Chapter 11

Sam leaned back in his chair and forced his shoulders to stretch backwards, releasing some of the tension he had been holding onto for the past several hours. Brian Finch sat across from him at the same lab bench, looking into a microscope with deeply furrowed brows. Verbena and Ledger were clustered together in conversation at the far end of the bench, while Emilie was seated behind him, thoroughly focused on the computer screen in front of her. Their five person team had taken over Brian's lab for the past two weeks, to the consternation of his actual research team. They couldn't risk involving anyone else should something go wrong with Sam's plan; what they were doing was way off the books.

Brian frowned as he finally straightened up from the microscope. "Attachment to the rabbit respiratory epithelial cells failed again."

"How many times have we tried on the rabbit model?" Ledger asked.

"That's the third time," he replied.

"Same NG2 carrier?" Verbena asked.

"I've tried all of them," said Brian. "NG1, NG2, and the ND1 that's still in development. Nothing."

Ledger sighed in frustration. "That's two days. We just wasted two days."

"Hey, we got it to work in mice," said Emilie. "There has to be a way."

"Mice cells aren't human cells," Verbena said softly. "And even if it worked in individual human cells, we'd have to master attaching multiple robots to a cluster of cells."

Sam's expression was also set in a frown. "I had a mild cluster response in mice lungs, but the majority of the nanorobots never attached." He looked around the room, noting that no one wanted to meet his eyes.

"We've been at this for close to fourteen hours," he finally said. "We're all exhausted. Let's stop for the day and come back tomorrow morning."

. . .

Sam and Verbena found themselves the last ones out of the lab, hesitating at the door as they closed it.

"Are you hungry?" Sam asked.

Verbena looked at the time. It was just past ten. "Starving."

As Sam had hoped, Linda was working late again when they arrived. She was happy to receive visitors and even happier to provide a heaping tray of churros and freshly made hot chocolate.

Sam and Verbena sat opposite each other at a table in the corner of the room, munching on the sweet treats. Each was lost in their own thoughts.

"You know, I used to do this with Al sometimes," said Verbena, breaking the silence. "When I couldn't sleep, I'd get up and wander the halls, and half the time I'd find him here in the middle of the night. He kept crazy hours."

"That's what I hear," said Sam. "I never really realized how complicated his job was, having to deal with everything going on during my leaps along with everything happening at the project."

Verbena took a sip of hot chocolate from her mug. "In the early days, half the time, he was just trying to keep the project afloat. We were always running out of money, or the oversight committee was knocking at the door. I don't know how any of us made it through those first few years after you leaped."

She smiled as a memory came to mind. "The committee sprung a surprise inspection on the project around the same time Sammy Jo started leaping. Al refused to go to D.C. when they summoned him, so a bunch of the members came to the project to look for fault anywhere they could. It was an all hands on deck emergency. Less than half an hour into their inspection, Al pulled the fire alarm. Everyone was evacuating, but the committee members called his bluff. Refused to move. They just continued on with what they were doing. So Al excused himself, found the nearest access terminal, and unleashed the sprinkler system. Everyone was soaking wet within five minutes and they had to call it quits. It took the project about a week to dry out."

Sam laughed at her words. "Yeah, that sounds like Al. The gutsiest person I know."

Verbena nodded, pulled back into her own thoughts.

Sam leaned forward in his chair, sensing a melancholy air that surrounded her. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," she answered.

"Why are you leaving the project?"

Verbena looked up at him. "How do you know I'm leaving?"

"John Ledger is capable, intelligent, and has all the right credentials," Sam reasoned. "You've trained him to take over for you. But you're at the height of your career. So why are you leaving?"

Verbena considered his question, then sighed as she set her mug down. "Because this place takes too much from you, Sam. You of all people know that. I watched Donna fight the bravest battle with cancer I've ever seen and still succumb to it. I watched Sammy Jo leap and realize she can't come home. And now Al…I can't save him, Sam." She looked at him with profound sadness. "I'm supposed to be a doctor, the medical director of this project, and I can't save him."

"You've tried…everything," Sam said simply. "You've gone far beyond—"

"If roles were reversed, he would've found a way. He always does."

"Verbena," Sam softened his tone. "I've known Al for a long time, and believe me when I say that he has all the respect in the world for your abilities. He picked you to oversee his care, which means he thinks you're his best chance."

She sighed again, showing the weariness on her face. "You know, I'm really glad that you've come back. And that he told you about Donna. You have no idea how hard it was on him when you left."

"What happened?"

"He relapsed," Verbena said simply. "On the day you left, he drove off into the desert and we didn't see or hear from him for three days. I finally got a call from a bartender in Albuquerque who said she had just bailed Al out of jail, who had totaled his car, and needed a ride home. That bartender turned out to be Emilie."

Sam reacted with surprise.

Verbena shook her head. "To this day, I don't know what happened in those three days, but Al hired her on at the project and now she's one of the few people who can talk any kind of sense into him."

"You know, that wasn't the end of it," she continued. "When he returned to the project, he fell into a deep depression. I was afraid…"

"Afraid of what?" Sam asked.

Verbena broke her gaze. "What am I saying?" she replied, catching herself. "We were all on edge during that time."

Sam studied her face, knowing there was a lot more to the story. He imagined a span of only weeks when Al first lost Donna and then himself. His parting words to Al were something he wished he could take back. He wondered how he would've handled things, if roles were reversed.

"Do you think the nanotech is going to work?" her voice brought him back.

"Maybe that's not for us to decide," he answered.

Verbena questioned him with her eyes.

"Maybe it's up to whoever's up there," said Sam, pointing upwards. "And all we can do is our best."

She gave him a tempered smile. "Perhaps that's the lesson we all have to learn." Verbena rose from her chair. "Thanks for talking, Sam. Even a psychiatrist needs a therapy session once in a while."

"Anytime, 'Bena. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"New day, new hope, right?"

. . .

Sam found himself wandering the halls of the project after parting from Verbena, unable to rest his mind. As usual, he ended up outside of Al's door in the medical wing. Voices from the other side made him hesitate, but they stopped just as he was about to knock.

"The Admiral says for you to come in," said Ziggy in his ear.

Sometimes it was eerie how much Ziggy could anticipate his every move. He opened the door slightly, and Al motioned him in the rest of the way.

"Hey." he said, seeing Al was sitting up in bed and seemed to be doing well compared to the last few days.

"Hey."

"Are you busy?" Sam asked, looking between Al and the speaker on the ceiling.

"Ziggy and I were just going through some numbers," said Al, taking off his reading glasses. "How are things going with the um…what are we calling it besides 'top secret research project'?"

"That's as good of a name for it as any."

Al looked at the clock on the opposite wall, noting the late hour. "You've been at it all day?"

"Yeah, the whole gang."

"Aren't you tired?"

Sam leaned back and stretched out in the chair closest to Al's bed. "Nah. I'm good. Can I hang out with you and Ziggy a bit?"

Al gave him a quizzical look. "We're going over projections of lab equipment costs for the next quarter. Trust me, you'll want to be anywhere else but here."

Sam smiled. "It's perfect. Just pretend like I'm not here."

Al studied him for another second, but didn't pursue it. He placed his glasses back on and returned his attention to the large pile of papers in front of him. "Okay Ziggy, where were we?"

"Transmission electron microscope, requested by the materials science department."

Al cocked his head toward the ceiling. "I'm guessing I'm not going to like the price tag."

"One point two million dollars," Ziggy replied.

He sighed. "I know Shepherd has been asking for one for his lab, too. Can we make it work with just the one next year?"

"That can be arranged," Ziggy replied.

Sam leaned further into his chair as Al's voice continued down the list, one item at a time. He turned to look at Al's profile as Verbena's words from earlier echoed in his mind. He could only imagine the grief that Al experienced five years ago, and knew that in leaving the project, he helped create a large part of that grief. He could've been there for Al if he hadn't been so angry. If he only asked the right questions. He could've had so much more time with the only friend that truly understood him.

Al turned away from the speaker to sneak him an eye roll, a sarcastic response to what Ziggy was saying.

"I think she's losing it," Al whispered to him conspiratorially.

"I heard that, Admiral," said Ziggy with a disapproving tone. "I am surprised at the level of your maturity concerning this topic."

Sam returned the smirk. He had missed this more than anything else. He was exactly where he wanted to be.