"Gushie?" shouted Al. "Where's that guy got to?"
Al and the Doctor had just left the Imaging Chamber. Al had been reluctant to leave Sam and his companions back in the Arizona Desert in 1959, but he knew he had no choice. He had to get the Doctor back to the Waiting Room as soon as possible. And now, just to add to his troubles, Gushie had disobeyed his direct order to wait for him at the door to the Imaging Chamber. He couldn't conceal his worries and frustration. "Damn that guy! Don't tell me he just went for a coffee again?" The Doctor turned to him with a blank expression on his face. A face, he'd decided, he was tired of seeing. "Okay, come on, you, back to the Waiting Room".
As the two men walked down the long corridors of Project Quantum Leap, the visitor taunted Al with annoying questions. "So that's it then? You leave Doctor Beckett in the desert to go and save those people?"
"Well what else can I do?"
"I don't know. And you say that the minute he does what he has to do, he'll just time jump again? Into a different person in a different year?"
"That's what happens, yeah?"
"Why?"
Al stopped walking and turned to the Doctor. "Why what?"
"Why does he leap the minute he does what your Ziggy does what he says he has to do?"
"Look, I don't know, I'm a soldier".
"And you've been doing this how long?"
Al took a deep breath. "Three years. And no, I don't know exactly why he leaps the way he does. Some of our top men think it's some unknown force that uses Sam to put right what once went wrong".
"So it's some kind of higher power?"
"That's what some of them think, yeah".
"And this 'higher power' doesn't think that I can save those people, whoever they are, from being atomised? And that Doctor Beckett can?"
"I guess so".
"I'm insulted! Now, which way was it to the Waiting Room?" The Doctor continued along the corridor and Al followed him. The Timelord spoke as he walked. "Like I said, 'time hop-scotch'. You know, Albert, when I travel through time, I always know exactly where I'm going. I have absolute control and can land whenever and wherever I want to with pinpoint accuracy".
"So what are you trying to say?"
"That maybe Doctor Beckett should have been a little more reluctant to test his wonderful time machine on himself".
Now Al stopped and grabbed hold of the Doctor's shoulder. "Look, that tears it! I've been working with Sam for years. He's touched so many people's lives, done so much good, and for what? Just to leap to the next person and have to start all over again. He sure as hell didn't do it so some nozzle like you could just make fun of him! Now we're going back to the waiting room, and I don't much care whether you're conscious when we get there or not!"
The two men rounded the next corner. The Doctor walked right up to the door of the Waiting Room, but suddenly paused. Al was now extremely irritated. "What?"
The Timelord turned to face his companion. "You know, this 'unknown force' you mention, if it knows what it's doing, maybe Ziggy's got it wrong".
"What do you mean? She's never got it wrong before".
"Well maybe, just maybe, this time, Sam didn't get put in my place to help the people in the desert. Maybe I was put here to help you".
Al was totally dismissive. "Through the door, ego case". He pressed a button, and the door to the Waiting room slowly slid aside. As the Doctor walked through it, he turned once more to Al. "I think you asked the right question when we left the imaging chamber".
"Which was?"
"Well let's put it this way. If I were you, I'd check that Gushie's got to".