Chapter Two
An hour later, Christine was asleep
and Sam was rummaging through the amount of paperwork that Scott had to
complete. It was only 9:30 p.m., but
Sam found himself yawning while he was reading. Al had left to check on Scott again, bringing no new information,
due to the fact that Scott was still out cold.
"Nooooooo!!!!!!"
Sam shot up
as soon as he heard the cry coming from upstairs.
{Christine}
he thought as he rushed up the stairs to find the little girl tangled in her
blankets, wide-eyed and scared.
"Daddy?"
she whispered first, then saw Sam. "Sam?" Her brown curls fell into
her little face making her look a lot smaller than she was. Sam immediately flipped on the light and
walked to the bed, sitting down on it, and realized the girl was shaking. He reached out for her, not sure what else
to do. He didn't have kids, at least he
didn't remember having kids (he could for all he knew), and had no idea how to
handle the nightmares of a four-year-old. He just picked her up and held her in his lap until her shaking began to
cease. He didn't want to ask her what
the dream, or perhaps nightmare was a better word, was about, for fear of
stirring up another scream from the girl.
Finally she
seemed to settle in his lap, falling asleep. He laid her carefully back down in the bed, staring at her sleeping form
for a second, a lump rising in his throat. Sighing, he shut the light and exited the room, still wondering what
kind of nightmare could plague a girl so small.
It happened
three more times that night, and each time it took longer for Christine to
settle down. Sam didn't finish his
paperwork and didn't get any sleep either. He suddenly understood why Scott had collapsed. The poor guy worked twelve hour shifts, then
came home to a sleepless night spent comforting his daughter. To make matters even worse, Scott's beeper
went off at about 4 a.m., and Sam had to get one of the neighbors (Scott was
lucky he had an insomniac neighbor) to watch Christine as he ran back to the
hospital. Returning to the house at
6:30 only to have to get Christine dressed, dropped off at preschool and back
to work at 8, he was completely drained as he dragged his tired feet in the ER
doors.
To make
matters more worse, a tracker-trailer had caused a major accident on the
near-by highway. Traumas came in and
took up most of the day. Things quieted
for a while after that and Sam did manage an hour of sleep somewhere, but when
he looked at his watch and found it only three o'clock he was ready to throw
something at a wall – hard. He was
staring at the clock in the lounge, almost daring it to move, when Al showed
up. Sam's glance didn't turn from the
wall.
"I never
underestimated sleep so much," Sam said in a monotone, as he heard the chamber
door.
"You should
talk, Sam. For close to three years you
lived on less than an hour of sleep a night. I practically had to drag you out of your office."
Sam ignored
his comment. "Did Scott wake up yet?"
Al nodded,
though Sam wasn't turned around to see it. "Yeah, about an hour ago." He
walked into Sam's view, blocking the clock Sam had been staring at. "Up and complaining. Doctors make the worst patients," he said
with a smile.
Sam's
glance broke from the wall up to Al, smiling a bit. "Patient? What happened?"
"Well,
Ziggy finally dug up part of the reason that you're here. Believe it or not, it _is_ actually to give
the guy a break. According to Ziggy, in
the original history, he collapsed at work today, right in the middle of a
trauma room." Sam raised his
eyebrow. "Yeah, not the best place to
pass out, huh? Anyway, he spent about
two and a half weeks in the hospital with a bad case of pneumonia and actually
signed himself out way to early. He
relapsed two weeks later."
"Well, I
changed that, right?"
Al
nodded. "Right. Now, Scott's in the _future_ with a bad case
of pneumonia. If you want to believe Ziggy's preliminary prediction, she thinks
you're here to just give Scott some downtime."
"Downtime?"
"Well, the
guy's…., well, a wreck. Can barely keep
his eyes open, delirious, stuff like that."
Sam looked
down at his hands. "Did he say anything
about Christine? She had some
nightmares last night." He paused. "They weren't just 'nightmares', Al. The little girl was terrified and shaking
after them. Four times last night I had
to go into her room and just pick her and rock her back and forth. She settled down eventually, but, Al, no
little girl should go through nightmares like she's having. And I can't even guess what they are about."
"Neither
can Scott. What I found out, or Beeks
could get out of him, was that Christine has been having these nightmares since
her mother left."
"Left? You mean the divorce?"
"Yeah. Scott couldn't tell us that much, but it
turns out that his wife, Cara, just left one day, without packing. She left Christine sitting on the counter
and that's where Scott found her when he got home from work." Sam saw Al's eyes glance off at that
sentence. He just looked up. Al's past was a bit of a mystery to him, but
he did remember something about his mother leaving. However, it wasn't enough to question Al.
"Poor
kid. Is that what the nightmares are
about?"
Al
shrugged. "He doesn't know. During the day she's a normal kid, but at
night she gets those terrors. His
co-worker, Linda, has been telling him he should take her to a shrink."
Sam
sighed. "Please don't tell me I'm here
to take a little girl to a psychiatrist."
"Nah, Ziggy
gives that only 23% odds. Beeks says at
that young, she may just remember the dreams being scary, but not what they are
about. Taking her to 'seek professional
help' may only scare her more. She
could never open up."
"So what am I supposed to do?"
"Well,
maybe you should start with your job. I
think you're being sought," Al answered pointing to the nurse in the door with
a chart in her hand. Sam got up and
took it walking out, surprised at the lack of a comment at the fact the nurse
was attractive. {Beth. Four daughters. You fixed it for him} he reminded himself as he walked out the
door. The nurse watched him go, shaking
her head.
"He's
losing it. First it's talking to thin
air, then it just gets worse," she muttered to herself as she, too, walked into
the hallway.
******************
Eight
o'clock rolled around and Sam was glad to finally get to go home. Another night of nightmares from Christine
was not something he was looking forward to, however. Al had nothing more to offer on the problem, and their visitor
was having a hard enough time being lucid enough to remember his own name at
this point. So, Sam brought home
another load of paperwork (though he didn't think he would get a chance to do
it), and found Christine standing in the door, a story book in her hand. She looked disappointed to see that Al wasn't
there, so Sam took the book from her hands, and paid the babysitter.
"We
finger-painted in art, today," she announced proudly as she held up a
painting. Sam took one look at the
paint in her hair and herded her upstairs and went through a ten minute
argument on why she needed a bath.
"But I
don't want a bath!!!" Her high pitched
voice was adding to the headache that Sam already had from work.
"You _need_
a bath," he said, lifting her towel wrapped self and placing it in the tub,
ignoring the squeals. She did settle
after a few minutes and succeeded in splashing and completely soaking Sam. He immediately felt for every parent and the
many clothes they must get wet during baths.
A half-hour
later, after a story and two trips to the bathroom, Christine was asleep, but
if tonight was to be anything like last night, he knew it wasn't going to last
long. He searched the medicine cabinet
and came up with two Tylenol for his headache just as he heard the chamber door
opening behind him.
"If it
means anything to you, Christine missed your story-telling tonight. I'm just not the same," he said as he
swallowed the Tylenol.
"Nobody
ever is," was Al's reply. Sam wished
for the life of him that he could remember Al's four daughters, but he could
still only remember the four ex-wives. It took time, he supposed, and his swiss-cheesed brain may never
remember it. As long as he was leaping
anyway.
"Please
tell me that you're not just here to say hi," he said, with a tired sigh. "And
that you know why I'm here. _Completely_."
"As a
matter of fact, Ziggy just dug something up."
"What would
that be?" He shut the cabinet.
"Well, two
days for now, Scott - you - drops Christine off at preschool and goes to
work. Sometime between the time you
drop her off and noon, Christine disappears."
"Disappears?" He lowered his voice as he walked past
Christine's bedroom and down the stairs where he found Al waiting for him at
the bottom.
"Without a
trace. The teacher had her back turned
for a second, but when she turned back, Christine was gone. In the original history, Scott had been out
of it at the hospital, but when he found out what had happened he signed himself
out early. You changed history on Scott's
end, but Christine still disappears. The article Ziggy found on the disappearance says that the police
suspected foul play."
That got
Sam's attention. "Foul play?"
"Yeah, it
seems that Scott never bought that. He
thought she was taken by one person."
"Her
mother," Sam replied before Al could continue.
He
nodded. "And Ziggy says that the odds
that she's going to take her are 89%. Either way, whoever takes her, she never comes back. Even in our time, she's still on milk
cartons. Guess Scott never gave up on
looking for her."
"So I just
won't let her go to preschool that day. That seems easy enough."
Al shook
his head. "Ziggy says even if you can
keep at home, the chances of you keeping her completely within your sight are
low." He lowered the handlink and
sighed. "She's four. She won't just stay put. Even if her father were here, which he's
not, _he_ couldn't even make her sit still."
Sam threw
his hands up. "So now what do I do?"
Al
shrugged. "Buy one of those kiddie
hand-cuff like things? Beth used to
have one of those with Trudy. As soon
as she learned to walk, she learned to wander."
Sam just
looked at him. "Somehow I don't think
that's going-" His sentence was
interrupted by a scream.
{Here we go
again} he thought as climbed the stairs to Christine's room, finding Al already
at her bedside, bent down and trying to comfort the little girl. Whatever he was saying seemed to be working,
because, although she was shaking, she was looking directly at Al. Sam went to flip the light, but decided
against it, when he saw her settle again. He knew it wouldn't be that last nightmare of tonight, but he was
surprised as how quickly she'd settled. In less than five minutes for once.
"What did
you say?" he asked Al as he walked out of the now sleeping girl's room.
"Oh,
nothing really. Just the usual stuff."
"What's the
usual stuff?"
He
grinned. "How dreams can't hurt you and
sometimes they are like pieces of a puzzle that's not quite put together in
your head. And when some pieces get
mixed up, well you get bad dreams."
Sam had to
smile at that. "Who told you that?"
"Well, one
night Trudy had such a bad nightmare that Beth and I couldn't say anything to
calm her down. I don't know how I came
up with that, maybe it was a lack of sleep, but I did, and…she went to sleep."
He shook
his head. "Four daughters," he repeated
to himself.
"You don't
remember them, Sam?"
He looked
up at Al. "No, not really." He wasn't going to tell Al that he
remembered another lifetime. Not yet,
at least. He'd changed things for the
better for Al; he didn't need to know the details. He just hoped he'd never figure there _were_ details.
"You look
beat, Sam. Get some rest," Al took him
before disappearing and Sam found himself staring into the thin air where he
had been for a few minutes afterward. He'd had a couple of leaps after he changed Al's life before this one,
but he didn't find himself dwelling so much on it before now. He was glad to see his friend happy; glad to
hear about four women that neither existed before. He sighed and walked over to the paperwork he had left on the
coffee table, pushing it out of his mind.
**************
Christine
woke up another two times that night, and just as the last night, the
nightmares seemed to get worse as the night went on. Sam spent two and half hours up on the third nightmare rocking
the little girl. He tried what had
worked for Al before, and although it seemed to calm the girl a bit, she was
still terrified.
{Maybe it
would just be better if I asked what the dream was about} he thought as he
stared at Christine, who was finally asleep. He laid her back down in her bed and checked his watch. 5:30 a.m. and he still had paperwork that
_needed_ to be done. For the next hour
he worked, then woke Christine up at 7 and battled with her over what she
wanted to wear to school. He made
himself some _black_ coffee as she munched happily on her cereal. Although Christine had been up half the
night, she didn't look tired at all. He
just choked it up to little kid energy and ushered her to the car.
"Sam, I
need my lunchbox," she protested before she got into the car, so it was back
into the house to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Ten minutes later, they make it back to the
car, and barely got her to school on time. Sam was already ten minutes late for work. Though he didn't care much at this point. Christine was still having nightmares, she
was still going to disappear tomorrow, and he had no idea how to stop it. Plus, the fatigue of the last two nights
was beginning to catch up with him and he didn't know if he could make it
through another day. He was used to at
least an hour of sleep but he hadn't even gotten that.
"You look
like shit, Scott," was the greeting he got from the same woman he'd met when he
first leapt in. He had learned her name
was Linda Hartman, and obviously she and Scott were friends, if they were anything
else, she didn't give any clues.
"Well hello
to you, too," he replied. She
smiled.
"You're
late, but luckily I don't think anyone noticed. It's slow this morning. I'll be glad to have my day off tomorrow."
Sam perked
up from the chart he was looking at when she said she'd be off tomorrow. {Let's see how good of a friend Linda is} he
thought.
"Linda, can
you do a favor for me?" he asked in his best 'please' voice.
She
sighed. "I know that look, Scott. It's my day off. What, the babysitter can't come tomorrow?"
Scott had
already pulled this once or twice he guessed, but Linda seemed concerned with
Scott's well-being so he pushed further on.
"Linda, I
haven't slept in over 48 hours-"
"God, Scott,
no wonder you look so bad. You're going
to make yourself sick you know," she scolded gently.
"Christine
doesn't have school tomorrow and I was wondering if you could watch her at
least for awhile." {And keep her from
school and let me try to find her mother} he added silently to himself.
She looked
at him, seeming to take in the circles under his eyes. Finally she gave in. "Okay, I'll be by around 7:30, okay?"
He breathed
a sigh of relief. At least Christine
wouldn't go to school tomorrow. He'd
deal with the rest later. "Thank you."
She
nodded. "Anytime for you, Scott. Remember that. We've been friends too long." She looked at him. "You really
look beat. If you want to catch a nap,
I'll cover for you an hour or so."
"You would?"
he asked, so tired that her offer sounded very tempting.
"Like I
said, we have a slow day. I can fend
off Patti for awhile."
"Thanks,
again," he said as he handed the chart in his hands off to her.
"What's
tomorrow? A holiday?" she murmured to
herself as she watched him walk down the hall.
******************
The day was
slow for awhile and although Sam had gotten an hour of sleep, it didn't make
much difference. He just worked through
the day hoping that during it he would get some clue as to how he was to stop
the person who was going to take Christine.
Al showed
up at about 4 to tell him that Ziggy had found another article on Christine's
disappearance. This one talked about
how someone spotted the girl at the supermarket with a woman that matched the
description of Cara Stevens, Christine's mother. Now Sam knew who he had to look for. Although Scott had hid most everything that reminded him of his
wife, a wedding picture still remained on the fireplace. Sam had looked at it, realizing that
somewhere down the line the couple must have been very happy. It made him wonder what went wrong.
When he got
home from work, he picked up the picture again, staring at the pretty
black-haired woman in the photo. {What
made her walk out? How could someone
who seemed so happy walk out so suddenly?} he thought as he placed the picture
back down. Christine was back to
begging him for just another half-hour so she could watch the end of her
tape. Sam, too tired to argue, let her,
grateful for the peace the TV gave him. Even after another half-hour spent thinking his mind was still drawing a
blank. Scott didn't even know, wouldn't
even begin to explain why even if he wasn't suffering from a fevered delusion. He thought again of the photo.
"Picture
perfect," he muttered as he walked back toward TV room. There seemed no other way to describe the
photo. It was like the one that came
with a picture frame.
Christine
was falling asleep in front of the TV, so all Sam did was take her upstairs and
laid her in her bed. He had made her
get into her pajamas earlier so he just tucked her in, and, almost as a
reaction, pushed a brown curl off her forehead. She was still so little. Four years old. He suddenly
found himself wondering if he _really_ did have children. If he even had a wife. Did he? He didn't know. Being with
Christine made him wonder more than he ever did. But, just as always, his brain couldn't supply him with any
answers. He had been tempted to ask Al,
but knew even if he wanted, Al couldn't tell him. And he probably wouldn't remember from leap to leap. As he watched Christine's sleeping form for
a few minutes, he found himself longing for a family that went beyond the one
he knew in Elk Ridge.
He walked
into Scott's room, stopping in front of the bureau and looked at a box that was
placed on top of it. It was pushed off
to the side, like it was to be forgotten. He turned it an inch to find the name "Cara" scrawled carelessly across
one side of it. Tempted, he opened it,
finding photographs mostly, but there were also a few other items mixed in as
well. And at the bottom was a ring box. Opening it he found a gold wedding band
inside. Scott's wedding ring.
Looking at
the photographs all he could see was happiness, just as he had seen in the
wedding photo. There seemed to be no
warning signs here. But something had
happened.
He placed
the items back into their box, placing the ring on top. He closed the lid, and returned it to its
original place. It was only a matter of
time before Christine awoke again, screaming, so he just went downstairs,
almost jumping when Al greeted him.
"Don't do
that," he said as he sat down on the couch.
"Sam, we
have to talk." His tone sounded a bit
urgent.
Sam
shielded his tired eyes from the light. "About what?" he mumbled.
"The fact
that, according to Ziggy, Scott - you - is going to die late tomorrow
afternoon."
********************