This is just a sappy piece of drabble that I came up with during a thoughtful period last week. I don't think it is very good, but ohhhhh well. Here goes...

*Disclaimer*

Sam Beckett, Al Calavicci, and the rest of the Quantum Leap gang are not mine, even though I wish they were. They are the property of Don Bellisario and Universal pictures.

Comments and critique are welcomed and appreciated.

Part 1: Sam Reminisces

Well, here I go again, I have somehow found my way to this never-never land between the past and the present...or maybe neither...or both.... Anyway, I have no idea where I am, or how exactly I got there, but I know this for sure... I am NOT home. Home... that word means so much to me. How long have I been leaping about into other people's lives, other homes, to fix some mistake in the past but never being allowed to live my own life with my own family?

God or Fate or Time or Whatever has one heck of a sense of humor, I must say. Sure, I'm helping out my fellow man using the talents that God gave me... however, sometimes it would be nice to be able to remember what all my talents were, no... are, ...no... whatever. Why is it only in this small space of time that I can remember everything about my life in the future...erm...past...erm...present? Well, sometime other than this time.

Well, anyway, I love being able to put right what went wrong, but it would be so nice to come home... home, it seems so close, yet so far away... like I could just reach out and touch it... but that it would only be a hologram... just an illusion, a mirage in the desert. But oh, how I long for that mirage to come closer... Where is home? I used to think that home was with my mom and dad in Indiana, but I know that things have changed since then... no, home is in New Mexico, now, with the project staff, Verbena Beeks, Gushie, Ziggy, Tina and...and... and home is where Al, my best friend and only link to my own time is.

Every day, I thank God that He brought Al Calavicci into my life. I don't think that I would have had the strength or the courage to keep leaping if I didn't have a good friend like Al watchin' my back. Al has saved my life more times than I care to remember, and if I tried, that information would have been swiss cheesed out, anyway. Wow, it has been so long since I was actually there to shake his hand... The last time I saw Al in my own time, he was leaving the compound on some R&R, he and Tina were on each other's good sides and I told them to go ahead.

Then, something happened... What was it? Damn that swiss cheesed brain of mine...it seems even in this never-never land, my brain has more holes than Bonnie and Clyde's last getaway car...wait! I remember!

We had planned to test the Accelerator Chamber the next afternoon when both Al and I could have been there and totally refreshed, but I got an urgent call from the "nozzles," as my good friend would say. They called to tell me that, because things were starting to get hairy and were taking so long without any results they were coming tomorrow morning to pull the plug on MY no OUR project!

I just couldn't let that happen so I sweet-talked Gushie, the head programmer, into running a few "diagnostic tests" on the Accelerator Chamber. Then I dressed in the white Fermi suit specially made for this project and headed down to the Control Room where I knew Gushie would be waiting for me. To throw any suspicion off what I was really planning to do, I told Gushie that this was a dress rehearsal, complete with the costumes so that, when the time came, I would know exactly what to do and how to do it and how it was going to be run.

I still to this day have no idea how Gushie could have accepted this explanation, I guess it was because he figured I was a genius and this was one of my eccentric quirks. Then, before he could figure out what I was planning on doing and stop me, I activated the Accelerator Chamber and pulled Ziggy (Al's pet name for the "hunk of junk metal" hybrid parallel computer I created) online and prepared to leap.

As I stood there in the atomically charged fog that began rising up around me, feeling the electricity course through my limbs, all I could think about was that now the project was safe. They wouldn't leave anyone stranded in time... would they?

But, then the realization that I never got to say goodbye to my best friend hit me. Oh God, how I wish that I had waited another 20 minutles and called Al home... However, I knew that he wouldn't have let me leap anymore than I would have let him if our roles were reversed. I have regretted that (when I remember what I did) ever since. I have always regretted never giving Al a proper goodbye.

Dear God, or Fate or Time or Whoever you that keeps leaping me through time, the next leap I make, please let me remember this wish to say goodbye and let me be able to say it. I am so weary and I want to go home so badly, please give me this chance to put this one mistake right.

Well, I guess it is almost time... I can feel the electric tingle beginning... Please God, please have heard my prayer...

Part 2: Sam's Leap

Ok... the tingling has subsided and I can see... I need to get oriented... ummmm... Who am I? I am Sam Beckett, Quantum Physicist, and Time Traveler... Geez, I sound like a Television show Character! Ok... now that I remember who I really am... where am I... Hmmmmm... to the left of me, I see a door with a large window covered with heavy, light blocking drapes on a travois rod and a combination radiator/air conditioner underneath the window. A table with a lamp and chair sit directly in front of it. The carpet is a well worn, but clean, tan color. Hmmmmm, this feels familiar, but I don't know why.

Lemme just take a better look around here... ok, there is a single bed with a cheap, but nice-looking, mauve-flowered bedspread. Above the bed is a tacky and rather boring still life of a vase of mauve and rose colored flowers in a gilded gold frame. A small nightstand with a single drawer and shelf next to the bed holds another, smaller lamp, an alarm clock, a remote control attached to the table surface, and a beige rotary phone with a red, blinking dome next to the receiver. Oh, duh! I'm in a motel room somewhere! Geez, for a genius, I can be pretty dense, sometimes. Ok, now to find out some more about this place... guess it's time to go through the drawers, starting with the nightstand...

The nightstand's drawer holds a Gideon's Bible and a TV guide with a picture of a guy that amazingly looks a lot like me on the cover. Hmmmmm... the date is October 1990... that is almost 5 years before my first leap! Whoa! Wait a minute... where did THAT come from!? I haven't been able to remember the project or my first leap since I started this experiment gone `caca' as Al would say. My PRAYER!!!! I remember! Before I leaped in here, I prayed that God would give me a way to say goodbye to Al properly. I have to find a mirror! The one over the desk will do just fine, I think.

OH MY GOD! Is that ME? I leaped into myself? I wish I knew exactly where I was... wait... there's a desk against the dresser right in front of the bed... I wonder what the motel stationary looks like and if it has the address... ah hah! Here it is... I'm at a Day's Inn in Hope, Arkansas? Hope, Arkansas... Why is that place familiar? Hmmmmm, I will have to ask Al, later...

Now, I have to figure out just how to tell my family and friends goodbye... I can't call them because there is no project, yet. If this is October 1990, Al and I are still trying to get the funding for this operation... Wait! I got it! I will write a letter to Al, send it to him at our old address and tell him NOT to open it until I leap in 1995... Better yet, I'll just have the post office hold it until 1995... Now, time to get to work!

Well, it is about an hour or two later... maybe more. I have finally finished the letter. This had to have been one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my entire life. I am just grateful that the Big Guy Upstairs let me remember everything I needed to so that I could say all that I needed to say. Whoa, it is 2am and I have to be up early to get this over to the post office... wherever that may be.

Thank you, again, god for giving me the chance to do this. I will never forget it...

It is 10am and I have just finished mailing my letter to Al. The familiar tingling is starting in my limbs and I know I don't have much time. Thank you, again, God...

Now, I am back in the never-never land, waiting for my next assignment.

....To be continued...