Matty watched, feeling more helpless than perhaps she ever had in her life, as her agent struggled for breath on the couch in her office.
Mentally, she reviewed the series of events that had led up to this. It was a coping technique that she had taught herself many years ago, having found that it helped her deal with the stress of her job. It made her feel somewhat in control of what happened, and that was vital in a job where almost anything could go wrong at any given time.
Her team had just returned from a mission and had gathered in the War Room, with Bozer meeting them there. Matty smiled to herself at the thought of the loyalty of the young man. They had been joking around, high off of the adrenaline of a successful mission. Jack and Mac had started tossing a water bottle around, picked up from somewhere in the Phoenix Foundation.
Matty had stood in the doorway for a few moments, watching her team, before she made herself known. When she entered the room, the water bottle was immediately brought down to the table, and Mac had unscrewed the cap hastily and took a drink, trying to look innocent of mischief.
Matty felt a frown growing on her already-grim face. A few moments into the debriefing, Mac had started growing pale, up until the point where he had collapsed face-first onto the table; he was saved from a hard smack on the head only by Jack's quick reflexes.
They had placed the young man on the couch, with Riley immediately leaving to find a medic, who had arrived a minute or two after the girl returned to the room. The doctor had examined Mac, his face growing graver every second, until he turned to Matty and uttered one word: "Poison."
Jack had frowned and said, almost to himself, "I knew there was something wrong with that guy," and Matty had waved him from the room along with Bozer and Riley, knowing that the man would know to follow his instincts and look for the agent that he suspected.
The doctor had administered as much aid as he could to Mac as Matty called Jack and talked with him about their plan of action. Jack was going to take Riley and Bozer and continue scouring the facility- which had gone into lockdown as soon as it was discovered that Mac had been poisoned- for the infiltrator.
That had been thirty minutes ago. Matty might not be a doctor herself, but even she could tell that if Mac didn't get the antidote soon, he would die.
Forty-five minutes after Mac had collapsed, the door to the room was thrown open and a man- handcuffed and gagged with a piece of cloth that looked suspiciously like it came from a shirt the same color as the one that the man was wearing- was thrown into the room. Behind him came Jack, Riley, and Bozer, each looking furious.
Matty raised an eyebrow as she stared down at the man. "I'm assuming that this is the culprit?"
Jack fairly snarled as he answered, "Yeah, that's him. Apparently, he was supposed to make sure that Mac was dead."
Briskly stepping forward, Matty pulled the gag down from the man's face, then leaned down into his personal space. "Where is the antidote?"
The man laughed. "I'm not going to tell you."
Matty smiled. "Is that so?" Then she leaned in even closer and began to speak in a calm, quiet, and reasonable tone. "If you don't tell me, I'll see to it that you're thrown in a hole so deep that you'll never see the sun for a moment while you're there. You'll stay there for the rest of your miserable life. If you live long enough to make it there, that is."
The man pressed his lips tighter and glared at her. Matty nodded. "It's on him."
Bozer said, his voice tight with frustration, "How do you know that?"
Matty smiled again- a ferocious smile, all sharp edges and words that weren't so much threats as promises."If it wasn't he would've old us that we'd never find it."
Her agents nodded and got to work immediately, Mac's ragged breathing in the background filling them all with a sense of urgency.
Jack pulled off his boots, examining them carefully as Riley went through the man's jacket pockets and Bozer stood by Mac. A moment later, Jack gave a triumphant shout and held up a clear vial of a creamy liquid. A quick glance at their captive and his despairing expression made Matty sure that this was the antidote.
The man, apparently having decided that his only chance of survival now was to try and help his captors, said, "You can't give it to him until an hour after he ingested the poison or he'll die."
Riley whipped around to glare at the man. "Now you choose to be helpful?"
The man shrugged. "I don't want to die."
Matty glared at their captive. "Enough. Jack, how long has it been since he drank the water?"
Jack looked at his watch. "Fifty-three minutes."
Matty felt her heart sink. The agent on the couch was steadily growing worse. Slowly, she and the other agents moved over to congregate around their friend, who was staring blankly at the ceiling. His rasping breaths were growing shallower, his fingers trembling with the effort it took to take in even a single chestful of air.
Jack squatted down at eye level, placing a hand on his arm. "How you doing, buddy?"
Mac's head lazily rolled to the side to look at his friend. "J'ck," he slurred, then continued, "H'rts. Th'nk 'm dy'n."
Matty placed a hand under the young man's chin, lifting his head so that his cloudy gaze met her clear one. "Look at me, Mac."
After a second, his eyes focused, and she continued, "You're going to make it, do you hear me? I haven't put up with your stubbornness for this long just to have you give up on me now, you got it?"
A beat passed, then another. Finally, the blond nodded. Matty released his chin, satisfied. They just had to wait five more minutes, and then they could give him the antidote.
Two minutes away from an hour, Mac's eyes suddenly rolled up into his head and he began to jerk on the couch, then stilled as suddenly as he had started to seize up. The doctor, who had been in the back of the room, brushed past the agents and bent by Mac. "If you're going to give something to him, it needs to be now. He's going to die otherwise."
Jack and Matty glanced at each other, both their minds whirling. Mac wasn't going to make it two more minutes, but would giving him the antidote two minutes early kill him? Matty closed her eyes briefly and mentally accepted the full consequences of her choice, good or bad. "Give it to him," she ordered Jack, her voice terse.
Jack nodded and placed an arm beneath his friend, drawing him in a sitting position, and muttered, "Here's hoping that your luck holds out."
The older man tipped the vial into the blond's mouth as the doctor massaged the young man's throat, making him swallow. After the vial had been emptied, Jack gently laid the young agent back on the couch. All that was left to do was wait.
A second passed, then another. Finally, fifteen seconds after the vial had been administered, Mac took in a large, shuddering breath, then began to breathe normally.
The room let out a collective sigh of relief. Mac was going to be okay. Jack said, quietly, "We must've got the initial time wrong."
Matty nodded. "Yeah." Then she added, after a moment, "Thank goodness."
She didn't think she'd ever been so happy to make a mistake in her life.
True to her word, Matty had the man transported to one of the harshest prisons in the US.
Jack, Riley, and Bozer were there to watch him go.
None of them felt any pity for the man.
Prompt from Amy L. over at FF.
"Mac is poisoned while at Phoenix and Maddie must care for him while Jack and the team find the culprit and the antidote."
Hope you liked it!