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He was dying.
He was mostly disinterested in the soft, hushed whispers and the gentle yet efficient hands that attended to his body’s waning needs, but he heard phrases like “keep him comfortable”, and “it probably won’t be long”, and knew that he was on his way out. His world had been reduced to the feeling of a pressure mattress cradling his body, the touch of Beth’s hand against his, the soft kisses of his daughters on his forehead and wrinkled, papery cheek.
Death held no fear for him. He was eighty-nine years old, at the end of a full and (mostly) satisfying life; he’d had enough adventures and experiences for four lifetimes. He had no regrets.
Well, maybe one.
Or, more precisely, lots of little regrets tied up in one, complicated, overall regret.
The regret’s name was Doctor Samuel Jonathan Beckett.
Over two decades ago, Sam had Leaped into a little mining town, then disappeared from Al’s life forever. But not before visiting a heart-broken and lonely nurse in San Diego, and persuading her that her MIA husband would come back to her.
She listened and believed and waited, and Al had returned home to his wife. Because of Sam, he’d been married for sixty-two years, had four beautiful, intelligent, amazing daughters, eight grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
But Sam wasn’t there to share the last twenty-four years of that with him. Hadn’t seen the girls he loved like his own flesh and blood grow up to have their own children. Sam had sacrificed everything for Al’s happiness.
They’d never stopped searching for him – Project Quantum Leap still existed, headed by Samantha Fuller, who continued to sieve through the timelines for evidence of her father. PQL acted as a think tank, utilising Ziggy’s massive processing power to help other projects achieve their goals. In return, PQL was allowed to continue to monitor the flow of time, looking for evidence of Sam Beckett’s continued Leaping.
Finding evidence was easy. Problem was, the change only registered once Sam Leaped out, meaning they’d never been able to connect with him. They’d essentially spent the last two decades cataloguing the effects of Sam’s Leaps without any chance of bringing him home.
But Sam had been home at least a couple of times. Three years after he disappeared, Sam was declared legally dead by Donna - who had no memory of submitting the paperwork, and was absolutely devastated. But Sam’s death certificate allowed Donna to inherit the sizeable fortune tied up in his patents and copyrights, and a lot of money was reinvested in to upgrading Ziggy. Sam’s will had also made provisions for his family and friends, ensuring they were all financially secure. The project staff were convinced that Sam had Leaped into Donna to do what she couldn’t.
Just before Thelma Beckett died in ‘20, Tom swore he’d seen Sam walking out of her hospital room. He was adamant that it couldn’t have been anybody but his little brother.
Last year, Al had sat in a hospice, at the bedside of Donna Eleese Beckett as her body succumbed to the cancer she’d been fighting for eighteen months. She’d opened her eyes for the first time in days, looked at a point behind Al, and smiled, before murmuring “Sam”. In the time it took for Al to turn his head to look behind him and back to Donna, she had died, her peaceful smile still on her lips.
Al was waiting for his deathbed visit from Sam.
He sighed heavily, restlessly moving his fingers against the blanket covering him. A hand slipped under his, and he grasped it, expecting Beth’s small, slim hand, but finding long, slender fingers instead.
Al opened his eyes to find Sam Beckett looking at him.
“Sam.”
“Hi, Al,” Sam said, his voice gentle.
Al had never expected to see a seventy-year-old Sam, but there he was, sitting right next to him. Time had been kind to him. His hairline was a little higher, and his hair steel grey, but it was still thick and plentiful. His face was softly lined, and he looked slender and strong. His expression was one of contentment – Al had never seen him look so quietly assured.
“You got old, kid,” Al told him, scared to blink in case Sam disappeared, terrified that he’d lose his friend again.
Sam smiled, and reached up to touch his face, as if it was unfamiliar. “So did you. I’ve missed you.” Then he leaned forward, and carefully gathered Al into a hug, pressing his face into the curve of Al’s shoulder and neck before settling him back against his pillows.
“Where were you?” Talking was hard, his brain and his mouth no longer working harmoniously, but he fought the mental fug of medication, needing to know what Sam had been doing. “I don’t like that you were on your own.”
“I’ve been Leaping. And I wasn’t on my own. I had people looking after me.”
“You should have been here. You deserved to come back and live your own life.” Al reached for Sam’s hand again, needing the reassurance of his touch. “You’ve missed so much. It isn’t fair.”
Sam took a deep breath, and Al could hear it catch in his throat. “Al, I couldn’t come home. I died when I Leaped into Cokesburg. That’s why there wasn’t a body in the Waiting Room.”
“No, Sam,” Al moaned, closing his eyes against the pain. All those years he’d fought to get Sam home, and his friend had been dead.
“It’s OK. I promise, I’ve been happy. I’ve been putting things right, and in between Leaps, I have the people I love with me.” Sam’s voice was gentle and quiet, but Al heard every word as his friend told him about his Leaps. About returning to Cokesburg to rest, where Donna waited for him in a little house on the outskirts of town, where his mom and dad lived a few blocks away, and his mom baked pies that were served in the little local diner. He had friends, other Leapers who came home to Cokesburg between assignments.
“Living people aren’t supposed to Leap,” Sam finished. “I was living on borrowed time from the moment I stepped into the Accelerator. The minute I Leaped as myself, that was that. I only survived our simo-Leap because I had some of your mesons and neurons. If I hadn’t Leaped back to save you, I probably would have been dead inside of a week.”
Al had kept his eyes closed throughout Sam’s story, and when he opened them to look at his friend, it was to find him looking just as he had in 1999, impossibly young, his hair sandy brown with a streak of white. Looking just as he had the day he apparently died.
“This is my default appearance, but I thought you might like to see what I would have looked like at seventy,” Sam explained. “I can be any age I like, but I always seem to settle for this one unless a Leap demands otherwise. You should see my mom and dad, they look half my age and they're still completely in love.”
Al’s chest was feeling tighter and heavier, each breath harder to take, and he knew that today would be the day he died. He must have made a discomforted sound or expression, because Sam leaned forward to place a hand on his forehead before stroking his hair back.
“Al, I’m here to ask you to come to Cokesburg with me. Come and be my Observer again. Leapers typically don’t have them, but I spoke to the boss and they said they’d make an exception in our case.” He moved closer, his lips right next to Al’s ear. “Trudy is there. She works in the diner, and we go for a walk together every few days. And Beth and your family will be there when it’s their time.”
Al nodded, hoping that Sam would accept that as his yes. It all sounded too good to be true, but Al didn’t care, he wanted what Sam was offering, wanted to be with his friend again. Wanted to see his sister. Wanted to see Donna, who had become as good as a sister to him during their fruitless search for Sam.
Sam smiled with relief, and stood, squeezing Al’s hand one last time. “Beth is on her way. She’ll be with you when you go. I’ll see you soon.”
The door to the room opened and Sam was gone, leaving Al with just the remembered warmth of his hand.
His vision was darkening at the edges, causing a vignette around Beth’s beautiful, grief stricken face as she bent over him. She was speaking to him, but he couldn’t hear her any more, couldn’t feel her touch or smell her perfume, and the world slipped softly away as he breathed out for the last time.
~*~
Al walked into the deserted bar, taking a seat at the long, mahogany counter. A football game played soundlessly on the widescreen television mounted above the shelves of glasses and bottles.
“What can I get you?” The bartender asked, draping his bar towel over his shoulder. He had a friendly, open face, with a neatly trimmed moustache, and his waist had thickened with middle-age.
“Soda and lime with ice.” Al would rather have had a good bourbon, but he hadn’t touched alcohol in years, and wasn’t about to now. He stood by his promises, even if he couldn’t quite recall who he’d made those promises to.
The bartender placed the drink in front of him, and followed it up with a bowl of pretzels. “What brings you in to town?”
Al had to think for a moment. “I’m meeting a friend. He said he had a job for me here.”
“Your friend named Sam, by any chance?”
Sam. Memories crashed into Al and would have sent him to his knees if he hadn’t been sitting down. Oh God, Sam.
The bartender placed a hand on Al’s shoulder. “He should be in any minute. He said an old friend was going to be dropping by, asked me to keep an eye on you.”
Al pressed his hands to his face, completely overwhelmed. He remembered everything about his life in precise detail, the good and the bad, and his brain was screaming with the sheer bloody amount of experiences it was trying to process all at once.
Suddenly, everything settled into place and he could think again. He was Al Calavicci. He had just died, and he was waiting for his best friend to walk into this Podunk bar that apparently served the residents of a time traveller’s version of Heaven.
“Sam mentioned his boss,” Al said casually. “Don’t suppose you happen to know who that is?”
The bartender – who, Al now remembered, shared his name – smiled, using the cloth from his shoulder to start wiping down the bar. “That’d be me. Sam persuaded me to take you on in a position created just for you. He assures me you’re the only man for the job.”
“What kind of job could an old man like me do?” Al asked, sipping his drink. Though he had to admit, he felt pretty sprightly for a dead guy.
The bartender gestured to the mirror above the bar. “You’re not that old. Still a lot of years left on the clock.”
Al looked up at his reflection. Instead of the creased, soft-jowled face he expected, he saw one almost thirty years younger, the way he’d looked when he was still Sam’s Observer.
As he stared at himself, another reflection joined his, and he turned on his barstool to face the newcomer.
Sam threw his arms around Al in an apparent attempt to hug the stuffing out of him, and Al could feel Sam’s tears soaking into the shoulder of his shirt. He slipped down off the stool, and Sam held him even tighter.
“God, I’ve missed you,” Sam said, not showing any indication that he planned on letting go of Al any time soon. “I thought I’d never see you again, that getting Beth to wait for you would mean that we’d never meet, but you’re here. I don’t know how you’re here, but I’m so glad that you are.”
Al took Sam by the shoulders and gently pushed him away so he could get a good look at his friend’s tearstained face. This wasn’t the Sam that had sat by his bedside, calm and content with his lot; this was the forty-something Sam of Al’s nightmares, lost and fragile and a bundle of tautly strung nerves.
“How long ago was that Leap back to Beth, Sam?” Al kept his hands on Sam’s shoulders, knowing his friend needed the reassurance of his touch.
Sam wiped his tears with the back of his hand. “I’m not sure. I’ve made four Leaps since then, so a month, maybe?” He took a shuddering breath. “I think I’m dead, Al. When I first walked in to this bar, it was at the moment of my birth. If I Leaped here as I died, then I joined the string between my birth and my death into a loop. And if I’m dead, I’m never going to go home.”
Sam was looking distinctly wobbly, so Al manoeuvred him backwards on to a stool, then looked at the bartender. “What’s going on? When Sam visited me, he said he wasn’t on his own. This isn’t that Sam.”
The bartender shrugged. “A future Sam paid you a visit to ensure that you’d be here for the past Sam. He can’t do this alone, and it’s all too new for him to have convinced you that all this is real. You needed to see a confident and settled Sam, the one who has already lived through the journey he was inviting you on, with you by his side. He knew you’d join him, because you were already there. Time is … flexible here.”
Sam, sitting next to Al with his shoulders shaking and head bowed, didn’t appear to hear any of their conversation. One hand gripped Al’s sleeve, and the other covered his eyes.
“Sam has been staying in a room here since he joined us,” the bartender continued. “But now he’s been here a while, I think it’s time he found somewhere a bit more permanent to call home. There’s a nice place down the street that’s just become available. It’s a duplex, and I know the neighbor is planning on moving out in a couple months. Once Sam is settled, you could have the place next door.” He slid two sets of keys over to Al, along with a piece of paper. “The address is on there. Turn right out of here, and the duplex is on the corner two blocks down. I already had Sam’s things moved in, and yours should be arriving later.”
Al tucked the keys and paper into his pocket. “When does Sam have to be back at work?”
“I’m giving him a month off. His last few jobs have been pretty tough, he’s earned a break.” The bartender walked around from behind the bar, and leaned in close to Sam. “Go get some rest, Sam. Talk to Al, explore the neighborhood. I’m throwing a barbecue next weekend, you and Al should come along and meet some of your new colleagues.”
Sam stood, managing a wan smile. “Thanks, Al.” He shook the bartender’s hand, then turned to Al. “I guess we should go home.”
“I guess we should. Wait for me outside, kid, would ya? I’ve got something I need to do.”
Sam didn’t question it; he looked between the two Als with a knowing expression, then walked out of the bar. Al could see his silhouette through the louver blinds, and he watched Sam pace back and forth for a moment before turning his attention to the bartender.
“When does this end? Sam can’t do this indefinitely. Does he get to stop Leaping and go wherever retired Leapers go?”
“Sam will go on to his ultimate reward in time. As will you,” the bartender said. “But you’ve still got a lot of good to do before then.”
Al moved to leave the bar, but he was stopped by a hand on his arm. He turned, expecting to see the bartender, but instead he saw Sam – the future Sam, with the face of a forty year old and the soul of someone much older looking through familiar green eyes.
“Thank you, Al. I couldn’t have done this without you.”
“Yeah you could, kid. Give yourself more credit.”
Sam quirked his familiar grin. “Maybe I should have said I didn’t want to do this without you. We’ve always been a team. You know how to kick my butt when I’m feeling sorry for myself, and make me realise when I’m being an ass.”
Al laughed at that, pulling Sam into a brief embrace. “Well, it’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it.” He slapped Sam on the back. “I’ve got a feeling you have someplace to be.”
“No rest for the wicked,” Sam joked, before catching sight of the eyebrow Al had raised. “It’s date night with Donna - she sends her love, by the way. You and Sam will meet her again in a couple weeks. He’s not quite emotionally ready to see her yet. It’s still all so new to him, but now you’re here it’ll be easier.” A blue glow began to surround Sam, and he stepped back. “Time to go. Look after one another.”
Al watched Sam disappear in a burst of blue white light shot through with crackles of electricity, then looked over at the bartender. “So, I guess you’re my boss now.’
“Sure seems that way. I’ve been told I’m a pretty good boss to work for. There’s a nice benefits package. The hours can be demanding, but you get a lot of downtime in between jobs.” The bartender handed Al a box file. “Forgot to give this to you earlier. It’s kind of a welcome pack. Best place to get takeout, local walks, things like that.”
Al tucked the file under his arm. Given the life he’d led (in multiple timelines) and his on-again-off-again relationship with religion, he’d never expected to make it to Heaven, so he’d never spent much time imagining what it would be like. But he certainly didn’t expect that it would be like this – box files, duplexes, barbecues and a boss who ran a bar as a side-line. But then the idea of wearing a long white nightie, hanging out on a cloud and playing a harp didn’t hold much appeal.
He shook hands with the bartender. “Well, I guess we’d best go settle in. Thanks for taking me on.” And with that, Al walked towards Sam and their after-life.