This fic was written a while back with my good friend NorwegianBlue from Psychfic. I somehow overlooked it when I was posting all my other fics when I joined FF, so you folks get it now! :)
Disclaimer: Nothing Psych nor Quantum Leap belong to the authors.
Prologue
"Theorizing that one could 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; 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."
WMWMWMWMWMWMWMW
The blue light around him faded, and Sam Beckett arrived. Where he had arrived was another question entirely.
Glancing at his surroundings, he quickly figured out that he was in a car. Before he could think about anything else, a mechanical female voice spoke up.
"At the next traffic light, turn left."
Sam jumped and looked around the car. Who was talking? He was the only occupant as far as he could tell.
"Turn left now," the voice instructed.
When it spoke again, it sounded mad. "Make a legal u-turn now."
A tiny, thin, computer-like device was mounted on the windshield of the car. The screen lit up with a map, and the voice issued from speakers on either side of the screen.
Sam squinted at it. What in the world was this thing?
It must be some sort of navigational device, so he obeyed and turned the car around. He followed the instructions that it continued to give him, while he surveyed the car's interior.
By the time the machine informed him he'd reached his destination, Sam had come to the conclusion he was a cop. The radio and the gun he felt on his belt were his two main informants.
He suddenly realized he hadn't seen himself yet. Every time he leaped into another person's life, he took on their entire identity – complete with the body. Sam straightened slightly, peering into the car's rearview mirror.
A stern face looked back at him. Dark hair, a strong Irish hairline, and piercing blue eyes. Sam thought him to be somewhere in his late 30s. Pulling out his badge, Sam discovered his name was Carlton Lassiter, head detective for the Santa Barbara Police Department.