Part two of Poison. Worry not, for this one is longer. Much longer... *evil laughter* ~ SamayouTamashi

By the time Snake and Eagle arrived, just seconds before the ambulance, Ben was so unsteady that he could no longer stand on his own. Alex had gone into cardiac arrest, and his partner was doing his best to keep him breathing at the very least.

The two soldiers stayed frozen in the doorway as the paramedics pushed past them, using the defibrillator paddles to restart the teenager's heart and carried Ben out on a stretcher.

Snake gripped the spy's hand as he passed. "What happened?"

"We were caught by surprise. Poison in the tea," he shakily pointed at the two cups abandoned in their booth. Snake noticed with concern that the man's eyes were somewhat glazed, and just standing this close he could feel the feverish heat emanating from him. "I got lucky. Alex didn't." He let go of the hand as Ben fell back against the stretcher and he was packed into the back of the ambulance. Picking up on some of the French, he could determine that Alex would be flown out, due to his rapidly worsening condition. Rushing back indoors, he rejoined Eagle by the wall of the café. An oxygen tube was just being taped down into the teenager's throat as the paramedic finished stabilizing his heart rate at a feeble, but steady, speed.

"They're sending the tea to the local lab to analyze the poison mixed into it," Eagle spoke up. "An antidote should be on it's way within a week at the most."

"You know French?"

"Je suis né de langue français* My father's side was English and my mother's family is native to France, so I grew up learning both languages."

"Then what have the paramedics been saying about their conditions?"

"Ben should be fine. Paul and Roberts, I believe their names were, said that the fever and shaking seem to be the worst of it."

"And Alex?"

Eagle's eyes dropped to inspect his boots. "They think it's a miracle if he lasts the night alone."

"He will," Snake confidently assured him. "Alex always comes through. The real question," he spoke softly, trying to lighten the mood, "is who should get to inform Wolf."

"Somehow, even down in Kabul**, I have the feeling he already knows," he chuckled darkly.

"Oh joy, he can get target practice before he meets up with us."

In Tolouse, France was a large and well-known*** hospital, the Hốpital de la Fitzgerald. Much as St. Dominics in England had their connections to MI6, Fitzgerald had private rooms reserved for the DGSE. Many of the physicians and staff had no idea of this connection, nor the importance of the patients they were harboring. The two spies were sharing their own ward on the top floor, as one of the French foreign intelligence men had been their host in the country, and the first responder on the scene. He had left to inform both MI6 and the DGSE of the assassination attempt, and been swearing many of the nurses who witnessed the two patients being rushed in to secrecy. Currently, they were signing the stacks of papers.

Snake was outside pacing the hallway as he called S-Unit to explain the sudden departure of half their team. The short mission had been carried out in record time, but Cougar, the team leader, had worried about them when they requested an indeterminate amount of leave. Not that the medic couldn't understand. Two of S-Unit had been crippled by a landmine blast only a month prior, one still in critical condition and looking worse each day.

While Cougar could growl and prowl around like the cat he was named for, he was compassionate towards the health of one's team. Snake had mentioned that two former members were in trouble, and he had signed off their forms as fast as he could find the pen.

When Ben stirred, Eagle was seated in a plastic chair by the door, gun laid across his lap. The spy gripped the rail beside his bed to gingerly pull himself up as the SAS man looked over, an eyebrow raised. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. Remember that Snake should be back in a second."

Recalling Snake's tendency to secure unruly patients to their beds, Ben quickly laid back down. "Forgot about that. Wait, what are you two doing in France?"

"Falcon had some issues with his ankle, the one he got all shot up a couple months back. Apparently, one of the bones had some kind of crack that didn't heal right, so he's on leave until all the surgery and rehab is finished."

"And…you two are in France?"

"The leave got tiring, so all of us signed up for teams in need of temporary members. S-Unit lost two of theirs to some nasty injuries, so we hooked up for a short mission here. X-Unit needed someone to cover them down in Afghanistan, between all the problems they've been having with local groups, and Wolf figured it would give him a chance to shoot some things."

"Sounds like you've been busy."

"From the looks of it, I'm not the only one. Who'd you screw over this time?"

Ben waved the hand not hooked up to the heart monitor and IV line. "It was all in the blueprint stages, I swear. There were four of us in on the project, but only Alex had…has the full picture," he stuttered over his verb tenses, reminding himself that his partner was still living. "Nothing could have gotten out, because no one knew anything."

"So someone you irritated previously then."

"The waitress in the café was SCORPIA."

"You think they're still out for blood?"

With a shrug, Ben said, "Why wouldn't they? Alex has only mutilated their company multiple times, killed most of their board of directors, and completely driven off their clientele." As he struggled not to itch at the IV line in his arm, he sat partially up again. "How is he?"

"He's…stable."

The spy supported himself on his elbow as he turned to look over at the bed beside him. Alex had been covered in blankets to regulate his temperature and tubes trailed through his mouth and arms, nourishing and breathing for him. His face was too pale, but looking past everything else, he seemed to just be sleeping. The lines of stress that typically criss-crossed his forehead were gone, and with his eyes closed, he didn't look nearly as old as he acted. Asleep, he looked like the teenager he was.

"The paramedics stabilized his breathing by pumping oxygen into his lungs, and his heart is beating on its own. It's just…the rest of him was shut down by the poison. Dr. Roux assures us he isn't comatose yet, but he doesn't think…you know."

Ben fell back against the pillows. "Despite what the doctors say, Alex will make it. He always joked about how we would attend his funeral together—once he graduates, you understand—and I know he wouldn't make me go alone."

"Snake says the same thing." The quick footsteps were evident as they approached. "Well, speak of the devil…"

Snake entered the room, his own gun also clearly in view attached to his waist. "How do you feel?" he instantly honed on to Ben's alert state.

"Fine, fine. Little headache and sorta dizzy, but just small things."

"Typical after-effects of a high fever." Entering full medic mode, he whipped a thermometer from the table beside the bed and stuck it in his mouth. When it buzzed, Snake relaxed. "Still a bit high, but that's to be expected. Either way, the antidote should be finished soon."

"When?"

"Two days. Originally it was supposed to be a week, but one of the researchers hit a lucky break in the chemical compound. If we're lucky, it might be here by tomorrow night."

"Will that be fast enough?" The spy didn't even think of sitting up with Snake standing right in front of him, but the question inside his question was evident enough.

"It will have to be. There's no way that it can get here any faster."

Running a hand through his hair, Ben closed his eyes and sighed. "Is there anything else they can do, to bring up his chances?"

"Yes," Snake answered firmly, taking a quick glance towards the other bed before continuing. "If he goes comatose, it will be because he's retreated into himself. As long as his mind continues to function, the chances of him holding on until the antidote gets here will increase."

"And how do we do anything?" Eagle asked.

"Talk. The sound of familiar voices will hold his focus here. More voices, means more memories to retain and greater amounts of focus on the here and now."

A knock resounded on the closed door, and even Ben found himself scrambling for his gun. "Don't freak us out like that!" Eagle gasped as Wolf walked in.

"What? I even knocked before opening the door."

"Yeah, but still!"

Wolf looked between his two teammates and the two former ones. "Don't tell me that you two haven't slept a wink."

"Because they probably haven't been," Ben muttered.

"Huh. Well there happens to be an empty room right next door." His glare at them finished the sentence, and the two scurried off to catch up on the sleep they had ignored for too long. "So, you look like hell frozen over," he noted.

"Thanks for the complements, but please don't try so hard."

His previous unit leader snorted disdainfully. "How are you holding up?"

"Ask me again once the antidote comes in. Until then, all I can do is worry."

"He looks bad, but the chances always seem to be against him and he manages it every time."

Wolf settled into Eagle's abandoned chair, a stack of papers making its way on to his lap. "Falcon has his doctor's permission to return to duty within the next week or two. We're going to be heading back to BB for a refresher course before starting up work again."

"Where are you being shipped?"

"No word yet, but I'd bet my next paycheck that it's Kabul. We've already lost two whole units over there, and Redbird, X-Unit's leader, says his unit is taking their leave within the next month."

"Some days, I'm glad I'm a spy now," Ben confessed wryly, though his eyes betrayed the lie.

"Yeah, despite the monthly assassination attempts on you two. Personally, I think you are both insane."

"In my job, it's probably a prerequisite."

Reaching for the pen tucked in his jacket, Wolf remembered the other things he'd brought along. "Oh yeah, I totally forgot about these." He pulled a handful of envelopes from the expansive pocket. "Some guy sitting next to me on my connecting flight handed these to me as we were getting off. Said they were coming through someone named Smithers and needed to get to Alex. Naturally, I assumed with the sneaky roundabout method that he was talking about Cub."

Ben narrowed his eyes. "Anyone could find those names."

"He also said that you would assume the worst, so he told me to mention the codename Desert Rose****."

"Aww hell. I bet he had on dark glasses and a neat suit and his hair was a sort of reddish-black."

"Exactly…you know him then?"

"One of my closer co-workers, and the only one who'd think of using Desert Rose as a password." The spy rolled his eyes, and nodded and the handful of envelopes. "He wouldn't send anything our way that hadn't been checked over by the best. They're safe."

Wolf stood to set the small stack on the bedside table next to where Alex laid. "I really do hope he makes it," the soldier sighed. "Missions would be so much more boring, and I can't call anyone else 'princess' and get such a humorous reaction."

"Was it my imagination, or did his fingers just twitch?" Ben asked, sitting up slowly to peer across the room. "I swear I just saw him move."

"Huh. Maybe Sleeping Beauty here wants to communicate with hand signals."

"There it was again! When you called him Sleeping Beauty, his fingers moved."

Wolf rubbed his chin. "Bet he still doesn't like being called princess." The two laughed as the digits on his right hand seemed to momentarily curl up before quickly relaxing again.

"I do believe that he just tried to punch your head off, Wolf."

"I might need to consider leaving before he gets back enough of his strength, for fear of a considerably shortened lifespan."

After a few minutes of idle conversation, Ben felt his eyelids droop and the blankets felt more heavenly than they had before.

The poison's second phase had begun.

Upon falling fast asleep, Ben's fever had skyrocketed back up. Sweat broke out across his forehead and he became increasingly delirious, unable to recognize his visitors or recall where he was. When the fever wasn't messing with his mind, he asked constantly for water, unable to sate his thirst.

Alex hadn't escaped the worsening toxin either. While the fever seemed to cool down as drugs were pumped through his veins, his heart continued to stutter and shut down about every four hours as if it were on a schedule. Instead of burning up, he was too cold. It didn't matter how many blankets were piled on to him, he continued to shiver and pale to a dangerous degree. His breathing was steady, but it was evident that without the oxygen pump, he would have stopped breathing altogether hours ago.

Snake reported to K-Unit that the antidote was en route the following afternoon. What he kept from them, were the concerns he shared with the doctor. Even if the medicine came fast enough to beat the poison's fatal side effects, the experimental drug had never been tested. There had been no time. It was just as likely that it would kill them as it would help fight off the toxin. He decided to keep this information from his already worried team.

Wolf spent the time burning off steam in the hallway, pacing until the rest of K-Unit thought he was going to erode the tiles down to the bare concrete. Snake had left another message for Falcon, for him to get once he remembered that he had a cell phone, that their stay at the Hốpital de la Fitzgerald might last longer than he had originally thought. "You might want to come down soon," he added to the voicemail as an after-thought. "Fox and Cub aren't doing so good and Eagle is going to drive all of us crazy with his incessant humming."

He pressed the button to end the call and held the cold plastic against his forehead. With Eagle resting on one of the hospital beds in the next room over and Wolf still wearing holes in the floor, the only sound in the room was that of the machines counting heartbeats and unsteady breaths.

A quiet cough alerted him to Ben re-entering reality. "Water," he rasped.

Snake helped him with the straw and held the cup steady. When the spy leaned back, he put it back on the table.

"It's getting worse, isn't it?" Ben asked quietly, surprising Snake with the lucidity of his question.

"The antidote is only an hour away. You just have to make it that long and we'll fix you two up." But Ben was aware of the worry evident in the medic's voice.

"Sure we will. We always get through these things," he said softly before succumbing back into a dreamless sleep.

The antidote came just over an hour later as Snake had predicted. A pair of doctors brought the box of vials up through the secondary elevator—a well-kept secret that was one of only two ways to the third floor and resided behind false walls in the basement. Dr. Roux replaced the IV bags with the new drips, along with a prick to each of his patients' necks with the antidote.

K-Unit waited patiently (not) in the hallway chairs. A nearly-silent ding of the elevator alerted them to a new arrival, who walked somewhat unsteadily on a pair of silver crutches.

"Hey, did you miss me?"

Eagle almost hugged him before Falcon shot him a warning look, reminding the hyper soldier of his teammate's temporary handicap. "We missed you so much that we ran off to France looking for some fun!"

"I can imagine. And these poor guys had to handle you all on their own."

"We deserve medals for bravery and going beyond the call of duty," Wolf piped up in agreement.

"Back to the point," Snake reminded them, "you need to visit Fox and Cub. They aren't doing so well."

"Don't tell me they went off on a huge adventure without even asking me to tag along," Falcon complained.

"They didn't get that far. SCORPIA got to them first."

Falcon visibly paled. "How close did they get?"

"Let's just say that they aren't out of critical yet," Wolf replied grimly, "and it still isn't looking good for them."

Snake knocked on the door, and after a moment, a voice granted them entry.

To the immense shock of K-Unit, Dr. Roux was handing a cup of water to an alert and smiling Ben as Snake opened the door. "Falcon! I was beginning to think you'd forgotten me."

Falcon was looking increasingly confused as he limped to settle in one of the chairs, laying his crutches on the floor. "But…you…I thought…"

"Evidently I was a little off in my diagnosis," Wolf remarked with an amused, and relieved, shake of his head.

"The antidote worked even faster than originally planned," Dr. Roux answered the questions swirling around in their heads in his smooth accent. "Almost instantly, the toxin seems to have been completely flushed out. Monsieur Rider will have a longer wait, but Monsieur Daniels should be up and checked out by tomorrow morning."

Alex was still attached to the oxygen tube, but he was already a healthier shade and the shivering and shaking had stopped entirely.

"Is he still at risk for slipping into a coma?" Snake asked.

"Oui, but at this rate, his chances are two hundred percent better than when he arrived."

As the doctor left the room, Falcon laughed half-heartedly, "When you guys get in trouble, you don't get it by halves."

"Just imagine how I feel about this," the spy retorted. "I'm going to have a hospital phobia by the time I leave."

K-Unit had a good laugh, and Ben demanded that someone had to bring him food. "I can't eat anymore of this mush. It reminds me of the cafeteria food in school. And speaking of which," he frowned, "princess is going to have some serious schoolwork to make up for this hospital visit."

Eagle actually jumped when a choking cough announced the last group member's arrival to the conversation. Snake rushed over to pull the oxygen tube from a now-breathing Alex's throat. "If *cough* you *cough* call me *cough cough* that again *cough*, I am going to be *cough* forced to throw your ass out the nearest window," he rasped between hacking coughs.

"And good afternoon to you too, Alex," Ben said in a much too cheery voice.

Before Alex found his voice again, Eagle nearly tackled him in a bear hug. "Don't scare us like that again, Cub!" he sobbed, as the teenager registered what exactly what going on. Only then did he realize that they had visitors.

"Uh, when did all of you get here?"

"Excepting Falcon, we've been here the entire time," Wolf answered, crossing his arms as if he wasn't dancing for joy in his mind.

"Don't tell me I've been out the whole day."

"Try a whole three days," Snake corrected. "They only just now got the antidote."

Alex sighed, managing to extricate himself from the overly emotional Eagle. "I hope I can get a doctor's note for this," he muttered to their amusement.

"You almost died," Falcon spluttered, "and you're worried about a doctor's note?"

"Dying won't get me a month of detention," came the dry response.

"I can't even tell if you're serious anymore." Ben shook his head as he grabbed the cup of water.

"Not to mention that I'll be days behind on the paperwork for the infiltration, and Lucas wanted a cost estimate for filing purposes. I should probably get started on that." He made a move to pull the IV from his arm before he noticed Snake's intense glare.

"If you so much as try to move much less attempt to take that IV line out, so help me God I will tie you down to that bed and knock you back into a coma faster than you can possibly imagine."

Alex blinked, but easily complied. Assassinations and bloodthirsty megalomaniacs were one thing. Impending death by an irked medic was on a whole other level of insanity that he, wisely, didn't dare cross into. "I'm going to be in bed for a long time, aren't I."

Snake's teammates nodded, having also been on his end of the line. "Oh yeah," Wolf nodded gravely, as Falcon said, "You might be out in a month if he has his way."

Fox was looking worried also. "I can get back to work though, right? I mean, my poisoning wasn't as bad..."

He trailed off as the medic's glare of doom turned to focus on the older spy. "Do I need to warn you too?"

"N-no," he squeaked, thoroughly intimidated by the eyes burning holes through his head.

"Good."

Alex gave a pitiful look to Wolf. "I have no idea how you manage both Eagle, Falcon and Snake at the same time and still stay sane."

"You have no idea how much we deserve a raise."

"Not really, but I think I'm starting to get the idea."

A/N: So sorry about the wait between my tiny first chapter and mega-long second one, but this thing called school got in my way. Grr…

Yes, this one seems to speed through the events really really fast, but I didn't have the time to make it more descriptive, as I usually do. Also, there is a third part coming out. It won't be a sequel, per say, because I don't think this one will be over with in just three chapters. I'm thinking four as of right now.

While I was doing my research, I discovered that Kandahar (in Afghanistan), where my cousin Zachary is stationed right now, has also been a recent base for SAS troops. Creepy…

* Rough translation based on my first-year French class: I was born speaking French. (Recently corrected by the wonderful jamester56.)

** According to my sources, as of December, Kabul was the area of Afghanistan to see the most recent fighting. While it consists of mostly NATO troops, the SAS have been working in nearby areas thus this isn't a huge stretch. In fact, Afghanistan has already claimed 82 of their members, either to serious injuries leaving them unable to fight (70) or killed in the line of duty (12). This is a sixth of their full capacity and the worst losses in over sixty years. {Just wanted to put that in since I'm writing about them and feel they should be recognized and honored for the work they do in the real world.}

*** I couldn't find anything, so this place is not real. The Fitzgerald is also a name I pulled out of thin air, so it doesn't have any connections at all to any real people/places.

**** What could this possibly refer to? *wink*