Interlude
Am I dead?
He was intact, whole, but outside of time, floating. He had been in this place hundreds of times. It was familiar. Like all things once familiar, they had faded and jumbled in his broken memory. And now even reality itself was shaded, layered and complex in a way it never had been before.
No, Sam.
He heard the voice, a voice he knew. Also familiar. There was almost a face he associated with the voice, and he knew this was a new development. He strained and concentrated, seeing the fuzzy outlines, unable to focus it to the pristine photograph that his memories had always been before.
Before?
Before you leaped.
Thousands of images flooded his brain. His life before he leaped. One version first, then another, and another. All the changes warped the memories of the past. He could see them all individually, like transparent shadow boxes on display. Stack them atop each other-this was his new life. One he had created from fragments rescued from the past. And even as he looked now, he could see them, together and separate.
Like Al, he thought. Because of Ziggy.
Al!
Is he still Al? Still the man I knew?
He is still the man who traded away the hours of his life to try and find you and bring you back. To help you while you were lost. The man who calls you his best friend. The man who sacrificed his freedom to help you save your brother. The man who knows what you gave up to help him. He is the man you know, minus his greatest pain.
The pain you took from him, with your selflessness.
He did more for me than I can ever repay, he lamented.
All he ever wanted in return was your friendship.
Beth!
Did I change his life?
He had retained that last flash. Al, talking to him from the imaging chamber. Beth was his wife. The woman he had been injured saving was Al's daughter.
You saved Al, and his daughter, and your brother. Hundreds of others, who begot hundreds more, because you saved them. Thousands of people, with different, better lives, people who lived instead of died. People with hope instead of despair. All because of you.
Hadn't he heard this before? He thought.
You didn't quite believe it before, did you?
He realized with a start, that he hadn't. Hadn't truly believed he was leaping himself around in time, until he did it, and talked to Beth.
There is only one more person who needs your help, Sam.
I don't understand.
Yes, you do. You forced it out of your memory, because it was too painful. But you can remember. If you choose.
The other voice, in the imaging chamber with Al.
Donna.
He knew for sure his whole body was here, wherever here was. Because every drop of his blood, every fiber of his being screamed with agony.
He remembered the pain from before, his memories flooding in like a tidal wave as he stood in the imaging chamber after switching places with Al. How he had nearly buckled from the blow. Now the wave was a tsunami, carrying with it flotsam and debris that weighed thousands of pounds, with enough power to blow him apart, steal his breath, and freeze his blood. Here he could see it all. Not just the memory of her he had forgotten. Everything. Every leap, every moment backwards and forwards and every ripple of consequence spreading out to infinity. It was white hot, like a supernova, searing his flesh and bleaching his bones.
The flash before, from the last place, was now a flashlight beam in a dark cave, filling his brain with light. He remembered it all, all together. One of those shadow boxes was him alone. The others, all the others, included her. Before, after, and during all coexisted in his mind for the first time. He thought of Nicole, Tamlyn, and Abigail. And then, juxtaposed, his wife Donna. Whatever residual feelings remained, shot through with ribbons of confusion, now all made sense somehow. That aching, gnawing loneliness that had permeated his being. The need for his love, his wife, muted into vague longings and needs of those others, those shadowy others that had never really known him. Not like her. No one had ever loved him, or knew him, like she did.
And the others-Peg, Tess, Alison, Diane, Rachel, Dana, Edie, Susan, Cissy, Lisa, Vanessa, ….Poor Maggie, tortured Alia. Each name brought an accompanying stream of memories, each memory adding another chop of the ax to his heart, until he felt almost cleaved open. To Lisa, hadn't he said she was committing adultery? He thought of the disdain he had felt for Al at that moment, knowing his friend had been involved with a married woman.
What right did he have?
My God, what have I done to her? How could she ever still love him, after how often, and how deeply, he had hurt her? His insides turned to ashes, blowing away in the wind of misery.
He had returned, briefly, had he not? The memory had never surfaced before, but here, it all was visible. Twelve hours. She had forgiven him, for forgetting her, almost before he could speak. He had asked her point blank, if he had ever done anything to hurt her.
Even then, she had maneuvered around the ask, not directly answering him.
There wasn't enough time for her to list them all….
She honestly forgave you, Sam. That is how much she loves you. She will wait for you until the last day of her life, if necessary. She gave you her life, her dreams, and the freedom to live yours. She is your last mission.
I don't understand.
Al would tell you, Sam. If he were here. She spends her life alone. She waited for you to return. Then she was utterly devastated when she believed you died. She never has children of her own, children she wanted to have with you. Sometimes broken hearts don't heal.
Physical pain, ripping through him like a mace and chain. He had felt this before, standing in the imaging chamber, after he had simul-leaped with Al. Al had asked him if he was all right, and he had felt like he had been hit with a wrecking ball, as the memories flooded back into him, the memories of how deeply he had failed her. Now it intensified, crushing the breath from his lungs and the strength from his body.
I never meant to hurt her.
She knows that, Sam. She loves you anyway.
I don't deserve it. I caused her more pain than anyone should ever have to endure.
Cold is the absence of heat.
Evil is the absence of good.
Your absence caused the pain. Your pain caused her pain. Love does this. Binds you to someone else so tightly their pain becomes yours. This is why she forgave you. She knows you feel this, because she feels it too. She was willing to endure anything, no matter how painful, how long a duration. She would still do absolutely anything you asked of her, except watch you suffer and not be able to help you.
How could she still love me?
Love is a gift, Sam. A miracle. Your worthiness is irrelevant. It was given. All you have to do is give it back.
But I didn't give it back. I changed history, because she was afraid that I would leave her, and I tried to show her that it was an irrational fear. I manipulated things so that we would be married, and then I left her anyway.
Why did you want to travel in time, Sam?
You asked me that before.
Answer with your heart this time, not your head.
To see my father again.
To save my brother.
To be with Donna again.
You accomplished all of that.
I don't remember...if any of that truly made anything better.
You gave her the opportunity to undo what you did. She still chose you. Twelve years. Twelve days. Twelve hours. Didn't matter.
Believing you died alone in that hospital, and not being able to touch you, or hold you, not being able to let you know that you weren't alone is what she regrets. She hated that Sam, not being able to let you know that all that time you were leaping, you weren't alone.
I died, didn't I?
Not exactly. You are not dead, Sam. I would know.
Why didn't I die?
Miracles happen all the time, Sam. No one really knows why, right? Although, sometimes...maybe we do.
Why me? The question encompassed it all, everything and every time he had ever asked and felt as if no one answered.
Because you cannot save Donna unless you live.
Take a look at me now
Well there's just an empty space
And there's nothing left here to remind me
Just the memory of your face
December 24, 1999
Stallion Springs, New Mexico
Christmas Eve.
It hadn't registered with her that it was Christmas Eve until this moment, and the night was almost gone.
The past two weeks had been a blur. Her hysteria in the imaging chamber, after they had returned...after…
Sam died, she said inside her head, feeling the wave of panic that roiled even now, her mind unable to wrap around the idea. Each moment she forced it to the surface, she felt the shock, just the same as if it were new. Her mind was allowing her to function by holding those thoughts at bay, not real if she chose not to acknowledge them.
In her extreme grief, she had become non-functional. There weren't enough allergy pills in her medicine cabinet, or the world, to get her to sleep. One night, an irrational thought of taking the whole bottle had surfaced. She wasn't suicidal. Just in so much pain the thought of going to sleep and never waking up seemed so attractive-a mental novocain that existed nowhere else. Instead of taking them, she'd called Verbena.
She'd made the house call in the middle of the night, offering heavy tranquilizers to calm her in her hysteria. Donna had been afraid to take it, worrying about dependency or worse. Verbena calmly explained the urge to take all those pills was worse than temporarily relying on stronger meds. Seven days after Sam's death, Donna had eaten nothing. A few cans of vegetable juice, a few glasses of skim milk. A milkshake or two left on the doorstep, probably by Beth. Liquids were all she could swallow without vomiting. She had lost 15 pounds in 7 days, from a frame that had no extra weight to lose. All this, Dr. Beeks meant to heal, starting with sleeping.
There had been a long awkward silence, when they both had realized, all 200 workers at Project Quantum Leap were now skipping in circles. The Project was essentially no longer functional. Sam was gone. No one would leap anywhere, especially that there was no working retrieval program. Losing someone else was not a possibility to the U.S. government.
After the holidays, Donna knew, Tina and Gushie were set to start dismantling the computer console. Al had argued to keep Ziggy online. Something Sam had created from scratch, one of his crowning achievements in a career cut short by tragedy. A multi-billion dollar memento, Admiral? Ziggy had chided.
Yes, damn it, Ziggy. I've earned it, haven't I? You, to keep me company? Is that so much to ask?
No, Admiral, it is not, Ziggy had replied, in one of the strangest tones Al had ever heard.
She hadn't gone back to the project, unable to look at anyone. Not only would she see their distraught faces, the misery that hung in the air as they all were about to part ways, but they would see evidence of her nervous breakdown, and she wanted no pity from anyone. She was tired of it, after all these years.
All kinds of questions floated in the uncertainty. They all had moved to the Middle of Nowhere, New Mexico for this project. Was there any reason to stay? She could sell her house, move back to Ohio, near her elderly mother. She was torn-both ready to run as fast as she could away from the house full of her husband's things, things that even after five years, smelled of him when she held them close, and fear that if she ran away too fast, she wouldn't take anything to remember him by. Things that may hurt to look at now, but that she may look back someday and wish she still had, once she felt better.
How would she ever feel better?
This was what Beth had felt, Donna knew, waiting in San Diego for two years after Al's plane had been shot down in Vietnam. Missing in action, but she had believed him dead. She had explained all this to Donna, long ago. Donna had sympathized then, not really able to comprehend the depth of her loss. Now Donna empathized, couldn't imagine how Beth had stayed in her house alone for two years, surrounded by everything that had reminded her of what she'd lost.
Would Al and Beth move away? Mary was almost done with high school, and she was the youngest. Once she went away to college, the Calaviccis could go anywhere. Al was essentially retired, and Beth could always find work somewhere as a nurse. They were her support system, had been for the past 15 years, since she had first met them. She couldn't ask them to stay somewhere just for her, or follow them around for the sake of herself?
Christmas Eve, she thought again. Way back, the holidays had always been special. Al's family had been Italian, and although he had grown up in an orphanage, he had kept traditions alive with his own family. Beth always cooked seafood on Christmas Eve, white fish, shrimp cocktail, stuffed clams. She remembered his smile, his pointing to the mistletoe, kissing her softly. Sam had taken Donna there while they were dating, after they were married. Sam missed his family, scattered to the winds-his sister and mother in Hawaii, his brother in San Diego, but being with Al's family had filled a hole. Sam and Al had always been close enough to be considered family.
After Sam had leaped back in time, Donna had still spent her holidays with Al and his family. Beth wouldn't hear of her spending the time alone, even though at times it made her so sad she felt like she was bringing them all down, moping around their house. She felt included, even cared for, and that had always served as a great comfort. She belonged with them, even without Sam or anything else.
This was the last one, she thought sadly. Only this year, there was nothing. Al's daughters were home, but the warm convivial atmosphere had been clouded with tragedy and sadness. Christmas had always been a time of joy. Now it was a sore reminder of their loss.
She paced up and down, restless, with nowhere else to go. She had turned down Beth's invitation, for the first time, afraid to show herself in such a state in front of their children.
Her eyes stopped on a shelf full of recordings Sam had made for her, long ago. Playing the piano and singing, songs she had at some point mentioned she liked. Sam had never forgotten anything, could play back every conversation they had ever had almost word for word. He had saved all the memories, and gave her the discs after he'd made them. When he was first missing, she played them all the time, to hear his voice, to feel comforted though she missed him terribly. As the years had progressed, she had done so less and less, finding that she cried more when she listened to them. They had begun tearing open wounds that she thought had healed, at least a little bit.
She knew now they had never truly healed, and now were all torn open again and bleeding. She saw her favorite, "Let It Be," by the Beatles. She put the music in, turned it up to full volume, and went onto the veranda to look at the stars. The sound of his voice, his hands on the piano, making the music he loved. She had teased him once, that he didn't have hobbies like normal people. If he had an interest in something, he had a doctorate in it. But that was ok. When he was passionate about something, it went all the way through to the center of him.
Most certainly how he had felt about her.
The night outside was cold in the winter desert, and she was wrapped in a heavy blanket. She barely felt the cold, rocking back and forth, crying so hard her chest hurt. Until her nose was so clogged she couldn't breathe, her throat raw and aching. When would she reach the end, where she had cried all the tears that were left inside of her?
She looked up to the sky, the names of the stars floating in her memory, all the words remembered in Sam's voice. She knew how far away each one was, having asked Ziggy hundreds of times while Sam was leaping about in time. She had found some peace in that, but now it was gone. He was nowhere any more. How far away was heaven, in light years?
The song was over, and all that was left was the sound of her sobbing, alone in the quiet desert night. The hours slid by, and still she cried. The skin on her cheeks burned from the saline, and her continual rubbing the wetness away with her hands.
She was looking up at the sky, and didn't see the flash of blue light as it filled her living room, then dissipated.
She screamed when the dark figure appeared in the doorway to the veranda, scuttling backwards like a crab to the edge in fearful defense. Screaming still, until the figure stepped forward into the moonlight, and she saw his face.
"Sam?' she asked breathlessly. I'm going crazy, she thought in a panic, grabbing her head hard. Had all that medication made her hallucinate? Or was she just going completely insane? "You're dead! You died….oh...god...I'm losing my mind," she shrieked over and over.
"Donna," she heard him say, gently, full of love.
It wasn't until she felt him grip her shoulders, pull her into his arms, that she realized he was real. "It's all right," he whispered over and over as she cried.
"Sam…" It was the only word she could form. She grabbed his shoulders, his back, squeezing him against her. She was afraid if she let go, he would disappear again. She had already cried herself dry, and raw, and still, a new torrent issued forth now as he held her against him. The deepest wellspring of tears, stored away for years and years, burst forth. Borne from every sleepless night, empty day, full of hopeless wishing and aching loneliness. Heavy grief and weightless relief.
"'I'm so sorry," he whispered into her hair, over the soft sound of her weeping. He held on, not letting go, for a very long time. The blanket she had wrapped loosely around herself had fallen away. He felt her begin to shiver in the still cold of the night. Where his hands touched her thin nightgown, he could feel the outline of her ribs on her back, the sharp protuberance of a once softly curved hip, the bony jabs of her shoulder and collarbone.
My God, he thought. What had happened to her? In a swift motion, he scooped her up in his arms, frightened instantly at how effortlessly he lifted her. It was like holding a small child. He felt terror wash down the inside of him. What if she was sick? What if something was deeply wrong? She would never have let Al tell you if it were…
He was moving her inside when he heard the voice. From the void. It wasn't loud enough to actually have been spoken aloud. Too soft to be his memory. He froze, and listened.
She thought you were dead, Sam. She lost her last hope, and gave up.
I need her to be all right.
You can save Donna, Sam. Live.
Tears burned in his eyes in the cold. He remembered Donna, nervous, worried, unable to eat. It had been rare, but he had seen it. When her mother had been sick, after her cat had died. When Danny had left her.
"How much do you weigh?" he asked, incongruously in the strange surreal moment. "How much weight did you lose?"
She reached around his neck tighter, murmuring against his chest through her tears, "I don't know. Verbena...was…"
"When is the last time you ate?" he demanded. She didn't answer.
He took her inside, flipping on the lightwitch and flinching slightly as the garishness of the light. The state of the house shocked him. Donna had always been neat and organized. Now there were piles of clothes on the floor, papers and books scattered in jagged piles across almost every table. Dirty glasses and tea cups piled on the table next to the sofa, which was covered in pillows and blankets in a crumpled mess. She gave up, he thought sharply.
He set her down gently on the sofa, able to at last see her face. Her skin was gray, deep dark bruise colored smudges underneath both eyes. Her cheekbones were sharper, over cheeks that had hollowed out. Easily 18 or 20 pounds less than he remembered her. Guilt stabbed through him, as he acknowledged this was what jumping into the accelerator like a petulant child had done to her.
She had to have seen it on his face, for she reached out, touched his cheek with a slim, cold hand. "Sam," she whispered. "You came back to me. You swore to me that you would. And now you did. It's all right." Her smile was beautiful, after so many tears. Sincerity, he knew. Just as quickly as she had before, she had absolved him of his role in her pain. Forgiven him the unforgivable.
He closed his eyes, feeling her fingers, then her lips, gently touching the tears as they cascaded down. "I'm so sorry," he said again, brokenly, "for everything."
Everything was a huge swath of things, too many to enumerate, but she didn't care. "You have nothing to be sorry for. I know you would never hurt me intentionally. Ever. I can see it in your eyes."
"I love you," he whispered, his eyes still closed, leaning his forehead against hers.
It had been the last thing he'd said to her, when she had been in the future with Al. Before she had believed she'd witnessed his death. Not believed, she thought. She had watched him stop breathing, heard the monitors beeping as his heart had stopped. He had died, but through some miracle she didn't understand, he was here again, holding her in his arms. She grabbed him fiercely, crushing him against her, another bout of tears shaking her.
Donna missed the bright, twinkling star overhead whose bright beam shown down into the desert just beyond the edge of the veranda. Sam had seen it once before, long ago, and mistaken it for an optical illusion. Now he was sure what it was. He looked up, his eyes full of tears, and thanked God, for bringing him home.
When she finally quieted in his arms, he pulled her back, taking her face in his hands. She found her voice. "You died. I was with Al. In the imaging chamber. You stopped breathing...and Ziggy shut down...and…"
"I leaped, Donna. Right before…"
"To where? Ziggy lost contact…"
She watched him, emotion overtaking his ability to speak for a long time. "Al told me a long time ago that there's sometimes a lot of time between leaps...here. For me it always felt instantaneous. But it wasn't. There was this place...I could never remember it once I left, but...I was there. Where I could heal, and sleep, and…"
He stopped, swallowing, not able to find the words. "Did Al tell you about me leaping to the bar?"
"When you thought you saw God...or whatever," she said, nodding.
"I'm pretty sure I did. I mean, I'm pretty sure he was. He told me I'd been leaping myself all this time. I didn't believe him. Not really. Not until I leaped back to 1969 and saved Al's marriage to Beth." He looked at her, his bottom jaw trembling. "I wasn't sure I'd succeeded, until I heard Al in the future. I didn't know I was in the future, until Al told me. I didn't know it, but I saved his daughter Mary from being killed," he said, sounding confused.
"Oh my God, Sam…" she gushed in shock.
"All these memories...it's..a lot...to take in all at once. He never had any kids, before..well, before."
"She didn't exist for you to save before May," she said.
"Al told me. That you can retain some alternate memories," he said hesitantly. "Although you told me that before, didn't you? I think I can remember things the way Al does now. I don't know why."
"You were hurt so badly...and they couldn't treat you...I don't understand," she said softly, touching his perfect face with the memory of how it had looked in the hospital, pale, bruised, bandaged around his head.
"I know. I remember. But after….I just...I was talking to someone. And it went away, and I felt better, no more pain. He told me to go home. That the only person I had left to help was you. I'm free."
She gazed at his face, her eyes overflowing with love. She kissed him softly, comfortable at last in his arms, the only thing she had been wanting for the past five years. "It's Christmas, Sam. It has to be past midnight by now," she whispered.
"Merry Christmas, Sweetheart," he whispered.
"Ziggy!" Donna called, sitting forward in sudden excitement.
"Are you all right, Doctor?" she asked. She had disconnected herself from Ziggy here.
"There's someone here who wants to talk to you," she called, a smile lighting up her face.
"Ziggy!" Sam said, his smile gleaming in the near dark.
There was a pause where Donna almost heard the computer thinking. "I am gratified that the reports of your death have been greatly exaggerated, Dr. Beckett. Welcome home," she nearly beamed.
"Call Al for me," Sam yelled.
"Admiral?" he heard Ziggy call, on this giant, multispatial conference call.
Sam heard Al swear in the background, then a groggy, "What the hell, Ziggy? It's 1 o'clock in the morning on Christmas! You'd better be on fire."
Sam stayed smiling, but the emotion that filled him at the sound of his friend's voice choked him up. "Al," he said, his voice breaking. "It's Sam." It came out as a whisper, as his throat closed.
He heard a thudding noise. Al jumping, or falling out of bed. He wasn't sure which. "Sam?" he yelped. Sam could hear the sound of someone gasping in the background. Beth, he thought, warmed by the thought. "Sam where are you? We thought you were dead!" Al asked sharply.
"He's here, with me," Donna called, resting her head back against his chest.
"I leaped back. I'm home, Al. I'm home."