Chapter 12
SEE PROLOGUE FOR DISCLAIMERS, ETC.
Saying good-bye to Harm was the hardest thing Sam had yet to do in this leap.
"I can't believe it's already time to go," Harm said as they waited in line to check him in for his flight to JFK and then on to Heathrow.
"It seems like just yesterday we were saying hello." Sam couldn't help but grin at that, even if Harm would never know just how close to the truth it was.
"In the Rose Garden of all places. Would you be unhappy with me if you found roses on your new desk first thing Monday morning, Mac?"
Now he laughed. "Harm, you can never go wrong with roses. As long as they're the right color, of course."
Harm blinked. "Color?"
Sam didn't know how he remembered it, but the colors of roses and their meanings had always stayed with him, kind of like the plot and characters from Some Like it Hot. "White usually means innocence or purity. Orange and coral mean desire. Light pink means admiration, sweetness, or joy, but sympathy if sent for funerals. Dark pink means appreciation or gratitude. Yellow means friendship. Red means passion, though a single red rose means 'I love you'."
"That's a lot to choose from." Harm wrapped his arm around Sam's waist and pulled him close. "You know, I've never sent anyone a single red rose before."
"You can't go wrong with it if you mean it." They inched forward in the line. "I'm glad the self check-in system is down. I want the time."
"Me, too."
They stumbled forward again in the line as Harm's lips descended to meet the lips Sam knew Harm thought were Mac's. Sam thought of Donna and tried to return the kiss as Donna once returned his public displays of affection – with gentle, sweet passion that promised much more for another time. It was still very strange. He backed away after a moment and pressed his thumb to Harm's lips.
"A down payment on another time," Sam promised.
Harm nodded. In a whisper against Sam's ear, he asked, "You know, Mac, would I be out of line to suggest that we just wait until our honeymoon? The way things are going, we're only going to get four or five nights together before the wedding anyway and they're likely to be rushed or interrupted."
That was the best idea Sam had heard in a long while, but he knew he couldn't sound too eager. He stood on tiptoe to whisper back, and wished that his height came with the body of his host. Even two inches would help. "You mean, you can actually wait, now that we've missed our chance this time? I don't know if I can have that much restraint, Harm."
"I just think it's going to be too stressful over Memorial Day and unless we get really lucky, I won't be relieved until July 1st or even later. If that's the case, by the time I get to San Diego, we find a house that Mattie can live in, and get back for the wedding rehearsal on the 8th, there's just not going to be time to do it right. And baby, I want to make sure our first time is beautiful."
Sam wondered what Mac would have thought of those words. He wanted to cry at the sacrifice he knew Harm was making. Maybe only a man could truly understand. Without something to say, he kissed Harm again, thinking of Donna as he did so, and let the silence between them settle comfortably.
In another few minutes, Harm was a the front of the line, then he was checked in and his luggage on its way to the loading ramps after passing the TSA screening. Sam walked him to the end of the passenger screening line, which for business class showed a waiting time of 35 minutes.
"This is where I get off," Sam said, motioning to the TICKETED PASSENGERS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT sign at the beginning of the ropes. "Call me when you get to London?"
"I'll call you from New York, too." Harm set his briefcase between his legs and wrapped his arms around Sam, nuzzling the hair that fell around his neck and shoulders. "You're missing another t-shirt, by the way. I have it in my back pack so I can have you close by."
"Another t-shirt?"
"You take my Navy shirts to sleep in, I take the few Marine Corps t-shirts you still sleep in." Harm flushed red. "To, um, sleep in."
Sam laughed. He remembered Donna doing the same thing when they were dating. Somehow, that was more intimate than their sex until after they were married. "How long have you been doing this?"
Harm leaned back to look into Sam's eyes. "How long have you?"
"I asked first."
"Since the Watertown," he admitted with a sigh. "It was the first time I had the guts to do it, though I thought about it in Japan."
Sam snickered as he tried to remember what Mac had said about her collection of Harm's t-shirts. Was it Russia or Japan or on the Watertown that first required her to "borrow" a shirt and forget to give it back? The love in her voice when she said whatever it was helped Sam know just how deeply she felt for Harm. "It was, uh, Russia. That shirt you figured you left at the hotel in Moscow after we found out where your dad was . . ."
Harm kissed Sam, long and hard. "You've always been six or eight steps ahead of me, Sarah."
"Yeah, well . . . my head isn't so hard." Sam meant that as a double entendre and he was sure that if Mac were in this body now they'd be headed somewhere very private for a quickie. As it was, he felt the arousal of the female body in unnerving and somewhat nauseating ways and figured that the better part of valor was to leave now with both his own and Mac's dignity intact. "I love you."
"I love you. I'll call you later." Harm kissed Sam one more time, more gently this time, and let go to join the line, which now said 40 minutes of waiting time.
They must have looked back at each other 20 times before the line snaked around a pillar and Harm vanished from his sight. Sam hoped Mac was the type to look back at moments like this. All he knew was that the walk out to the short-term parking lot took forever, or so it seemed.
"Hey, Sam." Al materialized beside the Lexus when Sam turned the corner at the end of the row.
Rather than speak, Sam raised his arm in a sort of half wave and increased his pace a little. Not until he was in the car and buckled in did he speak to Al. "Get in, Al."
"Oh, right." The hologram slipped through the closed passenger side door and sat down, which looked more natural in the SUV than it had in the Corvette the night before. "You know all those martial arts you've learned over the years?"
"Kind of." Sam knew that his instincts kicked in on occasion, allowing him to defend himself or others with moves that his hosts usually didn't know.
"Colonel Mackenzie is well versed." Al held up his left hand, which bore a splint on two fingers.
"Let me guess. She didn't like the 'Al Calavicci Charm School' method of dealing with a woman."
"Pretty much. And she cut me no slack for being in my 80's, either. Damned doctors and their exercise and diet regimens."
Sam hid his smile. He had vivid snapshots of an episode long before the first jump when Donna had raged at Al's behavior. Of course, he had been in a leap then, as Donna's research assistant Josh, and he was quite sure that the real Josh wouldn't have understood her fury. Josh, he remembered, emulated Al in nearly everything from dress to choice of cigars. It had not been a fun leap for so many reasons.
"Al, why are you here?" He started the car and backed out of the parking space as Al chewed on his unlit cigar.
"What, I can't just stop by to visit a friend?" he asked after a minute of silence.
Sam glanced at him. Project Quantum Leap had evolved over the years so that it was technically possible for the hologram to be active all the time, and the audio capability for others in the project to communicate at will had proved helpful more than once in the two "real" years since the technology went live, but Al was still cost-conscious enough to make his appearances pointed and usually limited his audio surveillance to critical encounters.
Except for lunch today, which was just unnecessary and dangerous, but he was pretty sure Mac had reinforced that point in 2015 along with her lesson in treating a female Marine.
"Er, right." Al lit the cigar with some difficulty as Sam paid the parking fee and maneuvered the Lexus toward the highway. "Mac says you need to start with Admiral Chegwidden."
Sam had already figured that out. More accurately, Admiral Chegwidden had said as much at breakfast. "The retired admiral's club?"
"Yes. AJ is good friends and adversaries at this point with my cousin, Edward, who is the Secretary of Defense at the moment."
"Edward Sheffield? He's the one who pushed our funding through the Senate the first time, right?" Sam had leaped into the life of one of Sheffield's staffers three or four leaps ago to make sure that the funding was approved. The chief of staff of another powerful senator had been taken over by one of the evil leapers. Sam didn't dwell on what might have happened had he not been successful in convincing that senator directly of the importance of Project Quantum Leap. It was too depressing.
"Right. Mac is still working on a way for you to get the investigation started from San Diego. She thinks she's on to something that was never fully explained during the hearings. Hopefully, she'll have that thread for you by Monday."
Sam looked over as Al blew a smoke ring over his head that floated out of the holographic projector's range with an eerie dissolution effect. "I'm sure the doctors told you to stop smoking and drinking."
"Imagine how good I'd look if I had."
Sam laughed. "Right. Anything else?"
"Yeah. Don't forget Mattie's tampons." Al's grin vanished last, like some Cheshire Cat become human for a moment.
The audio channel had been open all day long. Damn him and his wasteful mood today, anyway.
"Al is laughing here," Mac griped from somewhere above him as he entered the drug store a while later. "When you get tampons for Mattie, you're going to need them for us, too. This is going to take more than five days."
He groaned. Yet another thing he was thankful not to have experienced in all his leaps into women over the years, though he could have done without the three experiences of being pregnant along the way. Al had told him once about being the victim of a date rape, but apparently he leaped in after the actual rape. Perhaps his psyche had protected him from that one by not remembering it at all.
"If you'd be more comfortable with pads . . ."
There was no way he could respond to that out loud. He hoped she saw his nod in the control room, if Al had the visual connection open for her.
"Okay. I'll tell you which brand when you're in the aisle. Deep breath, Sam. Women do this all the time. And we're far less embarrassed to buy this stuff than most men are to buy condoms."
Without making eye contact with anyone, he checked the overhead signs for "Feminine Hygiene" and scurried toward the back of the store. The tampons were pretty easy to find, thankfully, but Mac said the packaging had changed on the pads she wanted, so he had to stand there holding packages up at strange angles so the visual observation channel could pick up the wording for Mac to read. He prayed that no one entered the aisle before she made her choice.
The fifth package turned out to be the right brand but not the right absorbency, but that was easy enough to fix and with a long sigh, Sam went to the register to pay. The woman at the register wore a colorful turban and lots of jewelry that looked Caribbean to Sam. He didn't like the way she looked at him while she processed his transaction; it would be just his luck to get a clairvoyant practitioner of Vodun or some other mystical religion that allowed her to penetrate the hologram.
"Wishful thinking or last vestiges?" the woman asked as she put his purchases in a bag.
Thinking fast, Sam murmured, "I lost a bet to my wife," and scuttled out of the store before the woman could ask anything else. Bad enough to hear her laughing so hard.
"Nice save," Al said from the passenger seat a moment later. He blew three successive smoke rings, each one bigger and more circular than the last.
"Is society getting weirder or is it just my luck to run into people who can see me more often these days?" Sam slammed the Lexus into reverse and backed up, nearly hitting an MG that came whipping around the corner without slowing down. "Damned woman driver!"
"Watch it, Sam," Mac said. "Give me enough reason and I'll find a way to do to your body what I did to Al."
"Right. Sorry, Mac. Vestigial male stupidity."
"Well, for a vestigially stupid male, you did okay saying good-bye to my man."
"Thanks. I take it you've been listening in without comment."
"Al wouldn't turn on the microphone for fear someone would hear us or see him. But you didn't need my help. Good memory about the t-shirt."
"Thanks."
Al harrumphed. "Would you mind including me here?"
"Yes!" Sam laughed when he heard Mac chime in with him.
It wasn't long into the hospital dinner with Mattie and Jen that Mac must have elbowed Al fairly hard after he made an inappropriate comment about Jen. Sam didn't hear Al again until after Jen dropped him off at the B&B, though Mac helped at several points both with Mattie and Jen. Girl talk was not and likely never would be a strong suit of Sam's.
"Well, that was entertaining." The hologram appeared with a flourish in the middle of the king-sized bed.
"Al, shut up. What day is it there?" Sam went into the bathroom and started running water in the tub. His back – Mac's back – really did hurt and this time he wasn't faking the cramps.
Al followed him into the bathroom. "February 15. Why?"
"Go have a post Valentine's Day celebration or something. And let Mac get some sleep. I think I can handle things here until tomorrow morning when I have to call the general."
"Sam?" Al looked genuinely concerned for a moment.
"Al, I'm tired, my body hurts in places I never knew could hurt before, and my head is spinning. You and I both know this is going to be a long leap. So just let me be tonight so I can get myself ready for the next few weeks, okay?" He pointed toward the door.
"Fine." The cigar drooped before Al faded away.
Sam just had the tub full enough and at a comfortable temperature and had stripped down to the uncomfortable underwear women were required to wear by convention when Al reappeared.
"AL!"
"Hubba, hubba, Sa-AAAAUUUGGGGGH!" Al winked out of existence.
"Sorry, Sam." Mac's tense voice had an edge of glee to it. "Al won't be joining you for a couple of days, I'm afraid. Badly sprained ankle from a fall, you see."
"Mmm, I see. Give him my best and tell him he deserves every painful minute of his recovery."
"I will. Oh, and Sam?"
"Yes, Mac?"
"Make sure you take my pill every day between 8 and midnight. Neither of us will like the consequences if you don't."
"Pill?"
Al moaned in the background. Mac sighed. "Pill. As in the pill. Round lavender container in my makeup bag. Just take them in order. Don't miss one."
Sam looked in the cosmetic bag, found the pills, and noted with annoyance that there were only three left before the white ones started. He remembered what the white ones meant from Donna. "Oh, boy."