| Subject: Priority Mail 254 |
Author:
Nikita507
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Date Posted: Wednesday, June 01, 10:43:32pm
In reply to:
Nikita507
's message, "Priority Mail 246+" on Saturday, May 21, 11:00:56pm
Michael dashed down the stairs as the car pulled up. He did not care if they both got upset at him for tapping the phones, but Nikita had really left him no option.
He may have been careful with his interactions with Nikita, but he knew that something was wrong.
“Oh thank god you are home,” Mick sighed as he hopped out of the car, Nikita coughing in the seat. Mick turned and looked at him. “I wanted to take her to the hospital… I think she is coughing blood.”
“My lips…” Nikita rasped as she looked at Mick and Michael almost sense some relief in her eyes, despite the fact that she chose Mick over Michael just moments ago. Michael leaned in and looked at Nikita carefully and agreed. She wasn’t coughing blood. Her lips were chapped and they were split open in two places. He didn’t know how he could have missed these signs that were so obvious but then, Nikita had been Operations for a reason.
“I know that she needs a hospital, Michael… I mean… I almost turned that way that I was sure that she passed out…”Mick spoke up as he stood there as Michael reached over and snapped the seat belt off. Nikita’s momentary pause of coughing ended and she was pushing her hands against her chest as she started to cough again. She turned her head to the side to cough away from Michael.
“You always follow Nikita’s directions… and that is admirable,” Michael replied as he didn’t even turn to look at Mick. He stroked Nikita’s hair back and cursed the fever that was taking her body over. “Damn, Kita… that fever.”
“Cou—ghing...” Nikita struggled to comment and Michael shook his head. He did understand that she was probably sweaty because of the coughing, but she was running a fever also.
“I tried to talk her into going to see Ellie…” Mick informed Michael as he stepped back while Michael pulled Nikita out of the seat and into his arms.
“She is on her way over… and Rhoda is on her way over with some oxygen,” Michael informed Mick as he straightened up. Mick closed the door and dashed up the stairs and opened the door. That was when he suddenly realized that there was no way that Michael just knew what was going on. “How did you know all of this?”
Michael walked right into the living room and put Nikita in the recliner, where Ellie had suggested to help Nikita cough. “I had your phones tapped.”
“Tapped?!?” Mick half shouted as he shivered with the thought. In this instance it was good, but he had plenty of conversations that he never wanted Michael to know about. Michael looked at Mick and shrugged his shoulders.
Nikita’s cough stopped and she leaned forward gasping to get a deeper breathe of air. “I… I…”
“Don’t try to talk now… just worry about breathing… Ellie will be here soon,” Michael directed Nikita. Although now that he saw her, he wasn’t sure that Ellie was going to be enough. They were stocked practically like a hospital here, but they still weren’t a hospital.
“I… tap…” Nikita gasped as she looked toward Mick. “Too.”
“You’ve tapped my phone too?” Mick questioned as he tossed his hands in the air. “I thought those days were gone.”
Michael glanced at Mick and knew that he couldn’t just stand there. His reaction was bothering Nikita and Michael was almost sure that he heard her having a panic attack, on top of the coughing fit, while talking to Mick. “She needs some water, Mick.”
“No tea…”Mick snapped his fingers. Michael reached out and grabbed Mick’s elbow. “Water… and a damp wash cloth… and there is some chap stick in the powder room.”
“ You can get that,” Mick commented and Michael shook his head from side to side. “I’m not leaving her now.”
Michael knelt down beside the recliner as Nikita now fought against tears. Michael shook his head. “What matters now Kita is getting you better.”
Nikita squeezed her kneecap and she tried to regulate her breathe. She coughed twice and Michael was concerned that she was going to go back to the heavy coughing fit, but Nikita didn’t. But he didn’t know at what cost she had stopped the coughing. This didn’t just happen overnight so she had to have been suppressing symptoms for some time and one of them had to be this cough. That was when he remembered that she had been coughing slightly from time to time and blamed the dry air in the house.
“I…” Nikita spoke as she closed her eyes and tried to focus on that picture in her mind. “tried… to…”
“Kita… don’t,” Michael tried to direct Nikita to stop as he stroked her hair back. Mick arrived with the three items and he started with the lip balm. Her lips looked so sore now that they had split open. She had to be dehydrated also and Michael didn’t like that. Dehydration could make hallucinations more common and Nikita didn’t need that either.
He coated Nikita’s lips as she took Michael’s hand away. “To… get better…”
“You thought you could… I understand that,” Michael nodded his head up and down. He then reached for the glass and looked at Nikita. There was no way that she could hold it and she was moving so much for some reason – Michael guessed it was to find a comfortable position. “Mick... can you see if there are any straws?”
“Ok…” Mick drew out but he left the room. Michael placed the water back down and took the damp cloth. He was glad that it was not too cold and he touched Nikita’s shoulder. She was leaning forward and he just wanted her to try to relax. “Come on… lean back… I’ll help cool you off…”
For a couple moments, that actually worked. Nikita was able to take her other hand away from her chest and her eyes lightly closed as she continued to pant, but not as heavily. Mick was successful in finding a straw and Michael was helping Nikita get a couple sips of water.
When she started to cough again.
Her knees jerked and the glass of water got hit. Michael got the glass away and helped Nikita lean up. He tapped lightly at her back and he glanced at the clock. “Just cough, Kita… get it all out.”
Nikita didn’t look at Michael and she squirmed as she slapped her one hand against the arm of the recliner. “Hurts…” Nikita hissed out while having one short pause. Michael nodded his head. “I know… and we are going to get you better…”
It felt like forever and Nikita’s coughing did not subside. But finally the door opened while Nikita’s lips were turning very pale and tinting blue.
“I got the oxygen,” Rhoda spoke as she couldn’t help but worry about Nikita. She regretted her words now. She worried that she had made it harder for Nikita to reach out for her, but that couldn’t be an issue right now. Nikita was having labored breathing when she wasn’t coughing and the nurse could tell that she was not getting enough oxygen.
Damn, she should have been at the hospital!
Michael couldn’t even look at the clock. The minutes felt like hours. The oxygen was on Nikita and Rhoda was trying to get Nikita’s pulse but was finding it difficult. With the look of Rhoda becoming frazzled, Michael started to get nervous. “Should I call for an ambulance?”
“After I left patients behind?” Ellie questioned as she arrived. She looked at Nikita and then there was some sort of silent conversation between Ellie and Rhoda. Michael didn’t understand, but it was clear that Ellie came up with a plan immediately. “The cough needs to stop… so I can even find out what is going on…”
Ellie walked over and looked at Nikita. “I’m going to sedate you… so you stop coughing…”
“No…” Nikita panted out and Ellie shook her head. “I have too… you’ll feel better.”
“Hospital… no…” Nikita finished and Ellie exhaled. “If this doesn’t stop the coughing… I won’t have a choice, Nikita. I’ll have to protect your airway and that means going to the hospital… via ambulance… I’m not going to lie to you right now.”
Nikita closed her eyes and Michael cleared his throat. “I will back up that decision, Ellie.”
“It would happen,” Ellie warned as she got into her bag and quickly started to get supplies needed. She handed over a bag of fluids that Rhoda went about finding a way to hang up.
It was tense but quickly Nikita was getting fluids and her cough was subsiding as she started to go to sleep. Ellie didn’t need to pull out her stethoscope to know what was going on but Rhoda handed one over either way. Ellie leaned over and listened to the chest and shook her head.
“How can she have pneumonia this bad?” Rhoda questioned everyone. “She is around all of us…”
Michael paled as he stood up and rubbed his hand to the back of his neck. “I’m sure that she has a stash of herbal remedies and such… and we were trained on… treating the symptoms… not the root cause… for the sake of a mission.”
Rhoda glared at Michael as he said the words. He cleared his throat again. “More important not to get shot in a mission… than appropriately treat illnesses with antibiotics.”
Rhoda didn’t say anything. She swung her head sadly from side to side. She looked at Ellie and tapped her hands together to move onto another topic. “I’m going to see if I can get someone from the clinic to drop over some more IV fluid… I think it’s going to be needed.”
Ellie pulled the coffee table over and sat down close to Nikita. “I should have insisted…”
“She would have fought a hospital,” Michael warned as he knew that she wouldn’t even know right now if they didn’t respect her wishes. “Can we treat this here?”
Ellie nodded her head as she rubbed her hands together. “But we have to call Walter.”
Michael raised an eyebrow and Ellie rolled her eyes. “Someone gave him some of his files… and he had a lot to do with some of the treatments…in Section…”
“Maybe rapid isn’t best here,” Michael suggested as he looked at Nikita and knelt again beside her. “You didn’t do that for me… and I think it was a good lesson for me to learn.”
Ellie rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone. “To at least make it a bit safer, Michael.”
“Because if you don’t call Walter… you are calling an ambulance?”
“Yeah,” Ellie nodded her head as she started to dial, not giving Michael a chance to say anything further.
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