Chapter 34
Returning once again to the Calavicci household—after having gone there unannounced the previous night—Sam pulled Donna’s car’s handbrake and took a deep breath, his hands slowly loosening their grip on the wheel as he calmed himself.
He was still reeling from the early morning visitation he’d received, and was not sure if he was going to be able to keep it together. Half of him felt like he needed to talk it over with someone as soon as possible, and the other half didn’t want to burden anyone else with this grave choice.
Everyone was so happy to have him back. It would devastate them to hear that he was even considering leaping again; perhaps they were better off not knowing until he’d made his decision. But… what a decision. He wouldn’t have considered it, except that it was his own future self asking him to do it. Normally one wouldn’t do such a thing if they didn’t have deep regrets.
The one person who he could confide in that wouldn’t have lasting repercussions among his loved ones, he realised, was Ben. And who would understand his predicament more? On the other hand, Ben had sacrificed his own retrieval to bring Sam home. It would be an insult to suggest rejecting that enormous gift.
Then again, he thought, there was always Verbena. It was her job to carry such burdens, as loathe as he was to unload his onto her. And he was about to go back to the Project complex.
Sam let his hands drop to his lap as he breathed in, his eyes closed as he attempted to centre himself.
Just forget about it for now. Enjoy the company of your friends and family.
He grabbed his key from the ignition, and opened the door, pasting a smile on his face as he hurried to Al’s front door.
About ten seconds after knocking, the door opened to a glowing Beth Calavicci. Though the last time Sam had seen her was 1969, she looked just as fresh and vibrant. Sam found his smile turning genuine, and he held out his arms.
“Hi, Beth,” he said warmly as she returned his hug.
“Sam, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” she said, voice muffled. “Al’s been losing his mind worrying about you, you know.”
“So I hear. I’m sorry about that, Beth. I never realised the toll it took on him.”
Beth backed up, letting Sam in the door, turning her head into the house. “He’s here!” she called out. Turning back to him, she smiled. “I already see a change in him, you know. More relaxed. More… amorous.” She winked.
“I figured he was pushing the limits on human libido already,” Sam remarked drily.
“Well he sure pushed my limits last night,” she said in a low, impish voice, as the teenagers emerged through a doorway—well, one wasn’t a teenager per se, but he looked the part.
Addison flashed him a grand smile. “Heya, Gramps! Let’s get going—I wanna see the Area 51 stuff.”
“Area 51 is in Nevada,” Sam said, grinning. “And our project is much more interesting than a bunch of experimental attack drones.”
“You mean there’s no aliens there?” Addison said. “Not that I believe in aliens…”
“Nah —not there, but don’t count out little green men altogether,” Al said as he entered the living room side-by-side with Sammy Jo. “Sam here once had a close encounter of the… what? At least second kind, right? Big freaky UFO hovering in the sky. I saw it too.”
Sam frowned, rifling through the files of his memory banks for his sparse knowledge of UFO lore. “Yeah, probably second kind,” he confirmed. “I have a feeling I would have been upgraded to third if I’d stuck around.”
“You’re messing with me, aren’t you?” Addison crossed her arms. “First time travel, now UFOs?”
Sam exchanged an amused glance with Al. “I guess we’ll leave that for you to decide. Now, we’d better get moving. It’s a bit of a drive.”
“Yeah. You heard the man, let’s mosey,” Al said, heading for the door, waving an arm—and stopping to kiss Beth’s cheek on his way out.
Sammy Jo escorted her daughter out, and Ben approached Sam with a curious, half-disbelieving look.
“Uh, did you really see a UFO?”
Instead of replying, Sam simply hummed the five note melody from the movie score of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and abruptly headed out the door, leaving Ben to wonder.
* * *
With a broad gesture as the elevator doors opened, Sam turned to watch the faces of Addison and Ben as they entered the Control floor of his version of Project Quantum Leap.
“Here we are,” he said proudly. “Ten floors deep under a mountain in the middle of the New Mexico desert. This is where the magic happens. I mean, the science. Well, same thing, I think.”
Ben was the first to leave the elevator and begin taking in the scenery. “Awesome,” he mumbled, disappearing around a bend in the corridor.
Addison was a little more timid, sticking to her mother’s side. Al was the last to step out, watching Sammy Jo usher her daughter in the same direction as Ben.
“So she’s really gonna be that future Project’s hologram, huh?” he asked in a low voice.
“I guess so,” Sam replied.
“Think she has the X-factor?”
Sam furrowed his brow. “X-factor?”
“You know… the fashion sense.” He adjusted his bolo tie as if to demonstrate.
“I don’t think that’s a prerequisite, Al.”
“What, you’d rather a hologram blends into the scenery? Why do you think I wore my best suits in the Imaging Chamber, Sam? For your benefit!”
“You’ve always worn suits like that,” Sam countered.
“Well the Committee always preferred I wear my Navy whites on the job. Luckily I had enough clout to avoid that—I had to give you something to look forward to, right? Something you could pick out of a crowd. Something to remind you you were from the future.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “I never knew that…”
“After we lost you, it almost felt wrong to wear half my wardrobe, ’cause I knew you weren’t gonna see it.” Al pulled a wrapped cigar from his breast pocket, twiddling it in his fingers. “Yeah, I kinda lost my sharp sense of style for a while there. Lost a lot of sleep, too.”
He began to walk onward, but Sam grabbed his shoulder, turning him back.
“Al, I’m sorry. I should have contacted you. I should have said something. Left a message in the paper, or sent a letter, or—”
“It’s okay, Sam.” Al smiled. “It’s over now. We can all get on with our lives. Speaking of which, you should call your family.”
Sam watched his best friend disappear down the hall, feeling even more terrible than before. He hurried ahead, catching up to Al.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “I do have a few phone calls to make. Mom, and Katie, and… Tom, too. Can you take over the tour for me?”
“Sure thing,” Al said cheerfully. “Tell Ma Beckett I said ‘hi,’ okay?”
“I will,” Sam said with a smile. Once Al was out of sight again, he turned and briskly made a beeline for Verbena’s office.
* * *
In 2023, an older, but no less maudlin Sam sat in his office, hand flat on the panel that activated his personal line with Ziggy.
“Ziggy, update please. What are the odds that the former me goes through with the leap?”
“The current probability is fifty-two percent,” Ziggy replied. “But I really must ask why you intend to rewrite twenty years of your own personal history, to your own detriment? Doctor Beckett, are you presently in your right mind?”
“Ziggy, my mind has more clarity now than it has ever had,” Sam said firmly. “But you wouldn’t understand why. Just trust me on this, okay? I’m doing this for a good reason.”
Ziggy sighed. “In that case, you should know that the probability has fallen sixteen percent in the last ten minutes.”
Sam stiffened. “Really? Why?”
“Since the former Doctor Beckett is now present at the Project Quantum Leap of 2003, I am now receiving detailed records of conversations I heard at the time. It seems you just had a conversation with Admiral Calavicci about his fashion sense.”
“Why would that lower my odds of… oh…” Sam trailed off as the memory of the conversation wrote itself into his mind. He stood from his swivel chair. “Can you notify Addison to leave the Imaging Chamber temporarily? I’d better get in there and talk to him again. Privacy Protocol 1.”
“Very well,” Ziggy said coolly. “However, I’m still not completely convinced you’re not cognitively impaired in some way.”
“Guess we’ll both find out soon enough, Ziggy.”