“I don’t get it.”
Sam shrugged at Katie as the two approached the door to the room where his younger body lay.
“I told you it was hard to put into words,” he said. “But the bottom line is… I was— my ghost was right.”
Katie bit her lip. “Letting yourself…”
Sam gave her a grave nod as he placed his hand on the door handle. “I’m not thrilled about it, but… well, I can either rip the Band-Aid off now or wait until I end up on life support too… either way it’s going to mean dying.”
“Sam… I don’t want you to go…”
“I know, Katie. But as soon as I do it, I—”
As Sam moved to turn the door handle, he found it turning from the other side. As the door opened, he came face-to-face with Doctor Marshall.
“Oh, there you are,” he said, a broad smile on his face. “I have good news for you. The operation was a success. They’re just closing him up now. I’d like to let Missus Beckett know; would you know where she is?”
Sam’s mouth fell open.
He’s going to live…
He stumbled backward as Katie directed the doctor towards the cafeteria, feeling a pit in his stomach.
He propped himself against a wall and leaned his head back, closing his eyes tightly.
“Sam, Dad’s gonna be… Sam?”
Katie’s hand moved onto Sam’s shoulder. “Sam, it’s okay. We can see him before you… you know.”
“I didn’t want to know,” Sam opened his eyes, which were now filled with tears, and gazed through the distortion they caused, down at his sister.
“What? Why?”
Sam wiped a hand across his eyes. “You don’t understand what’s gonna happen as soon as I pull that plug, Katie. All of this will be undone… all my actions since the accident. I won’t be there to save Dad.”
Katie stared at him for a moment, eyes wide. “So you’re going to be alive again, but Dad…?”
“Dad’s gonna die.”
Katie stood silent for a moment, processing this information, and then she too began to sob.
“Whatever happens, I’m gonna end up having to deal with two deaths in the family,” she choked out. “First Tom, then either you or Dad… it’s not fair.”
Sam brought her into a hug. “Katie… if I correct the timeline, Tom’s going to live.”
“What?” Katie snapped her head up to face his.
Sam nodded. “I’ll be alive, and so will Tom. But Dad… Dad’s gonna have his heart attack alone on the farm, and he won’t make it.”
Katie buried her head back into his chest. “So now that you know he’s gonna live…”
“…I might as well be pulling the plug on him, too.”
Trading Tom’s life for another… why do I have to make this call again? And with Dad of all people?
Sam cradled Katie as the two of them cried it out.
* * *
John Beckett’s eyes fluttered open as Sam, Katie, Thelma, and Doctor Marshall gathered around his bed, which was now in a ward in a different part of the hospital than Sam’s comatose form.
“Well John,” said Thelma, “looks like Tommy and Sam are gonna be milking the cows in the sky without you.”
Sam exchanged a grim look with Katie at this.
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll do fine,” John mumbled, still half asleep. “Good thing about Heaven cows is they don’t make a mess of the barn.”
Sam squeezed Katie’s hand, and leaned to whisper in her ear.
“I don’t think I can do it,” he said, his voice breaking. “It was one thing to end myself, but…”
Katie nodded, looking at him through haunted eyes. “I understand,” she whispered back.
She moved to the bedside, and hugged her father.
“I love you Daddy,” she said, kissing his forehead. “I always will, and I’m sorry for everything I ever did to hurt you.”
“Well gee, I ought to be in hospital more often,” said John. “Never been complimented this much in my life. I love you too, Katie.”
Katie stood, and helped Sam to the bedside, before stepping back.
“Da—Mister— uh, John,” Sam fumbled, taking his father’s hand, “this is gonna sound a little strange coming from me, but… I love you too.”
John squinted. “Well I don’t know why, but that doesn’t sound strange to me at all.” He gave Sam a pat on the hand.
Sam turned to meet Katie’s eye, but she wasn’t in the room any longer.
Katie…?
Sam shot to his feet, and a bout of vertigo overtook him. He stumbled backwards into Doctor Marshall.
“Uh… sorry,” he said. “I uh… have to go.”
Without support, his balance problems were plain for everyone to see, but at this point he didn’t care about that – so long as he stayed upright.
As he followed the corridors, he realised he’d completely forgotten the room number he was looking for, along with his mental map of the hospital itself.
He stood at an intersection of hallways, looking around for a moment, trying to piece together where he had to go, but he was completely lost.
Is Katie really gonna…? Would she do that?
“Sam…? Are you—”
Sam’s head turned, spotting Professor LoNigro. As he approached, Sam grabbed him by the arm, frantic.
“Professor, help me…”
“What do you need?” the professor asked, reacting to Sam’s desperation with more pity than urgency.
“I need to get back to… that room… where I am.”
The professor took a moment to parse what he was trying to say, before scooping Sam’s arm over his shoulder.
“Okay,” he murmured, in a voice that Sam interpreted as an attempt to soothe him.
“Quickly…”
The professor was in less of a hurry than Sam would have liked, and when they finally arrived back to the room, he opened the door to find Katie sitting there with the plug in her hands, staring up at the two of them with red eyes.
“I’m sorry, Sammy,” she said. “But you said you couldn’t do it and… I think I understand that this is how it has to be.”
Sam offered her a weak smile. “You did the right thing. I love you, K—”
In an instant, Sam felt himself falling into a bright blue light, with the sounds of screeching car brakes ringing in his ears.
And in the very next instant, he was behind the wheel of a car, driving on a familiar street, as a woman wandered out onto the road.
Oh, shit!
Sam slammed his foot on the brake, and everything seemed to slow down as he watched Yolanda Bennett – who Sam knew was actually himself, being shoved back by another version of himself.
Sam turned the wheel to the left, away from the both of them, and the car began to spin before coming to a halt at the kerb on the other side of the road, facing the opposite direction. It was as though he’d just done the most extreme parallel park of his life.
And then he felt himself falling again, and he was lying on the sidewalk, making bewildered eye contact with the nineteen-year-old Sam, who was still upright and very much alive.
“Oh boy… are you alright, Miss?”