The Flu

Jemma actually smiled when she checked the reading on the thermometer.  104.5.  Still not the safest reading, but at least she thought it was a temperature where a seizure wasn't likely a serious danger.

"Jemma?"  Skye gently touched Agent Hand's forehead, where beads of sweat were startling to pop up at her hairline.  "Is that a bad sign or…"

"It's actually a good one.  Sweating is one of the body's natural ways to try to cool itself and maintain a normal temperature.   Reversing the dehydration is getting her body to start trying to function normally again.  It's a very, very good sign."  Not that the dehydration was completely reversed.  It would take more than one bag of fluids to do that, but they were on their way.  "Ma'am, I'm going to hang a fresh bag of fluids, but you're doing very well.  You just try to rest, and you'll be better before you know it."  It seemed like Agent Hand hadn't been able to really understand them before, but Jemma was going to keep talking to her anyway, in the hope that with the fever coming down she would be able to hear and realize that she was being taken care of.

"So, what else can we do for her?"  Skye wet a washcloth that had been brought with the medical supplies and gently dabbed at Agent Hand's forehead.  Sweating might be a good sign, but it made you feel horrible and sticky.  That couldn't be good for the making her comfortable part of things.

"Just make her comfortable and try talking to her.  Hopefully with the fever down a bit, she'll be able to understand now if she hears us."  Jemma checked the monitors before settling in on Agent Hand's other side.  Her heartrate was still faster than she would like, but other than that her vitals were good.  As long as that stayed true, and as long as the fever kept dropping, she felt more and more certain they had a good chance of pulling her through.

"Any ideas for what to talk about?  That won't terrify her, or make her think our team should be locked up somewhere?"  Skye asked.

Jemma paused for a moment, and then she heard Fitz walking past the closed door, muttering under his breath about how he needed a monkey, and she had an idea for at least something to try talking about.  "You've probably not been around Fitz enough to notice, Ma'am, but he has a bit of a monkey obsession.  I think it all started when he fell into the monkey exhibit at the zoo when he was a child.  I don't know what his teacher was thinking, but they didn't notice he was missing until his class got back to school.  It took four zookeepers to keep him from taking a monkey with him when they finally found him and fetched him out.  They won't even let him in the gates of most zoos now.  Really, it's very embarrassing and since I'm with him, they look at me suspiciously too, like I might be planning to help him and smuggle a monkey out in my purse."

"I'm not sure that finding out our team might have a potential monkey-napper on it is a calming topic."  Skye laughed slightly, as the image of Fitz, and various ways he could attempt to smuggle a monkey out of the zoo danced through her head and she had to choke back laughter as she saw him with a monkey stuffed down his sweater trying to walk past a zookeeper.  "We might not be the most normal team out there, but we're going to take care of you.  You're going to be fine."

"You're going to be just fine.  We promise."  Jemma added.  "All you have to do now is to rest, and get well.  Let us take care of everything else."

"Doctor."  Fury said as the first doctor he had consulted answered his phone.  Maybe this was insane to keep calling people, expecting a different answer to his questions, but somehow he couldn't stop himself.  300 people in the Hub and Victoria….

"Director, have you had any updates on the situation?"

"Nothing."  And he was starting to get a bit worried that he couldn't reach Coulson.  "I wanted to ask you, what damage could a fever of 106.2 do to the brain?  A fever of 106.2 and potential seizures?"

"Agent Hand."  The doctor was glad that he wasn't in the director's office for delivering this bit of news.  "A fever that high the brain damage it could cause would be catastrophic.  Normally the body doesn't allow a temperature much over 105.  For her fever to be at that level….  Sir, I hate to say it, but with the damage that was likely done, death might be the more merciful option.  Most likely, especially if there was a seizure, she would have suffered such massive damage that she would have been in a permanent vegetative state forever."

"Thank you, Doctor."  Fury said, clicking off his phone and looking up to see Jasper in the doorway, dead white with shock.  He really had to stop putting these calls on speaker before he gave that man a heart attack.  He didn't need to loose two level 8 agents in one day.

Before he could say anything, his phone rang again, and Jasper scurried away, hopefully not to drop over with a coronary somewhere.

"Director, I'm at the pharmaceutical company's office."  Steve said as soon as Fury answered.  "They're nervous.  I can tell you that much, but I'm not sure if it's because the shots they sold have put hundreds of people in the hospital and have made over a thousand sick or if they might be up to something.  Director, I know you probably want to keep this quiet, to keep Shield's vulnerability right now from getting out, but I'd like to at least call Doctor Banner to get his opinion.  He would be more likely to know if the stories they're trying to tell make sense."

"Call him.  Do whatever you have to do to get to the bottom of this."  Although calling Banner in would likely mean Stark would get involved too.  "I just ordered a casket for one of my level 8 senior agents and got the happy news that she would have been a vegetable if she had lived.  I want to know why!"

"Yes, sir.  And again, I'm really sorry about your agent."  Steve said as he ended the call started to dial Bruce Banner's number.

As soon as he found a private office, Jasper dialed Felix's number.  "Felix?"

"Has Phil called yet with an update?"  Felix asked as soon as he picked up the phone and switched it to speaker.

"No.  Fury can't get hold of him, which makes me think the situation at the Hub has to be as bad as the doctors are saying it might be.  Felix, Fury talked to the doctors here again about Victoria.  They said with the fever she had, that the damage it likely did to her brain…."

"Catastrophic brain damage."  Felix finished the sentence.  "I talked to the doctors here, and they all agreed that even if by some miracle she had survived she would never have been normal again."  And he had been really hoping for something different, for someone to have an idea with the strange things that they studied that might have made a difference.

"Wait.  Wait.  Catastrophic brain damage?"  John Garrett's voice was tinny, coming from the other phone on Felix's desk.  "They haven't seen her.  How can they say that Vic would have catastrophic brain damage if they haven't seen her?"

"The fever.  The human body normally doesn't have a temperature of over 105.  For Victoria's temperature to have hit 106.2, something was seriously going wrong."  Felix said as he shook his head even though neither of the other agents could see him.  "The fever would have destroyed brain cells and essentially cooked her brain.  Catastrophic and irreversible.  Victoria didn't have a chance."

"But Phil hasn't called yet?  He hasn't actually called and said she's gone?"  Garrett demanded.

"Not yet, but…."  Jasper didn't bother to finish the sentence.  If the situation wasn't as bad as the doctors were saying, there wasn't a reason for them not to have heard from Phil.  "I saw a nice tombstone on the webpage of the mortuary that's going to handle things.  Black with white etching.  Do you think she would like that?  We probably ought to go ahead and order that too, before there's a rush."