PREVIOUSLY ON QUANTUM LEAP

As Welsh student Dai Evans, Sam leapt into a cave in the Ozarks just as a cave in killed his three companions, and seriously injured the leaper. He thought that ‘all’ he had to do was get to the exit and save the rescue team who all originally perished in a second cave-in. Having spent a painful night dragging a broken leg through bat-droppings, he is devastated when Al tells him that Ziggy insists he has more to do, but won’t commit to what. Recovering in hospital, he finally gets a clue as to what that something may be…

PART TWELVE

Professor Dominic Lofton sat uncomfortably in a big leather chair in the office of the Dean of Faculty with his head in his hands.

For the forth or fifth time, Dean Joshua Richardson – furious at being recalled from his vacation - was telling him how disappointed he was in him.

Dom was somewhat disappointed in himself; allowing things to get so bad, what had he been thinking? His career was in ruins, as were his prospects, and Aurora’s. He knew he should be most worried about those things. Yet other thoughts kept dominating his mind. Thoughts that made him believe he was losing it. He shuffled awkwardly in the chair, willing the Dean to be done with him so that he could sort out his thoughts, and work out a way to find out whether or not he was crazy.

Before Al could glean all the details from Ziggy and pass on the dire predictions, the nurse came in, right on schedule for his quarter hourly observation. It was the rumor-monger, Kirsty, and she looked nervous to be alone with him.

She got through her allotted tasks as quickly as she could, topping up his medication through the cannular as per instructions, marking it on his chart, checking the level of the fluid in the IV bag. All the time she kept one wary eye on Sam, as if she expected him to leap up and slash her throat with a meat cleaver at any moment.

When he asked her for water, her eyes widened in terror, but she complied, trying hard to disguise the trembling of her hand.

When he had supped his fill, she bolted for the door, without waiting to ask if he had any other needs.

Sam felt that he should perhaps have said something to reassure her, but he doubted she would have believed him in any case. He was glad she had not tarried; he wanted answers, although he was sure he wasn’t going to like what he heard.

When they were sure they were once more alone, Sam looked at Al, and sighed.

“Ok, let’s hear it, Al. What does Madame Ziggy predict their futures hold? I’m betting nothing good.”

“You’d win that one, I’m afraid buddy,” Al confirmed. “All the kids get expelled from the University. Dai goes back to Wales. He is working as a laborer on a sheep farm.”

“Claire French has got a job in a typing pool, Jenna Blakeney – oh!”

“What?” Sam was instantly alarmed.

“It gets worse, Sam, Jenna is a lap dancer, and Travis is on the streets, playing guitar outside cafes and stations for loose change.”

A frown creased Sam’s brow, and he drew a sharp breath.

Al ploughed on:  “Gian Franco Palmiero gets deported. He is back in Naples/Italy delivering pizzas.”

Sam shifted uncomfortably in the bed.

“Ex-Nurse Chloe Benedict works in a convenience store.”

Sam said nothing, but small noises emanated from the back of his throat.

        “Her brother Joseph and Matt Roebuck get Court Marshaled for stealing the helicopter…”

”They STOLE the helicopter?” Sam interrupted incredulously. He winced.

“What did you expect, Sam? Trainees aren’t normally given the keys to huge bits of powerful expensive equipment. It was only the fact that they brought it back in one piece that kept their sentences to a few months.”

“P-prison?” Sam was fidgeting more and more. Al knew he was taking this hard.

“And what about after…?” Sam hardly dared to ask. His breathing was getting increasingly labored.

“They get jobs as close to planes as they get. With lousy references and prison records, that happens to be working as janitors, cleaning the toilets at the airport.”

“Oh, God, no!” Sam gasped.

“As for the professor and the doc,” concluded Al, “They get married, and go to live in Puerto Rico. She works in a drug store, he’s a jobbing gardener.”

“All, ah, all because of m-me.” Sam looked crestfallen. He also looked very pale. He was starting to sweat.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sam.” Al looked at his friend, worried. Sam was taking this personally, as he knew he would. “They did it for Dai. They did the same thing first time round, remember?”

“Jenna was the sole survivor that time. She told the authorities all she knew from their radio conversations. When you leaped in, you must have stopped running, cos Dai was originally right next to Cliff when the first cave-in struck. He was buried like you, and injured, though his injuries were different. He barely managed to wriggle out enough to grab the radio. When the others got to the cave, they had to move a load of rocks and stuff from off his back, and then they were just putting him on the stretcher when…”

“Don’t say it, Al.” begged Sam. “I get the aah, the picture.”

“I’m sorry pal. We’ll work something out. You got ‘em back alive and you’re still here, so there has to be a chance we can turn things around.” He smiled encouragingly at his friend.

Sam did not smile back. In fact he grimaced.

“We just have to work out how we can get the authorities to drop the charges, Sam. It shouldn’t be that hard, if we put our heads together.”

        ”Gnah!”

“What d’ya say?”

“Gmmnnnnnnnn.”

Al looked closer at his friend, frowning. Something beyond the dismal projections was worrying him.

“What’s wrong, buddy?”

“Its aah, n-nothing, Al,” Sam lied. “Any ideas?”

“Not a one,” confessed Al.

Sam squirmed in the bed again, his hand subconsciously moving to his ribcage.

“Out with it, Sam. You look awful. What’s going on?”

“J-just, aahh, painkiller bit slow to t-take effect this time. I’ll be fine in gnah, in a minute.”

He wasn’t. Three or four minutes passed, and Sam was showing signs of being progressively more distressed. His face kept contorting with pain, and small grunts and moans escaped his lips.

“Something’s not right, Sam,” Al stated the obvious. “This is no guilt reaction or anything, is it? You’re in real pain here.”

“Nothing like, gnah, before, in c-cave.” Sam felt he had no right to complain. Al was right though, he was in far greater pain than he should have been. It was more than uncomfortable to breathe, and his leg was throbbing. His bruised and battered body ached all over.

Sam gritted his teeth and waited for a couple more minutes for the drugs to do their work. Finally, he concluded that it just wasn’t gonna happen. The pain was making him sweat quite freely now, and his head was pounding like a big base drum in a labor-day parade.

He closed his eyes for a moment.

“It’s no good, Al,” he admitted. “It’s getting worse.”

Reaching for the red emergency button, Sam summoned aid.

Nurse Kirsty soon appeared, with Doctor Mellors in tow.

“What seems to be the problem, Mr. Evans?” the doctor sounded annoyed, but again Sam assumed he was just overworked. He hated to be a bother when they were busy, he told them, but the meds weren’t working, he was in considerable pain.

One good look told the doctor that his patient was not making a fuss about nothing. His pulse was rapid, blood pressure elevated, he was perspiring and his breath was ragged.

Dr. Mellors checked the equipment for any sign of a blockage or an air bubble, as he asked the nurse to confirm she had administered the due medication. Offended to be accused of inefficiency, she said of course she had, and handed him the chart to show she had marked it.

“Stupid girl!” barked the doctor, as he read it, “No wonder the poor young man is in agony!”

Backing away a couple of steps in fear, Kirsty asked what she was supposed to have done wrong. The doctor flung the chart at her, and proceeded to give Sam more of the painkilling drug.

“Milligrams girl - not micrograms! M-i-l-l-i-grams! Can’t you nurses read?”

“I – I – I’m sorry,” Kirsty stammered, “I must have misread it.”

“There is NO excuse for such ineptitude.” Snapped the doctor; reducing Kirsty to tears. “I do apologize, Mr. Evans, I assure you this young lady will be severely dealt with.”

“It could have, aah, been worse,” Sam said in her defense, “She could have… given me, uh, overdose.”

 “True,” conceded the medic, then rounded on her again, “She obviously cannot be trusted. What were you thinking? About your boyfriend probably. You young nurses; all the damned same.”

Kirsty was shaking her head, and the rest of her was none too steady.

Sam took pity on her.

“To be f-fair,” he began, “I think I gnn, m-make her… nervous. She heard a …rumor that I’m… a m-murderer.”

“What are you doing, Sam? She screwed up, and you’re suffering for it. Why are you sticking up for her?” Al should have known better than to question his friend’s boy-scout tendencies.

“Is this true?” the doctor enquired, looking at Kirsty. She merely nodded, eyes darting between doctor and patient as she tried to decide which one she was most afraid of.

“I swear… to God, gnmm, I didn’t k-kill… ahh, anyone,” Sam said sincerely, though he still felt culpable for not having saved them.

“That’s good enough for me.” The doctor glared at Kirsty, who nodded, though she was biting her lip.

Doctor Mellors took the patient’s pulse again, and was pleased to note it was returning more or less to normal.

“That should be starting to work now,” he announced, and Sam confirmed with a swallow and a nod that the pains were easing at last.

“Good, good. My apologies once again, Mr. Evans, this should never have happened. You, girl, my office, now!” Doctor Mellors pointed toward the door. Head bowed, fingers twisting in trepidation, Kirsty moved to obey.

“D-don’t be too… h-hard on her,” pleaded Sam, “Everyone… sh-should be allowed… one m-mistake.”

Both the doctor and the nurse looked at him in amazement.

“I must say, you are far more understanding than I would be in your position young man.” Sam didn’t doubt it. Understanding was not a quality he would attribute to the medic in any great amount - nor tolerance, nor compassion…

Kirsty just stared at him, open mouthed, unable to believe that he should be in her corner when he was – literally – the injured party.

He managed a feeble smile in her direction.

“I won’t… be suing the… the hospital, nor m-making… a f-formal… complaint,” Sam assured the irascible doctor, “It’s d-done now, and I’ll… b-be f-fine. No lasting… damage. So l-let th-this… be a… a warning. I th-think she’s… uh learned h-her… lesson.”

Kirsty nodded enthusiastically.  “Oh, thank you! I really am sorry, Mr. Evans. I promise I’ll be more careful in the future. It won’t ever happen again.”

Doctor Mellors glowered, as if disappointed to have been robbed of a chance to unleash a tirade on the young nurse.

“Just you make sure it doesn’t, Nurse Fletcher. I shall have my eye on you.” He told her in no uncertain terms, with a warning wag of his finger, determined she should not escape scot-free.

Sam could see there was also relief in the man’s body language at his assurance that he would not be suing, as many people would have done in this liturgical age, and with a good chance of being awarded some outrageous sum for his pain and suffering. Sam just wanted to put the whole unpleasant experience behind him. He was tired again, dreadfully tired, and there was still the little matter of ten people’s careers to save.

The doctor huffed his shoulders and marched out, trying to look self-important and in control.

Kirsty moved to follow him, her body language far more subdued.

“Nurse… uh Fletcher?” Sam sought confirmation that he had correctly heard her name, as he called her back.

“Yes, Mr. Evans?” She turned back toward him, suddenly afraid that his friendly act had been just that, an act to lull her into a sense of false security. Was he about to make her pay for her mistake?

Sam saw the look in her eyes, and smiled reassuringly.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “You’re forgiven.”

She still looked skeptical, but relaxed a little.

“I do uh, think you… owe me… a favor, though?”

“What would you like me to do?” Kirsty wanted to believe he was the good guy he seemed; yet he seemed too good to be true. She wanted to make amends, but she was reluctant to tell him she’d do anything, in case his response was that he wanted her to drop dead. She’d seen enough movies to know how easy it was to damn yourself with a careless word.

“Just uh, try to curb the… gossip. Don’t be… so quick… t-to believe… the… the worst of people.”

Her relieved sigh said ‘Oh is that all!’ Then, thinking about it, she realized he was asking something big after all. She had been so used to the gossip; it would be no easy thing to give it up. To change her ways, to look at people differently, it was quite an undertaking.

It would be easy to make the promise and then forget all about it. The patient wouldn’t be on the ward more than a few weeks at most, and she could prevail on friends to juggle shifts so she never had to see him again.

Yet she looked into his eyes, and saw his sincerity, and truly appreciated the magnitude of trouble he had spared her from with his magnanimous words. So she looked inside her heart, and saw there a side of herself she suddenly didn’t like very much.

Kirsty made Sam her promise to try what he had asked, and he could tell that she meant it.

After she had left, Al looked at his prostrate friend, and shook his head again in wonder.

“You just can’t help it, can ya buddy? You have to take every little opportunity to do the noble thing, saving the whole human race a soul at a time. Do you even realize you’re doing it?”

“What?” Sam looked genuinely perplexed, and Al shrugged and made a dismissive ‘aw, forget it’ gesture with his hand. Sam was Sam, and would be Sam, whoever he looked like, wherever and whenever he was. And Al wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Go to sleep, you… you white knight, you. I’ll see what we can come up with to improve the gang’s prospects. Catch you later, pal.”

In a flash of light, Al was gone, leaving Sam bemused, but too weary to bother thinking about it. He was soon sleeping again, conserving energy while his body worked at healing itself.

PART THIRTEEN

A full twenty-four hours passed, and neither Sam nor Al was closer to a solution to their problem. Al checked in with the Leaper every few hours, but the visits were brief and fruitless. Al had nothing to report, and Sam had only the visit of the local constabulary, accompanied by a representative of Missouri’s finest, to break the monotony.

It had not been a pleasant encounter.

They repeated Al’s assurance that it was just routine, that they had to look into any suspicious death, particularly when there were no bodies to examine, but they gave him an intense grilling nonetheless, until even he started to believe in his guilt. The doctors had given him the option to continue postponing the interrogation, but he had decided it was best to get it over with, especially since he had nothing else to work on.

He was sure they thought he was being evasive and uncooperative, but he kept assuring them he could remember nothing prior to the initial cave in. Of course, he couldn’t tell them that he hadn’t been there then, that he had only just leaped in, and bumped Dai out into the future. So he blamed it on his concussion, the shock that the doctors would confirm he had been suffering from. They asked him the same questions, over and over again, in the same words, and then phrased differently to try and trick him. He would admit to nothing, for he had nothing to admit to.

He challenged them to suggest a motive for his supposed homicides, and they were unable to arrive at one, which made any kind of sense. They may be able to concoct some lover’s triangle or such like to explain the students, but it didn’t make sense that he would do it when the professor was around, necessitating his elimination as a potential witness. Nor did it make sense that he would put himself in such grave peril, and the officers had to concede that they could not dispute the evidence of the medics, who attested that his injuries were real and severe, and almost impossible to have been sustained in an altercation.

Finally, the Missouri cop startled him by taking on a whole new line of questioning. He asked what the group had been doing, and why they were there. Sam knew from Al that the whole sorry story had already come out, and there was no point claiming they had merely got lost and wound up taking shelter unknowingly in the forbidden caves. He confessed that they had pursued the Myotis bechsteinii to the cave in question, despite not having permission to explore there.

“It was more than not having permission, though, wasn’t it, Mr. Evans? Wasn’t it?” the cop badgered him, leaning forward, invading his personal space, being extremely intimidating.

“I – I guess so,” Sam retreated into the pillows.

“The Rangers expressly forbade your group from going to those caves, did they not?”

“I – I don’t remember.” Sam was sincere, for he hadn’t been there, but the cops weren’t buying it.

“Didn’t it occur to any of you to wonder why the Rangers didn’t want you there?”

“I – I- I don’t know.”

Then came the stinger, rising up from nowhere, catching him unawares.

“Well, it occurred to me,” the cop was thorough.

“I asked them why, when they had been so obliging elsewhere, they objected to you exploring that particular cluster of caves. If they approved your motives and your methods, what possible objection could they have? Do you know what they told me? Do you?”

Sam felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach.

“N-n-no…”

“They told me it was for your own safety. That the caves were newly discovered, and preliminary reports suggested that they were unsound. They didn’t want anybody going into them until the geologists and the engineers had made a proper assessment, and the necessary ‘shoring up’ precautions.”

The look of shock and horror on Sam’s face was entirely genuine.  “Oh dear God, no!” he whispered, a lump rising in his throat fit to choke him. “Why? Why d-didn’t… they explain? Oh God! Why? Why did they have to die? I don’t understand why they had to die.”

He turned his head away, his breath racked with sobs, salt tears stinging his cheeks.

It took this unmistakably sincere outpouring of grief to finally convince the officers of his innocence. The hard-nosed visiting cop even softened a little, and apologized for having subjected him to such harsh questioning. It was just that they had to be sure.

Sam wasn’t listening; he was too busy drowning in misery.

When Al dropped by an hour or so later, Sam was still inconsolable. The Observer really wished he had some positive news to lift the leaper’s spirits, but they kept coming up empty.

“I’ve got everyone working round the clock, Sam,” Al assured him, and the bags under the Admiral’s eyes suggested he was working the hardest of all. “The problem is we’re dealing with several different, high powered authorities, and in truth, they all have justification for the punishments they’ve inflicted. We’re going round in circles, tearing our hair out. But we’re not giving up, buddy. There’s an answer out there somewhere, and one way or another, we’re gonna find it.”

“Damn right we are.” Sam’s tone was laden with despondency and determination in equal measure. “These people are not gonna spend their lives miserably paying for one mistake - for being good Samaritans in some cases. We’re gonna make it right, Al. We have to.”

Next morning, Kirsty came in to give Sam his bed-bath.

His odd sleep pattern and her shift work had meant he’d seen little of her since the incident with the medication, but what he had seen he’d been impressed with. She had assured him she was being good, and he believed her.

This morning, however, she seemed agitated, on edge, and it clearly had nothing to do with the intimacy of her task. That was part of her job and she was used to it. Sam, on the other hand, was not used to his personal needs being taken care of by other people, and hated every minute of it.

He asked her what was wrong.

“I’m trying, really I am. I haven’t gossiped about anything since… well, you know…” she didn’t specify what they both preferred to forget.

“And it hasn’t been too hard. Not really. Not as bad as I thought it would be. Until now, that is. I’ve just spotted a picture in the morning paper, and I recognize her. It’s a National scandal, and I can’t tell anybody about it, because I promised you. And I’m bursting to tell somebody what I know, and it’s just killing me…” As the words tumbled from her mouth, she applied the sponge rather more vigorously than was strictly necessary to Sam’s right arm.

Al materialized in the middle of this little speech, and raised his eyebrows at the activity Kirsty was currently engaged in. Sam gave his friend a warning glare not to make any lewd or lascivious comments at his expense, at which Al looked crestfallen. ‘Aww and I was gonna ask if it was a private bed-bath or if anyone could join in,’ thought Al.

Before he could sneak in a quick barb, or berate Sam for being a spoilsport, they were both startled by a squeal from the handlink, and the sudden apparition of Ziggy’s head and shoulders hovering over the bed.

She took in the scene at a glance, and satisfied herself with a single raised eyebrow and a cheeky grin. It was almost as annoying as Al’s quips could be. Sam was starting to feel very much on show, and very uncomfortable. If it hadn’t been that Kirsty would have flipped at him talking to the air, he’d have made his own caustic comment about selling tickets.

“Why Mr. Evans, you’re blushing!” Nurse Fletcher smiled, making Sam cringe even more.

Sam looked at Ziggy, his eyes demanding that she better have some important reason for being there, or he would have Stephen take her apart, pixel by pixel.

“Dr. Beckett,” she began, “I am unable to ascertain why, but my scanners indicate it would be advantageous for our preferred timeline to discover the nature of the scandal to which Nurse Fletcher is referring.”

Sam looked at her quizzically. He couldn’t see how the two things could possibly be related, but after the long frustrating wait, he was willing to try anything.

Now, how to do so without sounding hypocritical, and without Kirsty falling back into bad habits?

Nurse Fletcher was now applying her sponge with some intensity to his un-plastered left inner thigh. It was not really painful, though the leg bore the marks of his ordeal, but her frustration was lending her movements a less than relaxing feel.

Sam reached down with his left hand and gently took hold of her wrist, stopping her scrubbing motion, just as she started to rise alarmingly high.

“Oh, sorry, did I hurt you?” she asked, alarmed that she may have done something else to this patient that she could live to regret. Now that she had accepted that he was neither dangerous nor crazy, she quite liked the beefy, muscular rugby player. In fact, she was enjoying her task a little more than could be construed as job satisfaction.

“No, no,” Sam reassured her, “but you can’t function at peak efficiency when you’re this distracted. Listen, I’ll tell you what. Just this once, to get it out of your system, tell me what you are so excited about. I promise I won’t tell a soul…” he winked at her mischievously, and she giggled.

“It really is something so big, you can’t imagine!” She bubbled enthusiastically; though she did have the decency to look guiltily over her shoulder, to be sure nobody overheard them. “There’s a picture in the paper this morning of Senator Heath and his daughter…”

Al pressed one of the new buttons on his handlink, and next to Ziggy appeared a holographic projection of the article in question. It was one of those, ‘caught in an unguarded moment’ shots of them getting out of a car, to attend a function at the young lady’s school, and the Senator looked none to happy to have had his privacy invaded.

Sam shrugged, “So?”

“So,” Kirsty repeated. “I recognize her.” She leaned forward conspiratorially.  “It says in the article her name is Luella Heath, and she is sixteen. Yet she was checked in to this very hospital six months ago as Helena Litchfield, aged nineteen.”

“Lots of famous people don’t use their real names,” reasoned Sam, though alarm bells were ringing. Why add three years to her age?

“I know, I know,” agreed Kirsty, “but the thing is - Helena Litchfield was in for an abortion!”

Again Sam was unsure of the magnitude of this revelation, though he was horrified of the thought of a presumably healthy life being terminated.

“She was supposed to have been raped, but none of us believed it, she didn’t seem – well, upset enough, if you know what I mean.” Kirsty confided. “I thought there was something strange at the time, cos she was supposed to be some poor student, but all her medical bills were taken care of by some anonymous donor, and she had a private room, and the best of everything. And come to think of it, Doctor Baum who attended her left a couple of weeks later. She got some job in a swanky private hospital.”

Sam, of course, had a private room because the police had deemed him to be a potential danger to the public.

“Wow, Sam! Do you realize what this means?”

Sam shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

Al and Kirsty spelt it out to him in stereo.

Senator Heath had been elected to represent Illinois primarily on his stance against abortion. He was a major pro-life advocate, and that had made him popular in a State where the overwhelming majority of voters (a large proportion of whom were female) felt strongly about the sanctity of life.

If it were revealed that his own sixteen-year-old daughter had secretly undergone an abortion, his political career would be over before the ink was dry on the tabloids.

“Are you absolutely sure it was the same girl?” Sam asked the Nurse. Kirsty nodded vehemently. Ziggy confirmed it.

“I can see why this was hard for you, Nurse Fletcher,” Sam began sympathetically. This was the stuff a gossip’s dreams were made of.

“Oh, Kirsty, please! Nurse Fletcher sounds so stuffy!”

She had finished the ablutions by this time, much to Sam’s relief, and was clearing away. She was obviously more in control now and at ease with her routine. It had helped to get her secret off her chest.

“Kirsty, then. You did well not to spread this round the hospital, good girl. Let’s just keep it between the two of us for now, okay?”

“Anything you say, Mr. Evans.” It was strange. The University student was more or less the same age as her, yet she felt his interest in her was more fatherly somehow. And in return, though she found him physically attractive, despite the bruises marring his tanned flesh, she felt a sort of deference toward him that was not entirely due to the debt she owed for his not having had her summarily dismissed. She wanted to please him, to earn his approbation, as she had wanted – and never received – from her own father. “Catch ya later!” she smiled cheerily at him as she departed for her next patient.

“I’ll be here,” Sam responded philosophically.

Al was virtually shooing her out of the room, bouncing up and down with enthusiasm. Ziggy was looking smug. Sam was confused.

“All right, spill, Al. How is this going to help us with our problem?”

“Oh come on, you’re joking ain’t ya buddy? You don’t see it?”

“See what?”

“I believe Dr. Beckett’s concussion must be interfering with his intuitiveness,” offered Ziggy.

“Will one of you just put me out of my misery? Please?” begged Sam.

“Its perfecto buddy.” Al enthused, “We need to get lots of important people to ‘see our point of view’, right?”

“Ye-ess.”

 “SOOOOOOO, who can influence an Army Court Marshal committee, a Hospital Director, a University Dean, the Immigration department and the Missouri Park Commission?”

Sam looked blank.

Ziggy looked disappointed.

Al looked incredulous.

“How about a Senator, Sam?”

“But…?”

“Doctor Beckett, Admiral Calavicci is suggesting that we ‘persuade’ the Senator to put pressure on the relevant individuals to ensure that those people you are concerned with are not punished for rescuing you.”

“You mean, blackmail?” Sam suddenly saw what they were proposing, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. He was not entirely sure that the Senator shouldn’t be exposed for his hypocrisy, though he had some sympathy for the feelings of a naïve daughter who would have her sordid private life plastered all over the papers and the television screens of the Nation, if not the world.

Al knew his friend would find the suggestion distasteful, but countered, “Do you have a better idea?”

He knew, of course, that Sam did not. It would not be the first time he had had to do the ‘wrong thing’ for the right reasons. Unfortunately, when it came to Leaping, sometimes the end had to justify the means. Sam knew it, and though he didn’t have to like it, he knew he would have to do it.

That left the how.

“The hospital will have records of Miss “Litchfield”, though I suspect they will be well hidden. We need to obtain them, so that we can convince the Senator of our sincerity.”

“What’s with the ‘we’, Zig?” quipped Al.

“You wish to undertake this without my assistance?” Ziggy challenged.

“Now stop right there,” commanded Sam wearily. “I am not putting up with that nonsense from you two again. Understand?”

Al and Ziggy glared at each other, and then nodded their compliance to Sam.

“Right, that’s better. Let me know when…”

“I have something!” interrupted Ziggy, with the expression of a cat that has not so much got the cream but the whole dairy.

Even Al looked impressed.

“I have accessed the hospital database, and ascertained that the records required are in a filing cabinet in the basement of the hospital. Someone will have to go and determine their precise location, and remove them.”

“Why can’t we just print them off from the database?” queried Sam, wishing that just for once they could do things the easy way.

“They have been rather too thorough covering their tracks for that Dr. Beckett. Only tiny fragments of the file can be recovered from their shredding process. It was only by using my vastly superior processing power that I was able to follow the damaged trail to the hard copy’s location. Someone in your timeframe needs to obtain them.”

“By someone, I suppose you mean me,” Sam sighed. “Can I at least get myself a wheelchair this time, or do I have to go all the way on my butt again?” with a resigned shrug, he started to pull back the sheet Kirsty had so recently arranged over him.

“Not now, Sam!” Al waved a hand at him. “What are you thinking? You’ll have to wait ‘til the middle of the night, when they are down to a skeleton crew and you stand more chance of getting in and out undetected.”

“Right.” Sam couldn’t say what he had been thinking. He had a headache, and he wanted this leap resolved. He was just getting impatient, he supposed.

Al was about to tell him to get some sleep and conserve his energy, and that he would be back at the optimum time to give his usual guidance and lookout services, when Sam received a visitor.

PART FOURTEEN

Once he had been dismissed, Dom decided that a direct confrontation was the only sure way to resolve his confusion. With some trepidation, he made his way to Memorial hospital, not to pick up his girlfriend for a date as usual, but to see someone altogether more disturbing: someone with an identity that was causing Dom a crisis.

Sam hoped it would be a friendlier encounter than the one with the police officers, and seeing that it was Professor Lofton entering his room, his hopes were high.

He hadn’t the slightest idea how strange it was about to become.

Dom looked in as if checking he had the right room. He looked at Sam, paused and looked again. Then he turned around and carefully shut the door behind him.

“How are you feeling?” the Professor enquired of his student, smiling a little awkwardly. Sam assumed he was feeling the negative effects of having been fired, and had probably been sent, as his last official duty, to inform Dai of his expulsion from the University. Why couldn’t he just get grapes and sympathy like other patients?

“Getting there,” he replied stoically, motioning to the Professor to take a seat.

Before he did so, the Professor looked around the room, and his gaze rested an inordinately long time on the spot currently unoccupied by Al and the now inactive handlink.

The air was thick with tension, the silence palpable.

“I’m sorry,” Sam offered. “For all the trouble…”
        Dom put up a hand to stop him.

He looked down into his lap for a moment, and then looked Sam right in the eye, a deep penetrating look.

He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and closed it again, giving Sam another quizzical look. Sam was beginning to find it unnerving.

“Thank you, for saving my life, sir,” he offered sincerely. “I really thought I was going to die in there.”

Dom made a dismissive gesture.

“Look, if it makes it any easier on you, Professor, I know I’m expelled, okay? You don’t have to worry about how to break it to me. And I know they let you go too. I’m sorry.”

A dark cloud crossed the African-American academic’s face, an expression of great sadness.  “I made a bad judgment call. I’m paying the price. It’s something I’ll just have to learn to live with.”

“Not if I can help it,” muttered Sam under his breath.

The Professor looked up, and again met his eyes.

“I knew it!” Dom whispered back.

“Sir?”

The Professor drew a deep breath and let it go slowly.

“Okay. I can deal with all of this, given time,” he began, “except the thought that I’ve gone totally out of my mind.”

It was Sam’s turn to search the Professor’s face.

“Uh, there’s no easy way to do this, so I’m just gonna come out and say it. If I’m wrong, you’re going to go back to Wales thinking I’m a crazy Yank. If not, well…”

Sam and Al exchanged glances.

“Whereabouts in Wales are you from, Dai?” Dom emphasized the name.

Al made a hasty enquiry.

“Ffestiniog,” Sam sounded as if he were stammering as he tried to pronounce the strange place name.

“Oh, you two are good!”

“Two?” chorused the pair of perplexed listeners.

“Okay. You aren’t really Dai Evans, are you? You’re Doctor Sam Beckett.”

Al’s jaw hit the floor, then bounced back up and all but knocked his eyes from their sockets.

“You, I don’t know.” Dom addressed the Observer, “But I’m assuming that this has something to do with the experiment you were working on, Sam. You did say I could call you Sam, didn’t you, last time we met?”

“Y-y-yes, sh-sure.” Sam really was stammering now. The recognition had been mutual.

Once they had established that Dom’s almost as high as Sam’s IQ was responsible for his seeing through the aura, they introduced Al and gave him the Dick and Jane explanation of what he needed to know about what they were doing there.

 “I guess you are living proof of your affirmation in that lecture, Sam,” he told the Leaper.

“Huh?” Al queried.

“That God and Science can be seen to work together rather than contradict each other.”

“I’ll never understand why He couldn’t have let me save all the others, though,” Sam replied softly.

“Hey, just cos He picked you as His instrument to carry out the miracles, it’s still His prerogative to decide what they should be.”

“I guess so,” conceded Sam, though his tone was still tinged with sadness.

“You saved nine of us, Sam, including Dai. That’s no mean achievement.” He looked at the events with his new perspective, and he looked at Sam.

“Are all your ‘assignments’ that tough?”

“They can be…” Sam paused, “shall we say, challenging.”

“Now I think you’re being modest. It isn’t many people who’d put themselves through a night of hell like you did, for complete strangers.”

Sam squirmed, embarrassed.  “To be fair, there was an element of self-preservation, too.”

“Even that wouldn’t be enough for most to endure what you did. You’re a brave man, Sam Beckett, but I guess that’s why He chose you.”

Sam flushed.  “I do what needs to be done,” he said, with a self-deprecating shrug.

“That reminds me. You saved us, which you said was why you were here. How come you’re still here, do you have to stay ’til you’ve recovered?”

“No, it doesn’t usually work that way. Somehow, when I Leap, any injuries are healed before I reach the next one. And by the way, once Dai comes back, the doctors are going to be talking miracle cures!”

They explained their plan to get the survivors ‘off the hook’, and Dom’s eyes brightened. He asked them to spell out the bleak prospects they all faced, and agreed with Al that a little blackmail would be worth it to prevent some of the dire predictions. He attested that personally, as long as he and Aurora were together, he could make the best of any situation, but didn’t deny that a rosier future would be preferable. The fates of some of the others bothered him more.

“Even so, I can’t in all conscience let you do this, Sam. You are in no condition to go wandering round, breaking and entering hospital records. It’s too much to ask.”

“It’s what I do,” Sam replied simply. “I can’t let…”

“I’m not suggesting we do,” interrupted Dom, “I said I couldn’t let you do it, not that it shouldn’t be done. I’ve got as big a stake in this as anyone, and no disrespect, but a bigger one than you Sam. I’ll go.”

“What if you’re caught?” Sam wasn’t happy at the idea of ducking what he saw as his responsibility, though the thought that he could be spared the ordeal it would undoubtedly entail was appealing.

“I stand a better chance of avoiding capture than a guy with a cast on his leg!” chuckled Dom, “besides, I’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

“Let him do it, Sam.” Al nodded in the Professor’s direction. “You deserve a rest for a change. He can see me, so I can go and stand lookout for him.” He explained to Dom that as long as Sam was there, and awake, they could lock Al’s signal onto his brainwave patterns, and that enabled them to center him on those Sam interacted with, as long as they were within a certain radius.

Sam had to admit the plan had merit, particularly when Dom realized that Aurora would have access codes to the security doors, making the task more straightforward. He was sure he could convince her to help, and without giving away the secret of Sam’s presence.

“Are you sure you understand what you’re taking on?” Sam was not used to delegating either responsibility or risk.

“Sam! You aren’t the only genius in this room, you know!” Dom teased him.

“No, Al’s pretty smart too!” Sam teased back.

Al preened himself.

“No arguments,” insisted Dom. “You get as much sleep as you can today, rest up. Don’t worry. I’ll come back tonight; wake you up so we can get the lock. We’ll sneak in, get the necessary and be away before anyone is the wiser. QED.”

“Huh?” Al looked puzzled.

“Quod erat demonstrandum–Latin,” supplied Professor Lofton, “that ‘which was to be demonstrated’, but more commonly -” both Dom and Sam finished in chorus – “Quite Easily Done!”

Sam sincerely hoped so, but had a bad feeling that things seldom proved so convenient.

It was clear that Dom was adamant, so Sam finally agreed to put him up to bat. They fixed a few details, such as best timing, and having exhorted Al to make sure he kept a close eye on things, the group split up, leaving Sam to ‘rest up’.

]He went to the room the nurse had directed him to, and peeked inside, hoping to see his student, Dai Evans.

As he’d expected, the figure in the bed looked familiar, yet at the same time strangely different. Nervously gulping a deep breath, he shut the door and went in, opening with small talk.

He didn’t want to believe he could be seeing what he was seeing, and couldn’t bring himself to voice his concerns.

Dai was talking like Dai; the Welsh accent, though never strong, was discernable.

As the awkward conversation progressed, however, Dom became more convinced that he was not crazy after all. He had to be sure, so he risked broaching the subject. First, he set up a test…

“Whereabouts in Wales are you from, Da?”

He got the right answer, but the strange man who seemed to hover like a guardian angel - there and yet not there - had prompted it.

“Oh, you two are good!” he told them.

“Two?”

“Okay. You aren’t really Dai Evans, are you? You’re Doctor Sam Beckett.”

There, it was out, he had said it.

He had no idea why he was the only one amongst the rescue party who had spotted the deception, and seemingly the only one who had seen the strange man in the loud clothes, but he recognized the scientist from a fascinating lecture he’d attended.

They didn’t deny his challenge; in fact they explained how his highly developed brainwaves were on a similar wavelength to Sam’s, and for some reason that allowed him to penetrate the ‘aura’ that surrounded Sam when he ‘Leaped’, and to see his Observer’s hologram.

Dom was astounded to learn that he should have been dead, though in retrospect he could well believe how it could have happened.  He was likewise amazed that the Scientist, who had already earned his respect and admiration on an academic level, was responsible for literally giving him back his life, along with the rest of the group, through his own heroic efforts.

Like Sam and Al, Dom was convinced that a higher power had a hand in the events, and he offered a silent prayer of thanks that He had thought his life worth saving, and that Sam had displayed the courage to achieve it. Suddenly, his depression at losing his job seemed unwarranted. For one thing, Al seemed to think they could get Senator Heath to get them all off the hook, which cheered him enormously, but beyond that, he felt that compared to Sam, he had little to complain of. He was horrified to think that Sam was even contemplating getting up out of bed to go for the evidence they needed. He’d seen how badly injured the time traveler was up on the mountainside, Sam had done more than enough. Dom volunteered without hesitation to deputize for him.

 He had thought Sam would have welcomed the offer with open arms, but he’d actually taken some convincing.

For a genius, the guy was a bit slow to see common sense.

‘Guess he’s not used to having anybody in the know as to what is going on, nobody but himself to rely on. Must be a lonely existence - bet he’s glad to have Al’s support.’

Having finally convinced the invalid to let him help, Dom went to find Aurora, to enlist her aid. He already felt guilty that he had talked her into actions that had lost her her own job. He realized with a shock that were it not for Sam, he would have taken her to her death. It was a scary thought, and one that made him appreciate fully how much he cared for the dusky beauty. No, how much he loved her!

It was clear she loved him too, and fiercely, by how readily she allowed herself to be talked into yet another half-baked scheme.

Sleep did not come as easily as it should have, and Sam spent the best part of the long day fretting, though from time to time he managed to snatch some much needed minutes in the company of Morpheus. Still, he was far from rested and relaxed when Dom sneaked back into his room shortly before his now hourly obs visit scheduled for 1am.

He had been dozing, but soon awoke, rubbing his eyes to force them into focus in the dim glow of light from the corridor, where Aurora waited, looking around nervously and still not sure why Dom had felt it necessary to disturb the young man.

No sooner had he fully surfaced, than Al appeared at their side, and after a hasty “Good luck” from Sam, they were on their way.

Sam laid staring at the clock on his wall, which he could barely make out, and worrying.

After nearly ten anxious minutes, a nurse crept in to check on him, and he feigned sleep, lest she suggest some medication to help him. He could not afford to sleep just now; he had to keep his brainwaves active so that Ziggy could anchor Al to him. Overactive was more like it, as his genius mental capacity was able to conjure up several undesirable scenarios all at once.

He itched to know what was going on. Though common sense told him they needed plenty of time to get all the way down there, and then locate the right files, and photocopy them, then replace them to make it look as if they had not been accessed, still it seemed to him - lying there with nothing to do but wait - that they were taking forever.

“Come on, Al where are you?” he wondered under his breath, though he knew it was far too soon for them to have accomplished their mission.

“Ach!” Sam was startled as his friend popped out of nowhere to stand right by his bed, so that Sam found himself staring at a holographic midriff. “What the…?”

Al put his finger to his mouth, as if afraid that Sam’s outburst would bring the recently departed nurse scuttling back.

Al looked extremely tense, on edge, and Sam just knew something had gone terribly, horribly wrong.

“You let them get caught, didn’t you?” he accused through gritted teeth.

“Not yet; but there’s a danger. We got a problem, Sam.” Al ignored the implication that he had somehow been negligent. He was too anxious to prevent that very outcome. He also avoided looking Sam in the eye. He was shifting nervously from foot to foot.

“Tell me,” ordered Sam wearily, and even as Al began to speak, Sam was already hauling himself into a sitting position. He instinctively knew that whatever it was, it was going to mean him getting up to deal with it. Al wouldn’t be there otherwise.

It turned out that the problem was the fact that the basement records office doubled as a bomb shelter, and had some pretty hefty lead lining its thick concrete walls. It was interfering with Ziggy’s sensors, making it hard to maintain Al’s centering on Dom and Aurora at this distance. She was sure a lock could be re-established, but only if Sam’s brainwaves were closer to boost the signal. Since they had to be working brainwaves, and therefore part of his conscious body, Sam had no alternative but to go walkabout.

By the time Al had explained this, Sam had somehow made it to the closet in his room, which Al had indicated contained a crutch. It would have to do until the hologram could track down the nearest available wheelchair.

Thus far, Sam had availed himself of the drip stand to assist his passage, an ungainly mixture of hopping and shuffling and sliding, with much grunting and panting to mark his painfully slow progress.

He leaned now on the closet door, trying to get his breath back, and waiting for the dizziness and nausea his rising to the vertical had induced to recede.

“I hate to have to do this, Sam, but you need to hurry. They’re on their own down there.”

“I know Al. I’m trying.” He yanked open the closet door, and grabbed for the crutch.

“Lead on,” he commanded his guide, grasping the crutch firmly in his aching left arm, and hobbling painfully from the comfort of his room.

It was a far from elegant gait – lead with the crutch, hop on the left leg, swing the cast and slide the stand, not too far, wobble and dip as he tried to keep his leg up, wincing at the strain on his hip joint.

He sighed because he knew the process would have to be repeated at least a few dozen times more.

The agony he felt with just this first step made his heart pound and he didn't know what state he would be in by the time he reached his goal, he eagerly looked around for a wheelchair but no-one had obligingly left one lying about.

Sam kept close to the wall, to minimize risk of detection, and to lend him support should he stumble, which he did at frequent intervals, trying to keep the weight from his broken leg, but having to touch down with it every now and then when he almost lost his balance.