December 12, 1999
Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico
"Gushie, where is Dr. Elesee?" Gushie heard overhead, while Al was just outside the closed door in the imaging chamber. Immediately, his hands shook as he manned the controls. Al's voice was almost unrecognizable, Gushie thought. He couldn't remember ever hearing Al sound quite so...distraught. It took an awful lot to shake the admiral.
"Dr. Beeks sent her home, as you requested, Admiral," Gushie said, his jitters apparent in his tone.
"Did you cut her communication link with Ziggy?" Al asked again, still from inside the chamber.
"Yes, Admiral," he said, a heaviness in the short sentence that belied a long, difficult story.
Gushie almost dropped the handlink when Al finally handed it to him, after descending the ramp. Al looked like he had aged 20 years in the time between entering the imaging chamber and leaving it.
"She didn't argue with me, about the link. I think she already had a bad feeling, and that made it worse. She didn't even argue with Verbena," Gushie said.
"Ziggy was right," Al said, covering his face, grimacing as if the mere words caused him physical pain.
"About why Dr. Beckett is there?" Gushie asked.
Al's face was still, and expressionless. "About why she couldn't find Sam."
It had taken Ziggy four months of continual scanning to find Sam, on April 14, 2020, in New York City. Twenty one years into the future. The plan they had devised was no longer valid, because Sam had leaped too far past current day. There was no data to access, no leapee to consult. As Sam had predicted at the very onset of PQL, the future was flying blind. And also, per Sam's orders, nothing about the future could be discussed with anyone on the project, for fear of contaminating the timeline. Sam had always hypothesized that all the information would have to be gleaned by Sam, then processed through Ziggy in secret, back here at the project.
Once the experiment had gone awry, Al had worried about Sam leaping to the future. And now, not only did Al have layer upon layer of alternate reality imprinted on his brain, he was also the lucky one who had the sole responsibility of seeing whatever future horrors awaited them all.
Sam, you made a mistake, Al thought to himself, close to tears. You never planned for a situation where you couldn't communicate with me.
December 13, 1999
Stallion Springs, New Mexico
Beth was waiting up when Al finally returned home. She was sitting up in bed, reading a book, the soft light from the nightstand light illuminating her face. First, she sighed with relief, her eyes scanning to the clock that read 2:00 am. The sight of him, his hunched shoulders and drooping face, erased all the positive. "Oh, God, what happened?" she asked, knowing when Al had left this morning, Ziggy had found Sam, 21 years in the future.
"You should be sleeping. It's so late, honey," he said tiredly.
She stretched out her arms, beckoning him into her embrace. Al never even hesitated, and squeezed her so hard it made it difficult for her to take a breath. She felt him press his face against her hair, as she breathed in the scent of him, cigars and cologne, tinged with the coffee she smelled on his breath.
"I'm not supposed to talk to you about what I saw. I can't talk to anyone, technically." He let go of her, pulling back so that she saw his face. The sadness in his eyes washed over her. "But I don't know what else to do right now," he forced out, his jaw clenched tight. He was struggling not to cry.
She touched his cheek tenderly. "Just talk to me. Maybe it will help."
He explained the specifics to her in monotone, almost like he was reading from a book. "He's in New York. He's listed as a John Doe, in an emergency room. He was the victim of a hit and run. I had to keep waiting for the doctors to check on him, flip through his chart so I could read it. He broke his pelvis, four ribs, and three of his vertebrae. He has a punctured lung, lacerations on his kidney, as well as a concussion. They're monitoring him now for a subdural hematoma."
His wife was a nurse, and took all of those words in stride. She knew, having had to scrounge for information, Al had to have memorized all of that, not necessarily knowing what it all meant. Al paused, taking a shaky breath. "He looks awful, Beth, the worst I have ever seen him. And I heard the doctors talking. He's not expected to survive."
"Oh, no," she gasped, wrapping her arms around him, pulling him close. "Al, I'm so sorry."
Despair turned to anger as he spoke. "So I have no idea why he's there, what he was supposed to do, who he was supposed to help. Not that any of that matters now." He gulped down a lungful of air. "There's something else, too. Something...scary. I don't want to frighten you, but…"
He felt her fumbling, grabbing for his hand and grasping it tightly. "Tell me. Don't carry it all alone."
"Sam was so adamant about that," Al insisted.
"Sam thought you'd have each other in that situation. He wouldn't want you burdened like that all by yourself," she affirmed.
He thought about it for a long while before he finally relented. "There's some kind of virus that's spread all over the world. There isn't a treatment or a vaccine or anything, although I think they're trying to do something. There are 7 billion people in the world that far in the future, all they all need a vaccine. It's going to take a long time before people have access to it. The hospital where Sam is at is overrun with cases. I guess New York City is the epicenter or whatever, from what I could tell by the news. There are field hospitals in public buildings, most businesses are shut down, people are shuttered in their homes like they're hiding from nuclear fallout.
"I heard one of the doctors say that they couldn't admit Sam, because all the beds in the hospital are full with people sick from this virus. The hospital was already on diversion when he came in, but the ambulance driver thought driving to the next closest hospital would have taken too long and he would have died en route."
"It's a pandemic. Like the 1918 flu...or bubonic plague," Beth said with dread.
"The news was calling it COVID 19. Whatever that means. It's been spreading for four months, leap time. I don't think anything he was there to do could have anything to do with it exactly. If it is, he failed. He got there too late."
Beth's cheeks had lost their color, and she looked drawn and tired. "Was he stabilized?" she asked.
"They were worried about a ...a ...pull...something...I'm sorry," he swore.
"Pulmonary embolism?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "They were arguing. About medication for the pul...pul...thing making the…."
"Making the risk for subdural hematoma worse," she filled in, her years of training kicking in.
"The last doctor I heard before I came back told them to not do anything. Two out of the three of them thought it likely he would die while he's waiting for treatment. And there's nothing I can do, except stand there like the invisible man and watch my best friend die." He was close to growling when he finished relaying this.
After a long pause, Beth asked, "Does Donna know?"
"I have to go tell her. Then I need to go back. I just came to talk to you, for a little bit. I can't leave him alone there. I'm gonna have to do this almost by myself, and I have no idea how. I only know that I can't leave him."
Beth was up and dressing before he finished what he was saying. "Honey, what are you doing?"
"If you think I'm going to sit home while you deal with all this, you're crazy. Go tell Mary what's going on while I finish getting dressed. Then we'll go see Donna together."
}QL{
Donna had never had a recurring dream before. She had dreamed for years about her husband, more nights than she cared to count. Sometimes they were memories, altered slightly by her dream state. Sometimes they were wishes, hopes, that left her feeling empty when she woke. Every once in a while, she would be problem solving in her dreams, computing equations about time travel and quantum physics, making her sleep restless and troubling. But she had never had the same dream twice.
Until now. For the past four nights, she had already known what she would see before she closed her eyes. She was lost, traveling through space without the safety and protection of a craft or environmental suit. The only way the human mind could comprehend the distance to the end of the universe was by equating it with time, her physics told her. A thousand times faster than the speed of light, the edge of the universe was the same as traveling back in time, all the way to the big bang. What if the universe was finite? The question echoed, faceless in the dark. Was it Gerald Bryant, or Sam Beckett? The universe is finite, she told herself. She knew, because Sam's string theory about time travel was based on it, and it had worked. She could find him, bring him home, if she could find the end of the universe. There was an end. All things finite had an end.
He was there, just beyond her. And no matter how fast she moved, how desperately she tried, she knew, he would reach the end before she ever found him. And she would never see him again.
It felt too real, and now she couldn't sleep, afraid to go back to that realm and feel that again. All things finite had an end. Sam's life….
The doorbell made her jump, her heart banging hard against her breast bone. But the call, in the middle of the night, was no surprise. She had been waiting for this, knowing in her heart something was wrong. Sam had been lost for months, but somehow, the precognition that they had found him, was more frightening now. The worst thing that had ever happened so far, and some pretty terrible things had transpired over the years.
The condition of the two people on her doorstep when she opened the door confirmed the worst of her fears. Beth's face was dry, but it was obvious with only a cursory glance that her eyes were red and filmy from tears. Her hair was disheveled. Al was pale, haggard and exhausted. His dark, coal black eyes burned with a pain as infinite as the void in Donna's dreams.
All she could remember after that was the feeling of Beth's arms around her, keeping her upright after her legs could no longer hold her, as Al spoke in a frightening monotone about the horrors he had seen the night before. He had gone, and Beth had stayed, the only other witness at the vigil. The vigil for Sam, she had thought. But as she descended slowly into the downward spiral, she realized later, that the vigil had been equally for all the hope she could possibly have left.
April 14, 2020
New York, New York
Never before did Al remember this feeling of relief when the imaging chamber door shut, sealing him inside. Usually, that was when Al's adrenaline started pumping, his mind processing and problem solving. But this morning, he saw on every face he passed the same emotion that he kept buried inside himself. Hopelessness. The shutting door erased their faces, letting him breathe before he went back into the room with his dying friend.
"Sam? Sam, can you hear me?" Al asked again.
"Admiral, Dr. Beckett is not sleeping. He is sedated," Ziggy explained.
"I know that, Ziggy." It was daytime here, mid morning to be precise. Sam was still alone in the room in the ER. "Gushie, center me on that Dr. Anderson, the one from yesterday," Al called. Almost everything Al had been able to figure out had been from listening to that man. His plan today was to follow Dr. Anderson around and collect information. Al blinked out, reappearing outside the nurses' station. The doctor leaned against the counter, scrolling through digital records on some type of miniature computer.
"There's no other hospital that can take him sooner?" a nurse sitting behind the counter asked. All the medical personnel here were gowned and masked like they were headed to surgery. Some who came and went were covered like they were working in a biohazard containment failure. She was young, Al could tell, from the half of her face that was visible. She had long blond hair that was pulled back and up into a clumsy bun, wisps of hair spraying against her forehead and temples. Her eyes were a beautiful sky blue, clear and intelligent. But above the edge of her blue surgical mask, dark smudges accentuated her weariness and fatigue.
"The EMTs were told we were on diversion. He should never have been brought here," Dr. Anderson argued.
"He was dying! They knew if they didn't get him stabilized it would be too late," she yelled, then blushed at her brashness. "I'm sorry, Doctor. It's just not fair. He pushed someone out of the way, and now he's probably going to die because we don't have the resources to help him."
Oh Sam, Al thought. Now it made perfect sense. If there were anyone Al would trust to dive in front of a speeding vehicle to save a stranger, it would have been Sam. Could that have been why he was here? To save whomever he saved? Frustrated, he sighed. Why would that have been his mission? He couldn't believe he would have leaped here to die in someone's place.
"He's not going to die, not if I can help it," Dr. Anderson told her.
"Doctor, the police are waiting to talk to you," another nurse announced.
Al signaled with the handlink for Gushie to keep him centered. Al listened as Dr. Anderson recounted Sam's dire condition.
"I hope you can find the bastard that did this. A busy city like this, someone had to have seen it. At least the license plate," the doctor said.
"We have several leads, including the woman he saved," the police officer told him.
"Any leads as to who he is? His family? Who we can contact?" Dr. Anderson asked.
"Strange as that is, no we don't. He was neatly dressed, you know, not homeless or anything. But he had no wallet, no cell phone, not even keys in his pockets. We're here to try and process some fingerprints, see if that might help," he said.
"Just one of you. Limited access and all, due to COVID," the doctor advised.
"Of course," he was reassured.
Dr. Anderson escorted the other man back. Al watched as they worked.
"I know you have strict no visitor policies and all, but the woman he pushed has already been to the precinct twice in the last twelve hours, asking she be allowed in to see him. She told my partner the victim looked familiar to her."
"Familiar?" Al asked aloud to no one.
"Do you think she can ID him?" the doctor asked.
"I don't know, but it's worth a shot, don't you think?" the policeman asked. "Can she come by? Even just for a really short time?"
Dr. Anderson seemed to ponder this for a long time. Then he relented. "All right. But she needs to do it today, on my shift, while I'm still here. Have her ask for me at the main triage desk. Dr. Peter Anderson."
"Thank you, Doctor. I'll call her back right away," the policeman said as he started to walk away.
"What's her name?" the doctor called.
The officer pulled a notepad from his pocket and flipped the cover open. Reading, pulling the pad slightly away from his face as if he were farsighted, he said, "She's a crisis counselor at the Veteran's Center. Mary. Mary Cala...cala..vicky?"
Al had gone almost completely deaf, listening to the roaring in his ears from his blood rushing through his veins. The doctor looked at the page, and told the officer, almost in sync with Al's hoarse whisper, "Calavicci. Mary Calavicci."
"My mother's Italian," the doctor said with a smile, but Al was gone. He had winked out of the scene, after having dropped the handlink.
December 14, 1999
Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico
"Ziggy….Ziggy…." Al stammered.
"I was monitoring, Admiral. Do you have further information?"
"I think...I think...Sam saved my daughter Mary from being hit by a car in New York City in April of 2020."
"I believe the appropriate response at this juncture is 'Oh boy,' although, I apologize, Admiral, for the insensitivity of it, considering the situation," Ziggy said. "It explains the complicated nature of this leap, as past leaps that involve close ties to PQL interfere with my time tracking capabilities."
"She's...she's 38 years old. My God…" She was their baby. His mind reeled.
"I cannot predict the consequences of Dr. Beckett interacting with your grown daughter in the future. I can just formulate hypotheses, but I need more data than I currently have, Admiral."
"I have to tell Beth. I have to-"
"Admiral, you know you are forbidden to discuss the future, even with your wife. Last night was a forgivable transgression, but telling Beth will only complicate my difficulties."
"Then what am I supposed to do?" he screamed in frustration.
"Go back to Dr. Beckett and collect as much information as you can."
Al stooped to retrieve the handlink, winking back into existence. "Center me on Sam, Gushie," he said, more softly than he ever had before.
April 14, 2020
New York, New York
He was back, standing at the bedside of his friend. Sam was restless, not awake, but shifting in pain, the medication given to him beginning to wear off. "Where is that damn nurse?" he asked himself.
"Al?" he heard, shocked. Sam's eyes were closed. Was he delirious?
"Sam? Sam? Can you hear me?" he asked again.
"Al, where am I?" Sam asked, the words slurred.
"Sam, can you open your eyes?" Al asked intently.
"Hurts…." he wailed.
"I know, kid, I know," he whispered sympathetically. "Try. Just for a second."
Sam managed to open them, only for a few seconds. His pupils were dilated, one larger than the other. "Sam, can you see me?" he asked.
"No….no…" He stirred. Al watched as he forced his eyes open, disregarding the pain it was causing him. "Al?" he called, panicked.
"I'm right here, buddy. Not a foot in front of you," Al said.
After a pause, Sam said, his voice breaking, "No, Al...can't see...you."
"You have a bad head injury. That's interfered with the link with Ziggy before. Don't worry, I think that's why," he added, taking all the worry into himself. Sam had never, in all this time, ever been able to hear Al and not see him. He had come perilously close after having been dosed with electro-shock treatment, once before. But it was never like this.
"Why….here?" Sam asked.
"Sam, don't. You're...you're hurt really bad. Whatever you're supposed to do, you can't do it now. Right now you have to just rest, and get better."
"The woman...in the street…." He stirred, pain battling with his urgency to know more.
"You saved her, Sam. She's all right," Al said, forcing the words out, as if each weighed a thousand pounds. Maybe, it was a blessing Sam couldn't see him. He would never have been able to come up with an excuse as to why he looked the way he did.
"Leap...out?" he croaked weakly.
"It wasn't for her, at least, it doesn't seem like it. You're in the future. So we have no idea at all. Please, just rest, Sam. The only way I can help you now is to make sure you rest."
"Ok," he murmured, the tension in his painful body easing.
"And I promise, I won't leave here. No matter what," he said softly, not sure if Sam had heard him. Did it matter if he had? Al thought. Sam knew that. Had to know that.
The nurse returned, while Al stood vigil at his friend's bedside. She recorded his vitals, changed his IV, reconnecting more pain medication. It was the same nurse Al had seen at the nurse's station before, arguing with Dr. Anderson. "You saved her, you know," the nurse spoke to him. "The doctor's going to let her see you, just for a little while. She was glad, thankful that you saved her," the nurse added, her voice beginning to shake. "I mean, wouldn't it have been awful, if she'd wanted to get killed, and you died instead? It wouldn't be fair, would it? After she'd finally worked up the nerve...and…" The nurse stopped talking, wiping her eyes with her shoulder.
Al watched her in silence, shocked at what he'd heard. This young girl sounded suicidal, talking to her unconscious patient. "Ziggy, I have information. Sam's nurse," he strained, turning his body to read her name tag, "Kelly Thaddeus. I think she may be contemplating killing herself." Before Ziggy asked an impossible question, he added, "I don't know anymore. But I'll stick to her like glue until I find out."
April 15, 2020
New York, New York
Al had fallen asleep, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the imaging chamber. He woke at the sound of voices, and the door to the observation room opening. "Please, just make this quick," Al heard the doctor say. "Officer Kirkland is waiting for you in the front lobby." The doctor at first blocked the doorway, then stepped aside to let someone else enter.
In the process of straightening his legs to wake them up, he stopped cold. The young woman in the door was Mary, his daughter. His 17 year old daughter, his baby. Only here, she was older. She carried herself with confidence, something his shy teenager had yet to do in his time. Her long dark hair was shot through with occasional gray hairs, and she had fine lines around her dark eyes. His eyes. Of all four of their daughters, Mary looked the most like him. He knew she had grown to look more like him as she'd aged, despite the surgical mask that blocked half her face from view. Al watched her, transfixed in wonder, as she walked to Sam's bedside. And then just as quickly, crumple in half, as if someone had punched her in the stomach, shrieking and crying.
"Dr. Beckett! It is you!" she managed to say. "I thought...I thought...God, it's been 25 years since I last saw you. I thought I was imagining it. But it was you. You saved me." She stood there crying for what seemed an eternity. "You can't hear me, can you?" she asked. "You must have leaped here. My Dad…" She choked, stopping to catch her breath. "My Dad said the last time you leaped, you were you. You haven't aged. At least not enough to be here any other way."
She pulled a tissue from the box on the makeshift table next to the bed, dabbing at her eyes. "I wish you were awake." She cried and cried. "My Dad never stopped trying to bring you home. Not until the day he died," she wailed.
All the muscles in Al's body seemed to turn to water, and he fell back to a seated position. Get a grip, Calavicci, he ordered himself.
Mary gasped, as she stood there. "If you leaped, then there's a chance my Dad is here. Isn't there?" She stammered, covering her mouth. "Dad, are you here?"
All at once, adrenaline surged through Al. He stood, too fast, woozy for a second on his feet. "Yes! Yes! Mary, I'm here. Sam? Sam?" he called, hoping to rouse his friend.
"Al?" Sam croaked weakly.
"Can you hear me?" he asked again, wanting to be sure.
"Yes," he said, his eyes fluttering open gently. Recognition dawned, Al could tell by looking at him. Then his eyes widened in panic as the scene before him suddenly made no sense.
Before he spoke, Al blurted, "Sam, that's Mary, my daughter. The woman talking to you. She's the one you saved from the car."
"Mary?" Sam asked, bewildered.
She gasped again. "Dr. Beckett?" she asked.
"Tell her….." Al swallowed hard, love for his daughter burning inside him, "Tell her that I'm here. She'll understand."
"Al...is here," he repeated.
"Daddy?" she called, looking around as if somehow she could see him.
Al fretted, having to use Sam as a translator, when he was so weak and in pain. "Tell her I'm standing beside her."
"Right next to you," he said. Sam closed his eyes, tears visibly streaming down his temples, pooling in his ears. "It worked. Al...Beth…"
Mary stood still, looking through Al's hologram, obviously imagining her father there. The tears flowed freely down Al's cheeks. He never took his eyes off his daughter when he answered Sam. "Yes, Sam. You gave me back my life. I owe you more than-"
"Beth is my mother," Mary replied, into the air, not sure who was talking to who.
"Should have done it...long time...I'm sorry…"
"Are you talking to my father?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, his head hurting too much to nod.
"Tell her you can't see me, because of your head," he ordered. Sam complied. "Now tell her we need her help."
}QL{
"Ma'am, are you all right?" Officer Kirkland asked Mary as she approached. Al could see why. Her makeup was a mess, her eyes nearly swollen shut from crying.
"Yes, yes. I'm sorry. It's just...so sad. Poor man. I don't know who he is. He looks like someone I thought I knew, but it isn't him," she said.
"Then why are you so upset?" Kelly asked.
"It's so sad. He's alone, hurt, maybe dying. I just wish there was more I could do to help him," she added.
"The vehicle description you gave the police panned out. They arrested the guy this morning," Kirkland said.
"Thank goodness," she said. She smiled, walking past them, into the main lobby, towards the door. Sam had told her her father had said the nurse he was suspecting as being the reason for this leap was outside, smoking. She walked through the door, out into the cold.
"I hope you're still here, Daddy. This is really hard," she said.
"I know, baby. You'll be fine. You're my girl, Mary," he said, knowing she couldn't hear him, but unable to resist the urge to answer her.
"Excuse me, nurse?" Mary asked, walking up to her.
"I'm on my cigarette break," she responded curtly.
"This isn't about work, per se," Mary said. "It's about something I heard you say."
Kelly turned to her, her eyes narrowed into slits. "Say to whom?"
"The John Doe. In the ER. The one the police brought me to see," Mary said.
"Did you know him?" Kelly asked, suddenly far less hostile.
"No, no. I thought I did. But I didn't." She paused, took a deep breath. "You know, it's a shame. The man saved my life, and I don't even know who he is."
"I didn't believe there were any people like that left in the world," the nurse puffed bitterly on her cigarette.
"It must be really hard, doing what you do every day," Mary said.
"It's my job," she said angrily.
"Doesn't mean it's easier. This pandemic is taking its toll on everyone. But not nearly as bad as it must be for people like you."
She dropped the end of her cigarette to the ground, crushed it with her shoe. "You know, I had to stop counting. How many people a day I saw come in, that never came out. There are so many dead bodies the hospital had to rent refrigerator trucks to store the bodies. Still are. It's getting worse. I'm tired of it. Tired of being here, tired of being alone. I just want it to end."
She had said it, what her father had told Sam to listen for. "I've seen that look before. It's not worth it. Giving up is never the answer."
Kelly's face screwed up in anger. "Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?" she snapped.
"I'm just a stranger, but I am a counselor, you know, for my job. I just watched someone almost get killed to save my life. He thought my life was worth it, and he doesn't know me at all. Don't you think someone like that would want you to live too? You're all he has. He's dying alone in an emergency room. But he's not alone, because you're there. There are hundreds of people in that hospital doing the same thing, because no one can come here to be with them. They all need you."
"It's too hard, don't you see? It hurts...it's too much...oh god, why am I saying all this to you?" she cried.
"Because you needed to say it. You need someone to listen. That's what I do all day for my job, I listen. To people who feel like everything is lost, that have no hope and feel like they're alone. You know, my father was the strongest person I ever knew. And his life was pretty horrible before I ever knew him. He was a POW for six years in Vietnam," she said, looking slightly uncomfortable. Because she knew Al could hear her. "He never gave up. He knew eventually things would get better. And they did. He just had to hold on, as hard as that was." She blinked away tears, looking back, knowing he was there, not seeing his form. "I'm just a stranger. But there are other people who'll listen. Talk to them. While you're waiting for things to get better."
Understanding passed quietly between the two women, as their breath puffed out in milky plumes of vapor. It was slightly awkward. Mary felt the urge to hug her, but couldn't, because of the pandemic. "You'll be ok," Mary said, nodding in encouragement.
Kelly stared for what felt like an eternity. "I don't know what to say," she muttered.
"Just say you'll go back in the hospital and call someone. Tell Dr. Anderson you need help. He won't let you down," she asserted.
"Thank you, miss...?" she ended the sentence with a question, an ask of a name.
"Calavicci. Mary," she said smiling, raising her hand in a farewell wave. Kelly waived back, a broken smile at last visible.
"You have a kind of guardian angel, named Sam," Mary whispered, knowing her father could hear her.
"You did it, Mary. You did it. You got through," Al told her.
"Seems like nothing, doesn't it, Dad? One conversation, one sentence, and history changes. I always thought how weird that was. That Dr. Beckett never really had to do all that much work, just find the right words at the right moment. But you'd seen it so many times you couldn't deny it. Life was just full of moments. Sam never had to stay long, just be there at the right moment. Are you listening, Dad?" she added. "He can't answer you," she said quietly, scolding herself.
"Of course I am, Sweetheart," he said.
"Dad, I know I'm probably not supposed to tell you this, but I can't help it. You died from mouth cancer. From those stupid cigars. If you're in 1999 or whatever, you still have time to stop. Mom misses you so much."
Al tried to swallow, but his mouth and throat were dry like fire.
"I just wanted to say it. I don't know if it makes any difference," she wished.
It did, baby, it did. He thought, taking the cigar out of his mouth, crushing it on the ground.
"There's something else, Dad. I'm probably not supposed to say this either. But you never found Sam. I have this weird memory of you telling me that Dr Beckett was in the future, in 1999. But that's the only time you ever knew where he was after he leaped. When you...when you died, Ziggy didn't work anymore. But Dr. Elesee and Dr. Fuller realized once he could only leap in the future, it was the best option to try the retrieval again, because he was himself in the future. And because he was lost in time, he wasn't duplicated in the future. Whatever he did to damage time didn't reach past the creation of QPL. Something about a knot in the string. At least that's what Mom said. But you got sick, and it was too late, and Ziggy stopped working before they could try. That was in 2001, Dad."
"Thank you, Sweetheart," he said softly, as she walked away. It was so much to process, too much for him in the stress of the moment. Instead he watched her walk away, hoping he had the power now to change the future she had revealed to him.
Then he went back to Sam's hospital room. Something had happened while Al was away with his daughter. Doctors and nurses were milling about, a sense of urgency present where there hadn't been before. "He's febrile doctor, and he has been since the seizure. They ran a stat coag. It's the emboli, isn't it?" another nurse asked.
Seizure, fever...embolism. He hated not understanding the medical terminology. But he knew, from what Beth had said, this had been their fear all along. And it was happening. He had accomplished Sam's task, and more. But it was still happening. There was nothing he could do about it.
December 14, 1999
Stallion Springs, New Mexico
When Beth opened Donna's door for her husband, Donna could tell it was coming. She stood, walked to the door, feeling like she was standing at her own shoulder, watching everyone move and talk like she was watching a movie. She didn't even have the sense of her own arms and legs moving. It was like she was a puppet, and someone else was moving the strings. You're in shock, the rational part of her mind tried to tell her.
Al was out of breath when he addressed her, from nerves or running all the way to the door, she didn't know. "We have to go now, Donna. He's running out of time. Ziggy's losing the lock."
December 14, 1999
Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico
She didn't remember Beth pulling on her coat for her, or the car ride back to the project. Once she was on the lower level, outside the control room, she started, trying to remember entering the building or descending in the stairs or elevator. She didn't even know which mode they had used.
She listened to Al, talking to Gushie. In his Admiral voice, she realized crazily. She tried to pick out words, but they were talking too fast, and everything else had slowed down, like each second was a freeze frame. "Like we did with Katie McBain. He needs to hear her, Gushie. And I don't care if you have to split an atom with your bare hands. Get the power to do it."
"Ziggy's been blinking in and out, Admiral. I'll do the best I can," Gushie said.
"It isn't Ziggy, Gushie. It's Sam. They're losing him. Just hurry," Al demanded.
April 15, 2020
New York, New York
She blinked, and she was holding Al's right hand, in his left the colorfully blinking handlink. They were surrounded by a blinding light, which slowly faded, into the dark cloud of a poorly lit hospital room. Sam had been moved from the emergency room and was in the process of being prepped for surgery.
"This is what you see?" she asked him, dazed, but curious still, to at last see something outside of her own time with her own eyes.
"Yes. You're a hologram. Don't let go of my hand, Donna."
"Sam, can you hear me?" Al called. Please come around, he urged. Even just for a second.
"Al...can't breathe…" he gasped, his eyes still closed.
"There's someone else here with me, Sam," he said cautiously.
Al saw him force his eyes open, unable to focus. "Can't see...Al…"
Al knew it wasn't just his hologram Sam couldn't see. He was blind, something the bleeding in his brain had caused. He should have been able to see her. After all this time, damn it, it just wasn't fair, he thought.
"Sam, can you hear me?" Donna called, forcing the steel into her voice to keep it from wavering.
Sam stayed perfectly still, his brow creasing. "Donna?" he asked. She heard it all, in the one word. Amazement that she was here, that he suddenly could remember her, and a broken sadness that she had always known would be the consequence of him knowing he was married all the while he had been traveling in time.
She cried, the tears flowing freely, but she smiled. He remembered her. At this moment, nothing else mattered. Al had been telling her for five years that if he had just one memory, it would all have come back to him. "Yes, Sam, I'm here," she said.
"I….forgot...I….I'm so sorry," he wept, his blind eyes open and fixed on nothing.
"Not your fault. I told you that before. It's not. I love you, Sam. No matter what. I always have. I always will." She heard Al's ragged breathing in her ear. She knew in that instant, she would have traded every minute left in her life if she could have touched him, held him in her arms.
"Changed...past...for...you," he said, stronger, pulling on his last strength reserve.
"He remembers the leap, Donna," Al whispered, trying to translate. "When he went to Lawrence, to get you back."
"Because...I love you...more than anything." Sam took a deep breath, and never let it out. His eyes closed, alarms on his monitors started beeping incessantly. The room around them blinked several times.
"Sam!" she screamed. Al's arms were holding her up, wrapped tightly around her waist as her legs gave out. The lights from the handlink blinded her briefly, angled up towards her face. She shut her eyes, and when she opened them, she was alone with Al in the imaging chamber.
December 14, 1999
Stallion's Gate, Los Alamos, New Mexico
"Gushie?" she heard Al call, his voice jagged with pain.
"Ziggy lost the link, Admiral. I can't pinpoint him any longer."
Donna slinked out of Al's arms and down to the floor, crying so hard it was akin to screaming. "I think we lost him, Gushie."
"Pardon, Admiral?" Gushie asked, having trouble hearing Al over Donna's hysterical tears.
"Sam, Gushie. Sam is dead."