Chapter 3: The Apostles Peter and Paul

Location: Russia
Key Date: Sunday, 5th July, 1999

Going to St. Petersburg straight from Budapest was likely to be the longest single leg in Lorne's journey. With that in mind he could have taken a plane, turned a forty hour transit covering almost a thousand miles into a four hour straight line. But he didn't.

The journey wasn't about getting there as fast as possible, and it wasn't just about his 'must see' art. It was about spending time with himself without an impossible schedule and a world of pressure drowning out his internal voice.

He'd coughed up the cash for a first class compartment on the Tisza Express – at least that way he'd get some rest and some privacy on the long journey. As he sat on the train heading roughly north towards St Petersburg, the silence and the complete lack of anything pressing to do had him realising something else.

Maybe he wasn't just on the train because part of the journey was the journey itself. Maybe he was there because he was avoiding something.

He hadn't flown since his trip to Canada after the last search and rescue mission over the Bosnian mountain ranges. There'd been things he'd had to deal with there and then mission reports and sitreps to catch up on once he'd returned to duty. Somehow in all of that he'd managed to avoid pilot duty.

Alone on the train, not even bothering to pretend he was interested in the view outside his window, Evan frowned worriedly. Had he lost his faith in himself as a pilot or worse yet in aviation itself? He didn't want to think that was the case but the facts were there. He'd had the chance to indulge himself in a joyride flight across Europe and he'd decided instead to spend almost two days on a train. There were only so many ways you could explain that ... logically anyway.

Maybe there was such a thing as too much time to listen to your internal voice. Getting up hurried, Lorne grabbed a jacket, stuffing his wallet and key in his pocket as he headed for the dining compartment.

oOo

Even the journeys that seemed endless were over eventually. Despite his private compartment Evan hadn't slept more than a few hours and was starting to feel it even before the train pulled into the station. He knew the lengthy journey would be worth it though, just for the chance to see St Petersburg. The city was situated in the delta of the Neva River and was referred to as The City of 101 Islands, and also as the Russian Vienna because of all its canals and bridges.

Stretching his back and rotating his shoulders to loosen tensed muscles, Lorne walked from the train at Vitebsky Rail Terminal late in the evening.

Not that you could tell what time of day it was from the sky alone. The city was enjoying the tail end of what they called Beliye Nochi – the White Nights. Because St. Petersburg stood at such a high latitude the sun didn't descend below the horizon enough to see the sky darken. Night became indistinguishable from day to the point that they didn't need to turn the street lights on for a few months each year. So while his mind and his watch were telling Evan it was after 10pm it could have been 10am for how bright it was.

The city might feel like it was awake but Lorne was tired ... again with map in hand he set off in the general direction of the Hermitage Museum, some two miles away. Even with a host of incomprehensible street names to wade through the way was easy to follow. He decided to walk to the Museum first, even though it wouldn't be open, just because he was so close.

Situated in what had been the Winter Palace, constructed in 1754 under the reign of Elizabeth, Peter the Great's daughter, the Hermitage was beyond impressive ... and long. It stretched for nearly half a mile along the Neva River, the water reflecting off its massive windows creating the illusion that the building was floating above the ground. If the outside was impressive the inside was reputed to be even more so. More than a thousand rooms all unique in fixtures and decor, 117 staircases to traverse and almost two thousand windows you could look out of. Not that you'd have time for that. Lorne had read that you'd have to spend 8 hours in the Museum every day for a year to see the entire collection. He didn't have anywhere near as long as that ... once he'd seen the picture that had brought him there he'd just have to let chance determine what he saw and what was saved for another time.

Walking away from the Museum building tiredness descended again. Lorne found a hotel, checked in and then threw himself fully dressed on the bed. Moments later he was asleep.

oOo

Seeing the pictures you'd admired in books for years was a pleasure Evan hadn't realised would be so powerful until he'd stood in front of Medusa almost a month ago. Trouble was, it could also be confronting, and that was his overriding feeling on seeing The Apostles Peter and Paul for the first time.

At its basic level the picture was simply a snapshot of two men conversing. Painted by El Greco sometime between 1587 and 1592 the picture was a study in contrasts. Paul, a man of passionate conviction and purpose, his red cloak a symbol of the fire of belief. Turned away from his companion, holding strong to his opinion. Peter on the other hand seemed gentle and tender, his pose one of a man seeking to understand rather than convince.

Internally they seemed very different but on the surface they weren't unalike. El Greco had painted them wearing similar robes that seemed to envelop any differences due to stature or physical strength. Both bearded, with long faces and scholarly expressive eyes, to Lorne it seemed clear that they were as much friends as anything else.

Two men with the same purpose, serving it in their own uniquely individual way, not unlike Evan and John had always been. John more like the Apostle Paul, always first up to talk about what was right and how he thought things should be. Evan on the other hand saw himself more as Peter, not meek as such but usually choosing to listen first, to understand what drove a person or a situation, using knowledge to guide the outcome rather than fiery conviction.

They said that life imitated art ... maybe in this case it was the reverse, that art was imitating life – his life anyway. Whatever the reason, he hadn't expected it ... to see an aspect of friendship reflected in the painting. Equally represented was the conflict ... the potential for friendships to be broken. Maybe that was his own interpretation fuelled by his state of mind and recent events ... it hardly mattered why Evan was seeing it that way. Just that he was ... and it hurt because sometimes you didn't get a choice. Sometimes it was outside forces that split friends apart and there was nothing you could do to stop it.

He'd only been at the museum for an hour but Lorne couldn't stay there. Looking at anything else would be a waste of time when he wasn't open to appreciating it. Leaving the Hermitage he wandered the streets of St. Petersburg for a few hours before returning to his hotel ... or more specifically the bar downstairs.

It wasn't his usual method for handling things but that day Lorne was thinking he could really do with a drink ... or two.

oOo

"Evan?" the incredulous voice behind him had him spinning unsteadily in his seat.

"Lainee!" he tried very hard not to slur his sister's name but didn't quite pull it off. He swayed forward, catching himself before he fell off his seat, struggling to get his sluggish brain working properly. Something wasn't right ... wasn't Elaine supposed to be back home in the US? "What'r you doing here?" he asked, openly confused.

"Looking for you," Elaine replied, "and not a moment too soon from the looks of you. What were you thinking, drinking like this by yourself in a strange country!?"

"Didn't have anyone else to drink with," Evan pointed out logically.

"Are you done?" Elaine was clearly restraining herself from saying more ... even in his inebriated state Evan could see that.

"I don't know ... am I still awake?" he joked, semi seriously.

"You're done," Elaine said firmly, grabbing his arm and attempting to pull him up from his chair. Throwing the bartender an apologetic look as Evan staggered before righting himself by leaning heavily against her, she asked "does he owe anything?"

"All paid up," the man replied in heavily accented English.

"Thank you," Elaine turned to look at her brother, sighing heavily. "Come on then," she dragged one of his arms around her shoulders, holding on to his hand as she wrapped her other arm around his waist. "Let's get you home."

"Don't know where that is anymore," Evan muttered, thankfully mostly carrying his own weight as his sister guided him out the door and across to the lifts.

"What room are you in?" she asked when the lift arrived. Taking the key he held out wordlessly, Elaine looked at the number and then pressed for the right floor. She tried not to let her concern show but this was so unlike her brother that it left her feeling unsteady herself and not sure how best to proceed.

Never more thankful that Evan was only a few inches taller than her, Elaine half dragged him from the lift on the right floor and down the corridor to his room. If he'd been any taller, given his muscular build, she'd have had to call for help from one of the locals, not something either of them would have been happy with.

"Here we go," she said, manoeuvring him inside and closing the door thankfully behind them. She watched as Evan staggered to the bed and dropped down, stretching out on his back with a low moan, hands over his eyes. "You okay?" she moved closer, watching him carefully.

"Lainee," Evan ignored her question, turning his head to look at her. Dressed in casual, fashionable clothes – cargo pants, collared shirt over a pretty floral pattered t-shirt, comfortable shoes - she looked bright and fresh despite what would have been a long flight over from Los Angeles. Evan blinked, narrowing his eyes against the light still streaming in from outside. "What are you doing here?"

"Mom was worried," Elaine shrugged, "so I volunteered to come over and check on you."

"I told you I was okay," he sat up, elbows on his knees as he held his head in his hands.

"Well forgive me if I'm less than convinced!" Elaine shot back. Grabbing a chair from the small table she put it beside the bed, sitting down across from him. "I can't remember the last time I saw you like this."

"The Apostles were a big disappointment so I decided to have a drink," Evan dismissed, unwilling to admit to the specifics.

"Right – so this has nothing to do with John then," she said quietly. The words had an immediate impact on her brother. She could see his gaze sharpen even as his expression closed down, walls slamming up defensively.

"Don't," he said just as quietly, suddenly seeming a lot less drunk than he had a few minutes before.

"No – you don't get to do that this time Evan," Elaine leaned forward and grabbed his hands, drawing his eyes to her. "You need to talk about this before it eats you up from the inside."

"I'm handling it," Evan insisted.

"You call this handling it?!" she scoffed. "You've abandoned a job you've loved for years without a word to any of your friends or family, and now you're getting drunk in strange bars half way around the world! That doesn't sound like handling it to me."

"Yeah, well it's a work in progress," he looked away, eyes fixed on the floor.

"Talk to me ... please," Elaine begged. "Drew was visibly cut up about the whole thing and he wasn't even there! You were."

"It's not a pretty story Elaine," Evan pinned her with an intent gaze.

"I can handle it," she promised, squeezing his hands encouragingly.

He drew in a deep breath, watching her carefully for a moment as if testing her to see if that was true. And then he began speaking.

"You know Aviano got absorbed into NATO's allied tactical force ... us and a few other countries including Canada. John arrived at the Vicenza base maybe a month after I did – straight from Bagotville." He paused for a moment, smiling slightly. "Man we had some fun during our off time ... John's all business when it matters but he knew how to kick back and get the both of us into trouble with the locals."

"The local ladies you mean?" Elaine commented teasingly.

"It was all him," Evan shot back with a grin that died away abruptly as he returned to the story. "Anyway, we'd settled into a kind of routine ... there were plenty of regular missions but it was all pretty standard protect and guard stuff. We were there to encourage both sides to keep the peace, not enforce it. Mostly that was covering the route for supply trucks transporting supplies outside the city, along with making our presence blatantly known. It should have been zero risk ... or close to it. But ...," he trailed off, shaking his head.

"But something went wrong," his sister encouraged him to continue after he'd been silent for a while.

"Yeah, you could say that," Evan confirmed grimly. "John flew out with a co-pilot on board one morning to provide protection services ... the supply trucks got there fine but he didn't return to base. We couldn't raise him on the radio. There was no distress call, nothing on radar. It was like he just disappeared. So we flew search and rescue missions to locate him ... doesn't work well in an F-18 but the Canadians called in a few favours, got us a light plane that was perfect. A week of SAR without finding anything and they were starting to talk about giving it up and declaring them MIA. I begged our commanding officer to let me go out when I was off duty ... got close to being insubordinate before he finally agreed. We'd been searching along the road the truck had taken, branching out from there ... only John hadn't flown that route on the way back," Evan swallowed hard. "I can just hear him telling his co pilot to live a little, shake off the cobwebs with a little 'joy' flying on the way back. If they'd stuck to the route maybe we'd have found them in time. As it was they were out there for almost two weeks, injured with limited supplies in the middle of nowhere. Didn't stand a chance really."

"You found them?" Elaine asked, struggling to keep from crying for her brother as he told the story, his emotions there for her to see reflected in his eyes.

"Yeah," Evan agreed. "It just occurred to me out of the blue one day to have another look at the map ... widen the search to cover what John would have seen as the 'hot' spots geographically speaking. First time up after that I spotted the wreckage. Radioed it in and they sent for a Pave Hawk rescue helicopter. It took just enough time to call one in for me to get back to base. I insisted on going with them." His voice was a monotone now, as though he'd forgotten there was even someone there to listen. "Wouldn't take no for an answer ... told Major Harrison I'd go AWOL and hire my own plane to get there if he didn't approve me going. He was less than impressed but he knew John and I were friends so he let me go."

Evan fell silent, eyes focussed internally. "Friends," he finally said bitterly. "Some friend I turned out to be! All I had to do was think! Think about the John I professed to know and I'd have realised sooner that he wouldn't have followed the flight path on the way back." He shook his head, shot a glance at Elaine and then fixed his eyes firmly on the floor as he finished the story.

"We found them in a small cave about a mile from the crash site. Total systems failure ... one in a million. They'd both managed to eject before the plane crashed but Lieutenant Blake had been badly injured. John too but somehow he carried Logan for miles until he found them shelter. He fixed himself and the Lieutenant up as best he could and then he sat back and waited for me to find him. He waited through Logan not making it, through dehydration and the worsening effects of his injuries. He waited until it killed him."

"Why didn't he radio for help?" Elaine asked hesitantly.

"Couldn't," Evan replied. "They had a portable with limited range but it was damaged after they ejected. It was either stick together near the crash site and wait for help or John would have had to leave Logan to go search for help from the locals."

"And he chose to stay with his co pilot," she commented softly.

"I guess," Evan agreed, his tone strangely bland.

Elaine looked at him, eyes narrowed. "And that makes you angry," she said, sure her sudden revelation was accurate.

"He gave up!" Evan said, pulling his hands away as he got up abruptly. He swayed for a moment, steadying himself and then moved to stand before the window. The stark daylight brightness when he'd expected night time was disorientating for a moment. "He could have gone for help and come back for Blake but instead he sat there and waited and waited – even after Logan died he didn't' get off his ass and find help for himself!"

"Maybe he couldn't," Elaine suggested. "Maybe he knew Logan wasn't going to make it and he couldn't bring himself to let him die out there all alone. Or maybe he was just confused – you said he was injured too. Maybe he just wasn't with it enough to work out how to save himself."

"We'll never know," Evan pointed out.

"No we won't," she agreed. "So maybe instead of judging him so harshly you could decide to assume if he could he would have saved himself and Lieutenant Blake."

"It's my fault he's dead," he kept his back to his sister as he forced the words out, the view of the city distorted through the blurring of his vision. Pressing hands to his eyes in the hopes of forcing his emotions back where they belonged he didn't hear Elaine approaching until she wrapped her arms around him from behind.

"It's not," she insisted. "It's not anyone's fault Evan. It was an accident ... a horrible, tragic accident. John wouldn't want you to blame yourself."

"He'd tell me to get over myself," Evan sniffed as he chuckled, knowing it was true.

"So get over yourself," Elaine suggested.

"I'm trying," he acknowledged, patting her arms before breaking away. Looking down at her he smiled as genuinely as he could manage. "This isn't a pity trip or me trying to avoid having to deal with losing a friend."

"Then what is it?"

"I felt ... lost," he admitted. "After I got back from the funeral. I just couldn't settle ... couldn't bury it like every other time someone I knew was killed in the line of duty. Sure, some of that's because John wasn't just some guy I knew vaguely. It's the first time I lost someone close to me since ...," he trailed off again, frowning.

"Since Dad," Elaine finished.

"Yeah," Evan agreed. "Since Dad. And I couldn't stop thinking about that either. If every time something like this happens the past comes back to slam me then maybe ...," he took a deep breath before finishing it "maybe I'm not cut out to be doing what I'm doing."

Elaine's reaction had him rearing back in surprise. She didn't argue with him or ask him to explain it to her. Instead she laughed, for real, amusement taking over her whole body.

"Maybe you could fill me in on the joke," he suggested sarcastically when she continued to laugh without explanation.

"Oh Evan," Elaine patted his shoulder fondly. "You were born to do what you're doing. The flying and being in command and the whole military thing. Everybody knows it ... except you apparently."

"O-kay," he nodded uncertainly, wincing at the headache that was beginning to pound behind his eyes. Maybe he shouldn't have been quite so enthusiastic in his attempts to drink away his troubled mood.

"Headache?" Elaine asked in concern, watching him clutching his forehead with a wince.

"Yeah," he admitted.

"Serves you right," she said unsympathetically.

"I can always count on you to keep me firmly in my place, can't I?" he complained, sitting back on the bed wearily.

"Get up ... go brush your teeth and get ready for bed," Elaine said with a smile, the firm maternal tone she'd learnt from their Mom coming out clearly.

Evan just did what she said, tired and frankly still drunk enough to welcome someone else taking charge for a change.

Coming back out of the bathroom a few minutes later he meekly submitted as she urged him to get into bed and then went as far as tucking him in as though he were five instead of almost twenty nine.

"Sleep," she said, smoothing a hand through his hair.

"What're you gonna do?" he finally thought to ask.

"The couch looks pretty comfortable," Elaine said lightly. Leaning down, she kissed his cheek, ruffled his hair and then moved away.

Evan lay there listening to her movements as she grabbed blankets and a pillow from the wardrobe and made up a makeshift bed on the couch. She turned off the lights and settled down, the silence comforting rather than oppressive.

"Thanks Lainee," Evan said into the darkness.

"You're welcome," she replied, smiling.

Evan smiled too, closing his eyes and letting sleep take him.

oOo

"When are you heading home?" Evan asked his sister the next morning, the two sharing breakfast in the hotel's restaurant.

"I thought I'd hang around for a while," Elaine said lightly. "If that's okay with you?"

"Its fine," he said just as lightly, holding in a smile. "I'll have to send you back to school at the end of summer break though ... or Mom will have my head."

"You might have to call her," his sister carefully looked away, buttering a slice of toast with studied nonchalance.

"Elaine," Evan's tone was stern. "You did tell her you were coming over here didn't you?"

"Not exactly," Elaine admitted.

"I thought you said she was worried and you volunteered to come check on me!" Evan glared at her accusingly.

"She is worried so I ... volunteered myself without input from her," she shrugged. "I'm here now. And let's face it, if one of us should be touring Europe admiring art it should be me. I'm the one studying it!"

"Fine," Evan sighed, rubbing a hand behind his neck while he looked at her. "But you're calling Mom."

Elaine nodded, neither of them pointing out what they both knew, that Evan wasn't ready to talk to their mother just yet.

oOo

The trip took on an entirely different feel now he had company. Elaine brought youth and enthusiasm and innocence to everything and it coloured Evan's view too. They were only three years apart in age but sometimes that felt like a lot more ... the weight of experience and knowledge adding years to the difference between them. Elaine was still starting out ... finally admitting that art was what she wanted after a few years of trying to make something else of her original degree. In the end she'd decided to return to college and was studying for a master's degree with the view to getting a curators job in a gallery somewhere.

The day after Elaine arrived they returned to the Hermitage and El Greco's Apostles.

"What do you see today?" Elaine asked lightly.

"Two guys who were very different but knew how to get along," Evan said after considering the painting for a few moments. "Friends."

"Friends," Elaine agreed. She let the silence ride for a few minutes before speaking again. "Did you know that El Greco wasn't the painter's real name? It just means 'The Greek', because he was and –"

"Yes," Evan interrupted, trying not to laugh at her disgruntled expression. "His real name was Domenikos Theotokopoulos . Did you know that this place has 1786 windows?"

"Yes ... no ... you know that's hardly about the art Evan," Elaine discounted his knowledge loftily.

"Right," he did laugh then.

"Okay, did you know that Los Angeles is the sister city to St Petersburg," Elaine tried again.

"Yes – but I can pretend I didn't if it'll make you feel better," Evan said, grabbing her hand and leading her on to the next masterpiece.

Authors Note:

El Greco's Apostles has been added to my website page for this story ... the usual deal, go here:

http:// www. shaviva. com/ grandtourpictures. htm

Copy and paste into your browser address bar, take out the space after the forward slashes and dots. Or just go to my profile page here and click on the direct link.