I LOVE L.A., SORT OF

A/N: Sam leaps into a Laker Girl in the late '80s, and his mission is to keep one his fellow teammates from getting murdered.

CHAPTER 1

"Theorizing that one could time-travel within his own lifetime, Dr, Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator—and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap would be the leap home."

September 1, 1988

Okay, what now? Sam wondered as the blue hazy light surrounded him. He'd just finished being a hypnotherapist in the Pittsburgh area in '76, and not only did he have to keep his family from getting killed after his oldest daughter witnessed her best friend's murder, but he also had a brief encounter with Mr. Fred Rogers. Anyway, thanks to Sam putting the young girl under hypnosis, and hopefully not costing the guy his job for ethics reasons, she was able to tell him everything she knew, and bring the person responsible—in this case, the cousin of her friend's boyfriend—to justice.

When the light faded, Sam found himself surrounded by buxom, drop-dead gorgeous, half-dressed girls. His first thought was that he was at the Playboy mansion, which is just the sort of place that Al Calavicci, the project observer, would consider heaven on earth. And if Sam knew Al, he'd most likely spend a large majority of the time wishing he wasn't a hologram so he could get laid.

But that couldn't be it. For one thing, they were all dressed in skimpy, shiny, skin-tight gold-and-purple uniforms.

Sam very quickly looked down to hide how embarrassed he was by where—or who—he was. To his horror, he was wearing the same outfit as the other girls.

"Hey, hurry up, April! Practice starts in five minutes!" one of the girls called as she hurried past. She had short spiky red hair with strawberry-blond highlights, dark brown eyes, and a few freckles across her nose.

April? Sam thought as he turned to the nearby mirror. Staring back at him was a young twenty-something girl with dark blue eyes and chestnut-brown hair in a ponytail. "Ohh, boy," he moaned in dismay. "I'm a cheerleader."

Yes, folks, Sam was a cheerleader. A Laker Girl, to be exact, which explained the uniform's colors.

Shit! Sam thought in a mix of disgust and chagrin. Al's going to have the time of his life when he sees this!

"I, uh—I'll be right there," Sam said. The girl nodded and left.

Just then, he heard a portal door opening behind him and a wolf-whistle. He spun around to see Al stepping out, wearing a white dress shirt, black jeans, a black sequined tux jacket with tails and red lapels, and mismatched rhinestone-bedecked Chuck Taylors: a red low-top on his right foot and a black high-top on his left foot.

"Whoa-ho, looking good, sexy mama!" Al teased as he took a puff on his cigar. "Talk about team spirit!"

"Al..."

"I tell you, Randy Newman clearly had the Laker Girls in mind when he wrote 'I Love L.A.' And even though I'm a Warriors fan, I can see why."

"Al," Sam repeated impatiently.

"Okay," Al said, pulling himself together and punching a few buttons on the hand-link. "You are April Hathaway, twenty-one, and as you may have guessed, you're a Laker Girl. That redheaded knockout you were just talking to is her teammate, Paula Porter. According to Ziggy, they were cheerleaders and sorority sisters at UCLA—Alpha Chi Omega, to be exact. Just to months after grad..."

After shaking and smacking the handlink, Al continued, "...uh, graduation, right, they tried out for the Laker Girls, and well, here you are. You know, I envy you, Sam."

"Sure, you do," Sam muttered sarcastically. He hated it whenever he leaped into a woman—and a gorgeous one at that—mostly because he had to put up with Al's horndog bullshit. He also never forgot the first time he did so, not to mention dealing with this real slimebag of a boss. "Okay, now that you've gotten that out of your system, why am I here?"

Al gave the handlink another shake before looking at it. "Oh, no," he groaned. "Ziggy says Paula gets murdered in three days."

"Oh, boy."

"'Oh, boy', is right. But the worst part is, according to the original history, her body isn't found for six months."

"Did the cops ever find out who did it?"

"Uh-uh."

"So basically, I have to stop it from happening, right?"

"Basically. Oh, and keep shaking your pom-poms while you're at it, too."

"You know, if you weren't a hologram, I'd slug you," Sam snapped as he grabbed the pom-poms off the bench.

"I'll see if I can get any more information out of Ziggy, and get right back to you," Al grinned wickedly. "Now, go get 'em, tiger."

"You do that," Sam answered, just wanting to get this over with. With that, Al nodded, pressed the portal door button on the handlink, and was gone.

It wasn't that Sam had anything against cheerleaders. Far from it. In fact, he recalled countless hours of watching them strut their stuff at school pep rallies and his brother's football and basketball games, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy every min-ute of it. But as for actually being one—well, let's just say that was one story he wasn't go-ing to tell his grandchildren.

Meanwhile, in the Project Waiting Room, the real April was just waking up. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was the Waiting Room's neon blue walls, and she found herself on a stainless steel examining table. When she looked down at herself, she saw that she was wearing a white turtleneck and pants with a matching jacket and shoes. "What the hell...?" she murmured. She started to sit up, but a wave of dizziness came over her, and she grabbed the side of the table to steady herself. When she looked in a nearby mirror and saw Sam's image, she let out a blood-curdling scream and jumped off the table as Dr. Beeks and Tina, Al's current girlfriend, rushed into the room.

"Shh, it's okay, honey," Dr. Beeks tried to reassure her, but April was in too much of a state of shock to listen. She even tried to take a swing at the doctor. Fortunately, she miss-ed by a mile.

"Who the hell are you people?" April demanded as Dr. Beeks grabbed hold of her. "Where am I? Where's Paula? Where's L.A.?"

"It's all right, we're not going to hurt you, April," Tina jumped in. "We're here to help you. You're in a top-secret facility in New Mexico, and it's 3:22 a.m. on March 7, 2016."

"Two—2016?" April gasped. "Are you saying I'm in the future?"

"Yes," Tina answered. "I know this sounds crazy, but this is the future."

Almost immediately, April stopped struggling and relaxed in Dr. Beeks' arms. "Holy shit," she whispered as she was guided back toward the table. "I, uh—I don't suppose we have flying cars or personal robot servants, do we?"

"I'm afraid not."

"See, my godson is a Jetsons freak," April explained as she sat back down on the table. "He's my cousin's little boy, he just turned five last week, and he drives his folks crazy by talking about how the future's going to look like it does on TV."

"I know a lot of people felt that way, and were disappointed when it didn't happen," Tina agreed.

"Are you sure I haven't been abducted by aliens?"

Tina and Dr. Beeks looked at each other and laughed gently. "No, we're Earthlings, just like you," Dr. Beeks answered.

"Oh-kayyy," April said with more than a hint of skepticism in her voice. "So, what's the deal here?"

"You've switched places in time with a physicist named Dr. Sam Beckett," Dr. Beeks explained. "In the early '90s, Dr. Beckett wanted to prove that time-travel existed, so he built his own accelerator. But before all the kinks could be worked out, he stepped into the machine and vanished. Since 1995, he's been bouncing around in time, into the lives of several people, to set things right that once went wrong."

"Kind of like the Lone Ranger?"

"Uh-huh. And Admiral Calavicci—who you'll meet soon—is kind of like his Tonto. Whenever Dr. Beckett leaps into another person's life, the Admiral tells him who he is, and what wrong he's supposed to right." Then, lowering her voice, she added, "The Admiral and Dr. Beckett would fire my ass if they found out I told you, but I guess what they don't know won't hurt them. They may even have to figure out who'd get to wring my neck."

April nodded. "Don't worry, your secret's safe with me," she assured the women. "I doubt if anyone would believe me if I told them, anyway."

Just then, Al came in. "How's our visitor?" he asked.

"Well, now that she's over the initial shock, she seems okay," Verbeena answered. "April, this is Admiral Al Calavicci, the man I was just telling you about."

"Hi," April said, tightening her ponytail before shaking his hand.

"Hi, April," Al smiled. "How are you holding up?"

"Well, I'm a little disappointed that 2016 looks nothing like it does in the movies, but other than that, I think I'm okay," she admitted.

"That's good to know. I guess you're probably wondering why you're here."

Upon hearing those words, April thought of what Dr. Beeks had said about Al firing her for spilling the beans. She glanced at the doctor and saw the look on her face, which clearly said, Don't tell him anything.

"Well, the thought had crossed my mind," she said, covering for Verbeena.

As Al explained everything to April, a million thoughts went through her head. As fascinated as she was with the project and all the technology surrounding her (remember, she was from 1988), she was also glad that someone cared enough about her to try to save her best friend and change the course of history. Until now, she never believed there was such a thing.

And here it was, happening right before her eyes.