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

81

Esther's head was swimming with the nearness of Maca. She was already so close that she couldn't take her in with a single glance anymore, her gaze darting between the arch of her brows and the warmth of her eyes, the smooth curve of her lips and the line of her cheekbones. And even though Maca was standing there, inches from touching her, Esther still couldn't believe it. She kept staring incredulously at her like at a vision and when she tentatively reached out with a hand, brushing her fingers ever so lightly against Maca's shoulder, she was frightened more than anything else, frightened that Maca would vanish into thin air at this barely there touch.

But Maca didn't disappear. Instead, she leaned even closer and Esther instinctively closed her eyes, hardly daring to breathe and then coming undone when she felt Maca's lips brush against her cheek. No matter how small the touch, it was as if her own body had immediately identified it, waking to this contact like an enchanted creature after years of sleep.

Esther's hands curled into Maca's suit jacket, her breaths shallow as her mind slowly began to trust this apparition, and then she just fell forward, head over heels, into this contact, the reassuringly warm body that in so many nightmares, she had felt cold, pale and lifeless under her hands. Maca was alive. She was really alive.

Esther was too shocked to laugh or cry or do anything at all except for holding onto Maca and for one perfect moment, they were like they had been before, complete in each other's arms, back out in the silky nights of Kasaï-Oriental, with no jobs or conventions to worry about, full of exuberance and plans and so convinced that they had all the time in the world.

It lasted but a second until Maca withdrew a little, shifting to press a second feathery kiss to Esther's other cheek before she took a step back.

Esther blinked, only then realizing that she had involuntarily closed her eyes. Maca moved out of her hold, Esther's hands sliding down her shoulders. Two kisses in greeting, Esther noted with puzzlement, not understanding why Maca was bestowing such formal courtesy upon her, as if she were a fleeting acquaintance, or somebody she had just been introduced to.

"How are you?" Maca asked in a friendly tone.

"How are…" Esther echoed without comprehension, lost in Maca's gaze. "Fine," she murmured, not caring what it was she was saying. None of it mattered, nothing mattered but Maca. "Thank God you're all right… I'm fine…"

"Well, you recovered from the 'Jungle Fever', I see," Maca said with a light laugh and suddenly Esther could see her in a jet-set scenery, between fancy cars or on a luxurious yacht. Maca took the hand that was still resting against her shoulder as if it was unwilling to part with her and lifted it between them, lightly nodding at Esther's wedding ring before she released the fingers from her grasp.

Her hand felt icy against Maca's and Esther hastily pulled it back, covering her wedding band with her thumb in reflex.

Miguel.

She hadn't thought about Miguel even once since she had seen Maca's name on the billboard. She had forgotten that she was married.

But Maca was conscious of it, Esther realized with nausea, dizzy at the chasm opening in front of her, Miguel on one side, Maca on the other, and she was sinking into the abyss between. But right here, with Maca, despite the guilt it caused her, she didn't think about Miguel. The only thing she saw was Maca, and she knew with blinding clarity that there was nobody else but her. There had never been anyone else.

"I…" Esther started to speak, but didn't know what to say, a shiver running through her at seeing the tight lines around Maca's eyes, those same eyes that had haunted her for so many months, but never had they held this kind of cool underneath.

"I figured there was at least a good reason why you left me back there," Maca continued in that same disturbingly light tone.

"I didn't," Esther protested with anguish. She shook her head, still trying to understand how Maca might have survived. Her marriage was the last thing on her mind right now. "How? How did you get out of there…? What happened…?"

Maca bit the inside of her lip, trying not to break down and knowing she would if she leaned just an inch closer again. To witness the bad conscience that seemed to wash over Esther pained her as much as her own hurt at having been abandoned. "I waited for you," she admitted quietly and Esther thought that the hurt in that tone would kill her.

"Where were you?" Esther asked helplessly, struggling to gather a clear thought and failing miserably. "Why didn't you come home?"

"Home is someplace else," Maca replied with a shrug, the Wilson attitude firmly in place. "I still had some work to do down there. And, well, you got married."

"You weren't here!" Esther retorted angrily, that abrasive tone riling her up as much now as it had back then when she had first started working with Maca. "Do you know how many months it took me until I could get up and not feel like I was dying inside? – Miguel was at least there while you had more 'work to do down there'!"

"You didn't even look for me," Maca said, and despite her striving for cool, she sounded just as angry and confused as she was. "You didn't even answer a single of my letters!"

"What are you talking about?" Esther asked, absolutely flabbergasted.

Maca stared at her in disbelief, but before she could say anything else, muted steps advanced on the carpet behind them.

"Maca –" Aimé interrupted from a safe distance, uncomfortably clearing his throat. "We need to go in…"

Maca nodded without looking at him, her eyes still fixed on Esther, unable to look anywhere else. "Sure…" In the end, Aimé had to tug on her sleeve to propel her into motion again and she averted her head quickly, following Aimé into the conference room without once looking back at Esther.

"Maca…" Esther stared forlornly at the newly closed door, swaying unsteadily on her feet. She felt empty and cold, the hall around her even more gray than before. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the pattern of the carpet, squares of red and green with turquoise diamonds, and she wasn't sure whether perhaps all this had been a dream. But she could still feel the fabric of Maca's jacket under her fingers, the solidness of warm flesh underneath, and in the air around her, Maca's scent still lingered.

Esther made it to the foyer of the hotel, but then she rushed into the street, not even caring to close her jacket as she blindly ran ahead. The angry tears cooled against her cheeks in the January wind.

82

"Good morning to you, too, sunshine," Teresa said with slight reproach when Esther had slouched past her counter without greeting or even looking up.

"Oh… sorry." Esther stopped and smiled tiredly, more an automatic than a heartfelt gesture. "Good morning Teresa."

"Bad night?" Teresa asked over the rim of her gossip magazine which she let sink to the desk when she got her first good look at Esther's face. Her young colleague was unusually pale, her eyes reddened and lined by deep circles underneath. "What in God's name happened?!" Teresa exclaimed with concern.

Esther gestured at the magazine Teresa had been perusing. "Why don't you check the yellow press?" she asked curtly, reaching for the stack of files that was waiting for her signature.

"Pff, whatever's eating at you, girl…" Teresa huffed, returning to her reading, but worriedly glancing at Esther out of the corner of her eye every now and then.

Esther pretended not to notice it while she absently leafed through papers. Of course Miguel had never thrown away any letters that had been intended for her. His look of hurt surprise at her question had made her feel even more lousy. Now she was ashamed for ever having thought it possible and they had parted without a warm word this morning, Miguel coolly hastening off to his shift. She really didn't deserve him, Esther thought, and Miguel definitely deserved better than her.

Damn Maca for reappearing out of nowhere, turning her whole life upside down again. Esther didn't have an address for her, she didn't know whether Maca lived in Madrid now or someplace else. She didn't even know whether she could ask Maca's parents in Jeréz about it because she didn't know whether Maca was talking to them again.

That left her on her own, still not understanding what Maca had meant with the letters. And if Maca had indeed written to her, she didn't understand how Maca could assume that she hadn't reacted instead of seeing that Esther clearly never had received any letter.

There were so many things that didn't make sense to Esther. She simply didn't understand how Maca could not have come back to her, not when she herself would have dropped everything to rush to her side on the spot. Esther wasn't sure what had changed. She wouldn't have spent two years in Tanzania, doing research for fancy speeches at fancy congresses if she knew that there was even the slightest chance that Maca was alive somewhere. Anywhere.

Tanzania, Esther thought venomously, tearing the edge of a patient file as she stashed the papers back into the proper folder with vehemence. She kept asking herself what had been in Tanzania that could make Maca disregard her like this. Or who.

Esther knew she had no right to expect that a woman like Maca would have waited for her and she remembered her own doubts only to well, but Maca had always managed to disband every single one of them, with a smile, a caress or that heart-stopping expression in her eyes when she looked at her, and Esther had trusted her, melting away under all that love and tenderness, honestly believing that she had a future with Maca.

She didn't want to dwell on it, but there was the nagging idea at the back of her mind that perhaps, Maca had promised all this all over again to somebody new, out in Tanzania. Possibly another nurse, Esther thought nastily. With bitterness, she remembered her mother's words when she had finally told her about Maca – "What do you think would have happened if you had both come back here?" Esther supposed that she had her answer now.

Teresa's voice interrupted her brooding. "Hey, Esther…"

Something in Teresa's tone made Esther look up despite her crabbiness and exhaustion, and she saw that Teresa was tapping at the magazine page in front of her.

"Didn't you work with the Wilson daughter in the Congo?" Teresa asked with a frown. "The one from the Foreign Legion? The one who died?"

"Yes…" Esther replied slowly, thinking that she apparently wasn't supposed to be able to stop thinking about Maca today if even Teresa was starting with it.

"Well, it seems she survived after all – recovering from her gunshot wounds in some outlaw camp…" Teresa squinted at the small print. "…then dedicating her life to the people in a region torn by crisis, on the border to Tanzania," she quoted, adjusting her glasses. "Returning to her family only when a critical illness forced her to abandon her post..." Teresa sighed with admiration. "It all sounds very dramatic…" She looked up at the sound of steps hastening towards the nurse's lounge and the bathroom. "Esther?!" Teresa called after her in puzzlement. "Esther!"

But Esther didn't react to her, rushing around the corner instead. Teresa stared after her for a moment longer, and then returned to her reading with a shake of her head. "This time, she's gotta be pregnant," she muttered to herself.

83

Engrossed in her reading as she was – that Wilson daughter could definitely carry a magazine cover as well, but with that much money, everybody could pay for a stylist – Teresa missed that someone had been approaching the counter, waiting for her to acknowledge them.

Just as Teresa was wondering how the Wilson woman did the line of her brows and whether the look would work for her as well, someone cleared their throat in front of her and she looked up, straight into the gaze and the impatiently raised eyebrow of the face that she had been studying so intently.

"Macarena Wilson…" Teresa blinked, dumbfounded for a moment.

Maca frowned, taken aback by the instant recognition. "I prefer Fernandez," she stated coolly.

"Of course," Teresa nodded, straightening behind the counter. Quickly, things added up to her. "Dr. Fernandez. Welcome to the Central," she said smoothly in greeting. "I'm Teresa. – You are the new pediatrician?"

"Yes…" Maca was a little bewildered by the seemingly omniscient receptionist, but before she could comment on it, a movement at her feet interrupted her and when Maca looked down, she could see an infant of perhaps ten months trying to pull themselves upright on her pants. "And it seems I'm starting right away," Maca muttered, reaching down to lift up the baby that smiled happily at her, not the least bit afraid.

"Well… who are you?" she asked, charmed by the infant's bright smile. "Aren't your mother or your father around here somewhere?" Quickly, Maca scanned the waiting area, but she couldn't see any empty baby carrier or stretcher. She turned toward the receptionist again while the infant had latched onto a strand of Maca's hair, tugging on it with curiosity. "Teresa, would you be so kind…"

But before Maca could complete her request and before Teresa could react in any way, a female voice rang across the ruckus of the ER entrance hall, causing the noise to stop completely for a few seconds. "Macarena!!"

Maca straightened guiltily in reflex at the tone of voice, feeling vaguely reminded of being chastised by her mother as a child. The toddler in her arms was trying to move in her hold and Maca turned to look at the room where a compact woman came rushing towards them, the white flaps of an open doctor's coat waving behind her.

"Macare…" The woman drew to an abrupt halt, staring at Maca in shock. "Maca?!!"

"Cruz?" Maca said in bewilderment, looking at her old friend slack-jawed. "What are you doing here? I thought you had moved to the States…"

"Holy God…" Cruz slowly walked closer as if she wasn't quite sure that Maca was real. The question she had been asked registered belatedly and she impatiently shook her head. "The States?! Maca! For a month, yes, but that was years ago because of Rodolfo's eye… just when he had come back…"

"Is he all right?" Maca asked, suddenly feeling shabby for not having tried to find them or contact them, United States or not. She had felt abandoned and in her ire at Esther's decision to return to Miguel, she had disregarded all of her old friends and colleagues, thinking that Vilches and Cruz didn't care, either. Clearly, she had misunderstood Begoña when she had spoken to her: they had not moved to the States permanently. She should have tried to contact Begoña again as well, Maca thought guiltily. She had no right to blame her heartbreak on the others.

"He is fine… and he'll feel even better when he knows that you're alive and breathing. A much better gift than anything I could have brought him from the Canaries." Cruz reached out and took the baby from Maca, settling it into the crook of her elbow with practiced ease. She was still staring at Maca in disbelief. "Holy shit, Wilson… if you ever pull anything like that on us again, I'll personally wring your preppy neck, do you hear me?"

Before Maca could react to the sudden outburst – dazedly thinking that she hadn't even known how much she had missed Cruz these past years until right then – she found herself crushed in a bear hug. "I thought you had left permanently," she said apologetically. She was shocked to see tears in Cruz's eyes when they let go of each other again. Only then did she take in the other woman's white coat and the stethoscope around her neck. "You are working here…" she observed in surprise.

"Boss of the ER," Teresa commented helpfully from where she was watching the reunion like a good movie, with her elbows on the counter and her chin resting in her hands. She smiled. "Dr. Gándara – our new pediatrician, Dr. Fernandez."

"You're my boss now…?" Maca raised an eyebrow at Cruz, her expression challenging, and then she could have cried when Cruz grinned at her in reply, jutting her jaw a bit. It felt just like old times.

"What… think you can't take it, Wilson?" Cruz asked lazily. Then she corrected herself. "Sorry. Fernandez. – This will take some getting used to," she admitted with a crooked smile.

"You have no idea how much I missed you," Maca stated, her voice threatening to break. Madrid felt a lot more like home already simply because she knew Cruz was around. "How are you?" As she looked at her friend more closely, she could see that despite the shadows underneath her eyes, Cruz radiated happiness, even more so than Maca remembered. "How is little Maria?"

"Not quite so little anymore… she will be turning three soon," Cruz corrected proudly. "And she's a very good big sister to this little troublemaker here." She tugged on the baby's shirtfront with affection. "What did I tell you about venturing out on your own in the ER, young lady?"

"Perhaps she just wanted to introduce herself to her namesake," Teresa suggested from behind them, her smile becoming broader by the minute.

"Namesake…?" Maca stared at Cruz and the baby without comprehension.

"If I had known you were gallivanting across Africa and just too lazy to write a goddamned fucking postcard –" Cruz interrupted herself, pressing a kiss to the crown of the baby's head. "You didn't hear this, precious," she advised her daughter before she focused on Maca again. "…we would have named her after someone else," Cruz grunted, but shook her head in amusement when the younger Maca reached for a strand of the older Maca's hair again, tugging with gusto and then smiling charmingly when Maca had to tilt her head to accommodate the motion. "Although I swear, she has your attitude."

Maca had to laugh at that, but it came out strangled, and then she had to bite her lip to not start crying openly.

"Stop it, Wilson, I'm the boss," Cruz muttered weakly, wiping at her eyes as well. "If people see me crying on the floor in mid-shift, I'll have to listen to rumors about my husband cheating on me for weeks on end." She shifted her daughter in her arms. "As if your daddy would have time for that, hmm? His three girls already wear him out… not to mention the household…"

" Vilches is staying at home raising the kids?" Maca asked with incredulity.

"We both try to be home with the girls as much as we can," Cruz explained contentedly. "And I try to keep my hours flexible, but they're incalculable… this is an ER! And I couldn't run it if I didn't have him to rely on. Since he's mostly working from home now, it works out for all of us." She frowned, looking at Maca oddly for a moment. "You know he had to give up surgery after he came back, right?"

Maca slowly shook her head. "It seems I don't know much of anything at the moment."

"He nearly lost sight on one eye and he has only limited mobility in his right hand left," Cruz said matter-of-factly. When Maca stared at her askance, she elaborated, "Grenade explosion, when the clinic was attacked." She pushed the stethoscope that her daughter was beginning to show interest in out of the way. "Precious, this is mama's toy, remember? – Why don't you tell the big Maca here hello instead, hmm?"

Before Maca could ask more about Vilches, she found herself with her infant namesake in her arms again. "Hello Maca," she said gently, and for a moment, she had to think about Ma-Ka, wondering how he and Adanna might be doing. Baby Maca latched onto another strand of her hair, smiling up at her broadly.

"She likes you," Cruz observed, motioning for Maca to follow her down the hall, much to Teresa's disappointment. "I can just as well show you to your office already. – So where on earth have you been?"

"I worked with an NGO out of Kalemie," Maca explained, maneuvering through a swing door with the baby on her arm. "On the border to Tanzania."

"I want to know every single bit of it," Cruz warned her. "But after shift. I have an operation in half an hour and the babysitter is late…" She lifted her daughter into her arms again. "Perhaps we can charm Esther into it again, what do you think?" She addressed the baby in a conspiratorial tone. "She should almost be through with her shift…" As if something else had occurred to her, Cruz halted in the middle of the corridor. "God, Esther will pass out," she muttered, turning to look at Maca. "Did you see her already?"

Maca stopped, the color draining from her face as she stared at Cruz. "Esther is working here?"

Cruz blinked. "Maca, she is the Head Nurse of the ER."

"Since when?" Maca asked sharply.

Cruz shrugged. "About a year."

"How long has she been working here?" Maca's tone was still just as urgent.

"Ever since she got back from the Congo," Cruz replied with a shrug, a little bewildered at Maca's behavior. "Well, since she was released from hospital," she amended, and then realized that Maca perhaps didn't know about that yet, either. "You know that she had a bad malaria relapse upon her return and spent months in counseling afterwards?"

"No," Maca replied tonelessly, feeling an icy shiver run down her spine. "I ran into her at the congress for Tropical Medicine," she admitted absently, but she wasn't thinking about the congress. She was thinking of all the letters she had written to Esther from the Congo, each of them carefully addressed to the small private clinic where Esther was working. Or so Maca had assumed.

84

Even though her first shift had been long and exhausting, not knowing the procedures and having to ask a nurse about some thing or other every five minutes, Maca found herself driving through the outskirts of Madrid in the evening, squinting at the street signs.

She had said no to Cruz's invitation of spending the evening at her home in the end, claiming that she had something else to take care of first. Also, if she was honest, she felt a bit of trepidation at the prospect of seeing Vilches again after not having tried to make contact with him for so long. The way Cruz had sounded, he seemed to have been really worried about her, both of them. Really, the way Cruz had stared at her, it was as if Maca had just returned from the dead. It puzzled her that neither Esther nor Begoña, who was working at the Central as well now, had mentioned her to Cruz, especially since Cruz seemed to get along very well with Esther. Enough to have her babysitting her daughter, Maca mused and even though she knew she had no right to do so, she felt excluded. There was no reason why Cruz and Esther should be talking about her apart from the occasional remembered tale from the Congo. Both of them were married, Cruz with two kids, and they certainly had other topics of conversation.

Taking another corner a little sharply, Maca recalled how Cruz had mentioned Miguel, as if there had never been anyone else at Esther's side, and how they had invited them for dinner sometime, one couple inviting another couple. Maca swallowed against the bitter jealousy. Of course, if it was possible that Esther had never received any of her letters, none of them, she could blame Esther even less for returning to Miguel even though part of her still didn't understand how Esther could not have waited for her.

There was so much Maca didn't understand, and seeing how her friends and colleagues had continued their lives without her hurt more than she would have expected. Thankfully, she hadn't seen Esther again earlier – apparently, she had changed her shift and instead of finishing up was only just starting, so Cruz had had to leave baby Maca with Teresa – because she wasn't sure she could have taken it. It was with a mixture of trepidation and longing that she had made it through her shift, always fearing to run into Esther around the nearest corner and at the same time wishing that it would happen. With relief, but also strangely disappointed, Maca had left the clinic over two hours late and here she was driving through a strange area in a strange city, with nothing to think about but Esther. Oh, but she had looked wonderful at the congress, for the scant minute that Maca had seen her, and it was an image she kept calling up, again and again.

Much as she had tried to look out across the assembly later, craning her neck, she hadn't seen Esther in the lecture room. Even during her own speech she had been scanning the rows in front of her, hoping to find the one face she couldn't ban from her thoughts, but Esther had been nowhere in sight. Still, the fleeting moment out in the hallway had been enough to dismantle Maca's defenses completely, and despite all the things she had pondered over the years to say to Esther in case they met again, all the bitter questions she had wanted to ask her, everything had just gone out of the window the second she had seen her.

It was Esther, Esther and the way she had looked at her, Esther and how she had been walking towards her, Esther and the tone of her voice, and all Maca had known was that she still loved her, desperately. And in that one brief, much too brief, instant where she had touched her, things had felt so inexplicably right, and she had wanted more, much more.

Another street sign flashed by and Maca drew to a halt, turning around and entering a well-kept gravel pathway. The clinic buildings lay a bit set back, surrounded by a small garden. The entrance sign announced a spa, and by the signs of it, a very fancy one.

"Wasn't this supposed to be a clinic?" Maca addressed the posh and bored looking man who stood next to the entrance, in an uniform as if he were a doorman at a pricey hotel.

"This has been a spa for well over a year," he informed her with the servile arrogance that Maca knew from personnel at exclusive clubs. She waited calmly until he recognized her shoes and, no doubt, also the brand of her jeans and her expensive haircut, and had to suppress a knowing smile when he suddenly straightened. "Would you like to check in for an appointment, Ma'am?"

Maca just brushed past him with a regal nod and, taking her cue from him, walked up to the reception counter with all the haughty negligence she could muster. "Good evening." She stared down the young man behind the counter who looked up at her nervously. "I'm looking for any mail to Esther García."

"Of course." He jumped up, not even asking for any credentials on her part and Maca noted with dry amusement that the Wilson attitude might be the most utile survival skill she owned, more so than her doctoral degree.

"It might date up to two years back," she interjected silkily, after she had watched the poor clerk rummage around what had to be the collected customer mail of the entire week. She only saw his back stiffen, but he controlled his annoyance well, she had to give him that.

He turned around with a polite smile. "If you would please wait for a moment, then."

Maca nodded graciously, leaning with an elbow onto the counter while the clerk disappeared through a door that, from the resounding steps, probably led to the basement. She looked around the spacious entrance hall, the elaborately trimmed mini trees, the understated art-deco styled indoor fountain and the large glass fronts. It was an environment in which she could picture her mother for an expensive wellness weekend and it was an environment in which Maca herself had learned to navigate, but in comparison to the roughhewn huts and warm, stamped earth that had made up her quarters for the last few years, this entire hall seemed tiny and strangely soulless to her.

"I found some," the clerk's proud voice sounded from behind her and Maca turned around to see him hold out a small box with letters and her heart almost drew to a stop. There they were, all five of them, unscathed, covered in foreign stamps and ink. Even the first one was there, the one she had sent from the rebel camp with a folded leaf for an envelope. So Sefu's father had held word, Maca thought, and even more than two years later, the proof of that little bit of human kindness moved her more than she could have said.

She traced the last battered envelope with the return address at the post office in Kalemie. "It says 'send back'," she pointed out coolly to the clerk, suddenly angry. "There, it bright letters! Why did you keep it?"

"We take no risks," the young man shrugged. "A patient might come two years later and still want their mail, and we will provide it." He clearly didn't understand what had Maca so upset. "People get letters for their dogs here," he commented with derision. "We're not asking questions."

"That much I can see," Maca stated bitterly, still staring at the envelopes she had sent off with such care and such hopes, reading and rereading every line. "Give them back to me at least," she demanded, but the clerk intercepted her movement as she wanted to reach for the letters.

"So… you are Esther García?" he asked, eyeing her suspiciously, as if he expected her to have a more unusual name. "Do you have any identification on you?"

"No," Maca replied without thinking, reflexively reaching out to the familiar letters again. "I wrote these." Only after a few seconds, she became aware of the lack of reaction and looked up to face the clerk's skeptical expression. "Well, open them!" Maca demanded angrily. "You'll find every single one of them signed by me."

"I would never open a letter that isn't addressed to me," the clerk replied and Maca could have hit him for his snotty attitude. She was still trying to comprehend that Esther had never received any of her letters, and that this place was a stupid spa when it was supposed to be a clinic, a clinic where Esther worked, and in the evenings came home to her, and not to Miguel. She didn't have any time to deal with prissy clerks on top of all this.

"This one already is opened!" Maca motioned at the makeshift envelope from the rebel camp where a side of the leaf had cracked with dryness. "Take it out!" her demand was fueled by such ire that the clerk automatically reached for the envelope and pulled out the worn paper with reluctance. Maca closed her eyes, not needing to see the letter to know the words, words she had drawn up during the long weeks where she had been reduced to lying on her back, staring at the roof of treetops above her and waiting for the pain and the weakness to pass. "My love," she cited from memory. "more than anything else I hope that this letter will reach you, and that you are safe, wherever you are…"

She managed about one paragraph before she had to stop, unwilling to cry in front of the clerk who stared at her with discomfort. He handed her the letters without another word, in his haste merely refolding the letter he had opened, not even bothering to push it back into its envelope.

Maca walked out quietly, the airy weight of those letters tightly enclosed between her hands. She pulled on every ounce of poise she possessed, but once she had left the entryway to the spa, the streetlamps and headlights turned into blurry streaks and she cried the whole way back to her apartment, soundlessly, with disbelief at the circumstances. Every letter had made it this far, to Spain, to Madrid, so close to Esther only to be ultimately lost to her.

Maca berated herself for not having taken into account that Esther might have changed jobs, but still, the spa or clinic should have sent the letters after her. Esther had to have left an address with them. And Esther still hadn't looked for her, Maca tried to remind herself obstinately, even though she would have loved to believe that somehow, in some way, a call or a note of hers had been missed at the headquarters in Mbuji-Mayi.

And still, Esther had married Miguel. Perhaps because she had become tired of not hearing from her, Maca's mind suggested without pity and suddenly, the spacious apartment seemed too small to her. She threw on an extra jersey and walked out onto the roof terrace, lighting the small lanterns and the two bigger torches that reminded her of Malik's evening fires back out in Kasaï-Oriental. If she concentrated, she could ignore the noises of the city down in the street and on clear nights, when the stars shone a little brighter against the lights of Madrid, she could almost pretend she was back in the Congo, sitting on the wall around the clinic with Esther, gazing out over the planes.

With utter care, Maca unfolded the first of the letters again, tracing the well remembered words with her fingertips. The thing that hurt the most in reading was the hope that shone back at her from her own words, mocking her current situation. In the end, no matter what she felt, Esther still hadn't gotten her letters, and she still had married Miguel.

Staring at the papers in her lap, Maca found herself unable to read the next one. She knew what it said, and she knew it was too late. Pressing her lips together in an effort not to cry, she lifted the first one up and held it into the flame of the nearest torch. She only drew her fingers back when the heat licked at her skin, and then she looked at the dancing flames as the letter cracked quietly, and for a moment, the scent of the burning leaf rose up, transporting Maca back to the rebel camp, resting on her brushwood cot, and despite the pain full of nervous hope, blissfully believing that Esther might come barging into clearing at any moment, having come to take her home.

But when Maca blinked, there was only the January sky above her, and she was alone, watching her faded words burn to ashes on the stone tiles of her roof terrace.

85

"Teresa, where's the declaration of consent of the husband from curtain four?" Esther all but barreled against the reception counter, not bothering with any small talk.

"Just a minute," Teresa replied, wisely refraining from pointing out that Esther had been short-tempered all week. "You're kind of pale," she observed instead over the rim of her glasses. "Have you been to the doctor lately?"

Esther glowered back at her with impatience. "Teresa, I'm not pregnant."

"Who said anything about pregnant?" Teresa blinked guilelessly behind her glasses. "I just meant…" Esther's glare silenced her efficiently. "Oh, all right," Teresa huffed, relenting. "And you can cut the death glare. If that worked on me, your friend from the Foreign Legion would have done the job today already."

Esther blinked, the protest that Maca was neither her friend, nor in the Foreign Legion dying on her lips. "…she is on shift right now?"

"More or less," Teresa stated cryptically. When Esther stared at her without comprehension, she elaborated. "Well, I wish she had more to do up in Pediatrics so she would stop prowling around here and barking at me in between patients," Teresa said in a wounded tone. It was no secret that the receptionist had a certain fascination with the Wilson daughter, but with the mood Maca had been displaying all day, it was becoming difficult to admire her. "She's barely been here for a week. Can't she at least wait for a few months before she's turning into a second Aimé on a bad day?"

"Yeah…" Esther agreed absently while she scanned the area around them with a nervous look. It had taken a lot of work and favors on her part to not have hers and Maca's shifts coincide this week, but now Maca had apparently switched with someone else herself. Which meant that she could run into Maca every moment, a thing Esther wanted to avoid at all costs because she didn't think she could take it. Not after the scene at the conference. When Cruz had taken her aside the next day, trying to tell her gently that Maca was the new pediatrician for the Central, Esther had at first believed it to be a bad joke.

Of course she was incredibly grateful for Maca's miraculous return, but to her own surprise she found she was also angry at Maca, angry for leaving her alone, and angry for now disturbing her hard-earned bit of peace. It was ironic that after she had always yearned for Maca to be returned to her, despairing at the impossibility of her wish, she now put all of her energy into avoiding Maca. And not just Maca, everyone. Esther had worked late on three different occasions this week already, knowing that Miguel would be asleep when she got home late enough. She couldn't look him in the eye at the moment, overwhelmed by her emotions and by her own bad conscience.

Esther checked her watch, doing the calculations in her mind. It was still a little early for lunch, but if she went to the cafeteria now and just grabbed a bite, she was less likely to run into the lunch crowd that today might entail Maca. "I'll take my break early," she informed Teresa, nodding in the direction of the cafeteria before she marched off.

"Esther – the declaration of consent!" Teresa called after her, waving the folder at Esther.

"Oh." Esther stopped, slowly turning around. Thankfully, Teresa did not comment on her forgetfulness. "Thanks." With as much dignity as she could muster, Esther walked away, this time with the file in her hands. She checked the most important lines in walking – knowing the corridors well enough to be able to walk them in her sleep had its advantages – satisfied that most issues were covered. She took the last corner before the cafeteria when she looked up even though she wouldn't have needed to and while she was still wondering why she had done it, uneven steps advancing from the other side drew her attention and Esther found herself face to face with the one person she was trying to avoid.

Maca.

Esther couldn't stop her pulse picking up as little as she could will her own heart to stop beating and again, for a split second, everything was all right as Maca's eyes met her own and she knew again with blinding clarity that she loved her, and that she had never stopped doing so in the first place.

"Hello…" she offered forlornly, feeling so incredibly far away from Maca even though she was standing directly in front of her.

Maca leaned against the other side of the door to the cafeteria, just looking at her for a moment. "Hey," she offered finally, still with an edge of cool.

Lost in the small moment, Esther needed a few seconds to realize that Maca had taken the weight off her left leg. "You're limping!" she exclaimed with worry. "What happened?"

"It's not too bad," Maca said, moving her leg a little. "A souvenir from the Tanzanian border." She shrugged negligently. "I only get it when I'm running too much, and I still don't really know where things are around here, so…"

"I'm sorry," Esther whispered and she didn't just mean the limp. She was sorry for not waiting for Maca, for not having been there to prevent her from getting hurt on the border, for marrying someone else, for not having looked harder for her, for having given up on her too soon.

Something in her tone seemed to unnerve Maca and Esther could observe how a curtain seemed to fall over her expression, making it even more distant than before. "I'm fine," Maca stated curtly and, with a brief nod, she walked on, leaving Esther standing where she was.

Looking after her, Esther saw how Maca did her utmost to suppress her limp; she could tell by the way Maca drew her shoulders together that it hurt her. Helplessly, she watched on as Maca took a bottle of yogurt from the fridge as if she had done it a hundred times already.

"The leg bothering you again?" Startled, Esther looked at one of the young nurses at the counter – Maria something, she remembered, not a member of the ER personnel – who asked Maca so casually about her limp. Esther walked into the cafeteria as if in trance as Maca sat down with two more medics from one of the other stations who had waved her over. How could it be that other people at this hospital talked to Maca, when Maca didn't talk to her? How could it be that others asked her about her leg when Esther didn't even know how she had come to be hurt in the first place? She didn't even know what had happened.

Mechanically, Esther got herself a coffee and sat down at one of the small tables at the other side of the room, her back to the crowd, knowing nothing but that only a few meters away, there was Maca, at another table, and talking to someone else. Now and then, she could hear her voice across the distance, even and pleasant, and she tried not to cry. Once, seeing Maca had been all it had taken to make her happy. She didn't understand why it had to hurt so much now.

This was how Cruz found her, with single tears still rolling down her cheeks and falling into her cooling coffee.

"Don't you think it tastes better with sugar?" Cruz asked softly, sliding into the chair next to Esther and slipping an arm around her shoulders.

It was the proverbial last drop it took to make Esther burst into tears, in vain struggling for composure as she leaned into Cruz's comforting hold, wracked by sobs.

"Hey... sweetheart… it's okay," Cruz murmured, shocked by the reaction. She pulled Esther closer against her in reflex. "It's going to be alright, okay?" Over Esther's head, she saw Maca somewhere across the room, in conversation with Carlos and one or two nurses she didn't know by name and Cruz cursed inwardly, adding the facts together. "Sssh…," she murmured soothingly, stroking in slow circles across Esther's back.

It took long minutes until Esther calmed down, drawing back and wiping at her eyes. "Sorry," she muttered on a last sob, toying with the handle of her coffee cup.

"You're not planning on still drinking that, are you?" Cruz asked dryly, satisfied that the comment made Esther laugh briefly. She pushed the neglected cup out of reach, still keeping her arm around Esther. The room around them was empty now, everyone knowing that it was a bad idea to stay when the boss decided to have a heart-to-heart with one of her employees.

Only that this was not about work, Cruz suspected. "Maca, eh?" she asked lightly.

Esther turned towards her with large eyes. "How did you know?"

"Rodolfo didn't tell me anything, if you mean that," Cruz said immediately in reassurance. "You know he's not the man to break a confidence, but it didn't exactly take much to figure out." She raised an eyebrow at Esther who blushed a lovely shade of pink. "I was never sure, you know," Cruz continued, staring at Esther thoughtfully. "I was just as devastated over her death, so I thought what do I know… But now that she came back…" She shrugged, leaving the sentence hanging.

"It's mixing everything up," Esther hiccuped, her voice full of anguish. "She was dead! I went to her funeral!" She gestured helplessly. "And for a long time, everything just hurt so much." She looked at Cruz, new tears shimmering in her eyes. "And now she is back… and everything still hurts."

"And you still love her," Cruz concluded softly.

Esther didn't protest as she picked at a gap in the worn surface of the table. "She won't even talk to me."

"You've never been as gone over Miguel," Cruz pointed out with gentle observation. "And also, I've never seen you without this." She reached up to Esther's neck, hooking a finger underneath the whisper-thin chain around the nurse's neck. "You forget I had shower shifts with Maca," she added lightly. "She never took it off, either. Not even to shower."

"I'm a horrible person!" Esther stated with bitter self-reproach. She began to cry again. "I abandoned her!"

Cruz tried to calm her. "Esther, you couldn't have known…"

But Esther didn't let her finish. "I married someone else!" Angrily, she pointed across the room, at the empty chairs and tables where Maca had been sitting. "They talk about her leg as if they've known her for years and I don't even know why she is limping!" Forlornly, she shook her head, still staring at the empty chairs. "I don't know what she did the past two years. What she was afraid of, who lived with her, what kind of dangers she faced… I wasn't there to share them… I wasn't there to protect her…" She wiped away another few tears that were threatening to fall, asking the one question that was haunting her ever since she knew that Maca was alive. "Why didn't she come back to me?"

"Sssh…" Cruz reached to comb the hair back out of Esther's face, trying to ignore the loaded question that she had no answer to. Only Maca had it, and Cruz hoped that it was a damn good one. "Give her some time," she murmured instead, unable to give any other kind of advice. "Give both of you some time."

But Esther wasn't sure she had that kind of time. Things were driving her crazy as they were, leaving her feeling haunted at her own job, a position she usually commanded with gusto. Maca's shadow loomed over her, even in her off hours when she went home to Miguel, feeling guilty the moment she saw him. She didn't have the courage to talk to him.

Talking with Maca wasn't an option, either, especially since it was clear that Maca didn't want to be around her. Esther doubted that the situation would improve with time. She knew how stubborn Maca could be, and she knew herself well enough to realize that the turmoil of emotions she was caught up in wouldn't mellow away in peace, either.

Last night, Miguel had commented on how she must be very stressed at work since she was being so absent, and Esther had felt horrible when she had simple nodded and used the stress as an excuse. And while Miguel was worried about her, all Esther could think about was Maca. She still didn't understand how Maca could have survived, not when she had supposedly been dead instantly. Begoña had to have made an error in the chaos, it was possible, even though Begoña was an experienced nurse and should have been able to tell. Esther wanted to ask Maca what had happened, but she had no idea how to breach the gap between them, a breach that her own marriage to Miguel only enlarged.

And there was still the probing question as to what Maca had done in these past two years. And with whom. Esther knew she had no right to be jealous, but she still couldn't help it. She was jealous at Maca's colleagues, both in Africa and here, and at every nurse who did as much as ask Maca about her leg.

86

She couldn't take this. With a hasty excuse, Maca made her way out of the cafeteria, hurrying down the corridor. She had to lean against the wall for a moment after a few steps, pain from her leg shooting up her side. Fighting against the tears pricking against her eyelids, both from the sudden pain and the situation in the cafeteria, Maca could only repeat to herself that she couldn't take it.

She couldn't be around Esther like this, being the focus of her friendly concern and yet not being part of her life. It was killing her.

But it wasn't just that, it was how she had seen Cruz stand in the door to the cafeteria and then walk over to where Esther sat, leaving Maca torn between jealousy and desolation. Cruz had been her friend, Esther hadn't even known her back in the Congo. But now it seemed that Esther had taken over her place with Cruz, as well. Maca longed for a friend to talk to, and since she didn't trust herself to talk to Esther, not without losing her composure and begging her to come back to her, she had hoped that Cruz would be there for her, like it had been back in Kasaï-Oriental. Only now it seemed that Cruz had become Esther's confidante instead.

Maca had seen them yesterday, while she had actually wanted to talk to Cruz about a patient, but she had turned on her heel when she had seen Esther in the office as well, playing with baby Maca while Cruz tried not to yell at someone from the hospital board on the phone.

It had taken one look at the baby's enchanted expression and Esther's happy smile, and Maca had fled. It had to be a genetic thing, she mused wryly, that everyone called Maca fell easily under Esther's spell. But Esther's smile had been even worse to bear because she had looked genuinely happy. Radiant, even. And that was who Esther was, Maca reminded herself, a happily married woman, possibly thinking about having children on her own, and soon. At least that was what Teresa had insinuated, and Maca had been only to willing to listen, trying to learn as much about Esther as she could.

From what she had gleaned around the hospital by now, casually asking some of the other nurses in between patients, Miguel was the perfect husband, or at least that was how Alejandra up in Pediatrics had put it – he supported Esther's career, always made sure to call when he ran late and sometimes he picked her up spontaneously after shift, with flowers or a reservation for a nice restaurant.

Given the chance, she would be doing just the same, Maca thought gloomily, having to admit that at least Miguel was treating Esther right. At the same time, she couldn't imagine how anyone could not want to put every last ounce of energy into making Esther happy. And now, because of a few lost letters and because she hadn't been back in time and because Esther hadn't heeded her pleas to wait for her, there was someone else to fulfill that task. Someone not Maca.

Blinking against tears, Maca hastened through the entrance hall towards the parking bay. She needed to be alone.

Teresa waved at her from behind the reception counter as she hurried past. "Dr. Fernandez…"

"Not now, Teresa," Maca cut her off, not even halting her steps. She needed air.

"It's not like Tanzania taught you any bedside manners, either," a male voice dryly observed next to her.

Startled, Maca looked up. " Vilches…" For a moment, she was thrown by the angry scars running around his right eye and cutting squarely through his brow. But when he gave her a sardonic look, he was the same Vilches as ever, only with his hair cut yet a little shorter and streaked by even more gray, a baby carrier with little Maca slung over his left shoulder and a young girl of perhaps three that had to be Maria on his right hand. For a moment, Maca wondered whether she had ever seen him without a doctor's coat, just in a shirt and jacket like this.

"You're one to talk," she muttered. Discreetly, she tried to glance at his hands, dismayed to see his right covered in the red tissue and the patchwork scars that were typical for burn victims and the ensuing skin transplantations.

Vilches just grinned. "Hey, I'm improving," he said easily and by the looks of it, seeing his little daughter next to him trustfully holding onto his mangled hand, Maca had to admit that he was right.

Vilches shook his head. "Holy shit, Wilson." Next to him, Maria giggled at hearing her father swear, grabbing his trousers and hiding behind his leg. "Sorry, angel," he apologized smoothly before he looked at Maca again as if he still didn't quite trust his own eyes. "When Cruz told me you were alive, I couldn't believe it," he said, having to clear his throat. "I blamed myself for so long for having lost you as well… do you know what that feels like?" He ran his free hand through his short-cropped hair, looking a lot older all of a sudden. "I don't know whether I should hit you or hug you!"

"Say something gruff before I start crying," Maca suggested, half scared by her former boss' worried expression. "Damn, Vilches, I'm so sorry about the misunderstanding. I thought you all knew…"

She didn't get any further as Vilches wrapped her unceremoniously in a hug. "Damn it, next time write at least a postcard!" he grumbled, holding onto her tightly for a moment.

Maca smiled when she drew back. "I'm not going back there," she promised.

"So you're gonna stay for good?" Vilches looked at her skeptically. "What about Esther?"

Maca crossed her arms in front of chest. "What about her?"

Vilches raised his hands in a defensive gesture. "I'm just saying…"

But before he could elaborate any further, little Maria interrupted him. "Can we go see mama now?" She tugged on Vilches' hand.

"Of course, angel," Vilches said, stroking across her head with his injured hand. "But we need to ask Teresa first if mama has an operation now."

Maca shook her head at witnessing the tender gesture. " Vilches, you are so whipped," she stated with amusement.

"And I'm happier than ever." Vilches smiled in a way that filled Maca with fierce envy. "You'll get the extended version over dinner… and before you ask, Cruz is still the much better cook." Already half in passing, he turned around again, looking at her with a serious expression. "Be careful with Esther. It nearly killed her to be without you."

Maca stared after him helplessly, watching how he walked towards the reception desk, the baby carrier slung over his healthy arm, taking small steps so that Maria on his hand could keep up. It was easy for him to talk, Maca thought bitterly. He had everything – a wife who loved him, two wonderful children, a family on his own. Everything that Maca herself didn't have. And why did everyone only worry about Esther? Why didn't anyone ask how she had been doing without her, or realize that it had nearly killed her to see that Esther was with someone else now? And Esther had all of them: a loving husband, and Cruz and Vilches as her friends. This was her hospital, her city, her life.

Maca was alone.

Perhaps Vilches was right, and this wasn't the place for her to start anew. She had no right to intrude on Esther's life. Esther had made her choices, a fact Vilches had just underlined once more, and Maca had to accept them. She just wasn't sure whether she would have the willpower to part with Esther a second time. Just like she should never have left her bedside that fateful day out in Kasaï-Oriental, she feared to leave her now. Even if she could only see her from afar, perhaps be a good colleague her, it would be better than being without her.

Even the brief moment where she had run into Esther earlier had sent her heart racing, letting her bask in her simple presence for a few precious seconds. Esther had looked wonderful, even stressed out and tired, with that strange, fashionable shaggy haircut and in the nondescript blue nurse's gown, with concern in her eyes and that edge of decisiveness to her tone.

And all Maca had wanted to do was embrace her, to feel her chin settle against her shoulder and just hold her, hold onto her and breathe in the closeness of her. And then, when they could talk again, she would ask Esther out for that dinner she had promised her so long ago, and she'd buy her that little apartment they had dreamed off, and perhaps, much later, Esther would agree to marry her, and they could have children on their own, just like they had once begun to imagine.

Maca shook herself out of her pathetic daydream. Things were different now. Esther was already married. Reflexively, Maca reached for the tattoo on her hip, an obstinate, silent reminder of what might have been, of another life where she and Esther would still be together. Where they hadn't been separated and where no lost letters and no eager Miguel had come between them.

As things were, Maca was banned to the sidelines. She knew she wouldn't be able to walk away from Esther, but she didn't know whether she would survive working alongside her every day, either.

87

Finding no distraction in the February sky outside, Esther looked away from the window where she had been aimlessly staring off into the gray and focused on her current task again, which consisted – after she had already cleaned the entire apartment – of mending her nurse's gowns, a thing she was usually only too happy to push to another day, or waited until her mother lost patience and offered to do it.

Today, however, Esther was happy to have something to do to distract herself from her own thoughts. Cruz had been gentle but firm when she had told her that she didn't want to see Esther on any more overtime this week, and that was why Esther found herself at home by early Thursday afternoon.

Maca was still on shift, Esther thought while she reached for another button that was on the verge of falling off. Her mother was so much faster with this. Esther tore off a piece of thread, suddenly remembering how she had sewn the buttons back onto Maca's coat in the Congo, and how they had come loose in the first place.

Today, she had overheard during a morning coffee break how Hector, along with one or two nurses, had asked Maca about her time in Africa and in passing, she had caught bits of a story about young militia soldiers and a nurse and a clinic chef – people that Esther didn't know. For a while, she had known everyone in Maca's life, she had known what Maca longed for and what saddened her, but now, Esther wasn't familiar with the names she mentioned: Tatyana. Paula. Baptiste. For a while, Maca's body had been as familiar to her as her own, its textures and scents, but now there were scars on that body she wasn't aware of, wounds that she hadn't witnessed or tended to.

Maca's hair was different, cut carefully and shaded with subtle highlights, and the clothes she wore were not the cargo pants and small black t-shirts Esther had come to associate with her. Maca looked more like the money she had now, classy and elegant, even though Esther didn't think she'd ever thought of Maca as anything else but classy, even in a dusty doctor's coat and sandals, with her hair unceremoniously slung back. It was simply the way Maca carried herself, the way she walked and talked.

Of course, her walk was heavier now, with the edge of a limp when she overstrained herself. Esther tried to imagine where the scars would be on Maca's legs, on that skin that used to be so familiar to her palms. She only remembered those lean legs unmarred, and for a moment, unbidden, there was the memory of them wrapped around her waist, holding her in place above Maca, one of Maca's hands curled tightly into her hair, trembling against her skin.

Esther more felt than saw the flush crawl up her arms and chest. She had forgotten that she had ever felt like this, that once, all it had taken was a look at Maca to make her skin come alive like this, breathing heavier against the barrier of her clothes and reacting to Maca's every lingering look.

Pushing the half-repaired gown to the side, Esther moved to comb the hair out of her face, surprised at the heat in her cheeks. Tentatively, she brushed her fingers across the back of her other hand, shuddering involuntarily. She remembered how Maca had used to do that, and suddenly she knew what it felt like again: honest desire. Not some nice friendly inkling that was unthreatening and pleasant, but desire that made her limbs heavy and let her tongue loll against the roof of her mouth.

Esther shifted in her chair, recalling the feeling of holding Maca's head against her chest, the way Maca's hair would fall over her fingers, and the short, hot bursts of breath against her skin. She remembered Maca's hands on her hips, cradling them in her hold, and then slowly being pressed backwards onto the thin, worn sheet of the bed with Maca's breath close to her ear, and the way that breath turned into a gasp when Esther hooked a calf across Maca's thighs, skin sliding against impossibly soft skin, feeling the intoxicating heaviness of Maca's body sinking into her.

The sound of the key in the lock tore Esther out of her fantasy. "Miguel…" She brushed at her flushed cheeks when he came into the living room and smiled at seeing her home early.

"Hello darling…" He bent down to kiss her cheek, and then her lips. "This is a nice surprise…"

Esther's skin that only moments before had been glowing with arousal suddenly felt clammy under Miguel's touch. With nervousness, she realized what Miguel intended and that this time, she couldn't give it to him. She simply couldn't, not with the sensation of Maca's touch still ghosting across her body.

"You've been different this week," Miguel observed, tossing his jacket across the room without looking before he pulled her out of the chair and onto the floor with him.

"Yes, stressed," Esther allowed with a short bark of laughter, trying to quench all amorous intents with her remark, but to no avail.

"No, more alive somehow," Miguel contradicted softly, reaching to pull her shirt up with slow movements. "I missed you all week," he murmured against her neck. His lips were hot against her skin. "You were always home so late…"

"I don't know…" Esther hedged. She turned her head away, but Miguel only saw it as an encouragement, slowly kissing his way down her neck. When he hooked a hand under her knees so that she ended up on the floor underneath him, she brought her hands up between them, pushing him away. "No…"

"No…?" Miguel drew back in surprise, his hands only slowly ceasing their motions across Esther's skin. "You said no all week," he pointed out, and even though he didn't sound accusing, Esther knew that she had been expected to say yes.

She looked down at her hands, wishing she was somewhere far away and alone. "Sorry," she murmured, tugging her shirt back into place.

Miguel looked at her for a moment longer, then he sat up and ran a hand through his hair. "I'll start dinner," he said, and a minute later, Esther could hear the cupboards in the kitchen being opened and closed, a pot being put onto the stove.

Esther curled her arms around her knees, trying to take deep breaths. She didn't know what was right and what was wrong anymore – loving her husband? Pretending to love her husband? Pretending not to love Maca?

Slowly, she got up and walked towards the kitchen, combing her hands through her hair as she went. She should set the table for dinner.

88

For old times' sake, Begoña had said when she found Maca in the entrance hall, leaning against Teresa's counter. Carlos had had to cancel their lunch appointment because of an urgent case and Maca had little desire to walk into the cafeteria on her own when she had seen both Cruz and Esther already walk off in that direction. So when Begoña had asked her whether she wanted to grab a bite with her, she had agreed.

Truth to be told, Maca didn't see much of Begoña out of work and her behavior was much more one of a professional colleague than the one of an ex-lover. It was something Maca appreciated and she often called for Begoña when she needed a nurse to assist her because she knew her and worked well with her and also because requesting the head nurse was not an option. From what she could tell, Esther worked a lot with Cruz instead, and also with Laura and Hector. But perhaps this was what their common history and the abrupt end to their time in Africa had done to them all – leaving them scattered, unable to maintain the former familiarity because whenever they met, the shadows of Pablo and Maria were looming over them, and the fact that Vilches had been terribly hurt. The only ones who seemed to be close to each other were Esther and Cruz, but then, Cruz hadn't been there during the attack.

"I don't really feel like cafeteria food," Maca lied as she walked down the corridor next to Begoña. She simply wanted to avoid running into Esther and Cruz.

"Me either," Begoña confessed easily, reaching for Maca's arm and pulling her towards the exit. "Did you already check out the Thai place across the street? They have a really good lunch buffet."

"I didn't really have the time to check out that many sites yet," Maca said with reserve. She didn't want to eat out when she was technically still on call.

"We go there all the time," Begoña commented, and Maca supposed she meant the other nurses. "Come on, we can just pick something up and then eat it back here. I know just the place."

And that was how they ended up in the small nurse's lounge on the second floor that mostly served as an emergency bedroom when one of the nurses needed to crash during an extended nightshift. During this hour of the day, it was deserted and Maca said down cross-legged on one of the old sofas. None of them matched in color or design, but at least they looked comfortable. For a moment, Maca wondered if Esther had ever slept up here.

"What are you waiting for?" Begoña asked, motioning at the food container that still sat untouched in Maca's lap while she peeled the lid off her own. "It may not be the best curry you ever had, but it sure beats blue can meant."

Maca laughed. "I'll take your word on that."

"I'd also wager it beats Mbele's breakfast porridge," Begoña decided over her first bite.

"The porridge wasn't so bad," Maca disagreed readily. "As long as you took it with lots and lots of…"

"…of sugar," Begoña completed the phrase, laughing at the memory.

Maca grinned, remembering her first weeks with the gooey concoction only too well. "Of course, it took us a while to figure out that trick."

"My luck that I arrived later," Begoña conceded with a cheeky smile.

Maca had to laugh again, surprised at how good this felt, just being able to share a few of her memories with Begoña and joking about Mbele's cooking skills. It reminded her how not everything in the Congo had been tinged with tragic and that there had been days where they had been happy, despite the harsh conditions.

Begoña was sitting across from her, with her feet curled under her, a bit like they had used to sit on the wall around the village when they still had been involved. Even now, their knees were almost touching, in the way former lovers tended to retain a certain disregard for personal space when it came to the once familiar body.

"So how long have you been working here?" Maca asked between two forks of admittedly decent curry.

Begoña counted the months on her fingers. "About a year," she said.

"What did you do before that?" The question was offhanded, but once she had asked it, Maca found that she was curious as to what Begoña had been doing since she got back.

"I had a job as a private nurse for a while." Begoña sighed. "The aunt of an old colleague was dying and they needed someone for professional home care. So they asked me." She looked at Maca, her eyes clear. "It was a way of getting back into working as a nurse. I came back from Africa with a chip fracture in my arm that took forever to heal. The attack, you know…"

Maca nodded. "I'm sorry," she stated quietly, and she thought that Begoña was the first one who actually talked to her about what had happened. Vilches had skipped the topic entirely, and Cruz, well, Cruz hadn't been there.

"One of my uncles has a house at the seaside," Begoña related with a shrug. "So I spent a few months taking time off, gazing at the seagulls and waiting for my arm to get better. And then they asked me whether I could take care of Sergio's aunt. And after that… I came here."

Maca shook her head. "It's funny how we all meet again here."

"Not really," Begoña contradicted, pushing a few blonde curls out of her vision with the back of her hand. "Cruz was keeping us together somehow," she stated, gesturing with her plastic fork. "She collected us one by one. I knew she was here when I applied." She looked at Maca thoughtfully for a moment. "Have you seen Vilches already?"

"Yeah." Maca nodded with a sigh, a little queasy at the memory of his mangled hand and scarred eye. It was one thing to treat such wounds on soldier boys she didn't know, but to see her former boss like this had shaken her. She remembered his dinner invitation, but she had hardly seen Cruz these past days, never managing to exchange more than a few words in passing while Maca was still trying to figure out how things worked in the ER.

"It's a shame," Begoña agreed. "He was a good surgeon. He could have made it far."

"He makes a great dad," Maca commented softly. Something else occurred to her. "Did you know Esther worked here when you applied?"

It was a blunt question, and it made Begoña pause. "No," she then said slowly. "Cruz told me when I signed my papers, it was when they had just promoted her." She shook her head. "I had no idea where she was, I had only heard she had left recovery – you know, after the malaria relapse she had – and then I ran into her and Miguel in Madrid, but I was about leave for my home care job and while I lived there, I didn't hear much about anyone."

"And I didn't know where to find her, or Cruz, or any of you, and you all were back here…" Maca set her food container down on the floor, her motions angry. "And I had no idea!" She folded her napkin and dropped it into the half-eaten dish. "And I guess I had expected Esther to look for me, more than she did," she admitted. She looked down at her hands, lacing them together in her lap. Her voice was quiet when she continued. "She could at least have told me not to wait in Mbuji-Mayi. She knew I was waiting."

Begoña shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Yeah, it's odd…" she murmured, clearing her throat.

"Well, she got married," Maca stated after a pause, on a short bark of laughter. "I guess she had other things on her mind."

"I'm sorry," Begoña offered, reaching out to stroke across Maca's shoulder. Maca raised her eyes, looking at her sadly and for a moment, Begoña simply remained caught up in that intimate gaze. It reminded her of how things had been between them before Esther had arrived in Kasaï-Oriental, and yet it was different. "I'm sorry…" she repeated softly, reaching up to stroke Maca's hair back out of her face, the gesture half a caress. Involuntarily, she leaned a little bit closer, close enough to feel Maca breathe, and for a split second, it reminded Begoña of how things had once been, making out with Maca underneath the showers or sharing a hasty kiss and a cigarette behind the patient huts while they weren't even supposed to take a break.

They had been happy, she thought, and with that, she closed the distance between them, pressing her lips to Maca's.

But before she could intensify the touch, or before Maca had even a chance to react, the door to the lounge opened and then something clattered to the floor.

Reflexively, both of them drew apart, Maca more hastily than Begoña, and looked towards the entrance, and Maca's heart stopped for a beat.

In the doorway, staring at them wide eyes, stood Esther.

89

Paralyzed by shock, Maca was only propelled into action by the sound of Esther's hastily retreating steps. She shoved Begoña away from her, nearly pushing her off the couch. "What the fuck are you doing?" she yelled, wiping at her lips.

"Can't blame a girl for trying," Begoña muttered obstinately, but Maca didn't hear her anymore, tripping over Esther's dropped lunch container and barely catching her balance as she rushed out of the door and down the corridor.

"Besides, when she eats here, she usually comes up a little later…" Begoña added, to no one in particular. She reached down to pick up the discarded lunch containers.

Out on the corridor, the steps had stopped and Maca looked left and right in panic for a moment, not knowing where Esther had gone but knowing that she needed to find her, right now. She couldn't bear the thought that Esther might assume there was something going on between her and Begoña again. And by the looks of it, Esther was assuming precisely that.

Her hurt, shocked look was something that gave Maca pause, and at the same time, raised an irrational bout of hope within her. If Esther could still be that upset at seeing her with Begoña – a sight she would have preferred to spare her – it meant that perhaps, she wasn't as indifferent against Maca as Maca had thought. It was crazy, she knew it, and it didn't change the fact that Esther was married to Miguel, but right now, it was all Maca could think about. She had told herself so many times during this past week that she was not here to disrupt Esther's life, but she couldn't shake off the look Esther had just given her.

The muted sound of running water made her turn around and she faced the door of a women's bathroom. Maca drew a shaky breath and then pushed the door open without any further hesitation.

And there she was, half bent over one of the washing basins, splashing cold water into her face. At hearing the door open, Esther reflexively looked up and Maca's first impulse was to rush over and take her into her arms, to do anything to wipe that hurt expression off her features.

"Esther…" She began to speak without even knowing what to say. The door fell shut behind her, startling her. She couldn't tear her eyes away from Esther and somewhere at the back of her mind there was the realization that this was the first time that they were alone together again, the first time since that fateful morning out in Kasaï-Oriental where she had left the patient hut where Esther lay recovering, not knowing that years would pass until she would finally be face to face with her again, like this.

Maca couldn't form a clear thought, her heart was beating so fast that it made her dizzy. All she knew was that Esther was so incredibly beautiful and that her arms were aching to hold her.

Esther finally tore her out of her reverent haze, shutting off the water with one of the decisive movements that were so typical for her, Maca recognized it with infinite tenderness, and then Esther looked up fully and turned to face her.

"So…" Esther crossed her arms over her chest and gave Maca a cold stare. "Begoña again?"

Faced with that look, Maca actually took a step back. "No way in hell," she swore. She tried to walk closer, but Esther stopped her with a gesture. "I don't know what she was thinking, she came at me out of nowhere," Maca said imploringly. "I'm sorry you had to see that. You know there is nothing between her and me…"

"You looked cozy enough to me," Esther said snidely, leaning with a hip against the line of washing basins to her left.

"That's not what…" Maca gave up when Esther derisively raised an eyebrow at her. Old anger flared up instead. "At least she looked for me!"

"She?" Esther exclaimed with disbelief, her voice resounding sharply in the confines of the bathroom. "But she knew you were dead!"

"Dead?" In her anger and nervous state, Maca didn't really understand what Esther meant, but she had had it with all the talk of her presumed death, it was making her skin crawl. "Esther…" she began with that arrogant patience that Esther had early on dubbed the 'Wilson tone'. "Why should she think I was dead?! Otherwise she couldn't have been in contact with me, right?"

"But how… how…" Esther blinked with difficulty, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. "Begoña has been in contact with you? Over the past years?!" Slowly, something snuck into Esther's voice that made Maca take another step back, thinking that for a moment, Esther had a lot of the lion that was her totem animal. "She knew you were alive??!"

"Of course…" Maca replied helplessly, downright intimidated by the edge of wildness to Esther's tone. "She knew just like you did." She didn't understand why Esther was looking at her with that wide-eyed expression, but it was beginning to scare her. There was something right out of her grasp she should know, Maca could sense it, but it eluded her. "I told her you should wait for me in Mbuji-Mayi…" she said over the hammering sound of her own blood in her ears, her voice suddenly uncertain.

Esther had paled and her knuckles were white on the next washing basin. Maca could almost feel the air crackling around her, but before Esther could say anything else, a thin electric bleep interrupted them, only seconds later joined by another one.

For a moment, Maca was disoriented before she fumbled for the pager on her belt and saw the emergency code flashing at her. She looked at Esther, as if to ascertain that this conversation wasn't over yet, but Esther was already stashing her own pager back into her pants, racing out of the door. All Maca could do was hasten after her, rushing toward the nearest staircase and down into the entrance hall.

90

Crossing the entrance hall, Maca took a cursory glance around, but Esther was nowhere in sight. It was three days now since they had been interrupted by the emergency alarm in the bathroom on Friday. Maca had taken the weekend of, traveling to Jeréz for the birthday of Jero's twins and had tried to forget about everything related to the Central or the Congo for a little while. Only Carmen had taken her aside after the birthday party to ask her how things were going with Esther, and Maca had said that she didn't know. She had wanted to talk to Esther, after the chaos in the ER had let up on Friday night. She had lingered close to Teresa's desk when she was actually off shift already, checking every other minute whether Esther would come walking towards the nurses' dressing rooms. In the end, in her exhausted state, she must have missed her because she only saw Esther exit the changing rooms. But before Maca could have intercepted her on her way through the hall, a man had walked into the entrance, smiling at Esther, and after a moment, Maca had recognized Miguel. She had never seen him in person before and she had been a little surprised that he looked like a normal man, not at all like the tall, imposing competitor for Esther's affections as whom she had always pictured him in her mind.

It had been after midnight at this point and yet he had apparently come by and waited to pick Esther up after the extremely stressful shift. Perhaps he was threateningly perfect after all, Maca mused darkly. Esther had smiled when she saw him and he had greeted her with a kiss and a hug, leaving Maca staring after them as they walked off into the winter night together. Suddenly dead exhausted, Maca had left as well.

And even now, despite Carmen's recriminations that she should 'grab the bull by the horns' and try to talk to Esther again, Maca wasn't sure how to approach her. She couldn't just talk to her as a friend or colleague. If anything, the rage of jealousy she had felt when she had seen Miguel kiss Esther – and it had really been nothing more than a friendly greeting – had proven that all over again.

She remembered how it felt to kiss Esther, the softness of her lips, the soft humming sound she made in her throat when she let herself fall into Maca's touch, and she hated Miguel with a passion.

At least she and Esther still worked well together, Maca thought bitterly. During the crisis on Friday, the easy professional give and take between them had surprised her. It had been like a distant remainder of how things had once been between them, on many more levels than just a professional one.

Maca shook her head, trying to concentrate on her latest case again. "Teresa, I need a nurse," she announced, putting her hands on the counter. "Get me Begoña," she requested automatically, only then thinking that perhaps she'd better ask for someone else, after Begoña's odd behavior on Friday, just before all hell had broken lose in the ER over the multiple accident.

"I'll get you someone," Teresa said, but her meaningfully raised eyebrow was lost on Maca who was already back to studying the latest test results for her case.

"You needed a nurse?" A voice asked, interrupting her reading, and Maca looked up to find a petite nurse with short dark hair looking up at her. "Manuela," the woman introduced herself. "You're the new pediatrician…?"

"Yes, that's me, come on…" Maca waved at Manuela to follow her, shooting a puzzled glance at Teresa who was busy talking on the phone and didn't see her. Usually, Teresa sent her exactly whom she was asking for. "I'm Maca Fernandez," she said to the nurse that was trying to keep up with her long strides. "Nice to meet you. Now, I need samples for a full blood test on the girl in curtain three…"

The morning passed quickly and Maca was late on her way to the cafeteria for some lunch, her stomach already grumbling. She entered the room, automatically looking around for Esther, but she wasn't there. Maca wasn't sure if she was even on the clock right now – Esther tended to change her shifts frequently – but she hadn't seen her all morning, so she assumed that Esther probably had evening shift today. She tried to ignore the little bout of disappointment she felt at that.

Hector waved at her across the room and Maca lined up next to him in the queue. "Nice weekend?" he asked, reaching for a tray and handing one over to Maca as well.

"Thanks." Maca nodded. "Yes, I went down to Jeréz, it was my nephews' fifth birthday."

"Sounds like a hell of a party." Hector grinned at her as they made their way through the room, looking for an empty table.

Something else occurred to Maca as they sat down. "Do you know whether Begoña took the day off?" she asked between bites. Hector was one of the people who spent more time off the clock with the blonde nurse, or at least that was what Teresa said, so perhaps he knew why she hadn't been on call this morning even though her name was on the list.

Hector opened his mouth to talk, but before he could say anything, a shadow fell over the table. "Begoña left the Central and will be looking for employment elsewhere," Cruz stated calmly before she motioned for Maca to scoot over and sat down with them, pulling her tray with salad in front of her.

"She left?" Maca was baffled. "What happened?"

"She broke her nose," Hector blurted out.

Maca looked back and forth between him and Cruz who was rolling her eyes. "What happened?" she asked once more.

Hector pinned his gaze to the wall behind Cruz's head. "It appears she walked into the door of an opening medical cabinet," he stated blandly, as if he was quoting something he had memorized. "At least, that is the official version," he added with a shrug, grinning at Maca.

"Don't you have a patient to take care of?" Cruz asked pointedly, but Hector missed the clue.

"No," he stated with smile, leaning his elbows further onto the table and gazing at Maca.

"You want Sunday shifts for a month?" Cruz gnarled in a very good imitation of her husband, finally making Hector jump up from his seat.

"All right, all right…" he conceded hastily, casting another glance at Maca, who was looking at Cruz with wariness.

"So what is the unofficial version?" Maca asked.

Hector, already leaving, couldn't resist. He leaned back across the table. "Esther knocked her out," he whispered conspiratorially.

Part 91

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