A/N: I think I've got Sam 'n Al pretty well nailed, but everyone else is basically me talking to myself.
Disclaimer: Unless the DVDs come with stock, I don't own 'em.
Chapter 1: Pandemonium
April 29, 1995
"Talk to me, Goushie!" Al yelled the second he ran into the blinding Control Center, Beth and the girl they'd picked up close behind him.
"No change," Goushie said, "He's been in there for over seven minutes."
Al raised a hand over his squinting eyes, trying to catch a glimpse of his friend. "Ziggy, can you – "
"He would have a better chance if someone pulled him out, Admiral." Ziggy countered before he could finish.
Sam would kill him if he came out a veggie.
"Sam?" All heads turned at the new voice, and horror swept through them. "Sam!" Donna cried, running to the Acceleration Chamber's door. Al barely managed to catch her in time. She fought him, screaming her husband's name as he uselessly argued why they couldn't charge in there.
A scream tore through the Acceleration Chamber, and Al's arms froze into a vice as old nightmares ripped through him. He thought he'd left that sound in Vietnam.
The scream ended and a figure collapsed out of the column of light. Al yelled, "Shut it down!" a second before Donna broke out of his grip and ran into the Chamber, and he followed her in.
Sam managed to catch himself before landing on his face. He dry-heaved a couple of times, then collapsed fully, resting against something cool. The world was spinning, his ears full of roaring static, and his eyes might as well have been water for how well he could see. Not that he wanted to. He didn't care where or when he was as long as he could get a moment to rest.
It didn't last long enough. The roar lessened a bit just before something grabbed him. He groaned as it rolled him on his back. He opened his eyes to see . . . a blob. Wearing red. And white over it.
Movement caught his eye. Another blob. Wearing a little white. Mostly black. He could hear some kind of gibberish over the fading static in his ears. Great, he thought, I'm brain-fried among aliens. He would have laughed if he had the energy. Another blob with curly red hair leaned over his head and put something cold on his chest.
Uninterested, he released the air in his lungs and let his eyes close again.
"I'll kill you if you die on me, Sam Beckett," Donna half-snarled as she ripped his suit open.
"Not before I beat you," Al supplied as he checked his friend's pulse.
"Can I have his brain when you are finished?"
"Shut up, Ziggy!" someone roared. Several someones. Terry shushed at them. Sam sighed as his eyes rolled closed.
"Sam – "
"He's okay, Donna," Terry said, pulling her stethoscope away from his chest, "Just fainted, I think." A gurney came crashing in and they hauled him on it. Al pulled Donna back so Beth, Terry, and SammiJo could stick monitors and needles and tug an O2 mask down his face. But when Terry went to the foot of the gurney and said, "Move out," they were right back to either side of him, supposedly to help push.
No one argued.
Sam woke when he felt something pull away from his face, but he didn't open his eyes. Too tired. Instead he wandered what was up with the super-slow strobe light. Then he heard voices. Female voices. Speaking a language he knew he knew, but couldn't quite understand, yet. He forced his eyes open, and discovered the strobe light was actually ceiling lights. Spaced a little too far apart. He also saw that the blobs had developed human shapes, but he was still too bleary to make out any features. A dark-haired woman in a tan coat walked on the right side of his head, the black-and-white blob turn man-in-a-tux striding behind her. On his left were a dark-blond and a brunette in a red shirt he vaguely felt like he should know. He was wondering where the red-head was – God, this was starting to sound like some Al-inspired fantasy – when a voice near his feet said something, a hand grabbed his shoulder, and a familiar voice said, "Hang on, buddy. You're gonna be okay," and the face in the tux came in focus.
"Al?" he asked rawly, joy and confusion running through his exhausted mind. Al let go of his shoulder and stopped beside the brunette in red while Sam kept going. Something banged against the top of his gurney – it had to be a gurney – and he panicked "Al - !" which started him coughing. He saw the redhead at his feet and two white, swinging doors. A hand pressed him back down as he continued hacking. A new voice murmured something soothing – "No one's gonna sleep tonight, thanks to you."- as the hand pulled the breathing mask back over his face. Sam fell into unconsciousness, strangely relieved.
He hadn't failed.
Whatchya think? Have I lost y'all?