October 20, 1998
Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico
"I heard the security alert. What the hell is going on?" Donna asked, as she careened into the control room. "Where's Al?" she asked.
"We have a problem, Dr. Eleese. Admiral Calavicci left me in charge here," Gushie said, close to twitching from nerves, she noticed.
"Where is he?" she asked warily.
He winced before he told her. "He left. To apprehend the man from the waiting room….uh….Leon Styles. He….uh….escaped."
"What?" she shrieked. "This is an UMBRA code DOD installation. Are you telling me someone just busted out of the waiting room like we were holding him in a phone booth?"
"I believe he attacked an MP and absconded with his firearm," Gushie said.
"Why would the MP be inside the waiting room? Where was Dr. Beeks?" she asked frantically.
"She left to get help. Mr. Styles was ...agitated upon arrival. She wanted to sedate him, before he hurt himself, but the staff…." he trailed off. Then he cleared his throat. "The MP went in to secure the room until Dr. Beeks returned."
"He's outside the facility? Is that what you're telling me? How did he get out? It took me three months to find my way around in here."
"Uh….the Admiral told him how to get out. And I gave him my car," he added sheepishly.
"I don't believe this. Why? Why?" she asked.
"Because to everyone else out there," he gestured to the ceiling, but she knew he meant outside the project, "Mr. Styles looks like Dr. Beckett. Harming him in any way could harm Dr. Beckett. If he's killed, Dr. Beckett won't ever be able to return."
In her panic, she had briefly forgotten those facts. At least Al had had enough sense to protect Sam's wellbeing. "So what is Al doing? Conducting a man hunt single handedly?" She had meant it sarcastically.
Gushie offered only the truth. "Yes, he is. I was concerned for his welfare as well, but he's wearing a bullet proof vest. He was afraid if anyone else was involved, the risks were too high that Dr. Beckett...or his aura anyway….would be killed. He told me after everything Dr. Beckett has risked all this time, it was the least he could do."
Her worry ratcheted up a notch, now concerned too for Al's wellbeing. "What does Ziggy have?"
"Dr. Beckett has leaped into a man named Leon Styles. It is 1958 in Oklahoma. Mr. Styles was on the run from the law after having...uh...murdered eight women-"
"Oh my God," she breathed, all at once absorbing the true danger of the situation.
"He is currently, and by he, I mean Dr. Beckett, is holding a mother and daughter hostage in their home. Ziggy believes Mr. Styles was killed when he tried to surrender to the police."
"Ziggy, are you telling us Dr. Beckett is there to save a serial killer from being killed by police? Is this mistaken identity or something?" Donna asked, finding it difficult to believe.
"Mr. Styles is guilty, Dr. Eleese," Ziggy answered.
"So do you accept that your hypothesis isn't logical?" she countered.
"I am still processing information, and I will update when necessary," Ziggy replied.
She rolled her eyes, then turned back to Gushie. "So what about Sam? If Al's not here…"
"Uh….Admiral Calavicci directed me to adjust the computer so that I am synchronized with Dr. Beckett's brain waves," Gushie replied. "Remember? We sort of had this as a backup plan, way back in the day, right around the time Admiral Calavicci was fired."
"But you could never get it to work! All of a sudden, now this is the plan?" she asked, flabbergasted.
Gushie looked apologetically at her. "It's the best plan we have. I managed to get it working, sort of. I don't know how glitchy it's going to be. All we can do is try."
"The only alternative to Dr. Gushman is you, Dr. Eleese. And we are all acutely aware of why that is not truly a viable alternative," Ziggy said, almost in condescension.
Gushie watched her face pale at the thought. No, she was not an alternative. The absolute last thing Sam needed at that moment, as he was holding a crazy man's hostages and waiting for death, was that he was also married to her, and all the complicated baggage those ideas would unpack.
"Al is chasing an armed killer with a tranquilizer gun?" she asked, suddenly understanding what Al was facing.
"It is the only way to ensure that Dr. Beckett isn't harmed," Gushie said, less nervous and more serious now.
"What do you need me to do?" she asked, realizing all this freaking out wouldn't help the situation.
"Just run the computer while I'm in the imaging chamber with Dr. Beckett. It should be pretty straightforward, but you, know, just in case," he said.
She felt an insane flash of jealousy, that Gushie was going to talk to her husband, after all this time. She pushed it down, arguing with herself for being so petty in a situation of life and death. Oh, why was it always life and death? She lamented.
}QL{
"Dr. Beckett changed history, and now the child in the house is killed in the crossfire. He is in the process of getting her released," Gushie told her.
She could see the data scrolling by, fascinated at how it morphed before her eyes, as time was altered in real time. Quantum physics, she thought, dictated that the past, present, and future all coexisted in the same plane. This was a logical deduction, that she would see changes made in the present affecting the past. But it never failed to awe her, that all those esoteric theories were proven true, here, while they watched.
"But now the sheriff storms the house, and Mr. Styles is killed inside Carol Pruitt's home, instead of outside," he added.
"You mean Sam, Gushie. Sam is there. Styles is out running around in Albuquerque," she said stiffly.
"R-right," he admitted sheepishly. "Don't worry, though. He had a plan. He's letting the girl go. He just has to stall for time until Admiral Calavicci can get Mr. Styles back here."
"Wait….what?" she said, as the panel in front of her started going haywire. "Ziggy, what's going on?" she asked.
Gushie stepped in between her and the console, trying to make sense of the readout. "Oh, dear." He offered no other explanation.
"What, Gushie?" she asked, clearly frustrated.
"Ziggy's having trouble computing the altered probability matrix. It seems Dr. Beckett told Carol Pruitt the truth. That he's not really Leon Styles. That he's a time traveler. Ziggy always predicts armageddon when that seems to come into play." He giggled nervously.
"But he's never done that before….has he? Psychic divination aside?" she asked.
"Not that I recall," he muttered. "Ziggy can't postulate with that variable thrown in."
}QL{
She knew Al was hurt, from the way that Gushie was flustered when he came back to the control room. "Mr. Styles is out cold, in the waiting room. Admiral Calavicci is in the imaging chamber with Dr. Beckett," he stated plainly.
"He's hurt, Gushie. What the hell happened?" she asked tartly.
"I believe Mr. Styles shot him," Gushie blurted out nervously. Before Donna could even open her mouth to protest, he added, "Dr. Beeks is standing by. He almost shot me when I suggested he get medical attention before he went back in. He said Dr. Beckett is running out of time."
Sick with worry for both of them, she complained, "He's not exactly a young man, Gushie, although he would kill me if he knew I thought that let alone told you that."
"At worst, he probably has some bruises or possibly some broken ribs." She didn't like how Gushie made it seem like two or three broken ribs were like a scraped knee, but, she knew even if he were bleeding out, no one, including her, could keep him from helping Sam.
So she waited, very impatiently, for the leap to tick down to the wire. Sam leaped. Gushie had said the woman Sam had told the truth about his time traveler status had been the one to accomplish the mission goal, something Ziggy had yet again misfired on. Styles' life, in the end, had not been quite so valuable, considering his murderous ways. But the man who had once killed Styles in a fit of rage and grief over his own daughter's death, now did not. His career, and the rest of his life, had been spared.
Donna waited at the edge of the ramp, watching for Al as soon as he emerged. The pale whiteness of his face stood stark contrast to his black leather jacket. His brow was pinched and furrowed with pain, and he held his arms around his midsection tightly. "Get Dr. Beeks now, Gushie," she ordered, as Al stumbled down the steps into her arms. She heard his sharp intake of breath when she made contact.
"Easy, Al. I didn't mean to hurt you," she soothed.
"I think I may have a broken rib….or two," he hissed out through tightly clamped lips.
"Verbena's coming," she said softly. "He said exactly who he was, and he still leaped. Remember that hypothesis? I think it's safe to say that probably isn't valid any more. Not that I'm advocating him telling every person he meets in the past that he's a time traveler. But if the situation warrants...at least, maybe, now he has a chance."
Al nodded, his breathing labored. She worried, vaguely, if somehow he had punctured his lung. She must have been mumbling aloud and not realized it, because he answered her, "No, I don't think so. I've broken my ribs once before...or the Viet Cong did. Not punctured then. Feels same now."
She shut her eyes, imaging him as a young man, prisoner of war, beaten with broken ribs, in the jungle. It was a crazy, disparate thought, but one she couldn't shake. He held on for all that, only to find, what he had been fighting for all along had been long gone. "It's ok, Al," she said tenderly.
"Sam's ok. It was….touch and go there, for a while….but he's ok," he struggled to say.
"I never doubted it for a minute, Al. He had you looking out for him," she said, a sweet smile softening her worried face.
February 17, 1995
Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico
Donna dances with Al, back and forth aside the piano. Sam does a Jerry Lee Lewis, standing on the stool to finish. Al swings her into Sam's arms, and she falls across his lap as he pounds the last notes.
She is breathless from laughing, hugging him tightly. "How about some Beatles, Dr. Beckett, when you feel like playing again," Tina says. She winks at Al as she passes.
"Why did Tina wink at Al?" Donna whispers to Sam.
"I think because she knows he's divorcing Maxine," Sam whispers back. She rests her chin on Sam's shoulder, wondering not for the first time, why anyone who had been divorced even twice would continue to marry. Sometimes it seemed Al was intentionally setting himself up to fail. She never understood why.
She has seen Al crumble when a marriage has failed, at least twice before. In 1980, when his second marriage failed, and in 1988, with his third. She knows he divorced Sharon in 1993, but, strangely enough, he had been all right after that. She wondered how this one would go.
They stand, Sam's arm still wrapped around her waist. She remembers being frightened, years ago, about what would happen if she married Sam and then the marriage failed. He had convinced her to trust him, to have faith. She knows now what a foolish fear that had been.
But the same nagging worry that eats at her is still there. It wasn't divorce. It was the ever approaching completion of this project. Ten years, he had told her in 1985. His estimates were correct. They were close. His parallel hybrid computer, as well as the neuralogic hologram, that had earned him his Nobel Prize in 1988, were completed. The imaging chamber would be complete by the end of the month. Then the accelerator. After that, it was essentially complete. He is still writing the retrieval program, she knows.
There is almost no time left, she thinks. Forever has now shrunk to a matter of months, maybe weeks. She cannot dwell on this thought for very long, as it completely devastates her when she does. She refuses to be sad about losing him while he is still here. Instead, she chooses to live each day as close to him as she can, laugh with him and love him as much as she can, so she will have no regrets, when all that is left behind is a small part of all that he is.