The characters and situations within this work are fictional and not owned by the author, with the exception of certain original characters. Quantum Leap is the property of Universal, all rights reserved. This fanfiction is written without permission from Universal Pictures. No copyright infringement intended.

Dreams of Blue and Gold
by C. S. McBain

Prologue

Sam's legs were pumping furiously. His whole weight was pressing and bouncing. He was running. No, not running. It felt to mechanical to be running. He could feel his hands gripping handles tightly, pumping in synch with his legs. The absurd and deafening buzzing of the Leap finally faded, only to have his eardrums bombarded with a violent rock song. He lost his balance. The legs that had been pumping now slipped and flailed. The tall, athletic time-traveling scientist fell unceremoniously onto the hard floor. When his vision stopped spinning, he looked around and found that it was a gym.

The beast that had defeated him was an Elliptical work-out machine.

Some hard rock band was still blaring into his ear drums, and he got himself together enough to tear the ear-buds away. The earphone line was connected to a small device at Sam's waistband, and he looked at it with a baffled expression.

"It's an MP3 Player," said his partner in time, causing Sam to jerk up and look for his holographic observer. Al stepped through a line of treadmills, one hand in his pocket with a cigar in the other, "You alright, kid?"

Sam managed to straighten himself into a less embarrassing position on the floor, looking at his friend incredulously. "I'm fine," he said indignantly, standing and rubbing at a tender spot on his rear, "What the heck is an MP3?"

The light in Al's eyes faded a little, realizing his partner had been lost in Time for so long that he was behind on certain technology. He didn't let the disappointment show in his voice, however, and answered with a shrug, "Oh, it's this thing that plays music. Digital. It's huge with the kids." As an afterthought, he looked up and added, "And the adults. Yeah, I think everyone here at the project has one--"

"Al--"

"--'cept me. I don't see the appeal . . ."

"Al."

"Yeah?" said the hologram, suddenly attentive.

Sam narrowed his eyes on the man dressed in the ridiculous orange sorbet suit, struggling - and managing - to finally stand. "What year is it?" The question made it clear that Sam understood something incredible was on the brink. Al's reaction only confirmed it, and the hologram barely glanced at the handlink before painfully looking away.

"It's March 11th . . . 2000, Sam," Al finally answered quietly. He risked looking into Sam's emerald greens for a reaction but could only stand it for a second before letting his eyes fall to his shoes. His eyebrows raised in thought, and he continued in a pensive tone, "You're only a couple months behind us."

Any reaction to that couldn't have been predetermined or predicted, but Al had known somehow that Sam's jaw would drop, and somehow knew that his partner's throat was tight. "A couple months," Sam managed, though his voice warbled slightly with emotion that made Al uncomfortable. The time traveler turned away then, needed to take a moment of silence with the wall.

"Hey, girl, you alright?"

Both Al and Sam looked up at the new voice, to find it belonged to an impressively large black man. Despite the bulging muscles that threatened to rip apart the jersey that barely fit him, he seemed to be of a naturally gentle disposition. Sam, however, was still struck oddly by how he'd been addressed.

"Girl?" Sam turned slightly to Al, though he was practiced enough in this job to know not to look directly at something that appeared to not be there. Al started hammering buttons on the handlink, pulling information as fast as he could type.

"Sorry," said the man with a half-smile, "If you don't like being called that, I didn't mean anything by it. You fell off the elipitical and I was worried. Should I call someone like your emergency contact or somethin'?"

"Ah, no," Sam said quickly, flashing looks to his observer in a silent plea for information to be given faster.

"Aha," Al said, just as the other man nodded, "Big McLargehuge here is the owner of the gym. A little local place called Stallion Springs Workout," Al did a double take at that, his eyes widening as he brought the handlink screen closer to his fact, "You've gotta be kidding."

"What?" Sam asked in concern.

Big answered him, "Honey, are you okay? Maybe you should sit down--"

The absurdity of handling two conversations at once - one of which was held with someone who was technically not there - quickly became a little irritating. The large man needed to be dismissed. "No, no. I'm fine. I'll just," he looked around desperately for a private corner and thankfully found one, pointing, "I'll just go over to the mat there and stretch. I'll be fine." The big man let Sam go, though he remained wary as he watched the time traveler move away to the far side of the gym. Sam sat down and made motions of stretching his legs. Al centered in on Sam almost instantly, his eyes still scanning the handlink screen for data.

"What?" Sam asked again in a harsh whispered, once he was sure that he no longer had Big's attention.

"What? Oh, uh," Al took his time to abuse the handlink with a healthy smack on its side, causing it to squeal, "Just that - this is so weird. You've leaped into Stallion Springs."

A surge of hope flooded the physicist. "Home?"

Al shook his head. "No, not New Mexico. Apparently, there's a Stallion Springs in California. Anyway - the big guy there. That was the owner of the gym. Name's Earl Madison."

Sam rolled his eyes, stretching calf muscles he hadn't remembered having before - and silently chiding himself for being so out of shape. "That's great. Now who am I?"

"Who are you? Oh! Who are you, yeah." More buttons were pressed on the multicolored device in Al's hands, and more squeals and bleeps. "Cassandra Griffin. Twenty-four years old. Recently divorced. Ah, poor kid."

"Divorced? At twenty-four?" Whatever remorse Al was feeling was shared with his partner still on the floor. Al began to pace, reading off the data as he walked through theraputic excercise balls and step equipment.

"Yeah, looks like she ran off a couple years ago after meeting her dream guy online," Al read, taking a long pull from his cigar and shaking his head, "Only to find out it wasn't such a dream."

His friend stopped stretching, looking into the mirror on the wall before him to see a petite young girl stare back at him. "What happened?"

Al stopped his pacing then, turning to look at the image Sam was momentarily captivated by and deciding that the girl Sam leaped into wasn't too bad looking. The hair band needed to go, and the clothes were nothing flattering. But it was a gym, and no one was attractive covered in sweat. At least - not usually. "Well, you know how these things happen, right? Young naive girl who's told a lot of pretty things can get suckered into doing almost anything if it promises stability. She hopped on a plane to fly out to meet the guy, found out he was living on wellfare but stayed with him anyway because he kept promising her it'd get better."

That made Sam turn suspiciously to the hologram, frowning. "How do you know all that?" Al could only shrug.

"That's how these things work. Men can be just as manipulative as woman. Manipulation knows know gender," Al explained, "Just ask my five wives."

"You?" Sam huffed, making a show of being shocked, "Manipulative? Say it isn't so?"

Deciding to ignore the jab, Al continued, "Anyway. Looks like she held down three jobs for a while before she figured out the guy was a loser and left him. Weird--" Again, Italian fury was unleashed on the innocent malfunctioning 'pile of gummi bears'. It squeaked and squawked, and made Sam anxiously waiting in anticipation for Al to explain.

"Al? Al, come on - just tell me," he sighed, squaring his jaw, "Can't you just tell me things without this whole runaround game of yours? Say, 'Sam. Your name is this. The reason your here is this. Do this, and you're done.' Is that so hard?"

"I wish it were that simple," Al allowed, trying forcing the handlink to make grating noises. Frustrated, he gave up and turned off the useless thing. "There's missing data on this girl, Sam. I'm sorry." Helplessly, he shrugged, looking at his friend below him and bracing himself for whatever reaction loomed on the horizon. Sam was still settling with the idea that he was only months behind his real time. A couple more months, and he could be home at last. Surprisingly, he did not unleash a wrath, but only hung his head in resignation.

"Okay," he said finally, "I guess - you're going to have to talk to her? Cassandra?"

Nodding casually, Al answered, "That's the program. Let's hope her memory isn't as swiss-cheesed as yours, though. Otherwise, we may never figure out why you're here." There was nothing more to be said, and Sam only silently agreed. "Okay, kid. I'll be back soon. You can - I dunno - keep stretching or something. Just remember - work evenly. And keep breathing. Breathing's important."

At least that produced something of a smile on Sam's face, and he shook his head. "Yeah, okay. Hurry up, though. I don't want to be wandering around later, wishing I knew where I lived."

"Soon as I can," Al promised, turning on the handlink and briefly thankful it worked long enough to let him exit the chamber. The Imaging Chamber door closed, and Sam was left alone to stretch and ponder.