Chapter Seven

Natasha froze as she opened the door to her flat. There was someone in there, she could hear them breathing.

"Relax, Tasha, it's only me." Juliette poked her head around the bathroom door, wet hair framing her face. "I popped in to talk to you, and use your shower whilst I was at it." Natasha rolled her eyes as the door was shut again briefly before Juliette emerged, toweling her hair dry.

"The authorities have officially recognised it as a problem now," Natasha told her. She had begun to make tea for Juliette out of habit. "Are you any closer to working out who's being targeted?"

"It's spread by contact, that's for sure. But not body fluids, it's not an STD." Natasha's eyes narrowed at that.

"How do you know that?"

"Come off it it, Tash. There are couples out there, one half is infected the other isn't, and they both would be if it was transmitted like that. It can't be just hand to hand contact though, or else we would both have it." Natasha handed Juliette a mug and poured one for herself, the two of them sitting opposite each other on the floor, feet touching. "Ta."

"You still think it's geographical?" Juliette nodded.

"Some streets have half a dozen cases, the next road none." They were silent for a while, apart from the hum of their brains thinking.

"Make a guess," Natasha said eventually. Phil made guesses but Phil wasn't there. His guesses became orders, but none of them guessed at anything. Clint predicted where his arrows would land, and the girls knew where their marks would aim for. Only Phil used pure gut instinct.

"That someone is doing this to specific people."

"A serial poisoner?" Natasha frowned, it was too widespread for that, and not widespread enough for some sort of mass poisoning.

"Maybe. Think about the symptoms. Seizures, heart attacks, comas. Fairly common side effects of poisons, most poisons in fact. There would be hospital staff, shelter volunteers and people in other cities with the same symptoms if it was a disease, it would have passed to other people from the infected."

"But it's just the infected, no one else around them. So they were targeted for a reason." Juliette nodded over her mug. "Plenty of people see the homeless as useless, bad for society. Still, that doesn't explain the other cases."

"Accidents?" Natasha didn't believe that and from Juliette's expression she didn't think her own suggestion had any merit either.

"Or just in the way."

"I've sent all this through to Hill already. The number of cases is increasing, and there's still no way to treat it," said Juliette after a moment.

"There's no point you going out there again tonight," Natasha mused. "You won't be able to tell the difference between coma and sleep."

"You're going soft in your old age, Tash, but I'd gladly commandeer your sofa." Natasha took the gun out from underneath the seat cushion before she forgot.

... ...

Natasha pushed the shelter office door open, looking surprised to see the woman there. She had known someone was in there, yet not someone she recognised.

"Can I help you?" Natasha asked politely, running through the photo list of shelter employees and volunteers. The two redheads looked at each other for a moment.

"McKenzie Evans," said the woman. Unarmed, except for a notebook and a Dictaphone. A reporter, Natasha realised as she summed the small woman up. "I'm a reporter, I'm writing an article on the outbreak of the coma sickness in homeless people. Hey, could I talk to you for a moment?" Natasha glanced around for Tonia or Martin but ended up nodding anyway. "Cool. So, do you have any survivors here? Has anyone woken up?"

"People have woken up?" Hill and Juliette hadn't mentioned that at all.

"One person did, after being in a coma for three days. They're in hospital now." Someone had to get to that person and ask them, Hill had to know.

"No, we haven't had any like that."

"You don't have an idea what's causing it?" Natasha thought it would be a convenient time to remember that shelter employees weren't meant to talk to journalists.

"No, I'm sorry. My boss can help you, if she's around-"

"Oh, it's alright, you're free now, aren't you? It's just that the more people who read about it, the more likely someone is going to care enough to do something about those poor people." Mackenzie gave her a bright smile, looking up from her notebook for half a second. "You do realise that the symptoms are that of water hemlock poisoning, right?" Natasha felt her body stiffen slightly. Hemlock.

"Are you sure about that?" she asked Mackenzie urgently.

"Oh yes, I have a friend who works in one of the hospitals, he's a toxin expert. He says it's water hemlock, or maybe just hemlock. One of the two I think. They found traces in someone's blood." Natasha nodded, relieved when Tonia had the perfect timing to come in. She left Mackenzie with her boss and half sprinted outside.

"Juliette."

"What's wrong?"

"It's Hemlock." There was a long silence on the other end.

"Hemlock?"

"The poison. Someone in the hospital says its water hemlock poison." Again Juliette took her time in answering.

"Meet me back at the flat. We need to speak to Coulson." Natasha put the phone away and let herself smirk slightly. Their mission had been taken out of Hill's control in less than three seconds and given back to Phil. That felt a lot more comfortable.

Natasha gave Tonia the excuse of a family problem with her partner back home and left, she was a volunteer and there wasn't much Tonia could do except ask her to be quick.

Juliette was already in the living room when Natasha opened the door, barely out of breath from running back.

"Hill knows. Coulson's on his way here. Our doctors were looking for infections not poisons." Natasha sat down, leaning over her shoulder.

"If we are dealing with Hemlock, we should call to New York as well."

"That's not our call to make," Juliette reminded her quietly.