Chapter 19
Sam was in the infirmary, awaiting a visit from Verbena Beeks for his first check-up in many years, when Al leaned into the room and knocked on the open door.
“Hey Sam,” he said, grinning. “Just double checking I wasn’t dreaming that you came home.” He rolled up his jacket sleeve and pinched his arm. “Well, I guess I’m not.”
Sam smiled, pinching his own arm in response. An acute pain concentrated in the pinch point as he did so, confirming that he, too, was awake.
“Me neither.”
Al moved himself all the way into the room, sitting on the examination bed next to Sam, and wrapped an arm around Sam’s shoulders. He had barely stopped making physical contact with Sam since he’d arrived back, and Sam certainly wasn’t complaining. It was highly comforting, and something he never thought he’d get to experience again.
“I called Washington. They said we need to show proof of your return before they give an emergency extension of any kind to the funding here, but even so, I think we can last a few more days on a skeleton crew and Ziggy at half power.”
“I really came home on the last day before this place became defunct, huh?” asked Sam, a little shocked about the timing.
“You cut it close, pal,” Al said with a grin.
“Well, I’m happy to make whatever kind of proof-of-life appearances you need,” Sam said. “I don’t think we can say goodbye to this project just yet. Lot of debriefs to do, right?” He looked down at his hands, his mind moving to the pressing matter of his means of arrival. “Al… nobody else came out of the Accelerator today, did they?”
“Uh, no.” Al tilted his head. “Were you expecting someone else?”
“Well, kinda. Maybe.” He scratched his nose, frowning. “I think I’m only here because of another leaper. He pulled me into his retrieval—like I pulled Alia into my leap that one time. But obviously something anomalous happened if I ended up here, because it was meant to be to a completely different time period.”
“Another leaper?” Al looked at him with alarm. “You don’t mean some nozzle from the ‘Brotherhood of Evil Leapers?’”
“Brotherhood of—?” Sam screwed up his nose, before deciding it wasn’t worth asking. “No, no, he wasn’t one of them. He was from some version of this project, from decades in the future. His name was Ben Song. Can we get Ziggy to look him up?”
“Yeah, sure,” Al said, whipping the handlink from his jacket pocket and proceeding to punch in commands. “Gimme a minute or two; Ziggy’s running slow. Ben Song, you said?”
“Ben Song, yeah.” Sam observed that the suit Al was wearing was unusually plain for him—just a brightly coloured tie and lapel pin gave him the flair Sam remembered—and he began to wonder what changes he had wrought when he had told Beth to wait for Al, and subsequently when he’d decided to continue on leaping for good.
He thought back to the last events that had occurred prior to Ben grabbing him and the world fading into blue. He had looked upon his future self, still leaping for god-knows-how-long, and emotionally damaged to an alarming degree. He’d been grieving for the life he’d left unlived, for the people he’d left behind to suffer the fallout from his questionable decisions.
That had left the younger Sam in a vulnerable state when Ben had grabbed him. He’d thought he’d just keep on leaping around, but knowing what was in store for him… it felt like a punishment. And so, he hadn’t resisted Ben’s attempts to bring him along. But now he was wondering if that could have been poor judgement on his part.
And, where had Ben gone now? Had he been safely retrieved into his own time? Or was he lost somewhere in time, still?
All those alarming thoughts flooded his mind, but out of the swirling doubts came one thought: Donna.
The Swiss-cheese holes in his memory were beginning to fill in now that he was home, and he remembered vividly his promise to her from the last time he’d been home; that he would come back to her.
Coupled with the image of the look in the eye of his older self, the lifetime of pain that he could never be close to her, Sam decided that he was glad to be home.
“Ben Song…” Al muttered, looking closely at the handlink. “Well, Ziggy has a bunch of results here for that name, but there’s one kid that sticks out, because he’s got impressive grades. Straight A student, except one year he apparently had other interests than school and got Bs. Immigrated here from Korea in the nineties.”
“That might be him. Korea sounds right; he was definitely East Asian. But he’s a kid; guess he’s not going to be much help to us.”
“That’s okay,” Sam said with a smile. “Let’s just keep tabs on him as he comes of age, huh?” He shrugged. “And if we ever find the version of Ben that brought me home, I’ll need to thank him for doing what he did. The future I saw for myself if I stayed out there… well, it wasn’t what I’d hoped.”
“We all deserve second chances,” Al said, squeezing Sam’s shoulders. “Speaking of which… I know what you did that day. The last time I saw you. I remember how things used to be—and I’m glad I can finally thank you.”
Sam smiled. “I thought you might remember. You always did seem to keep a lot of the residual memories. Effects of the Imaging Chamber, I guess.”
“Did you know I have four daughters now?”
Sam felt a swell of emotion for his best friend. “I did. I’ve even met Janis.”
“Well sure you did. In this timeline you met all of them before you leaped. Are you getting those memories yet?”
“Yeah, I remember them,” Sam confirmed. “But I met Janis just last year, Al. On a leap.”
“Oh,” Al said, surprised, then narrowed his eyes. “Hold on one second, Sam. You mean to tell me you met Janis on a leap and you never thought to say ‘hi’ to me?”
Sam’s cheeks burned. “Well, I… I was trying to keep a low profile. I put people in danger if anyone knows where I am. And besides, I thought I’d given you someone who you could rely on more than me. I thought you wouldn’t need me.”
“Sam…” Al looked genuinely hurt. “I can’t thank you enough for bringing Beth back to me, but if I’d have known it would mean never seeing you again, I don’t think I would have let you go through with it. You and Beth are both the most important people in the world to me.”
Sam brushed a tear from his cheek. “Sorry, Al. I messed things up. And that’s why I’m glad I’m back, so I can put it all right. I left so many people to struggle in my absence. You, Donna…” he swallowed, “… Sammy Jo…”
He pressed his lips together a moment, thinking of his daughter, who had been there with Al when he arrived. “Why was she wearing a Fermi suit, Al?”
It was a question he already thought he knew the answer to. After all, there was only one logical reason she would have put it on.
Al let out a deep breath. “Same reason she was in the Accelerator Chamber; she was about to leap. I stopped her.”
“Why, though?”
“Because she thought she failed you. You know how many versions of the Retrieval program she’s written over the last four years? Hundreds! Not a one worked, of course.” He shrugged. “Until now.”
“My god,” Sam said, shaking his head. “I’ve got to apologise to her.”
“Apologise to who?” came a third voice. Sam looked up to see Verbena standing in the doorway. She had a huge smile on her face. “Apologise to me for having to put up with all the terrified people in the Waiting Room for five years?”
Sam stood, smiling fondly at the psychiatrist. “Hi, Verbena. Yeah, sorry—that must have been tough.”
She crossed to him, looking him closely in the eyes.
“My Lord! Sam, I never thought I’d see you looking back at me from those eyes again. Come here…” she wrapped her arms around him, and they hugged it out, before she peered down at Al, still sitting on the bed. “Al, I’m afraid I’ll need some private time with the patient, if you don’t mind.”
“You got it, Beeks,” he said, standing, and nodding at the pair. “Don’t keep him too long, okay? The man needs some R and R.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll only be an hour at most. Just gotta make sure he’s all in one piece.” She donned her stethoscope. “Now out you go. This is gonna get intimate.”
“Okay, okay,” Al said, leaving the room as he muttered: “Nothin’ I haven’t seen by accident anyway…”
Sam looked bashfully away, knowing it was true.
“Well, Doctor Beckett?” Verbena said as she shut the door. “What do you want checked first?”
Sam tapped a finger to the left side of his chest. “Start with the heart. I just watched someone nearly die of cardiac arrest, so you could say it’s on my mind.”