Title: Along Comes a Stranger (22/28)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: Kirk/Spock/McCoy
Summary: AU. Jim’s life in Riverside is uncomplicated until two men, both equally mysterious and compelling, arrive in town, bringing with them the promise of change.
Previous Part: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

Believe it or not, this story is over in another six parts (or maybe sooner!). Once we make it through the action, we get to the heart of the story. I promise!! dark_kaomi, you once said you hoped I did a story of epic proportions. I think this ‘verse is epic, period. XD

Part Twenty-Two

“I told him! I told that ornery bastard to get checked out by a cardiologist! Jesus…” McCoy’s voice dies out painfully, and Jim’s knuckles whiten on the steering wheel.

“Bones.”

“What?” is McCoy’s harsh snap.

But Jim knows why McCoy is so angry—and it isn’t at Bob. “Don’t do this, Bones.”

For a moment, there is silence. Leonard turns and studies him from across the cab of the truck. He says at last, “Prevention is my job, Jim. You can’t understand.”

“Try me,” bites out Kirk before reeling in his own temper. “I am not going to listen to you beat yourself up over the next twenty miles. Robert is a grown man, and he has the right to ignore the advice of his doctors if he wants to, even if he’s p-paying for it.” Jim almost falters. The words linger like ash in his mouth.

Leonard’s voice is oddly gentle. “I know the mayor means something to your family, Jim. It’ll be okay. He is at the hospital by now, and they’re staffed to handle his kind of emergency.”

Jim says, without thinking, “That’s not all of it, Bones. I mean, yeah, Bob is like family but… that’s not all of it,” he finishes lamely.

He is asked quietly, “Do you want me to tell the other reason?”

Jim wishes he had never opened his mouth. He swallows hard and attempts to sound causal, rational. “Think about what this means for Riverside, Bones. If Bob has to—pull out of the race, who is going to stop the other guy from becoming mayor?”

He doesn’t have to look at McCoy to hear the frown. “You mean, er, crap, what’s his name? Trane?”

Jim allows himself a quick chuckle. “Trelane.”

“Well, maybe Trelane isn’t so bad.”

“Oh believe me, Bones, he is the worst.”

“Funny,” says McCoy, “you don’t seem that involved in politics.”

“Which doesn’t mean I don’t care that someone wants to ruin my hometown!” Jim snaps back.

“Whoa, okay! I didn’t mean it like that. You really don’t like the idea of Trelane replacing Wesley, do you?”

“No,” he says flatly. “I think he’s a crooked SOB.”

Leonard sounds thoughtful. “Then I would hate for you to be right. He was on the evening news last night, looking chummy with Sheriff what’s-his-face.”

“Komack,” supplies Kirk. “Don’t you know anybody’s name?”

“My memory’s terrible. I’m old.”

Jim smiles in the dark. “So you are admitting you ought to be living in a nursing home instead of my apartment.”

“Say that again, kid, and you’d better sleep with one eye open and a shotgun by your hip.”

Jim sighs but feels immeasurably better since learning of Bob’s heart attack. “Thanks,” he says, not expecting Leonard to understand why he says it.

Surprisingly, however, McCoy replies, “Don’t mention it. We’re both a little high strung right now.”

Jim doesn’t need to say a word. He turns on the radio, finding a channel he thinks they both can stand, and lets music carry them the rest of the way to the Derby Hospital.

Jim hates hospitals. He hates the way they smell (oddly enough Jim doesn’t mind that antiseptic smell on Bones), the way they are always freezing, and the way people walk by and stare with morbid curiosity, wondering who’s dying in this kid’s family?

Granted, he has almost always been the ‘dying one’ in past experiences but, well, he just hates hospitals!

Worst yet, Bones has left Jim alone in the waiting room, listening to people sniffle into their family’s shoulders or the television drone on about mass murder halfway across the world or someone’s earth-rattling snores. Jim sits for a while, head bowed, and then he gets up and paces. Back and forth, back and forth, sometimes craning his neck around the nurses’ desk to look down a long, white hallway in hopes of spotting McCoy.

When the first reporter shows up, Jim snarls to himself and retreats to a corner.

Wesley has no family to worry for him, but he has the press to drool over possible headlines for tomorrow’s paper. Will it be Mayor Decommissioned By Heart Attack? Or Saddest Day in Riverside: Mayor Dies?

Somewhere in the middle of the front page would be a picture of Trelane hugging a random citizen, with the caption “Trelane proposes a day of mourning for his belated opponent. He accepts offer to become next Mayor of Riverside.”

Dr. Piper and Dr. McCoy come down the hallway, side by side. Jim sticks close to the wall as the reporters begin shouting questions in the middle of the waiting room. Piper’s tired voice tells them all to go home, and no, Robert isn’t dead and it’s too early to make a public statement. Leonard manages to slip away to the side and catch Jim’s arm.

“How bad?” asks Jim, heart in his throat.

“Coulda been worse, Jim,” answers McCoy, “a lot worse. He didn’t go into arrest, but I’m afraid he might need surgery soon enough. I can’t tell you more. I’m sorry.”

Jim drops his head to Leonard’s shoulder. Bones strokes the back of Jim’s neck.

“I want to stay for a while longer. Think you can grab us a hotel room nearby?”

“Yeah,” Jim agrees, pulling away. “I’ll call you and tell you where.”

“Okay.”

Jim already knows the answer but he can’t help asking. “Can I see him?”

“Not tonight, Jim,” McCoy tells him. “Tomorrow I’ll see what I can do but it might not happen, kid.”

“I know. I’m not family.”

Leonard’s eyes hold his. “You are in every way that counts. Now go on, get some sleep.”

Jim sighs. “I’ll try. See you?”

“Yeah,” says the doctor. “And, Jim… call Spock. Tell him I said he’d better sleep too.”

“I will,” promises Kirk. Jim watches McCoy pull Piper away from the frenzy, and then he slips quietly past the crowd and into the elevator, his thoughts already focused on the people he cares about waiting for news back in Riverside.

Jim is too wound up to catch more than a few hours of sleep. By late morning of the next day, the hospital has turned into a media circus, and Riverside townspeople are coming in by the van loads to add their well-wishing and prayers for Mayor Wesley’s recovery. The Derby police don’t appear to be having fun with the crowd control.

Winona comes close to getting herself arrested when she is told that the waiting room is for family and colleagues only and makes a scene, which rather frightens her son. Jim intervenes, explains charmingly (for the police officer is a young woman and Jim is praying to God she is not immune to his blue eyes) that Winona has been employed by Mr. Wesley for several decades and she is as close to a family member as the man gets. The plea gets them into the cordoned-off waiting room (one would think Wesley was a movie star and not a politician) but sadly no further.

That is, until Wesley threatens to throw a fit (and his bed pan), heart attack or not, if the nurses don’t let the Kirks in to see him once Bob finds out Winona is waiting. Bones looks slightly too smug as he escorts Jim and Winona down the hallway toward the Intensive Care Unit.

McCoy and Kirk let Winona go in first, alone, and Jim takes the opportunity to tell Leonard how awful he looks.

“You didn’t come to the hotel last night,” accuses Kirk.

Leonard shrugs. “I’m fine. Wesley came to and sent Piper home to his family. Apparently I drew the short straw and had to stay,” he says dryly. “Not even having a heart trying to implode makes that man less stubborn.”

“That’s why he is a good mayor.”

McCoy snorts.

Winona calls, “Jimmy?”

Jim brushes a hand over Bones’ shoulder. He offers him the hotel key card. “Room 113. I already pulled back the covers for you.”

Leonard takes the card without an argument.

Bones tells Jim that night, as they share Chinese takeout in the hotel room, that he plans to stay in Derby for the next few days. Jim simply kisses him and when Leonard looks surprised, Jim says, “I owed you that.”

They discover Winona cheerfully force-feeding Bob green jello while the nurses snicker to themselves from behind their station. The patient groans in distress (not the medical kind, which prompts people to laugh at him) and says in a pitiful voice, “Please, I’m trapped!” to Jim and Leonard.

Jim grins, glad to find Bob in infinitely better spirits than he had that morning. Wesley had never looked frailer then, and it had scared Jim to his core, seeing the generally robust man ghostly white and hidden beneath an oxygen mask and wires.

Jim stays until visiting hours are up. Then Bob lifts a hand, momentarily struggling against the IV in his arm, and presses the back of his fingers to Winona’s cheek. He asks her to let him rest, to go home, subtly implying that he wants her to rest, too. When Jim’s mother turns away from the bed to hide her tears, Wesley tugs on Jim’s hand and whispers to him, “I know you’ll take care of her, son. I wouldn’t trust my Winny with anyone but you.”

Jim nods, squeezes Bob’s hand, and coaxes his mother out of the hospital.

Jim is utterly exhausted by the time he drops his mother off at the farm, helps her to bed, and then returns to his apartment. It’s almost midnight.

His emotional quota for the day has been surpassed. All he wants is his bed and ten hours of sleep. Spock’s mother has already made a lunch appointment with him tomorrow, saying he needs a good meal and a quiet place to de-stress. (Spock was useless in aiding Jim’s protest of the lunch date.)

Jim reaches out to insert his key into the deadbolt lock and pauses. Taped to his apartment door is a white envelope. Bemused, he plucks it off the door and turns it over in his hands, finding no name or address.

Opening the envelope proves a little more than disconcerting; it sinks his stomach straight to the floor. Realizing that he is still standing outside, Jim hastily enters his apartment and bolts the door. Then Jim, shedding his jacket and keys, delicately extricates the sheets of paper from the envelope and absentmindedly perches on the armrest of his couch.

There are two newspaper articles glued to a piece of white copier paper. One has a picture of a mangled vehicle and an overturned truck on opposite sides of the road and a headline that must read something like Fatal Car Meets Big Wheeler Accident, except the entire article is in Russian and Jim can’t read Russian. The shorter article pasted below it is all bold-faced words and so Jim turns to the other folded piece of paper for insight.

It is a typed English translation of both articles. Jim stills the sudden tremor in his hands, and reads.

… tragedy on a snowy night when the driver of a Ramstore trailer lost control of his vehicle and swerved into oncoming traffic. The driver, surviving, denies that he was inebriated at the time of the accident, despite the details of the medical report later released from the hospital. A couple returning from a musical event outside of Moscow, now identified as Mr. and Mrs. Andrei Chekov, were unable to avoid the collision…

Jim drops the translation, and it is some minutes before he can pick it up again. The second article is an obituary.

…died in a fatal car crash on Monday evening…survived by their children, son Pavel Chekov, 17, and daughter Sasha Chekov, 6, and Andrei Chekov’s brother and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Ivan Chekov. The memorial service will be held at…

Jim sets the papers aside and almost gets up to grab a beer from his refrigerator to take the edge off his shocked senses but recalls that Pavel and Sasha’s parents were killed by a drunk driver and finds himself splashing cold water on his face in his bathroom instead. Finally convinced that he isn’t going to be sick, Jim climbs into his bed and buries his face in his pillow.

He can’t think straight.

He can’t think of anything except that it is unlikely Pavel dropped this information by his apartment, not when he doesn’t want anyone to know why he and Sasha are in Riverside.

So who would want Kirk to know?

Jim goes cold.

Wrong question. Who would want Jim to know that he knows about Pavel and Sasha?

The answer is quite simple: Trelane would.

A gift but also a warning. And Jim is receiving it late because he has been in Derby for a day and a half.

Jim knows then that he won’t be able to sleep so Jim bounds out of bed, tugs on his jacket and grabs the keys that he had tossed onto the coffee table. His instinct is pushing him to do something and at the moment that means checking up on Pavel and Sasha. He drives faster than he should.

The sign of the Star Motel flashes like a beacon in the night sky. The office is lit but the blinds are drawn. Jim hurries inside and is disappointed to find an older woman reading a book behind the counter.

“We have vacancies,” she says without looking up. Then, equally uncaring, “If you’re here to rob me, there’s a gun in my lap.”

Jim slowly approaches the counter and, indeed, there is a Smith & Wesson handgun across her knee. “No, ma’am,” he says quickly. “I’m looking for Pavel Chekov. Can you tell me which room he’s in?”

She looks up from her paperback novel and eyes him speculatively. “Whatcha want with that boy?”

“I’m Jim Kirk—we’re friends.”

Her face clears. “Oh! You’re the fella who got Pavel extra work at the mayor’s diner down the street. Sad thing, about the mayor.”

“Yeah,” he agrees but not wanting to gossip. “Do you think Pavel’s here?”

“Naw, I quit giving him the late shift on account of his little sister not liking to sleep alone. ‘N he normally don’t work past ten as a kitchen boy.”

Jim tries to rein in his patience. “I know. I need to see him, though. It’s important.”

She pats her gun like it’s a pet. “You have an honest face, Jim Kirk, but if I catch you messing with him or the girl, I won’t think twice about giving you a third eye, you understand me?”

It would be best if Jim doesn’t crack a joke at this point. He doubts she has the same sense of humor. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Room 10, back-side of the motel.”

“Thank you!” Jim calls over his shoulder.

Room 10 is still, no lights or noise. Kirk hesitates but decides that he can make it up later to Pavel and Sasha if he wakes them. Yet his knocking is not overly loud.

He waits then knocks again. “Pavel? It’s Jim.” The bad feeling skittering up his spine increases in intensity. “Pavel! C’mon, let me in!”

No one moves the curtains, not like Bones had that first time Jim bombarded him with food in his motel room. In fact, after several minutes, Jim is certain that no one is inside. Sasha, at the very least, would have recognized his voice.

He turns, eyes searching the parking lot. If someone else is watching, all they will see is a frustrated James Kirk kick at rocks on the way back to his pickup.

At the diner, Sulu is sadly of little help.

“I let him go earlier than usual,” says the chef, currently wiping down his stove with a rag.

“He’s not home,” Jim explains.

The Japanese man stills. “Nyota gave them a ride to the motel.”

“And they aren’t there!” Jim reiterates with agitation.

Hikaru Sulu turns. His intense look instantly quiets Jim.

“I’m sorry, Sulu. I—shit.” Kirk rakes a hand through his hair. “I wanted to make sure they were okay.”

“At one in the morning?” asks the other man too softly.

“Yes. I was worried.”

“And now you have reason to be,” concludes Sulu. “Nyota’s already gone for the night. Give me a minute to close down the back. Then we’ll go.”

“I can—”

“We will look for them together, or we’ll take the concern to the police together.” Sulu’s tone brooks no argument.

Jim shuts his mouth, knowing that Pavel would hate them for going to the police. Besides, Jim isn’t certain he could explain why he was looking for Pavel and Sasha in the middle of the night without being forced to talk about the “gift”—and that leads to Trelane.

If the sheriff Komack is as deep in Trelane’s pocket as Rand, Jim is going to end up dead, and his friends along with him.

It takes Sulu less than five minutes to pack up the rest of the supplies, switch off the lights, and lock the doors. Jim follows Sulu to a small car and slides into the passenger’s seat.

“Where to?” asks the driver.

Jim rests his fists on his knees. “Assuming that no one took them—” Hikaru looks up sharply at that. “—where would Pavel go?”

“The better question is why would he take Sasha out of the motel this late.”

They share a long look. Jim says, at last, “It’s easier to runaway in the dark and not attract attention.”

“The Greyhound station then,” Hikaru guesses and pulls the car onto the main road.

Jim tucks his hands under his armpits. “Is it even open this time of night?”

“It would have closed down at midnight.”

“Fuck. They could be gone!”

Hikaru’s expression tightens. “We’ll look anyway.” Sulu adds ominously, “Whether we find them or not, you’ll tell me why Pavel would run.”

“I don’t know the whole story,” admits Kirk.

“Then you will tell me what you know.”

And Jim would be a fool to argue otherwise because, observing Sulu’s grim profile, Jim begins to understand that Pavel and Sasha mean a great deal to The Diner’s usually stoic chef.

And Jim isn’t certain if that makes things better or worse.

By sheer dumb luck, Jim catches a glimpse of Pavel. He grabs Sulu’s arm and orders, “Turn around!”

Sulu swerves off the road with a curse. “What?”

“I just saw Pavel!”

Sulu is already turning left back onto the road. “Where?” he demands.

“The 7-Eleven—there! No, shit, not in the front! Pavel knows your car.”

Sulu hesitates and then parks in the lot of the business next door. They get out and head for the gas station.

Hope thrums through Jim. “I saw him go around that corner.”

Sulu lengthens his stride. The gas station is also a common truck stop along the highway. At the back is wide parking lot for trucks. There are currently two semi-trucks unattended; at least Jim initially thinks so until he hears a familiar accent.

“I have money.”

“Look, kid, I travel alone—”

Jim is already running. He rounds the side of the truck with the name “Pavel!” flying out of his mouth.

Pavel jerks his head to the side, sees Jim, and—rather than bolting—his face hardens. For a brief second, Pavel Chekov almost looks like a stranger.

Jim jogs up to the pair, ignoring the startled truck driver, and begins, “Pavel, I was—”

Pavel doesn’t give him time to finish, spits something in Russian, and throws himself at Jim in real anger. A fist cracks into Kirk’s jaw, and Jim goes down with Pavel on top of him, still swinging.

“You—I trusted you!—? ????? ???? ??????!*”

“Whoa, I don’t want no trouble!” shouts a male voice. There is the sound of a door slamming and the engine of the truck roars to life.

Jim opts for protecting his face rather than defending himself. He tries to tell Pavel to stop but Pavel is too enraged to listen. Finally Sulu manages to pull a struggling Pavel off of him.

A dazed Kirk remains sprawled on the ground.

Sulu leans over him. “Jim?”

“I’m fine,” he says then sits up, gingerly touching his jaw. Thank God it’s still attached.

Pavel is panting like a wild animal, his anger still clearly riding him hard but makes no attempt to push past Sulu to Jim. “You are a liar and a bastard!”

Sulu looks from Pavel to Jim, before asking in a deadly voice, “What’s he talking about, Jim?”

Kirk stands up, hands out, suddenly aware that Sulu might be a wild card. “I have no idea, I swear. Pavel,” he asks the young man earnestly, “what’s going on?”

“You told!” Chekov accuses Kirk.

“Told?” Jim asks sharply. “If you mean about you and your sister—I haven’t told anyone. I wouldn’t.”

Pavel stares at Jim for too long. “You said we were safe. You said this—and then we are not safe! They will come to take Sasha!”

“Pavel, I’m not following you. You have to start at the beginning. Who is going to take Sasha?”

Instead, Pavel snaps his mouth shut, takes a step back, preparing to run. Only Hikaru’s “Pavel!” (not Jim’s) causes the man to pause. “You are a friend, Hikaru,” Chekov says, “but I am going. Sasha is first. Always.”

Sulu shakes his head. “No, you can both come home with me.” At the fleeting indecision in Pavel’s eyes, Sulu presses on. “Don’t be stupid, Pavel. You can’t hitchhike with a little girl. Stay with me tonight, and tomorrow—if you want to leave, I will buy you bus tickets anywhere you want to go.”

Jim wisely keeps his mouth shut. Sulu isn’t a man of many words so when he speaks, people listen. Jim prays that Pavel is listening.

Chekov looks past Sulu to Kirk. “Did you send the man?” he asks.

Jim shakes his head. “I didn’t—I don’t even know what you are talking about, Pavel. Please believe me. You know I wouldn’t want anything to happen to Sasha.”

Pavel’s fists loosen. “He came into the diner, like when he visits Ms. Marlena, and he—when his little phone made a noise, he asked me to answer it.” Pavel’s face gradually loses color.

Sulu approaches Chekov and puts his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Is that why you were upset and wanted to leave early?”

Pavel closes his eyes briefly, looking wan in the lamplight of the parking lot. “Because of the person on the little phone, yes.” His eyes are no longer fierce, just scared. “They will come here and take my sister,” he pleads. “They are not good people! Please do not ask us to stay!”

Jim says softly, “No one’s coming tonight, Pavel. Let’s go to Sulu’s house, okay?”

Pavel makes a choked noise but nods.

“Where’s Sasha?” Jim asks as Sulu puts his arm around Chekov.

“In the bathroom. She hides while I look for transport.”

Jim grimaces. If they hadn’t caught Pavel in time, he and the little girl would be at the mercy of some stranger, traveling in the dark. What was it that Bones said about being religious on some days? Today, Jim is feeling religious.

Sasha is not in the women’s bathroom where Pavel left her. She isn’t in the men’s bathroom, either. Pavel goes from scared to panicked in a heartbeat. Jim isn’t doing so well himself. He shakes the gas station attendant like a madman while Chekov darts in and out of every corner looking for his sister until it is clear she isn’t inside the building and he sprints outside again, desperate.

Close to Jim, a pale Sulu looks a hair’s breadth away from calling the police. Jim can almost taste the intent in the air.

The attendant works an arm free and shoves at Kirk. “Get off me, man! How do I know where the sister went?”

Jim lets him go, gives him a moment to breathe, and then slams his fist into the guy’s nose. As the fool is yelling in pain, Jim pins the man’s upper torso to the glass counter. “Who—“ he remarks, “—said anything about the girl being a sister?”

The attendant curses. “Fuck, get off! I don’t know nothing!”

Jim takes a bit of pleasure in grinding the man’s bleeding nose against the glass.

His captive screams, “Okay, okay, okay! A guy came in!”

Jim releases the man. “What guy?”

“I don’t know—hey, okay, don’t hit me again!—just a guy, all right, and he had the little girl by the arm and she was crying and he offered to buy her an ice cream cone and she kicked him! I was gonna call the cops, you know, but he… offered me a lot of money…” Here the man trails off.

“A little girl gets kidnapped and you take a bribe to look the other way? How do you live with yourself!”

“Should I break his arm?” Sulu asks, approaching the counter with narrowed eyes.

“Maybe later,” Jim says offhandedly. “After he tells us everything he knows.”

“Hey!” protests the attendant. “It’s not like he made off with her!” The guy points his arm in the direction of the parking lot. “The guy said he was waiting for some dude named James Kirk and—”

Jim is already out the door. He looks around, suddenly having trouble breathing, and Sulu is at his elbow, crying out, “There!”

In the distance a black car idles, headlights on, perpendicular to Sulu’s car. Jim spots Pavel—and Sasha, who is cradled in his arms. Pavel looks up at their hasty approach, eyes wide. Sasha is sobbing into her brother’s shirt.

Jim gives all his attention to the man standing by the car. “Who are you?”

“James Kirk?”

Sulu freezes midway between Kirk and Chekov.

“That’s me,” Jim says.

The unfamiliar man opens the car door. “Get in, Mr. Kirk.”

This is déjà-vu, it has to be, because the last time Kirk gave into that demand he ended up in a bad, bad situation. Perhaps the man anticipates his answer because he pulls back the flap of his jacket to flash the gun tucked into the front of his belt. “Get in” is repeated.

Sulu looks hard at Jim. “Don’t do it.”

Jim ignores his friend and asks, “Will you let them go?”

“My orders are to retrieve you. The others are free to leave—unless you resist.”

“Sulu,” he says on a whim, “tell Bones I’m sorry I never fully explained just how crooked an SOB can be.”

“Jim!”

Jim gets in the car.

To his surprise, there is no one in the backseat. As the car drives away, Sulu and Pavel and Sasha fading into the distance, Jim thinks he might be very wrong.

He asks the man driving the car, “Where’s your boss?”

“She awaits your arrival.”

Jim does a mental somersault. “She?”

The man continues to stare ahead. “Yes. The Lady Q.”

Jim is certain his mouth is hanging open. “The Q work for Trelane?”

Finally, the man looks in the rearview mirror. His expression reads you are an idiot. “The Q work for no one, Mr. Kirk. The politician Trelane is distant kin to her Ladyship’s family. He is… no longer acknowledged among the Q.”

And that is when Jim Kirk realizes he is a mere puppet in a game more intricate than he could have possibly imagined. How did his life get so complicated?

* – ? ????? ???? ??????! – I will cut your heart out! (Excuse my ignorant Russian.)

Next Part

Related Posts:

• Along Comes a Stranger (28/28) – from July 10, 2011
• Along Comes a Stranger (27/28) – from July 9, 2011
• Along Comes a Stranger (26/28) – from July 5, 2011
• Chapter of Doom – from July 4, 2011
• Along Comes a Stranger (25/28) – from June 30, 2011

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