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Time can be a funny thing and God has a weird sense of humor
.
I've always believed that but never more than since Sam's been leaping. Take what happened on his last leap into 1957.
First of all, it started out weird. When I went to the waiting room and discovered who Sam had replaced, I didn't believe it. It was me as a kid, a twenty-three year old hot shot Navy pilot. It was a real kick in the butt, literally talking to myself and knowing that Sam was walking around in my aura. I started to feel like a kid again, remembering the guys I'd trained with and all the good times we'd had. I got so caught up in the nostalgia I almost forget about Sam, cooling his heels in 1957, waiting for me to show up.
I had Ziggy center me into the cockpit of a cougar jet, coming in on the flight line. It was great, but Sam was a little ticked off that I hadn't showed up sooner. Turned out he didn't know it was me he'd leaped into 'cause everybody called me 'Bingo' back then and he hadn't even looked into a mirror. He was as stunned as I'd been when he found out but it looked like he didn't mind being me. He looked downright delighted, as a matter of fact.
Unfortunately, the delight didn't last long. I realized the significance of the date, June 25, 1957. The day Lt. Lisa Sherman died in a fiery car crash. I'd played around so long I was too late to stop it from happening. Again. I got to her just in time to see her die. I'll never forget the sight of the crash and those flames as long as I live. Lisa lost her chance at a second chance because I was too hung up on talking to myself and reliving my youth to even research the reason for the leap. Sam tried to comfort me, tried to tell me that it wasn't really my fault. He said he didn't believe he was there to save Lisa, but I couldn't see why else he'd be in my life. I soon found out.
Ziggy was saying that Sam was there to prove my innocence of the rape-murder I'd been accused of committing. I thought that was nonsense. I'd never gone to trial for Marcy Riker's murder. Lisa had seen to that in the original history before she died. Then I found out that Sam had already changed history by telling Lisa not to admit to adultery by providing me with an alibi. Not his fault; he didn't know what was going on because I messed up by not getting the information to him in time. And it didn't matter who was to blame; the fat was in the fire and burning fast.
Sam tried to find something to use to turn things around, help us figure out who the real killer was. In the original history it was unsolved and the revised history just kept getting weirder. Finally Ziggy was giving rising odds on my being convicted. Next thing I knew, I was in the Twilight Zone.
One minute I was telling Sam there was a 99% propability that I would be convicted, and the next I was elsewhere. Or elsewhen. I was at Project Quantum Leap, but not in the Imaging Chamber or the control room or even the office I'd shared with Sam until he leaped. I was in one of the on-site personal quarters but not the one I'd been living in. Or any I'd 'visited'.
I had no memory of how I'd gotten there or what I was supposed to be doing there, but recalling what had been going on just before I leaped or bounced of whatever out of the Imaging Chamber, I was ready to bet my last cigar that my change of scenery was because of my changed history thanks to Sam Beckett. Whatever was going on, I needed information, fast. And the best source of information available had to be Ziggy. I located the computer console in the room, typed in the codes that I hoped were the same in this version of PQL and activated the voice link to Sam's super computer.
"Hello, Ziggy."
After a longer than normal pause, I got a response, though not exactly one I was expecting. "Are you addressing me, Dr. Calavicci?"
Doctor? Ph.D I assumed. No way would I ever take up a career that kept me around sick people all the time. Or messing around with blood and sewing up wounds. Yuck.
"Since I'm alone in here who else would I be talking to, the air? C'mon, get with it, Ziggy. I've got a problem here."
"Indeed, Doctor, If you can't remember my correct name you must have a problem. Is the nature of it medical? I can have paramedics there in five minutes."
I realized that not only was the computer voice definitely male, it was also using a different speech pattern with an almost British accent. "No, I do not have a medical problem." I paused. "I think." Rubbing a hand over my face, I decided that if I had a brain tumor or something that was making me delusional, I didn't want to know about it. "What's your name if it isn't Ziggy?"
"My name, as you well know, Doctor, is Alpha."
Alpha. What a drip of a name, no color or character at all.
"Who decided to call you that?" Not Sam, I bet. "And what kind of blackmail did they use to get the privilege?"
"Mr. St. John was accorded the honor of naming me by Dr. Beckett, in gratitude for his obtaining the funding to build me and the rest of the project."
I couldn't remember ever meeting anyone named St. John, especially connected to the project.
"You said you have a problem, Dr. Calavicci. How may I assist you in solving it?"
"Alpha, Do you believe in alternate universes?"
**********
Alpha and I must have discussed the situation for almost an hour. At last we agreed that I had entered an alternate timeline. Alpha's theory as to why I retained my memories of the original history and had no memory of the altered timeline was a little convoluted but since I didn't have any better theories, I had to agree with him.
"There may be a certain period of time," Alpha said, "while history is being changed, when Time is in a state of flux, that temporary glitches in time may occur. When a change is completed or reversed, the glitches correct themselves as the revised history takes hold, or the original history is restored."
"Meaning that the changes that sent me here have not become permanent or I wouldn't be able to remember the old timeline, just this one?"
"I believe that is what I said, Doctor."
"I may go home and forget about this little side trip, or I may stay here and forget where I came from."
"Or a third future/past may occur."
"All depending on how Sam handles the leap he's in. Without me there to help him."
"Odds are 98% that Mr. St. John has become the Observer who is assisting Dr. Beckett. He is quite capable, I assure you."
"Maybe," I said, skeptical that anyone could take better care of Sam than I could. And then another thought occured. "Why only 98%? Shouldn't you know 100% if this St. John is the observer in this timeline?"
"Of course I would know. And Mr. St.John is the observer for this Project. But Dr. Beckett is not currently on the leap you described. That leap has not occurred in this timeline."
"Wait a minute! You mean it's possible that Sam is alone?" My gut tightened at the thought. I'd been worried about Sam ever since I'd fallen down this rabbit hole. Wondering if I'd just disappeared in front of him, if he was frantic with worry or if he'd just forgotten me in the blink of an eye. I didn't like the idea of anyone taking my place as Sam's Observer, but if I couldn't be there I didn't want Sam to be alone. He needed somebody to watch his back, somebody he could depend on to keep him in touch with the project, and to keep him grounded in his own reality.
"It is more likely that the Sam Beckett you knew no longer exists. That he is a changed Sam Beckett from this timeline." A pause. "Or not."
"Alpha, you're a great help."
"Thank you, Doctor." Damned computer couldn't recognize sarcasm when he heard it. "I am always pleased to assist you," he added with a tone that suggested that maybe he did.
"If Sam's not in 1957, when is he on his current leap?"
"Dr. Beckett is not currently on a leap"
"Maybe his next one will be the one I just left."
"Possibly. Dr. Beckett has not confided in me when he plans to leap to next."
"What are you talking about? Sam doesn't plan the leaps. He's not in control of the leaps! Is he?"
"Certainly he is. Dr. Beckett would not be so foolish as to leap if he were not in control. That would be completely foolhardy."
"Are you telling me," I said slowly, "that Sam's not lost in Time? That the damned retrieval program works?"I was holding my breath.
"Correct, Dr. Calavicci."
"Son of a gun! But how? Doesn't he have to put things right here? God or Time or fate or Whoever isn't using him to give people second chances? Sam is in control of the leaps?"
"Calm yourself, Doctor. Your pulse rate is accelerating and you are in danger of hyperventilating."
"Never mind that! Just tell me how the project can work here when we've never been in control where I come from?"
"Perhaps it would be best if I gave you a hard copy of the history of our Project Quantum Leap. You can study the information and it would save me the task of reciting the entire history."
"Fine. Give me a summary of my and Sam's personal histories, too. If I'm gonna be stuck here awhile, I might as well learn how I'm expected to act." I was beginning to feel like I was in a leap. Alpha was right about calming down; my heart was pounding. But, God, If Sam was controlling the leaps, and if I could figure out how, maybe I could somehow take that information back with me to the original timeline. If I got to go back. Maybe we could bring Sam home. The printer kicked into life, spitting out a stack of paper.
"Alpha?"
"Yes, Dr. Calavicci?"
"If Sam's not on a leap, where is he?"
"Dr. Beckett and Mr. St. John were required to go to a meeting with the project backers. They should be returning tonight."
Sam and I would be in the same time and place tonight? It didn't seem real and the thing I wanted most to do, after I hugged him, wouldn't be right in this timeline. I couldn't very well kick this Sam's butt for something the other Sam had done -- namely leaping before we got the retrieval program locked down.
"Is there anything I should be doing, Alpha? Anyplace I have to be, anyone who's gonna come looking for me?"
"Negative, Doctor. You are not scheduled to work today and you have no plans that I am aware of to meet with anyone. Do you require further assistance, Dr. Calavicci?"
"Not right now."
The computer shut itself off, and I pulled the hard copy from the printer. I was curious to see just how different this timeline was from the original. I started with my personal history. I had been convicted of Marcy's murder and sentenced to die in the gas chamber. After three years on death row and several failed appeals, the real killer confessed just a couple of weeks before I was scheduled to die. My friend, Chip. I never would have figured it to be him or that he'd let me rot for so long before coming forward. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and I was set free. After I got out of prison, I left the Navy. There was no explanation in the file but I could guess why. I must have been totally disillusioned and disgusted with the military for convicting me. I was married and divorced a couple of times; neither of my ex-wives were known to me in the original history. So, no Beth; but also no VIetnam prisoner of war experience. I didn't know exactly how I felt about that.
My career was about as different as it could get. I'd gone back to school and gotten a degree in physics. I wound up teaching at M.I.T. for several years, which is how I met Sam. I was his professor and we worked on his leaping-on-a-string theory of time travel together. We kept in touch after he graduated and he convinced me to leave academics to work with him on a couple of projects, including Star Bright, which is where we met Edward St. John. He was the project director and he believed in Sam's time travel theory. In this timeline, he was the one who had all the right contacts to get the funding for Project Quantum Leap. He became co-director with Sam while I worked on the technical development. Because St. John had so much pull with the people giving us the money we needed, we never had to worry bout losing the funding. Sam wasn't forced to make that premature first leap, and we had all the time we needed to develop a working retrieval program.
Sam was never lost in Time, but the project was not as perfect as Alpha had implied to me. Most of the leaps were indeed under Sam's control. He leaped two or three tmes a month, usually being only a couple or three days on a leap before coming home. But about a third of the leaps went off course. On those, he was led to put something right, to change someone's history for the better before he could leap home. But the retrieval program always, eventually worked.
I went back to the computer console and called up the formula for the retrieval program. I tried my best to memorize it, particularly the bits that looked different form what I recalled of the ones we'd tried over the years of Sam's Leaping. I was hoping to remember enough of it so that our own project could work out the rest. Even without Sam, we had some pretty sharp physics gurus and programmers at PQL. Maybe my little side trip in Time would serve a real purpose after all.Provided I got to go home.
When I started seeing spots in front of my eyes, I decided it was time to stop staring at the computer screen. I'd spread the print-outs all over the place so I gathered them together, intending to trash them. That was when I found a sheet that had slipped away from the rest, one I hadn't read. I looked at it and my world turned upside down -- again. It was part of the sumary of Sam's personal history. He'd grown up pretty much the same way as in the original history. He'd worked on some different projects, the timing of some things I knew about was a bit different, but it was the last line on the print-out that blew my mind. 'Dr Beckett currently resides in New Mexico with his mate of twenty years, Dr. Albert Calavicci.'
I dropped down onto the couch. Talk about a kick in the butt! Me, Al Calavicci, the guy who'd had a total of seven wives and scores of girlfriends in two timelines was the 'wife' Sam left waiting at home when he leaped out into Time. And, I suddenly, remembered, Sam was due back tonight. Expecting, no doubt anticipating, coming home to his waiting lover. Me. Oh, boy.
I must have read those words over at least twenty times before I admitted I hadn't made a mistake and they weren't going to change. Sam and me, lovers. The idea was ludricrous. It was outrageous. It was -- dangerous.
Okay, so I've always been adventurous. I can even admit to being curious about how it would feel, doing it with a man. But not with Sam. Sure I love him, that's the point. He's my best friend. He's been like a brother to me, maybe even a little bit like a son, sometimes. So I'd never think about jeopardizing our relationship for just a few thrills, a way to satisfy some curiosity. And I'm not gay. No way could I be in love with a man. Even a man as attractive, inside and out, as Sam. As for Sam being gay -- I'd never seen any sign of it. More often than not, he's a real prude about sex. Although he's loosened up some since he started leaping. But when he does let go, his drive is always towards women. Never once have I ever seen Sam look at a man that way. Sam and I, lovers, no way. But unless Alpha was playing some sort of sick joke, we were lovers in this timeline, had been for two decades.
The more I thought about it, my stomach started to churn and my head was pounding. Worst of all, a tiny little corner of my imagination had opened up, wondering how it would feel to be the focus of Sam's sexual interest, that intensity I'd seen in him when he really wanted someone . A little voice whispered that obviously our realtionship wasn't at risk since we already were lovers in this timeline. Sam would be back tonight and I could find out how it would feel to love him with no harm done.
Except it would be like lying to him. I wasn't the same man he'd known for all those years; It wasn't me who'd shared his bed and his intimate secrets. And what if I went back to my own time and remembered what happened? How could I face him with the same attitude I'd always had towards him? There was risk here, and I couldn't take it. When Sam came home, I'd tell him about the other timeline. He'd probably find it fascinating and spend the rest of the night researching it. Or maybe I wouldn't even be here long enough for Sam to get home. I could be back in my own timeline by then. Or I'd be part of this timeline and I wouldn't even remember that there had ever been a time when Sam and I hadn't made that step over the line into being lovers. My headache was getting worse and I realized I was exaused, physically and mentally. I hunted up some ibuprofen and stretched out on the bed. I figured that after a nap I'd be in much better shape to explain things to Sam. My last thought as I faded out was that it was gonna be a real kick in the butt to be in the same time and place as Sam again, even if it was a different time and place than we'd ever been in together before.
**********
"Al. Wake up, Al. Al!"
I could hear a familiar voice, a pleasant voice, calling my name, but I didn't know if I was awake or dreaming. My brain felt muddled. Gradually, groggy and disoriented, I realized I was waking up. I was lying on my side and a firm hand was rubbing my back. It felt so good I almost went back to sleep. Until the hand swooped down to caress my butt. The bed dipped beside me and that voice murmurred in my ear. "Al, if you don't wake up soon, I'm gonna start without you." A kiss was pressed onto the back of my neck and I turned over and sat straight up, fast.
"Sam!" He was on the bed beside me, looking amused and a little concerned, as he rubbed his forehead. I realized we'd bumped heads when I sat up so abruptly. Rubbing my own bruise in the making, I stared at him. He was obviously just out of the shower. His hair was damp and combed back off his forehead, making him look older and somehow a litle dangerous. A towel was wrapped around his waist leaving his broad chest bare. His skin and hair seemed to practically glow in the lamplight. He was almost unbearably real, just about vibrating with life. I found I couldn't say anything or look away from him. He stared back at me, expression growing more concerned as the seconds passed.
"Are you all right, Al?"
"Uh, I'm just -- I was asleep," I stammered. "Guess I was dreaming. I'm fine, now."
"That's good." He tilted his head, smiling at me. "Now can I have a proper welcome home? I've been gone for days and I missed you."
My mind was suddenly going at about two hundred miles an hour. Now that I was fully awake, I remembered just where and when I was. And I remembered that I was supposed to be explaining to Sam that I was not exactly who he thought I was. From the look of things I should start explaining fast, before things went any further. But -- dammit, he looked really good, and he was gazing at me so lovingly and with such eager desire that I found myself reluctant to spoil the moment. I suddenly wanted desperately to know what it would be like to let Sam Beckett make love to me.
"Al?" He was still waiting for his welcome home and it hit me then, forcibly, that he really was there, with me. Even if this was just a glitch in time Sam was with me, safe.
"Welcome home, Sam."
Sam made an exasperated noise in his throat, and the next thing I knew, he was kissing me, his arms wrapped tight around me. I pulled my mouth away and his lips moved down my throat, kissing and biting lightly at my skin. He soon had my shirt unbuttoned and pushed off my shoulders. HIs fingers were teasing my nipples while his mouth made wet patterns on my collarbones, leaving behind suction marks and scrapes from his teeth. My heart was pounding and the blood roared in my ears. Things were going too fast and I had to stop it. I didn't want this, right? There was some reason I'd decided this wouldn't be right -- but I couldn't think as Sam's mouth closed over mine again, his tongue teasing between my lips and sending bolts of lightening down my spine.
"Sam! Umm, Sam," I gasped, pulling away. "Wait, Ahh!"
His hand had slipped inside my pants and he was holding my hard dick in his hand. My very hard dick. That's when I knew. I knew I wanted him, I'd always wanted him and I was going to have him. To hell with glitches and alternate timelines and labels like gay or straight. I was in love with Sam Beckett, any and every version of him and I couldn't pass up the chance to make love with the person who means more to me than anyone else I've ever known. I sat up and wrestled out of my pants and underwear, shucking my shirt the rest of the way off at the same time. Then I reached for the towel around Sam's waist and stripped it off of him. He was beautiful from top to bottom. His cock was hard, already leaking a little. He moaned as I caressed it, loving the way he felt in my hand.
Sam pulled me down on the bed on top of him. He wrapped himself around me, running his hands up and down my back as we kissed. Then he held my hips as his pushed his groin up against me, rubbing our hard cocks together. I lowered my head to his chest, licking and sucking his nipples Abruptly, he pushed me away. Before I could wonder what he was doing that for, he'd grabbed a tube of lube from the nightstand drawer and both his hands were around my cock, spreading lube from root to tip. Then he laid back down and pulled his knees up toward his chest, splitting his thighs apart. I couldn't believe it when he took more of the gel, using his long fingers to spread it up inside himself. It was the hottest, most erotic thing I've ever seen, Sam preparing himself to be loved by me. When he was done, he smiled at me and pulled me back on top of him. He kissed me deeply again and whispered into my ear. "I love you, Al. Make love to me, please."
"I love you, too, "I whispered back, "Love you so much, Sammy."
We didn't talk much after that; our bodies said everything we could have said to each other, and more. It was the most exquiste lovemaking I'd ever known. It was beautiful and raw, earthy and tender, deep and urgent and yet comfortable and comforting as well. I slid into Sam's body as if he'd been made just for me, and I for him. I looked into his eyes as I moved in and out of his body, watched him shudder and come apart and caught his cry of climax on my tongue as I came deep inside him. We lay still, after shocks making us twitch and shiver, until I softened and slipped out of his body. As we quieted, Sam mumurred love words and stroked my back, ending up rolling us over again so that he could lay his head on my shoulder, the covers pulled up over us. I was utterly spent, snuggled as close to him as I could get. My last awareness was of the feel of his arms around me, his lips at my throat, and thelast thought in my mind as my consciousness slipped away was that it might not be a bad thing to stay in the twilight zone forever. With Sam......
**********
I was in the Imaging Chamber, observing Sam as he found something in the ashtray of my black corvette, in 1957. I felt a little disoriented and Sam was acting a little stramge. But he'd found the piece of the puzzle he needed to help him figure out how to put things right. Sam got Chip to relate the sad tale of how Marcy died and after he left, Sam had that look in his eye that said he knew what he had to do. And his plan worked. We leaped 'Bingo' from the Waiting Room back into himself before Marcy died. He, after some coaching from me, kept Chip away from Marcy on the fateful night and she didn't die. Sam's plan even saved Lisa's life. With no worry about me, she had her mind on her driving and no tears to obstruct her vision, so the wreck never happened. History was back on track, even better than the original, and Sam leaped.
I didn't remember my little side trip in Time until after Sam leaped and I was back in my quarters at the Project. I'd stripped off my clothes to take a shower and I found some bruises I didn't remember getting. Bruises in the shape of fingertips and bite marks and a sore spot on my forehead, too. At first I was utterely bewildered. And then, in one mind blowing flash, I remembered everything. The glitch in time, my foray into the outer limits of time travel, and what I'd shared with Sam there. Somehow, someway, I not only remembered something that technically had never happened, but I also had physical proof of it on my body. Proof that Sam and I had made love. Without those bruises I might have put the whole thing down to some weird dream. But it had been real and I knew it. Sam and I, lovers, in love with each other. I could remember his scent, his taste, how it felt to be inside him. For a long moment I was stuck on wondering how I was going to live with the possibility-- no, the probability, that I'd never have that with Sam again. But then I remembered something else. The working retrieval program.
It wasn't exactly an easy fix, but with what I recalled from the formula in the other timeline, and with our guys, plus Ziggy working on it, we came up with a program that Ziggy announced had a 97% probability of a successful retrieval. All we had to do was wait for Sam's next leap so that Ziggy could get a fix on him when it came time for the leap out. And it worked! Sam came home.We hugged each other so tight, I'm surprised neither of us cracked a rib. I know it was not my imagination that there was a little something extra in the way Sam held on to me.
Not that it was immediately a happy ending for yours truly. Sam was married when he leaped back, the result of one of his leaps where he mettled in his own past. But after a few weeks, it was apparent that God's weird sense of humor and the funny things Time can do to a person had changed things between Sam and Donna.Their split was amicable. Donna moved back east and is teaching physics at MIT. In the last email Sam got from her, she said she's moving in with her girlfriend.
As for Sam and me, well, he came to my quarters the night after Donna moved out and I let him seduce me. We've been making up for lost time ever since. We fit together just as well in this timeline as we did in that crazy little glitch. We're best friends and lovers and, someday, if the law of the land ever changes, we just might be spouses, too. But that part is not really a priority. Legally or not, I'm his and he's mine and that's how it's meant to be.