Chapter 6
Donna sipped at her tea, looking quietly out of Janis’s window up at the night sky. She and Sam had spent many a night stargazing before the fateful night he’d stepped into the Accelerator. Even after all this time, she had a vast number of constellations memorised.
Back before Sam had been completely lost to time, whenever he leaped, she’d look up and find a star that was as many light years away as the years separating them. Gazing on a star that far away meant she was viewing the past, the very time where Sam was. It was her way of keeping him and her linked somehow.
When Ziggy had lost track of him, she’d been no longer able to do that. And then, in 2002, Janis Calavicci had contacted her out of the blue through a throwaway email address. Sam was with her, having leaped into a classmate’s father, and she was setting up a secure way for him to keep in touch through his leaps, as long as they were taking place in the present.
At first, she’d been shocked Sam had remembered her, but it turned out that Janis had let the cat out of the bag. He corresponded with her via email, explaining that he never wanted to forget her again.
And he never did.
Since that time, when she looked up at the stars, from which beams of photons took years to reach her eyes, she saw an ocean of Sams, each sparkle in the firmament representing a life he’d made better. Every time she’d visited Al and Beth, each time she laid eyes on Tom Beckett, or Magic, or one of Al’s daughters, she knew that Sam had made the right choice in leaping long ago.
But her own life? His life? Those lives remained unrepaired and full of heartache.
Donna knew that Sam had visited her as an English Lit professor when she was in college. She knew that he’d helped resolve her abandonment issues, and that it had led to her not standing him up at the altar as she had in her original timeline. If it hadn’t been for Sam, she wouldn’t have been his lonely wife. But on the other hand, if it hadn’t been for Sam, she’d have been alone all the same. It seemed she was destined to be alone no matter what.
Her train of thought was interrupted by four knocks at the door. She heard Janis run through the usual routine; activating the door keypad, slipping a note under the door, and awaiting the return of the paper.
When the door opened, she heard Ian’s voice, along with the added voice of a woman that she assumed belonged to Addison Augustine—though she hadn’t actually met her before. The joy at which ‘Addison’ seemed to greet Janis was a dead giveaway that it was not Addison at all. Donna, of course, already knew this fact, and to hear Sam speak—even with the wrong voice—made her eyes well up. He’d finally made it back to her.
She stood from her armchair, moving past the racks of computer servers and out to the main expanse of Janis’s attic apartment.
She fixed her eyes on Sam, in the guise of Addison, and after a moment of staring, he finally sensed her presence in the room. He turned to face her, and his eyes shone with unshed tears.
“H-hi,” he said meekly.
The two of them took a few steps toward one another.
“You look stunning, Donna,” he added, voice husky.
“You look… like Addison,” she replied with a chuckle.
They finally met each other half way, and Sam threw his arms around her. They hugged for a long moment.
“Think Addison would mind if they kissed?” Janis asked Ian.
“That isn’t necessary,” Donna said. “This… this is enough. Just having him here.”
Their grip on each other loosened, and reluctantly, they separated, but Sam kept a hold of Donna’s hand.
“Sorry I’m late, honey,” Sam said, sheepish. “You know… traffic in LA is pretty bad.”
Donna shot him a rueful smile. “Your dinner’s been cold for… let’s see… twenty-four years? Not sure it’s worth reheating now, darling.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam’s voice broke, with rivulets of tears beginning to roll down his cheeks. “I’m so, so sorry I kept you waiting, Donna.”
Donna wasn’t sure how to respond. On one hand, for a long time she had wanted to hate him. She hadn’t been able to, but she thought that it would have been within her rights. On the other hand, it had partially been her fault that he’d made that decision not to return home; he hadn’t remembered her at the time, let alone his promise to her, and she’d made sure Al hadn’t revealed her existence to him.
Ostensibly, that had been to allow him to keep doing what he had to do while leaping without feeling like he was cheating on her. But in truth, it was for her own benefit too. She didn’t want to think that he was choosing to leap even with the knowledge of what he was leaving behind; it would truly have made her feel abandoned.
But things were different after Janis’s intervention. They had a line of communication, even though she never knew which Sam was going to send a message. She never knew what he remembered and what hadn’t yet happened for him. But it was still Sam, and he had a job to do.
They’d talked it all out time and time again, the two of them. Came to an understanding. She was no longer merely the long-suffering wife to an absent husband; she was his sole support when he leaped into her present, and she was her own person in between those leaps.
She brushed a lock of hair away from her eyes. “Sam, we’ve been over this before, and… well, it’s no different now. You have to do what you have to do, and—”
“And you’re free to be with anyone you want. I know. I’m still sorry, though. I only wish I was me, and not Addison. It’s a little strange…” He awkwardly put a hand on her shoulder. “But if there’s any time I might be able to find my way home… as myself… maybe it’s this leap.”
He glanced towards Ian and Janis. “I’m in exactly the right company.” He gestured around the room. “And between the Project and this place, I—” he hesitated as he laid eyes on the large spherical structure at the back of the apartment. “Uh, is that… what I think it is?”
“If you think it’s an Imaging Chamber, then yes,” Janis said.
“What do you use it for?”
“At the moment it’s nothing but a waste of floor space,” she said drily. “But I did use it to hijack the imaging signal from the Project a while back. I was trying to warn Ben about something, but he leapt before I could relay the message—then I got locked out. It’s been collecting dust ever since.”
“Wow…”
As Sam wandered up to the sphere to study it, Ian produced the old handlink from their pocket.
“So I think we have this properly configured now,” they said proudly. “It makes an adorable little chirping sound when there’s a leaper within fifty feet, and kind of a moaning sound when there’s one within six feet. And it turns red on direct contact with one.” They switched it on, and the chirping sound immediately sounded. Donna recognised the noise as one the handlink would once have made upon Al calling up data.
Ian held out the handlink, striding closer and closer to Sam until the moaning sound began. And kept going. Ian finally tapped it against Sam’s arm, and the device turned red, just as they’d said.
“This isn’t very covert,” Janis commented with a frown. “We’re giving rogue leapers ample time to pull a gun on us, or run away.”
“Yes, I know,” Ian said, “which is why there’s a silent mode that uses haptic pulses.” They tapped a sequence into the handlink, and crossed the room, touching it to Janis’s hand.
“Oh. That’s better,” she said.
Ian moved to Donna, allowing her to feel the vibrations too. It was a subtle and silent tap-tap-tap-tap against her hand.
“It gets faster the closer you are, and when you’re within a few feet it changes to Morse code for SOS.”
“You’ve outdone yourself, Ian,” Donna said with a warm smile. “Thank you. This is going to make things much less scary for all of us.”
“Yes, and thank God for that,” Ian said, shaking their head. “D’you know how bad stress is for you? And I’ve been on edge for months. I think I’ve aged five years—some of my roots are coming in grey!”
Donna, whose hair was nearly fully white, raised an eyebrow. “How awful for you,” she said in a mocking tone.
“So now that we’ve got this thing built…” Ian said, their voice tinged with sadness, “what’s next for our little team? Is this it? We just go our own ways again?”
“No, this is just the start,” Janis said. “We have one single prototype, which is great, but we’re going to need more.”
Sam returned to the group. “And now that you have my quantum data, you might be able to plug that in to your Imaging Chamber here…”
“Wait…” Ian said, “you mean, so someone can be your new hologram?”
Sam nodded. “Well, only if I don’t make it home this time.”
Janis and Ian looked to Donna, who smiled.
“If he doesn’t make it home, I’d be delighted to be that hologram.”