Chapter 6

"Let's go Home, sweetheart," Andrew told Monica taking her small hand. The little angel nodded and started to walk with him, but after a few steps she stopped.

"I can't Andrew," she said sadly.

He held her tightly and buried his face in her hair. "I can't see you suffering," he murmured with pain in his voice.

"I have to go back," she explained fighting her tears.

He let go on his hold and leaned down to kiss her one more time, a long kiss full of longing and pain. "I love you. I'll be waiting for you," was all he could say also fighting a tear that longed to escape his eye.

"She's back!" Gloria exclaimed when she saw Monica's heart monitor beeping again. "We have a rhythm!"

"Thank you, Father!" Tess murmured through her tears and went to stroke Monica's forehead. "Angel girl, don't do this again!" she warned her.

Gloria stepped back and saw the supervisor talking to the Irish angel, and then turned to see the other doctors that were now taking away the equipment they had used to give Monica electroshocks after her heart had failed.

"The next 72 hours will be critical," one of them told Gloria. "If she's infected but doesn't start to bleed, she may have a chance to make it."

"The results of the test don't show any signs of the virus, yet the symptoms are there," the angel said.

"I really hope she doesn't have it," the doctor said closing her file. "One week without cases was very good but this should remind us that we are not out of danger yet."

Gloria came closer to Tess and Monica after the doctors and the nurses had left the little angel stabilized and all set. "She really scared us," she commented.

"Father, she has to be all right," the dark skinned angel said still crying.

Gloria went to hug her moved by her tears. "We'll pray for her, Tess. She has so many things to do! We need her here!"

By the time Gloria and Tess were still by Monica's bed, Henry, Rafael, Adam and two men were working non-stop to take an angel and a doctor out of the gorge where an accident had taken them. Jack had descended to rescue Andrew and had found him unconscious, his left arm dislocated and a big branch stuck in his abdomen. Evaluating the seriousness of his injuries, the doctor had ordered the men that had come with Henry to go to the town and get a small plane ready to take them back to Brazzaville as soon as possible. Finally, after one long hour, Jack guided up an improvised stretcher where Andrew laid badly hurt.

"Adam, Rafael, get up in the jeep and make sure he stays still!" the doctor ordered the two angels while he placed his own shirt around the branch in the blond angel's stomach and Henry took the driver's place.

Soon they arrived to where the plane was waiting for them. Jack found an IV to fight the loss of blood and managed to stop the bleeding. "How long do we have?" Rafael asked helping the doctor to hang the bag inside the plane.

"That bag is his very life right now," he said meeting the young angel's worried eyes. "We have to arrive in less than two hours!"

"Is she infected?" Robert asked Gloria when he saw the young angel coming along the hallway of the isolated area that was now so familiar to him.

"We don't know," she replied looking through the window at Tess seated by Monica's side. "We're running a second test to make sure..."

"Of all the people that had been working here, she's the one that least deserved this."

"Mr. Grimsley, none deserved to get sick," Gloria argued. "This is a tragedy, not a divine punishment or something like that."

"It much feels like one," he commented.

"But it is not! God doesn't send diseases to punish His children! He's hurting to see so many dying and suffering! And He is helping us even if we may think things are too complicated! He sends us the people we need by our side and He will certainly see us through all this at the end!"

Somewhat surprised by Gloria's certainty, Robert didn't argue. He felt himself in debt with a woman that had been so patient with him even when he had been quite mean to her, and he certainly wanted to do something for the Irish angel that he could see now lying at the other side of the window. "Does Monica have a family?" he asked genuinely concerned. "Where are they? I could see them coming here with a special driver or a private plane."

Gloria shook her head. "Tess is almost a mother for her, that's why she won't leave her."

"Isn't she married?" he continued. "Or maybe a boyfriend... She was calling an Andrew when we found her."

"Andrew, yes! I'm sure she'll love to have him here but..."

"Tell me where he is!" Robert said, but his expectations disappeared when he heard Gloria's answer.

"He's in The Congo."

The doors of the OR opened with a noisy slam when Jack got in with Adam and Rafael pushing Andrew's stretcher. The IV bag was dripping its last drops but the people at Brazzaville's hospital were ready to help the blond angel. "Give him two units of O negative immediately and get him ready for surgery. I'll go get ready too!" the doctor ordered.

Adam, Rafael and Henry saw their coworker disappear behind the door and they felt awfully helpless once they were there.

"I could hardly believe this when I heard it!" Ronald said coming closer to them with Sam at his side. "Oh, my! Is it that bad news are never going to end?" he said pessimistically.

"Everything seems so unreal!" Adam commented. "First Monica, now Andrew... I wonder if there has been something similar before."

"How's Monica?" Rafael asked.

"Last news were that they took her out of a heart failure," Sam informed them. "Gloria called wanting to know if we had contacted Andrew. I didn't want to tell her anything about the accident until I was sure of what had happened. I think she and Tess have enough with Monica right now."

Time thickened for the angels while they waited for news about their friend. All of them had to go back to their work as the number of new cases had kept on being regular and the hospital was still crowded. Almost three hours later, Rafael and Adam went back to the surgery ward to ask about Andrew and found one of the doctors that had helped Jack.

"He's still in critical condition, he lost a lot of blood and the branch went through the upper part of his liver. Fortunately it didn't touch his kidneys or his lungs, otherwise we wouldn't be talking now," the doctor informed them.

"Where is he now?" Adam asked.

"He's about to be moved," he said and in that moment, they saw two men nurses moving him, all covered with the special suit they had been using to handle the sickest people.

"What?!" Rafael asked when they saw them taking him to an improvised isolated area by the recovery ward.

"He will be isolated now," the doctor barely explained. "Excuse me," he said and left them without more explanation.

Rafael and Adam looked at each other not understanding at all. When they turned to see if there was someone else who could give them more information, they saw Ronald and Sam coming to them with a somber expression.

"Now what?" Adam asked exasperatedly.

Sam lifted his head showing him to turn towards the isolated area. Jack was walking to get in there too, a nurse perfectly protected handling him some medical supplies and then making sure the plastic curtain that will keep the angel and the doctor separated from the rest of the hospital was perfectly sealed. The two younger angels turned to see them with no clue at all about what had happened in front of them.

"Isolated?" Rafael finally asked.

"Yes," Sam answered. "Raymond Mberi called while Jack was operating Andrew. He found Nikki bleeding through the mouth and the eyes. The monkey died about an hour ago..."

"Oh, no, Jack!" Rafael exclaimed. "Nikki bit him when he tried to get my cap back!"

"He's infected," Ronald said. "He knows that."

"But Andrew?" Adam asked.

"Jack touched Andrew's blood and he operated him," Sam explained. "He fears a possible exchange of fluids, and if that has happened... Andrew is infected as well."