Work Text:
Just an old, sweet song,
Keeps Georgia on my mind...
Al Calavicci didn't need arthritis, he had the pain. It seeped into his bones, clear down to his soul and beyond, making him feel as ancient as Father Time himself.
He poured the last of the whiskey with shaking hands. The hum of the Project when it was very quiet was usually soothing, but tonight it was a reminder of his loneliness. He was tired, tired of it all. For just a moment, he wished...Sam would actually stay lost in time.
Al flipped a switch on the sound system, and the mellow strains of Ray Charles singing Georgia On My Mind wafted around him like an old friend. He always listened to "Georgia" when he was depressed. It was guaranteed to make him feel...ten times worse, which is exactly what he wanted. No, that was wrong. "Georgia" was his favorite song. He never listened to it when he was depressed. When had Al Calavicci ever been depressed? He wished he could blame the booze for his foggy memory, but he couldn't. It was Sam's fault.
Lamenting his callousness, Al gulped some of the burning liquid. It went down bitter, just like his life. I didn't know what it would turn into... I really know how to pick 'em. He choked out a mirthless laugh, taking another slug of whiskey. It had been a long time since he'd gotten this drunk, indeed, a long time since he'd had more than a few beers at a time. It would have been easy to succumb to PTSD and fall into a bottle after returning from 'Nam, but he hadn't because he'd had someone there by his side, to support him. Beth would have kicked his butt to hell and back.
But Beth wasn't here right now. And in an ironic twist of fate, that too was because of Sam.
"I shouldn't be pissed at Sam, he's my buddy," Al told the empty office, with flawless, drunken logic. It wasn't really Sam to blame, was it? After all, he'd sacrificed his leap home to bring Beth and Al back together again. Al had stood there, hidden from view, and listened to everything. That bastard bartender had probably intended for him to. Al should be forever in Sam's debt. He walked into the Imaging Chamber a broken man, and walked out... No, the Universe had pulled a mischievous contradiction, it was actually the other way around. Even though he and Beth had been happily married for thirty-nine years.
Well, not quite happily...
Al shoved the photograph of Beth's smiling face roughly into the desk drawer. It was the same old story, nothing much had changed in all the years they were married. Vietnam hadn't done him any favors, good or bad. He was the same Al, she the same Beth. You could change people's past, but you couldn't change them.
You can lead a horse to water...or is it booze?
Al gave up on the empty glass and tipped the bottle up to his lips, dredging for the last drops. Maybe it would have been better to get it all over with early, the divorce, the alcoholism, the pain... When he'd been young enough to bounce back. He didn't feel very elastic these days. He was a worn rubber band, saggy and limp and about to snap.
The fighting had started again, like a recurring dream, shortly after he'd joined Project Quantum Leap. The threats, the angry silences. And Beth had finally done what she'd threatened so many times in the years before 'Nam.
She'd left him.
Al smiled crookedly at the picture of Sam which graced the opposite side of the desk from where Beth's had been, talking as if Sam was there. "The jokes on you, buddy-boy. Thought you were gonna fix things up nice and tidy. Fix everything... Beth said she was tired of waiting for me. Can you believe it? Like I was leaping too or something. She said I might as well have been, that I'd always been somewhere else, never home. It was her turn to be somewhere else. You really did it this time, you little fool. I'm not the only one who lost a wife. You coulda been home in bed right now, with Donna. Fixed it up real good."
Al glanced at the calendar on the wall, where a colorful spring meadow floated above the new month. "April Fool's, buddy." He laughed out loud, a high-pitched guffaw.
He hoped Beth and Donna would be very happy together.
The enemy was always within, right under your nose. Giving your wife the time and attention you couldn't, because your life was devoted to something... to someone else, and she wanted to feel special, loved. The center of someone's world. Another lonely soul felt the same, somebody who'd been there all the long. After all, they had so much in common, didn't they? Understood each other. There was no way Al could compete with that.
Al was left alone again, juggling different sets of memories and wondering if he was going crazy. Trying to untie all the strings Sam had knotted and not knowing whether he felt devastated or relieved. Wondering if it mattered, because they both hurt.
Struggling to his unsteady feet, Al started off towards the Imaging Chamber, to say hello to Sam. Once in the hall, though, he realized he was hungry. Searching his pockets for change, he detoured in the direction of the cafeteria vending machines.
The end
6/7/93
revised 8/25/19