From: livengoo@bcvms.bc.edu
X-From: rkwong@engin.umich.edu (Roberta Chi-Woon Kwong)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.quantum-leap.creative,alt.ql.creative
Subject: "Leap of Faith" part 7/?
Date: 19 Apr 1995 17:39:38 GMT
Message-Id: <3n3hsq$7hb@srvr1.engin.umich.edu>

This is being posted for the author, who doesn't have access to
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This story is also currently appearing in alt.tv.x-files.creative.

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-----------------------------------------

Subject: Leap of Faith 7/?

Leap of Faith 7/?
Story copyright livengoo, aka on a need to know basis.
Scully and Mulder property of Chris Carter and Ten-
Thirteen Productions (sounds like something the 14th
Amendment should have prohibited, doesn't it?): Sam
Beckett, Al Calavicci and Project Quantum Leap property
of Donald Bellisario and Bellisarius Productions.  I didn't
get permission but I'm not getting any money, either, so
that's cool.  Ask me before you spread my stuff around,
please.  Also, my last post went by unusual (for me)
means and it's a wee bit garbled.  If five or more people
ask me, I'll repost as soon as I can, with all corrections
made and mangled lines restored.  I just don't want to
waste your time with duplicates nobody cares enough to
see.  Thanks again to the kind souls who are diverting
stuff to me from archives and WWW, thereby
circumventing my bad ftp karma.  One of these days I
have to get a computer Buddha to overcome that.  Let me
know what you guys think of this stuff!  I like getting
commentary and crit.
 
*****************************************************
When Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap
accelerator he threw a lot of lives into chaos.  Every
person working here had given up the rest of his or her
life until they could get Beckett home, safe.  There was no
other way, the sacrifices were willingly made.
 
In all that time, the one thing Al Calavicci had never
doubted was that he had a job to do.  Sam fixed things
and Al guided Sam.  For the first time, Al was wondering
if a Leap had two parts, if Al was supposed to fix
something, too.
 
Dana Scully had wrapped Sam's hands around the coffee
mug so tightly the knuckles were white.  It was the only
thing that kept them from shaking.  When Al sat down
across from her, she looked at him with that taut,
frightened look he had hoped he'd left behind in
Vietnam.
 
"Agent Scully, tell me what went on in there."  He kept
his voice quiet and impersonal, the voice he'd learned to
use in command, with the strong ones who'd been pushed
further than anyone should ever be pushed.  She
swallowed and coughed a second, trying to defuse the
intensity.  He just waited
 
"If I could remember what it was, I might tell you."  Her
voice was harsh and hesitant.  I  . . .  There was a hostage
situation and Mulder went in to help.  There was this
man, Duane Barry.  Mulder thought he was an abductee,
he nearly killed Mulder.  We got him out, and caught
Barry, and Barry had those tags in him.  I ran them
through a laser reader . . .  they were bar codes.  We
didn't know what they said.  Barry escaped and came for
me, he was so scared.  I remember he took me, he
wanted someone to take me instead of him.  I can't
remember who they were or what they did except
sometimes the flashbacks . . . the flashbacks."  Her voice
trembled.  Once she'd started she couldn't seem to stop.
"They hurt me and I can't remember how, I just know I
don't ever, ever, ever want it to happen again and those
tags . . . "
 
"Is that why Mulder needs to see that ship?  Something
to do with you?"  Al wished he had Mulder's PhD in
psychology.  He was just stumbling in the dark with this.
 
"Mulder saw aliens take his sister, he *needs* to find her.
I think he needs to protect me, too.  I hate it when he
does that."  A faint smile broke her tension for the first
time.  "He always gets hurt when he does that."
 
"What will happen if he finds them, or if they find him?"
Al wasn't sure exactly why, but he needed her to
understand what Mulder couldn't, that she couldn't save
people from everything, and never from themselves.
 
She shivered.  "He's so scared of them, he just needs to
*know*, even more than he needs to keep away.  If they
find him, I don't know.  I've seen him go nearly into
shock before from just fear.  He'll take terrible risks to
get close enough to something that scares him to death.
He's found them, and they've almost killed him more
than once.  I don't want what happened to me to happen
to him."
 
"You love him?"
 
She sat a long time with that one.  "I don't know that I
want to know that.  You know, I said I never wanted
what happened to me to happen again?  I don't want this
to ever happen to me again, either.  Sitting here and not
knowing and not being able to do anything.  If Mulder
and I started . . .  the FBI would break us up as partners."
She smiled faintly.  "Again, I mean.  But it's against
policy.  And I don't want to sit there in Quantico with him
late, and wondering if he got pulled over for speeding or
if this is it, and the people who took his sister came back
for him.  If I'm going to deal with Mulder, I need to be
there, where I can help him.  Not sitting on the sidelines
watching."  She looked directly into Al's eyes.  "Don't
leave me out again.  Whatever happens tonight, I have to
be there too."
 
"I can't promise that."  Al sighed.  "It takes so much
power to get me there, and it goes up geometrically to
take another person.  It takes so much Ziggy slows down,
can't get all the answers when we need them."
 
"If Mulder goes hunting little green men, Ziggy won't
have your answers.  I'm not even sure I will."
 
Al didn't know if a Leap had two parts, but he damn well
hoped Sam could help Mulder more than Al had helped
Scully.
 
**************************
Sam walked back into the reading room, lost in thought.
 It took a moment before he noticed he was alone.
Turning the light on didn't make Mulder appear, either.
Sam swallowed and looked at his watch.  How long had he been in the restroom?
His stomach dropped and he
headed for the garage at a brisk walk, praying for a false
alarm, praying he'd find the car there and Mulder down
buying a late lunch of bad, hospital food.  But he'd been
praying to Leap home for a long time, and that prayer
hadn't been answered, either.
 
No Mulder in the cafeteria, and no car in the garage.  Sam
tore out the front of the hospital, trying to run on Scully's
high heels, and looked frantically for a cab.  Dammit!
This was the South, not New York.  He raced back to a pay
phone and called one.  There wasn't time to get a rental
car now, he'd call ahead and have one waiting at the
motel..  It was after 4:00 in the afternoon.  The cab would
be there within fifteen minutes.
 
Mulder was wearing a suit; allow at least half an hour to
get back, then to the motel for hiking gear.  Cabbies
should know the region, the fastest way to get someplace,
better than Fox Mulder could.  Sam might still catch him
before he headed for the mountain.  He just might.
 
heh heh heh :) ;) :)
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