"Are you ok?" the man asked. "Buddy, you look like you've been in a fight and lost."
Mikhail Kirillovich Chekov deeply concentrated on what the man said, made the mental calculations necessary to translate it, and then he nodded his head. English? The man was speaking AMERICAN ENGLISH? What the hell was he doing in the United States? He should be home with his wife, as that damn leukemia had just returned with an unholy vengeance. After they had learned that crushing news, he and his wife had decided to spend the week at their pleasant little dacha. Just the two of them, so they could spend some much needed time alone, in cozy, quiet intimacy as they reeled from this latest blow.
Why was he in America? Where was Irishka? His Irochka, the center of his life?
What the hell was he doing in blasted AMERICA?
"You should be in a hospital," the drunken man continued.
"Perhaps you're right," Chekov admitted, more out of a sense to say something reasonably intelligent rather than in actual agreement. "I shouldn't have left."
That conversation ended, Chekov walked away, and he staggered as though he was drunk. He needed to find some place safe, some place that could tell him where the hell he was. God, his head ached. It was a fierce headache and it so thoroughly commanded his attention so he almost failed to notice how every part of him hurt.
He patted his pockets with his left hand, felt the telltale lack of a wallet and then he noticed the horrible, horrible fact that he was not wearing his wedding ring on his right hand. Thanks to a street light, he was able to peer in a shop window and he saw his appearance was as battered as though he had gone fifteen rounds with Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko. Plus … was that grey in his hair?
Good God, he had gone to hell. Hopefully, Irishka hadn't divorced him as he was no longer the man she had married.
No jacket either. There was a light snow falling, and based on the snow around him, it appeared that it was midwinter. Least it was an American winter, so it was almost a brisk spring morning in the mother country.
He glanced around him, saw a dome with a cross on it in the far distance. Orthodox.
Maybe they would have a narthex that was open.
Hopefully.
At six in the morning, on the one day Janet could sleep late, a concerned Janet got out of her bed, careful not to disturb the slumbering Samantha. Sleep had been a lost cause after Hammond had called her regarding the missing Chekov. How could she sleep when she blamed herself for not insisting that he sleep on the couch instead of driving back to the base? If it had been Jack, Daniel or Teal'c, she would have insisted and won that argument. Instead, with Chekov, she had been too happy to see him leave.
Janet closed the door softly behind her and then she called her team at the SGC.
"Hi. Did Chekov show up yet?" she asked Dr. Warner, who to her deep unease, had been the one to pick up the phone. "Please tell me he's there, roaring about something and that the staff is in hiding from him. Just throw him a cup of tea, a cookie or two and tell him to simmer down."
When Bill took his time to respond back to her, Janet felt an icy chill down her back.
"No, he's not here. Nobody's seen him since the car accident. Volkov and SG4 grabbed enough medical supplies to perform an emergency nephrectomy in the field before they ran out of here. Even the General is at the accident scene and they've brought in dogs to see if they missed him. Janet, the rumors are flying around here. There's even a rumor that he defected."
Oh good God, if they thought he defected, Femme Fatale Fraizer was probably involved somehow.
"Chekov?" Janet spat. "There's no way he defected."
"To make matters worse, the Kremlin is sending people. They're assembling a team and they'll be leaving Moscow at ten to assist in the search. Our favorite Russian bear is politically connected to several very powerful generals. There was also a passing comment made to one of the Russian Generals that if anything ever happened to him while he was here, to blame O'Neill."
Yes, that was most assuredly Chekov.
"I shouldn't tell you this but I heard Hammond reaming out Colonel O'Neill. It was an official dressing down combined with an 'I told you so'. It was…absolute poetry the way he got his ass severed and then handed to him. Remind me to never piss off The General."
Agreed, but please let them find Chekov before General Hammond decided to speak to her.
Please, God. Are you there, it's me, Janet Fraizer? Help!
"Do you need me to come in?" Janet asked. "Besides, what are you doing there at six?"
Warner paused once more, and that made Janet's decision. "They pulled you in because they wanted a trauma surgeon there just in case? Bill, I'll be there as soon as I can. Call me if he shows up, please."
She hung up her phone and slowly exhaled as she tried to ground and center herself , or some crap like that which she had learned in that long ago yoga class.
"Mom," Cassie whispered. Janet spun to face her daughter, and naturally, Sam was behind her daughter.
"Honey, I didn't realize you were in the room. What are you doing up so early?" Janet asked.
"I couldn't sleep, so I turned on the TV. Mom, there was a big accident last night, and Misha was involved. And his picture is on the TV. They said… he's missing… and accident was…. after he left here. I tried calling his phone, but it said that his voice mail was full."
There was a tremor in Cassie's voice that Janet knew meant her daughter was close to tears.
"I'm sure Colonel Chekov is fine. He's probably in a waiting room at a hospital, waiting to be seen."
Cassie shook her head and explained, "Mom, they sent his picture to the local hospitals and the hospitals say that he's not there. The reporter is even standing outside St. Francis Medical Center. Mom, the gas tanker exploded and they can't find Misha. If anything happened to him, it'll be my fault. He came here last night only because I lied to him."
Father Marcus hesitated, but only briefly, when he saw the man leaning against the door of the church. Whomever it was, the man was a child of God. From his disreputable appearance, the stranger was also in dire need of assistance. He wasn't wearing a coat in the brisk wind, and he appeared to have been in a bar fight as one eye was swollen shut, and his face was covered in abrasions and contusions plus a long, jagged laceration that ran across his nose. Not that Marcus would know of things such a bar right, first hand. No, not at all. He was now a man of God, and his wild oats of yesteryear had long been threshed and harvested.
"Batiushka?" The man noticed his arrival and addressed him in Russian. Father Marcus was only familiar with the term because of a comparative religion course he had once taken.
"Sorry, I don't speak Russian. Do you speak English?"
In response, the battered man fumbled at his neck and pulled out a necklace.
"St. Andrew's Cross," Father Marcus noted. "And that looks like the Virgin of Kazan."
He was rewarded with a head nod which nearly caused the Russian to stagger and fall as though drunk. He didn't smell drunk, but he appeared as though someone had taken a baseball bat to him.
"I would help you regardless if you were Orthodox or not. What is your name? Come, let's bring you into the narthex as you appear cold."
"Mikhail Kirillovich Chekov. Polkóvnik…." Chekov slurred his numbers and Father Marcus remembered hearing the name Chekov on his way to the church.
"Were you in a car accident? You look as though your air bag deployed?" Father Marcus asked even as he assisted Chekov into the narthex. "Come now, sit down."
"I don't know," Chekov admitted as he nearly collapsed into the chair. He gingerly touched his nose with his left hand and grimaced from the pain.
"Are you in the Russian Air Force?" Father Marcus continue to prompt even as he turned the heat higher in the building.
"Yes, I am. I think, ….but I don't know…. where I'm am or why," Chekov admitted.
"You're in Colorado Springs. You're probably teaching at the Air Force Academy. You were in a car accident, and everyone is looking for you."
That was the wrong thing to say. Or the wrong things.
"Who's looking for me?" The Russian asked. He struggled to stand and bit back a curse at the sharp pain in his right arm. "Forgive me, I did not mean to curse."
"I think I can excuse it as you look in bad shape. Let me call an ambulance for you as you need to be in a hospital." As Chekov began to protest, Father Marcus interrupted him. "I'll stay with you until we find someone who knows you. Mikhail Kirillovich, you seem confused. Do you know what day it is?"
The Russian colonel paused, as though he was a student facing an exam question. He thought hard, and then came up with an answer. Unfortunately, it was the wrong answer.
"August… fourteenth…. Nineteen ninety six. Why is it snowing though? It doesn't snow in August in America, does it?"
"Because it's actually January twentieth, two thousand and two. I'm calling for an ambulance."
The two midnight 911 dispatchers looked at the clock, and then each other. It had been a hellish night as they had been understaffed and with that colossal accident on 25, they were looking forward to that magical time known as SHIFT CHANGE.
"The next shift better be on time," muttered one darkly.
"Please, they can't get here on time in good weather, let alone, snow."
The phone rang and it was answered quickly and efficiently. "Hello, Colorado Springs Police Department, Dispatcher Byrnes speaking. How may I help you?"
She listened carefully, began tapping away at her keyboard and repeated, "Father, to confirm. You are calling from the Holy Theophany Church located on North Chestnut. You believe that the Russian Air Force Colonel that has been reporting missing from the earlier accident is now sitting in the narthex of your church? You are also requesting an ambulance at this time because he appears confused and disorientated."
Her coworker leaned over her console and mouthed, "I'll call out EMS, then contact that Major Davis guy that keeps calling."
Byrnes gave her coworker a thumbs up.
"Can you ask him what his name is?" Dispatcher Byrnes listened and then sighed. "I am afraid that I will need to spell that one for me. So to confirm that - Michael India Kilo Hotel Alpha…"
General Hammond's phone rang.
"Hammond," he barked. The General listened for a bit and then gestured at SG4 to stop exploring the wreckage as the concerned team had done everything except take Chekov's car apart in their zeal to locate Chekov. When Hammond had first arrived at the scene, he had experienced the heart stopping sight of Colonel Volkov's size 12 boots sticking out from underneath the crushed vehicle. For one heart attack inducing moment, he had truly feared that it was CHEKOV's body under the car until Volkov had wiggled his feet. "Confirming Holy Theophany Church North Chestnut. If you can, have someone call the base. Have them ask Dr. Fraiser to meet us there as she lives close to that area. If he's confused, I know she speaks a splattering of Russian."
He spoke to SG4, confirmed that they were familiar with the location, and then got into the back seat of his waiting and thankfully WARM car.
"Holy Theophany Church on North Chestnut. Once we get there, you're to stay in the car until I can confirm that it's actually Chekov. If it is him, you still stay in the car, is that understood, Colonel?"
"Yes, sir!" Jack O'Neill agreed. "Should be there in fifteen minutes."
"Drive, Colonel. Drive. And make it ten."
The priest was still spoke to him, but Chekov couldn't listen. Instead he was struggling to understand how it could be 2002. Two thousand and two. Why was he in America? Was his wife here?
There was a great deal of noise and he heard someone call out, "MISHA. Misha. Misha. MISHA. It's me, Dima. Dimitri Nikolayevhich Volkov. "
He looked up and saw a familiar stranger, who could be … Dima… an older Dima shaped by five years of life and experiences. When Chekov spoke, he spoke in his mother tongue, "Dima? Is that truly you?"
"Yes, it is I. You have scared us. We've been searching for you all night, Misha. Let us take you to the hospital. You do not look well."
"What year is this?" Chekov softly questioned. "Is it truly 2002? You look older, Dima."
"What do you remember?" was Dima's non-answer.
"The leukemia had returned. We were to spend next week at our dacha so we could make the hard decisions. Where is my wife? Why am I here?" Chekov questioned.
"Come, we take you to see a physician, Misha. Dr. Fraiser will take very good care of you, promise."
"My wife?" Chekov repeated and then saw the answer in Volkov's eyes. "No…." was his futile protest to his uncaring God. "No. We were going to spend time together at our dacha. She…. She….no…. Dima…. No…. They told us that they had the proper treatment… No…She can not be dead, Dima. she can not."
As a grieving Mikhail Kirillovich Chekov wept for his dead wife, a small woman slipped her way between him and Dima.
Janet Fraiser had just about enough of Volkov's stupidity.
MEN!
Russian men in particular!
Chekov needed medical treatment about four hours ago, and Volkov had informed Chekov that his wife was dead.
Wonderful.
Throw that tidbit in a blender, add a possible case of amnesia, a jigger of vodka and Chekov was mentally and emotionally reeling as though he had imbibed a pitcherful of the SG4 Soviet Slammers.
"Mishka, enough of this stupidity. Medical care first, discussion later. We need to take you to the hospital," was her strongly worded command in Russian.
"Who are you?" he whispered. "Who are you?"
"Dr. Janet Fraiser, but you called me Zhannochka. We're taking you to…" Janet began.
Chekov's eyes lost their focus on her and he instead stared straight ahead. A thin dribble of spittle ran from his mouth and then he slumped forward. If it hadn't been for Volkov's quick actions as Dmitri caught and supported his suddenly unresponsive friend, Chekov would have fallen out of the chair. Volkov's quick actions didn't mean that Volkov was off Janet's Bad Boy List, but at least he had caught Chekov.
"Mishka! Mishka!" Janet snapped even as Chekov's body began to twitch. "Ok, people. Chekov is having a seizure, I needed an ambulance here about an hour ago. Bring him to the floor, Colonel Volkov and roll him on his side. Lt. Beliova, I need your med kit. I need an IV D5W set up. Volkov, you keep talking to Chekov and explain to him that we're taking care of him, ok?"
"I'll get an ETA on the ambulance," Hammond offered.
Janet nodded her head and instead she brushed her hand against Chekov's cheek. "Mishka, I'm here. I'm giving you Valium to help stop the seizure. You'll feel tired, and you can go to sleep as you'll feel very tired. Don't fight it, Mishka."
For a brief moment, Chekov was able to focus upon her, and he mouthed, "Help me."