PREVIOUSLY

Having leaped into a battered housewife, Sam saves her life by taking the last abusive beatings for her.  He finds it strange that he cannot find the strength to subdue Joanna's so-called husband, Gerald and when he at last finds out; Sam is witness to a horrific incident involving his project in the future.  Despite his efforts to remain and see his current Leap through, Sam Leaps into Al's time and only minutes after the incident has occurred.  What he sees as the dust settles is his beloved project in ruins.

Somewhere in the Midlands of England

November 14, 1997

Ziggy characteristically played dumb to Al's question about her 'Guessing Games', he half expected her to come back at him with some sort of connotation and have his head reeling with her banter.

Al watched as Sam stopped dead.  "That could take months, or even years!" his friend said in alarm.  "I can't hang around for that length of time!"

"You're exaggerating Sam; surely it can't take that long, can it?" the Observer asked as he followed his friend out of the bathroom, typically Sam was way ahead of him.  Even limping as he was, Sam strode with almost his natural gait and as usual the Admiral had to very nearly run to keep up with him.

"It is true; the British legal system is indeed slow." Ziggy announced almost nonchalantly.  "It is tied up with red tape and bureaucracy.  It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the trial date isn't set for another three years."

"Hang on Ziggy; answer me this time, will ya?" Al said as he rubbed at his mouth.  "Why are you talking speculation here?"

"Filling in time Admiral," Ziggy said and Al glared at her when she pouted out a long, silent whistle as her eyes rolled impatiently.  "It takes an absolute age to download the necessary data.  As I told you before Admiral, British technology is antiquated compared to ours plus the fact that I'm having difficulties integrating."

Al could see that Sam was listening but he didn't appear to be fazed by Ziggy's words.  However, he did notice that Sam's pace had slowed significantly as they walked through the games room.

"Filling in time?  Huh—exactly how does a jumble of nuts and bolts and overload of meandering cabling fill in time?" Al remarked cynically.

"The same as you, Admiral but the fact that time has a comparatively different importance for me is totally irrelevant to you."

The Observer was taken thoroughly aback, he had no answer for that and he looked to Sam to see if he had any answers but the look on his friend's face told him that Sam was off on one of his deliberations, and that meant that Sam probably wasn't even on this planet, let alone in the same time zone.

Al laughed to himself, 'Time zones, ha, we haven't been in the same zone for years and even before that, he was always off everyplace else.'

Al glared emphatically at the pertinacious image that hovered just above the handlink.  "Have you received that information yet?" he asked.

"It is—sizzle—fizzle—spitz—

"coming—hiss—sizzle—spitz—

"through now Ad—m—ir—Al," Ziggy sounded as if she was in definite need of being cranked up.

"What is it Zig?  You sound like an old gramophone that needs winding up," the Admiral supplicated.  He looked questioningly from her flickering image and to Sam.

The expression that Doctor Beckett gave him, told him that Sam was just as shocked as he was.

"Do—not—know—I—am—lo—osing—po—ow—er," Ziggy's speech labored sluggishly.

"Al wha—splutter—

"s hap—sizzle—

"ing?!" Sam looked between the two flashing holograms.

"I was about to ask you the same thing," Al said as he saw Sam and his surroundings start to fade.

"Al—sizzle—

"s somethi—spit—

"wrong—splutter—

"the project?" the Observer could see Sam's lips moving but couldn't make out all of what his friend was saying through the interference.

"I can smell something very strange and it's getting very hot in here, Sam!" the Observer stated as he looked about him.  He couldn't see anything wrong but then again the holographic haze was meddling with his vision.

"Al!" the Observer could only just make out his friends faint voice.

"I'm feeli—spit—

"ething too—crackle—

"I don't thin—sizzle—

"m Leaping—splutter—

"Is something— sizzle—

"the project, Al?"

"I can hardly hear you Sam!  There's so much noise and I can smell smoke, I don't know if I can stay much longer, can hardly breathe."  Al only just managed to get his words out before the whole of the hologram closed down and he was left in the darkened Imaging Chamber.

PART FIVE

Stallion's Gate, New Mexico

On the outskirts of Project: Quantum Leap: 11:05am

After Doctor Beckett's heart had stopped pounding so rapidly, he looked about him more conservatively.  He couldn't believe what he was seeing, his project in ruins?  Surely, this couldn't be true.  His stomach churned but not with the odor of the burning debris—but with the loss of his friends and colleagues.  No one could have survived this.  Not even a hologram.

"Oh Al!" Doctor Beckett sighed and covered his face to hide his emotions.  He had no idea why he did it, no one was around to see his grief.

He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there: cross legged, shoulders hunched and head bent low.  He fiddled with the frayed hem of his scorched khakis, pulling at a few of the loose threads and twisting them tightly around his finger – he wasn't surprised when the tip went white and numb, it now felt like the rest of him, anesthetized – his brain grew to be just as unresponsive, unthinking and unfeeling.

A small desert reptile, a banded gecko scuttled up and on seeing Sam, froze, standing on three legs with the other raised.  Petrified in time, just as Sam was.

Sam blinked, so did the tiny lizard.  Sam twitched a finger, as did the lizard's raised foot.  In slow jerky movements, the lizard tasted the air with his long blackberry colored tongue and became inquisitive at this new organism that had invaded his territory.

Sam blinked a few more times as the amphibian diligently and sporadically made his way over to the large, alien mound, curious as to what was on offer.  Sam almost didn't see the miniature creature, mistaking him for a twig, until he moved forwards again.  Inert, Sam watched as the tiny reptilian tongue darted in and out, catching insects as they unsuspectingly fluttered past.  He concentrated hard on his sedated psyche and petty words popped up the surface of his reduced capabilities, Coleonyx variegatus bogerti, realizing that this must be the Latin or scientific name for its species.

Not wanting to frighten off his newfound pal, Sam lifted his head slowly and looked again at the devastation.  It hadn't changed.  Still the dark column of smoke swirled upward but now it wasn't so dense.  Nothing else stirred, not even the wind, only the little tyke that scampered jerkily about, burying into self-made holes and rematerializing a few feet nearer, then darting off in a completely different direction.

Sam smiled; at least something had survived whatever it was that had caused so much destruction – making him realize that life does go on, even after a cataclysmic event.

He rubbed the palms of his hands on his knees as in the distance he watched the tiny creature bury itself again.  He sighed deeply and stretched his unfeeling limbs into a responsive mode.  He then stood slowly and made his lethargic body move into the direction of the East Tower.  He didn't even notice the change of footing, as he crossed the runway, nor the dirt road that ran alongside until it curved away into the small graveled parking lot.  He was lost in his thoughts and when that happened, nothing and no one could get through.

As he neared, Sam gazed upon the beginnings of a yawning rut.  He hadn’t noticed it before.  It commenced just before where the foundations of the building started and the further he looked the deeper and wider the furrow extended, ending in an immense pile of mangled metal and substrate.  This was where the thickest of the smoke was being emitted and he could just make out what looked to be the remains of a fuselage.  Further a field; he could see what was likened to be a jet engine, still attached to a dismembered wing.

Wreckage was strewn everywhere, upholstery, open tattered suitcases as far as the eye could see but the saddest sight of all was a child's shoe that lay forlorn on the fine desert sand.  Downhearted, Sam heaved a sigh of remorse and didn't even attempt to hold back the tears that ran freely from his saddened eyes.  He felt wretched, as though it was somehow his fault that this tragedy had taken place.  He could hear his friend's rebuttal now, "What you've done Sam, is for the good of humanity, no one else could have accomplished what you have. You Sam, and you alone."

Another voice called out to him from the fog within his subconscious, "You've done a lot of good Sam Beckett, and you'll do a lot more."  The voice faded away on the breeze that had predictably picked up again, tousling his hair and rippling his shirt.

Doctor Beckett looked down at himself; he didn't recognize any of his clothing but then why should he?  His beleaguered, swiss-cheesed brain had often let him down and made him forget things in his own time.  Why should it be any different now?  Then he realized that for the first time since he had started Leaping, he hadn't asked himself any of the three questions he always asked.  He knew the where? and the when? but he hadn't thought to ask the who?.  He then sighed deeply as the thought occurred to him – who would he have asked in any case?

Dusty, bedraggled and positively exhausted he stood amongst the ashes and twisted metal along with crushed and broken slabs.  Sam looked over toward the entranceway to the elevator that was housed in the tower.  The door was partially covered with a mound of fallen rubble and he clambered over the mountainous heap to survey the damage.

He hoped that everyone was in the caverns below and that somehow the excavations had miraculously remained intact, despite the impact.

Steadfastly, he laboriously moved each obstacle by hand, even after his hands were blistered, along with his knees and arms torn all to shreds.  Devoutly he kept an open mind, but at the same time unwilling to accept that tragedy had struck below ground.

Dispirited at what he found, he shouted into the huge gaping cavity at the bottom of the elevator door, "Can anyone hear me?"  His voice echoed and bounced back at him resonantly.

He waited for a full minute before he shouted again, though in his heart of hearts he knew that it was more likely only half that time.

Again he pleaded, "Is anyone down there?  …Please… answer me!"

Silence, except for his own eerie incantations that boomed back at him.

Unfazed, he continued to move more rubble until he was capable of squeezing his head and shoulders through the hole and into the shaft.  Almost at once, the heat and obnoxious fumes had his stomach reeling, and he only remained under sufferance and a well defined determination.

"Everyone!—cough—It's me!—splutter—Sam—Sam Beckett!—cough—I'm here!—wheeze—I'm home!"  With his last word, Doctor Beckett very nearly lost his balance; if it were not for the tight fit then he would surely have plummeted into the chasm below.  He then saw the glinting newness of the recently severed cables and his heart sank.  Beleaguered, he conceded temporary defeat and crawled out from the space he'd made and lay rasping and exhausted on the pile of rubble.

Now, he had time to reflect, 'After all of these long and lonely years I'm home, back where I belong…' Sam stifled a groan of remorse.  "…and you give me this!  If THIS is ALL there is, then I don't WANT it!  Do you HEAR me!  You can KEEP it!"  Sam screamed up to the smoke patched sky.  "If you want reimbursing for all the good that's been done, then why did you have to take the lives of the innocent?  Take me instead, with THIS… I'm as good as dead anyway!"

Sam felt a selfish pang, he didn't want a reward for all he'd done, he'd much prefer it if things had remained as they'd been, least then his friends would still be alive and their family's wouldn't be suffering their loss.

"Give them BACK their lives!"  Sam exacted angrily and then he started to sob.  "Th-they s-still have s-so much to o-offer."  Then he suddenly thought, 'Why shouldn't I have what I want, if only for once?'  He closed his eyes for a moment and then looked determinedly upwards.  "Haven't I done enough for others?  I think it's MY turn now!"  As soon as the words were out, he bit at his lip.  "Sorry," he apologized sadly.  "I don't mean to sound in any way egotistical but it's their lives and none of them should've gone this way!"

He waited for a response, but he would've been very surprised if one had been forthcoming.  He shifted slightly on his stony and unyielding resting place, making himself more comfortable.  Again he looked at his clothes, more tattered and torn than before but he still couldn't recognize them.  The brown suede brogues were definitely not his style and the plaid socks secreted beneath had a hint of Englishness about them.

"Don't tell me!" Sam shouted into the breeze as it picked up ferocity.  "I'm not here as myself after all?"

"Whom are you shouting at?  It is you, ain't it, Sin?"

Sam whirled around at this unexpected contact. 'Sin?' he thought as he blinked into the sun.

"Ahhhh—ahhhh," Sam answered, his mouth agape when blocking off the dazzling glare he saw someone, a young man, heading his way.

'Whoever he is, he's equally as bedraggled as I am,' he thought as the figure neared.  'He looks to be in his mid twenties, no older but he could be younger,' he deliberated.

"Yeah… I think so," Sam said quietly, not wanting to raise suspicion.  He then again looked over to the remnants of the aircraft.

"Did you see that?" the youngster said excitedly.  "That whole boom-boom thing—exhilarating—all'uv that energy into one blast."

Sam couldn't believe what he was hearing, was this kid nuts or what?

"What on earth?  Look around you—at the devastation!" Sam waved a hand at his surroundings.  "The lost lives, what about those?"

"Ha-ha!  No one could've possibly survived this!" the youth quipped.

Sam felt his temper start to rise.  "And I thought I was feeling selfish," he muttered under his breath.  "Look!" Sam shot at him as he abruptly rose to his feet.  "Our colleagues are under this heap of rubble, aren't you even concerned about them?"

"They're safe enough, you, yourself know just how deep those caverns are, it would be imposs…" the young man announced arrogantly.

"They weren't safe though, were they?" the Leaper cut in.  "Damn you, erm…" Sam stuttered, he couldn't for the live in him think of this youth's name.  "Man, you're impossible.  Come here!"

Doctor Beckett firmly planted one foot down at a lower level and seized at the lad's sleeve.

"What do you think you're doing, Sin?" the youth griped as he halfheartedly tried to pull his arm away.

"Come on, I want to show you something!" Sam yanked harshly and the lad clambered awkwardly up the rubble after him.

When he faltered Sam tugged him evermore resolutely.

"In here!" Sam pointed into the hole he'd excavated.  "That's where our colleagues are!"  Doctor Beckett then pushed him into the hollow.  "Take a look!  Get down on your hands and knees and take a good long look, then you tell me if you think anyone is alive down there!"

"I don't know what's gotten into you, Sin," the lad looked at the Leaper oddly.  "…but to say we were about to leave this damn project, you're really acting strange."

"Leave?  Why would I want to leave?" Sam asked quizzically.

"Because that's what we've planned.  This place is the pits, long hours, bad pay, not to mention that nutty professor they've got locked up in that room.  It's enough to give anyone the jitters."

'Nutty?  Is that what they think of me?'  Sam gazed down at the youth who was now on his knees.  'Do they all think that I'm crazy?'

"And that wife of his, I don't know why she doesn't take that son of hers and pack her bags and leave; she's as crazy as that damned fool husband of hers, if you ask me."

Sam's brow creased.  "Whose wife?" Sam quizzed.

"The professor's wife, Doctor Elesee-Beckett."  The lad looked at his friend as though he had a screw or two loose.

Sam gasped.  "Son?  Donna… is here and she has a son?"  'Oh… my… God…' he ran the implications through his mind.  'Al… why on earth didn't you tell me?  I have a son?  Donna's son?  We're married?  When?'

"Sin, are you sure you're feeling okay?" the youngster consternated.  "You didn't get a bump on your head with that explosion did you?"

"Don't think so," Sam replied whilst he bogusly felt at his head.

"Sure as hell knocked me for six, I can tell you but at least the car's okay." Tyler looked way off into the distance, "'tis over there, somewhere.  Damn thing kept right on rolling 'til it hit that sandbank."

"Car?  What Car?" Doctor Beckett asked and looked around confused, he hadn't seen any car.

"The car we were drivin' off in and were thrown out of…" the boy looked at the Leaper quixotically.  "When the plane hit… that car.  You do look kinda funny, Sin."

Doctor Beckett felt the need to find out more and he thought that a better opportunity might not arise again, that he should take this chance to glean as much information out of this person as was possible.

"But I'm not sure;" Sam said, rubbing at his temples.  "I don't seem to remember anything.  Tell me, erm… ahhh… tell me about this—erm… mad professor and his wife."  Sam tried his hardest to suppress his anxiety but all he could think about was Donna and their son.

"You sure you're okay?"

Sam nodded.

"Now then, the Missus," the lad said jovially.  "I thought she was quite a cutie at first.  I remember her saying to me on my first day, 'Tyler,' she said, 'you'll go far here, your résumé has great potential, I hope you'll be happy here.'  That was three months ago but I can't see me getting any further.  There's only one other person above me and I don't think she'll be quitting any time soon.  I had high hopes of promotion, but being a second-rate medic isn't enough.

"This place is what some folk'd call…" Tyler laughed bitingly. "'Looney Toons', the goings on here are way out of my scope but then again I suppose… you don't think the stuff that goes on around here is at all unusual."

"No Tyler, not at all but then…” Sam crossed his fingers and hoped that what he was about to say was the right thing to say, try as he might; his current host wasn't giving anything away.  "I've been here longer than you have and you're young, you're bound to find it strange at first."

"Strange?  That's the understatement of the year;" Tyler barked quirkily.  "I don't know how you've stuck it out this long.  Say Sin, any of this coming back to you yet?  You don't look too good."

"I'll be fine; it's probably just the trauma of knowing that all of my friends are…” Sam couldn't say what he was thinking.

"Now you sound like Doc Calavicci, what is it with you scientific types, I thought you had all've this sussed out?"

"Tell me more about this other doctor…" Sam coughed nervously, he could barely bring himself to say her name.  "…Doctor Elesee… Beckett, I think you said."

"What's there to know?" Tyler shrugged his shoulders.  "You know her better than I do, since that first meeting I've only met her a couple 'o times after.  Not much call for the scientists to turn up in the infirmary, unless of course we have an epidemic and I can't see that happening in the near future."

"No, neither can I… now," Sam said drearily.  "You said she has a son, what's his name?" he queried without thinking.

"Yep seen him a couple of times in the infirmary," Tyler nodded.  "As I remember, within a couple of days of me arriving, he burned his hand on a soldering iron, Lord knows what they think they're doing, letting a kid of his age play with stuff like that."

"What's his name?  I need to know!" Sam almost jumped down Tyler's throat.

"Hell Doc!" Tyler sprang to his feet.  "As if you care, thought you and I were getting away from this place and setting up house together?"

"House?  Setting up h—what the hell are you talking about?"  Sam moved his stance threateningly close to the lad's.  "His name, Tyler!  I want his name!  I have to remember his name!"

"Cool it man!" Tyler held up both hands in defense.  "No need to get all het-up over this."

Sam glared angrily; his patience with this upstart was wearing a little thin.

As Tyler lowered his hands, he placed one arm about Sam's shoulder.  "Take it easy Sin, you'll be no good to me if you blow a cork on that ol' ticker of yours."  He hugged the Leaper tighter and as he drew Sam close, he planted a kiss firmly upon Sam's cheek.

Sam's eyes narrowed in disbelief.  "His name!" Doctor Beckett growled as he pushed Tyler away.

Tyler fell backwards onto the heap of debris that Sam had so laboriously dug out.  "Okay already!  It's Stephen, okay!"

"Th—an—k y—you," the Leaper stuttered when the name started alarm bells ringing.  He searched his subconscious for a face to recognize and when one wasn't forthcoming, he sighed deeply.  "S—tee—phen… I—I must remember that, Ste—ph—en," he repeated, in hope that it would stick within the photographic segment of his memory and not in the portion that was prone to the swiss-cheesing effect.  "Tyler, how old is he?"

"Man, I dunno, about eight—nine," Tyler frowned.  "Hard to tell."

The Leaper tossed Tyler out of the way, he didn't like this guy much, he was too condescending.  He supposed that maybe it was because he hadn't gotten to know everyone at the project like he had; Sam remembered picking each member of his team by hand but this guy was new and perhaps needed a second chance.

As he sunk down onto his knees, Sam apologized, "Tyler I'm sorry."  He shifted more rubble to make the ground a little more flatter and the opening to the elevator a little more accessible.  "But you've gotta understand that I've known everyone from the begin…" he stopped himself before he could put his foot in it further.  He didn't know anything about Tyler, or for that matter the man he'd leapt into, who the hell is this Sin?  He'd never heard this guy's name mentioned before.  But he had to come up with some plausible explanation for why he was acting so strangely.  "…for quite a few years."  He corrected and hoped this was true.  "And I've begun to think of them as my fam…"

"You've lost it man," Tyler interrupted.  "'Twas only last week you told me that you joined the project a couple of years ago, that's a lot less than quite a few, Sin."

Sam bit his lip, he didn't like making mistakes and to him this little slip felt like one gargantuan landslide.  "Ahhhh, well, ahhhh, that's just a, erm, figure of speech," Sam grimaced and pushed his head and shoulders onto the now larger opening, and at the same time relieved that Tyler couldn't see his embarrassment.

Sam coughed; the air was still laced with fumes but not quite as intense as before.  He could hear Tyler, muttering something outside but his words were lost amidst the creepy echoes and isolated sounds.

He used what breath he had and shouted into the chasm, "Anyone!  Al!  Beth!  Goosh…" he broke off with a gasp as he remembered that the Head Programmer was no longer with the project.  The fumes rasped at the back of his throat and he quickly began to dredge the four corners of his mind for the name of Gooshie's replacement.  He reeled off the names as he recollected each face in turn.  But there was one name he couldn't put a face to, one he remembered his friend, Al, using, St. John.  He thought some more, 'What was it Al had said about him?  It all seems such a long time ago.  Hmmm, Edward St. John the VI, he thought as the recollection became clearer.  'That name seems to ring of English connotations, the same as the clothes I'm wearing.'

All of a sudden, he could hear the vibrations of a motor as it stirred into life.  It sounded as though the ventilation system had kicked in.  The oscillation of the fan blades vibrated into his very soul but he couldn't feel any fresh air being circulated.  As before, the pungent vapors started to affect his breathing and he was gratified when he felt Tyler tug insistently on his trouser leg.

"What is it?" Doctor Beckett shouted as he turned towards the entrance.

Tyler mumbled something inaudible and Sam was just about to wriggle out of the aperture when a blast of hot air gusted into the chasm and was adamant that he be sucked in along with it.

"Whoooohaaaa!" Sam yelped as he started to topple over the edge.

He just managed to stop himself from falling head first into the abyss by catching hold of the shorn cables and he braced his legs against the ragged edges of the elevator door.

"Arrrrgggggghhhhhhh!" he screamed in agony as he felt the jagged metal tear through the flesh of his lower limbs.  His wedged feet had stopped his descent and his upper torso was now swinging on the end of the swaying cables.

"Hang on Sin," he heard Tyler's muffled plea as he made a grab for the Leaper's ankles and Sam felt as if he was being ungainly stretched over the gaping shaft.  Doctor Beckett couldn't see the bottom; the beam of light through the opening didn't lend itself into turning corners.  Sam knew that the ten minute journey to the bottom in the elevator wouldn't quite take that long if he should fall the whole two hundred feed down to the lowest level.

Face down, Sam stared straight into the black eye of death, his body arced and as taught as an archer's bow.  Sam's mind started to cogitate, 'I have three choices: one, to let go with my hands and probably smash my skull against the metal walls, two, get Tyler to release my feet and thus enable me to swing in the center of this oversized elevator shaft but with no way of getting back to the opening or; three, let go altogether and hope that the elevator is only on the fist level.''

Sam began to wish that he'd tested to see if the elevator was indeed on the first level, he doubted it though.  One out of the twenty or so eventualities seemed to him like insurmountable odds and the thought of any one of these possibilities made his blood run cold.

PART SIX

Project: Quantum Leap

Imaging Chamber: 10:59am

As Al instinctively looked about him nothing was visible, even the usual faint blue light wasn't to be seen.  "Ziggy, what the HELL is going on?" Al demanded.  He didn't know which way to turn for the door and pressed all of the available buttons on the handlink in his panic.  "Get me the HELL outta here!  Ziggy!  Open this damn door—this INSTANT!"

The Admiral placed one hesitant foot in front of the other and like a blind man he held his arms outstretched before him.  He cursed the vastness of the Imaging Chamber, even after he'd found the surface of his enclosure.

He sidestepped; cussed every blighted step until eventually he found the exit and proceeded to pound on the door.  The Admiral coughed.  The unseen smoke was at its thickest there and it didn't take Al long to deduce that somehow the door seal had been breached.  As much as he didn't want to, he stepped back and away from the door until he found more breathable air.  It was then that he noticed that indescribable sound of… silence.

The Observer gulped, whatever had happened outside was now imposing its incursion on his space.  With the handlink out of action, Ziggy was unreachable and he had no way to circumvent the encroaching fumes.  He coughed again as the air around him started to stifle him.

Instinct took over.

He crouched down and placed each knee in turn to the floor, rolling himself over, he lay parallel to the ground, once in a while shouting at the handlink and pressing all three keys but to no avail.

"Dammit Ziggy, this can't be happening!" Al shouted into the darkness.  "Do something, you—you—heap of overcharged neurons—Sam… damn it, your own flesh and blood is out there and if anything untoward happens to us—what the hell is he gonna do?"

Only silence awaited him.

He lay postulating on how this could have come about when the thought suddenly occurred to him, 'Isn't the Imaging Chamber soundproofed as well as disaster proofed?'  He started crawling across the floor and this action brought back long forgotten memories of his time in Nam.  'Didn't Sam say once that the Imaging Chamber door could be opened from the inside—with the handlink?  I sure hope Stephen remembered to program this new device with the appropriate… code!'

"Damn!  The code, I don’t know the damn code!" he cursed again as he smoothed his hand over the surface of the gadget.

He could smell the smoke and gasses filtering down to his level and he thought ruefully, "Sam always said that smoking would finish me off one day."

He pressed his face closer to the ground where the air was not quite so polluted.

"Three stupid keys and I've pressed all of 'em a dozen times already!" he placed the handlink down on the floor next to him.  "I never planned on going out this way…” He gritted his teeth, "not after…"  In a fit of temper, he smashed his fist down on its uppermost face and unwittingly depressed all three buttons simultaneously. 

"Oh… My… God…" Al gasped as the Imaging Chamber door opened and he saw the shattered remnants of Ziggy's orb scattered perpendicular to him and the wrecked control panel.  "Beth!" he gasped as he consciously rose to his feet.  "Where are you and where are my girls?"

He then stood for a moment blinking at the devastation and was bowled over when the air was unexpectedly sucked out from the Imaging Chamber.  He had no choice but to go along with the drag and as he did so the remnants of Ziggy's suspended globe began to emit sparks, and the accumulated fumes ignited in a mammoth explosion of fiery orange.

The Admiral didn't have time to duck before the fireball engulfed everything in its path.

Tyler muttered something inaudible and Sam was just about to ask him to repeat when a sudden updraft of sullied air, intermingled with fumes hit him in the face, making him cough and jerking his grip on the twisted cables.  He could feel the flesh shredding from his blistered hands and as the blood started to flow he felt them as they began to slip down the tightly wound skeins.

Stretching his neck backwards, he looked up and found that there wasn't a large amount of the cable remaining before it splayed out like the tendrils of a squid, warped and curled out of shape, and the razor sharp ends glinting wickedly in the half-light.

Doctor Beckett heard a stifled groan from outside and he presumed that the sickly gust had also gotten to Tyler.

The Leaper knew that he was fast running out of options.  "Tyler, can you hear me?" Sam shouted and he held is breath whilst a reply came.

A muffled, "Yes, sure I can hear you," drifted in with the continual oscillation, which seemed to be growing louder with every second.

"Hold on a bit longer, Sin, help is on its way, a chopper has just landed," Tyler shouted in through the gap.  He turned to see two men in military uniform alighting from the helicopter's font doors and more from the back.  "Over here!" he yelled at them.  He could feel Sam's legs as they began to tremble with the strain and again he yelled at the advancing troops, "Over here! Hurry, I think he's gonna fall!"

Doctor Beckett couldn't tell what the youngster was saying, there was too much reverberation mixed in with Tyler's muted words.  Sam still thought that the oscillation was originating from the ventilation system and he had no idea that instead the sound he had been hearing and the current of air was initiated by the helicopter's landing.

"Tyler… I want… you to do… something… for me… okay?" Sam grunted amid gasps.

"Sure," came the indolent reply.

Tyler wanted to get away and how.  He felt sure that his lover wanted the same things as he had.  There was no future for either of them here, even before the accident.  He was certain that Sin had bashed his head after being thrown from the car and was suffering a mild concussion.  He also thought that it was really strange that Sin was acting so indifferently towards him and he'd not done that since he'd first arrived at this bizarre complex in the middle of nowhere.  He remembered their first meeting being strained but once Sinjin knew that they were of the same mind, the green light was on and it was full steam ahead from then on.

"Let go of… one leg ahhh… nd take ahhh… firm grip on… the other… then on the… count of three… I want you… to give… my… foot ahhh… huge push, got it?" Sam interjected Tyler's thoughts.

Tyler released the Leaper's right leg and Sam found a firm foothold.

"On three or after three," Tyler stalled.

"Didn't I… just say… on three?" the annoyance in the Leaper's tone was intermingled with strain.  His shredded hands were conducting agonizing bolts of torment to the pain receptors in his brain and both of his legs felt like sizzling lead balloons.

"Okay, just making sure, that's all, Sin." Tyler verified.  "Ready!"

Sam gritted his teeth as he arched his back and walked his hands excruciatingly up the cables, and on gaining only a few inches he called out, "Ready… One…" he tensed the muscles in his right thigh and grimaced when on preparing muscles in his calf, they twanged with reluctance.  "Ahhh… Two," he hoped he could do this and he closed his eyes for a brief moment before fractiously howling out the last decree, "THREE!"

With his right leg, Sam pushed with all of his might whilst Tyler thrust forward with the Leaper's other.  Doctor Beckett felt himself swing violently in the opposite direction and it was all he could do to keep his slippery grip on the shorn cables.  He looked up when the momentum was at its peak and whispered, 'Hell, I'm no Tarzan,' and saw that his hands were now dangerously close to the razor sharp prongs.

"Tyler, grab both of my legs as I swing back through!" Sam griped hastily as the merciless spikes reached out, ready and waiting to impale each of his hands.

Only when he felt the fumbling grip tighten about his ankles did Sam release his grasp on the cables.  He was right; the devilish spikes were too close for comfort and as his impetus was propelled horizontally he felt the prongs gouge onto the flesh of his forearms.

"Gnnnnaaaaahhhhh!" he screamed into the cavernous pit and "Gnnnuuuufff!" when he felt his body pummel into the framework of the elevator door.

Tyler just managed to take hold of his lover's ankles and take the strain of his weight when he heard something as it scuttled up from behind.  He didn't take much notice; at first he thought the cavalry had arrived.  It was only when one of the servicemen jostled him to one side that he realized something was wrong.

"Gnnnnaaaaahhhhh!  Gnnnuuuufff!" he heard his friend's screams but his lover was torn away as he was hauled to one side.

"Siiiinnnjiiiinn!" Tyler struggled and yelled into the opening but it was too late, Doctor Beckett had already started to plummet into the blackness.

"Where the hell, is the net?!"  Doctor Beckett bellowed out as he somersaulted out of control and he felt weightless and dizzy as his body was consumed into the yawning chasm.

The prickle, as the Leap started to take over couldn't have come too soon, already he was gasping from the thickening fumes that threatened to take away his sense of perspective.

Project: Quantum Leap

Waiting Room: 11:03am

"What the heck?" Edward St. John uttered as the strangest feeling started to evaporate.  He took in his surroundings; they seemed familiar but the swiss-cheesing effect wouldn't give him any right of entry to the information required.  "Where?" he muttered aloud, he knew that he should know the answer to his question but that part of his brain was refusing admission.  The cinematography played out in his head but all of the images remained alien to him.

He arose from his recumbent position and slid upright, his legs dangling predisposed towards the floor and with his hands clenched nervously onto the edge of the bench.

"How can I be here? When…" he swallowed his thought, he felt sick to his stomach but he couldn't recall why.

He remembered being with Tyler but that was about it.  He felt the wave of nausea begin its encumbering journey from his stomach as he slipped to the floor.  Bending his head low, he leaned with his hands on the bench and took several deep breaths before he felt anything like normal.

He was completely off guard when, as he raised his head, he saw someone else's reflection instead of his own.  He shot backwards and pinned himself to the wall of the Waiting Room.

It was several minutes before he even dare move and only then to raise a hand to his painful head.  A large contusion on his forehead told him that what he'd believed, he'd thought; could be true after all.  He ran the pictures through his mind again, they hadn't changed.  Pictures and feelings started coming back to him but still they felt more of an intrusion and, that they didn't in fact belong to him.

Every inch of him ached and he longed to rest his throbbing head.  He wanted to return to the bench and lie down but the image he'd seen reflected in its glossiness terrified him more than his longing.

And so he remained; statue like and staring at the polished surface, and wondering at what he should do next.  After an enduring interval, curiosity triumphed and without thinking, he ominously edged his way forwards.  He stood guardedly for a few moments before tilting himself just enough to see a partial reflection.

Images popped out from the holes in his memory as the reflected face held his gaze.  Once more recognition swept over him but again, he had that same feeling that the remembrances were not his.  He leaned in closer and studied the features intently.

"Beckett?  Samu… Doctor Samuel Beckett?  Why am I seeing you and why am I here in the Waiting Room?"

St. John stood back and slowly turned his head towards the door.

"Ziggy?  Let me out of here immediately!" he ordered and he waited a few seconds before repeating his command.

After no response, he hesitantly stepped towards the sealed door. "Drat your insubordination, I said open this door now!" he commanded and in the end, when no response came, he looked up to the observation deck.  "Okay everyone, quit this tom-foolery, I do have work to do!"

A muscle in his cheek twitched when the expected hiss of escaping of air from the pressurized door didn't occur.

"Work?" he thought aloud and then he realized that he wasn't working at all, that he, and Tyler had made other plans that morning.

He gingerly touched at his head again as memories began to intercede, his confusion replaced by total recall and he remembered exactly what it was that had taken place.  He started to panic and thump violently against the door.

"Verbena!  Donna!  Tina!" St. John shouted each colleague's name in turn.  "Why can't any of you hear me?"

Then, awareness crept up on him.

'If what I witnessed really happened then…' he shook his head. 'No wonder there is no one is around to hear me,' he thought, but still he couldn't reason why, he should've taken Doctor Beckett's place in the Waiting Room.

As he hammered on the door, a sudden ricocheting explosion shook the very foundations he was standing upon.  Even though the Waiting Room was sound and earthquake proofed, he could feel the potent tremors through the door.  He was not normally prone to heart fluctuations but being in the situation that he now found himself, he felt his heart stop temporarily.

As the vibrations began to die down, he felt another strange tingling sensation as his surroundings began to gently shiver and shimmer, 'Not another explosion,' were the last words he thought as his body departed the Waiting Room.

Even before he had regained his sensibilities, St. John could feel himself falling and he repeatedly glimpsed an instant of light as he somersaulted over and over again.  "Tyyyylllleeeer!" he cried out as he plummeted into the black eye of mortality.

PART SEVEN

A380 SUPERJUMBO, 

Flight 411: en route from Dulles Airport, Washington DC to Albuquerque International Sunport, New Mexico

June 6, 2005: 10:17 am

Inaugural flight        

The rapidity of the diminishing Leap took Doctor Beckett relatively by surprise.  The first thing he sensed was newness, everything smelt brand-new; from the sparkle of the double windscreen, down to the feel of the lever in his hand.  His attention was immediately drawn upward by a red flashing light and as his vision rose, he was confronted with a dazzling array of blinking lights, flip switches and button-like devices.  Nothing of the like had he seen before.

He hadn't been aware of any sound until a cold, automated voice repeatedly called out to him:

"Fault in engine two!  Shut down system!  Fault in engine two!  Shut down…"

Doctor Beckett turned to his right; to see who it was that was speaking to him so mechanically.

The seat next to him was empty and so he turned half circle.

The two seats behind him were also empty and the metal cabinet between the two was strewn with crumpled documents, as too was the floor.  It was then that he picked up on another sound that had been masked by the mechanized diction.  A sound he recognized and filled him full of dread.  He turned back to the instrument panel and the piercing alarm trilled in conjunction with the flashing red light.

He hadn't a clue as to which switch to flip or at which button to press to fulfill the command of the manufactured voice.

"Help!" he uttered halfheartedly as he rotated fully in his seat.

The door to the cockpit was closed and to its right was another chair he hadn't noticed before and slumped across it was an unconscious crewman, his mouth fell open as the annunciation of the voice suddenly changed:

"Fault in engine four!  Shut down system!  Fault in engine two!  Shut down system!" which made Sam jolt his head upwards again.

Now he saw two flashing red rights.

"Oh, God!  Where are the rest of the crewmen?  Al," Sam gazed about in confusion.  "I think I'm gonna need some help here!" he gulped fretfully.

As he anxiously started to release the safety harness, he suddenly remembered that he must check if the autopilot was engaged.  He hadn't given it a thought since his arrival.  He was pleased to find it clearly labeled on the lower panel and that it was set to auto.

"Good," he mumbled under his breath and patted delicately at the column to the left of his legs.

Other instruments showed that the plane was flying level and that the altitude was set at seventeen thousand feet.  Sam noted that instead of each of the instruments being encased in the usual circle of glass, each of these instruments had its own liquid crystal display.  'No painted on numbers and swiveling needles for this design, Al will have a field day this lot,' Sam thought in an attempt to remain calm.

He then eagerly stood up to get a closer look at the upper panel, he wondered if any of the numerous contraptions had markings to indicate their use.

"Drat!" he spat out when he found only discernable symbols and so he turned to is 'laid out' comrade.  The uniform he was wearing was very similar to the one Sam found himself in, the only difference Sam noticed, was the braiding around the sleeves, he had three braids whilst the man in the chair only had two.

"Thank God for nametags," Sam joyfully mused when he saw a badge pinned to they guy's lapel.  He then looked to his own and read it aloud, "Capt. Daniel B. Townsend." He smiled deliberately.  "Pleased to meet you; Lieut. Stephen F. Quinn.  I'm just sorry that you can't be of any assistance but I do know someone who can.  Where the hell is he?"

"Ste—eeph—en!" Sam half gasped, half stuttered out as he remembered.  "Oh Al!  No wonder you're not here," he added miserably as he checked over the encumbered Lieutenant.

Thankfully, Sam decided that the man was going to be just fine.  He'd have a hell of a headache when he came to but apart from the swelling on Stephen's temple, Sam couldn't find much else seriously wrong.  Doctor Beckett hastily returned to the instrument panel and checked the time on the overhead clock and correlated it with his host's wristwatch, finding it to be 10:31 am.

He now knew why he was here and he tried desperately to recall the time of his last Leap, if he did know, it was securely buried somewhere deep.  Whilst he sought out the much-needed information, he studied the control panel carefully, digesting every symbol meticulously.

To Sam, the indication lay somewhere near to the two flashing red lights but there were no hints there for him to follow, the orders from the now very aggravating voice grated at his nerves.

Doctor Beckett shook his head and grimaced.  His eyes painstakingly searched the lower instrument deck, seeking out anything that could possibly be useful.  The only fact he'd learnt was that this plane had four engines and two of them were being problematic.  A thought crossed his mind; 'Can this wreck fly with only two engines?  I certainly hope so.'

His eyes rested on a small flip switch which, to the untrained eye, rested almost undetectably between the two seats, below it a tiny icon of a loud speaker.

Sam flicked it.

"Enter voice command!" the ergonomic voice iterated.

Sam was caught napping and looked up startled.  "Erm…"

"Command unrecognized!" the voice monotoned.

"Shut down system… two?" Sam supplicated nervously and screwed up his eyes tightly but peeked through one, subtly.

"Shutting down system two… Enter next voice command!"

As he felt the winding down of the first engine, Doctor Beckett repeated the command for system four, the onboard computer obeyed.  This time a sudden jolt pitched him in his seat and he grabbed hold of the control lever to steady himself.

"Autopilot off!" the voice announced.

"Off!" Sam reiterated with terror, his eyes wide and he fumbled for words, "But… I don't want it off… turn it back on!"

"Command unrecognized!"

"Huh?"

"Command unrecognized!"

"Autopilot on!" Sam vocalized as he felt the plane's sudden downturn.

"Command unrecognized!"

"Hell!"  Doctor Beckett shrieked as he relocated the autopilot's indicator which now told him that it was off.  There was no switch, button or any other means to change its state.  "Dammit, how do I turn the autopilot on?" Sam asked.

"Command unrecognized!" the monotonous voice replicated.

"Engage autopilot," Sam corrected.

"Command unrecognized!"

"Manual!  There has to be a 'manual' to tell me how to fly this damn thing!" he uttered jumpily as he searched about him.

"Command unrecognized!"

"Shut up!" Sam glared to where the discouraging diction originated.

"Command unrecognized!"

"You sound like Ziggy," Sam cautioned.  "I'm sure I'd get more support from the speaking clock."  Sam wasn't about to be the cause of the repetitive negation a further time.  "Ah—ah, not so quick," he teased and wagged a cautionary finger as he toggled the voice control to the off position.

Miraculously, Sam remembered the short flying lesson his friend had given him and gazed at the confusion of instruments on the panel above him. 

He recognized one or two but he did recall what Al had told him, about keeping the plane level and his eyes searched out the instrument with the wings and maneuvered the handle on the column lightly.

"This is… child's play," he said feeling a little smug when the plane leveled off without a hitch and settled at nine thousand feet.  The annoyance of the onboard computer silenced, he sat back and started to enjoy the ease of this innovative flying machine's potential.  Even with two engines down, he felt as if it handled like a dream.  But what his swiss-cheesed brain didn't remind him; was the fact that his dream would soon turn into his worst nightmare.

A tapping sound stirred Doctor Beckett from his thoughts.  "Capt'n Townsend, is everything alright in there?" a timid, feminine voice almost whispered from behind.

The Leaper didn't recognize the name immediately and it wasn't until the tapping sounded again did he realize that the woman was calling to him.

"Capt'n Townsend?" she repeated with a tone of consternation.  "Are you okay?"

"Ahh… um, yeah… I think so… Come in, Miss… erm… err.  The door is open," Sam hoped; he didn't want to leave the controls because the plane would take another nosedive and he still hadn't figured out how to set the autopilot to on.

"Capt'n Townsend, you know I can't open the door.  Not until one of the crew, namely you, releases the security lock," she said indignantly.

"S—secure—ity lock?" Sam questioned as his sight returned to the lower control panel.  "Where?" he asked as he snapped the safety harness closed.

"Between the seats, next to the lever for the autopilot," she paused for a few seconds as Sam searched the area in question.  "Are you sure you're okay Capt'n?"

"Yeah… just feelin' a little nervy I guess," Sam assured and as he pressed the green push button with the red circle, a clicking noise and a feint buzz sounded from the cockpit door.

"Let me look at you!"  A woman, dressed in a pale blue uniform said brusquely as she entered the flight deck.  "With only you here, we can't take any chances, now can we?" she half questioned and as she pushed the door closed she glanced briefly towards the man sprawled on the chair.

"No, I-I don't suppose we s-should."  Doctor Beckett looked curiously at the woman who was now staring into his eyes.

"You know Danny?  I never noticed that your eyes were green, before now."

"Green?  Yeah—they—they've always been green—color green," the leaper garbled forth with a coy smiling, frown.

"I think I should get the doc to take a look at you too, you seem a little pale to me."

"Doc?  What doc?"

"The doc we have onboard.  Lucky ain't we?" she grinned broadly, disclosing perfectly aligned teeth.

"Lucky?"

"Oh Danny!" she stood straight and placed her hands on her hips.  "I guess it's the shock of seeing Joey like that, enough to traumatize even the strongest of stomachs," she said subsequently, mellowing in her assumption.

"Joey?" Sam stared at her, open-mouthed.

"The others, Jez and Dunk, are gonna be fine, but Joey took the brunt of it," the woman shuddered.  "Who'd have thought that a freak electrical storm could've done that to a man?  And in here of all places!  This plane was designed to be the 'be all and end all' of aviation accidents."

The woman whittled on and Sam let her, at least if she was doing the talking then he didn't have to.

"Oh Danny!" she iterated, "…and you haven’t even got the autopilot doing the hard work for you!" she scolded as she flipped the lever.

"Autopilot on!" the monotonous voice droned and Sam blinked expectantly.

"Wondered where the hell that darned gismo had gone," Sam uttered as he glanced quaintly at the flight attendant.

"I suppose you're gonna tell me now that you were taking a sicky on the day the intricacies of the cabin were being discussed?  Either that or you were paying more attention to us, ladies."

"I-I don't think so!" Sam augmented, indicatively as he shook his head.

"I assume you're still on the correct heading?" she asked, almost vehemently.

The Leaper nodded, unconvincingly.

"Dianna?" another younger face appeared as the cockpit door suddenly swung open.  "How goes it?"

Dianna gave Stephen a discerning gaze.  "You can fetch the doc to have a look at Steve, he been out way too long.  He's probably only concussed but better be on the safe side… huh, Heather?"

"Oki doki," Heather crooned and began to back out of the door.

An abrupt jolt thrust Heather into the open framework, whilst Dianna was propelled forward and almost toppled over the seat next to Sam.  Doctor Beckett lunged forward into his restraints and he was thankful that he'd had the foresight in securing them.

The monochromic aloofness of the voice started up again, "Fault in engine three!  Shut down system!  Fault in engine three! Shut down system!"

"How many's that?" Dianna asked as she toppled to the floor in shock.

"Th-thre—ee!" the Leaper enunciated slowly.

"THREE!" Heather and Dianna barked together assertively.

"B-ut—but we c-can't possibly fly on j-just one engine!" Heather screeched.

Sam gazed at the two other occupants in wonder.  "Oh Boy!" he grimaced as he returned his focus on the controls.

Sam hesitated before flipping the switch to activate the voice recognition procedure.

"Danny!  What are you waiting for?" Dianna exacted.  "We don't have a choice!"

"Great choices!" Heather extorted.  "We either explode in midair or crash and burn.  Which would you choose, Dianna?  I know which I'd prefer!"

Sam glanced rapidly between the two women.  "It might not even come to either," Sam said as calmly as his wrecked nerves would allow.

"MIGHT!" Heather screamed hysterically.  "The engineers of the Titanic said that ship was unsinkable and it sank on its maiden voyage just like we will on ours!"

Doctor Beckett looked past Heather when he heard further, distant screams.  He noticed that not only was the cockpit door half open, the door to the main fuselage was open as well.  He gazed at the rows upon rows of terrified passengers, 'They must have heard her,' Sam thought as he turned and glared at Heather.

"Is it in your job description to terrify the passengers?" Sam asked assertively.  He felt heartless and cold at what he'd just said but he knew deep down that it had been a necessary step to take.

"No," Heather sobbed meekly.

"Then pull yourself together girl and do your job!"  Sam bit at his lip, hoping this would take the sting out of his words.

He needn't say more, for Dianna stridently took over.  "We're running an airliner here, not an adventure playground!" she then looked over to Sam.  "And you, Capt'n Daniel Townsend, you assume the duty that you're professed to perform and do what you have to do to land this plane safely.

"As senior stewardess, it is my duty to see that the passengers are not unduly stressed and also to see that the team beneath me does the same." Dianna glared at Heather. "Have you got that?"

The younger girl nodded.

"Then go and clean yourself up and while you're at it, calm yourself down, I think the passengers are fraught enough as it is without seeing you bawling your eyes out!"

Heather skulked out of the cockpit and into the galley.

"Well, what are you waiting for, Dumbo to fly past with assistance?" she mocked cursively, "Der—um—bow!" spelling it out.

Sam's cheek twitched at the adolescent inflection and he flipped the switch to initiate the process of activating the computer's detached voice.

"Enter voice command!" the stimulated voice redressed into the cabin.

Dianna nodded her approval and followed Heather, chinking the cabin door closed behind her.

Doctor Beckett prayed that closing down a third engine wouldn't be disadvantageous for the safety of the passengers.  He gulped nervously and scrunched his face before giving the command.  "Shut down system… three?"

"Shutting down system three… Enter next voice command!" the computer chronicled as before.

The sudden jolt as the plane suddenly dipped to one side was as unexpected to Doctor Beckett as it was to the computerized system.  It was evident that this eventuality hadn't been considered, the instruments on the panel were all over the place and didn't know what to register.  They finally gave into a chaotic remonstration of affluent silvery sparks.

"Al!" Sam hollered into the spinning void.  "I don't think that even you can help me now!"

"Command unrecognized!" the disembodied inflection voiced.

PART EIGHT

Grasping the handle of the lever firmly in both hands, he heaved at the column, forcing his weight into the back of the seat and bending it rearward with the strength that was needed to level the aircraft out.

Keeping an eye on the erratic behavior of the instruments, Sam just happened to look out of the cockpit windscreen.  The airplane was on a direct heading for a cluster of buildings and he struggled desperately with the controls but they wouldn't respond.  The ground was still fast coming up to meet him and he tugged harder at the controls.  "Come on baby… climb," he urged.

"Oh boy!" he gulped when he saw that the target the plane was zooming in on like a homing pigeon was indeed his project and his… home.

He needed to bank about 15 degrees right for the runway and he hoped that it was long enough to take a plane of this magnitude.  An evoked memory told him that the runway had only been used for light aircraft and the way this plane was handling, this was no measly Cessna.  He desperately wished that someone could talk him through this and he swallowed back a lump as he remembered his last Leap, and the eventual outcome. 

He tussled with the unresponsive controls and eventually the aircraft gradually became amenable.  Bit by bit the plane maneuvered successfully towards the runway and as Sam watched desperately out of the side window, he saw that the tip of the wing was only feet from the ground.

He smiled with satisfaction at his unaided achievement and as the wings paralleled to the horizon, he returned his attention forward.

"No!  No!  This can't be…" the Leaper spouted frantically when he saw a vehicle crossing the head of the runway and directly in his path.  It was too late to bank.  The plane was far too close to the ground and with only one engine, if he attempted to climb; he feared the remaining engine would stall.

"I… am… so… sorry…" he whispered and a silent prayer left his lips as he braced himself for the impending impact.

The collision of vehicles was nothing but a mere bump but all the same Sam looked behind him in anticipation.  Of course, he couldn't see anything, it was just pure instinct that made him do it, but Sam knew that he'd left a trail of devastation in his wake and his hands trembled with the unnerving experience.

Something in Sam's gut told him to ease back on the throttle and as if he'd done this routine a thousand times, he reflexively shuttered the flaps.  He became aware of the engine's vibrations as they began to subside and as the wheels screeches and skidded on the tarmac, he unwittingly triggered the airbrakes.  The reverse thrusters roared out methodically and as the speed leisurely slowed so did Sam's heart, almost to a standstill when he undeniably witnessed that the runway definitely wasn't long enough.

The last of the tarmac rolled away beneath the airliner's fuselage and still at some speed, the craft was jarred and bumped along on the sun baked rocks of the desert terrain.

Sam couldn't believe it when little by little the landscape stopped stampeding towards him.  Knuckles white and muscles tense, he couldn't bear to release his grip on the control stick.  He feared the whole momentum would start up again if he relaxed.

It wasn't long before the tapping on the door resumed afresh and as he released the security lock, the door burst open.

"Daniel Brady Townsend," Dianna squealed above the rising cheers from the cabins behind as she rushed headlong at the Leaper.  She practically choked him half to death as she squeezed her arms about his throat.  "I do believe you are one damned hero!"

Doctor Beckett had no choice but to free his fossilized grip on the control stick, he needed his hands to subdue the zealousness of the woman behind him.

"Cool it… will ya!" Sam choked out.  "This damned h-he-ro needs to take a breather."  Saying that one word choked him as much as the woman's embrace but he couldn't think of anything immediately, that would get him out of it.

"Don't you be so modest, not just anyone could have done what you did."

Doctor Beckett blushed with embarrassment but made an attempt to hide it as he acted as if he was having trouble with the safety harness.

"Is everyone okay back there?" Sam asked as he turned and looked through the opening into the cabins.

"Just a few bumps and bruises, nothing that time won't fix," Dianna said with a reflective shrug.

"You can say that again," Sam raised his eyebrows at the quirkiness of Dianna's statement.  "So no one's badly injured then?"

Dianna fell quiet and she avoided Sam's eyes by turning away.

Doctor Beckett stood and climbed out of his seat.  "What is it?  What's happened?" Sam questioned, forcing Dianna to face him.

"It's Joey. He didn't make it," Dianna said succinctly and with sorrow.

His grip on Dianna's arm loosened and instead wrapped his arm about her shoulders, drawing her close.

"Not another," Sam mumbled as he closed his eyes and sunk his head into Dianna's shoulder.

He felt Dianna stiffen. "Another?" she whispered softly as she pushed him away slightly.  "We've only lost… Joey."

“Yeah… just… Joey," Sam said soothingly, not wanting to alarm the woman further.

It was at that tender moment that Sam heard the Imaging Chamber door open.  It was a difficult time for Sam as he endeavored to suppress his excitement at seeing his friend alive.

"Ooooo Sam, she's a cutie!" the Observer jokingly swooned on seeing the woman in Sam's arms.  "And look at this baby!  I'm in luuuuurrrv, Sam!" Al drooled as he gazed around at Sam's surroundings.

Doctor Beckett showed his disapproval in the only way he could and he glared at his friend but at the same time a joyous smile curved the corners of his lips.

"What, Sam?" the Admiral quipped with a gleam in his eye, he knew that Sam had mistakenly taken his statement the wrong way and added, "The plane, Sam!  I'm talking about this stunning beauty of a plane!"

Dianna pushed the Leaper to arms length.  "I-I shouldn't be here, I-I should be supervising the emergency evacuation.  Sorry Danny, I've got to go."

"Take it easy, Dianne—na, there's no rush," Sam advised as she left the cockpit.  But as she heard his words, she turned slightly and blew him a kiss before closing the door.

"Sam, you're not gonna believe this, but you're only an hour away from your own time, you've never been so close to your own time bef…" Al spoke quickly as though he couldn't get his words out fast enough.

"Al, I know Al," Sam interrupted.

"How?  How do you know?" the Observer gave his friend a look of perplexed concern.

"I've been closer, 'cos I have—a former me—has been here before, in the future—my future—your past—just after the plane hit, so I should be Leaping in right about…" Sam looked down at his host's wristwatch and stared at the secondhand as it ticked around the dial. "…now!"  Without raising his head, Sam looked at his friend.

The Observer did a double take as he gazed quizzically at the Leaper.  "I'm not with ya Sam?"

"You do know where we are, don'tcha?" Sam asked, grinning knowingly.

"No," Al shook his head.  "We didn't get that far, Ziggy ordered me into the Imaging Chamber 'cos your vitals were shooting right off the scale.  After losing you so unexpectedly, I think even Ziggy was amazed that we located you again so soon."

"Al!" Sam indicated to Al's pocket with a crease of his brow and a drop of his eyes, telling him that he should consult the handlink.  He couldn't suppress his delight at knowing something for once before Al even knew about it.

No words were spoken.  He didn't need to.  The expression on his face told Sam all that he needed to know on how he was feeling.

Without taking his eyes from Sam, Al reached into his pocket and withdrew the handlink.  As he brought the device up to eyelevel, he redressed his stance a little and fleetingly glanced at the contraption in his hand.  Then, cocking his head slightly, he returned his gaze to Sam, his eyes slitting questioningly before summoning Ziggy.

Sam thrust his hands into his pockets and sighed deeply, and with much amusement as he watched his friend's puzzlement.

The Admiral glanced back at Ziggy as she started to speak: "You requested my attendance, Admiral?"

Sam's attention was drawn to the young Lieutenant as he gained consciousness; he groaned and rubbed gingerly at the lump on his head.  He was just about to attend to the recouping Stephen when a confident Heather entered the cabin and took over.

"Where are we?" the Observer asked without acknowledging the holographic presence.

Ziggy's reaction was imitative of her creator's as she replied curtly, "Take a look out of the window, Admiral!"

"He'll be okay, though I think he may have a concussion," Sam said reassuringly to the young flight assistant.

"Window?" the Observer recapped as he glanced rapidly from one window to the others, and then re-centered himself outside of the aircraft.

The Leaper shook his head wondrously at the departing observer before looking down at the now competent Heather as she attended the wounded Stephen.  Confident she was doing a good job, he strode the few steps out of the cockpit and towards the nearest of the eight emergency exits, that were situated on both sides of the plane.

"I don't believe this, Sam!" Al shouted.  Sam saw him a few yards away, flapping his arms about in excitement.  He also saw the crew from the Project's own hangar; they were already on their way and were speeding best they could along the rugged terrain towards the stranded aircraft.

As Sam stood atop the gangway, he could also see in the distance a small flurrying cloud of grey smoke.  A lot smaller than the one he'd seen when he'd visited at approximately the same time, but in another dimension.  Then, he hadn't seen the car, but had a very strong inkling as to its occupants.

'What was it Tyler had said?  Something about he and Sin running off together?' his befuddled mind tried desperately to catch up.  'What was it they were running away from?'  Sam shook his head when he realized they weren't running away from anything, but to something, a new life and away from Quantum Leap.  'Fine, if that's what they wanted.'

Doctor Beckett looked again at the swirl of smoke as it was carried away on the breeze and, dispirited and downcast, he thought of what might have been for both of them if he hadn't been flying the plane.  He then swallowed hard at the remembrance of what had happened when he wasn't at the controls and he sighed.

'I've done it again, haven't I?  Traded stranger's lives for those I love.'  He crouched at the top of the escape chute watching his friend prance about like a young doe and he smiled.  It always amazed him, how a man of Al's age could keep forever young.

And he was young.  But best of all, he was alive.

"You're home Sam, I can't believe it, just a shame you're not yourself, otherwise you could stay, permanently."

Sam squinted into the sun and saw the dazzling whiteness of his project in the distance.

Standing proud.

Standing so magnificently pretentious and so brazenly intact and he felt ashamed at his feelings; he too was feeling proud, even if it meant the sacrifice of the few, for the many.

He pushed off from the exit way and slid down the length of the chute to the dusty earth.  It felt good to be on home turf but in his heart he knew he couldn't stay, in as much as he wanted to.

"Such is life," the Leaper deemed at his friend's words and at his own thoughts.  "What is this life if full of care, when we have no time to stand and stare…"

"What is it, Sam?  It's not like you to be so melancholy," Al queried as his fervor began to subside.

The project's aging fire truck was almost upon them as Sam indicated to Al the plume of smoke.

"They died Al and there was nothing I could do to stop it.  Who were they?  From the project I suppose, do I know them?"

The Observer hit out at the handlink and a confused Ziggy pixilated into focus.  "I'm not receiving any data on the pervious history, Admiral.  There's some sort of time flux, all that's coming through is that the plane crashed and over 500 people died."

"500!" Al accentuated, "you should be pleased Sam, not down in the dumps.  You saved their lives, pal."

"Need any help here pard?" a voice called out as a heavy hand landed on Sam's shoulder.

"Sam, this is Rick, he's the chief of security and engineering."

Sam turned his head to face the stranger.  "Oh, erm, hello," he replied cautiously.

"That was some real fancy flying you exhibited there pa…" Rick took in the insignia on Sam's uniform,  "…Capt'n.  Anyone injured?"

"Dianna, s-she's the stewardess, she says that there's a lot of cuts and bruises but nothing serious, except for Joey the n-navigator.  Lightening strike I think it was, he-he's d-dead," Sam gulped and looked anxiously over to his friend for confirmation.

"Ziggy's got nada," Al said with a shrug as further vehicles pulled up alongside the fire truck.

"…And then there's Stephen, that's Lieutenant Stephen Quinn, I think he's still in the flight cabin but someone's already attending to him," Sam uttered nervously.

"Not to worry," Rick waved a hand over to an eight wheeler when he heard a door slam.  "Help is here and more is coming," he said as he strolled off towards the vehicle.

"Oh… my, Sam, it's Beth!  She mustn't see me Sam," Al said uneasily as he sidestepped, putting his friend between himself and his wife.

"Don't be ridiculous Al, you're a hologram, she can't see you."

"Don't be too sure on that one Sam, we’re so in tune, she knows where I am every minute of every day and she knows what I'm doing."

"That's 'cos the majority of your time, is spent with me."

"He might be able to see me though," Al said agitatedly as another door slammed shut.

Sam turned to see whom it was that was making his friend so jumpy.  Sam's mouth dropped in astonishment when he saw a real life Admiral Calavicci rounding the end of the vehicle and heading his way but he was not as dumbfounded when he saw who it was who was following him.

"Donna!" Sam gasped and immediately forgot about his friend who was taking cover behind him.  He stepped towards the anxious looking pair and taking the real life Al by the hand, he shook it vigorously.

"Sam, don't!" the Observer yelled out in warning.  "Neither of them sees you as you… but I can't understand this at all.  I don't remember coming out here an hour ago.  I was with you in the Imaging Chamber.  What the hell's going on here?"

Sam turned confidently towards his fiend and winked.  The engineering crew worked speedily in erecting a makeshift stairway to aid the safe removal of the passengers that were still onboard.

After exchanging introductions and the minimum of pleasantries, Al found that he could breathe again, especially when Sam stepped back and let the medical crew take over.  The walking injured were gathered up and taken to an awaiting minibus whilst Rick took one of his teams and inspected the airliner for damage and fuel leakages.  He watched fretfully from behind the huge four-wheeled undercarriage as his other self went onboard with Beth and Donna, followed by other medical personnel.

"Well?" Al said agitatedly when Sam backed up enough to be in earshot.

Sam disregarded his friend for a moment; he was too engrossed at seeing Donna again.  "Al, Donna is alive too," he said quietly, staring at the trio as they entered the body of the stricken plane.

"Sa—am?" the Observer half yelled, half questioned his friend.  "Ya know somethin', don'tcha?"

The Leaper nodded, partly turning his head and revealing a beaming smile.  "I do."  He looked back at the deluge of vehicles surrounding the area.  "You know, every time I see her, she's more beautiful than the last time I saw her," he stalled.  He knew the waiting was annoying his friend to the point of distraction, but he needed time to reach a fitting explanation, the appropriate words, the principal phases but his friend's impatience was wearing him down.

"Sa—am?" Al repeated intolerantly.

"Okay, my mind boggling, transcendent, psychedelic urchin, you want it so badly, I'm gonna give it to you with both barrels."  Sam looked at Al's quixotical expression and waited for a response.

For the first time, Sam could see that his friend was speechless.

"Al, the reason why you can't remember what you're doing now, is because you didn't do what you're doing now and the reason why Ziggy can't find any data is because she wasn't around in the here and now.  Haven't you figured it out yet, either of you, the reason I'm here, captaining this damn stupid plane?" Sam pointed at the debilitated carcass of the once magnificent flying machine.

Donna was watching from the top of the improvised flight of steps, she paid careful attention to the man who had introduced himself as Captain Daniel Townsend.  There was something about him that was strangely familiar, something in his actions, the way he held himself.  He also looked as though he was talking to someone, someone invisible and she only knew of one person that had an invisible friend.  But she couldn't understand it.  If this was indeed her Sam, then why wasn't the Admiral in the Imaging Chamber with him?  It didn't make any sense.

She was too far away to hear what was being said and she watched evermore closely as the Captain continued with the one-sided conversation, lip reading whenever she could.

She made out a few words and some of those words were very familiar to her, like: 'Al' and 'Ziggy' and 'the hear and now' and 'reason I'm here'; she thought astutely, 'Now why would a Captain know of Ziggy and why would a Captain be talking of *the here and now and the reason for being here*?'  Whilst the Captain was preoccupied, she sneakily moved in closer.

"There is no data in my databanks to confirm your theories Doctor Beckett!" Ziggy stated nonplussed.

"Yeah, to save the lives of the passengers, and you did it buddy," Al said rationally.

"There is no data in my databanks to confirm you theories Doctor Beckett!" Ziggy stated nonplussed.

"Ziggy," Sam said edgily, "…this is no theory I'm talking here, I'm talking facts.  This exact time in the original history, this plane crashed into that building not only killing the passengers on board but everyone at the project too."

"Nonsense!" Ziggy condemned haughtily.

"Listen to me Ziggy, I was here!  Al, I saw it and only minutes ago I was seated in that pane that was on a direct heading for the project!" Sam emphatically abridged.  "But you don't remember it because of the time displacement parody."

Donna heard the whole of the Captain’s last sentence and she was more intrigued than ever to see him for herself, she hadn't taken much notice before but now she was glued to every word.

"You mean we're like the people whose lives you've changed, like they don't remember what happened, originally?" Al conjectured.

"Exactly!" Sam declared resolutely.

Al shuddered and looked about him nervously, even with the air conditioning in the Imaging Chamber, he felt the chill run straight through to his bones.  "This is weird, Sam, I don't like weird!"

Sam's brow creased.  "You never did Al so why should you start to change the habits of a lifetime!"

"Uh-ho, here comes trouble, Sam!" the Observer said when he saw Donna ineffectually taking cover behind the steps.

Sam turned abruptly to see Donna quickly duck down behind the framework. "Al, that's my wife you're talking about," he uttered through the corner of his mouth and turned to give his best friend a blatant glare.

"Your wife, my wife, they're all trouble!" Al avowed with an habitual but resolute shrug.

Doctor Beckett returned his gaze towards the steps and saw Donna stoop again.  Donna knew the game was up and she felt it fitting to have been discovered.  "Sorry for interrupting but I didn't want to disturb you," she feigned.

"You're not interrupting, as you can see I'm all on my lonesome," Sam raised his hands to his immediate and apparently empty surroundings.

"You wish!"

Sam ignored Al's comment.

"I-I couldn't help but overhear some of what you were saying, who were you talking to?" Donna asked as she moved in closer, hoping to get an answer to one of her many questions.  She stopped short a few feet away.

"Talking to?  Ahh… habit I-I suppose, must be the training… talking with the computerized gadgets," Sam patted a hand on one of the huge tires.  "S-sometimes you get more sense out of modern technology and they don't answer back," he babbled unconvincingly and he wished she would say something to stop him from digging himself in deeper.

"I know, you feel like an idiot being caught talking to yourself, but don't be, I know someone who talks to himself all the time," Donna sighed and stepped closer.  "If only he was here so that I could talk to him, I'd give anything for just one moment alone with him."

"I know exactly how you feel," Sam smiled awkwardly and swallowed at the lump that had formed in his throat.  He wanted to take her in his arms, to tell her that is was really him, her husband, ask about their son, but he knew that he couldn't.  It was against the rules.  He turned briefly to his friend, who was watching him shrewdly, watching that he didn't make any mistakes or give anything away.  He was waiting for the inevitable: "Sam!"

"You remind me a lot of him, your gestures, your smile, your eyes," she said soothingly as she reached out a hand to touch him.

"Awww Gawd!  Sam, back off, I think she knows it's you!"  Al's words fell upon deaf ears.

"Sam?" Donna evoked a response and as she looked deep into his eyes; she couldn't resist the temptation to touch his cheek and as she did so it triggered the prickling sensation that Sam always associated with a Leap.  As he gazed lovingly at his wife, her aura fragmented and she became one with the blue haze until finally she was no more.

'I am floating again, weightless in this azure swirl of invigorating energy, a ray of bright light that transports me from life to life, from present to past, past to future, I never know where I will be dropped at next, until I arrive.  "Expect the unexpected" has become my motto and sometimes the unexpected can be very surprising.  But I never anticipated to be dropped off here:'

Somewhere in the Midlands of England

November 15, 1997

Late afternoon

Almost at once, he knew where he was from the smell and the stifling heat.  His hand was resting on the telephone and at first, Sam wondered if he was just about to make a telephone call or if…  But something prodded him, telling him that he had recently finished the call.  As his eyes strayed from a notebook he glanced at the window directly opposite.  Though the image was blurred, he could see that from his attire, he had once again traded places with Joanna and he was thankful that this time she was dressed in a more appropriate wardrobe.  'But…' he reasoned.  'Why am I back?  And, what haven't I accomplished?' 

As he looked about at his surroundings, everything seemed as though nothing had changed—all except for one thing—he somehow, felt stronger.  It was as if, Joanna, herself was stronger, more determined.

A vague memory stirred into his thoughts, this wasn't the first time he'd made a return visit into someone's life but the nebulous stirrings weren't giving anything away.  He felt a little lost as to what he should do but at least this time, unlike his previous visitation, he felt ready for whatever this Leap had to throw at him.

As he turned, he just happened to catch a glimpse of a reflected figure from the glass in one of the vivariums; the ghostly image simply had to be none other than the hideous troll-like skunk that he'd tackled earlier.

He watched beguiled, and waited as the reflected apparition moved shrewdly nearer.

When he was close enough, Sam about turned and glared forcefully at his adversary—his face as ruddy as the carpeting in the gallery and with one arm hanging limply but clutching at an oversized bottle.  Immediately, Sam knew that he'd been drinking again.  "I wasn't expecting you to come back so…"

"Well, I am here!" the brute growled, taking a staggering step forward.

"Have they let you out on bail?" Sam asked as he recalled how he'd been abruptly pulled away on his previous stopover.

"BAIL?!!" the lout spat out.  "Now why on earth would they want to go and do that for, huh?"

"But… I thought…"

"You think too much, Gorge!" Gerald snorted dissolutely.  "After all, they didn't have anything to charge me with, did they?" he drawled as he raised his hand to shoulder level and pointed the brim of the bottle in Sam's direction.  "So Gorge, you've done me a great favor, though I don't s'pose you've even realized it yet."

"Realized what?" Sam asked unassumingly.

"That you've made things very much worse for yourself, if you thought I was rough on you before then… you've not seen anything yet, lover."  Gerald started removing the belt from around his waist but paused to take a swig from the bottle.

Sam confronted him openly.  "Why are you doing this?  I know you do it for the money but what possible pleasure can you get from seeing women suffer?"

"You haven't got it, have you?  Call me perverse if you want but this ain't me standing here doing these stupid things," he said drolly as he wound the belt around his fist.  "I put all that down to you, tis your fault that I've become what I am and I'm gonna make damned well sure that you won't be doing it to anyone else."

"Me?" Sam posed, shocked at this man's derogatory attitude.  "What about everything you've done?  The women you've swindled and double-crossed, the lives you've ruined with your mindless and barbarous philandering.  I hear it said that you even drove one to suicide."

"Carla?"

"Yes Carla, how did you do it Jerry, did you sell her house from under her too?"

"GNNNAAAAGGGGHHH!!!" Gerald grunted as he lunged forwards and lashed out at Sam with the buckle end of the belt.  The first strike missed completely but with a snarl, he swung a subsequent backhander into the Leaper's face.

Sam blocked the blow with his forearm but not without consequence when the buckle snared the flesh above his wrist.

Wincing at the sting, Doctor Beckett managed to grasp at the harsh leather and tugged aptly, dragging a belittled Gerald to his knees.

"I'll kill you for this!" Gerald seethed, spraying saliva in his rage and in one foul swoop; he hurled the hefty bottle at Doctor Beckett.  Sam ducked just in time to see the flagon smash through the glass of a very large, built-in terrarium.

"Not if I have anything to do with it," Sam stated as he looked astutely from the broken glass and toward the slumped figure groveling drunkenly on the floor.  "Not if I can help it you won't," he pledged.

The Imaging Chamber door opened unexpectedly and Sam turned just as the Observer was stepping out.  "Sam…" Al cut short his words when, as he looked down, he saw the immense coils of a very large and very scaly snake.  "Whuuuoooha!" he yelled as he shuddered from head to foot and instantaneously hurdled through, and over the fixed framework.

Gerald heaved at his end of the leather strap and jolted an off guarded Sam to attention.

"That's one helluva dinosaur!" Al commented as he looked back quivering.

Gerald had used the belt as leverage and was now standing, fuming with rage and about to let loose his fists.  Again Doctor Beckett evaded the blow and as he ducked the unsteady legs of the drunken Gerald gave way and he landed in a heap on Sam's back.  Weighted down, Sam heaved him away and as Gerald cartwheeled, he landed heavily against the tank that his friend had forsaken only a short time ago.

Relieved of his burden, Sam turned to the Observer and quickly asked, "What do you have for me?"

"Nothin' really, only that you're here to finish what you'd started," Al saw Sam's strained expression and added, "…so Ziggy says."

"What else does Ziggy have to say?" Sam asked, frustrated.

"That's just it, she's not sayin' anythin'.  I think you hurt her feelings, Sam."

"So now she has feelings, how very convenient for her."

"Uh-uh… Sa—am, I think we've got company!" Al announced as he prodded an unsubstantial finger into Sam's upper arm and nodded his head towards a recovering Gerald.

Sam glanced at his friend guardedly but swiveled sharply when he heard his friend's connotation.

"TWO!!" the Observer yelped as he gawked boggle-eyed at the encroaching invertebrates.  "A two-headed demon!" the Observer declared.

Sure enough, Sam saw them as well.  Two gargantuan reticulated pythons awakened by the tussle, were meandering out of their enclosure.  Their heads as big as dinner plates and their thick muscular bodies intertwined with each other as well as their keeper.

Sam let out a gasp as he staggered backwards.

"Nasty, slimy critters," Al said expectantly.  "I think I'd prefer that other one to these.  Looks like they could crush a man's bones with the size of em!" the Observer shivered and was thankful once again for being a hologram.

"Huh—Gorge?  I need some help here!" Gerald instigated fretfully.

"Help?  Why?" Sam asked indignantly as an involuntary muscle twitched at his cheek.  "I think you're past help!" he averred challengingly.

"I'm outta here, Sam!" Al broadcast as he opened the Imaging Chamber door.  He took one last look at the two snakes and trembled uncontrollably.  "I know they're not really here but even the teeny ones give me the willies."

"You know it takes the two of us just to handle the one of them," Gerald pleaded.  He was keeping as still as was humanly possible so as not to rile the tempestuous creatures.  "You know what they're like; they'll strip the flesh from my bones with one bite.  Come on Gorge, at least help me get one off, afore they start coiling."

"What!  So you can continue with your assaults?"  Sam wanted to help but he didn't know the first thing about invertebrates, they were indigenous to the hotter climates and he couldn't understand why on earth people would want to keep one as a pet, let alone two.

"I promise I'll never touch you again, just help me," he implored as the female started to wind herself about Gerald's leg.  "Please!"

Sam held out his hands in desperation.  "If it takes two, then how the hell…"

"Phone Das, he'll know what to do," Gerald spoke slowly and trying to quell the anxious vibrations that he was transferring out to his overgrown pets.  "Tell him to bring Kez and Phil, they're good stropping lads."

Doctor Beckett backed off and picked up the receiver, then he placed it back in its cradle and flipped through the address book that he'd noticed earlier.

"What's his number?" Sam asked garishly, unable to locate a Daz in the notebook.

"Under Brocklehurst," Gerald spluttered out.

Fervently, Sam sought out the name, the pages tearing in his exuberance.  Ardently, he took up the receiver and dialed the number and when a gruff voice answered he told the talker to get his butt over as fast as he could and to bring as many of his friends as he could muster.

That done, Sam indirectly and cautiously made his way over to where Gerald lay.  The two rectics had wound themselves ever tighter and he didn't know where to start to disentangle all of the rubbery parts.

"Hell woman," Gerald snapped.  "Don't yer remember anything'—the head, start with the bleedin' head."

"I'm trying!  I'm trying!" Sam endorsed as his hands chased the route of one of the erratically twisting skulls.

As he grabbed the back of one of the heads, he felt then just how powerful these snakes were.  Its muscles rippled beneath his grasp and as he tried to pull it away, a part of it uncoiled and looped upwards and started to spiral itself about his other arm.

It took both of Sam's hands to grip at the snake's neck, but it felt like a fruitless task as the tail began curl about his ankle and his feet started to slide apart.  Everything he did seemed ineffectual and he was fast running out of steam.

Gerald grunted and groaned with his exertions and from time to time, the yawning jowls of his snake snapped to, just missing him by millimeters.

After an exhaustive fifteen minutes of squirming about the floor, Sam looked over and saw Gerald's arm clamped between the powerful jaws and he was peeling away the pin-sharp teeth like Velcro.

"Where… the hell… is Das and… the others?" Sam gasped just as Gerald screamed out in agony.

When, after a struggle, he finally managed to look over, Gerald's face was contorted with pain and his lips were turning purple.  The entwined snake had taken advantage of Gerald's expulsion of breath and had tightened it grip.  Sam felt lucky, his snake hadn't taken a hold of his torso yet, it seemed to be more interested in his limbs.  Though very uncomfortable, at least he could breathe.

"Hang in there Jerry, they should be here soon," Sam hoped.  He didn't know where Das and his friends lived or how long it would take them to get there but to Doctor Beckett they sure seemed to be taking their time.

Gerald's breath changed to short rasping wheezes and every time he breathed out, he saw the snake coil tighter.  The Leaper fought in vain, every time he freed one limb, the snake looped itself somewhere else.  He had to be careful though, he didn't want to end up in the same predicament as Gerald, fighting for his life as well as for an inhalation of air.

Despite Jerry's treatment of Joanna and himself, Sam hated being powerless and unable to lend a hand.  All things considered, a life is a life and, after all is said and done, any life is precious.

Sam watched helplessly as Gerald's debauched breathing became so shallow that Sam could no longer hear him.  Least when he was groaning he stood a fair chance.  Sam maneuvered closer, to offer a few words of encouragement to keep his spirits up but even before he was close enough he could sense that he was too late.  The twenty-six foot snake was already lugging its quarry towards the safety of its terrarium, to be consumed later.

Sam couldn't believe it when his snake reared its head and started to taste at the air.  It hovered inches from his face, it's tongue darting in and out, searching.  When its head rose higher, it recoiled as if to strike and Sam braced himself and turned his face away from the demonic eyes.

He was even more amazed when he felt the muscular body miraculously relax and slithered off to join its mate.  Sam couldn't get to his feet fast enough and he crawled crab-like for a few feet before he could establish traction with the floor.

"All's well that ends well," the Observer said admirably.

"How—how long have you been there?" the Leaper asked fitfully.

"Long enough to see you put that rat where he belongs," Al laughed a lot louder than was necessary.  "Rat… food… get it?"

"But—but…" Sam started.

"Oh—how the mighty have fallen," the Observer cut in and he deliberately flicked the ash from his cigar over the lifeless Gerald.  "Tis true ya know; if ya can't beat em, join em but I must say; I haven't seen it done quite that way before," Al laughed but his face showed a different picture as he kept a vigilant eye on where the two snakes had retreated, lest they reappeared.

"Al!" the Leaper remarked tersely.  "I didn't do anything, that was all down to those two snakes.  Whatever possessed him to keep those monstrosities?"

The Observer's fingers tinkered across the handlink but when Ziggy's image didn't materialize, he bashed it with the palm of his hand.  "Come on you old decrepit crate of bare bones!" he scolded and looked at his friend apologetically.  "Hmmm, I think Ziggy's still in a huff with what you said."

"What I said?"

"Yup, about her not knowing something!"

"You mean… she's still on that roller coaster?" Sam inflected, curiously.

"She's searching meticulously through every single one of your Leaps, Sam and she's leavin' no stone unturned."

"I told her that she'd have no record of what happened, what is it with her Al, can't she take my word for it?"

"You know Ziggy!" the Observer shrugged.  "If it ain't in her databanks, then it didn't happen!"

"Trust me to create something so…" Sam shook his head derogatively.  "Wait a minute Al!  If Gerald's dead, then Joanna is safe so… why haven't I Leaped yet?"

The Observer again summoned Ziggy and again Ziggy failed to put in an appearance.  "I think we're gonna have to figure this one out for ourselves, Sam." Al rubbed at his chin as he thought.

"Hmmm," the Leaper mumbled as he listened to the scuffling coming from the terrarium.  "Al, maybe I'm still here 'cos the real Joanna might still be in danger, those snakes are still loose, right?"

"Erm… yeah," Al said as he nervously bit at his cigar and gingerly backed away from the proximity of the snake pit.

"But Das and co. should be here soon and then…"

"You're on the next stage outta Dodge, pal!" the Observer finished with a gleam in his eye and a wave of his hand.

"I don't think so!" Sam expiated as a portly tail swished out at the broken glass and showered the bystanders with the razor-sharp shards.

"Whooohaaaaa!" the Observer shot back as he tried to move his friend out of the way of the lightening speed of an encroaching head, the gaping jowls revealing numerous rows of tiny but deadly teeth.  "Watchit, Sam!"

Doctor Beckett barely managed to duck as the massive body followed and the two giants battled for the unusual cuisine on offer.

Everything in their path became a missile, and Sam along with his holographic pal found themselves retreating.  The Observer integrated into the wall and into the next room whilst Sam was hard-pressed against the obstruction with nowhere else to go.  Their extensive tails whipped and wafted the hot air into his face, and he could hear Al telling him to get his butt into the bedroom.  But he couldn't, his retreat was blocked by the constant thrashing of the two Goliaths.

Soon, reptiles of all descriptions were scuttling about, dodging and darting between the disputing, hideous creatures.  Tails swishing, bodies flaying, jaws striking out at anything that moved—glass flying every which way, something akin to ricocheting bullets.

"Sam what the hell's happening with those beasties in there?!" Al yelled through the wall.

"World War Two has nothing on this," Sam thought aloud but at the same time answered his friend and dodged the missiles.

All of a sudden there was one almighty crash and a tidal wave of water as the suspended aquarium took a direct hit.

"What the hell was that?" Al screamed as his head projected through the insignificance of the wall, only to be inundated with a deluge of water.

Through the crackling and hissing, Al thought he heard something or someone… yes someone was calling out.

"Hang in there Sam, I think the cavalry has arrived and just in the nick of time," the Observer yelled out to the Leaper but he wasn't sure if his friend had heard his words of reassurance.

"Al!" Sam shrieked in horror as the moisture and electrical energy combined, cascadingly brilliant, fiery white stars as they danced across the intensely lit room.  White-hot trails of statically charged feelers darted in all directions and angled from the walls, a number of which struck at the Leaper.  He felt hands, groping hands, manhandling him.  Tugging him this way and that.

Then darkness.

Startling, mind numbing blackness.

Doctor Beckett felt strangely different, cold.

From the hot humidity he now felt an icy breeze and he no longer heard the bounteous thrashing from the pair of gargantuan creatures.  The air was now filled with high pitched screeching, the strange fluttering of a thousand wings and then a thundering tumultuous rumble.

EPILOGUE

Sounds: confused, confusing sounds.

Darkness; dampness; strange smells.

        The Leaping process was always disorienting to Sam, it often took awhile for him to get his bearings. Sometimes, it was fairly straightforward, and he assumed his new role with relative ease. Other times, like now, he felt like he was being thrown in the deep end, or being bombarded with flying objects without so much as a “heads up” to warn him of their impending impact.

Were it not for his wits still being addled by the Leap-in, Sam would have heard that this was precisely what his newfound colleagues were trying to tell him. He had immediately stopped whatever his host had been doing, waiting for his senses to catch up with the rest of him.

        As it was, before his eyes had focused on his surroundings or his ears had managed to discern a single phrase, the sky had fallen, and buried him under a pile of dust and rubble.