Bad, a quantum leap fanfic

September 22, 1998

Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico

"Is it true?" she asked, almost out of breath.

"Yes. Lee Harvey Oswald in the waiting room," Al said flatly.

"From when? When is Sam?" she asked.

"Ziggy's having a hell of a time. Best bet right now is 1957, from what it looks like. I'm on my way in," he said, reaching for the handlink.

She was worried, a cold dread that filled her up and made her shiver. But she steeled herself, focused, knowing she would have to find time later to come apart. When Al came back, she knew her instincts had been right.

A meeting in the conference room, in the midst of a leap, was a rare thing. In over a hundred different leaps, Donna could remember less than four. Al was running the meeting, and Ziggy's voicelink was projecting into the room as if she were in a seat at the table. Gushie, Dr. Beeks, and Tina sat around the table with Donna, where Al sat at the head. Two MP corporals guarded the door from the outside. Donna had been playing a game inside her head, trying to study Al as intently as she could, in the momentary flashes when he looked away, or at someone else, so he wouldn't notice. She wondered briefly, if he had a sixth sense, a feeling that she was watching him. Because dodging his dark, penetrating gaze got harder as the others talked.

"Four guards," Donna heard Al answer, to a question she had not heard. Four guards outside the waiting room, guarding a man who, sometime in his future, from his perspective in this place, was going to assassinate a U.S. president.

And her need to study Al, her inability to stop looking at him, was because, in all this time and all the myriad complications time traveling had thrust into their lives, she had never once seen Admiral Al Calavicci quite as frightened as he was at this moment. He was barking orders about security, information blackout, and all other kinds of things PQL had employed him for with his military and Department of Defense background. But underneath it, where someone who only knew him as well as Donna, and maybe Sam, if he were here, she saw a nagging fear that somehow, they were outdone here.

"Magnafluxed? Is that what you mean?" Dr. Beeks, said, correcting a flubbed word that Donna only half heard him say.

"Magna-whatever. Like what happened when Sam and I leaped together. He knows things only Oswald would know. And he said he leaped into March of 1963, but we didn't locate him until he was in 1957 in Japan. But he told me he had already leaped twice." He took a deep breath, pointing his cigar at Donna.

"Does Sam speak Russian?" Al asked.

"No," Donna said, shaking her head. "Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, and Portugese. No Russian."

"Well he knows it now. And he knows how to field strip an M1 in 25 seconds. How else could he know that?" Al insisted. "And when I talked to our guest, he knew my name. Part of Sam is in there, too."

"Does Ziggy have any hypothesis yet? At all?" Gushie asked, to Al.

"I prefer not to be referred to in the third person when I am actually present, Dr. Gushman," Ziggy chided, using Gushie's full name with singularity.

"Ziggy, not now," Al growled, putting the computer in its place.

"Everyone on the senior staff needs to review the information that's been distributed. There's a lot to digest, a lot of information to be sorted into facts and theories. What is in front of you is a dossier of facts. I know not everyone here is expertly versed in assassination lore. Please get up to speed as soon as possible. This is the first time Sam has leaped into an actual historical figure of consequence, something that could have far reaching effects into our own time. We can't risk changing the timeline haphazardly because we are ignorant, people," he finished, drumming his fingers hard against the table top.

Everyone responded in kind, focusing on the papers set before them. Donna was still worried, seeing very easily how Al was disguising his fear by taking charge. Admiral voice, Donna called it. He allowed her to refer to it that way, because of the friendship that had developed over the years.

"The most probable reason for the leap, at this current juncture, is to determine if a conspiracy played a part in Kennedy's assassination, and the nature of said conspiracy. There is a possibility as well, that if such said conspiracy is uncovered, that it may be derailed. It would explain why Dr. Beckett leaped into 1957," Ziggy said.

"So he's not supposed to keep Kennedy from being shot?" Tina asked, twirling a thick lock of red hair around her finger as she spoke. Of all the people seated around the table, Tina was the only one too young to remember where she was when Kennedy was shot, having not been born yet.

"We've discussed this before," Donna interjected, feeling the urge to speak. "Dr. Beckett cannot affect change in significant historical events. The quantum fallout could create a temporal paradox that traps him in time, erases this project and all of its accomplishments from existence. That cannot be his objective," she insisted.

Al looked at her, briefly opening his mouth as if to speak, then stopping.

"That may not be correct, Dr. Eleese," Ziggy said.

"Who decides?" Al asked sharply. And continued as he got nothing but blank stares. "Who decided John F. Kennedy is too important to save? And Tom Stratton isn't? Maybe Ziggy is right!"

Donna understood the dark pain in his eyes when he asked. But she continued, emotionless, to prove her point. "You know nothing changed when Tom Stratton and his baby survived. Nothing major anyway. The color shirt you wore to my wedding is an insignificant change, correct? Imagine just one tangent, if Kennedy lived. He's re-elected in 1964. And say whatever balance of power existed in Congress at the time couldn't get the Civil Rights Act passed. LBJ was better at swaying people than JFK was, that's a fact. When is it passed? Is it ever passed? What happens to Martin Luther King?" She watched slowly as she spoke, the faces around the table grew serious, their minds only barely grasping the ideas she was conveying. "And that's just one effect. Would we have tried so hard to get to the moon, if we as a nation weren't trying to honor Kennedy in that way? What happens to you, Admiral, if you weren't chosen for the space program? No project Star Bright. And subsequently, no project Quantum Leap."

She grabbed her glass of water, noticing how her hand shook when she brought it to her mouth. She saw Al, nodding his understanding. She could almost hear what he would have said if they were alone. Nicely done, Donna. He liked being challenged, when it came to ideas, despite his stubborn streak.

"But for now, we just don't know. So we're monitoring. Be prepared to be called back for another meeting when I return from the imaging chamber. Dismissed."

Donna lingered, watching the subtle change as Al's shoulders sagged, and the worry returned to his face. She looked away when he glanced at her, and turned to exit.

"Is my shirt buttoned wrong or something?" he asked her.

"What?" she asked, spinning.

"You were staring. I thought maybe I'd spilled coffee on myself or something," he teased, but the smile was thin.

"You're more worried than you're letting on. You saw something that scared you, when you found him, didn't you?" she asked pointedly.

He glanced back and forth, to ensure they were alone. "I've seen him before, magna-foozled-"

"Magnafluxed," she corrected.

"With me, and with Jack Stone. Those we could explain. He was talking like Oswald. Not Sam. Sometimes Sam was there, sometimes Oswald. He did things, said things Sam would never do, ever, no matter how swiss cheesed he was. There's no explanation, other than he has some Oswald mixed in there."

"Oswald is a psychopath, Al," she exclaimed. "Sam's scared too, isn't he?"

"Of course he is. He's not sure he has the strength to keep Oswald in check. I tried to give him the usual pep talk, but he may have noticed I wasn't quite so adamantly sure this time."

"Stay with him, as much as you can," she pleaded. "He needs you, Al."

"Where else am I gonna go?" he said, forcing the lightness into his voice. And turned to walk away, before she could see how tight his smile was as he walked away.

September 23, 1998

Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico

Donna stayed in the control room with Gushie, for once in agreement with Al that she should stay. Al had gone into the imaging chamber again, returning with more of the same troubling news. This time Al had watched Sam at work in the radar bubble, tracking the spy plane. He ate lunch standing at his desk, swigged down a glass of iced coffee, and went right back in without saying another word.

The usual one-sided chatter commenced, piped through the voicelink from the imaging chamber. She thought at first that maybe Sam was a little less Oswald-like, since Al seemed to be making crude jokes, but it took only a few seconds to realize his voice wasn't quite right. He was forcing that nonchalant ribbing, trying to pretend that Sam was ok. Push through, she thought. It was a strategy, she thought, although how effective she had yet to see.

"I see it, Ziggy, I see," Gushie said quietly, as the lights on the console indicated that history was changing, with the skewed probability matrices calculating almost second by second.

"Any idea?" she asked.

"I'm still waiting for the full computations to finish," he said.

She saw a name, Sargent Lopez, and Ziggy's hypothesis that Sam was in some way there to save the man from being killed. She read, blocking out Al's chatter as she did so.

"Gushie, tell Ziggy I need a way to get through to Sam!" Al yelled, breaking into her concentration.

"He can't hear Al?" she asked, softly, as Gushie yelled back.

"Quantum Theory," he blurted, repeating what Ziggy had flashed in front of him.

"Ask him the four basic principles! Define the Pauli exclusion principle!" Donna yelled to him, and Gushie repeated over the voicelink. She understood why only Gushie could communicate with Al in the imaging chamber, but it was frustrating when they needed to relay information quickly.

"What is the Pauli exclusion principle?" Gushie asked her, confused.

"The theory behind the Quantum Leap accelerator. Don't ask me to explain it better, because I can't. Sam understands it. He's explained it to me, but he hits a level where my brain stops processing at a certain point," she said. "Did it work?" she asked.

"Neuron lock disengaged. Dr. Beckett leaped," Gushie said.

"Waiting room?" she asked, waiting for him to check. The level of security required for this gave access to only Al this time. They were left to use the monitor when Al was elsewhere.

"I believe it's still Oswald," Gushie said. They both saw Sam when they looked at the figure on the screen. Donna avoided this part whenever she could, as watching who appeared to be Sam acting un-Sam-like was disquieting. She knew why Gushie thought so. The stance, hands crossed in front of him uncomfortably, that smug, twitchy smile.

"Why is he still in Oswald? And there's no time interval in between. What is going on?" Donna asked herself, out loud.

"What the hell happened, Gushie?" Al called.

"Dr. Beckett leaped to 1959, still Oswald." They both heard the beeping from the handlink, as Al opened the door to the imaging chamber without a pause in the action. This time it was brief, and Al signaled that he was going back to the waiting room to talk to Oswald again.

Then Al called the second meeting with senior staff.

"I need to be ready at a moment's notice, so I'm talking, you are all listening, capiche?" Al started. Nods affirmed his demand.

"This is what we know. We have proof that the photo of Oswald with the rifle, the one that was supposedly faked, was real. Sam was there, in Oswald's aura, when Marina took the picture. No one from the KGB contacted Oswald while he was stationed in Japan. Sam did, however, prevent Oswald from killing a Sergeant Lopez, which did change history. Ziggy believes that was a secondary objective."

Al took a deep breath, then continued, in a slightly softer tone. "Every time I talk to Dr. Beckett he is less in control. Every time I converse with our visitor in the waiting room, he knows a little more about quantum physics than Oswald could ever dream of knowing. We need a plan, some type of solution to the problem of separating Sam and Oswald, so he stops leaping around in Oswald's life. A reason would be helpful as well. Ziggy, that part is yours," he said, the last sentence louder and directed to the ceiling. "Dismissed."

Donna was hesitant to retreat to her office, when everyone was keyed up on high alert. But in terms of quantum physics, she was the current expert, considering Sam was gone. Solving the problem was her responsibility, albeit one she shared with Ziggy. Ziggy was fond of reminding her that she was a hybrid computer, not a quantum physicist, even if she had been programmed by Dr. Beckett. Donna was comfortable in her expertise, but she also knew that the gap between her expertise and Sam's was enormous, a gap she was unsure she could bridge. She understood his theories to a point, but struggled with his applications of those theories. Whenever they had discussions, there would come a point where Sam would just talk too quickly, spewing ideas faster than her brain could process. And he had a very difficult time explaining his theories to others. Donna had explained it to Al once, as those ideas being so obvious and fundamental that he couldn't break it down into simpler terms. It was like asking him to define the word 'is.'

October 6, 1985

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

They are somber and silent, as they stand on the glass, the wreck of the U.S.S. Arizona visible under the ocean water. She reads the inscription on the plaque, as he wanders behind her. She knows his brother is on his mind, is always on his mind, when he hears and sees symbols of the sacrifice of the military for the country's freedom. She has heard him say before, when referencing World War II, how different it was than Vietnam.

The men who died in World War II, some of them forever entombed in the cold waters beneath them, had died to save the world from evil and tyranny. They were heroes in their own right, honorable in every way. Vietnam was the United States' black eye. Picking a fight that wasn't necessary, staying too long, losing too much for a cause that was, in the end, unjust. But a death was a death, loss was loss, and pain was pain. His eyes are no different than the eyes of any other person, regarding the remnants of this tragedy.

For once today, even Katie is silent. There is no sound here, aside from the soughing of the wind, and the placid lapping of the waves.

It is hours before they are in a place where Sam feels like talking again. They are hand in hand on the sidewalk, Katie and Jim arguing a small distance behind them. He speaks first. "What would have happened, do you think, if Roosevelt knew what the Japanese were planning? That he knew, and the military was prepared?"

She ponders this thought. "We would have saved over 2000 military casualties. Our entire Pacific fleet."

"Right," he says, animation returning to his voice. "Maybe the war would have ended before 1945. Maybe we wouldn't have had to drop the atomic bombs. Maybe the Allies could have shut down the death camps. How many millions of people could have been saved? If only someone could have warned him."

She feels the cold trickle of fear she has come to associate with this kind of talk. "The world we live in now would be so different we wouldn't recognize it.," she says, trying to hide her fear.

"But we wouldn't know it was different, would we? We would just wake up in that world, thinking it had always been that way. It's quantum physics, Donna. Affect particles in the present, they affect the same particles in the past." He is feverish in his intensity, and she knows his mind is working so fast she is surprised that he can slow it down enough that he can converse with her while he's thinking.

"So every day I wake up, maybe someone has completely changed history overnight, and I just go with the flow? Seems so bizarre," she says, shivering involuntarily in the balmy air.

"Unless…." He stops speaking, as she knows now his mouth can't keep up. "Unless there was a way to track it. Outside its normal quantum state. If there was a way to imprint the quantum signatures in a database somehow…."

He runs ahead of her, anxious to get to the car, so that he can get what he is thinking recorded somewhere else other than just his mind. The foundation of what he was saying is sound, and actually makes sense with her knowledge applied. He is bridging the gap somehow, between the theoretical, which she understands, and the practical, which she, limited as she is, cannot fathom.

She realizes he has completely left her, as Katie and Jim come up from behind her. "What happened?" Katie asks.

"He was thinking," Donna says plainly, knowing his sister of all people would understand what she meant.

"Oh boy," she says, rolling her eyes.

"What?" Jim asks, confused.

"You thought the magazine was amazing. When we get home, ask him to explain why he needed to get home so fast." She makes a gesture, both hands with all the fingers pressed together at her temples, then splayed out wide, with a shushing sound meant to indicate an explosion. "Did you understand at least some of it?" Katie asks, knowing her background.

"A little," she admits. "But I can only go so far. The rest of that world is his alone." She means it to be light-hearted, teasing, the same way Katie speaks. But she can hear it anyway, her unease, even jealousy, that places the space between them.

October 6, 1985

Halawa, Hawaii

When they return, Sam retreats into a corner and scribbles on a notepad. Donna hears Katie tell Jim it reminds her of the brain injury patients at the naval hospital that she volunteers at. Donna knows to let him work, instances like this he is just thinking faster than his vocal processors could ever work. Donna hears Thelma rebuke him, saying, "Sam, you're on vacation. Can't you just leave work at home for five days?"

He doesn't acknowledge that she has spoken. She throws up her hands in exasperation, obviously having witnessed this type of behavior before.

With Sam, there is no leaving work at work. The fine line between life and work becomes so blurred at times it is non-existent. She recalls an old expression about loving your occupation and never having to work. She thinks, sometimes, it goes the other way too. Love your occupation so much, and it becomes your life. It can in fact, at times, take your life from you.

It isn't until late at night, when he has crept back into her room, that he speaks to her again. "I'm sorry," he says.

It hurts, but she tells him, "I've known you for a long time, Sam. Don't apologize for being who you are. I love you. All of you. Even the stuff that drives me crazy, ok?"

He gazes at her in the dark, his eyes adoring. He kisses her, and she forgets the minor transgression. She is pleasantly exhausted, falling asleep, when she tells him to retreat back to the couch before he is sound asleep too, and upsets his mother. He lingers a moment too long, and they are both out cold.

Donna wakes at five am to harsh whispers in the pale dawn light. "Sam! Mom will be up in an hour!" She pokes him, like a little sister would, to wake her brother on Christmas morning. "I apologize, Donna," she says, over Sam's shoulder. Donna reaches to the foot of the bed for her crumpled nightgown, tossing Sam his pajama pants at the same time.

She watches him shoo his sister out with a backhanded flail, whispering roughly, "Come on, I have to get dressed."

She winks, whispering back, "You owe me one, Sam."

He pulls on his pants as she shifts the nightgown over her head. "Your sister is the sweetest thing, Sam. She really looks up to you, still."

He sits still only for a second. "She looked up to my brother. I was the middle child while we were growing up. Once he was gone, so was I. That's why she ran off and got married when she was 17."

In everything, even casual conversations and observations, the pain rears its head. He is so completely unhealed on the inside, he has no peace from the memories. She remembers Katie's words on the beach, about the peace she saw when Sam was with her. Her arms were only a brief respite from the pain she sees again right now.

The pain that is driving him to find a way to do what it is he feels he must. To complete the visions he has scribbled on paper, that only he understands. That will someday take him away from her.

"Come on!" she hears Katie hiss through the open door, then sees a hand reach in and grab Sam's arm and pull him out of Donna's room.

September 23, 1998

Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico

So she struggled with the calculations, and she fretted over the disparate views Ziggy held about the assassination. She was patient, but inside frustrated, because she knew she was correct. Ziggy had been wrong more than she had been right, although Donna would never have told the computer that, especially if she ever wanted to sleep peacefully again. She always chalked it up to secondary objectives, success definitions, things of that nature. Admit it, Ziggy. Sometimes you get it wrong. Like now.

She had given only one small scenario of the changes causing temporal uncertainty. She had to believe that Whoever was leaping Sam around in time would protect the timeline that needed to be protected, or at least show them what they needed to do to achieve the desired outcome. She had enough faith not to worry.

What she was worried about, to the point of distraction, was not that Sam would prevent the assassination. She was worried that he would still be in Oswald's aura, with Oswald in control, when the president was shot. Sam would be completely destroyed if that came to pass.

Al racing past her door set her on her feet and following him. "What now?"

He looked back, his face pinched with worry. "He's still Oswald. He's in Russia. In October 1959."

She felt panic beating inside her stomach. "Oh no. Al, didn't Oswald attempt suicide then?" she asked, recalling the dossier she had read earlier.

"Yes," he said without expression. "And Ziggy thinks, for now, Sam needs to do everything just as Oswald did, so as not to disrupt the timeline."

"What?" she asked, aghast.

"Oswald didn't die, then. Sam won't die now," he affirmed.

"What if you're wrong?" she asked, rubbing her hand across the base of her throat.

He didn't answer, but she saw it on his face. He was afraid, horrified to the point of feeling sick, that he would have to watch Sam slit his own wrist. He stared, still for a moment, and continued on.

September 24, 1998

Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico

"The pieces of Dr. Beckett and Oswald that were ripped apart are trying to reconverge. A type of neuronal osmosis. I believe this is why Dr. Beckett continues to leap throughout Oswald's life," Ziggy proclaimed to the group around the table.

"So there has to be a way to correct that, right?" Al asked the computer.

"I have the capability to run a DNA typing that will identify the mesons from Oswald that are occupying Dr. Beckett's mind," Ziggy announced.

Donna stood, her chair screeching backward as she did so in her haste. "No, Ziggy! I know what you're thinking and it won't work!"

At Al's bewildered expression, Donna continued, gesticulating wildly. "Ziggy, do you think programming the accelerator with Oswald's DNA, and putting Oswald into the accelerator is going to work?"

"I would not have suggested it, had I not believed it was a workable solution," Ziggy said, almost pouting.

"If Oswald were here, completely, it might. But he's not! Part of him, most of him, is in the past with Sam. Mesons by themselves could be transferred. But there's more involved here than just mesons," she yelled, her focus intense.

"Well then what do we do?" Al asked.

"I don't know!" she shouted, throwing her hands up in the air. "I'm just a quantum physicist. Sam is a medical doctor. He understands mesons in the human brain. He could figure it out, but he's not here. Once again, the same old catch 22. Sam's best hope is himself, and he's the last person who can help him, especially now."

"But it might work?" Al asked.

"Why would you take the chance?" she asked, emphasizing each word as it left her lips.

"Because we are out of options. Sam leaped out of Russia a second before I almost had to sit with him while he attempted suicide. He needs out of this loser's life before he does some real damage."

"What if this makes it worse?" she asked, the tension shaking her voice. "He walked right through you and didn't know you were there. What if it gets so bad that he completely loses awareness of you?"

Al was torn, she could tell. But being in command like he had been in his past military life meant making life or death decisions on the fly, with the information you had on hand at the time. "Ziggy, what are the odds?" he asked.

"Fifty-three point five that the procedure will restore Dr. Beckett's mesons to his own brain," she intoned.

Al gave her a look that was as close to an apology she thought she would ever get. "Then let's get Oswald into the accelerator. Donna, we're going to need your help."

She closed her eyes, breathing for a second, knowing when she had been overruled. Defiantly, she called out, "Ziggy, what are the odds that you're wrong?"

"Less than me being right, Dr. Eleese," Ziggy said smugly.

While on any given day, a chance to rub the truth in the smug, electronic face of the computer was a rare treat, she hoped, for Sam's sake, that this time, Donna herself would be proven wrong.

September 25, 1998

Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico

"Psychro what?" Al asked, finding himself seated at the same table again, the feeling a deja vu too difficult to shake.

"Psychro Synergized," Ziggy corrected, while Donna sat brooding with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"Speak plain English, Ziggy. You made it worse. Your plan, the one I told you was too risky and would probably not work, failed. Now there is so much Oswald in Sam that he's almost oblivious to Al!" She bit her lip, unable to control the emotions that had no place at this briefing.

"It was only slightly better than 50 percent, Doctor. Those are not good odds," Ziggy said, as if she had been the one to downplay the idea.

The look Al shot Donna across the table silenced any more angry retorts. It was stern, but apologetic. He at least understood that he should have listened to her, their resident quantum physics expert in Sam's absence. Before she had sat down Al had pulled her aside to apologize with his words. In one clear moment in April 1963 in Oswald's house, Sam had told him how pulling mesons with the accelerator also brought neural energy along with it. That was Sam's way of telling him he and Ziggy had screwed up.

"We can't undo it, as much as we may wish we could. We have to go forward from here," Al proclaimed, the guilt and regret evident to anyone who knew him well.

"He's now in 1963, and he is still Oswald. The last time was April, past the March leap that Dr. Beckett claims was the first leap," Gushie offered.

"Dr. Beckett is bouncing, correct? So why is Oswald still in the waiting room? Shouldn't the aura of Dr. Beckett's body be dormant when he's bouncing?" Tina asked.

"It's the same logic Ziggy used before. At least that part was right," Donna said, her voice saturated with caustic acid. "Their minds are still trying to reconnect. Only now, the balance is skewed the other way. Almost all of Oswald is in Sam's head. Oswald can spout string theory like he's reading the newspaper."

"So, what is it, exactly, that Sam is supposed to be accomplishing, Ziggy?" Al asked. "Every single instance where a conspiracy could have been uncovered, we learned just the opposite. That all the evidence points to Oswald as the lone gunman, acting without direction from anybody except his crazy mind."

"The probability matrices still favor the reasoning that Dr. Beckett is there to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy," Ziggy said flatly.

Donna just shook her head, back and forth, her face flushed with anger. "I don't care what your matrices say, there is no way Sam is supposed to change that. You are all wrong," she stressed. There was no need here to add, again, that she had been right before, but had been overruled.

Al covered his face with his hand, rubbing until his bushy eyebrows scrambled, the hairs pointing both up and down. "We have to find Dr. Beckett, Ziggy. You and Gushie start scanning in 1963. I have a bad feeling he's cruising closer and closer to November, and the farther along he travels, the harder it will be to reach him."

"There has to be a reason why he would be leaping like that," Donna insisted.

"You may be right, Donna. But my greatest concern right now is not whether he saves the president or not. It's that we won't reach him, and it'll be Sam pulling the trigger." Donna saw him tamp down the fear as he spoke, understanding how utterly destroyed Sam would be if he could not stop the Oswald part of himself in time.

September 26, 1998

Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico

"Another meeting?" Donna asked Al as he stood in her office doorway.

"No, I just need to talk to you," he said gravely. "He was in New Orleans in August of 1963. He keeps leaping closer. He had no idea I was there, Donna. He didn't see me, he couldn't hear me, or if he could, he ignored me. And then he leaped. Gushie's still searching. But we're running out of time." He stepped closer, a strange pleading quality to his voice that he achieved without losing his air of authority. "I know we, and by we I mean Ziggy and I, messed this up. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to watch Sam shoot the president and he won't know I'm there. And Ziggy can't decide what Sam's supposed to do."

"You have Lee Harvey Oswald in the waiting room, even if he's got a lot of Sam in him. Jack Ruby killed him before anyone could ask him anything. There was never any trial, never any justice. It all happened too fast. That kind of vacuum was filled with the need for conspiracy. How else could everything have been so utterly warped, history changed for all time, because of one lone, crazy wolf?" She folded her arms across the desk when she was done.

She saw the resolve take hold of him, replacing the uncertainty and fear. She had gotten through, at least she hoped. "Thank you," he said simply. At her raised eyebrow, he clarified, "For reminding me why we're here."

{QL}

Donna was in the control room, next to Gushie, after Al had rushed back into the imaging chamber. First she had run out to shut down the security grid, considering it appeared Al had fired a weapon in the waiting room. There was a huge hole in the ceiling, and a few exposed wires that would need to be patched. Now she stood here, trembling. Gushie had confirmed Al was in the Book Depository on November 22, 1963. No more time.

Gushie had cleared the room, so that he could utilize the voicelink from Ziggy. All she could hear was Al, panicked and almost babbling, trying to get Sam's attention. She prayed silently that Al could break through. "Quantum Physics. Uh...Four fundamentals, the Pauli exclusion principle….uh….supersymmetry," Gushie yelled, as Donna transferred the information as fast as her fingers could type.

Al was screaming, and Donna heard the unabashed anguish in his voice. Oh God, please, no, she prayed. Her mind flashed to a conversation she'd had with Sam, a common ask back then. Where were you when you heard? Sam on his father's tractor with him, she running out into the kitchen to see her mother in tears with the television on. "His father!" Donna screamed to Gushie. "Get him to focus on his father!"

She heard Al, repeating the story Sam had told her, near tears. Then she heard Al screaming again, and then crying.

"Ziggy says Dr. Beckett leaped," Gushie said sharply, disbelieving.

"Al's still in an active imaging chamber! How could he have leaped?" she asked.

"Close enough that Al's position wouldn't have been affected," Gushie said distractedly, as he typed at the controls. "Check the waiting room," Gushie instructed her.

She toggled the control, astounded as she heard Dr. Beeks already speaking. "Oswald's out. Dr. Beckett leaped into a secret service agent named Clint Hill."

She remembered the name, from Al's dossier. The agent shot while trying to pull Mrs. Kennedy back into the car, after she had scrambled in shock to retrieve the piece of her husband's skull Oswald's bullet had blown onto the trunk of the car. The agent whose body was pierced through completely with the bullet that eventually lodged itself in Jackie Kennedy's back. All those thoughts were in the process of swirling, when she felt the room wink out around her, like a power surge had killed the lights briefly. Only it wasn't the power, she knew. It was reality that had winked on and then off again. She wondered this time what Al would tell her was different, that all the rest of them now took for fact.

September 27, 1998

Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico

"I can't imagine how awful that was, Al," she said, handing him a cup of coffee she'd poured for him.

"Sam was always so obsessed with traveling to the past. Observing, remember?" Al said gently.

Ah, how that had gone awry, she thought. He continued. "Most of history is just one tragedy after another." He tsked, sipping at the hot drink. "But he did what he was supposed to do, according to Ziggy."

"Al, don't you think it's a little too convenient that Ziggy figures out what Sam was supposed to do after he's done it, most of the time?" Donna asked.

"Please don't start feuding with Ziggy over this. She did admit she was wrong, just maybe not to you," Al said.

"So what changed, Al? What don't I remember now?" she asked, a chill running up her spine.

"The original history, Oswald killed John Kennedy and his wife Jackie. Their children were sent to live with John's brother Robert, who, as you know, was assassinated in 1968. They were then sent to live with John's brother Ted. It appears to be the children most affected by Jackie's death."

So strange, she thought. It was like she was hearing a fictional tale. Jackie had lived, and although Robert had still been killed, Ted went on to serve as a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts. Jackie's continued existence changed the lives of her children, as well as other members of the Kennedy clan. Somewhere in there, God, Fate, Time, or Whoever had decided something in there was worth changing. "Anything weird here, Al?" she asked, knowing sometimes minute changes were detectable in the timeline.

"Ziggy was wonking out about John Jr, but I couldn't find anything that made any sense. His life worked out better, with his mother alive. Caroline too. I guess if there is a wrinkle, Ziggy will find it."

He took another long sip of his coffee. "He was very grateful that I reached him. Stopped him from pulling the trigger. That you reached him, even though he didn't know it was you."

"Some things he can change, and some he can't, right, Al? If he was supposed to save the president, he wouldn't have leaped right before, right?" she reminded him.

"I know. You were right. I won't make that mistake again, I promise," he said with a smile.

"Just have that conversation with Ziggy, please?" she smiled back.

November 10, 1985

Taos, Nex Mexico

"The next time he has to go to Congress for funding, they're going to refuse it," Sam tells her, as they drive back to her apartment. He is telling her about the death knells of his current job, working for Admiral Calavicci on Project Star Bright.

"So what will you do?" she asks.

"I have some residual interest from a few people on the committee about the holographic interface I proposed. You know, the neurological hologram?" he says.

She knows what he means, has heard him expunge on this topic sometimes for days at a time. "So what does that mean, for you?" She wants to say "for us," but she stops herself, afraid it will start a discussion she isn't prepared to have.

"It means I have funding, and a job in Taos, probably for another three years. But it also means Al gets cut loose," he adds.

"You can't work with him?" she asks, knowing how deeply Sam worries for his friend's wellbeing.

"It wouldn't be his project. I'd be working for someone else. I mean, technically, he's still active military. He's never officially retired, but if he casts his lot in with the rest of them instead of doing special duty at the Pentagon, he'll get some backwater post somewhere and fade into obscurity. I don't think he would do well in a situation like that."

She ponders all of that, sensing the tension emanating from him, and dreads what may come. "You could always teach, you know," she says.

He looks at her, his eyebrows high on his forehead. "No, I can't, Donna." She knows this too, the curse he thinks of his genius, that most things, even things so complex she cannot begin to understand, are so naturally inherent in his brain that he cannot explain to anyone else. He knows, but he cannot communicate what he knows.

After a lengthy lull, he says aloud, "I need to develop that hologram. None of the rest of it works without the hologram." She feels the perturbation permeate her when he speaks of this, his latest theory about time travel. He has worked calculations for the entire time she has been with him. She only knows where he is starting from, and cannot follow him any farther. He has a plan, and the knowledge to accompany it. He wants to build his time travel apparatus, an abstract thought that she has seen sketched in his notebooks. She has dreamed of this herself, talked to him about it. But the tangible possibility frightens her more than anything else ever has. She knows, despite all his reassurances to the contrary, this is the one thing that potentially matters more to him than she does.

In his current state of agitation, he seems oblivious to her discomfiture, something she is completely unaccustomed to. He becomes lost in his thoughts, to the point where she wonders if he has forgotten she is in the car with him.

Once inside, he takes her to bed. He is distracted, unattentive, even restless. She is still catching her breath, and he jumps up, pulling the covers from her without seeming to notice. He doesn't come back to bed until the middle of the night. She stays turned on her side, away from him. He falls asleep, not seeming to notice.

She wakes in the morning, and he is already showering. Sam has never upset her enough that she has shed tears, but she does, lying alone, the sheets tucked tightly under her arms. She fights to reign it in, wiping at the tears. Something inside her cracks, and she comes apart. She is broken, sobbing, curled into a fetal position when he finds her.

The scent of him is powerful and assaultingly close, fresh from the shower, his hair still wet and tousled. "What's wrong?" he asks, his hand against her cheek, swiping at her tears with his thumb. "Donna?" he calls again, then sits beside her on the bed.

This is the exact opposite of what she wants, to make him feel badly for having something he believes in so strongly that it nearly consumes him. But she can only tell him the truth. "I'm so scared. I don't know why, but it scares me. I'm afraid of losing you."

"I'm sorry," he says softly, lifting her up and into his arms. "I'm sorry that I hurt you," he whispers. "Sometimes it just takes over. The only way I can sleep is if I work it out on paper."

It is meant as comfort, but it doesn't help. "What happens when it's all done?" she asks.

He sighs, she senses his frustration. "That will take years. Maybe ten, I don't know. But a long time."

"So I have you for ten more years?" she asks, a sarcastic lilt to her voice.

He pulls her head off his shoulder, holding her face in his hands. "You have me forever." The love in his eyes is unmistakable. She only now understands why she had doodled hearts shot through with cupid's arrow when she was young. Her heart is wounded, tender, aching because she loves him as she does.

He leans into her, pressing her back against the pillows. He makes up for last night, she perceives. Her body rings with pleasure as he pants close to her ear. God, she loves him. Would you give this up, now, because of something that may happen ten years in the future? She knows she cannot. Not now, not ten years from now. He is imprinted on her heart, each line of his face burned into her memory for all time. "Sam," she whispers. "You're going to be late. And now you have to shower again."

He laughs, pulling her up with him. "No sense in wasting water. Come on." The water runs cold while she is still covered in soap, in his arms as he leans against the tile wall. "I feel a sick day coming on, how about you?" he says, as he shuts off the cold stream.

"I know. I think we should probably stay in bed all day, just to be safe," she teases.

"And they say I'm the genius," he teases back, and kisses her.

She realizes he has completely left her, as Katie and Jim come up from behind her. "What happened?" Katie asks.

"He was thinking," Donna says plainly, knowing his sister of all people would understand what she meant.

"Oh boy," she says, rolling her eyes.

"What?" Jim asks, confused.

Colors crash, collide in bloodshot eyes

October 16, 1985

Halawa, Hawaii

He doesn't acknowledge that she has spoken. She throws up her hands in exasperation, obviously having witnessed this type of behavior before.

It isn't until late at night, when he has crept back into her room, that he speaks to her again. "I'm sorry," he says.

It hurts, but she tells him, "I've known you for a long time, Sam. Don't apologize for being who you are. I love you. All of you. Even the stuff that drives me crazy, ok?"

Donna wakes at five am to the harsh whispers in the pale dawn light. "Sam! Mom will be up in an hour!" She pokes him, like a little sister would, to wake her brother on Christmas morning. "I apologize, Donna," she says, over Sam's shoulder. Donna reaches to the foot of the bed for her crumpled nightgown, tossing Sam his pajama pants at the same time.

She watches him shoo his sister out with a backhanded flail, whispering roughly, "Come on, I have to get dressed."

She winks, whispering back, "You owe me one, Sam."

He pulls on his pants as she shifts the nightgown over her head. "Your sister is the sweetest thing, Sam. She really looks up to you, still."

He sits still only for a second. "She looked up to my brother. I was the middle child while we were growing up. Once he was gone, so was I. That's why she ran off and got married when she was 17."

The pain that is driving him to find a way to do what it is he feels he must. To complete the visions he has scribbled on paper, that only he understands. That will someday take him away from her.

"Come on!" she hears Katie hiss through the open door, then sees a hand reach in and grab Sam's arm and pull him out of Donna's room.

And through the rain

September 23, 1998

Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico

Al racing past her door set her on her feet and following him. "What now?"

He looked back, his face pinched with worry. "He's still Oswald. He's in Russia. In October 1959."

She felt panic beating inside her stomach. "Oh no. Al, didn't Oswald attempt suicide then?" she asked, recalling the dossier she had read earlier.

"Yes," he said without expression. "And Ziggy thinks, for now, Sam needs to do everything just as Oswald did, so as not to disrupt the timeline."

"What?" she asked, aghast.

"Oswald didn't die, then. Sam won't die now," he affirmed.

"What if you're wrong?" she asked, rubbing her hand across the base of her throat.

If you tear yourself in two again

September 24, 1998

Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico

"So there has to be a way to correct that, right?" Al asked the computer.

"I have the capability to run a DNA typing that will identify the mesons from Oswald that are occupying Dr. Beckett's mind," Ziggy announced.

Donna stood, her chair flailing backward as she did so in her haste. "No, Ziggy! I know what you're thinking and it won't work!"

At Al's bewildered expression, Donna continued, gesticulating wildly. "Ziggy, do you think programming the accelerator with Oswald's DNA, and putting Oswald into the accelerator is going to work?"

"I would not have suggested it, had I not believed it was a workable solution," Ziggy said, almost pouting.

"Well then what do we do?" Al asked.

"But it might work?" Al asked.

"Why would you take the chance?" she asked, emphasizing each word as it left her lips.

"Because we are out of options. Sam leaped out of Russia a second before I almost had to sit with him while he attempted suicide. He needs out of this loser's life before he does some real damage."

"Fifty-three point five that the procedure will restore Dr. Beckett's mesons to his own brain," she intoned.

Al gave her a look that was as close to an apology she thought she would ever get. "Then let's get Oswald into the accelerator. Donna, we're going to need your help."

She closed her eyes, breathing for a second, knowing when she had been overruled. Defiantly, she called out, "Ziggy, what are the odds that you're wrong?"

"Less than me being right, Dr. Eleese," Ziggy said smugly.

While on any given day, a chance to rub the truth in the smug, electronic face of the computer was a rare treat, she hoped, for Sam's sake, that this time, Donna herself would be proven wrong.

Into the night