Author's Rambling
I'm sorry, folks, but this is the last update for a while. I've got a research paper to finish up, and unfortunately, I've only got until the end of this month. So instead of writing more chapters for this story, I'll be getting my ass in gear and typing up my paper. So, folks, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Right now it's 2:30 a.m. on Monday morning. Major Houlihan just ordered me to report to my quarters and get a decent night's sleep (barring any casualties or one of Hawkeye Pierce and B.J. Hunnicutt's midnight pranks, of course). Goodbye, farewell, and amen – for now.
MASH 4077th
Ouijongbu, Korea
June 6, 1952
Colonel Sherman Potter gave his wife's photo the customary "good morning salute" and started skimming over the forms Radar had left for him to sign. He was getting a bit concerned about his company clerk. He hadn't been himself lately. That boy always was sensitive, but he'd never hurt a fly, Potter mused. What in the name of blessed Mary made him go off on Maj. Davis? He was almost always proficient, but Potter found himself having to remind him how to file a basic report. To top it off, he was accusing officers of serious crimes and telling the doctors how to do their jobs. And he seemed unsure of how to work the telephone. The young, bespectacled clerk had told him he was worried about Captain Pierce. Son, we're all worried about Captain Pierce, the Colonel explained to him. He couldn't quite place his finger on it, but he knew that wasn't the reason. Radar had been acting strangely even before Hawkeye's near-collapse in the O.R. Here was an Iowan farm boy spouting off intense medical knowledge, and he barely had a high school education. A thought formed in his head, but he brushed it off.
"Excuse me, Colonel?" Major Margaret Houlihan interrupted.
The colonel glanced up at his head nurse. "What can I do you for, Major?" he asked.
"Radar said you needed to see me, sir," she answered.
"I didn't ask to speak with you," he said, shaking his head. What is that boy doing?
"I'll talk to you later then," Margaret said. She turned to leave.
"Hold it a minute, Major," Potter called out after her. She stopped and turned around. "Come to think of it, maybe I do need to have a word with you." He beckoned to a chair. "Please, sit down." She complied. He opened the liquor cabinet and poured himself a glass of brandy. "Care for some fire water?"
"No thank you," she replied.
"I had a chance to speak with Maj. Davis and Cpl. O'Reilly," he began. "Radar told me the reason behind the whole fracas." He took a sip of the brandy. "It seems that Davis was bothering one of your nurses."
Margaret raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, 'bothering one of my nurses'? Which one?" Even if the Major wasn't good at showing it, she cared deeply about the ladies under her command. If anything happened to one of them, she felt personally responsible.
"Leah Brighton," he answered. "According to Radar, the major tried to rape her."
"Rape?" she gasped. Collecting her wits, she said, "That's a serious accusation."
"That was my response," Potter told her. "But if I know Radar, he's not one to make up wild stories." He paused. "Sure, he'd fib to get a job done or to help the surgeons pull a prank …" He slammed his fist on the desk. "…but he'd never make up anything that harsh." And he'd never attack anyone – let alone an officer – without due cause. "Have you noticed anything between Brighton and Davis?" he inquired.
"I've seen them talking sometimes," she said. "But I don't pay attention to what they say."
"Davis claims they're a couple."
Margaret shook her head. "Believe it or not, I listen to my nurses' gossip. Those two are definitely not paired together. I'll have a talk with Brighton and see what I can find out."
The C.O. grinned. "Major, you've read my mind."
She smiled back. "Let's hope that's not habit forming," she said as she stood up to leave. "I don't care to become a mind reader."
"One 'Radar' is more than enough for this outfit," Potter agreed. Heaven knows we don't need to read Captain Pierce's dirty thoughts about the nurses. "Major, how's Hawkeye?" he asked as she stuck her foot out the door.
She looked at the floor, and then quickly averted her eyes back to the colonel. "Not good," she replied softly. "Hunnicutt's with him now." She blinked hard. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear she's about to cry, Potter said to himself. But Margaret didn't cry. She took a deep breath then continued with the update on the chief surgeon. "His fever's 104 degrees – he's completely delirious."
"Have those rashes been checked out yet?"
"Radar keeps insisting he's got meningitis."
Potter gulped down the last of the brandy. "Let's pray not. Tell Hunnicutt and Winchester to run some more tests. That will be all, Major. Dismissed."
* * *
Project Quantum Leap
Stallions Gate, New Mexico
February 12, 2002
"Radar, can you tell me where …" Dr. Verbena Beeks started to say.
"Nurse Brighton spends her time off reading on a blanket behind the Nurses' Tent," the tiny corporal answered before she finished asking the question.
"Um, thank you," Verbena replied.
He swung his legs over the table. "Are you sure she's gonna be alright?" he asked. "I'm real worried about her."
"Care to enlighten me?" The boy looked confused, so she clarified the question. "What makes you worry about Nurse Brighton?"
"Gee, I don't really know. Major Houlihan usually has to give her a direct order to bite her tongue. I mean, gosh, she's not the biggest chatterbox in the camp, but she's not shy either. Now I can hardly get her to say two words before she bites my head off."
"Go on," Verbena pressed. Her watch read 11:35 a.m. I'll grab some lunch after I'm done speaking with Radar, she decided. Not that cafeteria food appeals to me.
"I saw Major Davis hanging around her once – she didn't look too happy about it. I asked her if something was wrong, but she just …"
"Just what, Radar?" the psychiatrist asked. "How did the nurse respond?"
The leapee didn't hear her. Instead, his attention was focused on the ceiling. He held up a hand to cease any further questioning. "Choppers," he mumbled. He stood up and raced to the door of the Waiting Room. Finding it locked, he turned back to Dr. Beeks.
"No choppers here, Corporal," she told him. "You're in a safe place – we're nowhere near the war."
He seemed to accept that, and returned to the mirrored table. Should I inform him of his situation? She wondered. Every leapee was different. Some people believed they'd died and gone to heaven, and others were convinced they'd been abducted by aliens. Some of the leapees were at PQL for such a brief amount of time that telling the truth would have been fruitless. For others, the truth would increase their already unstable mentality. From her observations, the younger the leaper the easier it was to convince them. Radar's not a child, but he's got an air of innocence, she decided. Besides, he might be more useful to us if he knows what's going on.
"You're darn right I'm not a child!" he snapped. He pulled himself up to his full height (which, of course, wasn't much). "I'm almost twenty-years-old."
Verbena was taken aback. "You really do read minds," she whispered.
Radar nodded. "I can handle the truth," he assured her. "You should've seen some of the crazy stunts we've pulled at the 4077th. If you're gonna tell me I've traveled in time and switched places with a Don Quixote …"
The psychiatrist had to pry her feet to the floor to keep from doing her own "Leap" into the air. "You've switched places with a friend of mine," she explained. "He travels back in time …"
"To put right what once went wrong."
"Yes, he changes history for the better," she continued. "But instead of simply going into the past, he leaps into someone's life. That person leaps into the future – into the Waiting Room."
"Are you saying he pretends to be somebody else? Like a disguise?"
"You could say that." This was easier than I expected.
"People aren't dumb, ya know," Radar informed her. "We already got a Colonel Flagg from C.I.D. trying to pull of cockamamie disguises. We can see through each and every one of them. And I don't think your friend looks anything like me." He scratched his chin. "Unless he's my long-lost cousin or something."
Verbena couldn't help smiling at that sentiment. "Actually, Sam grew up on a farm – just like you," she added.
"No kidding. Where?"
"Elk Ridge, Indiana." Maybe I shouldn't have disclosed that piece of information. "And he's just as innocent, hardworking, and caring as you are."
"Does he look like me?"
Time for the usual leaping procedure, she said to herself. "Radar, I want you to look down at the table."
He started to argue, but decided it wasn't worth the effort. She had to hold her arms out to keep him from falling off the table. "Gee, that doesn't look like me," he gasped once he got himself rebalanced.
"What you are seeing is Sam's aura," she explained. "Sam is surrounded by your aura back in 1952 Korea. To people back home, he looks and sounds exactly like you."
"When he leaves the 4077th – gosh darn wish I could go with him," he muttered, "When he leaves, is he gonna come back here?"
"I wish," she answered sadly. "We don't control his Leaps. God, Time, or Fate does. He'll just leap into another time, another person's life."
"Gee, doesn't he get lonely? Your friend's braver than I am – I could never do something like that. Isn't there somebody he can talk to without having to pretend to be some stranger?"
"Do you remember Al?"
"The admiral in the crazy purple suit?"
She laughed. "That's the one. He acts as an observer for Sam." Any qualms about divulging too much information to the current leapee were immediately squashed. If he's as good a mind reader as they say, he'll figure it out eventually. "He appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear."*
"He sure wouldn't be hard to miss in Korea."
"No, he wouldn't," she agreed, picturing Al in one of his bright-colored getups standing next to a MASH doctor wearing drab green.
"I'm glad he's got someone he can count on," Radar said. He thought for a moment and glanced at the psychiatrist. "I'm no scientist, and I'm not a doctor neither, but is there anything I can do to help?"
Verbena patted the boy on the shoulder. "Thank you, Radar, but all you can do is wait here until Sam leaps out and you can return home." She felt bad for the kid – telling Radar to "sit and wait" while there was work to be done was like telling a cat not to chase a mouse. Or Sam not to help a person in need.
His brow furrowed. "I wish there was some way to bring your friend home," he told her.
"So do we all," she replied. "So do we all."
She exited the Waiting Room and proceeded to the Control Room. "Ziggy?" she called.
"Yes…" the parallel hybrid computer purred.
"Where's Al?"
"Admiral Calavicci is currently sleeping off what he calls a 'bingo bango bongo' section with Dr. Martinez-O'Farrell," the sultry computer replied.
Verbena rolled her eyes. "And I told Erin to give him direct orders to report to his own quarters for sleep."
"He followed your orders, Dr. Beeks," Ziggy assured her. "He did sleep in his own quarters – with Tina."
"Can you tell me whether Sam can expect any choppers today?"
"There were choppers at approximately 8:04 a.m. on June 6, 1952," Ziggy informed her. "Although time occurs differently for Dr. Beckett than it does in the present time, I've managed to calculate …"
"Just tell me what time the choppers arrived in the present," Verbena interrupted. Although "present" is such an inaccurate term in this profession. For all they knew, while they were in this "present", traveling into the past, someone else from the future (their own present time), was traveling into their past (for PQL, the current time period).
"About 11:39 a.m."
Dr. Verbena Beeks let out a short gasp.
* Taken from the Quantum Leap introduction.