Chapter Three

Sammi Jo Fuller gave Al Calavicci a look of irritation as he half-turned away from her and fiddled with his hand link.

"Well, it looks like I've landed again. Where am I now? And where the hell is Deanna?"

Al didn't reply. He'd already had been a long day in the Imaging Chamber, having dealt with Sam Beckett's latest situation—Sam had been arrested after Leaping into the middle of a car dealership showroom at 4 a.m. Pair that with feeling the ever-present tension as he waited for Sammi Jo to re-emerge from the crumpled string of time and to arrive into her new body and her new assignment, and his inclination towards being civil to a confused Leaper tended to wane.

Sometimes, days or weeks went by in between a Leaper's appearance from one place in time to another, but Sammi Jo had been "missing" for a few months. Only the data readout from Ziggy reassured the crew at Project Quantum Leap that she remained floating in the ether and had not died somewhere. As a result, Sammi Jo's attitude rubbed him the wrong way from Second One and brought a frown to his face, which he tried to mask by retrieving the information she needed, smacking the device between his palms a little more than necessary to make it seem as if it didn't work right.

"Well?" she prompted.

"Just so you know," Al said slowly, "you've been gone for over two months now."

He turned towards her and met her gaze then, noting the expression of shock that spread over her features.

"Two months?" She gaped at him in astonishment. "How is that even possible?"

Al held out his hands and gave a shrug. "How is any of this possible? You'd have to ask Sam. Except right now, you can't, because he's in a jail in Kansas City, facing burglary and trespassing charges in 1975, and you're working at a coal mine in the backwoods of Kentucky in 1989."

Sammi Jo studied Al's face for a moment. "Wait, are you taking care of both of us right now?" She paused then added, "What's happened to Deanna?"

With a long sigh, Al lowered his hands and pulled his attention away from the 'link. "If you don't mind," he said in a tired voice, "can we get on with this? If she wants you to know, she'll tell you when she sees you." He gave her a bitter grin, and his words dripped with irony. "Let's just say that for now, it's on a 'need to know' basis."

Sammi Jo crossed her arms and looked away. She understood the "dig" behind his words, which referenced how, in another dimension of time, Sammi Jo made a habit of keeping Deanna in the dark on as many of Project Engram's activities as she could. Engram, the re-named replacement for the seemingly failed Project Quantum Leap, had been her baby, and she'd resented it when a U.S. Navy Lieutenant named Deanna Calavicci came to work at the facility. During that time, Sammi Jo could've shared her efforts at redesigning Ziggy with Deanna, but instead treated the Lieutenant with nothing but scorn and suspicion… and put her on a "need to know" basis. As a result, years had been loss in which they could've worked together to bring Sam Beckett back.

Based on Al's demeanor, Sammi Jo got the impression that she should drop the subject, but something about the deep shadows under Al's eyes made her ask another, more hesitant, question. "Is she okay?"

Al gave her a sharp look, but because he sensed a level of genuine concern in her inquiry, his own response softened.

"For now. She's working on it. There's things you don't snap back from, and for her, this might be one of those. We'll see." The tension returned to his voice. "Which means the next time that you see her, little lady, you'd better damned well lighten up on her and change that hard-headed attitude of yours." He turned his attention back to the hand link. "But then, I think we both know the likelihood of that happening," he muttered.

"Tell me what I need to know, already," she snapped back with obvious irritation.

Al let out another long, tired sigh, rubbed at his eyes with his free hand, and proceeded to tell her who she'd Leaped into, the circumstances surrounding her appearance at that juncture in time, and what she had to do to fix the problems at hand. Sammi Jo suppressed her impatience as he rattled off the necessary information, eager to get to it so that she could Leap out again and, hopefully, return to home base… but she also took the time to study Al a bit closer.

From the first Leap, Deanna had been the only one to step into the Imaging Chamber on her behalf. At the time, she explained how a second Imaging Chamber had to be built to track and assist Doctor Sam Beckett, and that her father, Al Calavicci, resumed his duties in the more up to date one (which also included a free-floating chair for him to sit in, given his age and medical issues). Deanna never got into details, but Sammi Jo could pick out the slight limp and weakness in his stance—along with the exhaustion that bowed his shoulders and created a ragged, strained edge to his already-gravelly voice.

Even as she absorbed the data that Al provided, Sammi Jo's mind went off in another direction, weighing his words about Deanna. Despite the animosity between the two women, they each held a grudging respect for one another. Deanna took an admirable amount of seriousness in her responsibilities as Assistant Project Observer, not just to downplay the family legacy or the genetic connection that contributed to her assignment, but also because she possessed an inherent need to do the best job that she could—a drive that Sammi Jo also shared.

"Any questions?" Al asked as he wrapped up the explanation and interrupted her thoughts.

Sammi Jo shook her head, and Al punched the hand link and opened the door, which rolled up to reveal the bright blue light from the other room. Just as he prepared to step through, however, Sammi Jo stopped him.

"Al?"

He made a slow turn, curious about what she might want.

"About Deanna… does this have anything to do with Steve? I know they were having some problems, and… well, he's had some issues over the years with… you know, his drinking."

A muscle in Al's left cheek twitched. "I'm sorry to inform you," he replied in a flat tone, "that Doctor Steven Boyd is dead."

"Dead? How?"

"Car accident. Rollover. Two and a half months ago. He wasn't wearing a seat belt, and he was ejected from the vehicle—and decapitated."

Sammi Jo tried to speak but found that she could only mouth the words "car accident" instead. Doctor Steven Boyd had been a gifted scientist at the Project, someone that she'd hand-chosen to deal with the repairs and refinements needed for the Accelerator Chamber. His issues with alcohol addiction hadn't set well with her, but she'd appreciated the talents he brought to the Project enough to overlook any personal issues that he struggled with.

She paused, squinted in suspicion, then cleared her throat and tried again. "That's a heck of a detail, Al," she said, a little louder than she expected to use. "'Decapitation.' Did you had to throw that in for some reason?"

With a steely glance in her direction, Al turned his back to Sammi Jo and stepped into the other room.

"Deanna was in the accident with him, and she woke up with his head in her lap," he said with his grip tight on the hand link, "The rest of him was in a ditch. And if you ever mention that I told you that, I swear to God, I will track you down through time and space, and wrap my hands around that prissy little neck of yours. You got me?"

Sammi Jo swallowed. "Yes, Admiral," she said in a subdued voice.

The Imaging Chamber door slammed shut, and Sammi Jo's hands came up to cover her nose and mouth. She stood there as Al's words reverberated through her mind, her fingertips trembling against her nose and her closed hands echoing the sound of each deep, slow breath back to her.