A/N: I'm so, so sorry for taking so long to get this next chapter out. I have no excuses other than laziness and being distracted by another story idea. Please forgive me. Anyway, if you're still reading this story, I thank you for hanging in there despite my slowness, I've made a vow to myself to finish this story before I work on any others and I'm thinking that the next chapter might wrap it up. Once again, thanks for all of your kind reviews, they're heartily appreciated. :D

Chapter 9

Curling in on himself, seemed to be the best way to handle the tremors and chills coursing through him. When he thought earlier that he had been worse off before, he had been so wrong. He had to take deep breaths the keep the pain in his head from overwhelming him, but even those were becoming harder and harder to take. So tight in a ball he lay on his side, barely aware of Magnus placing a cool, wet cloth over his forehead nor her careful ministrations and assurances that he's be fine.

But one thing made than pain bearable. Whenever he chanced to uncrew his eyes from another bout of shivers, he could see more and more clearly.

He pulled the blanket that had been covering him up higher, hoping it would chase some of the tremors away. It did little good. He felt an object press onto his temple and he chanced to open his eyes again. The light was still painfully bright, but the sight of seeing the dark-haired blur that he knew was Magnus was encouraging enough to draw him out of his pain-addled haze.

"What ya doing?" He asked weakly.

"I'm taking your temperature. It's getting pretty high."

"But it's working." He countered with a smile that resembled more of a grimace. "I can tell you're wearing that green shirt with the puffy sleeves now."

"Actually, it's teal." She corrected him, her face coming into blurry view, running a hand across his brow with the cloth, wiping the sweat away. He knew that if he could make out her eyes, he'd see concern there.

"Teal, green, whatever...it's a pretty color." He sighed. "I'm just glad I can see it, especially on you." He added truthfully, beyond caring what it might have sounded like to her. At least if he was going to die from this he thought, then he die happy seeing some color before his eyes again.

"How's the pain?" She asked.

"Bearable." He lied, closing his eyes again and he knew she knew it.

"I'm sorry, there isn't much I can do for it. I've already tried the morphine and I can't give you any more for a few hours"

"'s okay."

He heard footsteps next walking up to his bed, he didn't have to turn his head to know it was Kate with Bigfoot in tow. Magnus' face exited from his vision, turning towards the new arrivals

Closing his eyes again and trying not to focus on the pain, he focused his attention on the conversation starting between the three.

"Any sign of Nikola?" Magnus asked.

"No." Kate replied, sounding apologetic. "He's clear flown the coop, even somehow knocked out the security cameras on his way out and we have no way of knowing which way he could have gone. I'm sorry, Magnus, I should have kept a closer eye on him. I just didn't think him capable of getting out of the cell."

"It's alright, Kate." Magnus offered some pardon for the younger woman. "None of us expected him to be able to breach our security systems and it wouldn't be the first time I underestimated Nikola. But right now, we have bigger problems."

"How is he?" Kate asked.

"Hanging in there."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Sure, Why don't you go and see if Henry needs any help."

"'kay." He felt a hand touch his shoulder as Kate spoke to him softly. "We'll get you better soon, Will."

He opened his eyes and turned his head slightly, taking in her dark features and nodded just enough to let her know that he heard her without letting the movement jar loose another spike of pain in his head before she turned away and walked off.

"Can I get you anything?" Bigfoot asked Magnus. "You must be hungry."

"No, thank-you. I have some more blood test results I need to check." Magnus' voice lowered, but Will could still make out what she was saying. "But I would like you to prepare some lorazapam, Fever reducers haven't had much of an effect so far, and Will's fever is spiking into seizure territory and I'd like to hold them off as best as we can."

The big-guy grunted his assent.

Moments later he felt the presence of big-foot looming over him, knowing that he was injecting his IV with the drug and he gave himself over to oblivion.

OOOOO

Henry sat at his computer, running a hand through his hair as if to pull it out. It was dark in the lab, save for the glow of several computer screens and the occasional flash of light coming through the window as a thunderstorm worked its way towards them.

"Hey." Kate announced herself as she walked in. Seeing his apparent distress she asked the obvious anyway. "How's it coming?"

He sighed and looked up. "It's been better."

"Ya got anything yet?"

"Not really." He pointed to the empty cages that had once held the rodents they had experimented the nano-cytes on originally. Not one remained. "Half of them were still up and kicking until a few hours ago. Now they're all gone."

She hung close to the door, Henry looked to be on the edge of freaking out, she wanted to just rush in and give him an encouraging hug. But hugs weren't on the menu yet in their relationship and she wasn't ready to cross any lines and besides, she didn't do hugs.

"So, how's Will?" Henry asked with concern lacing his voice and marking his face.

"Not so hot." She informed him truthfully with a sigh. "Ya need any help in here?" She offered.

"I'm not sure how you could. I helped put these things together and I'm almost out of options here."

Kate decided to make her move then and enter fully into Henry's lab. She dodged equipment that sat haphazardly across the floor and remarked to herself that Henry really had no place calling her messy when his lab looked like a nuclear testing ground. She was almost to his desk when her foot snagged on a cord stretched across the floor. Losing her balance, she began to fall forward, certain that her face would be meeting the hard wood floor at any moment. However, strong hands stopped her momentum and grabbed firmly onto her forearms.

Just inches from her face, she noticed for the first time how his greenish/hazel eyes projected concern for her in a way she hadn't experienced before and momentarily she was unable to catch her breath.

"Whoa there, you okay?" He asked. Suddenly realizing that he was still holding onto her, she backed off, feeling awkward.

"Yeah, yeah...I'm fine. What was that wire doing there anyway?"

Henry seemed to realize that he too was still grasping her and he let go with a slight air of embarrassment. "Sorry...I needed another outlet for this computer...oh shit."

"What?" She asked.

"You unplugged it, I was in the middle of something and now I'll have to reboot the whole thing and start over."

Kate hissed in a breath, sheepishly offering another apology. "Damn, Sorry."

"It's okay...I wasn't making much headway anyway."

Another flash of lightening lit up the office, lighting Henry's face, highlighting his downtrodden features. She hated seeing him like this. She could see that he was beating himself up for not coming up with an answer yet and while they were normally like oil and water when they were together, she couldn't help but want to assuage his distress."You're doing the best you can, ya know."

"I know, but I should have seen this coming. I knew these things needed more testing, . I should have trashed them when I had the chance, but Will and Magnus were so hopeful and I didn't want to let them down. But, I screwed up and this is all my fault. I left Tesla alone and I should have suspected that he would do something rash. I screwed this whole shit up royally."

"It's not your fault. You couldn't have known what Tesla was going to do. If this is anyone's doing it's his and his alone."

Henry shook his head dejectedly, tugging at Kate's heart seeing him debasing himself so. Lightening lit up the room again, highlighting his downtrodden features and she was suddenly angry at the whole situation.

"Wish we could just fry the suckers and then find Tesla and fry him as well." She spat out.

Henry had been silent, looking out the window in deep thought and lost in his own inadequacies when it seemed like he suddenly heard her. "fry 'em?" He muttered. His eyes darted about the computers then back out to the window where more lightening flashed.

"Shit...Reboot...why didn't I think of this before?" He was suddenly all movement, pacing back and forth.

"See what before?"

"Fry 'em...we can fry 'em."

"What?...you're not making any sense."

"Don't you see? The last time I had to reboot our entire computer system it was because of a lightening strike. It hit one of our towers and fried several computers that weren't connect to surge protectors. Look-" He pulled on the cord that Kate had recently tripped over and pulled on it again, sending his computer screen black. "Too little power shuts down the machine and too much turns it into scrap metal. Since the nano-cytes create their own power from the body's own electrical current...too much power flowing through the body should overload them."

"Wait..wait...wait." She held out her hands, trying to follow his reasoning until it hit her like a ton of bricks. "So you're saying we have to shock Will in order to kill these things. Isn't that pretty extreme?"

Henry's face dropped. "Yeah...But we'll just have to find out how much electricity is needed to knock them out. If it's not too much to hurt Will, then this might work."

OOOOO

He was in agony now. His muscles strained and tensed into tight cords, hands reflexively clenching and unclenching, clawing at the fabric of the sheets underneath him. Tears fell unbidden through his scrunched up eyes and Helen had never felt so useless before.

All of her efforts thus far to stem the pain and the fever were for naught and even the sedative she had ordered had had little effect, it was as though the nano-cytes just absorbed anything she gave him and rendered them ineffective.

She was at a loss and Will was getting worse every second.

Taking her temporal thermometer out once again, she brushed back some of his hair, feeling the intense heat of his skin and felt him squirm against her touch before she pressed it to his temple and waited for the reading.

When it was finished, she looked at it, almost doing a double take: 105.9. She had taken his temp only about twenty minutes ago and it had been hovering around 104, but now It had risen so sharply, and so fast that she was almost in disbelief. She didn't think she'd ever seen a fever this high before and she would have to get it down fast if Will was going to survive without any permanent damage. Brain damage being the most worrying of all.

She yelled for Big Foot and ordered ice packs- lot's of them. Will already had a cooling blanket underneath him, but it was her only one on hand and apparently it wasn't enough. Something needed to be done, and fast.

Bringing as many of the gel-filled ice packs as they had in stock, Big foot came around the bed and they placed them over his chest and abdomen. Will shivered and moaned as the cold seeped into him, but Helen was guardedly pleased to see his temp go down a degree after half an hour. But ultimately, it was only a stop-gap measure until they could find a way to turn off those damned things coursing through his blood.

Will was no longer holding onto an semblance of awareness now, but every so often a broken whimper would elicit from his lips and tear at Helen from the inside. She wasn't sure she could do this again: lose another friend. She had lost too many already and she wasn't ready to lose Will as well, not if she could help it.

Movement from the door to the infirmary grabbed her attention and when Henry strode in with Kate at his heels, she prayed that Henry had found what they needed to heal Will. She turned to them expectantly, but felt her stomach drop seeing Henry's expression.

"Please tell me you found a way to turn these things off." She demanded. "We don't have much time left."

Henry looked to Kate for support and she nodded back. "Tell her." Kate nudged him.

"Henry?" Helen asked.

He shook his head and for a moment Helen worried that Henry would declare that he was unable to do anything more, that all hope was lost, but instead he fixed her with an even stare and spoke up. "We have something that definitely shuts down the nano-cytes, but you're not going to like it."

TBC.....