Season six episode 3
First Love
December 3, 1992
Sam leaps in and is standing on a small knoll. It is winter and teenagers surround him. He turns around and is cold-cocked. He gets back up and tries to defend himself but three other kids ambush him. One the turns his arm around his back and tries to break his arm.
"This is for being where you don't belong!" the bully says. He then breaks the arm and pushes Sam down the snow-covered hill.
Sam rolls over and says, "Oh, Boy."
As Sam slowly gets up from the fall he realizes that his arm is broken. He struggles up the small knoll as the bully and his entourage laughs at him. Sam walks over to the bully and asks, "What was that for?" as he hold his left arm.
The bully gets a smug look and responds, "You know! This isn't your spot. All the trash belongs over there." As the bully points to the far end of the schoolyard.
"Can't…can't we just call a truce…" Sam asks.
"NO!" as the bully decks Sam and then punches him in the face knocking him down. Sam is reeling when he kicks the bully in the head.
Sam then gets up and spin kicks him then a couple more kicks to the gut and head. The bully falls backward into his friends. Then he growls and charges Sam. Sam move and he misses, and runs right into the schoolyard monitor and good spirited teacher who helps the bully up.
"That's it! Both of you are going to the principals office!" she says.
"Why? He started it! I shouldn't have to." Sam argues as he wrenches in pain from his abdomen.
"You both were fighting, so you both will go right now!" the teacher says.
By now Sam realizes that he is a teenager not more than 13 or 14. The other kids look on as some root for the bully and others support him. One girl comes up to the teacher and says, "Aaron shouldn't have to go. David started it all."
"Well…we'll figure this out inside." The teacher responds.
One of the members of the bully's entourage comes over and tells, "It wasn't David. Aaron came over acting all cocky and wanted him to push him down."
"That's not true!" the girl says.
As the teacher escorts the first bully away the second pushes down the girl injuring her ankle. He stands there and laughs, "Haven't you learned how to walk yet?"
Seeing this Sam intervenes, "Why the hell did you do that?" getting right up in the next bully's face.
"Because…she deserved it for trying to help you."
As more teachers arrive to break up the commotion, Sam helps the girl over to the side of the school.
"Are you alright?" he asks.
"I was about to ask the same of you?" she responds.
Sam looks at her ankle and says, "It looks like a mild sprain. You might want to ice that."
"What are you now…a doctor? By the way thanks for trying to help me."
"I was about to-" Sam is cut off as rumbling starts. The ground starts to shake and the earthquake jolts everyone.
"What's happening?" she asks startled.
"I think it's an earthquake." Sam responds.
'Having experienced a quake only once before I was unprepared for the magnitude of it because I didn't even know where I was.'
As Sam tries to stand he hears the familiar sound of the Imaging Chamber door open. Out walks his observer Al.
"Sam it's December 3rd, 1993. You're hear to save a girl from being killed in an earthquake."
"It's already began, Al. Whom am I supposed to save."? Sam asks his companion
"Her!" as Al points to the injured girl.
At that moment the brick wall of the school begins to collapse on the two of them. Sam covers the girl but it's too late. But, just then he leaps out and then right back in to the same person.
"Sam! Sam can you hear me?" the observer frantically asks.
Sam gets up from the rubble of what was once a wall and checks on the girl.
"She's not breathing!" Sam says as he begins CPR.
"Sam I would have been here sooner but we didn't know this would happen so quickly. Ziggy had just barley begun searching the records when we came across the story of a girl being killed in an earthquake in California."
"This doesn't look like California." Sam responds as he continues CPR.
"Well, you are in the mountains. It may look like winter but it's just the elevation."
"Come on, dammit! Breathe!" Sam yells as he tries to save her life.
After about 20 compressions and breaths she is revived. She begins to cough and wheeze from not breathing.
"What…what happ…" she tries to say.
"There was a quake. The wall collapsed, and I covered you so you wouldn't get hurt. But somehow you stopped breathing by the wall collapsing."
"You saved…me?" she asks still having trouble speaking.
"Yes…I guess I did."
As an ambulance arrives Sam lets the professionals take over. They load her up and cart her to the waiting ambulance. Sam and Al are looking on.
"Hey, jackass! We're not finished!" says the first bully Sam fought as he escaped the teachers during the quake.
"Oh, great. Can't we just settle this as adults?" Sam asks not looking to get beat again.
"NO!" as the bully charges him. They roll around on the ground and the bully sucker punches Sam in the ribs. Sam is immobilized and is wheezing because he realizes that the wall collapse broke some of his ribs.
"You just don't get it don't you, freak! You…are …not…supposed…to be…here…on …our …turf!" he says as he kicks and pounds on Sam.
"That's dirty fighting! Sam get up and show this nozzle who's boss." The hologram incites.
"How?" Sam asks as he tries to get up.
"Trip him up, and then pound this jerk to a pulp." He answers.
Sam then sweeps the bully's legs and he falls. Then Sam pounds the living hell out of him. He beats him until he can't hit anymore. Sam then get up and walks to the ambulance. The EMT's are waiting on request from the girl, who was all watching this.
"Go ahead. I'll catch up later." He tells them. But then he falls to the ground from exhaustion. The techs help him to the vehicle, and they take off.
In a hospital hallway Sam is lying in a gurney, watching the ciaos of the aftermath of earthquake victims. He looks at the cast on his arm and the bandages across his chest. He was injured from the fight and the quake. He didn't realize why he was still there. If he was to save the girl, whose name he didn't even know. If he saved her why hasn't he leaped?
"Sam. How are you doing?" Al says as he appears from the wall.
"Al, why am I still here? I thought I changed history hours ago."
"Actually…", as Al hits a few buttons on the hand link, "Ziggy doesn't have the slightest clue why you're still here. She says you should have leaped when she was in the ambulance. Or even after you beat down that punk kid. Why did he come after you?"
"He did this, and I haven't the slightest idea why?" as he tries to lift his casted arm.
"Well I can tell you that your name is Aaron Walters. You are an eighth grade student at Greenwood Junior High School in Quincy, California. The young girl you saved is Bernadette Johnson. She is also in eight grade. Other than that I don't see any connection between the two."
"There's got to be more to it. It doesn't make sense why everyone seemed against me…or Aaron."
"If you could explain the reasons why adolescent kids behave the way that they do you could earn yourself another degree."
"In what…child psychology." Sam responds.
Just then Bernadette is wheeled up in a gurney right next to Sam. "You'll have to wait here a minute so we can find you a room." Her nurse says.
"Hi." She says Sam."
"Hi." He responds.
"So…how are…I mean…are you…okay?" She asks.
"I'm fine." He says even thought he feels like he was run over by a truck.
The nurse comes back and informs, "It looks like we have a room, but you'll have to share a side. We are swamped with people from the quake."
The girl looks at Sam and smiles. He smiles back at her as they are wheeled.
"Uh, Sam I'm going to go back and see if we can figure out why you haven't leaped." As Al open the imaging chamber door.
"You do that. I won't go far." Sam jokingly says.
"You sure won't. I'll be back in a while." As the door closes.
"You know, talking to imaginary people could be seen as a little weird." Bernadette says.
"It's just a role-playing I do to…keep from going nuts."
"Everyone thinks you are a little nuts already." She responds.
"Oh, boy." He says.
As they are settled into the room they talk and converse for some hours. Sam learns that she is a well brought up girl and he is form a not so fortunate family. They have known each other since second grade.
Her family arrives and she is put in a wheel chair and taken to another room to be with them.
Sam is trying to figure out what he is still doing there, when Al comes back.
The door opens and Al walks out, "Sam, I think we figured out why you are still here."
"Why?" as he tries with no success to sit up.
"You're to play with matches…"
"What?" Sam asks.
"Play matchmaker. You to play matchmaker between Aaron and Bernadette."
"Why? From what I've found out they're form opposite sides of the track. They don't even seem to be interested in each other."
"Well…you had better begin to have interest or you may not leap."
"That's Ziggy's expert opinion. How much of a chance does it have to work out?"
Al mumbles a little. Then Sam asks, "What was-"
"Forty-four point nine. A 44.9 percent chance it will work out."
"The odds have got to be better than that. It seems as though they both like each other but they won't commit because of stereotypical behavior in teenagers."
"Well, you've got your work cut out for you."
"I'm not going to try to…with a teenager."
"Well she sees you as a teen, so give the ole Beckett charm a shot. Maybe she likes scientific explanations of quantum physics."
"What are you saying, Al? I don't know how to flirt with a woman-girl?"
"Well, when it comes to women I may be the expert on this leap."
"Yeah, but remember, you're married."
As Sam remembers that he flashes back to a previous leap where he was talking to Al about a woman. He can't remember who, he just remembers it was hot and in the south.
"Ziggy shouldn't underestimate me Al. I'm not done here yet." Sam tells.
"We'll see." Al responds.
As they spend more time in the hospital and talk with each other the two grow closer. They play games and talk about quantum physics and about the future.
'As I spend more time here I hope that what we talk about helps when Aaron gets back. After all, he is the one she sees when I am trying to be friendly to her.'
As she is about to be released from the hospital she stops in to see Sam.
"I guess they're releasing me. I am going home, finally." She says.
"That's good. You can recover at home and be with your family. I'm sure that you're sick of only talking with me all day."
"I don't think that would ever be the case. I know you to well now. I even think it would be okay to talk at school."
"That wouldn't go against some kind of social or political rule that others have." Sam asks.
"It would but I don't care. We have to accept others as who they are and not who they appear to be on the outside." She responds.
"That's good to know." Sam says.
"Thank you. Thank you for everything." She says as she leans in and kisses him on the cheek.
"You welcome. After all, that's why I'm here." He tells.
She walks out and then looks back and smiles and then finally leaves.
Al comes over and say, "A happy ending?"
"It looks that way. So how are they? Did they ever…you know?"
"No. I sorry to tell you this but she is killed next year in a tornado." Al grimly responds.
"Why? Why was I here then?" Sam asks saddened by the news.
"I don't know. Ziggy can't figure out why…unless…"
"Unless I change history again."
"It's possible…"Al says, "But you can't control where you'll go next."
"Maybe I can…" as Sam, remembers some of what Al the bartender told him.
"Maybe I can…"
And Sam leaps out….
As Sam leaps in he sees a ball coming toward his head. It nearly misses him but he stumbles into another person next to him, and that person knocks over a stand that falls on to a girl's leg knocking her down.
Sam gets up limping to see where he is. It is gymnasiums with a class of kids similar to the last leap. He then sees her. It's the girl he saved before. He is in shock that he leaped here again. Is it a fluke or did he control his leap in.
"Oh, boy!" he exclaims as tries to figure out this one.