of guerillas, clearly interested in how things were playing out, and not at all amused that Maca was commandeering their youngsters around. "I'm not sure that is such a wise…"

"Fine!" Maca interrupted him with exasperation. "You carry her." She waved him over to grasp Adanna's shoulders before she planted herself directly in front of the biggest of the guerillas who seemed to be the leader of the pack even though he could barely be her own age, a badly shaven man in a sleeveless fatigue top. "Back off," she commanded arrogantly. "This woman is about to have a child and unless you want me to conjure all the evil ghosts in this forest and send you injuries that make the meat foul off your bones – and yes, I can do that… – move it!!!" Maca was sure her Shaba left a lot to be desired, but whether it was the actual words, or the ire that radiated off her, the bulky man hesitated, looking for a moment as if he doubted her threats, but then he took a step back.

But Maca had already turned on her heel, stomping across the courtyard back to more important things, silently thanking her mother for imprinting that same arrogant air into her that had so often driven her mad as a righteous teenager. Her mother had been right. Sometimes, the Wilson attitude really came in handy.

And then she didn't have time to think about anything anymore expect for keeping Adanna conscious, aided by Karim and the healer, with Amobi and Sefu scurrying in and out to bring whatever they needed. The voices outside had died down to a tense murmur, and twice, she was short of praying herself, at the end of her wisdom and relying on Adanna to hold on. It was nearly evening when the cry of a newborn baby boy sounded out through the village and outside, a cheer went up through the crowd of men.

Maca would perhaps been something close to touched or at least amused, but as she staggered out of the hut, covered in sweat and with her arms smeared with blood, she was too exhausted to give the now celebrating bunch more than an exhausted look.

She walked the brief path to the water, washing her face and her arms. This had been a little too much strain on her still not quite fully recovered system, and she knew it. But Adanna had made it, even if barely. Her baby was a little early, but Maca hadn't been able to find anything missing. They had simply been damn lucky.

And holding that tiny creature in her hands, humbled and amazed, she had looked up and had almost expected to see Esther, remembering how she had gazed at her that one time during the really difficult birth, shortly before Vilches had come back and the impromptu party for little Maria had finally made them reach out to each other for real.

When she walked back to the village, dusk was already beginning to fall and when she checked in on Adanna, she found her still fast asleep with exhaustion, but her breathing was even now. Amobi and Sefu sat around one of the fires, still looking a little green around the gills and Maca had to smile. Perhaps at least those two would treat Adanna more respectfully from now on, after getting a glimpse of what she had gone through.

The healer and Karim sat aside from the rebels, crouched in the shadow of the hut where Adanna was resting. The little baby boy was asleep in the healer's lap, held securely by his slightly knaggy hands and Maca thought that proud grandparents looked the same in every place on earth, even out in the Congolese jungle.

Both he and Karim nodded at Maca and the healer moved forward, putting the little boy in her arms. "Ma-Ka," he enunciated carefully and Maca nodded back at him, looking down at the tiny boy in her arms with tenderness. He bore a little sign of chalk on his forehead and Maca complacently thought that if that helped against ghosts and evil spirits, she was all for it.

The healer looked at her expectantly and Maca turned to Karim, not sure what was going on.

"Adanna named him after you," he explained with a smile. "Ma-Ka."

"But it's a boy…" Maca protested, completely overwhelmed. "And Maca is a girl's name, and not the prettiest, either, and actually it is just short for…"

"Do you really want to disregard their beliefs?" Karim interrupted her, shaking his head. "They both say you have a hero's spirit and a kind soul, and Adanna wants it passed onto her son. - Can you accept that?"

"Sure…" Maca looked down at her tiny namesake, trying not to cry. More than anything she wished Esther could see this, so that she could share this moment with her.

When she reluctantly passed Ma-Ka back to his grandfather and stood up, she noted that the thugs around the campfire were staring at her respectfully as she walked past.

Even though she was terribly exhausted, sleep didn't come easily for Maca that night. She kept seeing Esther, an Esther who was smiling at her and cradling a little baby boy in her arms.

Maca passed two fingers over her lion tattoo, realizing with dizziness that this was possible. Perhaps not right away, but in a little while, she would ask Esther about it. Whether she would want to start a family with her. And with that last, happy image – she and Esther, curled up on a huge, comfortable bed, their heads close together, looking down with awe and happiness at a small baby that was nestled between them – Maca finally fell asleep.

Part 51

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