Summary:Sam Beckett thinks about what it would be like if he really did love Al.

Disclaimer: None of the characters from Quantum Leap belong to me. If they did, I'd let them have a lot more fun than they usually do! ;-)

Note: The song "If I Loved You" is Michael Crawford's rendition of an Andrew Lloyd Webber song.

Warning: This is about male/male love. Nothing sexually explicit, but if you don't like this subject, please don't read it!

IF I LOVED YOU
From the mind of Dr. Sam Beckett

By QL Quanta

It's a rare moment of silence and solitude not often experienced on Leaps. You're here, but you've wandered off to check out…who knows what, probably a bunch of girls in the locker room or something.

I'm 17 again, on the high school varsity men's volleyball team. Practice has ended. Thanks to you and Ziggy, I know I'm here to save the life of a fellow teammate's young sister. It'll happen tomorrow, so I sit here in the high school locker room after my shower, with only a towel wrapped around my waist, and I think. Mentally prepare myself for what I know I have to do less than 24 hours from now.

But inevitably, my thoughts stray to you.

Somehow I can see just exactly how I'd be if I loved you

Of course I love you, Al. How could I not? We were best friends for years before I ever leaped. And it's a decision I've half-regretted ever since. Only half-regretted because at least while I'm out here leaping, the government's keeping the project alive. If I hadn't, they would've pulled funding, and I could've lost you. Listen to me. I sound like I love you. I do, but…what kind of love?

If I loved you, time and again I would try to say all I'd want you to know

I've told you, in my own way, so many times, and I think in your own way you've acknowledged it and even reciprocated. But we can't touch, so the simple hand-on-shoulder or elbow-in-ribs or pat on the back just isn't there for us to express anything anymore. All we can do is talk, listen and look at one another.

So how do I open my mouth and actually say the words? If I did feel more than friendship for you, of course. Which I don't. But if I did, I would open and close my mouth a hundred times per Leap, always trying to tell you, Al…but never quite succeeding.

If I loved you, words wouldn't come in an easy way, 'round in circles I'd go

You're back from wherever you wandered off to. And by the look on your face, I've gotta be right about the girls' locker room. Yep, I'm looking at the quintessential ladies' man, I decide, as you return to me with that familiar look of lechery on your face. Honestly, Al, you're impossible.

"Honestly, Al, you're impossible."

"What, I struck out. No girls."

I don't know what to say, really, because my mind is on what I might say if I had something more to say. Which I don't. But if I did, I would ask you, is that all you really want is girls? Women? Do you ever think about men? Or more particularly, me? But no, I can't ask you that. What would you think? You're my Observer, my lifeline to my own past, present and future. But you're also my best friend. No, I wouldn't lose you altogether, but I sure would put a brick wall up between us.

If I had something more to say to you about how I feel. If I felt more than your average friendship love. Which I don't.

Longing to tell you, but afraid and shy.

Spit it out, Beckett. It's so simple. Say, Al, I love you. Al, I love you more than just a friend loves a friend. Al, I really love you.

I can't. I dip my head down as a flush spreads across my cheeks. I know you're watching me. I can't risk it. I can't risk pushing you away. Dammit all to hell anyway. I've never told anyone but Donna I loved them, and she was…well, she was a she. I don't even know how to consummate a male/male relationship. I'm so naïve, just like you always say, Al. I really am.

All I know is that I love you. Shit.

"So, Sam, are you just gonna sit here in this stinky locker room all day?"

"You don't know it's stinky, you're a hologram."

"I've been in enough men's locker rooms in my time to know they're all stinky," you reply with a wrinkle of your nose.

"I didn't know you were such an athlete, Al."

"Who said I was?"

I'd let my golden chances pass me by.

That was it. That was my in. He had been around men's locker rooms but it wasn't from having been such a bigtime athlete himself. So…why had he been in the locker rooms? Because…maybe because he did like men?

All you have to do is ask, Beckett. Just ask him. The silence is deafening. He knows something's up. He's watching you. Just say it, for God's sake. He said, "Who said I was?" so all you have to say is, Well, I guess that means you like men as well as women, huh? And then you can grin from ear-to-ear and say, Good, I was hoping you did.

But…if I'm wrong…oh, God, how would he react? I know how he reacted to the cadet we sorta figured was gay. But then by the end of that Leap, he'd changed his tune. Completely. Maybe he was just so adamant about it because he felt it, too. Or…or maybe he…he feels it. Now. For me.

Just say something, Sam. Say something.

"Well, kid, I guess I'll be heading back."

Soon you'd leave me, off you would go in the mist of day

The Imaging Chamber Door opens. The moment is gone, you're all business as you chomp your cigar and glance back at me. The smile you flash makes my heart well up in my throat. I open my mouth, but no sound emerges. As always, on those few occasions when I might be able to get the words out of my mouth, I let the moment pass without saying what I need to say. What I feel. What I want.

"Bye, Sam. See you soon."

I nod and smile, swallowing hard against the lump that has formed in my throat. The Door closes, you disappear into the white mist beyond...and you're gone again.

Never, never to know how I loved you

You're gone again and I didn't say it. Again. God, will I ever be able to tell you?

Be able to tell you what? I mean, assuming that I have something to tell you, assuming that there is something I'm hiding from you, something I want to say so badly it almost burns a hole in my tongue and makes the air whoosh out of my lungs. Boy, Al, it sure is a good thing I don't love you that way, because if I did, I'd just want to cry over the fact that I let you go again without telling you.

If I loved you

But of course that's not a problem, I tell myself as I remove the towel from my waist and go about getting dressed. It's not a problem because I don't love you like that. So, I smile, get dressed, and go home. Well, not my home. The home of the kid whose body I've taken over on this Leap.

I look back once more at where the Imaging Chamber Door closed, taking you away from me.

"I love you, Al."

Or at least, that's what I'd say if I did.