One last time
Relax, have a drink with me
One last time
Let's take a break tonight
And then we'll teach them how to say goodbye
To say goodbye
You and I
"Sam?"
Doctor Sam Beckett stood in the holographic chamber of his lab, his eyes closed, and made a wish. At the sound of Admiral Al Calavicci's voice, he slowly opened his eyes and turned toward the sound, a melancholy smile growing on his face. He blinked rapidly to clear the mist from his vision.
"Hey, Al."
His friend—well, a hologram of his friend—was dressed in one of his familiar outrageous outfits, the one with the tie that looked like swiss cheese. The hand that held the ever-present cigar was still strong and steady. Unlike his own salt-and-pepper hair, Al's was still dark, his face lacking the wrinkles and tremors that Sam had seen during their last time together. Ziggy had recreated the Admiral as he had been during Project Quantum Leap, when Al's hologram had been Sam's only lifeline to the present as he was tossed about in the currents of the past.
Sam motioned to two wingback chairs, a small table between them holding a decanter and a pair of glasses. "Sit and have a drink with me?"
"Sure, kid."
Once they both settled—Al with his trademark insouciant slouch and crossed legs—Sam poured two fingers of amber liquid into each glass. He handed one to Al then clinked the chunky cut crystal together.
"To old friends." The burning in Sam's throat wasn't just from the scotch he gulped to push down the sob as it tried to escape.
"To old friends," Al echoed and downed the drink in one swallow. After he set the glass down, he took a long drag on his cigar, then made a pleased sighing sound. "This is the good stuff, Sam. Fine drink, fine cigar, and fine company. The only thing that is missing is a pretty dame."
Sam just about choked while finishing his drink. Ziggy's algorithm of Al's personality was amazingly accurate. "Don't let your wife hear you say that," he chided, waggling a finger in his friend's direction.
"Beth?" Al feigned mock indignation and dismissed Sam's warning with a wave of his hand. "Nah, Beth knows who she married. I'm allowed to look as long as I don't touch. Just 'cause I appreciate a masterpiece in a museum doesn't mean I'm going to plan an art heist."
Shaking his head, Sam chuckled at the bizarre metaphor. He held his empty glass steepled in his fingers, looking absently at the way it refracted the light. The silence grew between them as Sam became lost in his thoughts, and Ziggy's simulacrum waited for him to speak while puffing on his cigar.
Sam drew a deep break and set his glass on the table. "Listen, Al, I feel like I never told you how much it meant to me that you stuck with the Project all those years, holding down the fort here while I was... while I was away."
"De nada, kid." This dismissal came with a wave of his cigar.
Leaning forward, he rested his arms on his knees. "No, it wasn't nothing. I know you don't remember how things were before—," he paused, not sure how to articulate a paradox. Before Beth came back, made no sense to Al, for whom Beth had never left. But Sam retained it all—jumping into the bar on his birth day, the bartender named Al who guided him, but also told him that the leaps would get more difficult if he chose to save Al and Beth's marriage. And they did, in spades. Dr. Beeks' couch had a permanent dent in it from Sam's weekly sessions to process the emotional trauma from the final years of Project Quantum Leap.
"Listen, kid," Al sat back and straightened his tie in discomfort. "We've always had something that can't be defined by lesser men who try to understand it. Friends, brothers, father, son, none of these words encompass enough to contain what we have. Hell, I even had a four-star once ask me if we were lovers!" he shook his head, chuckling. "They couldn't grasp the depth of my… my love for you, and they never will. It is—was—something special." His eyes were misty, but they held a knowing that Sam hadn't seen there before.
"Yeah, it was," he said quietly, a wry smile playing across his face.
Al pursed his lips. "Yeah. And now we have to say goodbye, right?"
Sam's throat closed suddenly, and he felt tears in his eyes. "I, I can't," he choked on the words. The tears began to spill, and he pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He heard the soft rustle of cloth and felt a hand on his knee. "Ican'tdothiswithoutyou," the words came out in an explosive rush.
"Sure you can. It was always you, Sam. Always."
"Sam."
He turned just as he reached the car, to see Beth Calavicci approaching alone.
"Beth." They embraced, and Beth held on another minute longer when Sam tried to release her. "It was a beautiful service," he whispered in her ear, unsure what to say.
"It was," she replied, standing back and brushing at the shoulders of Sam's black suit jacket. "He looked good in his dress whites, didn't he? I always though he looked so handsome in his uniform."
"Anything but fuchsia," Sam muttered.
"I'm sorry?"
"Al. He always used to say he'd wear anything but fuchsia." That earned him a sad smile. "He looked great."
"Walk with me, Sam." She looked back toward the open grave, surrounded by now deserted chairs. He held out an arm and she took it, holding on more tightly than strictly necessary.
They strolled in silence along a tangent to the gravesite. After a few minutes, Beth finally spoke, "I wanted to tell you that I remembered you, Sam." She stared ahead, not looking at him.
His head snapped up from watching the ground, confusion clouding his features. "I don't understand."
"I remember that night you came to the house in San Diego—April third, 1969." She stopped and turned to face him. "The night you told me that my Al was still alive, and that he was coming home."
Sam blanched. Beth didn't have the security clearance to know about Project Quantum Leap, about which Al had always kept silent. She didn't know about time travel, about leaping, about any specifics of what he and her husband had been up to all those years. How was he going to explain? He opened his mouth to try to rationalize, but she cut him off.
"I know it was you, Sam Beckett, so don't you even try to tell me otherwise." She took both his hands in hers. "I don't know how you did it or what it might have had to do with that Project. I know what you boys did was classified, and I'm not looking for an explanation.
"I just want you to know how important it was for me to hear that, especially that night. The DOD had been jerking me around again when I tried to get information about his capture, about where he was held, about whether they were working to get him rescued or released. I was at the end of my rope. About to give up and… and move on."
Sam cleared his throat. "I know."
"And in you swept like an angel and told me everything I wanted to hear. And after you… were gone, I swear I felt like Al was there with me. I went to bed that night for the first time in months and slept, and I dreamt about Al. I was sure in the morning, I was going to wake up and the whole thing was going to be a dream, but it wasn't. And it took another four years, but I never gave up, because I knew he was coming home. Because you had told me." She squeezed his hands.
Struggling to find words, to think of something he could say that wouldn't violate the security of the Project, he finally muttered, "He would have done the same for me."