From: BEWalton17@aol.com
Message-ID: <33aa7c72.36718cf0@aol.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 16:21:52 EST
Subject: QL: The Enemy (Chapter 12)





                         CHAPTER TWELVE
     At first, she tried to tell herself that she was sleeping.
     She lay still on her side of the bed, breathed evenly, and
kept her eyes closed tightly.  She buried one hand firmly under her
pillow, and wrapped her body warmly in the thick blankets.  She
even let her thoughts wander through the day, which was something
like dreaming.  
     Surely that was close enough to count.
     Sid had fallen asleep quite awhile ago (whether it was minutes
or hours, she had no way of knowing, since she would have to admit
wakefulness to look at a clock); Al was asleep in the guest room at
the other end of this leg of the hall; Nate had finally drifted off
around nine-thirty, somewhere between a magic battle and a lost
treasure.
     Surely, she was asleep as well.
     When she couldn't fight it any longer, she opened her eyes and
looked at the clock.  Twelve minutes had passed since the last time
she'd checked.
     She climbed carefully out of bed, trying not to wake Sid.  The
poor man had slept in the kitchen the night before to avoid waking
her up.  
     Nice how you repaid him today, wasn't it? her inner voice
chided, but with no conviction.  It seemed to have gone away, to
contemplate itself...
     She was hoping it would speak up and tell her she was being
ridiculous; it was, after all, only a part of her own mind.  But it
didn't speak.  She wondered if she had killed it.
     Why did you have to go back there? it asked, almost
plaintively.
     Ruthie didn't know.
     She had found nothing downtown that she hadn't expected -- no
revelations, no long-lost clues, no sense of closure.  It had
changed in little ways on the surface, but it was the same old,
miserable place, and it had offered her no answers.
     And yet there had been *something*, just for a moment.  A
feeling of 
     (I've come home)
     rightness, like something was trying to connect, trying to
explain.
     Explain what?
     Another million dollar question with no answer.
     She tiptoed to her closet, and pulled an old, comfortable robe
from its hanger.  The hangers around it jangled noisily, and she
looked anxiously toward Sid, drawing in her breath.  He didn't
stir, and she let her breath out and pulled on the robe.  She went
to the bed, knelt down beside it, and passed her hand over his
thick, curly hair (it was a lot like Albert's had been, actually,
when he was younger, before he'd decided -- or, more likely, before
*Beth* had  decided -- that real men wore their hair as short as
possible without actually shaving their heads... Ruthie cut off the
thought, ashamed of the comparison).
     She breathed in sharply.  For just an instant, she had seen
her hand disappear into Sid's hair, but she had not felt it. 
Instead, there had been a sensation of passing through an unseen
barrier of static electricity, making her own hair stand on end. 
Then it passed, and she felt the familiar coarse curls as clearly
as she saw them beneath her fingers.
     Sid rolled over, and his hand fell beside her face.  She
kissed his fingertips lightly, and he smiled in his sleep.  
     Tell you what... if you can say you love me and mean it, I'll
divorce Sid and leave with you tonight...
     Ruthie closed her eyes, and leaned her cheek against Sid's
hand.  He still didn't stir; he was exhausted.  
     She had meant it.  Just for a minute that afternoon, she had
meant it.  She would have left Sid, who knew how to make her laugh,
and how to listen to her, and who *loved* her, dammit, to go back
to Albert, who had brought her nothing but misery for two decades.
     Well, not *nothing*.  There had been moments, perfect moments. 
And there had been Nate, the most perfect moment of all, when she
had first handed him to his father, and said, Albert, this is your
son.  Their entire confusing, cockeyed relationship had seemed to
make sense for that one shining minute.
     Ruthie wanted more than anything to be able to share that kind
of moment with Sid, but it wasn't to be.  Her doctor had told her
that Nate was a miracle; she had an agglomeration of uterine scar
tissue (where it had come from, she had no idea), and she should
never have been able to conceive, let alone bear, a child.  Two
miracles would be too much to ask.
     Some wife you turned out to be, the voice said, depressed. 
You can't give him your heart, you can't stay faithful, and you
can't even give him a child.
     She felt Sid's fingers curl under her cheek, and looked up. 
His eyes were partly open, heavy-lidded and sleepy but open.  "I'm
sorry," she whispered.  "I didn't mean to wake you."
     He smiled, and brushed his free hand over her hair.  "'S
okay."  He pulled her up beside him, and put an arm around her.
     "No it isn't.  You need your sleep."
     He kissed her forehead.  "So do you."
     Ruthie shook her head, and nuzzled against his chest.  That
strange, static-like sensation buzzed through her again, but she
refused to think about it; it was probably nothing, anyway.  He let
out a quivering, almost frightened sigh.  She stretched upward and
kissed him, running one finger down his cheek.  "What's the
matter?"
     He reached up and took her hand.  "I want you," he said
helplessly.
     "Is that so bad?"  She knelt on the bed, and let her bathrobe
slip off of her shoulders.  
     Sid reached up, and traced one long finger down her arm.  "I
can't do this," he whispered.
     "Why not?"   He started to answer, but Ruthie stopped his
mouth with a kiss.  He pulled away for a second, then drew her to
him hungrily.  She straightened her back and pulled her bathrobe
all the way off.
     Ruthie caught her breath suddenly, a shiver running down her
back that hadn't come from Sid.
     We're being watched.
     Impossible.
     The door was locked; there had been no sound.  Nate and Albert
were the only other people in the house, and they were long asleep.
     So why do you smell a cigar?
     That was simple.  She didn't.  Some neuron was misfiring, that
was all.
     Sid's eyes suddenly shifted to a spot over her shoulder, and
an inchoate misery suffused his face.
     "What's wrong, Sid?"
     "Ruthie, I really can't do this."
     Albert's here.  Now.
     Ridiculous.  Paranoid.
     But Ruthie's nerve endings accepted it unquestioningly.  She
pulled her bathrobe back on without thinking about it.  Whatever
had been starting with Sid had ended abruptly.
     Guilt.
     She latched onto the idea desperately.  It was just guilt. 
She had always brought Albert with her psychologically, and today,
it was more acute than ever because of... well... 
     And the cigar?
     What cigar?
     "Ruthie, please," Sid said.  "I -- I need to be alone.  I'm
sorry." He started to get up, but she stayed him with her arm.
     "I'll go," she said, and climbed out of bed without further
elaboration.
     She tied her bathrobe as she stepped out into the hall.  A
series of narrow arching windows just outside the door looked out
on the back yard, where Nate's jungle gym looked like a dragon's
lair in the night shadows.  The wind pushed a sail of misty rain
across the slide, and some small animal (a squirrel, she hoped) ran
out from underneath it, surprised by the dousing.
     She turned to go on down the hall, where she meant to open her
second guest room, a comfortable rose-colored space that opened
onto a balcony at the center of the house.  It was beside the room
where Albert was staying, which was more to his liking.  He might
be extravagant about his cars and (just lately) his off-duty
clothes, but his taste in decor had remained consistent throughout
his life: utilitarian chic.  The corner guest room was bare-
floored, with a plain brass bed, a dresser, and a desk.
     There was a light under the door.
     Her first instinct was to go inside and see what was bothering
him, but she knew where it would lead, or where she would want it
to lead if she let it start.
     He's not your husband anymore.  That sweet man in the other
room is.
     Ruthie smiled to herself sadly, turned the corner, and opened
the center room.
                               ***
     Sam watched Ruthie tiptoe out of the room.
     Al was standing at the foot of the bed, the end of his cigar
twinkling dimly in the darkness.  He'd had nothing to say so far,
but Sam could see in his face that he was having a hard time.
     He started to say "I'm sorry," but Al interrupted with an
impatient wave of his hand.
     "Don't say it, Sam.  I've got no business letting it get to me
like this.  She's Sid's wife, and she thinks you're him."
     Sam said nothing, but he couldn't meet the Observer's eyes. 
It had all happened so fast, and he'd been tired, and she'd been
so... *there*.  So incredibly real.  He didn't know if his
attraction to her was some odd trace of his simo-Leap with Al, if
it was actually Al's attraction to her that he was feeling (it made
sense, he supposed, if that was true; the attraction had certainly
been stronger and more instant than he was accustomed to), but he
didn't think it mattered.  It had been his choice, however muddled
his senses might have been, to act on it.
     "Come on, Sam.  You're human.  I remember what it's like to
near her, what she smells like, what she feels like... " Al's voice
drifted off. 
     "Al," Sam said.  "I am sorry -- "
     "I told you -- "
     "No, about earlier tonight, I mean.  I didn't stop Ruthie from
giving you custody for six months, but I don't think that's what I
was here for -- "
     "I know."
     "I think there's another... "  Sam broke off the sentence. 
"You know?"
     "Yeah.  I never told you that you were here to change Ruthie's
mind, Sam.  I thought so for a minute this afternoon, but... " He
shrugged.  "I had a feeling that would be too simple."
     "I don't understand."
     "I didn't either, not really.  But when I got back, they'd
been running scenarios."
     "And?"
     "Ziggy knows how to do this one."
     "How?"
     "Sammy Jo Fuller, one of the physicists -- "
     "I remember Sammy Jo, Al.  I told you I would."
     Al didn't bother to contradict him.  "She ran a scenario.  The 
only one that's worked, so far."
     "What was it?"
     "You have to make sure that Nate never asks me again.  You
have to make me do something that he won't forgive me for."  
     "*What?*"
     "You have to make Nate stop wanting to come to me."
     "I couldn't do that even I wanted to try, which I don't.  Nate
loves you, Al.  He's not going believe anything bad I say."
     "But *I'd* believe.  And I could make Nate believe.  If you
make me do something, the one thing I never would've done."  He
closed his eyes.  "You have to make me walk out on him."
     "No."
     "Yes.  You have to, Sam."
     "It's not right."
     "What do you think is more right?  That Nate burns to death in
my kitchen?"
     "Why does it have to be either one?"  Sam stood up, kicking
the sheets off the edge of the bed.  What Al was asking him to do
was immoral and unthinkable.  And it would destroy Al.  "I can't
let you walk out on your family, Al.  That would kill you, and
Nate, too."
     "No.  It would save Nate's life."  Sam said nothing, and Al
went on.  "There are a lot of futures out there, Sam.  The highest
probability we've gotten on Nate living, other than this one, is
twenty-four percent.  And we had to postulate some pretty unlikely
things to get that."
     "Why?"
     "I don't know why, Sam.  I'm not a philosopher.  I'm just a
jet jock with a few extra pieces of paper on the office wall.  All
I know for sure is that you've got to get me out of this house
without Nate, 'cause if you don't, he's going to die."
     "Maybe we can still get Ruthie to change her mind, and the two
of you could work out some better custody set up -- "
     "Do you think you're the only person on this Project that
comes up with ideas, Sam?"  Sam blinked and sat back.  "When I say
we've been running scenarios, I mean it.  We've been running them
non-stop since you got here.  All the ones where you get Ruthie to
change her mind end up in the same place: Nate runs away when he's
nine, or sometimes ten, and tries to come to me.  And every time,
he dies."
     "I can't accept that.  There's no way Ziggy can make accurate
estimates about changes we haven't made yet."
     "All we have to work with is the odds.  And you know Ziggy can
compute them down to the thousandths with nothing more than a
theory.  That's what you built her to do."  The handlink gave a
firm squawk, as if agreeing with him.
     "She's been wrong before."
     "Well, so have you."  Al looked at him.  "I know Ziggy's
closer than you are on this one because *I* was here.  Do you
understand that?  I know what was going on."
     "But -- "
     "Hear me out, okay, Sam?"
     Sam nodded.
     "Ruthie and I had no business getting divorced.  I don't even
remember why we did.  I guess you were right about one thing.  If
you could've fixed things between Ruthie and me, none of this would
be an issue.  Of course, Sid Weiss would spend the rest of his life
alone, but there's always someone who pays for a Leap."
     Sam lowered his eyes.  Al was right about that.  No matter how
many holes the Leaping process had punched into his memory, he
would never forget the sound of Maggie Dawson whispering "Pulitzer"
with her last breath... a breath that wouldn't have been her last
if Sam hadn't traded her life for his brother Tom's.  It was
usually someone who owed the price who paid, but not always.
     Al was shaking his head.  "That was never an option, though,
and not just because you Leaped in a couple years too late."
     "What do you mean?"
     "The Project," Al said.  "You know that, Sam.  I never
would've spent all those months playing mad scientist with you if
I'd had a family waiting for me at home.  You can't mess with
either of our lives too much before Star Bright Project, because it
would throw off Project Quantum Leap.  Are you telling me you
haven't thought of that?"
     Sam said nothing.
     "Nate has a right to grow up with two parents in the same
place.  He can do that with Ruthie and Sid.  He can have everything
a kid could want here."
     "Except his father.  It can't be right for him to grow up
without his father."
     "Sammy Jo turned out all right."
     Sam's heart skipped a beat.  He'd remembered Sammy Jo when Al
mentioned her name, but not before.  She would probably retreat
again before he Leaped.  He hadn't expected Al to bring her into
it, let alone confirm his memory.  And it was hardly the same
thing; he'd never had the option of being in Sammy Jo's life.  "I
didn't have a choice," he said.
     "Well, neither do I."  Al breathed deeply.  "Sid's a good guy. 
He'll be a good father for Nate."
     "What about you?"
     Al sighed.  "I'll pay for this one, Sam.  I owe it."
     There was nothing more to say.  Al signalled for the Door, and
left.
     Sam sat alone in the dark room, trying to think of another way
out.
     And wondering why Sammy Jo had thought of abandonment as a
viable alternative in the first place.
                               ***
     Verbeena Beeks was of the opinion that the Admiral was going
through a self-destructive cycle.  She had posted discreet notices
to that effect at most high level work stations, with the request
that those close to him keep an eye on him.
     Tina Martinez-O'Farrell needed no such request.  From the
moment the Leap had begun, she had taken most of the Admiral's
routine tasks onto herself, and had made Gushie program a command
to run all search results by her or by Dr. Beeks before the Admiral
was given access to them.
     Donna Eleyse, who had occupied a less than pivotal role at the
Project since early in its theoretical stages, had suddenly been
elevated to Beeks' job, since Beeks was busy watching the Admiral,
and all of the psychological data on Sidney Weiss was being routed
to her terminal.
     Sam Beckett needn't have worried about his daughter's thought
processes: Sammy Jo Fuller was not enthusiastic about her
"jackpot," as the Admiral had called it.  She was racking her brain
-- and Ziggy's computational facilities -- trying to find a viable
solution that would not require an emotional sacrifice from anyone.
     Only the Admiral himself seemed to truly understand the
possible consequences of the Leap, and even he was not fully
informed.
     Ziggy had the world's best poker face.
     She (and she had come to think of herself as _she_) was aware
of many more intricacies than most human minds could handle, even
Dr. Beckett's.  She knew, with far greater certainty than Sam or
Al, how great the danger was if Albert Calavicci suddenly
disappeared from Project Quantum Leap.  It had happened once
before.  The Admiral had no memory of it, and Ziggy decided that he
had no great Need To Know.  Dr. Beckett was aware of it, but all he
knew for sure was that his Observer suddenly changed, and brought
a great deal of foreign sounding news about the state of the
staff's interpersonal relationships.  He did not know that for
those few hours, the chance for him to ever Leap home (a
calculation Ziggy performed constantly) had plummeted to zero.  
     The odds had also taken a precipitous drop any other time he
touched the Admiral's life.  In Vietnam, when he had almost cut
short Calavicci's time as a POW, the odds had dropped to five-
point-three percent from their usual, steady nine-point-one.  When
the Admiral had tried to use Sam to fix his first marriage, the
odds had dropped to a dangerous point-three-oh.  Ziggy had run a
quick scan of the progress on previous Leaps, and found that only
four of them had been untouched by the threatened change.  She knew
that fixing things with Beth was one of the Admiral's fondest
fantasies, so she kept the information to herself, to be shared if
and only if it became necessary to protect the Project.  There was
always ample warning time.
     Sammy Jo punched in another scenario, and Ziggy spit back the
results.
     Ziggy was growing concerned about this aspect of herself.  It
would be more efficient to simply present all her information to
the Admiral.  He was cleared for it, and it could save time in an
emergency situation if he knew, but Ziggy found that she frankly
didn't have the heart to tell him without just cause.  She feared
that she was becoming more human-like with her widening sentience,
and that meant she might be developing the human defect of
compassion.  She was in no hurry to share this information, either.
     But there was another reason that she hadn't told the Admiral
her statistics on his first marriage, and it was simpler: she
suspected that she didn't have to.  During the first fiasco with
Beth, the Admiral had run a hundred different scenarios, and he
knew that none of them ended with her waiting for him.  There had
been a few pretty good numbers on her not marrying Dirk Simon, but
they had all ended with her marrying Jake Rawlins, the young
detective Dr. Beckett had Leaped into, instead.  The second time
they had gotten close to Beth, when Dr. Beckett had Leaped into a
wounded veteran in San Diego in the late 1960s, Al hadn't run any
scenarios, and had only requested to be centered on her once.  He'd
stayed for twenty minutes, then gone back to Sam and said nothing
at all about it.  Ziggy thought it was quite possible that there
were some things that even very stubborn humans like the Admiral
didn't really need to be told.
     When the Admiral signalled for her to open the Imaging Chamber
Door (using the overlong and overcomplicated code that Dr. Eleyse
had insisted on to prevent spur of the moment exits when Gushie and
the other programmers were away from their posts for one reason or
another; Ziggy didn't think the precaution had been necessary for
some time), she raised it with the casual ease of a human being
tossing her hair over one shoulder.
     He walked out into the Control Center.  "Jeez, Ziggy.  Where'd
the party go?"
     "Dr. Beeks is monitoring you from her office -- "
     "Hi, Verbena," he said.  "I'm still here."
     "Hello, Al.  Do you want me to come down?  It sounded a little
intense in there."
     "No.  I'll be okay, I think."
     " -- and everyone else is in the staff quarters, resting."
     "Which, by the way," Beeks said from her office, "you should
be doing, Al."
     "Can we turn the monitor off, Ziggy?"
     "No, we may not," Beeks said.
     "I'm sorry, Admiral," Ziggy told him.  "I've been programmed
to accept her override in cases directly involving you."
     "Perfect," he said.  "I feel like I'm in a goddam fish tank. 
Is there any place where I can have a little privacy?"
     "The monitor is audio only," Ziggy offered.  Unlike Dr. Beeks
and the others, she considered the Admiral a fairly low risk for
self-destructive behavior at this point in his life.  His patterns
of self-destruction corresponded to times when he was not needed,
not to times of extreme pressure, and, judging by such a standard,
Ziggy didn't think he'd been at serious risk for nearly five years. 
"Unless you plan to talk to yourself, your quarters should be
reasonably private."
     "Thank you."  The Admiral left the Control Center, and Ziggy
traced his progress back to his quarters.
     In her office, Verbena Beeks thumbed a button to switch to
closed communication.  "Ziggy?"
     "Yes?"
     "Monitor his vital signs, and tell me when he's asleep."
     "Yes, Doctor."
     Ziggy lowered the lights, and sent the Project into night.