Chapter Text
Blue light enveloped Sam accompanied by the dizzying feeling of being thrust through time and space. When he materialized Sam did what he always does, took in his surroundings. He was standing in the middle of some sort of playground, children running around laughing and playing gleefully. The only adults present were women, though upon closer inspection they weren’t just women, they were nuns. He surmised that he must be at a Catholic school, or an orphanage. Oh God... not a priest again... Sam swallowed hard, looking around for the nearest reflective surface.
“Sister Mary Kathryn, could you help me get the children inside?” One of the nuns called out to Sam.
She was an older woman, probably in her 60’s, with thick glasses and a severe looking face. Better not get on her bad side , Sam thought to himself before stopping in his tracks. Wait, what did she call me? Sister... He turned and caught his reflection in one of the windows.
“Ohhhhh boy, I’m a nun!” Sam nearly shrieked.
“What was that sister?”
“Uhhh, sure, of course,” he recovered, looking into the direction the sister was indicating.
He helped the other nuns start rounding up the children just as a bell rang, causing the children to quickly get into a single file line. Sam scrambled to follow them inside, praying that his holographic guide would show up soon to tell him what the hell... err, what the heck he was doing here.
“Ziggy, what have we got?” Al called out to the computer, grabbing the handlink from Gooshie and preparing to enter the imaging chamber.
“Goosh, honey,” Tina prompted the programmer.
“Uhhh, Admiral, you might want to, umm, that is...” The programmer stammered, wringing his hands nervously.
“Spit it out, Gooshie!” The Admiral barked.
“Admiral, Gooshie is trying to tell you that you should read the data I’ve collected before going to see Dr. Beckett,” Ziggy the hybrid computer purred.
“Is that all?” Al shrugged, pulling up the information on the handlink to read. At first, he looked dumbfounded, as if his eyes would bulge out of his head. Unfortunately, he went from dumbfounded to downright pissed off in about 2.5 seconds.
“ZIGGY! This better damn well not be a prank!”
“I assure you Admiral, the information is quite accurate,” Ziggy replied in a hurt tone.
Al looked from the programmer to Tina, to the computer and back again before slamming the handlink down on the control panel and storming out.
“Well, Gooshie, as they say in baseball, you’re up!” Tina patted her boyfriend on the back, giving him the handlink.
“I was afraid of that,” Gooshie sighed. “Tina, center me on Sam!” The programmer called out, entering the imaging chamber and hoping for the best.
Dr. Verbena Beeks made her way down the maze of hallways that lead to the offices of project Quantum Leap. Word had spread like wildfire about the circumstances of Sam’s leap and Al’s reaction to it. Beeks was hoping she would find the admiral in his office, that he hadn’t decided to descend on the nearest bar before she could get to him. God or fate or time must have been on her side, Al was still sitting in his office. The only light in the room came from the glow at the end of the admiral’s cigar. The smell of booze assaulted the doctor the moment she walked in.
“How long has it been since you’ve taken a drink, admiral?”
“Buzz off, Beeks,” Al growled, though it was half-hearted at best.
“I hear that Sam leaped into the orphanage in nine...”
“Nineteen forty-five. Congratulations, you can read Ziggy’s print outs, gold star.”
Al could be callous at times, but he had never spoken to Verbena this way before, this was really getting to him.
“Anything special about August of 1945?” Verbena queried, sitting down across from him.
“Let’s see, my pops died in January of that year, so I was sent back to the orphanage and my sister Trudy went to an institution where she died six years later before I could get her out, is that what you want to hear, Beeksie?” Al snarled nastily, grabbing a bottle from the desk, tossing it back.
“Your father had cancer, didn’t he?”
“Right again, the priest and the nuns kept telling me to pray for him, that God would make him better, even Poppa told me to keep praying, so I did, every damn day. When he started to get worse, they told me I wasn’t praying hard enough, so I prayed harder, then he died. Guess I wasn’t praying hard enough, eh? Tell me, Verbena, how much praying can a ten-year-old boy really do?”
Al looked at her from across the desk and in the dim light Verbena could see the redness in his eyes, a sure sign that the admiral had been crying.
“You blame yourself for his death?”
“Nope, I blame God,” Al bit out the words before slamming the bottle down on the desk, watching in satisfaction as it shattered to pieces with a loud crash, cutting his hand in the process.
Sam had managed to bluff his way through so far. Thankfully he was a younger nun and more of a student teacher, so he hadn’t been expected to teach any classes on his own. Thank God he was alone in the bathroom when Gooshie appeared, the face he made when seeing the programmer instead of Al was quite comical.
“Um, you’re not Al...” Sam stammered.
“It’s Dr. Robert Gooshman, Dr Beckett, Gooshie,” The programmer smiled nervously.
“Gooshie?” Sam repeated, studying the man before recognition hit.
“Oh yeah, little guy, bad breath!” Sam beamed, proud of himself.
Gooshie cleared his throat, blushing in embarrassment.
“Dr. Beckett, I know you were expecting to see Admiral Calavicci, but I’m afraid he’s um, temporarily unavailable, so Ziggy sent me.”
“Al’s alright, isn’t he?” Sam asked, looking stricken.
“Oh yes! The Admiral is fine, doctor, just uh, dealing with some paperwork,” Gooshie flubbed, wiping his brow.
Sam decided now wasn’t the time to push the poor man.
“What does Ziggy say?”
Gooshie lifted the handlink and peered at the screen.
“It’s August 12 th , 1945, and you’re Kathryn Ann Williams, Sister Kathryn. You teach at St. Anthony’s Orphanage in Brooklyn, New York.”
“Brooklyn, 1945...” Sam pondered, his face turning white. “Al...”
“Admiral Calavicci is one of the children who lives here,” Gooshie confirmed, watching Sam anxiously.
“He would have been what? Ten?”
“Eleven in June,” Gooshie replied.
“And his dad...”
‘The Admiral’s father died in January, that’s why he’s here. His sister Trudy was left in a sanitarium nearby due to her mental condition.”
“Ohhhh boy...” Sam breathed, dropping to his knees on the floor.