A Promise of Home
This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.
And No One Asked His Opinion
Al was asleep in the infirmary with Donna sitting at his side. She saw the door open and Gary Sinclair entered with the Admiral's chart. He didn't look happy. "You still here?"
"I don't want him to wake up alone." She looked down at the man sleeping just a little too quietly for her taste. "He is going to wake up, isn't he?"
Gary looked surprised. "Of course, he will." He flipped through pages of a recently received fax. "I sent the Admiral's chart and CAT scans to Albuquerque, to a neuro-oncologist there. She thinks we're looking at a primary glioblastoma. Security is arranging clearance for her, but I know she won't operate on the Admiral here. We'll have to take him to Albuquerque. Right now, we'll get him stabilized, steroids to reduce the swelling in his brain, an anti-convulsant, and some oxy for the pain." Sam's wife was devastated. The doctor hadn't meant to frighten her. "Donna, why don't you get some rest yourself."
Her hand hadn't left the Admiral's. "Gary, are you aware of where Sam is right now?"
"I know it something to do with the Admiral's homecoming from Vietnam."
"I wouldn't exactly call it a homecoming. That Admiral is emaciated, with a raging fever and a belly filled with parasites." Her fingers gently closed around a hand that had an IV poking into it. She kept the Admiral's flashback to herself. Al would be mortified completely if he knew that he'd told anyone even one of his terrors. "Now you couple that with the torture he's gone through and you tell me if this Admiral should be alone right now."
Sinclair hadn't caught onto the intricacies of leaping and, as a medical professional. it wasn't his concern - usually. "Vietnam was years ago. He's a different man now."
"It's the same man. This one here just happens to be 25 years older. I can't let him wake up alone." She gently tucked the sheet around him. "He's in real trouble, isn't he?"
"Glioblastomas the size of this one are fatal. If Dr. Estes is right, he's probably got six months more or less, certainly not more than a year."
"Al will beat the odds. He always does."
Sinclair felt it necessary to stay the realist. "There comes a point when the odds don't play in your favor any more. He's not going to pull this one out of the fire."
"Yeah, well. You never know." Donna needed to change the subject. "You'll have to make it so he gets back in the Imaging chamber."
The doctor looked at the medications hanging from the IV pole. A small adjustment was made, a lessening of the anti-convulsant medication. "I know. He does whatever he wants despite my recommendations." A notation was made in the file. "He'll be waking up sooner than I'd like now and won't listen to me about staying in bed so, I give up."
The Admiral stirred a bit and Donna straightened the sheet a bit. "Don't take it personally. He knows how to break rules and come out on top every time. I don't quite understand how, but he does. Sam would never have gotten funding for Quantum Leap on his own. Even when he was on the outs with the brass, Al could pull enough strings to do whatever he wanted to do."
There was much to admire, but doctors become doctors because they want to heal others. When someone wasn't going to get healed, Sinclair's frustrations came out strong and he knew that regardless of what he wanted to do, the Admiral's life was out of his control. "Incredible doesn't mean superhuman. I know all about the Admiral and bottom line is he is subject to all the human frailties the rest of us are. This is brain cancer. If Estes is right, and we both know she is, the Admiral's going to die."
The simple fact was, "Al won't die until he gets Sam home."
His hand sat on the doorknob. "Then congratulations, Dr. Beckett. The other Dr. Beckett will be home before the year is done." Sinclair walked out of the infirmary.
Donna wondered and worried. If Gary was right, then not only was Al dying, but Sam too. The concept consumed her mind for more than an hour. She stared at Al so hard she didn't see his eyes at last flutter open. It wasn't until he whispered her name that she came back to reality. "Al? You're awake?"
"Of course, I'm awake." He wasn't fully aware of his surroundings. "What are you doing here? Did Sam leap?"
"You're not in your quarters, Al. You're in the infirmary. Do you remember'?"
Al tried to put it all together. "I had a headache."
"You've been asleep about 14 hours."
He wasn't listening to a word Donna was saying. He was too busy looking around and finally noticing the IV pole and the electronic monitors attached to his body. "I had a headache. I've had one since I met your husband."
Donna laughed. The Admiral was back. "Yeah, but hasn't the headache you've had the last month or so been a little worse than usual?"
Of course, it was, but there hadn't been time to consider getting it checked out. "The last couple of leaps have been hard ones. I don't know how Sam does it."
It looked like the job of telling him the news belonged to her. "Sam has you to help and we have a lot of hard work to do so that you can get back to him. Gary has run all sorts of tests. You're really scaring us."
So he heard the prequel. The news wasn't good and in his gut he knew. Somehow, he knew. "Cut the chitchat, Donna. Just tell me." The smile he flashed was more for her sake than his.
She pulled her hand from his. "Al, I don't know if I can." Her silence was confirming his suspicions, but he needed to hear the truth. "Gary's not 100 sure, yet." A deep breath later, Donna confided, "He thinks it's a brain tumor."
Al smiled again. "Figures. That's how my father died. You know, the guy was six three, built like the Incredible Hulk and what do I end up inheriting from him? a predisposition for brain tumors." He chuckled.
She wasn't sure what reaction she expected, but laughter wasn't on the list. "And you're laughing about it."
"Yes. Is Sam still with Beth?" Donna told him what had happened. "I have to get to Sam." He started to sit up covering the dizziness rather poorly.
"You're going nowhere."
Squared shoulders and a deep breath allowed him to bark in his commander's voice, "You're right. I'm going nowhere. That's why I have to get to Sam while I can."
Donna shook her head nearing tears. "Please, don't do this. There's always a chance."
"Until there's some medical protocol in place," his hand in front of her face stopped her attempt to interrupt, "that I agree to, I'm doing my job. So, unplug this crap and get me some decent clothes. I don't know what they did with mine."
Bingo's homecoming was not the happy welcome Beth expected. Her dreams of their first day together didn't include trying to spoon feed him baby food. Along with his IVs, the doctors wanted him to begin eating by mouth, but his meal turned into an ordeal. Sam watched the painstaking efforts to get Al to swallow. The struggle was incredibly unfair. After half an hour, Beth was as weary as Al. Sam took the spoon. "Here, let me feed him." Beth handed him the cup of food and sat in a chair near the window.
Sam focused his attention on Al. "I know eating is kind of hard, but we need to get some weight on you. Try to relax your jaw a little. Then maybe you can swallow a little easier." Sam massaged the side of Al's face, just below his ear. The technique worked for dogs and cats and Sam felt embarrassed to try it on this shade of the Admiral. Somehow, it seemed to belittle him, but after a little time, Al began to open his mouth with greater ease. With opportunities arising, Sam deposited teaspoon after teaspoon of food into Al's mouth and discreetly massaged the side of Al's throat. Food found its way into the returning POW's system. It was a very small victory, but it was a victory.
It never occurred to Sam that the barely conscious, damaged lieutenant before him felt deeply embarrassed by the truth of his limited abilities. For some reason, being warm and safe and home made him less able than he was weeks earlier when he had only himself to rely on. And he wanted to eat, but it was too hard. Anyhow, the food wasn't all that good, but at least there were no bugs, bits of glass or wire in it. Maybe it was the thing this nurse kept touching to his broken teeth. He hadn't used an eating utensil in over eight years. It took a second for him to remember the word - spoon. Yeah, that was it.
Beth stared out the window trying not to pay any attention to Sam and Al. An hour passed and the last of the green mash was gone. Sam spoke to Bingo and broke the empty sound. "You know, if this was chocolate pudding, then we'd have no trouble getting it in you. I never knew a grownup who loves chocolate as much as you."
The memory made Beth smile, at first. Then she was puzzled. "How did you know Al loves chocolate?"
The Admiral's love of sweets was legend at the project. He reveled in chocolate, root beer, banana splits, anything gooey and chock full of calories and cholesterol, but Jane shouldn't know about the sweet tooth. "You must have told me. Anyhow, anyone as romantic as Al here has to love chocolate." It was a cover, not a good one, but a cover.
"You're right. He loves to eat." Beth wandered over to the other side of the bed. She took Al's hand. "The last dinner we had before you shipped out in '66, do you remember, Al?"
Opening his eyes was a physical effort, but he looked at her and whispered a memory he'd thought about endlessly over the past eight years. "La Majada. You had Pechuga Rellenos. You wore a yellow dress. It was..." he paused to catch his breath, "Tuesday night and you tried hard not to cry, but I knew," his breathing was labored, "you didn't want me to go."
"Then why did you leave me?" As soon as she asked the question, she regretted it.
More shame filled his heart. "I thought I could make a difference,"
"You did, sweetheart. Do you know about the photograph? I have it hanging on the wall of the bungalow. It was a picture of you and two other American soldiers. The VC dragged you along the Mekong. Your hands were tied behind your back. You must have heard or seen something because you turned to the camera and the only face photographed was yours." Sam's stomach churned with the description of Maggie's last photo. Beth continued telling Al the story of his impact on the war. "The picture was in all the newspapers, in Time and Life magazine. I was having dinner and looked up to see you on the news, there standing in front of me. Once the Navy officially identified you to the press, the media was all over me, wanting to know how I felt." The memory created such conflict in her heart. The picture proved he was alive, but also proved he was a prisoner in one of the jungle camps, the camps that no one policed. "Oh, God, when I saw you tied up like that I wanted to cry forever. Then the damn thing wins a Pulitzer and I thought the Navy would really fight to get you home, but they said they did all they could." Her tears vanished in anger. "They said you were killed by ground fire after the picture got published. I almost started to believe them."
Sam shook his head, "Beth, I'm so sorry. If I'd have known."
A gravelly voice whispered, "Don't do this to yourself, Sam." The leaper spun around to see Admiral Calavicci. "Remember what I said. I made the decisions in that leap, not you." Sam just stared at the pale apparition of an Observer and then back at the young version.
Bingo was puzzled by the photograph. "I saw a girl, a blonde girl taking pictures, but then I thought I was crazy." His eyes welled up with tears, "Hal got killed and Jason, they put me and Jason in front of a firing squad, but they all shot him. They kept me alive. God, they kept me alive." His eyes closed against the memory.
The grieving wife asked, "What happened to you, Al? Tell me."
He only could whimper, "No."
The Admiral hated seeing himself, seeing his past and future at the same time. He spoke softly, "We got to talk, Sam."
Sam stood up not realizing how shaky his knees were. In trying to regain his balance, he leaned on young Al's badly bruised arm. Bingo audibly winced with the pain. "I'm so sorry, Al. I'm sorry." Heartbreak filled his voice and his next words were more for his Observer than the man he just unintentionally bruised. "I didn't mean to hurt you." Shame screamed from his face, but no one heard it except the Admiral. He looked at Beth, "Listen, I'll be back." Sam turned and left Bingo's private hospital room, Al a few steps behind him.
Sam darted down the hallway toward the stairwell. He got there a moment before the Admiral and had time to slide to the floor, emotionally exhausted. As much as he wanted to look his friend in the eye, he couldn't do it. His head hung with more shame than he thought possible. "What did I do to you?"
The last thing he wanted was to resurrect more memories of this particular period in his life. "You didn't do anything. You all right, Sam?"
Everything was too confusing. This Al was supposedly in a coma somewhere else in time. It started to overwhelm him. "Am I all right? Gooshie said you were sick, really sick, that you were in a coma."
Al gathered all the strength he had and shrugged. "So he exaggerated a little. It was more like a long nap. How are things going here?"
"Gooshie told me you had a brain tumor."
When the Admiral wanted to avoid talking, he changed the subject. "Are Beth and Bingo doing okay? They schedule the surgery for the parasites yet?"
"Surgery for the parasites?" Recalling the distended belly on the lieutenant, Sam nodded. "Yeah, you probably do need surgery for that."
"What probably? They cut out a few feet of my innards."
Sam stood and walked to the hologram, staring down at him, "What's your prognosis?" Patience was low on his priority list. He stood as nose to nose as possible. "Veritas, Calavicci."
When Sam brought out the Latin, Al knew there was no time for jokes. With a shrug Al moved away. "Sinclair mentioned something about maybe a brain thing, but he doesn't know for sure yet." Sam knew that being silent would draw more information than talk, so he kept quiet. Al fidgeted and then continued. "Okay, so I had a headache." More stares and Al said, "I'm here. So I must be okay."
"Brain tumors, even benign brain tumors, are serious, Al. You have to take care of yourself. Damn it, Al. You're too sick to be doing this."
No one, not even Sam would be allowed to challenge him. "Who's going to take care of you? We can't have Gooshie observe. You know the power drain is way too much. We'd black out the northern hemisphere if we made him the permanent observer."
There was much to admire in his friend and his determination was part of that, but Sam knew Al would easily jeopardize his health, even his life if he felt Sam needed him. "I know the power draw would be too much, but I also know you're very sick right now and I'm scared for you and for me. If you're not available then I'm out here alone. I can handle it for a little while, but not for long. Promise me you'll take care of yourself."
His word was sacred. He wouldn't promise Sam anything he couldn't be sure of achieving. Rather than admit to it, Al tried again, "How are things with Beth and Bingo?"
Sam was getting nothing more from Al. He knew it and decided just to answer the question. "Bingo's in bad shape. It took me almost an hour to feed him two ounces of pureed vegetables."
"That green crap? Yuckola."
Sam had to smile. "Last night, I offered some warm milk to Beth . . ."
Jumping in, Al laughed a little. "She hates warm milk."
"I know. She said it was 'yuckola.'".
"That's where I got it." He reflected on his homecoming. "It was almost a month before I got to bite into a piece of anything solid and was able to keep it down. My meals were all pureed crap."
"There was a reason for that. You weren't capable of digesting anything heavier than mushy stuff. They wanted you to gain good weight. You know, muscle mass, not fat."
He proudly showed off his svelte self. "Does it look like I gained fat?"
Sam found an opportunity and he took it. "No. In fact, I think you've lost a few pounds. That's not good. You need to maintain your body weight as much as possible. If they put you on chemotherapy, you'll need all the fat you can get. That means you eat, a lot,"
Al had no use for this conversation. He tried again. "Back to Beth and Bingo."
"Did you know that Beth was harassed by the press after Maggie's picture made the news? Why do they do that to people?"
A sharp pain knifed into Al's head and he was unable to hide it. "Damn it."
Sam reached his hand out and when it passed through Al like passing through air, he was unduly reminded of his uselessness to the Admiral. "You need to go back to bed and rest. I can take care of things here. Anything to tell me before you go?"
"Her parents show up pretty soon. I seem to recall that being rough for some reason."
"I thought you liked them."
"I do. Really terrific people, both of them." Looking at Sam, he was embarrassed to admit, "I don't remember everything. I wasn't paying a lot of attention in case you couldn't tell. Everything hurt, even breathing. You saw what eating was like. Damn, why didn't I have the good sense to die in Nam?"
When pain gets too big, it can explode into anger. Sam reached that limit and turned on the sick man in front of him. "For a smart guy, sometimes you talk really stupid."
It was stupid, but then nothing was making sense to him. He just wanted to get this leap over with. "I'm just feeling a little sorry for myself."
To cover his worry, Sam smiled at the Admiral, "I guess you have a right to, just don't do it too long. I need you here with me."
The pain started making Al dizzy. "Damn it." He turned away from Sam to hide the stabbing in his head and the one in his heart. "Sam, we got to talk before I go back to bed."
The words "back to bed" worried Sam. That was Al's confession, an admission of feeling sick. Al never admitted weakness. "Unless you have some earthshaking news for me, just go get the rest you need. Things here aren't going to move along very quickly, so go to bed. Come back tomorrow, if you can."
"No. We got to talk. I'm in the mood now, but I won't be for long and there are things that need saying." He took a deep breath, but still didn't turn to face Sam; he couldn't. "I think this thing growing in my head is going to kill me. When my father got sick, it was over pretty quickly, four months. I'm thinking this might be the same thing he had."
Sam didn't remember the particulars about Papa Calavicci's death. "He had cancer?"
"Yeah." Al started to pace in a pattern he used only when frustrated, angry, or backed into a corner. "Sam, I made you a promise once. I promised that I'd get you back, but now . . . Can you believe it?" Al had more to say. "I'm sorry, Sam. I'm sorry I screwed up."
Don't be ridiculous. "Screwed up? Al, this is a brain tumor we're talking about."
"I made you a promise and I meant it."
Al still couldn't look at his friend so Sam walked around in front of the hologram and made the man look at him. "Listen, you haven't broken any promises to me. If any apologies have to be made, then maybe I'm the one who should make them. I leapt without telling you. I knew the risk I was taking for me, but I didn't stop to think what I'd be doing to you. I let you down, Al. I'm the one who screwed up and I'm sorry."
"So, are we done telling each other how stupid we are? Because if we are, you need to stop talking and hear me out." Sam sighed in defeat. "Okay. I'm making a decision regarding the retrieval program. It seems that our best chance to get you back is to reenact the simo-leap."
It didn't take his six doctorates to know where Al was going with this. "You can't."
"Why not? I'm going to die anyhow. This makes sense. We simo-leap and you come home. Then I become the leaper and everything is right again."
"What about the person you leap into? You want to kill him?"
"I thought about that. You know we can pinpoint landings now. We'll search out some other terminally ill person and leap me into him just before he dies."
Sam was beyond angry. He was real close to God-damned pissed off. "How do you get lightning to strike at the right moment?"
"We'll simulate the lightning strike. It can happen, Sam. We have a couple of months to play with here." Pacing gave him something to do other than think about the pain in his head.
"We could, you could have years. Don't kill yourself off like this. Just wait a little bit."
"No, we can't." His next statement was going to hurt worse than his pounding head. "I want you to make sure Beth doesn't stay with me. I don't want to do this if it means leaving her alone in the future. She wouldn't understand."
"You can't mean it. You want me to keep Bingo and Beth apart so you can die trying to get me back? Are you listening to yourself?" Sam was fuming now. He wanted to whack the hologram upside the head. "This is nuts, Al. Really nuts. You've come up with hair-brained ideas in the past, but this one beats them all. I am not going to let you throw your life away. You don't even have a real diagnosis yet, right?" Al nodded. "Okay. It may not be cancer."
"Don't talk stupid. I know when something isn't right." Breathing got hard, but Al gathered all the energy he could. "Look at Bingo. You think I don't the difference between a tumor and a tension headache? Come on, Sam. It's time for me to die. Don't make it hard. Let me do something meaningful, at least in my death."
Sam knew that his friend, despite all his incredible achievements, fell too far short of his personal expectations. Al was never quite good enough in his own eyes. "You're asking me to take away a chance for you and Beth to be happy and then you want me to help set it up for you to die. Don't you know I can't do it?"
"She deserves a better life. You think about it for a few hours. Beth needs you with her. Dwight and Martha Robertson are visiting. Dwight tells her how they got us out."
Hoping for some preparation for the facts he would be hearing, Sam said, "I guess the rescue was pretty frightening, huh?"
Smirking with more anger than he thought he still had, he said, "Oh, yeah, dumb luck is always scary." The event wasn't spectacular in any way. It was simply a fortunate accident. "They didn't even know we were there." Al fumbled with the handlink and his image blipped out.
Sam was having a lot of trouble on this leap. He left the stairwell with his mind being pulled so many ways. There was a twisted sense to Al's plan. After all, Al was probably dying, but Sam knew he couldn't deny his friend the joy of a happy marriage. Beth would be a tremendous comfort to Al during this cancer ordeal. He made his way back toward Al's hospital room. He opened the door and saw exactly what Al predicted. Dwight and Martha were sitting with Beth. Dwight positioned himself at Al's side and held his hand.
They turned their eyes to the door when Sam entered. "Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt."
"That's okay, Jane. You remember Martha and Dwight Robertson, don't you? Captain Robertson was about to tell me how he and Al were rescued."
Dwight shook his head. "It's not much of a story. There were five of us left in camp with 10 guards. It was crazy. The camp was big, too. I guess, from what Al told me, there had been maybe 20 or more men there at one time, back in the early 70's. Anyhow, when I got there in '72, there were nine of us left. At the end, only five. They had all of us in one box. It was maybe six by six and no more than four feet high. We hadn't eaten in days and if it hadn't rained, we wouldn't have had any water at all to drink. Bingo taught me all the tricks to staying alive. Showed me how to catch rain in my mouth so I'd get some water. When they chose to feed us, he showed me how to eat."
Sam was confused. "How to eat? I don't understand."
"The food was real bad and you don't even want to look at it, but you have to eat to survive. Bingo showed me how to take the rice and just one grain at a time, swallow it down." He looked at his buddy, "But it didn't make the rice taste any better, did it?" Al didn't respond. Sam assumed incorrectly that Bingo was asleep. "Anyway, the five of us were crowded into the box and it was pretty obvious something was happening. They took Jim Scoville first and we could hear them beating on him. It was horrible to listen to. Paul Brogan was next, then Bingo. You know, he was the only one of us that never screamed or cried when he was beaten. Sometimes he'd even sing. It made them mad as hell. I don't know how he did it, but they never got him to wimp out. The rest of us did, but not Lieutenant Calavicci." He turned again to Al. "How did you do that, buddy? The next man they took was Pete Montez, but they didn't work him over as long as the others. I'm not sure why. They finally pulled me out of the cage and they didn't beat me at all. They just threw me into the pit."
Beth was hanging on every word. "What's the pit?"
Some things were obvious and Dwight couldn't figure any other way to start his answer. "It was a pit, maybe 12, 15 feet deep and about four feet round. It had an iron grate across the top. There were a lot of pits in the camp, but they threw me into the one where they'd thrown Bingo. He was beat up real bad. His face was more swollen than it is now. We never heard any sounds from the other pits. All we heard was the VC packing up and leaving us there. I figured we were going to die, but Bingo made me promise to stay alive. I really didn't want to try. There was nothing to eat and like I said, we weren't fed anything for a long time. The pit was filled with all sorts of bugs and snakes. Bingo convinced me to eat them." Dwight was getting uncomfortable, but he continued. "Some of the bugs had a lot of juice in them. Down in the pit we didn't have any water and Bingo kept saying water was more important than food. He tried to eat the bugs too, but nothing was staying down. His stomach was bloated so big. When he started vomiting up blood, I thought he would die, but he would start to sing right after." Dwight laughed, "Beth, make sure he doesn't try to make a career in movie musicals. He'd start in singing and I'd have to laugh. He worked real hard at keeping my spirits up. I don't know how many days we were in there. It was at least three or four. We both had dysentery and his fever was bad. Then we began to hear noises. I was really scared, but then I heard voices and they were American, so I yelled and yelled. Some little soldier boy found us and he and his buddies pulled us out. That night we were in the hospital. We were clean, dry, laying in beds. We had food, at least I did. Bingo here was pretty sick. He was getting fed with IVs." The far-off gaze in his eyes changed to incredible intensity. Dwight spoke to Beth's soul. "I would have given up months earlier if he hadn't been there. Giving up is what kills you, even more than the torture and there was plenty of that. Beth, he saved my life."
Tears were staining the faces of everyone in the room except Bingo whose eyes remained closed. Sam surveyed the room. His eyes saw another potential Pulitzer Prize photo, Dwight holding the frail hand of his camp buddy. This was the result of shared pain and agony. As Dwight did with Al, Martha held Beth's hand. Beth tried to be stoic. She asked, "What did they do? I mean, you said torture, that Al was tortured. What did they do?"
Dwight took in a deep breath. "Okay. I guess the most common thing was putting a guy in ropes. That's where they tied your wrists together behind your back and then tied your elbows together. After that they'd, they'd suspend you from your wrists. Sometimes they'd leave you like that for hours. It hurts real bad." He pulled back Al's sleeve exposing the ridge of scars above his elbow. "That's where they tied the ropes. His elbows would be touching behind him. For some reason, probably because he never gave in, he was a regular favorite of theirs. He was in ropes once for more than two days. We had a guy there with some medical training. He snapped Bingo's shoulders back in place. Sometimes they'd beat us with these rubber strips. Bingo said they used old tires to make whips. They used bamboo poles soaked in water. They had cattle prods, too. The electric shock stuff was bad. That's how his teeth got busted out."
Dwight squeezed his eyes against the memory, but continued. "About a year ago, there were only about nine of us still alive, but they brought us all out into the courtyard. They stripped us all and we had to squat in a circle. They dragged Bingo to the center and staked him out. I mean, really staked him out. They pulled his arms and legs so tight you could see the bones pop out of the sockets. And then Bingo sang. Those animals beat him with bamboo poles. His leg was shattered. Bones were sticking through his shin. His leg never did heal right. We were thrown back into our cages, but they left Bingo out there. We all knew he was dead. Then in the middle of the second night, we heard him singing Georgia. I don't know how many times we heard it, so we all knew the words. One by one the guys joined in." Dwight was laughing and crying now. "It was what we all needed. Bingo gave us back our lives again. The VC didn't own us. Beth, you have to make sure he survives this all right. I know only he and I got out alive, but no one in that camp died without hope. It doesn't sound like much, but it was the only thing we had. Every time one of us died, Bingo would chant his name until we all had it in our minds forever. We knew we wouldn't be forgotten. No one died there thinking he was going to be forgotten and it's because of Bingo." Dwight sobbed and Martha left Beth's side for her husband's. He looked at his wife and said, "I'm sorry, Martha."
Martha comforted her husband. "It's all right, honey. It's all right." She looked at Beth. "Mrs. Calavicci, your husband is quite a man."
Beth's face was blank, no emotion was there. It worried Sam. He went to her. "Beth, are you okay?" She sat, unable to react to the horror Al had survived. "Beth, can you hear me?"
With a short sigh, Beth turned to Sam. "How did he get through that?"
Sam came down to her eye level. "He dreamed of you and sang your song. Al's special. He has been since the day he was born and he even doesn't know it. When he does things like sing Georgia in the middle of the night, he just does it because it's natural for him. You told me Al was a genius, but his true genius is for life. No one knows more about being alive than he does."
Dwight was listening to Sam. "You talk like you know him really well."
Sam was caught again and mumbled out, "No, not really, but listening to you and Beth, it's pretty obvious what he's like." Sam took the Admiral's wife's hands. "Beth, he needs to be weak now. He needs time where he doesn't have to be strong."
The fear in her eyes made her hands shake. "I don't know if I do that. Why did they torture him?" The facade was falling quickly. "Why? Look at him, Jane. Al can't survive this. No one can." Tears began. Her hand began patting her chest. "My Al is a handsome Navy pilot. This man is . . ." Tears became sobs and her open hand closed into a fist that pounded against her breast. "I don't know him."
Sam pulled her hand down and strongly told her, "Yes, you do. He's still Al and he loves you more than anything in this world. You will not give up on him. Do you hear me?"
Martha joined Sam at Beth's side. "He's going to be a different man, but different doesn't mean his love has changed. His body might not ever recover completely, but give him a chance to come home. I'm asking this for selfish reasons. See, he gave my Dwight the will to come home, so our son and me owe him our lives, too. If you need to lean on people, you can count on me."
"Me, too, Beth," Sam answered.
Dwight joined the group. "And me."
Finally Beth's tears flowed and her face echoed the agony Al lived through. Everyone's attention was on the beautiful, sad nurse. No one noticed the pilot's single tear. It quietly ran down from the corner of his eye. He made no sound, no movement. He only felt the pain of Beth's doubt and his warrior's heart broke for the first time since he married his beautiful wife.
