A/N: This takes place near the beginning of the second season of "Angel" and the beginning of the fifth season of "Buffy," before Spike's crush on the Buffster and Angel's trip through kill-a-lawyer laa laa land. As for the "QL" timeline, it's anybody's guess. For disclaimers, see my profile.
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Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the project 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 his journey is Al, an observer from his own time, 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 will be the leap home.
Sam closed his eyes against the white, shining light that seemed to seep into every pore in his body. As always, with every leap, Sam felt the odd disorientation as his body and conscious were reassembled molecule by molecule in place of whomever he was superseding. He blinked rapidly, trying to gauge his situation.
"We don't like your kind in here, you half-brained, short, pathetic Slayer-sympathizer."
Sam turned to the speaker and let out a rather undignified squeak. In front of him was a rather large, red, somewhat slimy monster, whose glowing-yellow eyes glared at him from beneath sharp, horned eye-ridges.
"Did you hear me, you disgusting half-human bloodsucker?" the monster roared. It leaned forward and grabbed the front of the quantum physicist's shirt, hauling him to his feet, glaring down into his face, the monster's fetid breath nearly causing Sam to choke. Only one thought crossed his mind at that moment.
"Oh, boy."
QUANTUM EEEP!
A "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer"/"Quantum Leap" crossover
Pain.
Dr. Samuel Beckett had just developed a new definition for the word "pain." The scientist part of him was turning over this new discovery, cataloguing it for future reference. The human part of him was screaming in agony. If I hold very still, he thought, although somewhat irrationally, the pain will stop. Instead of focusing on his no doubt broken ribs and arms, Sam tried to think about other things. The feel of the concrete on his back, for example. The scent of the garbage flowing out of the near-by alleyway, the stars twinkling overhead. However, nothing he could think of seemed to override this feeling of Pain. Next to him, he was aware of the 'whoosh' of the holochamber doors and Sam assumed his friend was close by.
"Al?" he asked weakly, not moving.
"Sam?" The badly dressed hologram of his friend walked over through a car and sat down next to him. "Sam, what are you doing on the ground?"
"I'm in pain, Al. I just got beaten up by a monster, Al."
"Really? Huh, that is interesting," remarked the hologram, hitting a small hand-held device with his fist. It squeaked back at him.
"AL!"
"Right, Sam, right. Relax. Ziggy says that you should be fine in a few minutes."
"Fine?" Sam cried, pushing himself into a sitting position. "I was just used as a punching bag for some big, slimy, red monster and Ziggy says I'm going to be fine?"
"Well, you're already sitting up, aren't you?" Al replied, gesturing to the physicist with a wave of his hand. Sam looked down at himself, his jaw falling open in surprise. He looked at his right arm, holding it in front of his face, flexing his fingers a few times. Hadn't those bones been shattered not five minutes before?
"Al, what the hell is going on?"
"It's complicated, Sam," the hologram replied, hitting the hand-held computer again. "You better stand up first. You're gonna draw attention lying in an alleyway. I'm sure you don't want whoever beat you up to come back out and try again." Sam shook his head and staggered to his feet, stumbling across the street into abandoned building.
"Who... what am I, Al?" he asked once they were safely inside the building. Al shrugged his shoulders.
"You aren't going to believe this."
"Try me."
"Well," Al began, taking a deep breath, "your name is Spike."
"'Spike?!?' What kind of name is 'Spike?'" asked Sam, starting to pace the room.
"A good one, for a vampire. Seems it's a nickname you picked up from your younger days when you tortured people to death with railroad spikes. Before that, you were William the Bloody, and before that you were William..." Al trailed off, hitting the computer again. "Well, Ziggy can't seem to find a last name, but---"
"Woah, wait a minute, Al. Back up. Did you say 'vampire?'"
"Uh, yes. Yes I did, Sam. You're one-hundred twenty-six years old, give or take a hundred years, and was recently traveling in the company of a female vampire named Drusilla whom you lost to a chaos demon," the hologram replied, peering intently at his computer.
"Vampires don't exist," Sam stated matter-of-factly.
Al shrugged his shoulders again. "According to Ziggy they do and you have just leaped into one. I would say that's pretty good evidence for their existence."
Sam leaned against the wall of the building, sliding down and pulling his knees to his chest. "Oh, God," he moaned, rubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands.
"Not exactly," Al said, a bemused expression on his face.
"Okay, so assuming I am this vampire, this 'Spike,' what am I here to do?" asked the physicist, standing up and walking back over to his friend. "I don't have to kill anyone, do I?"
"No, you don't. You can't, actually." Al pressed some buttons on his computer and whacked it a few more times for good measure. "You have this chip in your brain, see. It was put there by a government organization named the Initiative. It prevents you from hurting things that are alive." Suddenly, Al started chuckling. "I bet that really bites. Get it? Bites?"
"Al..." Sam warned, attempting to keep a growl out of his voice.
"Fine, fine. No need to get snippy."
"That monster that beat me up in the bar...." Sam began.
"Ziggy says that monster was actually a Portara Demon of the Zeumila class," Al corrected.
"Fine. The Portara Demon that beat me up... it said something about a Slayer. What is that? Does it have something to do with the reason I leaped in here? It said I was a sympathizer."
"According to Ziggy, in every generation, there is a chosen one. She alone will stand again the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer. Essentially, a super-powered teenager with the genetic capabilities to fight off these demons and such."
"I'm a vampire, Al," Sam said, starting to get frustrated. "Why would I be sympathizing with a Slayer of all things evil? I mean, aren't I evil?"
"Oh sure, Sam. You're the..." Al paused again, squinting at the computer. "You're the 'Big Bad.' You've actually killed a few of these Slayers before and were a master vampire in your own right. That is, until they put that chip in your head. Since you can't protect or feed yourself, you've allied with the Slayer, one Buffy Summers, to CYA, so to speak. Oh, and you're British."
"Bloody Hell," Sam moaned into his hands.
"That's the ticket, Sam," Al said with a grin. "Now you're starting to get a feel for this Spike character."
"Just tell me what I need to do to leap out of here, okay?" pleaded the physicist. "I have a distinct problem with being dead."
"Well, Ziggy says that there is a 53.2% chance that you're here to come to terms with your Sire - that would be the guy who turned you - one Angelus. Or is it Angel? Liam?" Al shook his head and proceeded to hit the small computer again. "Angel. But you call him Angelus."
Sam blinked. "53.2%? That's awfully low. Is there anything higher?"
"Afraid not," replied the hologram. "The next two highest probabilities are 13.3% that you're supposed to hook up with a witch named Willow and 10.6% that you are supposed to have sex with a man named Rupert Giles." Sam looked at Al for a long minute before Al shrugged. "Hey, do I make this stuff up?"
"Fine, fine, forget it. I'll go talk to this Angelus guy," Sam said with an exasperated sigh, covering his hands with his face for a brief minute. "Where is he? What does he look like?"
"Well, he's about yea tall," Al replied, motioning with his hands, "has a caveman-live overhanging forehead, spiky hair, and wears mostly black. He runs a detective Agency in L.A. called 'Angel Investigations."
"Los Angeles," Sam echoed, nodding to himself. "Okay, and where am I now?"
"Sunnydale, California. That's about 2 hours north of L.A. Boy Sam, I love L.A. You're gonna really like it." Al let Ziggy drop down to his side as he puffed on his cigar and stared at the sky. "I met this adorable girl there in 1965... or was it '67?" he murmured, trailing off.
"AL!"
"Right, right. Anyway, go to L.A., talk to this guy, and see what's up. But," Al said, looking along the horizon to the east, "you may want to wait a few hours."
"Why's that?" Sam asked, giving his friend a confused look.
"Because the sun's coming up," the hologram replied.
"Sun?" Sam squinted at the horizon. "What does the sun coming up have to do with--" Sam was cut off as a burning sensation suddenly started all over his body, the smell of smoke filling the air. "OH MY GOD! I'M ON FIRE!" he yelled, jumping back into the relative safety of abandoned warehouse, patting out his smoking limbs and head. Al smirked at him.
"Vampire, remember?" Al picked up his hand-held Ziggy. "I'll see you later this evening, Sam. Try to find some place dark and appropriate for the undead." Hitting Ziggy a few times, the imaging door opened and Al disappeared, leaving one, half-baked, slightly smoky quantum physicist behind, crouching in the shadows of the doorway.
To be continued...
A/N: Well, what do you think? Review, if you please. Comments and constructive criticism are appreciated, flames are not. What will happen next? Will Angel be able to tell Sam is not really his Childe? What is Spike getting up to in the waiting room? What will the Host think of all this? How far will Sam have to go in order to leap? Answers to all these question and more in the next chapter of.... Quantum Eeep! (working title)