The Flu

"Victoria's alive?"  Felix said, disbelief obvious in his voice.  He had hounded his staff, hoping there might be a solution among all of the strange things they dealt with, and they had said there was nothing, that the best to hope for was for a quick death from a seizure, rather than slow suffocation from her lungs filling with fluid from pneumonia or the flu itself.

"Here, let me go to speaker."  Jasper said as the director's phone beeped and a picture popped up.

"Can a fever actually make someone shrink?"  Maria whispered as she looked at the picture.  Victoria was six feet tall.  How in the world could she look absolutely tiny and fragile in those pictures?

"She does look smaller."  Jasper said.  "Director, can you forward those pictures to Felix?  Victoria's not going to like it if she's shrunk due to this."  But the way she looked, so small and vulnerable, not like their Victoria at all, would she even realize if she had somehow shrunk?  Seeing her like that, the fear of brain damage came rushing back full force.

"Director?"  the first doctor from medical stood at the door, trying to keep from shaking.  What disaster was he about to be questioned about now?

"Doctor, we've finally reestablished communications with the Hub, and I have an update on Agent Hand's condition.  Fever down to 101 and sleeping in her office.  Would you like to explain to me how this could be when you clearly said she was dying not more than two days ago?"  Fury's voice was calm, but he was seething inside.  He had spent two days thinking Victoria was on death's door, or already gone, thinking that he was potentially facing losing over 150 agents, based on what the doctors had told him.  He had spent energy on that that would have been better spent focusing on getting them help.

"She…."  The doctor looked wildly around the room and debated trying to escape for a moment before he realized Maria Hill had moved behind him to block the door.  "I don't know what to say.  Based on the symptoms that you reported before, a cytokine storm was the obvious diagnosis.  Are you sure that whoever reported from the Hub had the correct information?"

"My good eye?  I don't see him getting something like that wrong.  Take a look."  Fury said as he held out the phone with the pictures of Victoria.

The doctor cringed as he looked.  Alive, she was definitely alive but….  "Have they ran blood tests?  There isn't an actual doctor on Agent Coulson's team, is there?  I'm wondering if what they might be seeing as improvement could be the start of septic shock.  And with the fever she was first reported to have…."

"She got locked in a hot room for who knows how long.  Coulson thinks that was probably responsible for part of why her temperature was so high."  Fury told him.

The doctor thought.  "That could do it, but Sir, whether the temperature was caused by the infection or a potential heat stroke, I'm afraid the results are likely going to be the same in regards to brain damage.  I wouldn't get my hopes up,  And if you can, contact Agent Coulson and see if they can draw blood for testing.  They really might be looking at the beginnings of septic shock."

Who in the world was Phil talking to, May wondered as she headed down the hall with a cart loaded with more food for the sick agents.  Maybe he had finally found his phone and had called to update Fury.  And hopefully Fury would have good news about getting help to them.  300 sick agents, well 299 with Victoria having Skye and Simmons as her personal nurses, and over half of them were sick and weak enough to need to be spoonfed.

Just then her phone rang.  "Mom?"  she said as she answered it.

"Melinda, I was just calling to say that your agency arranged a lovely write-up for Victoria."  Her mother said.  "I'm sure she would have been very pleased with it."

"Write-up?  What are you talking about?  And where did you see this write-up?"  Why would a sick agent call for a write-up somewhere, level 8 or not?

"It was in the Tribune.  I believe they picked it up from the Associated Press.  It was a lovely obituary, Melinda."

"Obit…"  Her jaw dropped, and for a moment she wondered if her mother had suddenly lost her mind.  "Mom, Victoria's not dead!  I'll call you right back."  She said as she cut off the call and hurried down the hallway to find Phil, pulling up the internet and searching as she moved.

"We have a problem."  she said as soon as she spotted him.  "What's he doing here?"

"He came to check on Victoria.  Please tell me we haven't had another fire.  I thought Fitz had the worst damage taken care of."

"We'e going to wish it was a fire.  I just got a call from my mother.  Take a look."  May said as she handed him her phone.  "Someone put an obituary for Victoria in the Washington Post and the Associated Press picked it up.  It's in all of the major papers."

"What?"  Coulson read the obituary, not able to believe what he was seeing.  The write-up was nice, very nice but still…  "And this is everywhere?"

"The picture they used is nice."  John called through the door after pulling up the obituary on his own phone.  "Is that from the last annual office Christmas party before human resources said we weren't allowed to have Christmas parties anymore?  Or any parties?  Maybe Vic'll get a date out of it?"

"It's an obituary!  People don't go through the pictures in the obituaries looking for potential dates.  I've got to call Fury.  How did this get out there?"  And how could they make it vanish, preferably before Victoria woke up.