"If a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it." - Edgar Watson Howe

Chapter 13

Sacrifice for a Friend

Sam had blissfully passed out again, but not after a sizable chunk of muscle was removed from his arm … without anesthesia.

All Al could be thankful for was that Tony the Chopper was a trained surgeon, kept his instruments sterilized, made the incision as straight as he could despite his patient writhing under him, and used skin adhesive rather than barbaric stitches. It was not much to be thankful about, but it was something. Now with his friend passed out and bandaged up, he had to step out of the Imaging Chamber.

The very first thing he did was vomit into the nearest trash receptacle. He had been holding that in all morning.

Tina rushed to his side, warbling in worry like some over-protective songbird, but Al waved her aside. He was not in the mood for mothering, not even for Tina's flirtatious way of distracting his anger.

"Gooshie!" he barked.

The poor man looked like a leprechaun caught in the headlights. Being faced with an irate Navy Rear Admiral was of no help. "We're still working on it," he piped. "Ziggy gives only five percent odds of success."

Donna handed Al a mug of coffee as a peace offering. Her pink dress, conservative while still being elegant and stylish, was a dash of hope amidst a thick, tense atmosphere. "Believe me, Al, we're working quickly. None of us like the idea of Sam … of him being … tortured." Her words died out as tears she refused to shed lined her eyes.

Al realized, for all her professional appearance—so different from Al's loud outfits, Gooshie's mad scientist appearance, Tina's flashing jewelry, and Verbeena's stoic attitude—Donna's hair was coming loose from its bun, and dark circles had begun to form under her eyes. She had the anemic appearance she got whenever she skipped meals. Her hands twisted together, wanting to ask something yet dreading the truth.

"How … How is he?" Donna asked softly.

Everyone looked toward Al. He was their link to knowing the worst.

He sighed and stared down at the coffee. "You don't want to know. You really don't want to know."

Standing there in that abandoned desert shack, listening to Sam's screams, and being utterly incapable of helping him was the worst feeling in the world. Yet at the same time, he could not simply abandon his friend at a time like that. They had been in dire situations before, but nothing so gruesome as this.

Al would do anything to save his friend, which was precisely what the Project crew was working on. The one time when Sam and Al simo-leaped and switched places, so that Al leaped into Tom Jarrett, Sam somehow managed to go into the Acceleration Chamber and Leap directly into Al, thrusting him back into the present.

Al had proposed to do the same thing this time, Leaping into Theodore Nyt. Granted, that did nothing to help the current situation but … dammit all, Al was not about to sit back and watch his best friend being tortured. Sam was a scientist. He did not have the mentality to survive this. Al was a soldier, trained in grueling conditions, hardened through two tours of Vietnam. He had been a P.O.W. for six years and knew what to expect, down to the worst of it. He was prepared to make that sacrifice for his friend!

"Verbeena?"

"She's already waiting for you," Donna assured. "She knew you'd need to talk."

He nodded, slowly deflating from the indignation he felt at those two Mafia goons. He finally took a sip of coffee and turned to Dr. Verbeena Beeks' office.

After he was gone, Donna turned back to the others. Gooshie looked frazzled. Tina chomped her gum a little louder in a nervous habit. She then looked hesitantly at the Acceleration Chamber.

Ziggy's warning boomed out. "Don't even think about it, Dr. Eleese."

Donna glared at the large sphere that contained Ziggy's "brain." However, she knew it was useless. Ziggy never felt guilt. Besides, someone—she guessed Verbeena—had ordered one of the Marine guards to stand in front of the door to the Chamber, either to stop her or Al … likely both.

"What are Sam's chances of being rescued?" she asked yet again.

The computer made a sound as if sighing. "As I've said sixteen times already, I have no records of Theodore Nyt following his departure from his penthouse in Las Vegas. His body never surfaced. The case is still open. The chance of him being alive and in hiding are equal to the chance that he was killed and his body hidden. I simply have no information by which to calculate a statistic. If I had to guess," and the computer sounded peeved at being once again reduced to pure guesswork, "his chance of rescue is less than one percent."

Donna looked at the Acceleration Chamber again. She knew Sam changed time so that they married. When Sam first Leaped, he had been a bachelor, and she stood him up years before. She could not imagine ever leaving Sam at the altar. It was unthinkable! Yet that was what originally happened. So then why had God, Time, Fate, or Whatever sent Sam to save his marriage if not to have her dedicate her life to bringing him back home?

If her theories and calculations could not do it, after all these years, why not sacrifice herself to bring him home? By all rights, she should not have those happy memories of marriage. Sam could not even remember her, and she felt it was best that way.

She and Verbeena had talked about this many times during their therapy sessions. On one hand, Donna wanted her husband back desperately. On the other, she wondered if her presence somehow hindered his return. If she had not been there, who would Sam have picked to do her job? Someone better? Someone smarter, more skilled? Would that other person have figured it out by now?

Plus there were the memories. She remembered that Valentine's Day of 1995, seeing a single headlight swerve off the desert road, pulling over into the ghost town of Carthage, and shouting if the person needed help. She remembered, when she told Sam about it the next morning, he had scolded her. What if it had been someone up to no good?

In 1995, neither she nor Sam had any idea that the person she almost met was his future self!

Obviously, that had not happened in the original history, yet … she remembered it. Clearly! As soon as Al came out and told them, she recalled it. She had always known it happened, yet she realized it had just happened.

No wonder Al sometimes went a little crazy, seeing the changes to the world that Sam wrought. Only Al and Ziggy were 100% aware of the differences. Sam would be too, if his memory could stabilize for more than one Leap at a time. Other than to his sessions with Verbeena, Al only occasionally told them about the changes. Often little things, sometimes major things.

She felt there had to be a reason Sam changed the things he did. There must have been a reason for her being there.

But what?

Al slouched and stared at the coffee mug growing cold as he held it in both hands, as if willing it to grow a magic beanstalk that would take him to a golden goose that could solve all of his problems.

"Do you notice any changes?"

It was a standard question, one that amused and annoyed Al. It had been fascinating the first couple years, seeing what changed in the world around him. Donna's sudden appearance was certainly a shock. Part of his mind knew she would be there. After all, she had been with them since Project Starbright. Another part of his mind remembered her leaving, and Sam being stood up in that little mission chapel. He recalled both histories thanks to the effects of the brain cell link. Fashion sometimes changed. Other times, the changes were subtle, too minute to mention.

"That plant in the corner." He nodded off to the side, not even looking over to it. "What is it called?"

"Areca palm," Verbeena answered in a smoothly flowing timbre. "It's good at removing airborne chemicals."

"It was a pothos last time."

"Both are lovely office plants."

"Yes, but last time it was a pothos, and now it's a palm." These minor changes sometimes annoyed him more than the major ones. "Donna is wearing a different dress than this morning. I don't think she even owned that pink thing she's wearing. And her hair is up. It was down last time. Your hair too. It's a little longer."

"Do you know when I had cut it in the previous timeline?"

He glared up. "I'm a man. You should be happy I can even notice something like clothes and hair." He set the coffee aside. No magic beanstalks today. He pulled out a cigar instead.

"Not in my office," she said firmly.

"Your areca palm will suck up the chemicals," he grumbled in dismissal and lit up anyway.

"You're particularly aggressive today," she noted, folding her hands together on top of her desk.

Al leered at her. "Tell me, Dr. Beeks," he said in a low, dire tone, "have you ever watched a man being operated on without anesthesia?"

She blinked silently.

"Have you ever watched a man have his fingernail ripped off? Have you ever sat by, utterly powerless, as your buddy gets tortured?"

"This goes beyond Dr. Beckett," she surmised.

"Damn right it does!" He knew she would get to it, but it still did not mean he liked to talk about it. "Back in 'Nam…" Nope, couldn't talk about it! "Do you realize, I have two completely different memories of my time as a prisoner? One was a year longer than the other. One extra year of torment! The things I saw … and now … watching Sam … listening to him…" His eyes shut to stop the fresh memories.

"Do you blame Dr. Beckett?"

"For what?" he snapped. "You mean 'Nam? Saving his brother's life and damning me to one more year of torture? Hell no, I don't blame him! Even if it meant being a prisoner one more year, to save Sam's brother … it's worth it, right?"

"Only you can answer that," she said gently. "I meant, do you blame him now?"

"For getting captured? No."

"Do you blame yourself?"

"Shit." He hated when she got to the heart of the issue so quickly. Al puffed on his cigar and glared at the palm tree. "I shouldn't have left him. I could have given him warning. This Leap was going so well," he lamented. "Ziggy said it was safe in Carrizozo. I … I got sloppy. I was tired, hungry, thought I'd rest and get some breakfast."

"Food and sleep are vital necessities."

He punched the arm of his chair. "I wasn't taking his situation seriously enough!" He backed off, realizing that shouting at her did nothing. "Verbeena," he said with a more personal tone, telling her without words that he was now going to speak to her, not as a psychologist, but as a friend. "Sam … he means everything to me. When I had nothing, when I was a drunken mess up to my ears in alimony, Sam came along. He believed in me. He rescued me. He gave me a true chance at life. I owe him … everything. Then, when I Leaped, he sacrificed his life here, his reunion with Donna, an opportunity to fix Ziggy and get the Project to work as it was meant to … his own freedom! His own life! He gave it all up without hesitation to save my life. Sam has been a prisoner of this Project for longer than I was a prisoner of the Viet Cong. If I could rescue him now … if I could Leap in his place, give him a chance to solve this Gordian Knot, I bet he could solve it. He'd get me back. I trust him on that."

"But Ziggy says the chance of you being able to guide your Leap are less than five percent," she reasoned. "When you Leaped into Tom Jarrett, Dr. Beckett managed to Leap into you because of his years of experience, something you don't have."

Now his frustration burst. "Then what the hell am I supposed to do?" he barked. "Stand there and watch as they butcher him?"

Verbeena waited a moment for him to calm down. She wished he had not shouted that so loudly. Donna did not need to hear about such things. The poor woman was an emotional powder keg as it was!

Ziggy had confided with Verbeena just what Sam was going through, calculating that Al would emerge and be in dire need of counseling. Verbeena knew this situation would be a challenge on the mental health of the whole crew. Even she felt anguished and helpless.

Once she saw Al's jaw unclench, Verbeena said, "Ziggy still believes, as soon as Araceli reaches her parents' home, Dr. Beckett will have completed his mission of saving her, and at that point he'll Leap. It was never certain that his reason for being there was to get Theodore Nyt to Mexico."

Al chomped on his cigar. "But it only takes three hours to get from Carrizozo to Socorro. Sam's been dealing with those bastards upwards of eight hours."

"Maybe she stopped along the way. She said she has a brother who owns a shop in El Paso. We have no records on this, time is changing too rapidly for Ziggy to make any decision beyond guesswork, and you know how he hates that. Try to rest, Admiral," she recommended. "While Dr. Beckett is unconscious, those men will do nothing. I'll have Ziggy alert you as soon as Dr. Beckett wakes up."

He stood, took his coffee mug, and began to walk away. He paused in her doorway to look at the Acceleration Chamber and the Marine guard standing in front of it.

"Don't even think about it," Verbeena warned sternly.

Ziggy piped in. "I wanted to say that!"

"Get some sleep," Verbeena ordered again. "Donna!" She knew the woman was listening in now. "That goes for you too, dear. Sleep. Doctor's orders."

Al and Donna looked at each other. There truly was nothing either one could do but worry themselves sick. Al waved for Donna to follow him to the elevators. Behind him, he heard Verbeena spraying her office to get rid of the cigar smell.

"Al?" Donna hugged herself as she walked beside him. "Will he be okay? I mean, that's his physical body. What if they … hurt him real bad?"

That was something Ziggy had hypothesized on before. What if Dr. Beckett's physical body obtained critical damage? What if one of those Mafia goons cut off a finger, or a whole leg? What if Sam became blind?

"If anything happens, we'll deal with it then."

It was not comforting, but it was the best he could tell her. There was no way he could admit to Donna what sort of mutilation Sam had already gone through.

A/N:

I love episodes set in Al's present, viewing "the future," seeing everyone we only hear stories about from Al's rambling office gossip. The series should have had more scenes like that. If they ever do a QL remake, one thing I'd request is MORE FUTURE SCENES! The books love to explore this vague territory. A remake should show more of the Project crew, the drama behind the scenes, political struggles, Al's military connections, the tragic love of Donna, Dr. Beeks struggling to calm down the Visitors and keeping the rest of the crew sane, the scandalous love triangle of Al-Tina-Gooshie, and the playful snobbery of Ziggy.

Most importantly, they should rewrite the ending. Don't get me started on the last episode! I prefer to close my eyes before that last line pops up. "Doctor Sam Beckett never returned home." Seriously? NO! Let me think he at least returned SOMEDAY! Or if not, what were his reasons? Did he change Time to the point where PQL never existed? Did his love for helping strangers become more important than his goal of returning home? What about Donna? Does he age? Is he now immortal? Has Sam transcended humankind? Instead, we get six vague, thudding words. I'm still waiting for a movie or remake, something to give closure to all the fans who have spent nearly two decades agonizing over that horrible ending to such an amazing show.