Message-ID: Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 20:44:23 +0000 From: Heather Markham Subject: Aliquantum Salio - Chapters 18-19 "ALIQUANTUM SALIO" by Heather Markham CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Scully noticed that Mulder's personality had changed as soon as he'd arrived at the Project centre. His whole demeanor was different, he seemed totally confident in these strange surroundings and he was still smiling broadly. She had to jog to keep up with him. He seemed to know exactly where he was going. He strutted off down another corridor and stopped in front of an oddly designed octagonal door. She caught up with him, and stood next to him, He looked up and called into the air, Ziggy, baby, I'm home, aren't you going to let me in?" The voice of Ziggy floated to them, "Dr Beckett, I must warn you that the Admiral is currently engaged in a confrontation with our guest, who seems to have acquired a gun." Sam frowned, he hadn't expected that, he reluctantly, took out his own gun. Scully followed suit and pulled out her's. She was bemused by the whole affair, she couldn't fathom why Mulder was using another man's identity to gain access to this place if he...they were expected. How was he able to fool the security system, the computer, into believing he was Dr Beckett. "Mulder, is that Langly in there? What's with calling yourself Beckett, aren't we expected?" The smile had disappeared from Sam's face, it had been replaced by one of caution, "Yes, yes, we are expected......you'll have to trust me on this one, Scully, I'll tell you everything later. The swish of the door opening alerted Mulder, he immediately tightened his grip on the gun, putting pressure on the trigger, in readiness to shoot if he needed too. Two familiar figures stepped into the room. Sam stood opposite from Mulder, his gun was tightly clenched in one hand but pointing down at the ground, he had no intention of using it to wound his own body. He stared at the heavily blood soaked jacket Mulder was wearing, at the blood stains on the floor, he stared across at his own, already severely wounded body and winced as he remembered the pain he'd inexplicably felt in his arm earlier. Scully immediately took in the situation, held her gun between both hands, her arms outstretched, aiming it at Mulder in Sam's body as she shouted across the room, "We're Federal Agents, drop, your weapon." A look of recognition and puzzlement began to spread across her face, her lips parted in surprise, "Doctor Beckett?" She glanced hesitantly at Sam, "Mulder, what's going on? You know him, don't you! You knew he would be here!" Mulder felt a sudden rush of relief with the knowledge that she had found him. He turned the aim of the gun from the Admirals direction and carefully pointed it at Sam, he took a couple of steps towards Scully and called across the room to her, "Scully, it's me Mulder." She stood her ground, "Stay where you are...drop your gun and tell me what the problem is." "I'm not Beckett, he is." He nodded over at the quantum physicist, "They abducted me two days ago. They've stolen my body, they swapped me with him.....some weird time travel experiment that went wrong. You've got to believe me! You've got to help me Scully....Scully please! She looked across at Sam, he didn't look back at her, he was still staring at across at the man currently occupying his body. Mulder's vision began to cloud, he had to get her to believe him soon or it would be too late. "Scully, Dana, you remember how that other guy, Eddie Blundht, duped you into thinking he was me....you must have noticed something odd in his behaviour? Well, it's the same now, think Dana, you've been trailing around with this guy for two days, you must have felt his behaviour was a little odd. It must have been. Scully...you know I'm right!" The quantum physicist took a few paces forward, "I'm sorry, we're all sorry this happened." He gestured to the technicians, Gushie, Verbena and Al, "It's not their fault, let them go and we'll talk about this, let me get you some help. I promise, I'll do everything I possibly can to help you...put the gun down...please just put it down." Ziggy had alerted the guards to the situation in the control room, one came silently in through the door behind Scully and Sam. Mulder's reflexes were on automatic, his muscles tensed, he straightened up, brought the gun over to fire at the man's sudden intrusion. Scully was confused as to who was who, but her reflexes were trained like Mulder's, it seemed as if he was about to fire at her. She pulled the trigger back and aimed carefully at the gun in his hand, she didn't want to hurt the man, whoever he was, any more than was absolutely necessary, she just wanted to disarm him. Langly was against the wall behind the guard and Scully, he saw her action and in a split second, leapt to his friends defence. He knocked the guard off balance and pushed Scully out of the way. It was a decision that Langly was soon to regret. Scully's gun fired as he shoved her, it hit Mulder in the chest, as the bullet recoiled him backwards against the conduit pillar, his gun went off. The two awful explosive sounds were almost simultaneous, the noise filled the confines of the room and echoed into the distance. For a few seconds, time seemed to play slowly for the occupants of that room. Mulder slumped unconscious to the floor, Dr Beeks rushed over to him. Sam's face showed a look of complete and utter shock, he slowly sank to his knees clutching his stomach, blood splattered across the floor as he keeled over into a heap. Scully threw herself down and kneeled beside him, She inspected his wound, she could immediately see that it was bad, very bad. She pulled off her jacket folded it into a pad and held it firmly against the wound. "Mulder..... Mulder it's okay, hang on..." Al had rushed over to kneel on the other side of him. Scully looked up, panic echoed in her words as she shouted at the stunned technicians, "Do you have a hospital wing here? Quickly, we must get them help. Quickly, move it!" Al bent down and and gathered Sam up in his arms, resting his friend's head against his chest, "Sam, ya gotta leap now, ya hear me. Ya gotta leap....leap, God-dammit." Sam opened his eyes, gasped and called to Dana, his voice was a mere whispered breath "Dana...Dana, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, it's true, I am Sam Beckett. He's the real Mulder, go to him....he needs you." Her eyes widened, she looked at Al for confirmation. Al closed his dark eyes briefly and nodded, "Go and see what you can do for him. Go on, help Verbena, I'll look after Sam, until the paramedics get here." "Okay but keep the pressure on his wound, I'll check on him again in a few moments. Scully paused as if to say something more, glanced away and hurried over to the real Mulder, yelling instructions as she went. Al turned his attention back to his friend, his voice betrayed his words, "Sam, hang on in there kid, you'll be okay...just hang on...we'll soon have you patched up good as new. Come on kid, you have to keep awake." Al's thoughts raced through his mind, he hadn't even been able to greet Sam properly yet, God couldn't take him from him now. For over two years he hadn't been able to physically reach out to his best friend, to touch him, to console him when he'd needed it, to shake his hand or drape an arm across the younger man's shoulders in a simple gesture of friendship. Now, Sam had finally managed to get back home and it had only been for this brief moment in time, this awful moment in time. It wasn't fair! Why so near and yet so far? To Al, it seemed like some dreadfully sick, cosmic joke. Sam was fading in and out of consciousness, his life's blood was pumping from him, he blinked and tried to focus, everything was shrouded in a red veil of dark mist. He could feel himself drifting away on dark, cold clouds, there was no pain, not now, only a terrible numbness, "Al....Al, what's happening? What's happening....to....me? I...I didn't leap, I didn't finish what I came here to do." Al's voice was a harsh croak, his throat was tightening, constricting with emotion and the terrible fear of losing his best friend. "You did fine, Sam, you're a hero, remember.... You came home Sam...don't ya remember?" Sam's body shuddered, he gasped a ragged breath, "Al.....Al, I don't..I don't think I'm gonna make it. Don't leave me....don't leave me..." Al wrapped his free arm tightly about his best friend's shoulders and hugged him as tightly as he could. Tears were stinging his eyes, "I'm here kid....and you are gonna make it...you hear me? You have to make it! I'm not going to leave you....ever......so...don't you leave me either. You finally made it home......I'm not going to let you out of my sight ever again, ya hear me. You're home to stay, kid...you're home with me to stay." Sam coughed, a trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth, he drew in a deep shuddering breath, his eyelids fluttered, he reached out gently for Al's hand and gripped it weakly, "I'm.....home Al. I'm really home." He sighed, a faint smile played across his almost boyish features, his eyes closed, his body relaxed, a familiar blue light briefly formed a halo around his head, it flickered and died. Al's face was soaked in tears, he hugged Sam tightly to him, rocking him gently back and forth, willing him to live. He raised his head heaven-wards and shouted, "I prayed to you once before and you let me down, don't you dare let me down this time. Don't you let him die, damn it, do you hear me.....please don't let him die." his last sentence was a heart-rending plea, a cry of utter anguish. Al gained control of his voice, this time it was filled with anger as he shouted across to Gushie, "Gushie, where the hell are the paramedics, they should have been here by now." Gushie's reply was silenced by the arrival of the medical team. Scully called over to them, giving them directions and commands. Two paramedics pushing a hospital trolley, rushed over to Sam and Al, Scully came over to join them, she bent down and checked the pulse at the physicist's neck, quickly took hold of Sam's wrist and checked there, too. Al looked at her, concern and urgency in his voice, "Isn't there anything you can do for him, please we can't let him die like this....we can't let everything end here....isn't there any way to revive him, can we try CPR?" She moved her gaze from the quantum physicist to the Navy man, her face had changed from one of concern to one of sadness. She laid a hand gently on Al's shoulder, "I'm sorry, I'm sooo sorry...he's gone. There's nothing we can do for him now. His wound was too extensive. We couldn't even have tried CPR his wound wouldn't have allowed it." Her words confirmed what Al already knew in his heart to be true but hadn't wanted to admit to himself. He threw back his head, closed his eyes and yelled at God, "Noooo, you can't do this.....Why? why?..." Tears were streaming down his face, he relaxed his hold on Sam a little and looked down at his face, he looked like he was asleep, to everyone else it was the face of Mulder but to him it was the face of his dearest friend, it was Sam's face, Sam's soft, light brown hair, Sam's body. He gently swept away the one familiar curl of white hair from Sam's brow, leaned down and brushed his lips lightly across Sam's forehead in a kiss of goodbye. The paramedics stood by, silently watching. Al had just promised Sam that he wouldn't leave him but there was nothing else he could do. He gazed down at the face of his best friend, the young scientist. Sam was now forty three but he had always looked young for his age and he still thought of him being just a kid. He blinked back the tears and laid Sam down, reluctantly stood up and stepped back. The paramedics carefully laid Sam on to the trolley, covered him in a crisp, fresh white sheet and slowly carried him away, leaving Al to stand alone with his grief. Al stood in the empty room, he sobbed uncontrollably, his body shook convulsively as he thought about Sam's death. There was a terrible emptiness in his heart and soul. Sam had been a part of his world, now he was gone that world would be a cold empty place. Their friendship for each other had been special, it had run deeply between them, now he realized just how deeply those feelings reached, his feelings for Sam reached to the very core of his soul. He knew he would never find a friend quite like Sam, ever again. As Sam slipped away from this world, his own world had come crashing in ruins down upon his shoulders. His sobs continued to wrack his body. He usually liked to keep a tight rein on his emotions, he didn't like other people to see himself, the tough Navy man, the Admiral, having such a soft spot but where Sam was concerned that had always been impossible. His friend's death was tearing him apart and he didn't care who saw it. It was as though his own soul was being ripped from him. He could already feel the huge, deep crater of emptiness swelling inside him, created by Sam's death. How could he ever fill that special place in his heart again...he knew he never would. His grief and loneliness was too much for him to bear. He looked around at the empty control room, echoes of memories played through his mind, snatches of scenes from the past, good times, bad times, times of laughter and times of tears. He thought back to the first time he'd met Sam, it had been twenty years ago, back in the mid seventies, after his Naval career had gone a step further and he'd become an astronaut. That little piece of action had taken him around the moon and back. Twenty years ago...it seemed so fresh in his memory. He had been working on the Star Bright Project, the forerunner of Project Quantum leap, the brilliant young scientist had just been brought into the project. They had immediately hit it off and soon became friends. Sam helped him sort out his life and his drink problems, he dragged him from the pit of despair that a desk job had driven him to. In fact Sam had saved him from being booted off the project for getting drunk. Then of course they'd begun on the new project, Sam's dream, Project Quantum Leap. The scientist was still quite a young man back then and he, being about fifteen years older, very quickly became a big brother figure and inseparable friend to the young, brilliant physicist. Al remembered how he'd immediately taken to the boy genius. He had been irresistibly drawn to Sam's pleasant, good natured soul, his gentle naive manner and his exceptionally quick brain.......quick brain, hell, the young Samuel Beckett was already a qualified medical doctor, he held six doctorates, including quantum physics and artificial intelligence, medicine, seven modern languages and several dead ones. Although Sam was very much a pacifist, he knew how to take care of himself, he was a Sensei Master in several martial arts. He also had a talent for music, he could play guitar and was a brilliant concert pianist. He had a voice to die for.......to die for!. Al, physically and mentally flinched at the term he'd just used. Sam was everything you could hope for in a friend and he was everything a woman could want in a man, boyish good looks, a lean muscular, strong body and an IQ almost off the scale. Sam could have had any woman he chose to and yet, he never fooled around with girls. Sam had very strict, high standards, which he called traditional moral codes, ethics and values. A code which he himself as a hot bloodied Italian would never have been able to cope with. He always considered Sam to be a bit of a prude, many a time he had affectionately teased him and called him `The Prudent Prince' or `Mr Morals'. Sam would always round on him for that and give him the benefit of one of his priceless, indignant expressions. That was probably the one area of thought that they clashed on. A fleeting smile passed across the features of the broken hearted man as his thoughts drifted on. He, on the other hand being of Italian descent, loved all women....well, the pretty ones that is. In his lifetime he had married five times but conceded that he would have been happy to have spent the rest of his life with his first wife, Beth. Unlike himself, his friend, Mr morals would never entertain the idea of sleeping with a woman he didn't love. He'd often teased his friend, agreeing with him, saying that every single woman he'd ever slept with he'd loved...at the time. He sighed heavily, as he thought about Sam's emotional state. Ever since leaping, Sam's isolation and loneliness had made him susceptible to and prone to falling in love far too readily. Al pondered if Sam had any faults.....yeah, if he did have faults and if you could call them faults, it was that he trusted everyone and saw the best in everyone. He also felt things very deeply and tended to express those feelings and sentiments a little too openly. His young friend was a very tactile guy. Sam would often drape an arm across his shoulders as they'd talked or would hug him now and again. His younger friend's expressions of friendship had taken some getting used too, he often got what he referred to as mushy. The faint smile returned to Al's face as he remembered back to the time before Sam's first, unscheduled leap, how often Sam had hugged him and teased him about that `mushy' bit. How much since then he had missed that special buddy-buddy closeness that they'd shared....a closeness he had taken for granted until Sam made the terrible mistake of stepping into an untested quantum accelerator, things had gone more than a little ca-ca and he had become trapped in time. The vague smile vanished from Al's face as he recalled how often he'd wished he hadn't just been an observer to all the subsequent leaps. He thought about all the times he wished he'd been able to physically interact with Sam, to be able to go to his aid in times of danger...to lend a hand when it was needed...or to give his friend a simple gesture of support and friendship, a clap on the back or a friendly hug to get mushy. Ohhh, if only Sam could have waited...if only he hadn't been so impatient and taken things into his own hands, if only the committee hadn't been pressing them for results, this would never have happened. Al's mind raced, his thoughts and memories would not let him go, his thoughts wandered back to Beth...Beth had always been his true love. If only she had waited a bit longer for him to come home from Nam. Al sighed, a long drawn out sigh and, absently, bit into his bottom lip. He supposed he shouldn't blame her for not waiting, she didn't know he was still alive. She'd been told he was missing in action and presumed dead. How could she have known that he was a POW and that she had been the only thing that had kept him going, that the thought of going home to her, had made him fight to survive those six torturous years of hell, held captive in a cage near Cham Hoi. Al's thoughts of Beth intertwined with his memories of Sam. Not that long ago, poor Sam had leaped into the life of a policeman in April 1969 and had met Beth. For his own personal, selfish reasons he had put Sam in a very awkward situation by telling him the leap was to prevent Beth from remarrying and to tell her to wait for him to come home from Nam but God, fate, whatever, had stepped in and had decreed that wasn't what his best buddy was there to do. That part of history wasn't to be changed just yet. He pulled himself from the painful memories, shook himself and began the slow walk back to the hospital wing, no doubt Tina would be there, she would try her best to console him, offer a warm shoulder to cry on but he knew, this time he would be inconsolable. This time, even Tina wouldn't be able to bring warmth back into his soul. Al thought about the fact that the two men hadn't leapt back into their own bodies, Mulder was still trapped inside the persona of Sam Beckett. It was a confusing situation for everyone, the paramedics team, Dr Beeks and Gushie all saw Mulder as Sam, it was difficult for them to rationalize who was really who in the heat of the recent events. Al knew, he had always known. He had known since the first time Sam had leaped into a beautiful woman. Al remembered how he'd suffered terrible problems during that leap, he'd almost fallen in love with Sam...well, not Sam exactly but he'd definitely fallen in love with the gorgeous body his best friend had leaped into. From that day he'd had Gushie alter the system so he would always see Sam as Sam. Al closed his eyes at the thought, and now, he'd just watched his best friend die, he was the only one who had seen Sam die. One thought kept plaguing him, why hadn't Sam leaped, if only he had leaped it might have made a difference. He pondered the thought, perhaps if they could revive Mulder in time there might be a chance. Perhaps Sam's had leaped back at the point of death. It was a vague hope, he was clutching at straws but he had to hang on to the smallest of hopes. Al rushed off towards the hospital wing. He reached the corridor outside the hospital's Special Intensive Care Unit, just as Scully came slowly through the small operating theatre doors. He ran towards her, his face full of hope. "Scully, is he going to be alright, will he make it? If we can pull him through this, bring him around quickly enough, we..." Scully pulled the operating mask from her nose and mouth, she gently touched his hand. He suddenly felt cold, icy fingers of dread clutched at his stomach and turned him inside-out. Fear lurched through him. "What, what's wrong?.....No......ohhh nooo." She looked at him, her soft blue eyes were wet with tears of her own, her voice quavered and her lips trembled slightly as she spoke, "I'm...I'm so sorry, we did everything we could, he was so weak from loss of blood and shock from his previous wound....he didn't make it, he died a few moments ago." Al stumbled back against the wall, "No....no...they can't both be dead. This isn't happening. Please tell me this isn't happening." He buried his face in his hands and wept once again." CHAPTER NINETEEN Al stood head bowed, he looked down at his clothes, his red suit and white shirt were soaked and spattered with Sam's blood, he ran a hand slowly across the stain, the blood was still damp, he closed his eyes in pain and clenched at the fabric of his bloodied shirt. He silently whispered his thoughts, "Oh Sam, why? Why did it have to end like this?" He looked up, tilting his head back to rest against the wall of the corridor, "God, why? I don't understand why, when there's still so much for Sam to do, why couldn't you have just let him come home?" His mind was clouded by grief and sorrow, all he could think about was Sam, Sam's death, what a needless, stupid waste this leap had been. Right from the beginning he'd had a really uneasy feeling about this leap, if only those Goddamn power surges hadn't knocked out the Imaging Chamber, if only Mulder hadn't escaped, if only things had been different. He couldn't shake the `what ifs' from his mind. Then, his last thought struck him smack between the eyes! If things had been different......hell, things could be different, he was an hour into Sam's future! Hope surged through him, he shook the grief from his head, took out the hand-link and quickly tapped at it, "Ziggy!" there was no response, "Ziggy, God-dammit! Speak to me." The hybrid computer's voice had an edge of sadness to it, it sounded almost melancholy "Yes, Admiral." "Ziggy, we have to save Sam's life, you have to get me back to him. Is the Imaging Chamber back on line yet?" Ziggy's reply seemed brighter, "Almost, Admiral but the technicians have vacated the Control Room and there are a few technical adjustments that need refining." Al was already on his way to the room, he muttered to himself. "Damn it, they left the room after the shooting, they must have thought it was all over too." Al shouted at the hand-link as he ran on, "Ziggy, get Gushie and those technicians back to the Control Centre, now! Tell them we haven't finished yet! We've still got time to save Sam and Mulder." He thought for a second, "What was the exact time of Sam's death?" there was a pause, Al shook the hand-link, cursed at it and tapped it sharply on the side, Ziggy's voice drifted to him, "I registered a mason disconnection at 9.40 am. Admiral, it was quite a jolt to my neural networks. I felt..." Ziggy's voice suddenly sounded surprised, "Admiral......I felt....I felt sadness? The words momentarily stopped Al in his tracks, his eyes widened with the thought and realization at the connotations of what the hybrid super computer had just said. Was Ziggy becoming emotionally aware, had Sam's death awoken or provoked a sentience within the computer? Was that possible? She already had a self constructing personality trait programme, if she gained a sense of emotion as well it would mean she would be on the way to developing a conscience too! The thought was highly interesting but he tossed it aside, he had other, more important things to worry about just now. He called back to the computer, "Ziggy, We can save Sam, I'm sure of it but we have to act quickly, we only have an hour to get things up and running smoothly." Ziggy's voiced returned to its usual purr, "I'm sorry Admiral but we don't have an hour, it's now 10.02 am. Dr Beckett and Miss Scully are already on their way here. They will arrive back at 9.20 am. The shooting incident occurred at 9.30 precisely. Admiral, you have less than half an hour to reach them." Al's mind and heart were pounding with those last words as he reached the Control Room and dashed inside. Gushie and the technicians were already there and had begun working on the last difficult details of re-aligning the holographic imagery arrays. Al ran over to the control console, "How close are we to getting things back on line?" Gushie didn't stop to look at him, he spoke as he busily carried on with his task, "We're almost there Admiral, a few more minutes." Al paced back and forth across the room, he paused to take out a cigar and light it. He needed something to calm his nerves. He sucked and puffed at it, checked his watch and went back to pacing anxiously around the room. He turned and walked to the nearest technician and peered over the man's shoulder, "Come on, come on." he said impatiently. One of the other technicians, Ike Bettenhoff, had one of the console's technical panels open, he appeared to be fiddling about with the internal workings of the projection module. Bettenhoff glanced up at him, "Nearly done, sir. Just a few more adjustments here, one or two more minutes" Al was was literally hopping from foot to foot with anxiety and impatience. "We don't have many minutes! Come on, come on, can't you hurry things up." Gushie replied from across the console. "We are working as quickly as we can." Al grimaced and looked at his watch for the sixth time. "Oh my God, we only have...... we only have nine minutes left! If we're going to save Sam, we've got to do it soon! Gushie pushed the main switch. He shouted up into the air to Ziggy. "Ziggy, initiate holographic sequencing, now!" He looked across at Al, his eyes bulging, a broad grin spread across his face. "Okay. That's it! Go....go!" Al took a deep breath, crossed his fingers and shot into the Imaging Chamber, shouting to the computer as he went, "Ziggy, centre me on Sam, now!" -- Heather Markham