Chapter Text
The dreams had happened several times a year since Samantha was twelve, over twenty years. In all of them, she was usually in a different time and place, accompanied by a tall man with a startling white lock in his hair. He never said so, but Samantha somehow knew he was her father. She wasn’t sure why, since he looked nothing like the man her mother said was her birth father.
They always worked together in those dreams, Samantha and Dad. They worked on changing history, helping people out. After they finished, they found a place to sit and talk physics. Tonight, Dad was unhappy. He said he’d been doing this for a long time, but he was tired.
Samantha asked, “Can’t you stop? Do you have a home to go to?”
“There’s too much out there, Sammy Jo,” Dad said. He always called her by her childhood nickname. “Too many wrongs, and I have to right them all. For me, this is home.”
He’d said as much before, several times, so Samantha accepted it. But when she woke up, there were tears on her cheeks. Dad was in a prison, a prison of his own making.
Then again, those were only dreams. He couldn’t be a real person. Time travel was impossible, anyway. They’d even discussed as much during their physics talks.
When Samantha came into the lab for work that morning, her boss stopped her. “Can we get your help on something?”
“Sure. What is it?”
“I know your first doctoral degree is in physics. Weitzman told me he had a problem. He’s trying to get a physics project completely shut down, but the director won’t budge on the final report.”
“Any reason why me? The physics?”
“Plus you’re a woman. He says the director is the womanizing type. Weitzman thought a woman who really knew physics would help out the most with getting that last report done.”
Samantha gritted her teeth. “All right. Do I have to do this during work hours?”
“Yes. You’ll get time away from your current project. Weitzman promised he’d pay overtime if you can get this done fast.”
“I can deal with that. Where is this director?”
The director who refused to shut down his beloved project was sitting in an office downstairs, contemplating a blue orb sitting on top of an old computer mainframe. His dark graying curls kicked out everywhere. His bright blue sport coat with metallic lapels was wrinkled. Samantha noticed that his black shirt, underneath the coat, had a pattern of constellations on it. The director looked up, and the lines on his face rearranged themselves into a smile. “Hello, sweetheart. Are you the latest bribe from Weitzman?”
Samantha took a step backwards. “Excuse me? Bribe?”
The director narrowed his eyes in reminiscence. “There’s been a bevy of beautiful ladies coming through here, all of them telling me that they’ll let me into their beds if only I’ll finish the report and let mean old Weitzman chew up what’s left of this project.” He shook his head. “I had to tell them all no. It was hard.” The director sighed and dug into his pocket before remembering something else. “Shinola!” He banged his fist on the desk. “Why’d that bastard have to take away my cigars too?”
“Why can’t you finish writing the final report? Why will Weitzman chew up what’s left?”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, where are my manners? Come, sit down.” The director gestured at the other chair in the room. “My name is Albert Calavicci. I’m a retired Navy admiral and once upon a time, I directed Project Quantum Leap. And you are?”
Samantha sat down, scooting her chair a little further away from Albert. “I’m Dr. Samantha Fuller.”
The orb came to life, crackling like a plasma ball. In a deep woman’s voice, it said, “Samantha Josephine Fuller, born on January twelfth, 1967, in Pottersville, Louisiana…”
Samantha turned pale. “How did she know all that?”
“Ziggy!” Albert barked. “You useless bucket of bolts! Stop scaring people before I even get the chance to introduce you! I’m sorry. Dr. Fuller, this is Ziggy. She’s a computer, a very nosy and very advanced one. Sam and I built her together.” There was a note of pride in Albert’s voice.
Albert seemed genuinely happy now, just thinking of this Sam. “I’m guessing Sam isn’t here to help you write the final report, Admiral?” Samantha asked.
A dark cloud crossed Albert’s face. “Something like that, yes.”
“Can you tell me more about Sam?” Samantha hoped talking about this Sam would cheer him up enough to finally finish this report that Weitzman needed so badly.
Albert’s face relaxed back into a broad smile. “God, Sam. Samuel Beckett, but not the playwright, mind you. He won a Nobel for physics, back in the eighties… We worked together on this government project, Star Bright. One day, he comes to me with this crazy idea. He wants to travel in time.”
“But that’s impossible.” Samantha’s hazel eyes narrowed.
“Not for Sam. He could get anything done. We worked together on Quantum Leap.” Albert explained about the project, how they had toiled for years without any solid results. When Sam was pressured to prove his results, he went into the Accelerator and traveled through time. Or, as Albert put it, Leaped into time. Sam would go from era to era, setting things right.
This was reminding Samantha a lot of her dreams. Could this be her Dad…? “Did Dr. Beckett have any children?”
Something flickered across Albert’s eyes. Regret? “A son. But Sam’s never met Johnny.”
A son. Not a daughter. Maybe it wasn’t her Dad, after all.
“What about you?” Albert asked. “Where are you from? Ziggy said Louisiana, right?”
“Yeah, Louisiana. But we moved to Baltimore when I was thirteen.”
“Baltimore? Not Chicago?”
Samantha frowned. “My stepfather got two job offers at one point. One was in Baltimore, the other was in Chicago. He went with Baltimore. How’d you know about Chicago?”
“Lucky guess.” Albert waved it away.
Samantha looked at Ziggy. “What can you tell me about Albert?”
The orb replied, “He kisses the girls and makes them cry.”
What a cryptic answer! But it somehow sounded like Albert. “Thank you. Why will he not finish the final report?”
“Hey now-” Albert protested. “Ziggy, don’t answer that!”
Ziggy overrode him. “Dr. Beckett has not come home yet. Admiral Calavicci is waiting for him so they can write the final report together, but there has been no contact since June 21, 1999. That was eleven months and eleven days ago.”
Samantha looked back and forth between Ziggy and Albert, who was slumped on his desk, face in his arms. Albert would not tell her the full story, but Ziggy would. “Ziggy, do you think we can bring Dr. Beckett home?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because we are both Dr. Beckett’s daughters, Sammy Jo.”
Nobody had called her that since high school. “Wait. What?”
The bright green iMac sitting on Albert’s desk came to life and made a foghorn noise. Albert, startled, sat up and moved his chair away from the desk.
“Thank you, Admiral. Sammy Jo, I want to show you something.”
“Ziggy!” Albert protested. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
“Sammy Jo has come to fulfill her destiny, Admiral.”
Ziggy made the desktop computer log in. A picture file opened up. It showed a portrait of a man in his forties with brown hair and a lock of white hair on one side.
The man looked exactly like her Dad in her dreams. Samantha stood up. “I’m sorry. This is too weird for me. I don’t think I can do this.” She shook her head, eyes wide with fear, then she fled the office.
Behind her, she could hear Albert berating Ziggy in his gravelled voice, calling her a bucket of bolts and other far more colorful names.