Sam and Al's last, near-disastrous leap had almost ended with Sam as a single leaper again, but, well, it did have its upside. Leaping alone had frightened him into thinking he didn't have what it took to right wrongs anymore, but nearly losing Al had foisted him back into that position and reignited his spirit. Not only that, he'd made a very important realization: he wasn't just responsible for himself anymore. They had always been a team, but there are some things only leaping can teach you, which meant he was now the expert and Al was the novice. If his best friend was going to make it as a leaper, Sam was going to have to look out for him, and that meant learning all new lessons of his own.

The last lesson had been a painful reality check as to how dangerous leaping can be, especially when you don't communicate. The next lesson: in leaping, you hardly ever get a chance to stop and catch your breath.

After Al's revival from the dead, the leap-light barely having dispersed, the time travelers' heartfelt reunion was smacked aside by a becurlered woman bursting through the door. "Laura! Kimberly! Are you still not ready? Hurry up or you'll miss the bus!" She pointed sternly at Sam. "And no fighting with your sister over shoes this morning. Get along." She slunk out of the room, and Sam and Al faced each other with dawning horror.

"Laura?"

"Kimberly?"

They looked down at their dresses.

"Oh boy!"

Sam's favorite. This was not the first or last time he'd leaped into women's clothing, but that didn't mean he had to like it. He groaned and threw his head back. "Oh no, not a woman again!"

"Not women. Girls."

Sam twisted himself around to see Al perplexedly scrutinizing himself in the dresser mirror—well, not himself exactly, the two teenagers they'd hijacked for the time being. He stepped up next to him to get a closer look. They were definitely sisters, but they couldn't appear more different.

Sam was a mousy blonde with minimal makeup, her hair pulled back into a simple ponytail. She wore a baggy, Navy blue dress, cinched in at the waist with a belt, very modest. That is, except for her shoes, the one piece of her ensemble with any pizzazz: stilettos, lime green. The aforementioned shoes that she'd fought for, he assumed. This indicated to Sam that she wasn't afraid to be adventurous, but preferred to blend into the crowd.

Al's reflection, however, would have a hard time not standing out. A bleach blonde bombshell, all flash, wearing a choker, a tight red dress, and a pair of impossibly tall black wedge shoes. Her hair and makeup were impeccable; she obviously didn't shy away from attention. She'd probably been in heels since she could walk—unlike Al, who was finding it difficult to balance even while standing.

Sam held back a laugh. If she were a little older, she'd be exactly Al's type. He had to be feeling pretty awkward right now. After almost two decades of watching the admiral drool over every gorgeous woman in a fifty mile radius, it was a perfect twist of fate that he now found himself in her stylish, toe-pinching shoes.

"Wow…I don't look half bad!" Al praised, giving himself a good eyeful.

Sam's eyes immediately became slits as he shot him a withering glare. "Al, they're teenagers!"

"And if I was a teenager again, I'd be all over me!" Al shot back with a defensive shrug. Sam continued to scowl judgmentally, and a smidgen of Al splintered with embarrassment. "Hey, I can look at the menu, I just can't order off it."

"What if she was your daughter?"

"I don't have a daughter."

"Hypothetically."

"Hypothetically, she's not my daughter, so what's the problem?"

How foolish of Sam to think Al had any sort of shame. His glower drifted away from his genuinely confused friend, opting to shift the focus to more important matters. For instance, which teenager either of them got saddled with.

The mirror was decorated with polaroids of Al's reflection and various friends hugging each other or pulling faces. Notably, Sam's reflection wasn't featured in any of the many pictures, leading him to wonder how close these sisters were. Did they fight about more than shoes? Eyes scanning downward, he looked for more clues. Amongst girly trinkets, fuzzy pens, perfume, makeup, and various shades of pink, there was a decorative name plaque spelling out 'Kim' in curlicue letters. And as an added bonus, it was topped off with a sparkly crown.

With an amused smirk, Sam displayed the name plaque close to his chest. "Kim," he informed Al.

"Gimme that." Al snatched the plaque away and placed it back on the dresser grumpily. The more it sunk in that he was going to have to be Kim, the less enthusiastic he became. Oh he wasn't just a teenage girl, he was a princess.

Now that he'd gotten past his reflection's attractiveness, he was becoming increasingly annoyed at his wardrobe. Smoothing out his dress and awkwardly trying to pull it down for more coverage, he wobbled around like a toddler learning how to walk. This was his first time in wedges, after all. "Jeez, how do women wear these things? How am I supposed to walk around without snapping my feet off at the ankles?"

"Practice," Sam stated sagely, arms crossed with a wry smile.

"What're you smirking about, Samantha Plain and Tall?" Al shot back, arm sweeping down Sam's dress to the stilettos filled with his giant, hairy feet.

Unbothered, Sam gave a blasé shrug. "You don't find a certain irony to this situation?"

"In what way?"

"C'mon, Al," Sam said with a slight eye roll, "You're always hitting on women with your sleazy pickup lines, and—"

"Sleazy?" Al repeated, offended.

"Yes, sleazy."

"Sleazy?"

"And now you're going to know exactly how it feels to be on the other side."

"I'll have you know, Sam," Al said, sticking out his chin and stomping haphazardly closer, "I have nothing but respect for every woman I've ever come onto. I'd never go so low as to do anything remotely considered sleazy." He lowered his eyelids and lifted a shoulder. "I happen to have a certain appreciation of the female form; I just don't repress my sexual urges like a certain Boy Scout I know." His hooded eyes focused on him.

"And what about their minds?"

"I like those too."

Oh, Al was in for a rude awakening. He hadn't had as much experience as Sam had being viewed as the opposite sex, but he'd learn. Sam nodded, smirk still firmly in place. "We'll see how you feel by the end of the leap."

"I'll tell you how I'll feel: sore," Al grumbled, yanking off one of his shoes and chucking it aside.

"I wonder what year it is…" Sam mused, again noting Al's tiny, form-fitting dress, "I'm gonna guess we're far from the 50s…"

"1999," Al stated offhandedly, shucking off his other shoe.

"Huh? How did you know that?" Sam asked with confusion. Was Al gleaning information from the leapee?

"Over there," answered Al as he rooted through the closet, jerking his head toward a calendar on the wall. Huh. He was quickly catching on to working out leap details, Sam noticed. He smirked. It was a throwback now to hear Al exposit information again.

Sure enough, the calendar said 1999. A group of smiling young men in matching outfits posed together for May. "1999," Sam repeated, brows furrowed, "I don't think I've ever leaped that far forward." He couldn't remember leaping further than the day he first stepped into the Accelerator. Was that a coincidence, or were they following Al's timeline again? He was never sure how far into his lifetime he could go. But suddenly distracted, he squinted curiously at the men on the calendar. "Who's NSYNC?"

"Hm?" Al glanced over his shoulder as he slipped on a pair of sneakers, giving an exaggerated frown and shrugging. "Beats me. It's not my age bracket." Sam frowned disapprovingly at the new shoe choice. It felt like Al was cheating.

Before he could protest, their mother's slightly more annoyed voice boomed from downstairs. "You two better get your butts down here before the bus arrives!"

Oh yeah, they'd forgotten they had somewhere they needed to be.

Upon entering the kitchen, Al pulling on a cardigan for more coverage, they found their frazzled mother hurriedly grabbing a couple of bagged lunches. As soon as she spotted them, she stopped and stared at Sam. With confused exasperation, she asked, "Laura, sweetie, where are your glasses?"

Caught off guard, Sam's eyes widened and he pointed at himself. "My—my glasses?" His eyes took a cursory sweep across the kitchen, just in case they were there. "Gee, uh…I must've forgotten them upstairs."

Their mother blinked. "Well hurry up and get them! You're already running late!" Sam jumped to it, bounding unladylike up the stairs. With a tired sigh, the anxious woman tapped her foot and shook her head. "All the brains, but no common sense," she said to Al, who merely nodded in agreement. That was a pretty fair assessment of Sam. She frowned when she spotted Al's shoes. "You're wearing sneakers?"

Oh jeez. He supposed they did look a little bit ridiculous with his dress….but he wasn't gonna put those death traps back on if he could help it. He bounced on his heels and shrugged. "You, uh…never know when you need to run."

"Found them!" proclaimed Sam, now donning a pair of large glasses, as he reentered and nearly bowled over Al.

These two were definitely acting strange. However, there wasn't time for questions about the unusual behavior her daughters were exhibiting. Merely shaking her head, she handed each of them a lunch and pushed them urgently toward the door. "Move your butts! Go go go!" And then, once they were hurrying away, "And try not to fight today!"

It would be hard to restrain themselves from further squabbles over whatever teenage girls squabbled about, but they'd try their best. Sam thought it was interesting they'd leaped into siblings twice in a row, but this leap was a whole different animal. Last time they'd become brothers. This time, they had to learn to act like sisters.

A paper airplane whizzed past Sam and Al's noses and out the window. Loud, boisterous kids shouted and laughed as the two of them weathered the trip to school in the shaky yellow school bus. The drive was maybe fifteen minutes, but to the older men wedged in the tiny seat and surrounded by teens, it seemed an eternity.

It had been a long time since Sam had taken the bus to school, but he didn't remember it being this noisy or misbehaved in his day. His eyes widened. 'In his day'? He was sounding like his father. Had he been leaping so long he was becoming out of touch? That was a frightening thought. How old was he now anyway?

Al had never ridden the bus to school in his life, on account of him living in almost every school he'd been to. The orphanage took them on some trips out, sure, but those were few and far between, and it'd been over fifty years ago on top of that. Plus he wasn't a teenage girl in 1999, so this was a new experience for him. It felt like he was stuffed into a packet of sardines with this crowd, which he wasn't too keen on. But he had other problems to worry about. How were they supposed to know what classes to go to when they got to school? Hopefully Gooshie would have that information handy, or they were gonna look like a coupla dopes.

Yeesh, they were depending on skunk breath now? Al shuddered.

"How the hell am I supposed to get around in this? Good gravy!" Al glanced warily around them at the other students as they exited the bus, grabbing at his mini (emphasis on "mini") dress and doing his best to keep his goods covered. This was not how he pictured his 60s, that was for sure.

"You'll get used to it, Al," said Sam, smacking his hand away, "Stop pulling at it." He was going to earn them unwanted attention, and Sam wanted to make sure everything went as smooth as possible this leap. He wasn't going to let things go as badly as they did last time. Not that he was worried about getting shot this leap…yet.

"Why did you get the conservative sister?"

A shrug. "Just lucky, I guess."

Al glared.

Realizing he wasn't helping the situation, Sam decided to be a little more reassuring. After all, he'd leaped into far more revealing outfits and compromising situations. "Relax, Al," Sam said encouragingly, "You're gonna be fine. No one sees you as you but me." Feeling slightly better, Al gave a small nod—but he still rubbed his head to get rid of his sudden headache.

Clunk-shoom!

"…and Lord Halitosis," Al pointed out, and Sam tried not to laugh. But when they turned toward the sound of the Imaging Chamber, who they saw wasn't their befuddled programmer.

Out of the white rectangle stepped an older gentleman with matching white hair, dressed in an ugly brown suit and a confused expression not dissimilar to Gooshie's. He clutched the handlink in both hands as he peered around his holographic environment, his face coming to life when he spotted the nonplussed leapers watching him.

"Ah, there you are," he said pleasantly in an English accent, straightening up and closing the door with ease, "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Samuel, Albert." He nodded toward each of them. Then, with a genial smile, "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is St. John," he pronounced it 'Sinjun,' "Edward St. John the Fifth, and I'll be serving as your new Observer."

Oh boy.

Al looked like he'd just smelled something unpleasant. He might've thought Gooshie was a twerp, but already he could tell he wasn't gonna like this guy. What was he thinking with that suit? Yuck! Al cast a look toward Sam, who stared at St. John with furrowed brows.

Sam knew him. He didn't know how, but he knew him, and he somehow wished he didn't. The man gave him an uneasy, ill feeling, like…like walking over someone's grave. Whose, he couldn't recall. Even though he was a hologram, he wanted to keep his distance from him. He wished he could pinpoint why he felt this unsettling familiarity.

For a time the men stood there in awkward silence, St. John with his grin and Sam and Al with unpleasant surprise. Then, gazing at the students around them, St. John leaned in secretively. "It would be prudent of us to step away from prying eyes, hm? After all, discretion is the better part of valor."

Once again, Al shot Sam a look of disdain.

Having found a tree out of the way from most of the students, the three of them were able to speak more freely. Al took full advantage of his ability to do so, spinning around to face their new hologram. "So Slim Jim—"

"Sinjun."

"Sinjun, right," Al said, sneeringly copying his pronunciation, "I see you've got a handlink there, but I'm still not sure who the hell you are."

"Oh dear," St. John said with worry, tilting his head, "I don't suppose this is what they call, er—'swiss cheesing'? Am I going to have to explain everything to you? This could take some time." He sighed, straightening out the lapels of his dated jacket. "Very well. I am a hologram tuned into the mesons and neurons—"

"We know all that, St. John," Sam raised his hands and cut him off. Boy, this guy was already exhausting. "We just don't know who you are."

"Yeah, I sure as hell don't remember seeing you at the Project."

"Well of course you don't," St. John stated obviously with a few blinks, "This is the first time we've met." Al seemed slightly relieved, but Sam still couldn't shake his sense that this wasn't their first encounter. He'd met him somewhere. "Shortly after the program was reinstated, I was hired by Senator Weitzman to serve as an advisor on how best to proceed with Project Quantum Leap."

"I knew it!" Al exclaimed with suspicion. There it was. No wonder he'd smelled a rat. He squinted and tapped his nose with his finger. "This has got Weitzman's stink all over it."

"I beg your pardon?"

An advisor? Ugh. Just what they needed. Sam supposed Weitzman was too busy to impose every arbitrary rule himself. Maybe that's why St. John had given him such a bad feeling. This new direction the Project was taking was troubling, especially since neither he nor Al had any power to do anything about it. Sam tried to shake it off for now. It was actually slightly relieving to know that was the reason behind his strange apprehension around the new hologram. He wasn't sure how he felt about having an "advisor" at the Project, but as long as he was around, he had to trust that the rest of the team could keep his work safe from Weitzman's interference. That is, if he still had "the rest."

"What happened to Gooshie?" Sam asked with concern. He and Sammy Jo had taken a considerable risk by going against the Committee's restrictions to help him and Al. "He didn't get fired for breaking the rules last leap, did he?"

St. John's eyebrows shot up. "Goodness, no," he answered, "He's back at work as the head programmer." Sam's stomach unclenched with relief. "Mr. Gushman was always intended as a temporary Observer until a qualified person could fill the position. Surely he told you that?"

"Funny how once I'm stuck in time, suddenly they're able to fix those connection issues that kept me from taking a vacation for seven years…" Al grumbled under his breath, scratching his cheek.

St. John nodded in acknowledgement. "Yes, well, sadly its imperfect. The Imaging Chamber was designed around you and Dr. Beckett, so connecting anyone else to both of you is an enormous drain of power." He sniffed and took out the handlink from his jacket. "Which means that, unfortunately, the role we can play is greatly reduced. So shall we?"

Neither of them would be against seeing less of St. John, but the prospect of having less help from the Project was worrisome. Leaping was hazardous enough as it was. But then again, they'd spent most of last leap without any of their help thanks to Weitzman and the Committee, so there was nowhere to go from there but upwards. And now that Sam was piecing some of this together…he couldn't help but feel a little smug.

Projecting a false face of seriousness with a heaping helping of superiority, Sam asked, "Hang on. Just what did happen after they went against Weitzman's orders last leap? Aren't we still in trouble, or…?"

For the first time, St. John lost a bit of his composure. With some embarrassment, he explained, "Well, it was determined that in some cases, such as life or death scenarios, it would become...necessary to break certain rules. And…as such, any potential charges were dismissed."

Now Sam had a big, fat grin on his face. "Weitzman realized they're the only ones besides me and Al who understand how it works, didn't he?"

Al burst into laughter. "Ha ha! Oh that's too good! Weitzman's gotta be blowing a gasket knowing he's got control of the Project and we're still in charge!"

St. John was flabbergasted. "I see no need for such childish behavior."

"What's the matter, Jeeves? Can't take a little joke?"

"Are you always this insufferable?"

"Only with special cases like you."

Sam placed himself between the grinning Al and their new hologram. Ha, as if somehow a brawl could break out between the two of them. But enough was enough, and they did have a leap to attend to. He didn't like it, but they were going to have to work together. "Okay okay okay, let's cool it. Do you know why we leapt in?"

St. John was back to his normal composure, if still slightly miffed. "Not as of yet, no." He lifted the handlink to read the information. "It's May 22nd, 1999. You and Albert have leaped into Laura and Kimberly Matheson, both seniors here at Lincoln High School. Kimberly is 18 and Laura is 17; she skipped the seventh grade. Until we can determine the reason for the leap, I will give you your schedules and you are to go to classes as normal. Understood?"

He had all the excitement of a textbook and exuded about as much authority. Having him as their Observer was going to take some going used to. Al leaned in toward Sam. "I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Gooshie."

Now that Al thought about it, this was his first time in a public high school as well. The lack of nuns was a nice touch from his previous school days. There was a freedom here that would've been refreshing had he not felt oddly closed in.

From the moment he and Sam walked in the doors, he could feel people's eyes on him, an unusual amount, and he didn't think it was because of him being a man in a dress. Sure, before he was a leaper he garnered plenty of attention for his flashy outfits, but he wasn't used to this kind of scrutiny. Why did he have to leap into Miss Popularity? Kids waved and greeted him as he tried to keep to himself. This was humiliating! He'd gone to space and now he was reduced to this. Ugh. At least he looked cute.

So here was the plan. Stick with Sam, keep his head down, and try to avoid as much attention as he could. After all, the kid knew what he was doing, and at least with him around he wasn't the only guy in makeup. They were just making a beeline for the lockers when—and he swore he almost heard the Jaws music—a couple of ditzy teenage girls slid in from out of nowhere.

The redhead in a tight leather skirt spoke first. "Keep Ashley and me waiting, why don't you?" she said to Al.

"You would not believe what we heard about Caitlin, she-" The blonde with the high ponytail—Ashley, he guessed—stopped herself, as if noticing Sam for the first time. She joined the redhead in staring at him with disgust, folding their arms and waiting.

Confused silence.

"Ahem," Ashley said pointedly, "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

Puzzled, Sam pointed at himself. "Me?"

"No, some other freakazoid." Ashley rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you. Why don't you go read the dictionary or whatever it is you nerds like to do?"

"Nerd?" A perplexed Sam leaned his head forward. Was she serious?

This exchange seemed to barely register with the two girls, who took Al by the elbows and positioned him away from Sam. "Jenny, tell Kim what we heard."

As the girls began to gab about whatever gossip they thought was interesting, Al craned his head back toward Sam, only to find his escape awkwardly sidling away. His eyes widened with panic upon realizing he was about to be abandoned with two teenage chatterboxes. "Hey, Sa—hey, wait! Don't leave me!"

Sam only responded with a "good luck" shrug. There was only so much assistance he could give. Oh, Al was gonna kill him.