Disclaimer: If you think anybody other than Angel Odell/anybody not Marvel is mine, then your brain is a bag full of cats. Geez… I don't even own that quote/paraphrase thing. If you don't like OC's, why the hell have you read this far? And if you do want to use Angel, please ask me nicely.

Chapter 6

As the number of deaths in the concentrated areas around I-95 climbed, the CDC found itself dealing with a new spread. Considering Miss Odell had been traveling with hippies, they were not in a good place to get ahead of it. These people rarely used anything like their real names. They moved in and out of their own little social circles and were mistrustful of authority. Trying to track any sort of movement almost compared to tagging sharks. One: good luck finding one that didn't fight back somehow. Two: have fun trying to find the same individual twice over.

With the reports coming in from farther and farther west, the staffs of both SHIELD and the CDC had issues with response processes. They hadn't had much success tracking individual carriers. Treating the symptoms seemed to be causing as much death as people who did not seek treatment. If they treated the gastroenteritis and resulting dehydration, people drowned internally. Treating the fever with saline administration caused dehydration to get worse. And if that didn't all come together to kill somebody, the bronchiole inflammations had a tendency to develop into early tuberculosis.

Alongside all this, while they had total certainty that the disease was contagious, they weren't entirely sure how it got spread. Person-to-person contact seemed essential at first, but a few of the cases in Missouri seemed to conflict. They hadn't yet isolated precisely what disease they were dealing with either. As a matter of fact, there wasn't really much to identify. If it were just one person, some of the doctors said, they would have thought it to be immune-related. These symptoms usually cropped up with things like rotaviruses and the bugs that swept elementary school classrooms. But for all of them to compound and kill perfectly healthy people seemed… unnatural.

Angel seemed much more comfortable in her own pajamas, along with the additions of her bear and blanket. It made Steve happy to be able to make her smile, but at the same time, he couldn't help being sad. The personal items made it look quite tragically like she would be there quite a while. With SHIELD being busy with the CDC, there had been no work for the Avengers. Steve had been able to spend a lot of time with Angel. At the moment, he had just looked up from his magazine at the sound of her moving.

She still had the needle attached to the IV in her left arm. Now her right arm bore a self-adhesive wrap holding another needle in place. She had insisted on bright green, wearing the color proudly. This one had a port on it and had already been used to draw blood for multiple tests. Steve was not a squeamish man, but he couldn't look at those drawing needles. Helping hold Angel steady while she yelled and cursed and tried to kick people didn't help. The staff had been instructed not to sedate her unless absolutely necessary. Director Fury insisted they needed her "not loopy" in case she had new information.

"Cap… I mean, Steve?" Angel's voice broke into his thoughts.

He looked up from his magazine and she tilted her head at him, her bear supporting her left arm.

"Sorry I bit you again when they put my port in…" she said in a raspy voice – she hadn't had water in a day or two, but she was smiling.

Steve grinned at her, honestly grateful to have a reason to smile.

"Don't worry about it, doll," he told her. A second later, a plastic cup flew at his head. "What was that for?!"

Angel glared, but her eyes still lit up.

"Don't call me 'doll'," she ordered, looking like if she could, she would fold her arms up and pout at him – she settled for just pouting. "Dolls freak me out."

Blue eyes lit up too and Steve couldn't help laughing – he never knew what she was going to say next!

"Okay, okay," he laughed, setting the magazine aside and shifting his chair closer to the bed. Looking at her in concern, he asked, "You warm enough?"

The girl shifted round in bed as best she could, unable to use her arms effectively without causing herself pain.

"I'm cold," she said flatly. At Steve's look of concern, she amended, "It's okay, though. I'm always cold."

He touched her hand again and, upon closer inspection, found that her skin had a blue, papery look and feel to it. This could not be good, but he decided it might alarm her if he pointed it out. Plus, she probably already knew. So he got up and went to the cabinet to see about one more blanket. There wasn't one that he could see, so he stuck his head out the door and flagged an intern. The young lady said she would be right back with one. Steve returned to Angel's bedside, her eyes looking up at him almost expectantly.

"She'll be back in just a minute," he told her, returning to his seat and taking Angel's hand.

The gold-green eyes just went wider still.

"Come sit with me?" she asked him, her soft voice a lot more timid than he had previously thought her capable of. Those eyes looked so haunting. "I'm so cold…"

He looked puzzled – hadn't he just said that the intern would be back with a blanket? But Angel lifted her left arm as best she could and gripped his sleeve with a shaking hand. As firmly as she could – which really wasn't saying much, she tugged on the sleeve, making soft whimpering sounds. Steve looked down at her, into those great pleading eyes, and understood. And it took all he had not to panic.

"Angel, I can't – I shouldn't," he started protesting, feeling like a big fat wuss knowing that he hadn't been able to say no to a lady yet. But he had to make one more attempt. "If you wait a minute, the intern said she'd be…"

"Please?" Angel cut him off, sniffling from being cold.

Fine tremors shook her entire tiny frame, her cheeks colorless and her lips dry and cracked. Steve felt caught between a rock and a hard place. He had already had to explain to what felt like most of SHIELD that nothing happened! It wouldn't have been appropriate! But when he looked at the way Angel stared up at him… She just looked so pitiful, but so determined. Letting out a sigh, he turned down the rail nearest him and sat down on her bed.

"Come here," here finally said quietly, leaning over and carefully taking her in his arms. She felt like she might be made of china, all her bones seemingly just there under her skin – he could feel them against his own body and hands. Before he could stop himself, he observed, "You're so small… No wonder you're cold."

He felt like a cad when she started to cry, but she shook her head to tell him it wasn't his fault – she had been holding it in too long.

"I'm really scared," she finally leaked out, her voice rattling in her throat in a way Steve really didn't like to think about. "I'm so sorry… I shouldn't be like this!"

Carefully, so as not to jar the needles in her arms, he held her closer. She turned her head and buried her face in his shirt. The bear slid out from under her arm and he returned it to its place gently. He could feel tears soaking in against his skin and it caused his chest to tighten painfully. Feeling her shake and cry, he ran one hand over her shoulder and upper arm, wishing he knew what to say.

"It's all right, I promise," he told her, holding her as tightly as he could without hurting her. "You don't have anything to be sorry about. It's okay to be scared… Heck, I've been scared half to death."

She lifted her head from his chest and looked up at him – only a few tears could be seen streaking down her face, her eyes dry from dehydration.

"When?" she asked simply - her eyes went wider than he had ever seen them.

It was true he could only think of a few times he could remember letting himself be truly frightened, but most of those he couldn't actually tell her about.

"When I saw you get sick," he told her honestly.

Blinking, she tilted her head at him.

"How come?" she inquired, sounding genuinely curious.

In spite of himself, he smiled at her.

"I don't like seeing people in trouble and not being able to help them," he said, stroking her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "Even if they keep telling me over and over that they don't need help…"

Angel blushed, the color returning in almost comical prominence to her face. She tried to respond, surely to say something snarky, but that wet tickle returned to her throat and she just coughed. Her body shook miserably against Steve's solid frame. He stroked her back, feeling her spine under his hand. The shaking turned violent as she tried to pull her arms in to wrap round her chest. She shrieked in pain and terror as the needles stabbed at her.

"What's wrong with her?" gasped the intern who had just appeared with a second white hospital blanket. She paused just long enough to look at Steve and Angel. "And why…"

"Go get Doctor Banner right now!" Steve commanded sharply, not moving or letting go of the girl in his arms. The young lady simply stood there with the blanket, dumbfounded, causing him to add, "That's an order!"

Dropping the blanket, the intern turned and ran from the room. He could hear her take off down the hallway and the alarm to summon Banner. Sighing, he knew that he had more explaining to do, but he didn't care. Keeping Angel calm and safe took precedence, for once, over what looked proper. She had started making a horrible choking sound, so he tried to help her sit up. Kicking the wastebasket over where it needed to be, he waited for the inevitable.

This time, it never came.

"Angel?" he asked cautiously – Angel had doubled over the side of the bed with her arms stuck out at odd angles because of the needles. Immediately, the hairs on the back of Steve's neck went up. He had a terrible feeling in his gut and his tone turned urgent. "Angel, I need you to tell me something – anything, just respond to me."

He heard a gurgling sound, unsure if it had actually been a response or not, but the sound of hurrying in the hall covered any more noise she might make. Doctor Banner strode hurriedly into the room, followed by three nurses and the intern who'd been summoned over the blanket. Steve helped the male nurse (there were two ladies as well) get Angel back up into bed. Blood coursed from her nose and mouth as it had when this all started.

"Well, this looks… horrible," Banner deadpanned, handing the male nurse a box of tissues and watching Steve with an amused grimace. "Cap, since you're always around for these disasters, you care to tell me what happened now?"

Steve frowned at the doctor – in the back of his mind, he knew this was just how the guy dealt with things to keep from going nuts.

"I don't like the implication there, Doc," he said calmly, making perfectly sure to keep his tone civil. "She was cold, asked me to hold her; I figured no problem in obliging her. Then she started that cough again and this time, instead of… doing what she usually does… she just didn't get up."

Angel lay disturbingly still on her pillow. For as long as he had known her, Steve couldn't think that he had actually seen her stop moving. He didn't like how it looked, so he reached out and set her bear back under her left arm. That did help just a little bit. The machine she had been hooked up to for about as long as she had been in bed was the only indicator she continued breathing at all.

"I see," said the doctor, taking the file that one of the lady nurses handed him. "Well, honestly… this is probably healthier for her than spewing vomit and/or blood again. Easier, at any rate…"

The other lady nurse removed a kit from a nearby cabinet and approached Angel's bedside. Steve took a wide step back and averted his eyes as she stuck a large syringe into the port and drew a generous amount of blood. She exited the room and headed over to the centrifuge. The male nurse checked something having to do with the IV drip and looked at the bed chart. He motioned to Doctor Banner and the two of them compared notes. Once he was sure they weren't doing things with needles again, Steve approached.

"So, what was this one for?" he asked, gesturing at the port in Angel's arm. "You guys haven't exactly been clear about what you're taking all this blood for."

Banner sighed and scratched the back of his head.

"Some of the CDC's top staff thinks there may be a way to derive a treatment of some sort from whatever's in her blood," he explained, still studying the file the nurse had handed him. "No success so far, but we took most of those samples while she was in one of those 'apparent recovery' stages."

Steve's frown deepened again – he didn't like how that sounded at all.

"You're not letting her stay sick, are you?" he demanded, drawing himself up to his full and not-unimpressive height. "Because it does occur to me that I haven't seen your people do much to treat her."

The way Banner sighed again, it sounded like he had known this round of questioning had not been long in coming.

"Hey, Cap, what you need to understand is that this is out of my hands," he began. This time he handed Steve the file. "One, we have been treating her. It's a pretty delicate balance, actually. The saline has to be exactly right to keep her from drowning in her own body. But the directive from the CDC says that we have to keep all routes open to a way to treat everybody else. We're looking at a shit-storm comparable to the Spanish Flu in 1918. And at least they knew what that was – if it happened today, we'd have it treated in no time. This – we don't even have a name for this."

Steve understood what the doctor had to say, but his face still darkened in anger – he looked at the girl, motionless in her bed.

"… just tell me you won't let her die," he commanded the doctor in a hard voice. Then he let his shoulders relax. "No… promise me."

Banner blinked at him.

"Okay, normally I wouldn't ask because I don't want to know," he prefaced, but continued anyway. Then he gestured at Angel. "What exactly… is this?"

For a moment, Steve only looked confused, but Howard Stark's constant references to 'fondue' pushed their way into his head.

"No!" he had to make himself not yell. Then he composed himself. "No, it's nothing like that. I happened to find her while I was out for a walk. Circumstances being what they were, I offered her some help. And when all this… sickness… started, I promised her that she would be all right."

The doctor actually seemed to understand this – he gave no indication of whether he agreed with it or not – and nodded.

"And you're a real promise-oriented guy, I gather," he remarked unnecessarily. Steve nodded, but Banner went on, "Well, you might want to find a way to square your mind up with this one. She quit being 'all right' a good while ago."

Steve had nothing to say to that, so he just sank back onto the edge of Angel's bed – Banner didn't comment. The super-soldier reached out and stroked the scruffy brown bangs away from the thin face. She had a steady nosebleed going, the slight incline of the bed letting it flow unobstructed. So, he turned, reached over for the tissues and started wiping her face clean. He refused to let it stain her pajamas – that would just upset her when she woke up. It really was disturbing, how she appeared not to be breathing.

The machine kept whirring though. Doctor Banner had done a quick explanation of what most of the gadgets were, just in case. Speaking of, the radiated genius excused himself. Said he had to go over this most recent development with Director Fury. If things were going properly with the centrifuge, they might actually have something to work with now. Sampling her while she was symptomatic could be just the right thing to do. Steve ignored the doctor's egress and wondered something briefly.

"Always made me feel better when I was a kid," he told her, not sure if she could even hear him, as he leaned over and tenderly kissed her forehead. "It just helps to know someone cares, I guess."

Angel took an audible breath at the touch on her skin. Steve couldn't help smiling – for some reason, the sickly sound was better than silence. The small girl seemed to be close to actual sleep for a change. After that one, her breathing started to even out noticeably. She shifted almost indiscernibly, prompting Steve to help her adjust until she smiled in comfort. A small sound accompanied her shifting her arm to hold her bear closer.

"Angel, I don't know how much of what the doc said you could hear," he leaned in close and whispered. "But I promised you before and I meant it: you're going to be all right."

And he could have sworn he saw the corners of her lips turn up just a bit at that. Trying not to jar her port, he took hold of her right hand, smiling again when she squeezed it weakly. Her chest, not that he looked closely, had started to rise and fall evenly. How bad was it that it seemed the both of them had become used to the wet, rattling sound? Once he was sure that she had truly just gone to sleep, he disentangled his fingers from hers. She didn't stir as he rose from the chair by her bed.

"Doc?" he called down the hall as quietly as he could, stepping out of the room. "Doctor Banner?"

The gray-haired man appeared from round a corner at the end of the hall.

"Did something else happen?" he asked warily.

Steve nodded, but quickly opened his mouth to explain.

"I figured it was something you should know," he told the doctor, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. "She just… went to sleep. Actual sleep – breathing evenly and everything… thought maybe you'd want to write that down."

Banner scratched his head.

"You know," he said enigmatically, smiling rather cautiously. "That… really is worth noting."