Chapter Text
The young man in his early twenties took off his white coat and draped it over one arm. He looked around the spartan apartment, not sure what to do.
Then a voice drifted out of the kitchen, still exhausted from the process of recovering after traveling thousands of miles home from war: “Dr. Beckett? Is that you?”
The young man looked around the apartment, eyes wide. “Yes, your door was open… where can I put my coat?”
“Anywhere.”
After some hesitation, the young man draped the coat over the arm of the couch and walked towards the kitchen. The man he’d met a few days earlier, Lieutenant Commander Calavicci, who had insisted on being called Al, was standing in front of the small stove, stirring in a tall pot with a wooden spoon. The smells of oregano and garlic drifted through the kitchen.
“Hello… Al?”
“Oh hey,” Al turned to look at him and smiled. “I can’t keep calling you Dr. Beckett, can I?”
“No, sorry. Uh, you can call me Sam, just not at Bethesda.”
“Sam. Well. Doesn’t this smell fantastic?”
“Yeah, it really does.” Sam leaned in to smell the sauce and his stomach growled.
“Better than what you have at home, right? Go on, sit on the couch. I’ll bring you some wine.”
Sam perched on the tan secondhand couch. Hard to believe he’d met Al only a few days earlier. His supervisor had taken him through various wards of Bethesda on a tour, and they’d gone through the one for the prisoners of war recently arrived from Vietnam.
“I thought the war ended two years ago?” Sam had asked his supervisor.
“Well, yes, but they were hanging onto some prisoners of war. They finally shipped some more home to us, and we’re dealing with them. Want to say hello?”
The two of them walked down the ward. Most of the men in white hospital pajamas Sam passed had dead eyes and simply lay in their beds, staring up at the ceiling. But there was one man there who was sitting up in bed, cross-legged, his eyes shining with a fierceness.
“Beth,” this man said when he saw Sam and his supervisor. “Have you gotten a hold of her yet?”
“We’re working on that,” Sam’s supervisor said, and immediately led Sam out of the ward.
After they left, Sam asked, “What’s the deal with that man? Who’s Beth?”
“That’s Lieutenant Commander Calavicci. Very decorated man, and the Navy doesn’t want to take any risks by upsetting him. Beth is his wife. Ex-wife, rather, since she had him declared dead then remarried a few years back. He keeps asking for her, but we’re waiting for the right time.”
Sam nodded, but the whole situation didn’t feel right to him. Didn’t this man have a right to know, no matter what the Navy thought?
The next day, when he had a break, Sam ducked into the POW ward. It looked the same as yesterday, complete with the lone sailor sitting upright in bed. The sole nurse at duty was at the desk, so Sam gave her his best harmless “I’m just an innocent resident taking a look” smile then went down to the end.
Lieutenant Commander Calavicci’s dark curls were a wild mess, but his face was as alert as it’d been yesterday. Sam darted a look back at the nurse to make sure she was still distracted by the patients at the other end, then he said, “Lieutenant Commander?”
The older man squinted at him. “Aren’t you that kid who was in here yesterday?”
“Yes. Listen… I know what happened to your wife. Ex-wife, really.”
“She’s not my ex-wife,” the sailor growled, his eyes slits. “What’s going on?”
“The Navy doesn’t want you to be upset, but…” Sam hesitated. “I don’t know if I should be telling you this, but I felt you had a right to know.”
Calavicci took a deep breath, his back ramrod straight. “What is it? Is she dead?”
“No. Remarried.”
At this, Calavicci collapsed. He bent forward and buried his face in his hands. He was so quiet that it took Sam several moments to realize that this highly-decorated sailor was sobbing.
Sam sat next to him on the bed and put an arm around his shoulders. He sat like that until Calavicci’s sobs subsided, then the older man looked up at him. “Why are you doing this for me?”
“I want to help you and other people too. That’s why I became a doctor.”
For the first time since they’d met, Calavicci smiled. “You’d do a damn sight better than those nozzles around here.”
“Yeah… I wish I could help you better. My mom said the best thing for grief was food, but I’m not good at cooking at all but maybe I could make you an apple pie or something-”
Calavicci interrupted him with a clap to Sam’s shoulder. He was sitting next to Sam now, their legs parallel to each other over the side of the bed. “Kid. It’s okay, really.”
“-but I don’t remember how and I don’t want to ask her for the recipe since she’s still upset over my brother and dad dying and besides, the only thing I use the oven in my apartment for is making dinner from the freezer. I don’t even have measuring cups!”
This got a laugh out of Calavicci. “When was the last time you had a home-cooked dinner, huh, kid?”
Sam had to pause and think. “I don’t remember. Maybe when I was sixteen, seventeen? It’s been a while.”
“Tell you what. The Navy’s gonna send me to an apartment in the area soon, then I’m getting my shit from storage, including all my pots and pans and stuff like that. I’ll make you something my dad taught me how to make, a long time ago.”
“Really? But why?”
“You did me a favor.” Calavicci sighed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about Beth yet, but I appreciate you telling me now instead of some asshole shrink later on, right when I’m about to go home.”
“It’s not a problem. Um… I guess you could track me down when you’re about to leave, Lieutenant Commander?”
“Call me Al, okay? You’re not one of my men.”
“...okay. Al. See you later.”
Then Sam had departed the ward, leaving Al to sit on his bed and think.
True to his word, Al had left his address in a folded note for Sam upon leaving the hospital and now Sam found himself sitting here, in Al’s apartment.
Al returned with two glasses of red wine and handed Sam one. “Here you go, Sam. The meatballs are sitting in the gravy now and I’ve got the spaghetti going in another pot. Should be done in a few minutes. You are old enough to drink, right?”
“Yes.” Sam took one of the glasses and had a cautious sip. “Since last August.”
Al squinted at him. “Twenty-one and already a resident? How’d you do that?”
“I finished my bachelor’s at eighteen, then medical school by twenty. I’m working on my residency now but one of my old professors wants me to go back and get my doctorate. I do miss physics. But I also like working with people as a doctor.”
Al studied the young man sitting in front of him. “Sorry if this is a bit much, but when did your dad die?”
Sam’s eyebrows contracted. “...I mentioned that?”
“A few days ago, yeah, when you visited me. Listen, Sam, it’s okay. My dad died when I was really young too, so I get it.”
Sam rubbed at one of his eyes. “Last spring.”
Al’s eyes went to the floor as he sighed. He put his glass of wine down on the scarred wooden coffee table then returned with two plates and forks.
“You don’t have a table?” Sam asked. He hadn’t seen much in the apartment, come to think of it… just this couch and the coffee table in the small living room.
Al pointed to the coffee table. “This place is temporary, anyway.” He gave one plate to Sam then balanced the other on his knees after sitting down.
Sam concentrated on the food, trying not to wolf it down. Meatballs in a tomato sauce spiced with garlic, basil and oregano were ladled over spaghetti. While it wasn’t quite the same as his mother’s cooking, it was still very good.
Al smiled at Sam. “Beats the hell out of your TV dinners, huh?”
Sam nodded. “Thank you… Al. What will you do now?”
Al shrugged. “The Navy’s talkin’ about sending me to NASA, going on a few missions. The shrink at the hospital thinks I need some rest, so I’m not sure how long it’ll be before I go off to Texas or maybe it's Florida. God, I’ve really missed Florida. And what about you, kid? How long are you on this residency for?”
“This one is three years. I was thinking I’d look at other schools in the area, maybe for physics or music or something. I’m not sure yet.”
“Music? You play music too?”
“I practiced the piano a lot in undergrad and I got invited to play Carnegie when I was nineteen.”
Al shook his head, laughing. “Really? You’re not jerking my leg? This random young doctor sitting next to me is also a piano genius?”
“No, I’m not joking.” Sam's eyes were wide and sincere. “One of my professors at MIT heard me practicing and submitted a recording of me playing for some contest they were doing, to showcase young gifted piano players. I got in and I played a piece. It was Christmas 1972.”
“You’re really going to go places one day, kid.”
Sam stared at his half-empty plate. “Really? Even if I’m not sure what I’m going to do?”
“You’ll figure it out. Everybody does.”
“I have an idea for something really big, but I’m not sure if it’ll work.”
The men finished their meal in silence. Then Al said, jabbing his fork at Sam, “This idea of yours, what is it?”
Sam looked at his feet, tapping on the worn shag carpet. “I don’t know if I should say.”
“Let’s go take a walk, all right?”
It was a cool spring evening in Maryland, fine conditions for a walk, so Al led Sam around the neighborhood. He pointed out some places that his Navy buddies frequented. Sam tried not to let the disapproval show on his face whenever Al talked about the size of the bazongas on the strippers inside some of those places.
They walked into an Italian deli, which had a gelato counter. Al said to Sam, “You like fruit, right?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Good. I once had a girlfriend who couldn’t stand fruit and I couldn’t understand it at all. Two lemon, please.”
The lemon gelato was far better than Sam expected.
Al grinned. “Never had anything like that before, huh? Just take your time with it.”
“No, I haven’t. Just regular ice cream.” Sam had to smile.
“I miss Rome. My dad once took me on a trip there when I was a kid. Gelato everywhere- heaven for an eight-year-old.”
Sam smiled. He could almost imagine Al as a little boy with all that curly hair. “You never got stationed there? Or anywhere in Europe?”
“I tried. But Japan, Cuba and Vietnam all needed pilots, so that’s what I got. So what’s this idea of yours, Sam?”
“Time travel.” Sam ducked his head. “I told you it was crazy.”
“Time travel? Isn’t that impossible?” Al squinted one eye at Sam.
“It’s something I worked on a bit when I was in undergrad. I’ve had the idea ever since I was a kid. Okay, imagine a string, yeah?” Sam made a gesture with his hands like he was pulling out a piece of string. “One end is your birth, the other is your death. If you tie one end to the other, so that it’s a loop…” here, Sam brought together the ends of the invisible string, “then crumple it up, you can go from point to point within your own lifetime.”
Al nodded sagely, taking this idea seriously. “And what would you do with time travel?”
“I’d like to be able to observe events in the past.”
“What if you could change things?”
“That’s dangerous.”
“Still an idea. If I could change anything through time travel, I’d get Beth to not leave me.” Al looked for a nearby trash can, then stuffed the cup into his jacket pocket when he didn’t see one. “Terrible, all this junk on the street. Why can’t they set up more trash cans?”
Sam didn’t say anything. He was quiet all the way back to the door of Al’s apartment.
At the door, Al said, “Well, guess this is it.”
“Thank you, Al, for dinner.”
“Anytime, kid. If you need more, let me know.” Al’s dark eyes searched Sam’s face and drifted to the white streak in Sam’s hair. “Will you be all right?”
“Yeah, I will be.”
Then Al spontaneously grabbed Sam in a tight bear hug. Sam’s eyes widened, but he hugged Al back.
“Take care, okay? Oh wait! Do you have a phone number or something?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Come on…” Al invited Sam inside then rummaged in a kitchen drawer. He found a piece of paper and thrust it, along with a pen, at Sam. “I need your address and phone number. I’ll get in touch when I get the go-ahead for Florida.”
Sam set the paper on the kitchen counter then wrote them down for Al. “And to invite me to one of those clubs you were pointing out, right?”
“Sure, why not? You need a break from being a doctor once in a while, don’t ya?”
Sam’s cheeks turned pink. “I… guess so?”
“Great! It’s a plan! I need to track down my buddies in the area, then I’ll call soon.”
As Sam left, part of him hoped that Al would never get around to calling to invite him to a strip club. Another part of him hoped that Al would call before he left for Florida.
Al was from the same military branch as his brother, but he’d actually made it out of Vietnam alive. And he’d lost two loved ones, like Sam had, and one recently at that. Sam decided that he liked Al.