"How is she?" Kay asked as the doctor came into the waiting room a couple of hours later. They hadn't been able to control the swelling, forcing them to operate yet again. Even the MiB medical team, after taking a look at her, had said it was the only option.
The doctor looked at the agents and sadly shook his head.
"She...." Jay couldn't bring himself to finish the sentance. Elle couldn't be gone, not after all she had been through!
"She did survive the surgery but I'm afraid there were a few complications. The swelling pinched off the carotid artery, severely limiting the bloodflow to her brain for several minutes. If the venom hadn't caused such serious clotting problems, she would be dead or severely brain damaged now. We're going an MRI right now but it looks like she was very lucky. What I'm concerned about now is the fact that she isn't responding to the anti-venin. We've ran 400mL without any significant response."
"Isn't there anything else you can do?" Kay asked.
"Nothing at this point besides increasing the anti-venin and praying she starts to respond. I would think about calling her family now. Unless she starts reacting within the next few hours, she isn't going to live."
*******
A little while later, the three agents came into Elle's room. "What did we let them do to her?" Jay whispered as he stared in horror at Elle. It seemed that she was a mass of bandages from her forehead to her shoulder blades and then down her left arm.
"I'm going to get in touch with the medical team," Zed said. After realizing that they couldn't move Elle, he had had the medics go on to Dead Man's Creek to help out the cleanup crew. "Maybe there's something that they can do."
As Zed hurried out, Kay sat down beside Elle again and took her hand in both of his, holding on tightly as if he could force her to live through willpower alone.