The Flu

By the time they reached Agent Hand's office, Jemma had at least the beginnings of an idea for how to treat her. She wasn't sure it was the best plan, the best plan would involve getting Agent Hand to a hospital for a stay in intensive care, but that was out, so this was what she could come up with. Hopefully it would be enough to give her a fighting chance.

"Looks like she made a pretty comfy bed for herself, anyway. Probably way more comfortable than the beds in medical would be." Skye commented as they eased Agent Hand onto the makeshift bed on the floor, the cooling blankets swaddled around her.

Victoria felt hands touching her again, felt herself being lifted and they laid down somewhere soft, some sort of blankets being tucked securely around her, and more hands, the touches gentle, but why couldn't she open her eyes to see who was there? It was all black, except the flickers of light she was somehow seeing through her closed eyelids. What was wrong with her?

"Jemma?" Coulson quietly said her name as he watched Victoria. Something…. He wanted to believe that they had found her in time, that they would be able to help her and reverse this, but seeing her there, looking so vulnerable and so absolutely small… How could someone who was six feet tall look so small but she looked almost tiny, wrapped in those blankets, pale and ill.

"She's still fighting, Sir, she's still got a chance." Jemma hoped that the next part wasn't going to be awkward, but she really needed to limit the number of people Agent Hand was exposed to, and having their entire team crammed into her office wasn't going to be good for that. But she wasn't an actual medical doctor. Was she allowed to throw superior officers out? It looked like she was about to find out. "Right now, though, I need you and Agent May and Agent Ward to wait out in the hall, please. And…" She paused, anticipating another awkward moment. She was going to need someone else to help her, but she wasn't sure if she should ask for Skye or Fitz. Both had been with Agent Hand for long enough that any germs they were carrying she would have been exposed to, making them the only safe choices but….

"I'll stay." Skye said before Jemma could say anything else. "She's on my list. My job to look after her, right?" She dropped to the ground next to Agent Hand and reached out to gently pat her fingers. "Besides, Fitz probably needs to check and make sure that whoever messed things up in that lab hasn't messed anything else up, something that might set the building on fire, right? She isn't so scary. I want to stay and help."

"Jemma, wait." Coulson said as the scientist started to shoo them out the door. "Don't you need more than one person?" And had Skye actually said that Victoria wasn't that scary? That wasn't a good sign. If Victoria wasn't being considered scary, she was either on her deathbed, or Skye had been more than a bit squashed and oxygen deprived in that vent.

"Sir, we need to limit her exposure to any possible germs at the moment. She's been confined in the same room as the two of us and Fitz. Anything we might be carrying, she's already been exposed to, but the three of you could easily be carrying something different that could be dangerous to her at the moment. We'll take care of her, I promise." Jemma grabbed a piece of paper and quickly wrote out a list of the supplies they would need. "The medicines can come from medical. That should be alright, but get the equipment and the rest of the supplies from the BUS, please. Just knock and leave it outside the door. Oh, and we need something dry to change her into too."

"She's not going to be happy waking up in a hospital gown." But May almost smiled as she saw the expressions on Ward and Coulson's face, when they realized that even as she was writing and handing over lists, little Jemma had somehow managed to shoo them out of the door, and had closed it firmly behind her.

"No, she isn't." Coulson took the list of equipment hand handed it to Fitz. "Take Ward and get whatever Jemma needs. May and I will handle getting the medicines." Fitz and Ward hurried off right away, but the two senior agents stood there, staring at the closed door, reluctant to move.

"She's fighting. She's still fighting. Simmons will take care of her, she'll be fine." May said. speaking partially to Coulson and partially to herself.

"Right." Coulson nodded and the two started down the hallway, although both shot looks behind them at the closed door.

"Someone should probably call the director, though, and update him. Weren't you talking to him when this started? Where's your phone?"

"I think I dropped it. I'll have to go and find it later." And really, until they knew more, what use would it be to call Fury when they couldn't tell him anything?

"Doctor, let's stick to simple yes or no answers, shall we?" Director Fury said in the quietest and most alarming tone the trembling physician in front of him had ever heard. "The entire staff of the Hub has been sick less than a day, but not more than twenty minutes ago I heard something very alarming on the phone, that Agent Hand, one of my level 8 senior agents might be dying of this thing. Is that possible?"

The doctor shook, but finally he stammered a reply. "Yes."

"Maria?" Jasper Sitwell whispered as he approached the deputy director who was standing in the doorway to block the doctor in case he tried to bolt. "What's going on? Did he just say what I thought he said? Victoria's dying? What happened to her?"

"The flu, apparently."

"The flu? I heard there was some sort of problem with the shots, but…" Dying? He pulled out his phone and quickly dialed Felix at the Sandbox. "Felix, we've got a major problem here."

"Alright, Doctor, would you explain to me how this is possible, for a healthy person to end up on their deathbed less than twenty-four hours after symptoms develop?" Fury demanded, ignoring the rapidly increasing voices from the doorway, where it sounded like Sitwell was turning his phone onto speaker.

"Being healthy might actually go against her, if Agent Hand is as sick as you heard." The doctor said, hoping that Fury didn't have any weapons or if he did, that he didn't believe in shooting the messenger. It wasn't like HE was the one who had ordered the defective shots! "Generally, the relatively young, healthy people are better able to fight off the flu, but if Agent Hand is that sick…. We might be looking at something like the pandemic of 1918, where the virus pretty much turned the immune system against those who were healthy in a cytokine storm."

"So, what do we do, then?" Fury demanded. Surely there was some sort of treatment for this sort of thing.

"There are a few drugs that have showed possible benefits, but by the time that we could get them there, if Agent Hand is as bad as you heard…."

"You don't think she's going to make it?"

"If she's that bad…" He didn't want to say it, with the way Fury was glaring at him but what choice did he have. "No, I don't think she has a chance, not if she's that sick, that fast. And Director, I hate to say this, but if the virus is bad enough to trigger a cytokine storm in the body, Agent Hand might only be the first agent we're going to lose."

Fury closed his eye for a moment and lowered his head. A funeral, how he did hate having to go to funerals. "Maria?" He called a moment later as he looked up at his deputy director, who was standing there, a shocked expression on her face next to a horrified looking Sitwell, who had someone who was shouting on his phone. "Put Shield into total lockdown and notify the WSC that we have a major problem on our hands. Until we find out more about what this is, no one goes in or out of any Shield installation."