Road Trip - A Look before the Leap

The author thanks Bellasarius Productions, Universal Studios and any other creative entities responsible for Quantum Leap.

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Day Eleven - Laying Down the Law

Morning came. Sam woke with dawn and decided to look in on Al. The Admiral was still in his bed, a situation the younger man hoped for. He prepared for the day and then sat in the living room waiting for his friend to make some noise. Cider House Rules helped him pass the time constructively until he heard Al turning the shower on just past nine o'clock. Knowing that the Admiral was going through his routine allowed him to relax a little more and he could finally admit to being hungry.

About half an hour later Al emerged from the bedroom dressed for the day. "Morning, Sam."

"Hi. I want food."

"Me too. There's a breakfast place a few blocks from here. Will you let me eat eggs with cheese and sausage without getting on my case about cholesterol?"

"Probably not, but I doubt that will stop you."

"You got that right. Get your coat."

They walked out into the cold morning. Al looked at his feet more than anything else, but after half a block, he started talking. "I guess we need to talk more about last night."

"We do?"

"I think so. Not so much about me, but about Quantum Leap."

"I'm not understanding you."

He looked up at his buddy. "Figured you wouldn't." He took a few steps before he said, "I know you and I know what we're going to have the potential to do." They waited for the light to change. "See, I know you have it in your head that you can change my life and keep all that shit from happening to me."

Sam blushed. He'd thought about that most of the night, even dreamt about it when he finally fell back asleep. Quantum Leap could keep Al from suffering that hell and keep him from the fallout. "It crossed my mind."

The light changed and they crossed into downtown Oak Park. "You have the math figured out Beckett. I know you."

It was true. Part of the work that still needed to be done was determining how to pinpoint a leap into a specific time. Working on a hypothetical situation wasn't as compelling as working on a solution for a friend. "It's not figured out. I'm a long way from that."

Al held the door to the restaurant open for Sam. "Yeah, well, I'm not interested in being your guinea pig. Leave me out of the mix, Sam."

The hostess seated them at the window and the waitress was instructed to bring coffee, lots and lots of coffee. "Al, these nightmares are horrifying from my point of view. I can't imagine what they're like for you. We can stop them."

"And what do you think the committee will think when we start messing with our own lives? They'll pull the funding faster than a pig shits."

Sam almost did a spit take. "How fast might that be?"

"I haven't got a clue." Finally, there was a smile on Al's face. It felt good. "I'm clueless most of the time, kid. You better realize that now." He winked and took a big slug of steaming coffee.

"How can you drink it that hot?"

He kept smiling. "How? I'm not a wimp."

Sam was trying to come up with something smart aleck to say, but he couldn't. He had to say, "After what I heard last night I agree. You're a lot of things, but not a wimp."

"We don't have to talk about that, Sam."

Sam saw potential in Quantum Leap to keep that ugliness from Al and his friend didn't want it. "We can make it right for you. Al, let me try."

"They'll pull funding. Are you hearing me? Besides, you start playing with my life then any kind of objectivity we have flies out the window. As it is, it's going to be hard enough to stay objective when we're dealing with other people."

His face showed his disappointment. The gift he wanted to give was being rejected. "I just wanted to help you."

"You can't fix everything. We got to be selective and I don't want you to select me."

Sam's world was crumbling. Al didn't know, but the original idea for Quantum Leap was designed to help bring his Tom Beckett home from Vietnam alive. However Al's reasoning applied to that dream as well. It seemed so obvious. Quantum Leap wasn't a selfish endeavor and that had to be a tenet from the beginning. "Al, I think we need to make that part of the by-laws."

"Make what a by-law?"

The waitress took their order before Sam was able to answer. "The first rule of Quantum Leaping; we can't change our own lives and that includes anyone who works there, not just you and me."

"Good idea, Sam. We make it numero uno and it's out on the table. I like it."

They ate their breakfast without a lot of talking. The rule Sam declared was right. They both knew it, but they both mourned the loss of potential. Each man had a sibling whose soul was taken too soon. Each man wanted the return of that soul, but in good conscience it could not happen. So once again they grieved. Tom and Trudy would remain ghosts of love and caring that helped them get through the tough times, but they would always stay memories.

When they left the restaurant it had started snowing again. Rather than worry about it, they took a long walk. Al liked long walks. He was rarely still even in staff meetings, Al usually paced moving from seat to seat in the room. Sam thought it an odd quirk of a man with too much energy. Now he was more inclined to attribute it to Al's living in a cage for so many years. Once he had freedom to move as he wanted, he had to keep moving. It kept him fit and probably helped keep his lousy eating habits from clogging arteries.

Sam got an architectural tour of more Frank Lloyd Wright Houses than he thought existed. Then there was this toy store called Foster's, an old-fashioned kind of place that Al loved. The child Al didn't have many toys, so the adult was making up for it. Match Box cars seemed to be the favorites and two were going home with him, a black '68 Corvette and a red '65 Mustang.

"You're really going to buy those?"

"Lighten up, Sam. I would have given my eyeteeth to own a '68 'Vette. Damn good-looking car. Of course, I wasn't aware of that until '73."

"Why?" and he knew why as soon as he asked. "Oh, never mind."

Al laughed. "Don't worry so much. I'm not that psycho." He handed money to the clerk. "Yet." He spied something behind the counter. "Okay, give me two of those, the red one and the yellow one." The clerk pulled the toys from the rack behind him.

Back out on the street, Al opened his bag of toys and pulled out the last items he bought. He opened the packaging, dumping the cardboard and plastic into the trash. "You know how to use one of these?"

"It's a yo-yo, Al."

"I know what it is. You know how to use it?"

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist."

"Good, because you ain't one." With a childlike glint in his eye, the Admiral poked his own chest. "I'm the rocket scientist." A yellow yo-yo was pushed into Sam's unwilling hand. "Let's see how good you are."

Pretty much all he knew how to do was make the thing go up and down. Something told him his friend was going to be a lot more skillful. "I haven't played with one of these since I was eight."

"Eight? Really? Too bad. They're fun." Al began loosening up the string a little and the yo-yo was like a bullet train, moving so fast Sam could barely see it. "I loved these when I was a kid. They were cheap. Then again, I never really had to buy them. Most of the time I'd win them from the other kids."

Sam nipped at the bait dangled in front of him. "I'll bite. How would you win them?"

"Sometimes it was checkers. Sometimes poker. Mostly poker."

"In the orphanage?"

"What else was there to do?" He started whipping the yo-yo around. "I mean with the boys."

"Come on, Don Juan. Let's go." They walked and Al yo-yoed. "Are you going to do that all the way back to the hotel?"

"Yes and I expect you to join me."

"Think again."

They kept walking around town. Conversation centered on basketball, rock and roll, string theory, how to walk the dog with a yo-yo and the pros and cons of motorcycles. Al was for them. Sam called them donorcycles since motorcycle accidents provided most of the donor organs available for transplantation.

"Sam, you're no fun."

"I like to use my brain. Not find it smeared along a highway."

"No accounting for taste." The yo-yo still flew up and down. And as whimsically as the yo-yo moved about, Al changed subjects. "You got to meet Alex. Wrote a dissertation on using nanotechnology for information retrieval systems in microcomputers. Now, if that can be done for microcomputers imagine what can happen with mega-computers?"

"Sounds interesting. Someone for Quantum Leap?"

"I think so." Al kept throwing the yo-yo out in front of him. "For you too. Big brown eyes and a smile that could keep a sailor happy for a very long time."

Sam stopped in his tracks. "Excuse me?"

"Alex has big brown eyes and is really good looking."

Sam didn't understand what Al was talking about, at least he hoped he didn't. "You got to be kidding, right?"

But Sam's confusion was all a setup and the scientist fell for it. "Sara Alexander Kelley is a PhD in nanotechnology. One of about five in the country. She's brains and beauty and loves to talk about mathematical formulas almost as much as you." The yo-yo flew out in front of him and back. "And she does other stuff good, too, if you catch my yo-yo. Can you think of any other reason to go to Delaware?" One-track mind, that's what Sam was thinking and Al knew it. The Admiral shook his head and laughed, "You're an easy mark, Sam, way too easy. Anyhow," Al pushed his finger teasingly into Sam's chest. "Alex is younger than you."

"Never stopped you before."

"In this case it does. I've known her since the day she was born. Her Dad and I grew up together in the orphanage. Ross was a good guy."

The use of past tense meant that the Admiral's friend was dead. Sam just asked, "Are all your friends from the orphanage?"

"I kept in contact with two. Hannah Gretz, our new archivist and Ross Kelley who spent his life teaching underprivileged kids in the scummiest neighborhoods you ever saw, but he loved it. Loved the kids. Good guy and his daughter, whom I love like a daughter, is drop dead gorgeous."

It was almost four o'clock and they started back to the hotel. They'd done nothing but talk and have a good time. No conversation about Chuck. Not much about DC. The science talk was fun, so that was okay. Al tried to explain why counting cards in Blackjack wasn't cheating despite what the dealers in Vegas said. Sam wanted Al to understand the intricacies of milking a cow.

Harlem Avenue divides Oak Park from River Forest. It's a busy street, the kind that truckers use and usually ignore yellow lights. Al stepped out when the green flashed. Sam's hand reached out and yanked him back inches from getting smashed across two suburbs. "Watch it, Al. You need a keeper."

Al looked down the street at the 18 wheeler that almost crashed into him. "Damn, thanks Sam. That's twice in one week."

"You planning on making this a habit? If you are, I'd like to know. I want to take out an insurance policy on you with me as beneficiary."

"Don't worry about it. You already are."

As they crossed the street, Sam did a double take. "What do you mean?"

Al just kept walking. "If I die, you get my junk. Got a few wives who'll get most of the cash, but you get my stuff. You know, the car, my bikes, my house." He laughed, "My mortgage." When they got up the curb into Oak Park, Al added, "My little black book, but I tell you right now, Beckett, if I come back from the dead and find that you're not going through it in alphabetical order, I'll haunt you for the rest of your life."

Sam wanted answers. "Why did you do that?"

He pretended not to hear. "By the time I kick, the car will be shot to hell anyhow. I drive it hard. Sell the bikes. You're afraid of them. Now, the house, I did a lot of custom design there. If you sell it, make sure you get the specs and get a good realtor. It's got a lot of perks built in."

"Al, I don't want your things."

Trying to lighten the conversation Al stomped his foot saying, "You don't want my car? My fancy personally customized Lamborghini with the Bang & Olufssen sound system? You nuts?"

"Your car is nice, but why am I in your will? You shouldn't be leaving your house to me."

Al looked down and pulled a cigar from his pocket. He lit up and as the first puff trailed up into the darkening sky he said, "You got anyone else in mind? Drop it."

It was dropped and they returned to their rooms to spend a quiet night watching television and getting room service. The long walk in the cold made for a tiring day and both men earned their sleep.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: All rights to this story are reserved. Neither the whole nor parts (with exception of short excerpts for review purposes) may be published elsewhere without written permission from the author. Thank you.