Phoenix Field Agent
Posts: 1,889
Joined: 11 Jan 2006
Gender: Female
Country: USA
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Season: season 3
Episode:Passages
Vehicle: Jeep
Jacket: Black leather
House: House boat
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When He Wakes…
Part Eleven
Rated: R
By the time Nikki reached Pete’s office, it appeared she was already too late. Pete lay crumpled on the floor beside his desk, clutching at his chest and gasping for breath. Pete’s secretary Helen bent over him, performing CPR and feeling for his pulse, panic and concern on her face.
“What happened?” Nikki asked, rushing over to him. His face was turning beet red, sweat dripping down his cheeks, his eyes squinting in pain. He released a deep, low, agonized groan.
“I think he’s having a heart attack,” Helen said.
“How long has he been this way?” Nikki asked, trying to remain calm.
“It just…happened minutes ago, right before you walked in. He just collapsed,” Helen said. “He had just finished his meeting with Brandon Scott.”
Brandon. Her suspicion, distrust, and contempt for him renewed. She knew he had to be involved somehow, especially after what MacGyver had told her. She picked up the phone on Pete’s desk, dialing 911. Helen returned to tending to her stricken boss as well as she could, trying to make him comfortable as he continued to roll around in pain on the floor, groaning, his breath rattling sharply in his lungs.
“Yes, I need an ambulance immediately at The Phoenix Foundation building, floor 20,” Nikki said into the phone. “Thank you.” She replaced the receiver in its cradle, almost slamming it with the force of her anger at Brandon. She looked at Helen and Pete and sighed. “The ambulance is on its way,” she said. She crouched down to get close to Pete, stroking his hot cheek. “Pete, can you hear me? The ambulance is coming soon,” she said.
“C-chest…” Pete groaned through grit teeth, wincing. “Pressure…”
Nikki and Helen exchanged worried, sympathetic glances.
“I know,” Nikki said. Her thoughts turned once again to Brandon, wondering where he had gone after his private conference with Pete was over, wondering if he was waiting in the shadows somewhere until he died like some scavenger, ready to swoop in and pick at and destroy what was left of him, scattering his remains. “Pete, I know it’s difficult, but I need you to try to focus for me. How did this start?”
“Chest…hurting…I fell…sudden…” his pain-glazed eyes opened slightly larger, staring up at the mug on his desk. He tried to point at it, but he buckled over in renewed pain, groaning again. “Coffee…” he managed to force the words out of his tightly clamped jaws, veins becoming visible on his forehead from the strain, bulging. His face was tightened and contorted in a grimace, every muscle pulled tightly.
Nikki looked up at the mug. “Pete, what do you mean? What are you trying to say?” She asked.
“Coffee…”
“He wants coffee now, while he’s in the middle of cardiac arrest? What an odd request,” Helen said.
“No,” Nikki said shaking her head, touching Pete affectionately on the cheek again to reassure him before standing, picking up the mug. It was still hot, steam rising from the dark liquid, only half drunk. She sniffed it, detecting nothing but the usual strong, fragrant aroma of coffee beans. She handed the mug carefully to Helen, who was still on the floor beside Pete, trying to make sure it wouldn’t spill. “Have the lab analyze it right away,” she said.
“The lab? But why? It’s just coffee,” Helen said.
“Maybe,” Nikki said.
“You think someone tried to poison him?” Helen asked, raising her eyebrows in surprise.
“I don’t know. Until we have the lab test the sample, we won’t know for sure. Take it to them now. I want results as soon as possible.”
Helen glanced sadly at Pete, wishing there was more she could do for him, reluctant to leave him.
“He’ll be fine, Helen,” Nikki said. “The ambulance is arriving shortly. Please, get it to the lab for me. The matter is just as urgent.”
Helen wrapped her fingers protectively around the mug, understanding its importance. She nodded and hurried out of the office. At that moment, the paramedics arrived, bursting through the doors, attending to Pete, monitoring his vital signs and strapping him to a stretcher.
“When did this start, Ma’am?” One of them asked Nikki.
“I don’t know. Minutes ago,” she said.
“We have to move him now, people! Let’s go!” the paramedic shouted at his colleagues.
They began to run towards the elevators, rolling Pete’s stretcher between them.
“I’m riding to the hospital with you,” Nikki said, following them, leaving them no time to argue with her.
***
After the initial frenzied activity surrounding an emergency situation, time seemed to slow and drag interminably, leaving the victims and survivors with little hope except to wait for answers that would sometimes never come. Nikki’s wait felt almost unbearable to her, what seemed like hours passing before she heard anything about Pete’s condition. When the doctor at last came to talk to her, she nearly leapt out of her seat, unable to contain her anxious excitement much longer.
“Well? How is he?” She asked.
The doctor bowed his head the way many in the medical profession did before preparing to deliver devastating news. “He suffered a major coronary episode,” he said soberly as if delivering a sermon. “He almost died. We’ve managed to stabilize him, but we’re monitoring him closely as his condition is still serious. He’s connected to life support in the intensive care unit and will remain unconscious for awhile.”
Nikki swayed unsteadily on her feet as if someone had just delivered her a powerful physical blow. “How could this have happened?” She asked, still awaiting lab results on the coffee sample. “What do you think caused it?”
“Many factors could have contributed to it, such as Mr. Thornton’s age, stress, the fact that he’s overweight, that he has high cholesterol…perhaps his heart disease is genetic, running in his family history,” the doctor said, shrugging.
Nikki nodded, not disputing what he said but knowing it was the usual explanation offered for sufferers of heart attacks. She knew that Pete had many unhealthy habits and it was entirely conceivable that he could at some point succumb to a heart attack of natural design, but this heart attack was not natural—it was manufactured, most likely by Brandon. If she could only receive word of the lab results, perhaps she could prove it.
“Can I see him?” She asked.
“Of course,” the doctor said, leading her towards his room.
It shocked and saddened her when she saw him. Usually a large man, Pete seemed dwarfed by the medical equipment that surrounded him to keep him alive, the heart monitor beeping steadily. He looked pale, fragile, and shrunken. The doctor nodded respectfully at her, shutting the door to the room behind her as he left so she could visit him in private. For the first time, she burst into tears, sitting beside him, taking his hand, careful not to disturb the I.V. in his vein.
“I wish you could tell me what happened,” she said. “Don’t worry, though—I’ll figure it out. I’m running tests on the coffee, and maybe we’ll find something there to explain this and help you. I know Brandon had something to do with this. He was behind it all—the bridge explosion, MacGyver’s insanity, and what happened to you. MacGyver told me, and I believe him. I can’t let him win. I won’t let him take you or Mac from me. I won’t. As soon as I have gathered enough evidence, I’ll expose him for the fraud he is and have him prosecuted for what he’s done. I won’t rest until that happens. I owe it to both of you.”
She sat beside him for what seemed like hours, holding his limp hand, sobbing, watching to see if there would be any changes in his condition, but he remained unconscious, the machines working for him to keep him alive, making artificial, mechanical, electronic noises that indicated his organic functions were working. Their rhythm comforted her, and she sat, listening to them. A knock sounded at the door, interrupting the steady music of the life support machines. At first, she was so distracted by watching Pete and listening to the machines that she didn’t hear it. The knock sounded again, this time louder and with more emphasis.
“Mrs. Carpenter?” A voice asked on the other side of the door.
“Just a minute,” Nikki said, at last responding, wiping her eyes and trying to compose herself, clearing her throat. She always felt that her grief was a private affair, not meant to be shared with anyone but a select, intimate few. She stood, straightening her hair and the long jacket she still wore, not bothering to remove it during the whole time she was with Pete, not even thinking about it. “All right, come in, I’m ready,” she said.
“Visiting hours are over,” a nurse said sweetly, entering the room. “You also have a phone call.”
“Okay,” Nikki said, glancing back at Pete, fighting back new tears that were emerging. She turned back to the nurse. “I know we have our own security teams watching this room, but could you also have some hospital security staff keep an eye out as well?” She asked, thinking about Brandon and the possible damage he could inflict if he were allowed to be in the room alone with Pete, possibly finishing the deadly work he had begun. “I don’t want anyone else visiting him without my authorization.”
“Of course, Mrs. Carpenter,” the nurse said, not sure what this confident woman did, but recognizing her as important and influential, deferring to her.
Nikki took one last look at Pete before leaving the room. “Let me know if anything changes with him,” she said.
“We will,” the nurse said, smiling sympathetically at her.
Nikki followed the nurse to the nurse’s station where the phone call was on hold for her. She pressed the button to release the call and began talking.
“This is Nikki,” she said.
“Nikki, this is Dr. Greg Harriman in the Phoenix laboratory,” the man said on the other end. “I have the results of the tests you wanted run on the coffee.”
Nikki held her breath. “Yes?” She asked, her voice high and thin.
“They’re negative,” he said.
The evidence she hoped to build against Brandon it appeared rested on a flimsy, unstable foundation, toppling down around her in catastrophic failure. She suddenly felt weak and ill, leaning against the counter to prevent herself from sliding to the floor. She turned her head away from the nurse’s station, pushing a hand through her thick brunette hair in frustration.
“Say…say that again?” She asked.
“There were no traces of any foreign substances, toxic or otherwise,” Greg said.
“Oh. Okay,” she said, drawing in another tight breath. “Well, thank you anyway.”
“It was no problem. Listen, I hope Mr. Thornton recovers soon. All of us here are thinking about him. MacGyver as well.”
When the conversation was finished, she almost dropped the phone, her hands trembling with rage and helplessness at once again being defeated by what appeared to be a clever and sophisticated enemy, not as ingenuous as he first appeared. She didn’t know where to look now or what to do, but she was still convinced MacGyver was right about Brandon and she was determined to help him prove it to vindicate him. She decided to visit him again, to tell him about Pete. It wouldn’t be easy, especially in his current mental condition, but he had a right to know about his best friend and boss as much as she did. She wanted to include him in everything. Some people tended to forget about the mentally ill or the elderly, locking them away as if they were a problem or a burden to be rid of, shutting them out of the daily events of their lives and the world around them. Nikki was determined not to treat him that way. To her, he was still MacGyver, mentally unbalanced or not. He was still a valuable member of The Phoenix Foundation, and perhaps the only man that could help save it from the ruin Brandon wished to spread.
***
Dr. Ladd decided to move MacGyver back to the padded room, freeing him from his restraints. The electroconvulsive therapy seemed to make him more docile, and although it seemed to cure him of his catatonia, he still behaved like an automaton at times, mindlessly following the routine the hospital gave him, staring blankly and unemotionally. Nikki found him in this state when she visited him, reminding her of how he behaved when Mike died, the life gone from his eyes. She didn’t know which was worse or harder to endure—Pete’s near fatal heart attack or MacGyver’s persistent mental illness. She decided both were equally just as devastating, merely different variations of the same thing.
“MacGyver?” She asked, grabbing his shoulder and gently shaking him, hoping to stir him out of his waking sleep. When he didn’t respond, she took his chin in her hands and moved his head until he was looking at her. “Don’t you dare do this to me now, do you hear me?” She asked, anger in her voice and tears in her eyes. “If there was any time I needed you to hear me, it’s now. Oh Mac, it’s terrible…please…”
MacGyver stared at her. He blinked, but that was his only reaction. Sighing, realizing it was hopeless, she released his chin, allowing him to stare straight ahead again. She decided she would begin talking, whether he could hear her from where he was lost at that moment or not.
“You were right, MacGyver,” she said. “I think Brandon is involved in everything that has been happening lately at the Foundation, and he did hurt Pete, just as you thought he would. I…didn’t make it in time to stop him. He suffered a serious heart attack. He’s alive, thankfully, but that could change. His condition is very precarious right now. I tried to find evidence that Brandon caused it, but I’ve found nothing. What I thought I had turned out to be nothing. Whoever he really is, he’s very careful about not leaving anything incriminating behind. We can’t get to him, Mac. I don’t know what he’ll do next, and we can’t stop him…”
She didn’t realize it, but MacGyver was now looking at her, fully aware of her presence. “Pete?” He asked. “Pete’s in the hospital? A…heart attack?”
Surprised to hear him talk again, Nikki turned to look at him, finding sadness in his eyes. “Yes Mac,” she said. “He almost died.”
“I wish I could see him. He needs me.”
“I know. I wish you could see him, too. I hate that you’re separated like this. I know how much he means to you.”
“What evidence did you try to find that would implicate Brandon?”
“Before he lost consciousness, Pete kept mentioning the coffee he had been drinking as if there might have been something in it to cause the attack,” she said. “I ran some tests on it, but they found nothing, just as they found nothing that could explain what happened to you, not traces of substances of any kind, harmful or otherwise.”
“I could be wrong,” MacGyver said. “Lately, I’ve doubted my sanity as much as everyone else has. Maybe it is all a product of my disordered mind.”
“No, I refuse to believe that,” Nikki said. “Something nefarious is happening, something insidious is eating away at the Foundation like a parasite. Too many misfortunes have occurred to make them mere coincidences. First, your confinement here, then the deaths of those agents, and now Pete—no Mac, you’re right about what’s happening, and Brandon is a part of it somehow. I just wish I knew how I could prove it, how I could somehow be one step ahead of him for once so I could at last defeat him in this game he’s playing.” She knocked the back of her head hard against the padding in frustration, knowing she could do it without injuring herself, feeling good to allow herself some release.
“You’ll just have to…keep trying,” MacGyver said, smiling slightly at her. “Don’t give up. There has to be some way.”
Nikki looked at him, smiling. It was a relief to hear him talk that way again, the old, indefatigable MacGyver she knew slowly returning. All at once, his expression quickly changed to one of shock and horror as his eyes focused once again on something only he could see. He shivered and cowered in the corner of the padded room, pushing himself as far as he could tightly into the corner as if trying to retreat from something.
The ghost of the boy El Diablo had shot appeared, confronting him, a mournful expression on his pale face, blood still flowing from his head wound. Soon, the room was filled with other wretched children, children damned to El Diablo’s special version of hell, their lives shattered by El Diablo in one form or another, staring at MacGyver, crowding around him, pleading for his help…
“I’m sorry,” MacGyver said to them, sobbing under the weight of the tremendous amount of guilt he felt. “I…I couldn’t help you…I couldn’t…”
Nikki embraced him, leaning his trembling body into hers and caressing his hair as his convulsive, heaving sobs transferred to her body, shuddering through it like the aftershocks of a particularly violent earthquake, equally destructive. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and she began to cry as well, never feeling more miserable and hopeless in her life. She knew he was speaking to an illusion, a fantasy of his mind, but she knew he was also unleashing the emotions he felt over Pete, knowing he couldn’t help him, either. He couldn’t even visit him in the hospital, his mental state still too unstable to allow even a brief, supervised release from the mental institution where he was being held for his safety and the safety of others. Although Nikki always considered herself independent and capable, never relying on someone else to rescue her, she realized that with Pete ailing in the hospital and MacGyver still committed, she had no one to assist her in stopping Brandon except herself, and she didn’t mind admitting to herself that despite all her strength and courage, she was scared to death.
To be continued…
 "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
--Henry David Thoreau
brains+brawn+beauty+personality=MacGyver
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