Too Smart for His Own Good
This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.
Too Smart for His Own Good
Chapter Nine - The End is the Beginning
Al returned to the Project ten weeks after the ordeal with Lothos ended. His body wasted away, 30 pounds dropped from his slight frame. He wasn't walking, but that would change in time. After being home for two months with ten pounds regained, he had the second reconstructive surgery to repair his damaged face. That provided him with two more weeks in the hospital. Now home for another two months, he was able to walk short distances in a minimum of pain, but even an additional six months of recuperation weren't enough to erase the anguish of his crucible. It was now almost a year since his collapse in Albuquerque. He gained back another ten pounds, but they were hard won and at 134 he was still too skinny. Problem was his weight started to fall again and in a few short weeks, he dropped to 120 pounds. It was a frightening process to watch. Wasting away became a phrase that had literal reality to it.
The Admiral couldn't concentrate for more than a minute before his mind wandered. It drove him crazy and didn't do much for anyone else either. He turned inward, smiling rarely, interested in little other than staring at nothing. The marks of his obsession weren't just apparent in the scars on his face. His mind was damaged, his emotions ripped from his soul and emptiness was the path of least resistance. There was no denying it now. Al was deep in the throes of mental illness and the longer it took Sam to find some kind of answer for "why" it happened, the deeper Al crawled into it.
Beth convinced Gia, Toni, and Peri to go on with their lives and return to their homes, families, and careers. Allie returned to high school, but like her father, there was sadness in her heart that couldn't be assuaged. She came home each day, did her homework, had dinner and curled up in his arms, never allowing him to be alone. They spoke quietly and only seemed to want each other's company. No others had the knowledge they had and it created a bond that shut out the hurtful world.
Peri moved into an apartment in Albuquerque. She called daily, sometimes two or three times. She wanted her father and her sister. The conversations were short, always oddly cryptic, but it was a ritual she appeared to have no interest in ending. Her music became darker and sadder, but it also became more complex growing in an interesting direction. The story of her father's ordeal obsessed her and she was writing a series of songs about the inner workings of despair, fear, and the overriding power of love and devotion. These were ideas of which she had newfound knowledge gained by the ugliest of experiences.
The situation had Beth crying herself to sleep every night. She wouldn't trade Al's life for anything, but this life was more difficult than she could imagine. Pinning her hopes on Sam was all she had left. Day after day, she waited for news from the labs.
Sam visited every morning. He and Al chatted about the progress toward discovering what happened. There was one essential data bank Ziggy couldn't crack open and Sam felt that was the key they needed. Al was polite, appeared interested sometimes, but the result was always the same. He slowly lost his concentration and retreated into his mind and his memories. At that point, Sam may as well have been a chair for all the attention Al paid to him.
Holding Beth's hand, Sam made his way to the door. "Beth, is he ever any different?"
"No and every time I bring up the subject of help, he goes off the deep end."
"I don't know if he should have a choice. Maybe he needs a psych hospital for awhile."
Closing her eyes against the image she nodded, "I know, Sam. I've mentioned it to him and he gets this frightened look I can't deal with. The few times I said something, he clung to me the rest of the day as if I was going to leave him. He turns into a little boy and all I see is a seven year old trying to be good so his mother won't run away. Whatever help he gets, it has to start here. Do you think Verbena would help? I know she went back to private practice in Chicago, but I've been thinking of calling her."
"No other psychiatrist would understand his background like she does. I'll call her." They hugged and parted.
Beth walked to her husband, sat down next him and put her hand in his. "Hey, babe, you want to go for a walk?"
Her eyes still fascinated him. They held all the love he knew could exist. He didn't want this distance between them, but getting close scared him. She didn't see the struggle it was for him to nod simply, slowly get up and take her hand. They left the apartment to take a walk.
Sam walked as well, back down to his lab. He was getting close, but he knew he was missing the one element that would help solve the riddle. Al had to be there, but Sam felt the Admiral wasn't strong enough to be shoved into the thick of things yet. Closing the door behind him, he opened communication with Ziggy and started in. "Good morning, Ziggy."
"Good morning, Dr. Beckett. I take it you haven't asked the Admiral to join us."
"I can't. Not yet. He's still a mess." With identical sighs, man and computer began working again on the last piece to the puzzle.
A week later, Verbena Beeks came back to QL. Before unpacking her clothes in her old quarters, she knocked on the door of her Commander-in-Chief. Beth welcomed Verbena home and brought her to the only patio in the entire Project Complex where Al sat looking out at the distant mountains. "Long time, no see, Admiral."
Her voice was always a calming force. Looking behind him, he saw the face that also had that effect, "Verbena?" He stood up to go to her. The labor in his effort pained the psychiatrist, but she let him work at it. Bony arms embraced her. "Dear God, I'm glad you're here."
The black patch across his face had a dashing Errol Flynn quality, but the cruelty of it hit Verbena hard. She wanted to touch the mask and let him know she cared no matter what. "I've missed you all a lot. Private practice just doesn't hold the same intrigue for me." She could feel him leaning into her, needing support to stand. "Can we sit down?" They moved toward the wicker settee.
"Why don't you two just talk a little. I really haven't filled Verbena in on what happened." Beth excused herself under the pretense of making some iced tea.
Alone with a new trusted confidante, he said, "It was Lothos and Zoë. They did this."
"That's what Beth and Sam told me. You look like shit, Admiral." She hoped her smile would relay the affection in the jibe and it did. He smiled back. "Good. I was hoping to see that again. I hear smiling isn't one of your better things lately."
As quickly as it came, the smile disappeared and he became lost in remembered terror. "They made me do it all again."
"Do what?"
His mind's eye brought it back, the pain, the fear, the panic. "Everything, everything all again."
The last thing she wanted to do was hurt this man who had been to hell and back more times than a human being was meant to, but even her insight couldn't come near to understanding his words. "'Everything all again.' I don't know what you mean."
Staring back out onto the mountains he said, "I don't know, either." She let the silence last as long as he wanted. "Verbena, are you staying?"
"I'm back, Al. I'm going to stay as long as you want me to."
"Don't go away. I need you."
It was a positive response, one that encouraged her. The Admiral may be in trouble, but he knew it and was receptive to her help. It was a good homecoming.
Beth brought in the tea and Al didn't speak again.
The afternoon was spent hearing stories of Verbena's new life. She stayed for dinner and then excused herself saying she'd be back the next day. Allie retreated into her room to study. Al listened to the same CD he listened to almost every night, sad, melancholy classical guitar music of Rodrigo. Beth read or watched television and then it was time for sleep.
The night brought Al dreams. Dreams brought memories. Memories brought nightmares, screams, and drenching sweats. Not every night, but more than he wanted. This time, the screams were deafening and Beth couldn't awaken her husband from his hell.
"Al! Come on. Wake up! It's okay, baby, you're home." Her arms encircled his trembling body.
He could see where he was. He knew the place, but the screaming could not be stopped. It tore at his mind and bits of his brain ripped away.
The commotion brought Allie into the room. "Daddy, no!"
Beth ordered, "Go back to bed, Allie."
"Mama, I can bring him back." Without waiting for permission, she knelt next to the bed and held his hands. "Daddy, I know. I know. I know. I know."
Allie repeated the mantra over and over. A minute later, his screams began to quiet. Slowly, with his child still chanting, they diminished and within five minutes, he was silent, exhausted and back in a kind of sleep that hopefully brought him some rest and respite. The child helped lay him back onto the damp pillow and then, seeking her own comfort in her mother's arms, she cried. Beth smoothed down the curls that flew every which way. "It's okay, baby, so strong and brave. I love you."
She didn't bother to wipe away her tears. "Mom, something is really wrong. It's still really wrong."
"Verbena is here now. I think she can help."
"No, she can't." A gut reaction was all she had to go on. "Dr. Beeks can't help."
Al moved and started to take in long breaths. "I have to talk to Sam."
She gently pushed on his fragile chest keeping him down. "It's two thirty. We'll wait until morning."
A quick angry reply snapped back. "Call him."
Beth was about to try to talk sense when Allie said, "Dad's right. I don't know why, but he's right. I can call if you want me to, Mom."
There could be no other resolution. "I'll call."
Fifteen minutes later, Al, Beth, Allie, Sam and Verbena sat around the kitchen table. A pot of coffee brewed and a few muffins decorated a plastic dish. Sam hadn't taken time to wash up and was still rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Al, why this powwow?"
"I know why." It wasn't meant to be an answer to Sam's question. "You said Ziggy gave ninety something odds that Lothos and Zoë were destroyed."
"97.889. When you killed Zoë, you destroyed the neural link with Lothos. Without that, Lothos is inoperative."
The good eye glistened. "The link is not dead."
"Dad, Peri saw her die. She disappeared into little pieces."
His gut was tight and chills shook his body. "They're not dead."
Verbena took his hand. "Admiral, you're under a lot of pressure.
Before she had a chance to say another word, he stood and pounded his fists into the table. "You're not listening to me. Quantum Leap is going to be destroyed. We're all going to die, Gia, Toni, Peri, they're going to die. Our grandchildren will die. Donna and little John will die. Don't you see? We have to be eliminated."
The final straw dropped on Beth. "What are we supposed to do?"
"You can't do anything to stop it." His knees gave way and he fell back into his chair "Sam, please, help me."
The greatest mind of all time stuttered out, "You're not making any sense at all." Sam felt he had to bring it up. "Al, you need help and I think maybe a hospital."
"You're not listening to me." His voice found strength and he spoke like a commander again. "I have to go back."
It took a fraction of a second for Sam to figure out what Al was saying. He looked at his friend. "You can't be serious."
The intensity of Al's words and posture gave Sam his answer. "There's no other way. I have to go back. It's that simple."
Sam went back to rubbing his eyes. It gave him something to do. "Al, so far all I know is that you think Lothos is out to get all of us and that you can stop it. What the hell are you talking about? I can't help if I don't understand."
There was almost a wickedness in his gaze. "That's because you don't want to understand. You know what's happening. You feel it."
Sam felt a shockwave of something, but exactly what it was he couldn't comprehend. The sensation was a fraction of a second of pain so incendiary that it destroyed his ability to feel it. It was there, though, a quark of understanding, but not enough to explain what was happening to his friend, his mentor and this sad, sad man whose life was washing away like a child's sidewalk chalk rainbow after a summer storm.
Al touched Sam's hand. "You and Ziggy have to figure out how to get me back to Lothos and you have to do it quick. We don't have time to waste. We have to start right now."
Exploring Lothos, the evil that Al embodied, held no appeal. "It's two thirty. We can talk in the morning. I want to go back to sleep."
Pain overtook the Admiral and he cried out. "This is going to happen to all of us. Sam, you and Ziggy, you have to get the coordinates. Get me back to where I was!" He collapsed onto the floor into a ball, whimpering with pain and more fragile than a newborn fawn.
Everyone surrounded the struggling man. Beth looked at Sam and silently asked for help. The physicist easily picked Al up off the floor and carried the weary body back to his bedroom. He and Beth put Al back to bed and then relaxed as his breathing evened out and sleep eased the angry memories plaguing the hero. They spoke in whispers, "Beth, what was that all about?"
She ushered him out of the bedroom. "I have no idea. I don't know whether to believe him or whether this is part of the aftermath or if he's mentally ill."
Allie came up behind them. "Mom, you need to believe him."
There was something in the young girl's eyes that seemed to give credence to her words. Sam asked, "Why should we? What's going on?"
"You didn't believe me when I said Ziggy had me in the Imaging Chamber. This is the same thing. Dad knows and we have to believe him."
The tango was making Beth crazy, "What does he know? Allie, we're not getting any answers from your father or from you. Just these crazy notions that he has to go back. To what? Why are we all in danger? It makes no sense."
"He knows what he's asking for."
All along this weird ride, Sam doubted the unbelievable talk he heard and each time, the stranger the words, the more true they proved out. Then, there was that shudder down his spine earlier. "I'm going to the lab. I'm not sure of anything anymore, but too much of what Al and Allie told us has been right. I have to trust them and their intuition." Maybe it was time to own up to his own anxieties. "There's something that pulls inside me every time Al says this stuff. I don't know anymore if it's my own thoughts or if that part of him I have, those loose mesons and neurons we traded when we switched places. Something is keeping him like this and if he tells me he has to go back, then I have to trust him."
Verbena joined the debate. "But he's talking crazy. He isn't strong enough to go back into the Imaging Chamber."
He couldn't argue with her. The facts seemed apparent. The man had just collapsed during nothing more strenuous than a conversation. There was no way he could survive another meeting with Lothos. "I know, Verbena, but I owe it to him to try. Maybe I can go back instead."
"Uncle Sam, it has to be Dad. He's the one they want."
"Why, Allie?"
The answer seemed simple to her, even if she didn't understand it completely, "Because he remembers everything and you don't."
"You think Lothos is still a threat to us?"
She didn't have facts to back her up. All she knew was that Lothos was still out there waiting for the right moment to destroy Quantum Leap. "It will start with one of us and end with Dad. He'll be the one who'll watch it all happen."
Nothing else needed saying. Sam squeezed Beth's hand, gave Allie a quick kiss on her forehead and walked out. Beth followed him out of the bedroom toward the front door. "Where are you going, Sam?"
"Where else? The lab. I have to figure out a way to get Al back there again."
Though hurt, disfigured and mentally ill, Beth had her husband and she'd take him like that over having him dead. "You're going to kill him. Can't you see that?"
"If Lothos wants us dead, then we don't have a chance unless we strike first." He laughed at hearing the words. "Strike first - I sound like a military man. Wonder where I learned to think like that?" Beth wasn't amused. Sam continued, "I have to trust Al's instincts. They've proven right too many times and if he's right this time, then it could be one of your girls that gets hurt next, your girls, my son. I have to try it his way."
Sam left the Calavicci apartment and made his way toward the lab. The yawn he stifled reminded him of the hour, but he continued on. The lights automatically adjusted when he entered. Ziggy spoke first, "I see the Admiral has finally realized his mission."
If Sam had something to throw it would have been heaved at the source of the voice. "If you know things, just tell me. How did you know something was up with Al?"
"An assumption, Dr Beckett. It isn't like you to come here in the middle of the night unless something unique has occurred."
It was a Homer Simpson moment, but Sam refrained from saying d'oh! Instead, he told Ziggy, "The Admiral wants us to design a program to take him back to Lothos. Can we do it?"
Sultry, sexy and coy, Ziggy opined, "Oh doctor, if only we could."
