One-shot, nowhere definite in the timeline except that it's after Eggheads and prior to Slide Like an Egyptian. I've been rewatching the early seasons of Sliders again (personal opinion, the only ones worth watching) and saw the part where Arturo mentions that Quinn once told him that he dreamed that he was Arturo's son. I don't see that coming up as a normal conversation topic over dinner so this is my explanation.


The figure on the bed groaned, and Arturo put his book aside and leaned forward. "Mr. Mallory? Quinn, are you back with us?"

"Pr'fessor?" A blink. "Strange dreams." He started to sit up and then stopped with a groan. "Ohhh, that doesn't feel good."

Arturo patted his arm sympathetically. "Take it slowly, my boy. Do you remember what happened?"

Quinn relaxed back into the pillows and one hand came up to rub his forehead. "Not really? We were on Lacrosse World, and the cabbie was still arguing with Remmy when I activated the timer." He blinked hard and looked back up at Arturo with a question in his eyes. "Bad landing?"

"Very bad, I'm afraid." It was becoming a running joke that Arturo was the one who got the short end of the stick when it came to exiting their slides, but this time Quinn had been the one launched headfirst into a boulder. And with considerable force at that. Arturo wouldn't admit it, but privately he'd thanked whoever it was that looked out for reckless physicists a dozen times over that not only did this world have tolerable medical technology, they'd gotten Quinn to the hospital with commendable haste and had confirmed on short order that his skull wasn't cracked. Of course, they hadn't been able to offer anything useful in the way of treatment beyond painkillers and the order to rest, but that would have been true on their world as well. Since they had a little over a week here he, Wade, and Rembrandt were taking turns sitting with him while the others worked the jobs they'd obtained for the duration.

"How long?" Quinn asked.

"Have we been here? Almost four days, now. You've been asleep for most of that." He paused. "Would you like me to dim the lighting?" There had been a rather spectacular incident involving an overhead light when they'd first arrived at the hotel, although 'spectacular' wasn't the word that Rembrandt had used. The light was on now so he could read while sitting at Quinn's bedside, but despite the fact that Quinn didn't have much in his stomach at this point, he didn't particularly want a repeat.

"No, it's okay. Four days?" Quinn blinked again and then slowly pushed himself into a sitting position against the headboard. "My head is pounding."

"I'd imagine so. However, we have been provided with a bottle of what passes for Tylenol on this world."

Quinn eyed the bottle on the bedside dubiously before returning his attention to Arturo. "Is everything okay? Where are Wade and Remmy?"

Trust Quinn to worry about the others more than his head injury, and Arturo patted his arm again. "All is well, Mr. Mallory. Fortunately our time on this world has been rather dull thus far. Apparently one of the waitresses at the bar down the street eloped with the bartender shortly before we arrived, and Miss Wells and Mr. Brown have secured their positions for the duration. And while I have been once again deemed unsuitable in temperament for customer service work, I have obtained temporary employment proofreading papers at a tutoring center down the street."

Quinn gave him a skeptical look.

"Really, Mr. Mallory, if I'm capable of deciphering the mutilation of the English language as presented by the typical physics student, I'm certainly capable of proofreading a simple high school English paper.

"Professor, I've gotten some of those critiques. You'll probably scar those kids for life."

"You are not a typical student. Now, how about water and Tylenol?"

"No, thanks."

"A sip at least, Mr. Mallory," he ordered, reaching for the glass that sat waiting. "You'll do yourself no favors ending dehydrated on top of everything else."

"I don't know if it's going to stay down, Professor."

"Fortunately we have a means of dealing with that to hand." It wouldn't be the first time it had been necessary since they'd arrived. He held up the plastic trash can currently in residence beside the bed, and Quinn nodded and put the glass to his lips. Arturo took the opportunity to open the bottle of painkillers and shake two into his palm, and while Quinn still didn't look happy about it, he did accept them.

"So what were these strange dreams of yours?" Arturo prompted as Quinn took another sip of water. As much as Quinn needed rest, sleeping too long could be headache-inducing in and of itself, and this was as lucid as Arturo had seen him since the accident. "Worlds we've yet to visit? Be careful or you're likely to get your wish."

Quinn's eyes meet his for an instant and then focused on his hands, and that was enough to put Arturo on alert because Quinn wasn't normally one to hesitate to say what was on his mind.

"Mr. Mallory?"

"I dreamed you were my father."

The quiet admission took Arturo by surprise, and he found himself at a loss for how to respond. He knew how he'd like to respond, but…well, he just wasn't the sort of man who said that sort of thing out loud. He never had been. He couldn't bring himself to brush it off with a joke, though, either.

"You have a son, right?" Quinn asked, before he could find the right words. "What's his name? What's he like?"

"His name is David," Arturo said after a moment. "He's just a bit younger than you are. But as to what he's like, I'm afraid that I really don't know. Much to my shame."

Quinn blinked slowly, the question clear in his eyes although he didn't ask, and after a moment Arturo shifted in his seat and began to speak again. As much as he also wasn't one to discuss his personal history, there was no harm in answering Quinn's question. If nothing else, it would give the boy something to focus on besides his aching head. Not to mention that given the way that Quinn had been drifting in and out of consciousness over the past few days, in all likelihood he wouldn't remember much anyway.

"You'll recall that I was once married," Arturo began. "And that my Christina died very young."

Quinn started to nod and then his jaw tightened and the hand that wasn't holding the glass of water went to his forehead.

"Breathe, my boy." Arturo took the glass back from him and set it on the bedside table, reaching out to dim the lights a bit as well despite Quinn's earlier assurance that it wasn't necessary. "Breathe. It will pass."

"Be nice if it passed soon, Professor."

There wasn't much to be done except to pat his shoulder in sympathy and wait for a bit of the tension to drain. When it did, Arturo settled himself again in his chair and continued. "I'm afraid that after Christina passed I behaved...very poorly. There was a young woman who waitressed at a bar that I patronized far more often than I ought have, who was far kinder than I deserved when I not infrequently drank more than was appropriate, and one night..." He cleared his throat. He was well aware that Quinn's generation was a bit more open about such things than his own, but there were limits. "And few months later she found that she was pregnant." He sighed, fixing his eyes on the window across the room despite the fact that there was nothing to see in the darkness. "My foolishness should have ended there. I should have stepped up and done the proper thing." He'd told himself a hundred times that he would, had even found himself in the parking lot of the jewelry store a few blocks from campus more than once. "But in the end I was unable to go through with it. Christina and I had just begun to discuss having children, and the idea of living with another woman, of raising a child with another woman, was beyond me." He opened and closed his hands. It was a difficult thing to think about even now.

"Professor..."

Arturo pressed on without meeting Quinn's eyes. "Marie moved on eventually, as she had every right to do, and David was barely two when they left for southern Oregon to be near her family. In the beginning I drove up every weekend to see him, but as time passed it became every other weekend, and then once a month, and as the years passed I saw him less and less. A phone call or a visit now and again isn't enough, especially with a child that young, and by the time he was a few years into primary school he was calling another man Daddy."

"I'm sorry," Quinn said.

"The fault was mine. There were any number of things that I could have done differently. Should have done differently. And then when David was about fourteen Marie and her husband divorced. I was in no way privy to the details, of course, but I know he took it hard." He shook his head. "I still don't understand how a man who'd raised a child for so much of his life could just walk away. I was a poor excuse for a parent, I make no claims otherwise, but Marshall...well, as I said, David took it hard."

"That's not your fault."

"Mm. Well, he did begin to visit me a bit more often after that, mostly in the summers when he wasn't in school and Marie didn't have other activities planned for him, but he was always...quiet. I never knew what to say, and the fact that he'd take the train down for a few days, perhaps a week at most, and then go back to his mother didn't help. I wish now that I'd asked for more." If he had, maybe they'd have been able to settle things before that last blow up. Or at least maybe he'd have seen the blow up coming. "He was seventeen the last time I saw him. The summer after his senior year of high school and simply thrilled to be starting at MIT in the fall."

"Professor."

Quinn's groan made Arturo smile despite himself. "Yes, quite. But he had no activities lined up for that particular summer and planned to spend the majority of it in San Francisco with me. It was the longest that we'd ever spent in each other's company, and after the first few weeks I'm afraid things began to go rather downhill. Before that, when a visit only last for a week at most, we were both on what I suppose you could call our best behavior. After nearly a month in each other's company..."

"We all know how that goes," Quinn said sympathetically.

"Quite." Those sliding together had all learned to make allowances for each others' personal foibles. "Whether David and I would have clashed so badly if we'd had more time to become accustomed to each other before that summer I'll never know. But as I found out he did blame me not only for abandoning his mother, something for which I can hardly fault him, but also the troubles in her subsequent relationship. Our arguments only compounded from that point, and by the time I took him to the train station to send him home we'd moved well past the bounds of civility and could barely stand to be in the same room with each other."

"And that's the last time you talked to him?"

"Yes. I did try making contact a few months later, when it seemed that we'd both had enough time to calm down, but he chose not to respond. We haven't spoken since."

"I'm sorry, Professor."

Arturo shook his head. It was an old hurt, and one entirely of his own making. "It is what it is, my boy. Perhaps you should lie down again and rest a bit more. And no nightmares this time."

"It wasn't a nightmare, Professor," Quinn said, obviously having no trouble connecting his comment to the earlier comment about dreams. "I know it's not...it isn't what any of us wanted, but I'm glad you're with us. I don't know what we'd—I'd—do if you weren't."

Arturo cleared his throat, unable to meet Quinn's eyes. "Yes, well, be as—" The click of the door lock interrupted him before he could finish his statement, which was probably as well for his composure if nothing else.

"Hey, Professor," Rembrant greeted. "Is—" He broke off with a grin. "Q-Ball! How are you feeling?"

"Infinitely worse than before you burst in here with your caterwauling, I'm sure," Arturo snapped.

"S'okay, Professor," Quinn said, although the hand that had gone back to gripping his forehead said otherwise. "I'm conscious, which I think is more than I've managed for the past couple days. What's up, Remmy?"

His smile faded as abruptly as it had appeared. "Is Wade back yet?"

"No, I thought you were both working tonight," Arturo said.

"Well, her shift started earlier than mine and apparently her fiancée happened by before I got there and wasn't very happy to find her working in a bar. According to Elisa he was threatening to talk to his 'people' when she finally got him to leave. She got off an hour ago and I thought she was going to wait for me, but when I went looking for her I couldn't find her. I was hoping she'd come back here, but if you haven't seen her..."

"Good heavens, what are the odds that not only does the Wade on this world have a fiancée, he has one who wanders into your temporary place of work?"

"With our luck?'" Quinn sighed. "What were you saying about reassuringly dull, Professor?"

He started to straighten further, turning to swing his legs over the side of the bed, and Arturo blocked him quickly. "Not you, Mr. Mallory. Mr. Brown and I will find Miss Wells and return shortly."

Quinn started to object, but whatever Arturo was comfortable saying out loud they both knew he had become a surrogate parent for his occasionally-too-smart-for-everyone's-good student, and a solid glare was enough to convince Quinn to sink back down in the bed.

"Thank you. We will return posthaste."

"Just watch out for this guy's people, okay?"