"Oh, Jack..." the woman said again. She covered her mouth with her hands.

Until Sam found out why he was there, he was supposed to do whatever the person he'd leapt into would do---within reason, of course. Well, it was obvious what Jack North would do next, so Sam did it. And maybe the guy he'd leapt into had chickened out, and that was why he was here. So all he had to do was propose, and then maybe he'd leap again. Short, easy leap. It would have come out better if he knew the name of his intended, so for the time being, he was just going to have to call her 'Uh.' "Uh, will you marry me?"

The waitress was hanging around waiting to see the rest of what will happen. The woman glanced at her, which drew Sam's attention to her. "Uh, excuse me, Lucy, would you mind..."

"Oh, sorry. Sure. No problem."

The waitress left, and Sam turned his attention back to the woman across from him. "Will you? Marry me?"

"Oh, Jack..." the woman said for the third time. Her eyes went from the ring to Sam. It was a pretty ring, Sam thought. Nice sized stone, expensive setting. Maybe a little too expensive for Jack North, but Sam had no way of knowing that.

"Well...say yes and put it on," Sam said.

The woman smiled at Sam and reached for the box. Time to leap, Sam thought, but then it happened.

The wrong thing, the reason why he'd come here.

She started to take the ring out of the case, but as soon as her fingers pinched it, her expression changed. It was as if she'd touched something horrible. She dropped the ring, and it clattered to the plate. "No..."

Sam was sure she'd been about to say 'Yes,' but she said 'No.'

"No!" she said again, louder. And again, even louder, "No!" She quickly slid out of the booth and headed for the door.

Sam tried to follow, but several restaurant patrons were just arriving, and another couple was just leaving. And then he heard the familiar whoosh! of the imaging chamber door opening, and Al's voice from behind him started speaking. "Hi, Sam. For once, the guy in the waiting room is cooperating, but his brain is Swiss-cheesed. It'll be another couple minutes before Ziggy figures out why---"

Sam didn't have time to hear about Ziggy. "Al! Get a fix on that girl!"

"Oh, Sam..."

Sam recognized the leer in Al's voice and swung his head to see him ogling the beautiful young woman who was being escorted by a well-dressed young man. "Not that one, that one!" Sam pointed to the woman who'd sat opposite Sam at the table.

This time it was disappointment Sam heard in Al's voice. "Oh, Sam..."

Sam was losing patience. "Al!"

"All right, all right. Got it."

He disappeared with a bleep! Sam headed for the door, but Lucy the waitress, who had been watching Sam propose, was now at the table. She yelled after him. "Mr. North!"

Sam turned to look at her as she picked up the ring and shoved it in the box and tossed it to him. "Good luck!"

"Thanks!" Sam yelled back, and dashed outside. "Uh, cancel my reservation, will you?"

By this time, another waitress had joined the first. "Reservation?" she said, shaking her head. "Boy, he's really out of it."

"He's got a lot on his mind right now," Lucy replied.

"It doesn't look like she said 'yes,'" the other waitress noted.

Lucy looked at her out of the corner of her eye, then picked up the coffee pot she'd set down. "Hell, every woman likes to be chased."

Outside on the street, Sam saw no sign of the woman. He could do nothing except wait for Al, so he took note of the style of the cars and guessed that he'd leapt somewhere in the early seventies. The bank two doors down had a sign that said 'Lakewood Bank,' so at least he knew that he was in Lakewood, wherever that was. Then, with a bleep! Al popped in again, this time right in front of him.

"Where'd she go?" Sam wanted to know.

"Last house on the left there, across the street," Al replied.

"Thanks," Sam said, and started heading toward the indicated house. It was a modest two-story, old enough to need siding but not quite old enough to be considered 'quaint,' in between two other houses in similar condition.

"Don't you want to know why you're here first?" Al asked. It had once been disconcerting to Sam that Al could keep pace with him without moving his feet, but by now he was used to it.

Sam grinned. "For once, Al, I'm way ahead of you. I already know why I'm here."

"You do?" Al seemed surprised.

"I'm here to get that girl to marry me---I mean, the guy I leaped into."

"You are?"

"I think. Any idea who she is?"

"Uh, no, we're still working on who you are. Oh, wait a minute, here it is. You're John H. North, a forty-two year old accountant. You've got a brother named Frank who sells second-hand jewelry, and three sisters, all of whom are married, and---"

"And why am I here?"

"I thought you already knew."

"I'd like a second opinion."

"Well, Ziggy's still working on it. Oh, this is interesting. You pulled your brother Frank out of the lake two years ago when you and he were fishing, and a storm suddenly came up, and the canoe overturned. Made the front page news in the local paper."

"Never mind that, what's the date?"

"April 17th, 1972. Here, this house. You sure you want to do this? Without knowing for sure why you're here?"

"The sooner I fix things, the sooner I can leap. Besides, I just want to ask her why she thinks she can't marry me---I mean, him."

Sam knocked at the door. There was no answer.

Al checked the hand-link. "Oh, apparently the guy in the waiting room, he says his girlfriend's name is Holly Woods."

Holly Woods? "You're kidding."

"No, I'm not."

Sam knocked again. "Holly, open up! We have to talk!"

There was still no answer.

"You sure she's in there?" Sam asked Al.

Al poked his head through the door and immediately poked it back out. "She's right by the door, Sam."

Sam pounded the door. "Holly, I know you're in there! All I want to do is talk, okay?"

Nothing happened. Sam continued pounding until finally, there was the sound of a deadbolt sliding. The door cracked open, and the woman peered out at him. Her eyes were red, and her cheeks were still damp from where she'd wiped away tears. She met his eyes, then looked away, and moved away from the door.

Sam opened the door and entered the house. It was filled to the point of clutter with all kinds of stuff, mostly antiques of different eras, stuff that clashed with each other and didn't seem to have any rhyme or reason for how it all fit together. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror---approaching middle age, balding, a little pudgy, with glasses. Not a Chippendale dancer by any stretch of the imagination, but Jack North looked like a nice guy.

Sam had to force himself to look away. It was very easy to get distracted from the business at hand whenever he looked in a mirror, but if he was lucky, he'd be out of here quickly, and if he wasn't, there would either be time enough to look later. Fortunately, she'd turned away from him, so she didn't see his obsession with his reflection.

"Hi." Sam said. "I mean, hi, Holly."

"I---I'm sorry, Jack. I didn't mean to embarrass you back there."

"I'm not worried about the restaurant."

"I mean, I had no idea you felt that way about me. I should never have let this go as far as I did."

"You had...no idea how I felt about you...?" Sam felt like an idiot, giving her words back to her, but it was the best he could do without knowing more.

"Well, maybe I did, but I just wasn't...I mean, I thought it was over."

"Over? You mean, us?"

"No," she shook her head. "I mean me. I thought it was over with me. But then I realized it wasn't, and I...I can't marry you, Jack."

"Why not? You don't...is it that you don't love me?"

She turned to face him, then. "No, not that. I love you with all my heart. But...I can't marry you."

"Why not? You're not, like, already married to somebody else, are you?" God, Sam hoped not. He hated messy divorces. Messy divorces and jealous ex-husbands were near the top of the list of things he hated. Just under getting shot at and run over and...

"Because it wouldn't be right."

"Why wouldn't it be right?"

"Because...because I sort of have this problem, and---"

Al's hand-linked beeped for attention. "Uh-oh, Sam. We got problems."

"What sort of problem?" Sam asked, both to Holly and to Al.

Holly said, "Well, it's...I want you to know that it has nothing to do with you or the way I feel about you..."

Al said, "Ziggy says you're not here to marry anyone."

Holly went on, "I mean, I love you, Jack. I have since the first time I met you. And I know that sounds hard to believe, but it's true..."

So did Al. "Ziggy says that two days from now, on April the 19th---"

In his years of leaping, Sam had gotten used to processing two conversations at once.

"And if I could marry someone---anyone, it would be you---"

"You're found murdered in your bathroom, in the shower."

"But, see, I have this problem, and..."

"...and the woman who killed you was a psychopath named Holly Evans."

Correction, he could listen to two conversations at once, but not reply to them simultaneously. He turned to Al in confusion. "Holly Evans?"

Holly, of course, hadn't heard Al. Her tone was one of shock. "What? Oh, my God. You know?"

She turned to face him, and the movement brought Sam's attention back to the reality he was in rather than to the hologram almost thirty years in the future. "Your name is Holly Evans?" Sam asked.

Al eyed Holly Woods or Holly Evans or whoever she was with growing concern. "Sam---Sam, I think you better get out of here."

Holly's attitude changed suddenly, from anxiety to joy. "Oh, Jack, you knew, and you still asked me to---Oh, Jack!"

She started closing in on him.

Al was frantic. "Sam! I think you better leave, Sam!"

Sam backed away, putting a piece of furniture between him and Holly.

"Your name is Holly Woods now." Sam said, eyeing her.

"I changed it when I moved here. I like movies, so...I thought, why not?"

Al waved his arm toward the door. "Get the Hell out of here, Sam!"

Holly laughed. "Oh, Jack! All this time I was afraid of what you would think of me if you knew!"

Sam backpeddled. "Uh, uh, Holly?"

"Yes, Jack?"

Sam crossed his legs in a move he called the pee-pee dance, something that had saved his butt a number of times in previous leaps. "I have to, uh---uh..."

"You know where it is, Silly."

He didn't, actually, but he looked at his hologram companion significantly. Al popped out to look for the bathroom. "Uh, yes, I do. I do. I'll be back in a minute."

"Upstairs, Sam!" Al called from the top of the stairs.

There were three doors at the top of the stairs. They all looked alike. Under his breath, he asked, "Where is it, Al?"

"This way," Al waved.

Sam opened the door and found himself looking at Holly's bedroom. The bed was an old four-poster, neatly made with an old-fashioned quilt. There were lots of paintings in the room, a couple of them on easels. Obviously, Holly liked to do artwork in her spare time. Sam closed the door again quickly.

"Are you feeling all right, Jack?"

"Uh, fine. Just fine," Sam told her. "I've just had a lot on my mind today, you know?" Under his breath, he muttered, "the bathroom, Al!"

"There's no window in the bathroom!" Al said. "You gotta get out of here!"

"Just tell me where it is!" Sam muttered.

Al sighed. "Last door."

To Holly, Sam went on. "I just, uh...just have to...you know..." He opened the door and slipped inside and shut it again. He leaned against it with a sigh. Al, who'd been on the other side of the door when he'd closed it, walked through the door and Sam and stood in the center of the bathtub.

"Lock the door!" Al suggested.

Sam locked the door. "You said I don't get killed for two days, and it's in my own bathroom, not hers. Did I do something to change that?"

Al checked the handlink. "No, no. It still happens in two days. But right now you're trapped in a bathroom with a psychopath on the other side of the door!"

"Are you sure she's a psychopath?"

"Of course I'm sure!" Al yelled. "She's been in and out of mental institutions since she was six years old. Sam, what she does to you in two days makes Norman Bates look like­­­–––" Al looked around and saw that he was standing in the bathtub. "Oh, my God. The shower!"

Sam sometimes didn't know if Al was really scared for his sake, or if it was all just a put-on. This was one of those times. "You said two days?"

"Yeah, April 19th," Al replied.

"But not tonight."

"No, not tonight. I already told you–––"

"Even with what I've already changed so far?"

Al re-checked his hand-link. "Uh, no. April the 19th."

"Which means my being here now doesn't change that."

"No, not yet."

Sam nodded. "All right, I want you to keep a real close eye on the hand-link and let me know if Ziggy projects a change on the April 19th date."

"What are you thinking, Sam?"

"She doesn't strike me as being a psychopath, Al."

Outside the bathroom, Holly slowly approached the door. She heard Sam talking to himself. "I don't think she's a psychopath...No, I don't know for sure. It's just...there's something about her."

Inside the bathroom, the hologram she couldn't hear said, "She was found at the scene, holding the knife that killed you." He held the hand-link out to show him. "Look!"

"Maybe there was a mistake," Sam insisted.

"Well, if she doesn't kill you, who does?" Al asked. "And why would she be standing over you with a knife? Huh?"

"I don't know, Al. Just---just keep an eye on Ziggy and let me know if that date changes." Sam opened the door and saw that Holly has been listening.

She backed away from him and gave a sad laugh. "I guess I don't blame you for having second thoughts. It would be sort of nerve-wracking having a wife who was mentally unstable."

Al waved his arm at her. Sam was glad he couldn't smell the stench of Al's cigar. "See? She even admits she's a psycho!"

Holly went on. "Doctor Leach thought it was all just an over-active imagination. He said I was cured. But God knows whether I really am or not. And---and who knows whether it would be passed on to any kids. They never did find out what caused it."

Sam took a few steps forward. She had cleared the way to the stairs for him, but he wasn't heading for the stairs. "Holly–––"

Al was incredulous. "Sam!"

Holly shook her head. "Maybe you better go, Jack."

"Sounds like good advice to me," Al said.

"I'll be all right," Holly went on. "It's just...been a long day. For both of us."

Al gave a concurring nod. "For all three of us. Sam, let's get the Hell out of here. This lady is nuts."

Sam continued to close the distance and raised his hands towards her shoulders. "Holly­­­–––"

As he touched her, she gasped and looked at him. "You're not Jack!" She backed away from him in terror, hit her bedroom door. "Oh, my God! What have you done with him? Where's Jack?"