"Sam?" The white-suited figure straightened and looked up. "Al," he said. "It's about time." Al looked at him sharply. Beckett sounded listless, flat. "Anything wrong, Sam?" "Who me? What would give you that idea? It's not like there's any reason to think there's something wrong," he retorted in a burst of uncharacteristic bitterness. Al bit back his normal 'don't whine Sam' crack. This time it wasn't funny. He considered the possibilities for a moment. "Sam," he said slowly. "What have you been remembering?" Beckett's eyes grew bleak. "Tamilyn. My parents. I have this burned-in memory of my father teaching me how to drive a tractor and the sound of your voice yelling at me over and over again." Al looked away. Emotional stuff was not his forte. It made him uncomfortable and he hated not having complete control of his own. "That's a lot of details to come back to you right when you're supposed to be the greatest shyster evangelist God…or the devil…ever put breath into. Ob-viously this guy is so shallow there's plenty of room for you in there," he added in a vain attempt at levity. Sam dragged a hand over his face. "I don't know if I want to do this one, Al. This guy rips people off, not just financially, but emotionally--spiritually if you will. I don't think I can do that, not even for just a little while. I don't know why I'm here, but it can't be to do this." He raised a white-suited arm, the heavy gold chain at his wrist dangling against the burgundy-colored leather bound bible in his hand. "Ziggy doesn't know why you're here yet. She says there's a sixty percent chance, at this stage, that it may be to help someone in the audience." "Someone in the audience?!" Sam snapped. "I'm a fake, a fraud, a thief. I couldn't heal a hangnail, much less..." "Sam..." Calavicci said softly, something he rarely did. It took Beckett unawares. He faced his friend, sighing heavily, his eyes haggard. "What is it?" Al asked gently. "Al, I want to go home." Al closed his eyes. In all their 'years' together, all the vast kaleidoscope of humanity Sam had leaped through, the one thing his friend had never unloaded on him directly, was the one thing that had never left his, Al's, mind in all that time. The desire to put a hand on his friend's shoulder was almost more than he could deal with. All the times Sam had come close to death, had been almost emotionally destroyed by leaps, and all he could ever do was stand there... Frustration rose suddenly in Calavicci's breast. He knew that Beckett had been different, changing subtlely, for some time, even before events after the Presley leap, but he hadn't wanted it to come to this. Where once Sam would throw himself into what he had to do, and question most things later, he was now allowing fear, frustration and whatever else to dictate his attitude to almost every leap. "Damn it, Sam, I don't have any answers for you. Ziggy never stops working on the problem you know. Gooshie says she's generated enough data on it to cure several diseases, send men to Mars and solve Fermet's theorum--" "I understand that, Al," Sam said slowly. "But there are no answers. And I can't do this forever." He shivered. "I've done everything I've been asked to do, and more. Hell, I even remembering enjoying some of it. Al, don't want to be stuck on this roller coaster ride forever, no matter who's directing the operation. Bartender or no bartender, I'm just a guy...just a Human being. I need to rest, just like anyone else." "Sam..." Al said helplessly. "I--" They were interrupted by a white-robed, red-haired woman of about forty emerging from another part of the tent. "Stephen, it's almost time. They're ready. Everyone's in place. Theodore will cue you." Beckett looked up at her, nodded, then rose slowly. "Tell Theodore to stay on his toes, Sylvia. I'll be ready in a moment." When she was gone he turned back to Al. "I memorized the text of his sermon. I did this routine with the fakes in the audience last night after you left, so I know I can handle Theodore's cues. What I can't handle is looking down at the faces of all those good people whose trust is being abused." "Sam, snap out of it. Most of the people who come to these things half wanna be conned anyway. Besides, you aren't going to find out what you're doing here unless you live this guy's life exactly as he would until Ziggy figures it out." Sam sighed again and scowled at his friend before following the serene Sylvia to the side of the stage. He peeked out at the audience, unaware for the moment that Al had followed him and was standing quietly in the wings. The Admiral was stunned to see Beckett unexpectedly close his eyes and throw back his head in a kind of despairing gesture, then lean heavily against a temporary barrier, his shoulders beginning to shake as he slid down to the floor. In a moment he was at Sam's side. Beckett was oblivious to him, a hand over eyes that Calavicci soon realized were closed against pain. The sound of his weeping was almost, but not quite, inaudible. When his surprise subsided, Al realized that this had been a long time coming, and was probably well overdue. Sam had more guts than anyone Al had ever known, but he had been showing signs of overload long before the beginning of this leap... He hunkered down next to him. "You're not alone, Sam. I promise you. You aren't alone." Slowly Sam drew his hand away and blinked. He looked into his friend's concerned eyes and nodded. "Al," he whispered, then looked away again. "I...I think I'm losing my mind." For the first time in a very long time Al did try to put a hand on Beckett's shoulder and swore when it went straight through. Beckett chuckled damply. "An old sailor like you should be able to come up with more original curses than that. He found the reassuring eyes once again. "Help me, Al," he pleaded. The power of the quiet plea struck Calavicci in the solar plexus. By the time he'd formulated some kind of answer Sam had risen and was on his way to the on-stage pulpit. It was a formidable performance, despite Beckett's state of mind, or perhaps because of it. Al watched the crowd rise to the occasion, swept away by the intensity of Sam's evangelistic spiel. He watched as each of the fakes did their piece, and as Sam handled the dozen or so real hopefuls who also volunteered. He was blustering and loud and obnoxious as Stephen Cilento was supposed to be, yet, Al noted, with that same innate gentleness that would always be a part of Beckett, no matter how bad an individual he leaped into. And as long as their neurons and mesons or whatever crapola didn't get mixed up, he added to himself, bitter memories of the Oswald incident still raw in his mind. For all of their enthusiasm none of the real volunteers showed any more than the illusion of minor improvement at best. However, true to form, the 'star' of the night was cured with all the hammy melodrama that went with it. "Sickening," Calavicci muttered. Suddenly he just wanted to be out of there. "Gooshie, open the damned door!" He yelled. Gooshie followed him along the corridor as he strode silently through the building. "Is there a problem, Admiral?" "Is there a problem, Admiral?" Al mimicked nastily. "You're asking me if there's a problem?" Gooshie stopped and watched his superior storm into one of the building's elevators and presumably upwards and out into the night. He sighed heavily and made a mental note to tell Doctor Beeks that there might be a problem. Al stopped in the car park and looked up at the dark night sky, the stars so bright against the velvet blackness that he was momentarily distracted by their beauty. He breathed in the cold air to clear his lungs and his head and then allowed his mind to wander back over the seemingly endless time Sam Beckett had been bouncing through history. Memories of his favorite moments came back first, bringing a brief smile to his lips. There had been a fair share of those, but for every good time, there had been bad times for Sam: beatings, near executions, more pain and terror than any one man should have to deal with. If it hadn't been for his friend's memory gaps he didn't think anyone would be able to cope with what Sam had. Sam's 'Swiss cheese mind', he'd always called it. Well, thank God for that, at least, he thought bitterly. Again, as it had occasionally in the past, it occurred to Al that Sam might not be the same even if he did get back to 1999. How much would he remember? Would his mind spontaneously bounce back as it had the last time? He shook his head. There was no point in speculating. They were no closer to getting Sam back than they were after the first leap. All Ziggy's calculations, all Donna Elisee's loyalty, all Doctor Fuller's research, all the work in the world couldn't fix things. Maybe Doctor Sam Beckett, the mind-whole Doctor Sam Beckett, was the only one who could... He sighed again. Beth had promised a special dinner. He should go home... He always did while Sam was settling in to the new circumstances. This time, however, he was drawn in a different direction. The giant building swallowed him almost knowingly as the night sky wheeled ever so slowly by. An equally knowing Gooshie was waiting at the door of the imaging room. "What are you looking at?" The Admiral growled as he opened the door. "Send me back to Sam," he muttered. The door closed behind him with a bang. The show was over. Sam was in his dressing room changing his clothes. He seemed calmer, almost himself again. "You okay now?" He asked by way of announcing his arrival. Sam jumped, but he spoke quietly. "I hate it when you do that. At least if you open the door in the vicinity I can hear you arrive." "Sorry." "What are you doing back so soon? Beth's going to kill you," Beckett pointed out in a reassuringly jocular tone. "Sam, she loves you. She'll understand." Sam's expression grew serious. "I'm okay, Al. I don't know what happened to me. It's never happened before. Maybe it was something to do with this leap. Tonight went okay, for what it was," he finished distastefully. "There didn't appear to be any sign of my reason for being here." "What about Sylvia?" "I thought of that, but it appears that Steven and Sylvia are pretty solid. No relationship problems to patch up, no relatives to pacify. She doesn't seem to have any vices, or boyfriends or hang-ups...and for all he's a crook by anyone's standard he doesn't appear to have done anything to get him in trouble with the law. Has Ziggy found anything yet?" Al drew out the handlink, shoved in a pocket earlier. He keyed in the access sequence. "Ah, here's something. Ziggy says that sometime tomorrow a sixteen year old girl will approach you...er, Stephen, for a job. She had a stroke. She's paralyzed down one side, and she's been coming to Stephen's meetings for months. Now she wants to join the show." "Why?" Sam asked suspiciously. Al shrugged his shoulders. "To be closer to Stephen? To help other people? To get an inside shot at a cure? Who knows? Anyway, Ziggy says that in the original history Stephen turned her away and she ended up in one og the crummier institutions for the disabled when her mother died unexpectedly about six months later. She was found hanging in her room a year and five months after being placed there by the authorities." Sam cursed uncharacteristically. Al did a double take and stepped toward his friend. "You sure you're all right?" He asked. "What do you think?" Sam said and went to find a shirt to go over the singlet and with the dark blue fifties trousers he was now wearing. "I think we have a problem," Al told him. "You need a break, Sam and I don't know how the hell to help you. Holidays don't figure in this crazy set up." Sam turned to him with eyes so bitter it sent a cold shiver down his spine. "You're telling me?" Beckett drawled. "You think I'm here to hire this girl? How are her parents going to react to that?" "There's only the mother. According to Ziggy she considers Joey--Joanna to be an unfair burden placed on her by God, fate and anyone else she can blame. The kid's been sick in one way or another ever since the day she was born...prematurely. There's a brother, somewhere, that the mother dotes on. I don't think Joey Chalmers is gonna be missed, somehow." "All right, so I hire her. What the hell am I supposed to do with her?" Al ignored Beckett's growing ill-humor. "There must be plenty around here the kid can do--sewing, that's it..there's always sewing in a show like this--or..or..she could be a dresser. Stage shows always have dressers for their stars. I haven't seen anyone around here to help either Stephen or Sylvia dress for their shows." "I'll think of something," Sam muttered, not overly impressed with the options. "I think you should think about getting some sleep, Sam." Beckett scowled. "With Sylvia?" "Nope," Al told him, scanning the link. "Stephen and Sylvia have separate hotel rooms. It seems that the marriage made in heaven might have a few cracks in it after all." "But Ziggy has nothing on them having marital problems?" "Nada," Al confirmed. "Be happy, Sam. You get the bed to yourself. Jeez, not even a little of my libido made into that thick skull of yours did it, not really?" "That's not what it felt like at the time," Sam complained. "But no, there's nothing left but me now." "You remember that clearly?" Calavicci asked, surprised. "Like it was yesterday," Sam drawled, obviously unaware of the significance of the question. "Jeez, Sam, why all of a sudden is your memory working so well? No wonder you've been so weird. What else can you remember?" "I remember going home to my parents," he said sadly. "I remember Jimmy. I even remember hitting Marina Oswald. I remember a bar in Pennsylvania..." He straightened and his face grew hard. "I remember stepping into the Quantum Leap accelerator," he said in a flat, harsh voice. Al scratched his head. "I'm going back to talk to Ziggy about this. You seem to be changing somehow, Sam. I don't know what's going on, but something is and I don't know if it's good or bad." Sam snorted. "Does it matter?" Al looked at him silently for a long moment, until the younger man's face finally relaxed. This was not his Sam Beckett. "Yeah, it matters. To me. Get some sleep, Sam. You're tired." "Yeah...tired," Sam half whispered. Al opened the chamber door, painfully aware that Beckett was not referring to his lack of sleep. "I'll be back," he said and vanished. "Sure," Sam said forlornly, hooked his jacket off a chair, and turned to find Sylvia so that they could leave for the hotel.         ******* Beckett was woken the next morning by a tap, not on the door between Stephen and Sylvia's suites, but the door to the corridor. He dragged on Stephen's flashy silk robe and shuffled to the door still blinking sleep from his eyes. He pulled the door open. "Yes?" he said roughly. "I'm sorry," a small voice said. He looked down. Joey Chalmers had finally turned up. She wasn't any more than five-four, skinny and doe-eyed. Her mop of brown hair was tied back in a hap-hazard pony tail. "No...no, I'm sorry. I just woke up. You kinda caught me at a bad time." "I'll go," she said flatly. As she turned Sam's practised eye noted that her limp arm and the corresponding leg were not yet atrophied or hyperflexed. "How long..." He cleared his throat. "How long have you been paralyzed?" She turned back, hope in her eyes again. "A year and a little bit," she told him. "The doctors say I had a stroke but I heard them tell mama that they couldn't figure exactly what caused the fit or the paralysis." "Then you're not an epileptic?" She shook her head. "Never been called one of those before." "Listen," Sam said uncomfortably, "why don't you go down stairs and wait for me while I get dressed. Give me twenty minutes." Joey grinned. "I knew you'd listen. Everybody said you wouldn't have time for no-account stragglers like me, but I told them you'd listen. I've seen what you do for those poor people at the meetings." "Uh...Thanks," Sam said, hating the inherent deception. "Twenty minutes, okay? Now, go on." He watched her swinging gait down the corridor and felt his heart go out to her in spite of himself. It took ten minutes to shower and dress. She was waiting, not in the coffee shop where Sam assumed she'd go, but curled up on one of the rest chairs in the lobby. He took a punt. "How about we have breakfast together?" He asked and grinned when her eyes lit up like those of a small child. "I...I don't have any money," she confessed. "No problem," he said and gestured toward the coffee shop. When she'd worked her way through bacon, eggs, coffee, donuts, and milk, Sam put down the fork with which he'd eaten his paltry pair of eggs and finished his own coffee. "Joey, why did you leave home?" He ventured. Chalmer's face registered surprise. "How did you know my name was Joey?" "To tell the truth," he said carefully, "I don't really know. Must've been one of those premonitions or something." "Wow," she enthused. "Well it is Joey, Joanna Chalmers. And I left home because I'm a burden. They're better off without me. Besides, I'm sixteen now and I should be earning my own way in the world. I came to ask you for a job, Reverend Cilento. I'd really work hard. There's plenty of things I can do even without two good arms to help me." Sam made a show of considering her proposition. "What kind of jobs did you have in mind?" "Oh, I couldn't presume to tell you--" He suddenly realized that without too much help Joey could be a beautiful young woman. "Yes you could. After all, I asked," he pointed out and smiled. "Well, I can't sew or fix things with one hand, but I can clean, and I can sort things, and iron after a fashion. I'd be real good with wardrobes - I used to do all the washing and ironing at home." "All of it?" Sam asked, not liking the sound of that. She nodded enthusiastically. "Mama said since I couldn't earn my way and I couldn't do hardly nothing else I oughta pull my weight. And I have been, since I was twelve." "But couldn't you have finished school? Your paralysis doesn't have to be a disability if you have an education, Joey." She deflated, shaking her head slowly. "I was sick so much Mama just gave up sending me to school somewheres near my twelfth birthday. Didn't see no point. No one was going to give me a job anyway. You know, I don't understand why everyone treats me like I'm dumb. I'm not dumb." "No," Sam said, moved. "You're not dumb, Joey. Life is sometimes dumb, but you definitely aren't." "Thank you," she said softly. "There's always books, anyway. I learned near everything I know out of books." "Oh? Do you have a favorite subject?" She nodded. "I like history. All history. I like reading about all the revolutions, all the exploration. Not just American, but everyone's. And geography. Did you know there was no land underneath the North pole, Reverend Cilento?" She enthused. Sam grinned again. "Yeah, I knew. Kinda neat, isn't it? All that ice?" She nodded, and smiled back. "Amazing. I'm going to see the world one day. I want to see the great wall of China, the Great Barrier Reef, the pyramids, Aztec ruins and most of all I want to see wild African elephants." "I'm sure you will, one day," Sam told her, straightening only to see Sylvia sauntering across the breakfast room towards them. "Ah. We have company. My...wife is awake." "'Morning, Sylvia," he said dutifully and pulled out a chair for her. She sat down silently and regarded the urchin before turning back to her husband. "I missed you at breakfast this morning, Stephen. Care to explain your failure to at least let me know you were going to absent yourself?" He smiled uncomfortably. "The young lady here knocked on my door this morning. She would like a job with our show. We were discussing it over breakfast," he explained. "I'm sorry--I didn't want to wake you, actually," he improvised. Sylvia's eyes narrowed. "And have you given her a job?" "We were just discussing the possibilities when you arrived. Perhaps we could ask your opinion. Joey tells me she's an expert at washing and ironing, and handling clothes generally. I thought perhaps it was time I provided you with a dresser, my dear. You deserve that after all these years..." Sam saw immediately that the allusion to Sylvia's age had lost him ground, though the idea of a dresser seemed to appeal to her. Sylvia was, above all, an elitist behind that veneer of concern and spiritual benevolence. "If she is going to be seen in the tent, if she is going to dress me, she's going to have to be cleaned up. And I think a uniform..." "Great," Beckett said, forgetting himself, "then she's hired." Chalmers grinned widely and flushed. Sylvia looked at Sam as though Stephen was losing his mind. "Joey, I think the first thing we'd better do is get you a room. It'll be part of your wage package," he added quickly as Sylvia's mouth opened to object. "Then Sylvia will look into getting you some things, okay?" Joey nodded. "You know, Reverend, you're kind of different in person, when you're not working." "I am?" Sam said warily. Joey nodded again. "When you're up there, on the stage, you're kind of overpowering, angry even--above ordinary mortals..." She mused in a manner well beyond her years. "But here--here you're someone else entirely." Sam might have laughed. He didn't. He was someone else entirely. And he was deceiving this child too. A professional deceiver... He shook himself. "Well, Joey, thank you for what I believe is a compliment, but stage presence is always deceptive." He shifted uncomfortably. "Now I think we ought to see about that room--" "I'll see about the room," Sylvia said pointedly. "Come, child." Joey followed her out like a puppy. On cue, Al reappeared, this time through the chamber door, and came to sit at the table. "How goes it this morning, Sam?" "Fine. Just fine. Joey arrived. Joey is hired. Sylvia is getting her a room and buying her clothes," Beckett recited. "Does Ziggy have this thing figured out? I haven't leaped yet, and Joey is here and hired," he said sharply. "Ziggy says that you've changed history. Now Joey doesn't die in an apparent suicide at the home, she falls pregnant to Stephen because of an incident that happens in two days time at about 11.15pm. Sylvia discovers the two of them uh... together, and runs the kid off." "Oh great. Just great. So what happens to Joey?" Sam demanded. "She dies of septicemia after a botched backyard abortion, in some homeless shelter somewhere." "Damn it to hell, Al! Why do we do this? Why do we spend so much time playing God?" "It's not that bad yet, Sam. All you have to do is stay away from Joey and nothing will happen." "Of course I'll stay away from Joey!" Beckett snapped again. "But if Stephen did it once, what's to stop him from doing it again when I'm gone?" "Ziggy will know that in two days time. If it's gonna happen anyway, Ziggy will tell us. It may mean that you have to find a proper home for the kid." "I think I'm here to do that now, Al. It would make a lot of sense to kill two birds with one stone--find a place for Joey, well away from Stephen, where there might be a real future for her." "Well, you do what you think is best, Sam. But be careful. This one seems to have more booby traps than a war zone." Sam nodded dispiritedly. "How's Beth?" He asked again. Al frowned. "What is it with all the questions about me and Beth?" "Nothing," Beckett said unconvincingly. "I'm just making conversation." "Yeah, well we don't usually--" Calavicci stopped. Exactly. "Well," he began again. "She made the most incredible linguini last night. It was stone cold when I got there and she was mad as hell--" He laughed. "We heated it up and it was still mag-nifico." His eyebrows waggled. "Dessert was even better..." Beckett laughed too, imagining the domestic scene in all its uncomplicated, secure simplicity, a dull ache growing in pit of his stomach. "We never really talked that much before," Sam thought aloud. "Sometimes you mention things, like parties and birthdays and stuff, but we don't usually talk about anything but the leap." "Are you all right, Reverend?" Sam looked around, roused from his reverie. "Oh, yeah, sure. Sometimes it helps me with my sermon to think aloud. I forgot where I was." The waitress looked at him sideways, but nodded and continued on to the next table with their orders. Al was laughing. He stopped quickly enough when Sam unexpectedly pushed back his chair and strode out of the room. "Sam!" He hit the link and popped out when Ziggy re-centred him on his friend. "What are you mad about now?" He demanded, following Beckett into his hotel room. Sam seemed to ignore him, methodically readying his clothes for the next performance, getting out the coat bag to put them into. "Sam? You want me to leave?" Beckett stopped, his shoulders drooping, head down, and hesitated for several moments. "No..no, I'm sorry. Like I said, I don't know what's wrong with me. Al, I remembered something else when I was walking up the stairs. I remember someone back at the project. I remember her voice, her face. I remember having a home, a life...Al, I went back--" His eyes grew very bleak. "Her name was Donna." Calavicci stepped backward and sat down hard, a hand on his brow. This, no-one needed. Not while Sam remained in limbo, without hope of going home again. "Sam...you have to understand, when you lost parts of your memory, we saw it as a way of easing the trauma at the beginning, and then, when it didn't come back to you, we figured that you'd only be more traumatized if we told you that you'd forgotten you had a--that you'd forgotten about Donna." "Donna--is she...?" "Oh, she's fine, Sam. Her career is in great shape. She's still working at the project. Do you really remember when we got struck by lightning and you were me..and I was you...and you were back at the project and she was there--?" Sam frowned. "Barely. I remember being a hologram. I kinda remember being back at the project. I remember Donna, but not much else." He grasped his head and shook it fiercely. "Why, Al?" He asked despairingly. Al exhaled heavily. "Well, I always figured if you remembered every leap, every detail of your life as Doctor Sam Beckett you'd be completely crazy by now. That kind of stress would drive anyone completely nutso." "Yeah? Well then why am I starting to remember so much stuff at once? Ziggy not the only one who makes mistakes after all? Whoever is doing this to me having a bad day, or something?" "What are you talking about, Sam?" "We both know that there's a reason that has nothing to do with Quantum Leap, or Ziggy or anything else, why I've been doing what I'm doing. What if whoever or whatever it is has a malfunction? What if my memory is coming back because that Bartender is losing control of me?" "I don't know, Sam. Sounds pretty wild to me. How about your memory is coming back because for some reason this leap temporarily opened up parts of your mind? Or maybe your experience with that ah...Bartender, and all that came after are finally starting to catch up with you? If you retain any of that stuff after this leap then we'll start worrying. Until we figure out exactly why you ended up with all those holes in your memory in the first place there's no way to know what else could happen." "Fine," he said flatly. "I have a performance this afternoon. I'd better work out the rest of today's sermon." "You found another one of Stephen's--?" Sam shook his head. "I wish," he said. "I got this old one from a file." He held up the folder. "And I followed his style and stuff and wrote a new one." "You wrote a sermon?" Al asked incredulously, glad to have the subject changed. Beckett shrugged. "It wasn't that difficult once I read a few of his." Al shook his head. "All right, Sam. Good luck with it. I'm going to check on Joey and then I'm going back to see what Ziggy can find out about your memory fluctuations." Sam watched expressionlessly as he disappeared, then sat down to go over the deliberately hyped-up, characteristically shallow type sermon he'd written for Stephen to deliver. Then, almost as if guided, he began making changes...         ******* "...And so I say to you, my children, that if you have faith, faith in yourselves, in who you are--in what you can be, then you can do anything!" Sam thundered and moved across the stage once more, microphone in hand. "You have in yourselves the power do anything, be anything if only you have faith, if only you take control of your own lives, your own destinies. Do not allow yourselves to be led by charlatans and frauds! Do not allow yourselves to believe in the unbelievable, because seduction of the soul for the sake of lucre is the devil's work," he told them, holding the gaze of an old woman in the front row. Then he was moving again, sweeping his gaze around the 'room'. "I want you to put away your donations. I want you to put away your fears and trust yourselves. How can I accept the trust you place in me, when you don't have faith in yourselves?!" He demanded, his voice getting louder and louder as murmurs rose in the audience. Then someone whistled and cheered. Suddenly the whole tent was rocking to the adulation of the crowd. "Oh, boy," Sam muttered to himself. Al was right. They wanted to be led, one way or the other. They wanted to be taken in by Stephen. Not exactly duped, perhaps, but willing to be taken down that road for the sake of finding that ever undefined something that was missing in each of their lives. "And now--" Sylvia spoke up as the crowd subsided. Probably, Sam suspected, to stop Stephen from saying anything else about not giving donations. "And now, a brief break to allow Stephen to rest his voice and for you all to think about his wonderful sermon. Theodore will play selected hymns for you during this period and our helpers will move through the audience so that if you have any messages, any problems, you can tell them. Thank you all." Backstage Sylvia rounded on Sam. "I don't know what the hell you were trying to do Stephen, but it could cost us plenty. Have you taken leave of your senses?!" Beckett opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by one of the helpers, Stan, bursting into the backstage area with an overflowing contribution tray. "I can't believe it!" He enthused. "Tell 'em not to give money and they pour it out. This is going to be our biggest night ever!" Sam groaned. Sylvia's scowl was replaced by a beatific smile. "So, there was method in your madness after all, darling," she drawled, and kissed him on the mouth. "My mistake." Beckett watched her just about float back toward the stage, to begin the next phase of the show: the healing session. He scowled in distaste and prepared himself mentally to do it all again. By the time the faithful had started to file up to the stage, including the several plants in the audience, Sam had worked himself up into the righteous lather of the spiritual huckster. As was the custom, Sylvia asked their names and called them out to the audience before giving them to Sam, who with loud and vociferous prayers laid on his hands and called for the power of healing. A woman with migraines fainted. An old man with prostate cancer stood reciting prayers in an almost hypnotic state, a blind girl wept and two of the fakes passed out melodramatically to take no more part in the show. The third moved two fingers in a purportedly paralyzed hand to the delight of the crowd and the star of the night rose almost to a standing position from the wheelchair prop she was using, before flopping back in feigned exhaustion and exultation. The crowd were hooked. When it was over, Sam was sickened. He turned to finish the show and looked down to see that a small child had come up to the stage alone, against the rules. The little girl could only have been seven or eight. At first Sam thought she was autistic, but her obliviousness to the noise and excitement around her was a result of deafness. As she stepped up to where he stood he could see the tiny hearing aids. A wave of emotion, rage, anguish swept over him. What he was doing was wrong. So wrong. He knelt down before the child mechanically, forcing himself to go through the motions of being Stephen. The child's eyes were cornflower blue. Sam swallowed as they searched Stephen's green ones. There was a heartbreaking conviction in them that moved Sam almost to tears. Her parents must have told her that if she came to Stephen she would be made well. "Make me better," she signed. He opened his mouth to begin a prayer, then closed it again. The child's eyes widened as Sam's filled with moisture. She put her arms around his neck and hugged him. He held her for a long moment, closing his eyes against the anger he felt and tightening his arms around the small body as she whispered near his ear in a halting voice: "It's all right. Don't cry." The words were blurred by her inability to hear herself, but they cut just as deeply into Sam's soul. It was then he realized that the whole room had fallen silent. He didn't know what to do. He couldn't cure the child. He couldn't stomach the idea of praying over her or making some shallow speech to cover Stephen's sham. In the end it was the child who drew away, leaving Sam on one knee before her. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Sylvia off stage looking daggers at his inactivity. He was supposed to be capitalizing on the audience's complete captivation, but he just couldn't do it. Eventually, when it looked like Sylvia was going to come back on stage, he rose slowly and put his hands silently over the child's ears as Stephen would have done, and closed his eyes as if in silent prayer. He could hear murmurs of prayer in the audience as he stood there wondering what he was going to do. The decision was wrested from him by the child's hands, which covered his fingers and drew them away from her head. He looked down at her. She was blinking and concentrating on something. Sam looked on incredulously as she pulled one, then both hearing aids from her ears. Incredulity changed to suspicion and he shot a sidelong glance at Sylvia, but her quite visibly stunned expression told him that she wasn't involved. Nor was Theodore showing any sign of knowing what was going on. He knelt down again. "What's your name, sweetheart?" He said gently, knowing that she would read his lips. "Holly," she said in a clear voice. "Holly, can you...can you...hear me?" Holly nodded very slowly. As if in a trance, Sam turned her toward the silent crowd and said softly: "Holly, turn around and tell me that again." Slowly the child turned back to him and looked into his eyes. "I can hear you," she said. Beckett stared at her. It was impossible. This time the moisture that had been gathering in his lashes, finally fell. Holly put her arms around him again and he hugged her until the audience's silence began to build into a roar of applause and loud prayers of thanks to God and to Stephen. Sam made a valiant attempt to clear his head. He had to do something. He lifted the child away and smiled reassuringly at her before standing and raising his arms in a settling gesture. It took several minutes for the crowd to calm down again. "I did not heal this child," he told them. "It was...It was her faith that made her well. I swear, I did not heal this child." The crowd loved it, but they didn't believe him. They reacted to the perceived modesty in exactly the opposite fashion to what Sam had intended. At that moment Al reappeared, out of uniform for one rare time. Holly's eyes widened in disbelief. She slipped a hand into Sam's. Beckett immediately turned off the microphone. "Is he one of your angels?" she asked. Despite his unease, Sam couldn't stop himself from laughing. He hunkered down again. Al made a face at him. "No, Holly, Al isn't an angel. He's a hologram," he whispered. "But only you and I can see him, so don't make the crowd mad by telling them, okay?" She nodded. "Al," he hissed, without looking away from Holly. "What does Ziggy know about Holly?" "Zip," Al told him. "We already looked." "What's your last name, Holly?" "Ingram," she told Al, looking straight at him. Al tried again. "Ah, here. The kid was in a car accident eighteen months ago. Ahh, Jeez," he said uncomfortably. "What?" Sam snapped in a low voice. "Not while the kid's listening, Sam. Anyway, as a result of the trauma of the accident Holly became blind and deaf." "Both?" "Well, yeah. It was a pretty severe hysterical reaction. She got her sight back six months later, but the doctors felt she would never regain her hearing because the stuff I can't talk about right now was so traumatic that she wouldn't ever get over it completely." Sam exhaled heavily. "How do you know all that? You are an angel, aren't you, Al?" Holly whispered. "No kid, I ain't no angel," Al told her, visions of Carmen Miranda's hat, flapper's clothes and a voice from glory making him smile. "I'm from the future--that's how I know." "Is Stephen from the future, too?" Sam put his hands on her arms, aware that the crowd were mesmerized by the inaudible exchanges between the three. "Holly, can you see me?" "See you?" "Yes. See me. What color is my hair?" He asked. "Brown," she said and then frowned. "That's weird. The pictures of you out the front all have white hair. Oh..." It finally registered. "You're not Stephen." "She can see you," Al said redundantly. "Obviously," Sam drawled. "Holly, my name is Sam. I'm helping Stephen tonight. Right now, though, we have to pretend like Al isn't there. Are...are you okay?" "You mean about what he said about me? Sure. The doctors told me there was an accident and mommy used to ask me about it sometimes, but I don't remember anything." Sam exhaled with relief. "All right, then," he said and stood up again, took Holly's hand in his, turned on the microphone, and faced the crowd. "I hope you all will forgive Holly and I for taking a little time to get to know each other--and to give thanks to the Lord," he added and squeezed the child's hand to let her know he was aware he was telling a fib. "You all didn't believe me when I told you before that I didn't heal this child. Well, it is the truth. I've just discovered that Holly here was suffering from hysterical deafness. There was a great trauma in her life and she became deaf and blind. She regained her sight all by herself within six months, but tonight, tonight the power of her faith--in herself--enabled her to regain her hearing. She believed that if she had the courage to come to me she would hear again, and she did. That was not my doing. These hands," he held them up, "did no more than give this child a reason to come back, to let go of her trauma, tonight. I'm asking you now to let go of your own fears, to take control of your own lives, like Holly here. That is what God wants from you." Holly's mother came to the edge of the stage as he spoke. The child threw herself into the woman's arms. Mrs Ingram thanked Stephen over and over again. Sam touched her outstretched hand and smiled at her. Then he straightened quickly, raised his arms to signal the end of the show and got off stage with as much haste as he could, not stopping even when Sylvia tried to speak to him as she passed him to go back on stage herself. Al was waiting for him in the dressing room. "Sam, you did a good thing out there. In the original history Holly wasn't healed. Stephen never brought her up on stage. He must've thought he'd fall on his face so he ignored her and distracted the crowd with some longwinded speech about giving thanks for the fake bozo in the chair. Holly remained deaf and traumatized the rest of her life. She finished high school and worked as a data-entry clerk as an adult, on and off, but couldn't keep a job because of depression and people's prejudices about her disability. She never married and died aged forty-one, of renal failure caused by prolonged abuse of prescription drugs." "And, what happens to her now?" Sam asked quietly. "She finishes college and goes on to become a psychologist. She marries and has three children, all boys." Al started cackling to himself. "What? What is it?" Sam demanded suspiciously. "Well," Al drawled. "She named the first one Marcus Jefferson after her father--who, by the way, died in that car accident--the second one David James after her husband and the third one Samuel Alan." Sam smiled in spite of himself. "I guess Alan is better than Alfred or Aloysius or Albert," he laughed. "Very funny," muttered Al, then chuckled again. "Nice though, huh?" "Was that what I was really here for, Al? Am I going to leap?" "If you were, don't you think you'd be out of here by now?" Calavicci pointed out, sobering things up considerably. "Joey still needs you, in case you've forgotten." "No, I haven't forgotten," Sam shot back, and wiped a hand over his face. "Where is she, anyway?" Al tapped the handlink. "In her hotel room watching television and waiting for Sylvia to take her shopping this afternoon." "Good. Now all I have to do is find Joey Chalmers a home before whatever happens between her and Stephen, happens." "Yeah, right. Sam, how's things?" Al asked. Beckett knew what he meant. "I haven't remembered anything else. I'm all right." "Good. I'm gonna go find out if there's any place around here you could get Joey into--you know, like a school for young ladies, or a decent girls' home or something." Sam nodded, and watched Al go through the chamber door again with a rare pang, as it closed.         ******* The crowd the following day was half again larger than the previous one, much to Sam's dismay, and it was bulging with all manner of wounded, sick and dying individuals. Beckett withdrew from the side of the stage and went back to his dressing room. He passed Joey, with Syliva's street clothes in her good arm, going the other way. With her hair cut and styled, new, but practical clothes and a small amount of make-up, Joey did indeed fulfil the promise of her looks. Sam wondered if that was what swayed Stephen into seducing her. He shook his head distastefully. The more he found out the man, the more despicable he found him. "Everything okay?" He asked. "Great," Joey enthused. "I'm just going to iron these for Sylvia. They crush easily and she wants to look nice to go back to the hotel." "Yeah, right," Sam said, unimpressed. Joey seemed destined to be a slave to other people. At least this time she would get paid. "It's all right, really, Stephen. I like it here, and Sylvia's being nice." Joey giggled. "Even though she can't stand me." "You can tell?" Sam asked, and smiled when she broke into a grin again. "Of course. If I were your wife I'd probably feel the same way if I found you having breakfast with another woman." "Ah-ha. Well, Sylvia knows I'd never do anything to hurt her, which is probably why she's being nice to you in spite of her other feelings," Sam improvised. He wasn't at all sure what was in the older woman's mind. "Well, I'd better get this ironing done, and you have to change for the show--" Joey said uncomfortably and headed down to where the costumes were housed and the ironing board Sylvia had ordered, was set up. It was a long, repetitive afternoon and Sam was glad to get back to his hotel room. His relief was tempered by the fact that he was running out of time and still hadn't found somewhere for Joey to live. He hunted out the phone book and began looking for options. Al returned, making Sam jump in spite of himself. "What did Ziggy say?" he demanded when he'd collected himself. "Ziggy says that your best chances are with the Grayson Street Chapel's refuge for homeless children, the Our Lady home for the handicapped--except that will cost lots of money, or there's the State home for girls. If you had more time you could maybe find her a job with board and lodging or something, but with things as they stand these are your best options." "Some choices, Al. Which one does Ziggy give as the best chance for success?" "The home for the handicapped. With Stephen's money, it wouldn't be hard to enrol her there and she'd be able to finish her education. The place is progressive and she'd get physiotherapy for her arm and leg. Ziggy says with adequate treatment she will regain some mobility in both." "I'll take her there in the morning, before the show, to look the place over. Ask Ziggy what happens after that." "Ok-kay." Al consulted the handlink. "It works. She likes it. Uh-oh. Ziggy says she still gets pregnant, but now it's from a rape. She does, however, get taken care of at the institution, only the baby is taken away and put up for adoption. Joey never gets over it or the rape." "That's not possible!" Sam shouted. "Nothing was supposed to happen until tomorrow night. Besides, I'm not going to do anything!" "I know, Sam. I know. Maybe--maybe you leap before it happens. Or maybe this time it isn't Stephen?" "No, no," Sam snapped. "Ask Ziggy when it happens in the new history." "It still happens tomorrow night, in her hotel room. Stephen is implicated. His story is that he went to investigate the girl's screams and the real rapist ran off. Joey, however, blames Stephen." "But how?! He's not here," Sam reminded him in a voice slowly rising in pitch. "Well, ob-viously, it wasn't him," Al decided. Sam frowned. In his gut he felt that Joey wasn't capable of that kind of deception. "But why would Joey lie?" "Maybe not exactly lie. Joey's just a kid. If she was afraid of something worse, she might blame someone else. Maybe she was threatened." Sam nodded. "If it's on record that a rape was reported, there should have been..ah..evidence," Sam pointed out. "Which presents another problem. If it wasn't Stephen, do I have to prove his innocence?" "I guess so. Otherwise you would have leaped by now. I mean, lets not forget that this stuff is all hypothetical, here. You still have to be careful." "Yeah, right," Sam sighed. "Why don't you go find out if Joey had any male acquaintances, or met anyone since she's been here. Anyone who could end up in her room tomorrow night." Al's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. "I'll be back, Sam. Sit tight." Beckett stripped off the white suit and silk shirt and headed for the shower. Afterward, comfortable in shorts and robe, he worked half-heartedly on a sermon for the following day, in case things didn't go as planned. During a break he called the school for the handicapped. Yes, they had an opening. And certainly, with Stephen Cilento's generous up-front patronage they would be quite willing to keep the child until she was at least eighteen. He could take her there in the morning, and if all went well, she would be able to stay. Sam hung up the phone and sighed. He would have much preferred to consult Joey first, but things were already far too complicated. Sylvia stuck her head in the access doorway and asked him if he wanted to go down for the evening meal. Sam wasn't hungry. He declined. "Suit yourself," Sylvia told him, apparently quite happy to go without him and withdrew to her own room, on the other side of which, was Joey's. Beckett hunted out casual clothes to put on, and swayed as he bent to pick up his shoes. He was drawn and pale. Whatever had been affecting him through the last few leaps, and tearing him up emotionally, had taken a bigger toll than even he realized. A wave of tiredness rolled over him. Almost without realizing it, he lowered himself onto the bed, put his head on the pillow for just a few moments and was soon in a deep, dreamless sleep. The next thing he knew was the sound of Al's voice yelling in his ear. "Sam! Get up! Something's happening!" Beckett scrambled out of bed and grabbed his robe. "What? ...Who?" "I heard screams for a moment, I think from Joey's room. I'll go take a look, but you gotta get over there. Now!" Al popped back in as Sam raced through Sylvia's rooms to the access door on the other side, which was flung open. "There's some creep in Joey's room. He's all over her. Hurry, Sam! Hurry!" Sam tore into the room inside to see a tall, thin man dropping his pants while holding a terrified Joey down by the throat. In a blind rage Beckett grabbed the man by the shoulders and flung him into the wall, picked him up by the shirt front and knee-ed him in the stomach before dragging him up again and finishing him with a powerful punch in the mouth. Joey was curled up in a foetal ball on the bed shaking like a leaf. "Joey," Sam said gently. "Did he..?" She shook her head slowly, too much in shock to speak. "It's all right," he said softly. Someone will be here soon. You're going to be fine. Do you know this guy?" Joey swallowed and raised herself, trembling, to a sitting position. Much as he wanted to comfort her, Sam didn't touch her. He knew only too well that it wasn't what she needed right then. She nodded slowly. "He--He's a friend of S-Sylvia's. He's been v-visiting her. She made me promise not to m-mention him to you. P-Please don't be mad, Stephen. She said she'd fire me if you f-found out, and I couldn't bear that," she sobbed. Sam and Al looked at each other. Al spoke first. "What made this sleaze change nights? You're decision to put Joey in the school couldn't have affected this bozo's plans--" "Unless," Sam interrupted hollowly. "Unless Sylvia was in on it. She was in her room while you and I were talking and she spoke to me just after I called the school." Joey watched Sam, puzzled, but too shocked to make much of his one-sided conversation or his unusual behavior. "You mean that dragon might have used this kid to deliberately set Stephen up? After all, he was sure to hear her scream, especially if the pimple over there let her holler a couple of times just to make sure. And with Joey in shock, or scared out her wits by threats, she could easily be manipulated." Sam closed his eyes. "That's what it looks like, Al. I'd better call the police." "You better do your robe up before somebody comes bustin' in here and decides you look more like the perpetrator than the weasel over there." Sam looked down at his shorts and swiftly did up the robe before calling the police. The stranger was coming around slowly. Sam tied the man's hands to the heater pipe with one of Sylvia's stockings, then turned to Joey. "How do you feel? Do you think you'll be able to make a statement to the police?" Joey nodded her head slowly. "You'll tell them everything?" She nodded. "Do you know this guy's name?" "Schlatter. Christopher Schlatter," she said distastefully. "The creep." "Now that sounds like a healthy attitude to me," Al said. "I'm outta here. I'll be back in the morning." As Beckett finally smiled the sound of boots in the corridor drew nearer. The police had taken their statements and all but finished their investigation of the incident when Sylvia burst in from her room, mouth open, obviously ready to denounce Stephen in front of everyone and stopped short, not expecting to find her lover in hand-cuffs. "What on Earth is going on?" she demanded, only to find herself under arrest and being handcuffed. "You're under arrest for conspiring with Schlatter here in the matter of the assault and attempted rape of Miss Ingram, Mrs Cilento. Mister Schlatter has been most co-operative." Sam watched them go with a sense of unreality. He wasn't sure what to do next. When the room was emptied it was obvious that Joey was still in shock and that she really shouldn't be left alone. "If I leave all the doors open will you be all right for ten minutes while I go and get dressed?" He asked gently. The girl nodded and rose from the chair the police had seated her in. "I need to take a shower anyway. I feel so dirty," she told him miserably. Beckett nodded and started through the access door. "Stephen--?" Sam turned. "You will come back?" He nodded, understanding more profoundly than Joey could possibly imagine. He returned half an hour later in jeans and a thick white cable sweater. Joey had also dressed, in jeans and sloppy joe, and was sitting at the small breakfast table of the suite. She looked pale and exhausted but for two red spots in her cheeks from the heat of the shower. Sam sat in a chair on the other side of the table. "Do you want anything--Coffee? Tea? Food?" he asked. She shook her head, then looked up at him slowly. "I watched you for months, Stephen. I thought I knew who you were. But you aren't him--I mean, you're not the same. It's not just how you are on stage or off stage. It's something much more than that...I think, I think I could fall in love with you," she confessed timidly. "Joey," Sam said carefully, "You've just had a very bad shock and it just happens that I'm the only one here for you. I am your friend, but that's all I can be. There's Sylvia, and I'm really far too old for you--" Joey giggled a watery giggle and raised a pale hand. "I wasn't making a pass," she said in that 'old' voice that didn't fit her body. "I guess I was just saying that it's what you are that I care about, not who. You don't seem to fit somehow. Who are you, really?" she asked disarmingly. "Stephen Cilento," Sam said automatically, watching gratefully as her eyes drooped, her head tilted a little to the side. "You should get some sleep." She straightened, more or less. "I'm afraid to sleep," she told him. Sam rose and helped her stand. "Come on, sleepy head. I'm not going far." He took her through to Sylvia's room, put her in Sylvia's bed and drew the covers around her. He could not however, turn his back on the look of fear in her eyes. He woke cold and stiff in the morning, still holding her hand, his head resting on the side of the bed, his back killing him from being bent over in the chair half the night. Joey stirred when he moved, and he noticed with satisfaction, with much brighter eyes and far more color in her cheeks. "My back is killing me," he complained mock-sufferingly and winced as he stood up. "How did you sleep?" "Like a log," she said sleepily. "I'm hungry." "Best news I've heard in ages," he grinned. "I'll give you half an hour to get ready, then we'll go have the biggest breakfast you can order before I take you to this place I want to show you. I think you're going to like it a lot." "Okay. But make it twenty minutes," she bartered. "I'm starved." Sam had just emerged from a steaming hot shower, most of which he'd directed onto the crick in his back, when Al reappeared. "You've done it, Sam. All you have to do now is get her to stay in the school and she's home free," he announced without preamble.         ******* The formalities at the police station were over satisfyingly swiftly. Sam looked down at his charge as they drove away, and knew that he would soon be gone, and there would be no memory, not even a mental picture of her small face left to remind him of this leap. The trip to the school turned out to be the only simple, easy part of the whole leap. Joey fell in love with the school on sight, with its bright class-rooms, enormous library and the dozens and dozens of pupils of all ages and disabilities working and moving around in a generally friendly, busy fashion. As they waited outside the Administrator's office for their appointment, Sam wondered what the future held for her, and remembered something he wanted to tell her. "You sure you're going to be happy here?" Joey looked up at him radiantly. "Did you see that library? Those classrooms?" She enthused. "Are you kidding?" Sam grinned. "That's wonderful. I'm glad you like it. This is the beginning of your journey, Joey. Look out, elephants." She nodded. "I have a chance now. Because of you." "I wanted to talk to you about that," Sam told her, pouncing on the opportunity. "Remember what you said yesterday--about...about me not fitting?" She nodded and frowned, puzzled. "Well, I want you to remember that. See, after today, that part of me won't be around any more. I can't really explain, but you have to promise me that from now on, you'll follow your heart. Don't look back, and above all, don't ever consider yourself obligated to me. I think you understand pretty well that my money isn't exactly earned from blood, sweat or tears...at least not mine--" "It's in the eyes," she said softly. "I used to watch your eyes. You were charming and clever, but there was no soul in your eyes. Now there is." "For just this little while," Sam said softly, mesmerized by her childish insight. "Just long enough to help you. When you look in my eyes, and what you saw is gone--I want you to say good-bye. And I don't want you to look back. Promise me." Joey smiled, put her good arm around his neck and hugged him hard. "I promise," she whispered. "But I'll miss you." "Mister Walthorpe will see you now," said a prim voice. The middle-aged office secretary looked over her spectacles as the pair went into the inner-sanctum, and harrumphed ever so delicately before going back to her desk. The moment he handed over the cheque for the considerable donation to the home in exchange for Joey's education and keep, Beckett leaped.         --***-- Sam blinked. He was in a crowd. He was wearing a dark, three- piece suit. There was something in his ear and something... He slid a hand under his jacket. He was wearing a gun. He looked to either side of himself. Two more who looked just like him, suit, earpiece. Trouble. He looked ahead. More of them, and an incongruous, elderly figure in a suit, stetson and cuban heels, between them. Was he a cop? A detective? "Sykes, get those people away from the Governor! What are you doing down there? He's not going to make it unless you clear the east side." Sam wondered who Sykes was. No-one on the wire answered the call. "Sykes!" A stentorian voice yelled. Out of the corner of his eye Sam saw first one, then the other suited man look toward him. "H...Here," he spluttered. "I'll...I'll get right on it." He motioned to the men, whom he now realized were obviously under his control, to do as they had been instructed. They were extremely large and forbidding and the sea of Humanity parted swiftly when they waded into it. "A bodyguard," he told himself as they ran up steps behind the Governor. "I'm a body guard." "Secret service, Sam. You're a Secret service agent." Sam resisted the urge to swing around and blast his friend for taking so long in such a precarious situation. Instead he pushed his mike away from his mouth and hissed at Al without turning. "What took you so long?! Anything could have happened. What if somebody had tried to get this guy? I could have been responsible for--" "Sam, stop whining." Al put himself in front of Beckett as the entourage moved through the corridors to the Governor's office and the bodies thinned out considerably. "Sam, it's 1976. You're a Secret service agent. Your name is Dan Sykes. You're with Governor Kendall's office, starting this morning. The guy with the bull-horn voice on the wire is a personal bodyguard who's been with Kendall forever. You were seconded with a couple of these other gorillas--Crandall and Jacobsen, from the white house to protect this bozo because his racist mouth suddenly got him more death threats than a consumer advocate. You're protecting a creep, Sam." "Great," he muttered. "Just great. Why am I here?" "Because I'm here, Dan-iel. And if I have to pull this kind of shitty duty, so do you." Sam wheeled around to face a rugged looking black man in a dark blue suit who could easily have played for the Green Bay Packers. "Well, in that case..." smiled Beckett, for want of something better to say. "His name is Errol K. Jacobsen. He's your closest friend. You guys were partners. You were both uniform cops in the NYPD until six years ago when you were dismissed for risking a situation by rescuing Jacobsen when you were ordered to wait for back-up. Jacobsen quit when they wouldn't reinstate you after an investigation found that you were not negligent in your duties. It seems the big boys didn't like being told to get uh...you get the picture." Sam slid a withering glance at Al, then focused on Jacobsen. "Errol--" he began, only to be interrupted by both Jacobsen and Al. "Call him Jake. You call him Jake. He hates Errol. The K is for Kenneth. Folks who don't call him Jake call him Ken." "What's with you Sykes? First you goof off out there, then I find you talking to yourself and now you risk instant death?" "D...Death?" Sam ventured. "Death," growled Jacobsen, then broke into a grin. "Don't do it again." "I...I won't," Sam promised. "I'm not feeling too well." "Don't worry. We're off-duty in half an hour. Can't be too soon for me. I think Brewer did this to us on purpose. I mean Governor K. took one look at me this morning and just about spit up his coffee." "Brewer is your boss in the Service, Sam," Al interjected helpfully. Sam slid a glance down the corridor to the other giant, a big, heavy, fair haired man with a crew cut and a nose that wandered all over his face. "That's Crandall," Calavicci added. "I don't know, Jake. I think you're a hell of a lot prettier than Crandall." Jacobsen was scanning the area in the compulsive way bodyguards did and didn't turn back to Sam until he was done. "Very funny," he said. "A horse's ass is prettier than Crandall." "True," Sam agreed, not needing a sixth sense to detect the very real dislike in Jacobsen's voice, and began his own scan, knowing that he had to be seen to do as Sykes would or arouse suspicion. For all the noise and chanting that continued outside the building it was eerily quiet in the hallway with its polished floors, chandeliers and mahogany fittings. Suddenly, the wire crackled to life again. "Sykes, we've got trouble out here. Get a cordon around the Governor. If we can't hold them, they're going to be in the building in minutes." "On our way," Beckett answered, following Jacobsen who was already sprinting toward the doors of Kendall's office. "Crandall, get up here and cover the door!" he yelled as he ran. By the time they reached the Governor's chair the crowd had spilled into the corridor. They could hear Crandall order them back. He gave the order thrice more, then they heard him fire a shot. Then all hell broke loose. The doors were knocked down, and demonstrators poured into the room. Beckett and Jacobsen and the two uniformed guards already in the room closed ranks around Kendall, searching the faces, the bodies, always searching, for the extraordinary, the danger, the threat. Jake saw it first. A man in a foreign suit, an expensive suit, wearing gloves. He had something in his right hand. Something that set off all Jacobsen's alarms as the hand was raised and extended. Sam saw it at exactly the same moment. Jake dove for the Governor and Sam went for the gunman. The shot was fired before Beckett reached his target. Al watched in horror as his friend fell and the room cleared like the parting of the red sea. A bruised and bleeding Crandall staggered in as the gunman turned to flee, put a headlock on him and sent the specialist weapon he was carrying flying across the room. Finally free to leave the Governor's side, Jake Jacobsen flew to his friend, over whom a wan-faced Al was hovering and pounding at the handlink. Jacobsen rolled Sam over and found the wound. "Call an ambulance! A paramedic!" he screamed and tore open Sykes' shirt. The bullet was lodged too close to the heart for anyone to relax. Jacobsen struggled to stem the bleeding. Al swore. Ziggy's odds for Sam's survival were exceedingly poor. He'd never felt quite so helpless. Close, several times, but not like this. He rode in the ambulance alongside Jacobsen, never taking his eyes from his friend's still blessedly-rising chest, listening desperately to the voices of the paramedics as they continued to work on him, monitor his vital signs. What the hell kind of leap was this? What was Sam supposed to do in a coma?" He asked Ziggy again. And swore again. Sam had already done it. He'd prevented Jacobsen from being killed protecting a bigot from an underworld hitman. And saved Jake's family from years of grief and ostracism. The Governor would be indicted for accepting bribes from organized crime. Happy endings all round. But if Sam was dying, he couldn't leap...         ******* Al hated hospitals. And casualty rooms most of all. He hovered in Casualty oblivious of all the medical people walking or running through him all the time, watching, worrying as they tried desperately to save Sam's life. It seemed like they had him forever, doctors shouting for stuff, doing surgical procedures with the speed of a M*A*S*H team. The heart monitor flat-lined. Al dropped the handlink without even noticing. "No!" He cried and ran to Sam's side. "Sam, you gotta fight. You have to fight. You can't die! Not like this. Fight, damn it!" Somebody thrust a defibrillator paddle clean through his chest. Al jumped back and cringed as they jolted him. And again. And again. Finally a weak signal jumped to life on the monitor. Pale, and shaking, Al back-pedalled and leaned against the chamber wall. Twice more Sam tried to die, and twice more the crash team saved his life. Some time after that he was pronounced stable enough to be moved to an intensive care ward, though still listed as 'dangerously ill.' Once warded, in a private room, with 24 hour monitoring, Beckett--Sykes--was allowed no visitors. Aside from the assigned intensive care nurse, only Al sat at his bedside, in constant vigil for almost thirty-six hours. Each time he'd had to go to the bathroom had been a terrifying five to ten minutes when, in his tortured imagination, Beckett died in his absence. The hours dragged, only Al's voice and the sound of the monitor breaking the horrible silence of Sam's coma. He took them both back, to the beginning, to all the early leaps; the laughs, the tears, the craziness. When he got to Sam Bederman, his voice died. It was a leap that still haunted his nightmares. He watched Sam's unmoving face, and wondered if it still haunted his. He skipped it and went back to better times, to Sam's family, the farm, the basketball game. His voice continued, roughly soothing, through the night, the next day and into the early hours of the following morning, with only the smallest of breaks. Were it not for Gooshie silently delivering food, coffee and hope at intermittent intervals, Al knew he couldn't have kept going. As it was his voice was breaking up. Doctors had been in and out several times, the duty nurse had changed several times, and for once Al couldn't remember what a single one of them looked like... Finally Ziggy dropped the odds slightly. They were still frighteningly high that Sam would not make it, but at least they were going in the right direction. Calavicci didn't know a lot about medicine but it seemed that the language the doctors were using among themselves was a lot more hopeful than Ziggy was. He knew that Doctors tended to soften the blow for relatives, but among themselves they were usually clinically brutal in their observations. A couple more hours passed. Gooshie brought more coffee and a message of support from Beth. Gooshie had notified her that he wouldn't be home for a while. Al was coming through the chamber door after another reluctant trip to the bathroom when he saw the figure. It was Crandall, the big, ugly secret service agent. Before Calavicci could even shout uselessly to the nurse, Crandall had placed a cloth over her nose. She slid fluidly to the floor and didn't move again. Calavicci's heart-rate exploded, adrenalin curled the hairs on his neck. He leaped forward instinctively as Crandall reached for the I.V. and pulled the canula out of the back of Sam's hand, blood and saline solution going everywhere. "N-o-o!" he screamed. "Sam! You have to wake up! SAM!" he cried. But Beckett didn't stir from his coma. Al swiped up the handlink from the chamber floor. "Gooshie, open the door! Hurry!" Gooshie scuttled down the corridor after a determined Calavicci. "But Admiral! You can't do this! I can't let you take that risk. You just can't!" Calavicci looked up from the handlink as they all but ran to the accelerator, his eyes haunted. "How can I not? Ziggy says if you put me into the ward nurse in the next five minutes Sam has a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the attack. If not he's a hundred percent dead. Now tell me I have a choice!" They reached the heart of the Quantum Leap facility. Beckett had perfected pin-point targeting to save his, Al's life. It seemed only fitting that he should do the same for Sam. Al had always wondered what it felt like when Sam first went back through the accelerator, but when the time came, he didn't even notice. He didn't think about the possibility of not going back, or the consequences of that. He couldn't allow himself to think of Beth, or how she would cope with the news. All he knew was that he was now sitting at a desk in a hospital ward feeling very cold around the legs. He leaped up and sprinted awkwardly down the hall, kicking off the plain court shoes, to Beckett's room, and promptly tried to run through the door. The smack in the head smarted, but it did serve to burn into his mind what he'd actually done. He yanked it open. He was in the right time, the right place. And he remembered. Sam was still alive. He ran back into the corridor and down to the desk. There was a phone. He was on the verge of panic, trying to work out how to summon an emergency team when he saw the button. He hit it hard. An alarm sounded. Within seconds there seemed to be people everywhere. He sprinted back to the room ahead of the oncoming team and motioned them inside, forgetting to even approximate the movements or mannerisms of a middle-aged, senior female nurse. Sam had stopped breathing again. He was dead. Al swore, turning peripheral heads. The doctor, however, was focused on his job, examining, calling for medication, giving shots. "Clear!" He cried and began yet another round of defibrillation. Al was near tears by the fourth attempt. He hadn't gotten there fast enough. Sam was gone. He worked his way around to the head of the bed. He watched in a cold sweat as the doctor said the dread words: "Once more, and then that's it. Clear!"          "Sam, try!" Al cried as the paddles were reapplied. A faint pulse jumped up on the reattached monitors. So did Al's. "He's back!" A half dozen people cried in a jumble of jubilant voices. Things moved into high gear. Sam hung on. "Come on, my friend," Al urged. This time someone noticed. "Nurse, you can go back to your station now," they told him. Go back, he thought hollowly. He looked down at Sam, whose chest was now visibly rising and falling, and at the doctor who was waiting for him to move. "Uh..y..yes, doctor," he said reluctantly and withdrew. Back at the desk lights were flashing on the phone and a nurse was waiting with charts. Al did the only thing he could do. "Nurse, I think I'm going to be ill. Take over for me, would you, and call someone in to finish my shift." "Yes ma'am," the nurse replied dutifully, blinking in a non-plused fashion, slid into Al's seat and began answering the phone calls. Al followed the corridor until he found a door that said something other than ward whatever. It was a sitting room for visitors and it was deserted. He flopped in an arm chair and closed his eyes. What had he done? What could he...no what could Gooshie tell Beth? Just as he was descending into real depression he heard a familiar sound. He looked up. "Gooshie? What are you doing here?" "Somebody had to stay in contact. Ziggy says Doctor Beckett's chances have jumped to 65% for a full recovery. We're working on a way to try and get you back now." "But...if you can get me back, you can get Sam back, right?" "We don't know," Gooshie admitted. "Ziggy has been working on models and variations of models for the Retrieval program continuously since Doctor Beckett was lost, not to mention the doctor's own modifications during your leap to 1945, Admiral. The lock on you is rather more solid than it is on Doctor Beckett. Ziggy knew exactly where and at what moment you arrived. I'd have come earlier, only it didn't seem appropriate." Al rubbed his face. "Well, that's all very well, but when do I go back?" "We don't know that, yet. Ziggy says theoretically she could pull you back now, but currently the Retrieval program just isn't working." "Great," Calavicci sighed. "Just great. Go see how Sam is." He watched Gooshie walk through the walls and shook his head. Everything was upside down. Moments later he was back. "He's stabilized. The police are there now." He consulted the handlink. "Ziggy says they'll be gone in about twenty minutes. There won't be any more attempts on Sykes' life." "So why did that gorilla wanna kill Sam?" "It's nothing personal," Gooshie told him matter-of-factly. "Although there's never been any love lost between Crandall and Sykes and Jacobsen. The motivation here seems to have been money. Crandall was paid a lot of money by someone to get rid of Sykes." "Who? The Governor? The boss--what's his name, ah, Brewer?" "Ziggy doesn't know. He says that the most likely candidate is Spike DeSalle, a convicted felon released just two days ago from a maximum security prison on parole. He was one of Sykes' last arrests as a police officer and the prime suspect. However, records show that Crandall took the fall alone." "Details?" Al demanded, looking at the ladies' wristwatch on his left arm. "DeSalle? Arrested for trafficking narcotics and other illicit drugs in a raid on a PCP factory. His equally unpleasant brother was killed in the raid--by Sykes, who was the arresting officer and the chief witness at the trial. He was the officer who handled all the surveillance and evidence gathering before the operation to close the place down." "Sounds like a suspect to me," Al muttered, and looked at the watch again. "Gooshie, what does Ziggy say Sam's chances are of getting home if I make it back?" Gooshie consulted the handlink. Al didn't like the look on his face. "Less than twenty-five percent," he said unhappily. "Which is only about twelve percent more than any previous opportunity the doctor has had." The handlink came to life. "Ziggy says you can go and see Doctor Beckett now. A police officer is stationed outside the door, but he has been instructed to admit any medical personnel with the correct identification." Gooshie pointed to the photo ID badge on Al's left breast. "Otherwise he's still not allowed any visitors." Al bolted for the door, then paused and turned his head. "Gooshie...thanks," he said, and headed down the corridor. The police officer checked Nurse O'Halloran's identification very carefully and consulted a list he had on a clipboard before passing her. "Good man," Al said as the door closed behind him. "Ma'am?" said an officious voice from the small bathroom off the room. A tall, plain, hawklike nurse emerged looking anything but pleased. "Ah..yeah," Al confirmed. "I..ah..I came to give you a break, nurse. I have a special interest in this gu--er gentleman, since I was the one who found him after...well, you know." "If you say so, ma'am," the nurse agreed doubtfully. "How long do I have?" "Why don't we say a couple of hours. Freshen up, get something to eat, rest if you want. I'm off duty now, anyway. I didn't feel well after all the excitement." "I know," the nurse told her. "That's why I was so surprised to see you. I thought you'd gone home." "Oh, I couldn't go home. Not until I found out how Doctor Beckett was--" "Who--?" Al cursed silently. "Ah, sorry, I meant Agent Sykes. Earlier I was thinking...ah...about a hospital I used to work at. Doctor Beckett was a close friend." The nurse looked down her nose and nodded. Al let out a long, loud breath when she was gone. She didn't act like a subordinate. He made a mental note to check the duty roster at the desk if he got the chance. He seated himself next to Sam, familiarized himself with the emergency call button and the nurse's crash alarm button just in case and then allowed himself to study his friend in detail. Sam still had almost no color in his face and all the tubes and wires were back in place. He was breathing normally and regularly and the monitor was making comforting patterns and noises. "Sam, don't you ever do that again, you hear me?" He told the prone figure. "You can't die. I can't explain how or why, but somewhere a long the way you and I became more than just friends. I always had plenty of buddies in the navy, close ones, but you, you're something else. I don't know what. I'm not good at this stuff. Maybe, I don't know, like a brother, or something. All I know is you can't die." For the first time since he'd leaped it occurred to Al on more than a peripheral level that he was no longer a hologram. He took one of Beckett's hands between two of his. "Can you feel that, Sam? You're not alone. I'm here. You've gotta come back. If you don't come back, you won't leap. I don't know where you are, but you have to let it go, and come back here." Beckett remained motionless. An hour passed, Al continuing to maintain the physical contact and talking aimlessly about the inconsequential goings on back at Quantum Leap headquarters, the people, the lives, the loves and the projects started, finished, or conceived in Sam's absence. He rambled through the light-hearted areas of family life, more leaps, made an attempt to cover some of the work Ziggy had done over time, despite his own woeful scientific ignorance, and just generally maintained a presence. The nurse returned briefly. Al gave her the night off. Twice in the hour the guard quietly stuck his head in the door to check on everything. Al liked him a lot. He was emerging from the bathroom and trying vainly to get the pantyhose back 'up' again when he saw it. One of Sam's fingers twitched. Just one. He raced back to the bed and picked up the hand. "Come on, Sam! Come on! I'm here..." Sam's face was unchanged. For several minutes Al thought that it was over, then a finger twitched again. He put a hand on Beckett's brow, willing him to come back. "Sam, please," he said, running out of ideas. Then he thought of something. "Sam, I don't want to be here alone. You gotta come back. You gotta help Ziggy get me home to Beth. You hear me, Sam? You gotta help." Beckett's head moved minutely from side to side, but his eyes did not open. A muscle flickered in one of his cheeks. Then his lips parted. Al leaned forward to listen for any sound. "Al, I k--killed...someone," Sam whispered almost inaudibly, before falling silent again. "Sam!" Al pleaded, but Beckett was caught half way between the coma and reality, in the honeycomb of his own mind. "I don't want to die, Al!" He whispered in a slurred voice. "Sam, open your eyes. I'm not gonna let you die. Sam, look at me!" "Racecar, this is Coffee Mill. Squawk two, over," Beckett muttered. Al shivered. "Sam, snap out of it," he pleaded vainly. Behind him, Gooshie popped in. "Admiral, you should consider pushing the emergency call button now," he said softly. "But Sam isn't back yet. I'm the only one who can help him now, Gooshie. They all think he's Sykes." Gooshie consulted the handlink. "Ziggy suggests that you keep talking. He's halfway there, but his mind is unique. He will follow the sound of your voice, but you must keep talking." Al did exactly that. He even repeated endless laws of physics read out to him by Gooshie, recounted ribald stories he knew Sam would just hate from his navy days, and remembered in detail the day and the hour he first realized he was in love with Beth. "You oughtta know what that feels like, Sam," he said, smiling to himself. He was going to mention Donna, because Sam had, but he hesitated painfully. He had promised. "When I saw you with Abigail--" He said instead. Sam's hand twitched again. "I knew you loved her. You would have stayed with her too, if it had been possible. She was beautiful, Sam, inside and outside." "Abigail..." Beckett moaned. "That's right, Sam. Abigail. If she were here, now, she'd be mad as hell at you for taking so long to come back. Come back, Sam. Come back for Abigail..." Calavicci held his breath. For the first time Sam's eyes flickered. He moved one of his hands to Beckett's shoulder. "Sam..?" The dark-lashed eyes flickered open. "Al? Where..?" "About time," Al told him thickly, then grinned. "Stay with me, Sam. You're in hospital, but you're going to be okay, now." He shot a look at Gooshie who mouthed the words eighty-five percent, grinned and disappeared through the chamber door for the time being. "I'm still here?" Sam asked slowly in a slurred voice. "I don't remember anything..we were going up some steps--" "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's all over now. Think about that when you're stronger. Right now you gotta worry about getting well again." Beckett grimaced. "N-nasal gastric tube? I'm hurt. My chest--?" "You were shot saving someone's life. The bullet only just missed the pulmonary artery, but it did a lot of damage. They nearly lost you. I nearly lost you." Beckett looked at the hand Al was still holding, an expression of profound shock on his face. Al had long since discarded the nurse's cap and Beckett hadn't really noticed that the collared white shirt was actually the top half of a nurse's uniform. He spoke brokenly. "Al, I can...feel...your hand. It's warm, and solid. Al--" His eyes squinted up, trying to read the ID badge. "My God, Al, you--" He paused to catch his breath. "You leaped," he whispered. The monitors registered a change in Beckett's heart rate. Al hit the call button. "You can't worry about that now. You're alive and that's all that matters. The doctors are coming now, so I have to go. I'll be back in the morning." "Al--" Sam called weakly. "Al..." His eyes met Calavicci's and words were no longer necessary. The sound of voices in the corridor prompted Al to move again. "I'll be back, Sam," he promised and was gone.         ******* Beckett woke slowly from a nightmare in which he had been shot, and was in a hospital with a nurse who looked like Al. He knew it was a nightmare, because Al had touched him, and because Al made one ugly nurse... He tried to sit up and was restrained by acute pain, and the paraphernalia attached to his body. He was in a hospital. Who was he? Where was he? He blinked and focused. Al was there again, this time in a pink shirt and jeans. "Al, I dreamed you were a nurse," he chuckled weakly. Al smiled back. "I am. A Supervizor, no less," he said, and flicked the pass pinned to his blouse pocket." "But--" Sam objected. "Al, you touched me in the dream," he confided in a weak, labored voice. Slowly, Al reached out a put a hand on his friend's good shoulder again. Beckett closed his eyes. "No..." he whispered. "No...Beth--" Al squeezed the arm gently. "It's all right, Sam. Ziggy's working on it. Things have changed. She has a lock on me. You once modified the accelerator so it can hit the bullseye." "You mean...y-you can go back...whenever you want?" he asked, obviously in a lot of pain. "Well, no, not exactly," Al replied awkwardly. "Sam, do you want me to get someone?" "No. They wont give me anything else until I'm more stable." "Oh, yeah, that's right. No visitors either. Jacobsen is probably going nuts." "Al, am I going to--?" "What kinda question is that? You made it through the night didn't you? Ziggy has you up to eighty percent now. Stop whining, Sam." Sam chuckled painfully. "All right...already. I'm going to live. What...exactly...d-did happen?" "You saved Jacobsen's life from a gunman who was trying to take out the sleazeball Governor. Hey, if you're gonna live, you should've leaped," Al said suddenly, reached for the handlink and came up empty. He swallowed and returned bleak eyes to Beckett's face. "Why?" Sam croaked. "Why? Because you saved Jacobsen. You changed history. His family don't live a miserable life without him and they aren't ostracised because he saved the life of a notorious bigot." "Oh," Sam said, drifting slowly into an exhausted torpor. "But...I'm...still here." "Yeah, you are," Al agreed, and headed for the door. "You get some sleep and I'll go talk to Gooshie and find out why." He went to the same waiting room, but found it occupied by several adults and children waiting for visiting hours. He sighed and backed out. The only other option was a store room without much room in it. "Gooshie?" He demanded. "Where are you? We gotta talk. Get your butt in here, now." Several moments later Gooshie walked through the wall and the shelves into the room. "Where did you come in?" "Doctor Beckett's room," Gooshie said quietly. "Oh." Al subsided. "Well, I need to know why he's still here. He isn't still going to die, is he?" Gooshie shook his head. "Ziggy says the doctor is 86% certain to survive now. We don't know exactly why he hasn't leaped, except--" "Except what?" Calavicci demanded impatiently. "Except that you're still here. You're a new variable. You haven't leaped anywhere either. It may be that he's still here --for you." Al turned toward the door and butted his head none to gently against it. "He's hurting real bad, Gooshie. Ziggy has to find a way to get me back, so Sam can leap." "Well, that's the other thing," Gooshie said carefully. "Because of Doctor Beckett's modifications, Ziggy should be able to bring you home. We've been trying, but nothing is happening. She can't find a single reason why you haven't leaped." "Well, if I'm not going back, why haven't I leaped to somewhere else?" "Catch 22?" Gooshie said without smiling. "I'm here for Sam and Sam's here for me? So when does the balance shift? Is there anything Sykes...or even Marion O'Halloran...might need either of us for in this new history?" Gooshie consulted the handlink. This time there was a considerable pause while Ziggy worked. "According to Ziggy, Marion O'Halloran is a forty-eight year old widow who lives a productive single life until her death at age sixty-eight. There's nothing there. Sykes meets his future wife in less than a year and they have two children. He eventually leaves the Secret Service to become a security guard in a bank. He's never completely happy away from the big time, but his life is a fairly content one. No real problems there either." "Try whassisname...Jacobsen." "Oh..." Gooshie said hollowly. "What? What?" Al demanded, frustrated. "Agent Jacobsen disappears some time tonight from his hotel room. He is found hanging outside the city limits from a tree branch, with racist slogans painted on his clothes." "Oh Jeez," groaned Al. "Then I'm still here because Sam can't do this one." "Ziggy gives that an eighty-seven percent probability," Gooshie said quietly. "Gooshie tell me this. Just how in the hell is a middle-aged nurse going to stop a bunch of sleazeballs from murdering a Secret service agent?" The programmer looked at him dazedly. "By conducting your own surveillance and raising the alarm before its too late?" he suggested hopefully. "Not bad," Al conceded. "Or I could tell him--" Gooshie shook his head. "Ziggy says the first option has a reasonable chance of success. However, if you tell him, he won't believe you. He still dies." "All right. I gotta go watch the guy." Calavicci straightened his collar. "I'm glad this woman knows how to dress casual. If I had to put on those damn pantyhose again..." he growled. "You keep an eye on Sam, and if anything, I mean anything, changes, you come and get me, pronto, you hear?" "Of course. Immediately," Gooshie promised. "I will stay with him until you return." "No, hey, Gooshie!" Al called as his friend turned to walk through a wall. Gooshie looked back over his shoulder. "I didn't mean you had to stay all night. You must be just about due to finish for the day..." His voice trailed off as he realized just how far from home he was. "You don't have to do that." "You did," Gooshie said simply, and vanished.         ******* Al spent an idle day in a cafe opposite the Governor's offices watching both the front door and the employees' car park to the side. He ate greasy food with gusto and consumed several desserts, particularly banana splits and deep dish apple pie, half to relieve his boredom, and half because he would never be able to do it again. A great many people came and went from the building and he noted them all, categorizing them methodically into possibles, probables and inconsequentials. It was six in the evening, and he'd only seen two possibles and three probables all day. Strangely enough, the three probables had entered the building at the same time. Though Al had started out watching for burly red-necks going to consult with their messiah on how to deal with the problem of Jacobsen, he'd felt in his gut the moment he saw the three hawk-faced, middle-aged men in cheap suits, that they were trouble. They had not re-emerged from the building. At least not by any door visible to Al. A few minutes later Jacobsen and his new partner emerged from a side exit into the car park and went their seperate ways. Al moved. Marion's car was a volkswagen convertable, and its small size made it both great cover and easy for Al to manoeuvre in traffic to keep up with Jacobsen's dodge. He went around the block twice when Jacobsen finally pulled into a motel. Finally, he pulled into the reception area and booked a room for the night. It wasn't difficult to locate the dodge and the room it stood in front of. In his own room Al flicked through the television channels in a kind of mesmerized fascination at the nostalgic content of the night's programming. Nostalgic, for him at least. The motel was 'L' shaped and he'd managed to get a room from which he could actually see the dodge. By midnight, a pizza delivery, countless television programs and a couple of irresistible beers from the room fridge later, Al was beginning to wonder if history had changed again. It was so quiet outside that he could hear a dog barking miles away. Gooshie hadn't turned up, so he knew Sam must be all right. He walked to his window and peered once again out at the dodge, and down the driveway to the exit. A car with bright headlights slid through the reception area without stopping. Al watched it purr up to the dodge and slide in next to it. The three figures emerged from it, each with suspiciously full right hands. "The magic number," Al muttered, and reached for the phone. As he hung up it occurred to him that as a woman, he wasn't going to arouse much suspicion if he went outside with an empty milk jug. He checked Marion's colt 45 in it's resting place in the back of his jeans, under her pale pink wind-breaker, then picked up the stainless steel milk jug, tipped the complimentary milk down the bathroom sink and headed for the door. Instead of heading for reception, however, he walked towards Jake Jacobsen's room. His mind was modifying his plan of action as he went. He was now a hotel employee, come to see if anyone wanted more milk, because the woman in fourteen had dragged him--her out to get some anyway. He slid up to the window, the drapes of which were drawn, and listened. There were low voices, an argument, then some dull thuds and the sound of something splintering. The cops still weren't in earshot despite his call, something he found difficult to fathom. There was more movement inside, the sound of dragging. He drew the pistol and planted his feet. The door opened and Jacobsen emerged first. He saw Marion immediately but kept looking straight ahead. Al could see the bruises on his face, and the cut on his temple dripping blood into his eye. "Now!" He yelled. Jacobsen threw himself to the left and rolled. The first man came out in pursuit of Jacobsen, gun cocked. "Freeze!" Al yelled dramatically. It didn't sound quite so dramatic in Marion's sing song voice. The gunman turned toward him and raised his gun. Al fired. The gunman fell to the ground with a smashed shoulder. Marion's ammunition was a little more specialized than he'd anticipated... The second gunman withdrew back into the room. Jacobsen was now on his feet, on the other side of the door. "Who are you?" he demanded. "A friend," Al growled. "A friend of Sykes." "All right, I'll take over from here," Jacobsen told him patronizingly. "Before you get hurt." "Listen buster," Al retorted, watching the door, "I can take care of myself. Right now we still have two nozzles in there who want you dead." "I still--" Jacobsen began, but was drowned out by a wail of police sirens. "Now they arrive," Al complained. "About time."         ******* Sam opened his eyes to see who had opened the door to his room. Al and Jacobsen came in. Calavicci was back in the Supervizor's uniform again. Sam chuckled. "Well, I can see you're feeling better," Al told him. "Hello, Jake," he whispered. "Hello Dan-iel. You look like hell." Sam smiled. "I feel worse. Don't get shot man, it isn't what it's cracked up to be." "Who me? With Annie Oakley here watching out for me? What--did you think I needed a guardian angel or something...?" Al, standing slightly behind Jacobsen, shaped good naturedly at the large back. Sam chuckled again. "You are feeling better, aren't you?" Jacobsen was only too well aware of his friend's still intensive-care status. "Much," whispered Sam, who really was feeling better since the removal of his nasal-gastric tube. "Uh...Marion, shouldn't we be--" "I don't know, Sam. I haven't spoken to Gooshie yet." "Sam?" Jacobsen asked. "Pet name," Al said, in his best motherly impression. "We'd better not stay too long. The doctor is only allowing brief contact now that he's improved slightly." Jacobsen turned and looked at Marion. Al recognized the look, and obligingly withdrew to attempt to find Gooshie. The big man came to Sykes' bedside and looked down silently at his friend. "Thanks, man," he whispered after a long silence. "Thanks. Nurse O'Halloran says they would have strung me up. The cops are running checks on them now. How did you know?" "I had a tip-off," Sam said truthfully. "The Governor wanted to get rid of you, to stir up racial tension in this town. He knew that if his goons succeeded this town would explode, and the backlash by the black population would look at lot worse on television, and take up a lot more airtime than the original reason--your murder--ever would." Jake put a hand on Sam's good shoulder. He'd heard the exhaustion in Sykes' voice. "I'd better let you get some sleep now," he said gently. "But I'll be back every chance I get. I've been taken off the Kendall assignment--which is just as well because I'dve probably killed the ass-hole myself if I'd stayed on any longer--so I've got plenty of time to make certain you get well as quick as you can. Louise has been waiting to see you since last summer. I expect you to make her sick of the sight of you when you get out of here." Sam looked up at him with puzzled eyes. "You ain't convalescing in no Home, and you sure as hell aren't going back to that apartment of yours alone. You're going to stay with us." Sam grinned. "Whatever you say, my friend. Whatever you say." He watched Jacobsen leave, a smile still on his face. He wondered why he hadn't leaped. He knew he wasn't going to die, but he'd had enough of the pain and the confinement of the sterile hospital room. A few minutes later Al returned, full of news. He came to the bedside. "Sam, Gooshie says history is back on track. We're done here. Get ready to leap." "Al--" Sam gingerly lifted a hand. Al grasped it indian-wrestling style and looked down at his friend. "Al--thanks, not just for this, but for everything. I've never really had a chance to tell you. If it weren't for you--" Al shook his head and tightened his grip. "No, Sam, it's not me. Whoever is yo-yo-ing you around history knew from the beginning that you could do it. You didn't need me. I'm just a library, a guide--Gooshie could have done it." Sam slowly moved the hand with the drip in, across to cover Al's. "No," he said painfully. "You're wrong. I'd have gone crazy. A library isn't a friend, Al." Calavicci saw the emotion in his friend's eyes and nodded back, unaware of the strength of feeling in his own. "And Al--" Sam added, after the silence seemed to stretch forever. They both started to leap. "--I remembered." Al blinked, and opened his eyes. He was in the Quantum Leap waiting room, dressed in his own clothes, clothes Marion O'Halloran must have worn the whole time he was away. In moments he was out of there, jubilant, yet worried about where Sam had gone. And his last words. Had he carried all those memories over another leap? Could he be back, in some other part of the facility? Almost before he was out of the room, Beth was in his arms. "What are you doing here?" he asked, then gave himself to the pleasure of being back for a moment. "Did Sam make it back?" he demanded urgently when he surfaced from their kiss. "There's no-one else in the waiting room yet." Donna Elisee shook her head. "Gooshie is looking for him now. It was so close. We really thought we had him," she said emotionally. "I brought Beth in with me as soon as we heard--" Al swore silently and looked up at the ceiling, blinking hard. Beth wrapped her arms around him and held him silently. There was nothing more anyone could say...          ******* Sam woke to find himself in bed. For a moment he thought those last moments with Al and the leap, had all been a dream. He felt an insane urge to weep rise in his throat. In the darkness he felt more alone than he ever had. Gradually it occurred to him that there wasn't any pain. He felt the back of his hand. No canula. Groggy with sleep, he sat up and turned on the bed lamp, closing his eyes against its brightness. A shiver went down his spine. He'd known exactly where and how to turn on that light... Slowly, almost reluctantly, he opened his eyes. They roved around the room. He knew this place. He looked at himself. The bullet wound was gone. He was wearing...nothing. There were no sensors, no wires. He knew this place. He struggled out of the double bed and went instinctively to the bathroom without even having to think about it. When he was done he washed his hands and straightened to look in the glass front of the medicine cabinet. His heart jumped to his throat and all color left his face. His, and the face in the mirror... ...The face of Doctor Samuel Beckett. "I'm back..?" He whispered, staring at the image. "I can't be back," he told himself. "If I was back I'd be at the project." "Sam?" A familiar voice called from the bedroom. Sam snatched a robe from the back of the bathroom door and strode out to meet it. "Al, what happened? I'm me. I'm...I'm..." He tried to grab Al's arm, but his hand passed straight through. A cold chill went down his back. "Then it was all a dream?" Al shook his head. "Nurse O'Halloran at your service," he said wryly. "Ziggy brought me back, once you-know-who," he gestured upwards, "decided you didn't need me any more." "But...if you're a hologram now, then I'm not--" Al's eyes grew very sad. "No, Sam, you're not. It was so close. We really thought, this time..." He shook his head. "But, Al, I'm me--I mean my hair may be a little longer, but ...the mirror--" Sam insisted vainly. "You are you..." Al shook his head frustratedly. "I mean you've leaped into yourself two months before you first stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator." Sam swallowed. To be himself...and yet not be back. "Why...? Why am I here?" He asked, almost not wanting to know. "I don't know, Sam. Ziggy doesn't have anything. Nada. Zip." Sam went over and sat on the bed. "Why?" he said softly. "You know I can't change my personal history--" "Yeah, well, it wouldn't be the first time. Maybe you should go back to bed and get a good night's sleep. We can figure this out in the morning. You had a pretty rough time--" Sam touched his chest without really knowing why, then looked up slowly. "Sleep, Sam. I'll be back in the morning," Al repeated, and opened the chamber door. Then he was gone. "Sleep," Beckett muttered. He got up again and wandered out into the hall. He was beginning to remember things, like where the kitchen was... Downstairs the living room looked exactly as he would have wanted it to look. A fireplace, a piano, pictures, big comfortable chairs... He picked up a photograph from the mantelpiece and stared at the two entwined figures in it for a long moment. Then his heart tore as if slashed by a knife. Donna. "Donna!" He whispered, recollections, even of the moment the picture was taken, flooding back. He put the picture down, unable to stand the flow of memories that it prompted. He staggered out to the kitchen on autopilot, made a sandwich without having to search for a single item, brewed some tea, and sat down at the breakfast table to eat. Several minutes later he found himself staring into the untouched beverage, unable to see the steaming liquid clearly any more. His hands were trembling and his jaw hurt from clenching it. He closed his eyes against the tears that filled them and buried his face in his hands. He wept for the memories that had come crushing back. He wept for the stolen years, the years he could have had with Donna, and he wept for himself. Al had gone home... He did not hear the sound of the front door, or the soft steps approaching the kitchen, any more than he heard the ticking of the antique kitchen clock, or the dog barking somewhere in the distance. "Sam..?" Gentle hands touched his head, drew him against a warm breast and circled his shoulders without question. Only when he was quiet, when the deluge had passed, did she speak softly to him. "Sam, what happened? What's wrong?" He stood up slowly and took her in his arms, held her close, his chin resting on her soft shoulder. "Everything, and nothing," he told her jaggedly. "God, I love you..." "Sam..?" He shook his head. She pushed his hair from his eyes and trailed her finger down his cheek, stopping only when she looked into his eyes. "So much pain," Donna whispered. "Sam, please, let me help--has something happened..Did someone d--?" "No," he whispered. "No..." He straightened and tried to gather his wits. "I'll be all right. I promise, as soon as I work it out, I'll talk to you about it, okay?" It sounded feeble, even to his ears. Donna nodded, but she didn't smile. "Come to bed," she said softly, took his hand and drew him out of the chair. In all his dreams of being back, none had come even remotely close to the exquisite pleasure of lying alongside Donna, of touching her, holding her, even the faint, lingering scent of her perfume, and most of all, the aura of her love. They fell asleep holding each other. When morning came Sam woke to find himself sleeping spoon fashion with the woman he adored most in the universe. He kissed her hair and drew his arms close around her, trying not to think about what news Al might bring about the leap. Instead, when she stirred, turned toward him and kissed him back he immersed himself in the passion of their lovemaking, somehow trying to make up for the lonely years ahead, for her, and those gone by, for him. A long time later, Donna watched him over breakfast. There was a lost, haunted look about her husband that had not been there before last night. Sam looked up from his half-eaten fruit and met her eyes reluctantly. "I'm--I'm not going to work, today," he said carefully. Donna put down her spoon. "Yes, Sam, you are," said a familiar voice. Al was back. Sam closed his eyes. Uncanny timing the guy had. Uncanny. "All right," he whispered. "I will go to work. I just--I feel kinda strange, you know. I'm not sure what it is. Stress, maybe..." "Stress..?" Donna repeated. "Sam, somehow, between the time I left you last night to go finish that work I was doing with Tina, and when I got home, you've changed. Something must have happened." "Sam, you can't tell her. We still don't know why you're here. This is so dangerous...You can't risk your own future. Don't do it, Sam," Al warned agitatedly. Sam rubbed his brow and shot Calavicci a look that made him retreat through the chamber door in a hurry. "Do you trust me?" he asked, hating himself. Donna looked at him reproachfully. "Of course you do," he apologized. "Then trust me now. I can't tell you what the problem is, yet. As soon as I can, I will. But, yes, something did happen. Something I'm having a lot of trouble dealing with right now." Donna nodded. "I just want to help, Sam." "I'd better go get ready for work," Beckett said hollowly. "We'ed better get ready," she corrected wryly. Sam shivered. So long. It had been so damned long... "We," he corrected, and smiled at her as they rose. "What?" she asked, smiling back. "You...how beautiful you are, how much I--" He looked down. "I love you, Donna." "I love you too, Sam," she told him, took his hand and drew him toward the kitchen door. "But if we don't get dressed some time in the near future we are going to be very late." He chuckled in spite of himself. It was all so blissfully uncomplicated. "Race you up stairs!" He said unexpectedly. They tore up the stairs in fits of laughter, pushing and jostling all the way. When they reached the top he swept her into his arms again and kissed her with a ferocity Al would have been proud of. "It's good to be home," he whispered when he lifted his head, and then kissed her again. He didn't see the puzzled look in her eyes.         ******* There was something incredibly surrealistic about working in the Quantum Leap facility again. Everyone was younger, fresher, and so enthusiastic about what they were doing. They were all well aware of the Government pressure to produce results. Beckett could now remember how they'd all rallied when the notification finally came. And the events, exactly, that lead up to his stepping prematurely into the Quantum Leap accelerator. "Oh, this is weird," Al grumbled as he arrived, making Sam jump for the umpteenth time. "Al, don't do that!" Al shrugged. "In case you're wondering, it's spring. Work is almost finished on the accelerator. They all know the Government is going to cut your funding if you don't complete the work by the deadline." "Why am I here, Al?" "You're beginning to sound like a broken record, Sam." "You still don't know anything. I knew it. This is all wrong. One wrong move, one wrong decision and I could...I could change my own history and end up not existing or something, or...or," Sam said in a breathless rush. "Why am I here? What does he--does whatever...want from me now?" "Calm down, Sam. You're gonna attract attention to yourself if we continue this conversation out here. Your office might be a much better idea." Before Beckett could reply, Al popped out. He was waiting at the office. It was a large, airy room. There was an eclectic mess of books on the shelves: medical text books, volumes and volumes of work on quantum physics, baseball, archaeological references, music, agricultural studies all jumbled up together. Beckett's photographic memory meant none of them were necessary, but all had memories, experiences attached to them. His desk was the exact opposite. Organized, clean, ready to be worked at whenever the need arose. It had only one ornament. A beautiful replica of a priceless Egyptian artefact from the time of the pharaohs. A gift from Donna. A basketball still lay in the corner by the window. He picked it up and grinned. "Memories?" Al asked softly. The smiled faded. "Too many," Sam said. "I hate that I don't remember Donna when I'm leaping. I hate not knowing why I'm here, or what I'm supposed to change. I want answers, Al. This time it's way too dangerous for guesswork." Calavicci sighed. "I know that. Ziggy knows that. But there's still no data on what you're here for. This leap has completely freaked Ziggy out. It's just not supposed to happen, and its so dangerous for you that she won't even tell us the outcome of the scenarios she ran to see what would happen if you change history in any of a dozen different ways." "I won't...I won't change history, Al. Tell me again what happens between now and the first leap. I'm remembering more all the time, but not quickly enough." Al consulted the handlink. "Okay, okay, in three weeks you are notified that the project is going to be shut down unless...well, you know the rest. A week after that you leaped." The pair looked at each other somberly until Calavicci took refuge in the handlink again. "Let's see. Oh, and in six days time, you took a week off to be with Donna." "I remember that," Beckett murmured. "I wasted most of the week worrying about the project. Donna wanted me to take her to the coast, to get right away from all the pressure. I wouldn't go." "Well, that's understandable. The Government was on your case. You can take a holiday any..." Al's voice trailed off as he became aware of his blunder. "...time." He finished it honestly then looked up, an apology in his eyes. There was no blame in Sam's, but his mind was made up. "I'm not making that mistake twice, Al. This time I'm taking her." "Sam, you can't!" Calavicci exclaimed, Ziggy's uncharacteristically agitated voice loudly echoing similar objections around the imaging chamber. "You could change history. Anything could happen. What if something happens to you, or Donna? What if--?" Sam turned on him. "There's always a thousand what-ifs?, Al. I'm sick of what ifs?. Unless you can tell me exactly why I leaped in here, I intend enjoy every minute I have just being me--Sam Beckett--Donna's husband. If there's one thing I do remember, in all the years of leaping, it's that I've never really asked for anything before. Well, now," he looked up, as if to the heavens. "Now I'm asking. I'm asking for my due. For some time, for me." Al's heart understood, but his head was in a blind panic. If Sam left the state he was opening himself to a whole new set of variables. Ziggy had already started reeling off consequences, sparked purely by the doctor's projected absence from the project for that week. "Sam, Ziggy says that if you're not here several important decisions will be delayed. She's also calculated the odds of you dying in a car accident, a plane crash--" He rolled his eyes. "--Being critically wounded, drowning--" Al scowled. "Ziggy!" "What?" Sam demanded. Al made another face. "Shark attack. Ziggy calculated the odds of a shark attack." This time Sam's face screwed up into a disbelieving look of frustration. "How can Ziggy calculate the odds of a shark attack when she doesn't even know where we were going?" "You said the coast, Sam. Ziggy just accessed your, and Professor Elisee's, personal histories and got the address of a beach house you both own in Maine," Al repeated. Sam banged his hand on the desk. "Tell Ziggy to stay out of my personal life!" he shouted. Al had never heard him so coldly angry before. The shock showed in his face. He still had nightmares about the Bederman incident and Sam's reaction had given him an eerie feeling of deja vu. "Sam, what's wrong?" Beckett subsided, no more able to cope with the haunted look on Al's face than the memory of the misery in his wife's eyes when he chose to go back into the accelerator after just one night of being free. He extended a hand uselessly, then dropped it again. "Sorry, Al. I...I don't know. All I know is I've been given something and this time nobody is going to take it away from me." "What are you saying, Sam?" Calavicci asked, again in the same unnaturally quiet tone. "That you're going to stay here, in this time? You can't control that." "We don't know that," Sam said desperately. "Al, look at me and tell me I have to go back again. Isn't once enough? I had her in my arms, and I had to walk away." His eyes glistened with frustrated tears. "I can't do that again, Al." Calavicci lowered his head. He was tired too, tired of seeing Sam half beaten to death, tortured, suffering for other people. And yet never to hear even one word of thanks, or feel one hand of friendship on his shoulder in a moment of despair. He'd had enough too, but he would go on, for Sam. "Sam, you know I'd do anything--anything for you, but it just isn't possible. If you stay you will inevitably disrupt the time-line again. This may be real, right here and right now, for you, but you have to remember the consequences of your actions could be drastic for all of us, back here in 1999. Besides, I always thought at least part of you kinda liked being a hero. Nothing ever stopped you doing the right thing before..." Al stopped to listen to something. "Sam, Doctor Beeks says that your mind has reached saturation point. She thinks you started remembering so many things because you got to the point where there are so many fragments of other people in that Swiss-cheese brain of yours that it was in danger of overload. Not only that, but retaining those memories of the split time line. The only way for your mind to protect itself was to have your own identity re-assert itself, to maybe stop you from doing a repeat performance of that time in the looney...that time when you were Bederman." "Bederman?" Beckett frowned. "I don't remember that one." Al exhaled. "Good. You don't wanna remember that one--" Beckett seemed to stare into space. "Sam--Sam Bederman," he said automatically. "Sam, don't," Al begged. "Tell me about Donna. How is she? Did I tell you Beth is planning an anniversary party for just me and her, and--?" He stopped his desperate attempt at distraction and went to Sam's side. "Sam, please, try to t