Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 17:41:06 -0600 (MDT) From: "Katherine R. Freymuth" Subject: Memories - Part 1 (edited) Message-ID: Resending part 1. I corrected my spelling and made some little revisions. ----------- Quantum Leap Memories by Katherine R. Freymuth Copyright 1997 Part 1 The first thing that Dr. Samuel Beckett, quantum physicist and time traveler, saw, when the haze of leaping had past, was a man striking a small girl. The girl cried out in pain and fright. "Didn't I tell you not to go through that alley?" the man yelled at her. "Huh? Didn't I?" The girl looked at the man. "Yes, but..." The man struck her again. "Don't you talk back at me!" He struck her yet again. "Don't you EVER talk back at me!" He was about to strike the girl again when Sam, unable to let the abuse continue, grabbed the man's arm, stopping him in mid-swing. "Don't hit her again," Sam warned with a glare. The man looked at Sam with great surprise. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn't had sleep for a while. Sam noted, now that he was face to face with the man, that he stank of liquor - more precisely, vodka. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Madeline?" he bellowed at Sam. *Oh, boy!* Sam thought. *If I've leaped into this guy's wife...* "You're not the head of this household!" the man screamed with a slur. "I am! Don't you DARE tell me how to treat MY daughter!" Sam looked at him with a frown. He didn't like the sight he saw - a wreck of a man who didn't deserve to be anyone's father, much less a little girl's. "I think you need to calm down a bit," Sam told him, hoping his words would somehow be deeply understood by him. The man glared at him. "You have your check. Now get the hell out of my house." He yanked his arm from Sam's grip before stalking through a swinging door. Sam watched until the man had pushed the door open and had stepped through. The door swung back and forth slowly, giving Sam peeks of old furniture in what was apparently a living room. A quick look around told him that he was in the house's kitchen. "Maddie?" a small voice said as little arms wrapped around his waist. Sam squatted down to get a better look at the girl and to check for any injuries the man might have caused. He could now see that the girl wasn't more than six years old. He could also see several bruises on her face, most of them older than the ones that were now taking form thanks to her father's hand. "I messed up this time, huh?" the girl questioned, somehow sounding far too adult to be only six years old. Sam shook his head. "It's not your fault," he assured her. "You didn't do anything wrong." *At least nothing to warrant the treatment you got*, Sam added mentally. "But I went through the alley," the girl told him. "John went in and I had to get him. By the time I caught up to him, we were already halfway into it. I didn't think it would hurt anything to just keep going." Sam stroked her hair, a gentle smile on his face. "It's okay," he assured her. "You got John out safely, didn't you?" The girl nodded as the Imaging Chamber door opened behind Sam. "Then everything's okay now," Sam told her. "Now, why don't you go on and play." The girl nodded again. "John probably wants a piece of that candy you bought us." Sam smiled warmly. "I'm sure he does. Now, go on and play." The girl gave Sam a quick hug before leaving the kitchen. Sam exhaled, standing up as the girl left. "Cute kid," Admiral Albert Calavicci commented as Sam turned to face him. "Where did the bruises come from?" Sam looked at Al firmly. "Her father." Al's eyes widened. "Her father? Her own father beat that sweet little girl?" He frowned in anger. "Where is the bastard?" "Al, where am I?" Sam asked to divert Al's attention away from the urge to take revenge for the girl. Al looked at Sam and exhaled, knowing that Sam's getting down to business was beneficial for the simple reason that, even though Al wanted to avenge the girl's beating, he couldn't because of the distance of time between where he was and what he was seeing. He raised the handlink and pressed some buttons. "It's June 15, 1953...." He paused upon reading the date. Sam looked at Al with concern. "What's wrong?" Al took a breath. "It's my birthday," he said quietly. "I've just turned nineteen. Yesterday, I found out that Trudy's dead." Sam closed his eyes in sympathy. Al raised one eyebrow slightly, obvious sorrow in his eyes from the memory. "Happy Birthday, huh?" he said with quiet sarcasm. "I'm sorry, Al," Sam told his friend, looking at him with sympathy. Al shrugged it off slightly. "It's forty-six years in the past." He looked at the handlink. "Anyway, your name is Madeline Daniels. You're a daytime housekeeper for Michael Tornelli and you live next door in the house on the left. You're in New York City, the Italian Quarter - specifically, Little Italy." Al looked about the kitchen, seeming a bit uncomfortable in his surroundings. Sam was about to question his friend when there was a slight movement coming from the other side of the door. A moment later, the kitchen door opened and Michael Tornelli glared at Sam angrily. "I thought I told you to leave," he growled, holding the swinging door open with his right hand - thus giving a clear view of the living room. Al seemed more disturbed by the sight of the living room than he was of the kitchen in which he was currently standing. "I'm just about to leave," Sam told Michael. Michael huffed, walking past Sam to a cabinet. Opening the cabinet, he took out a bottle of vodka and a glass. He poured some vodka into the glass and took a drink. Al got a sad look on his face. "He was drunk when he beat her, wasn't he?" Sam looked at Al slightly, indicating to his friend that the supposition was correct. Michael looked at Sam expectantly. "Well?" Sam nodded. Without a word, he left the house, Al following him. "You know," Al commented as he followed Sam, "that house looks like it's pretty old. Must have been built in the late 1920s or so." He looked over his shoulder at the house, seeming much more comfortable outside the house than he did inside. Sam frowned slightly at the odd comment. Al exhaled at Sam's frown. "Just an observation," he told him. He looked back at the house again before regarding the back of his hand. He looked at it carefully for a moment before turning it over to look at the handlink. "Anyway," Al said as if he hadn't a care, "Ziggy isn't sure why you're here. But she does know a lot about the people you'll be encountering." As he said this, the two slowly entered Madeline's home, finding themselves in the kitchen. "So, who's the little girl?" Sam asked. "Linda Tornelli," Al read from the handlink. "Six years old. Michael's oldest child. She has a four year old brother named John. Their mother died during the birth of a third child, Mark. Mark died four months later from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome." He paused. "John was born with Down Syndrome. His I.Q. is about that of a two year old." "And you're a little attached to him," Sam supposed. "Because your sister had Down Syndrome, didn't she?" Al nodded slightly. "Yeah, she did." He didn't answer to Sam's supposition. Sam sat at the kitchen table. He could see Al was getting a little fidgety about the subject. He decided to change it. "What's this incident Linda told me about? The one with the alley?" he questioned. Al hit the handlink, trying to get the information. "Well, John has a huge affection for animals. He saw a cat go into the alley, which is about a half a block that way," he said, pointing towards the Tornelli house. "He ran in after it so Linda followed him to stop him." He paused. "You see, that alley is a popular place for the homeless to live and, in the Fifties, the homeless weren't considered in anyway good, regardless of personality or lack of criminal record. Also, there has been a recent mugging in the alley so it's not really the place for a couple of kids to be." Sam frowned. "How would Linda's trying to protect her brother warrant Michael's actions?" Al paused, looking at the scientist as he lowered the handlink. "A lot of kids use that alley as a short cut, Sam. The next street is a block from that alley. Linda probably used it as a short cut before. If that's the case, Michael might have felt that Linda used the alley as a short cut and then lied about her actions when she got home." "That still doesn't make what he did right," Sam complained. "No, it doesn't," Al agreed. Sam exhaled. "What about Madeline? What do we know about her?" Al fiddled with the handlink. "Madeline Jane Daniels. Twenty-one years old. The eldest of three children. She has a brother - Joe, nineteen - and a sister - Christa, eighteen. Joe works in a steel factory some miles from here. Christa is a full-time student at NYU. You and Joe are working to put her through college and to pay the bills. Both of your parents died in an automobile accident three years ago, making you the head of the family. Whatever you're here for, Sam, it's not the Daniels. Christa is going to graduate four years from now with a business degree and then the three of you are going to start your own bakery - Christa and you are terrific pastry chefs." "Then I have to be here for Linda," Sam said to the Admiral. "I'd say that's a good assumption," Al commented. He looked at the handlink again. "But Ziggy still doesn't know exactly what you have to do." He paused. "Personally, I think it's getting Linda and John away from that monster of a.... father," he said with hesitation. Sam looked at him with curiosity, noticing the hesitation. Al noticed Sam's gaze and started entering the exiting sequence into the handlink. "I'm gonna go back and see if Ziggy can get us some more info on this leap." He avoided looking at Sam as he stepped through the Imaging Chamber door and closed it, leaving Sam to wonder about his friend's odd behavior.