From: Jason Eric Dzembo <dzembj@rpi.edu>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 07:41:32 -0400
Message-Id: <9308301141.AA22201@localhost>


       The first thing Sam saw when as the leap cleared was his
host reflected in the mirror before him.  It was as though God or
Time or whoever was leaping him around wanted him to know right
from the start who he'd leaped into this time.  And, as recognition
came to him, Sam knew why.
       He was standing before a mirror, his hand holding a brush
that had stopped in midstroke through this hair when he'd caught
his reflection.  Rather when he'd caught her reflection.  He
placed the brush on the table beside him and stared into the deep
blue-grey eyes that mirrored his surprise.  Involuntarily, her name
made its way to his lips.
       "Miriam..."
                                  Part VI
                              April 26, 1993
       Sam thought he should be surprised, but he wasn't.  On a gut
level, he'd known that, inevitably, he would end up on the scene
during the last moments of Miriam's life.  Even without a frame of
reference, he knew that's where he now was.  He could feel his mind
merging with Miriam's, but on a deeper, more intimate level than
normal.  He could almost sense her, as though she were an invisible
presence, lurking there rather than in the Waiting Room, several
years in the future.  Memories flitted dimly at the back of his
mind, like the scraps of old movies taken from the cutting room
floor and spliced together.  The movies were playing in the
background, almost beneath Sam's level of awareness, and yet he
knew they were there.  Overall his incorporation with Miriam was
more complete and more comfortable than it had been when his mind
had merged with others in the past.
       He looked around the room with a feeling of recognition.  On
the wall hung a 1993 Quantum Leap calendar, turned to April.  The
fictional Sam and Al were in a huddle, Al's eyes partially closed
and Sam in a football uniform.  On the desk was a floppy disk for
a computer.  It was labelled with the letters QLS and, with
Miriam's memory, Sam knew she had left it there so she'd remember
to return it to Mark Baushke the next day.  The disk contained
recent messages to the newsgroup, messages which Miriam hadn't been
getting since she'd quit her job at Stanford the month before and,
as a result, had lost her access to the net.  In her absence, Mark
had been storing the messages on a disk for her;  he had given her
this disk a day or two before and she'd read the messages from the
newsgroup at her earliest convenience.
       Beside the disk was a colored envelope, it's flap hanging
open.  Inside were a number of pictures and Sam thumbed through
them idly.  Several were of an attractive young woman with long
blonde hair and a dalmation-spotted collie.  Sam was able to
identify them as Michelle - Micki - Duncan and her dog Scout even
before he turned the pictures over and saw the inscription Miriam
had written on the back.  Beneath the names was a date:  February
22, 1993.  Looking at the pictures, Sam had a fleeting urge for
turkey and Swiss cheese sandwiches with mustard.
       The date on the pictures passed a wave of disappointment
over Sam.  They had been take a week after the Con, the Con he'd
been to twice and, both times had been unable to save Miriam
because he'd found out about it too late.  Al had said that, as
Jason, that was his only chance to save Miriam's life.  Evidently
Al had been wrong.  In retrospect, Sam had no idea how he would
have gone about it.  He suspected he could remind Miriam that she
had been warned of the same thing by another man he'd leaped into
while she was at a certain toga party;  that would have been a
start.
       It was all water under the bridge, though.  He had to start
living in the here and now, if he was going to ensure Miriam's
future.  His eyes fell on the clock.  It was just before two and
Sam felt a sense of urgency.  From somewhere in his merged memory,
he knew Miriam had to be at her new job at three.  From somewhere
else he realized that, if he didn't do something soon, she wouldn't
make it.
       He located the phone and started to dial 911.  His best bet,
he felt, was to get Miriam to a hospital and explain as best he
could that he suspected he (rather, she) was close to having a
fatal pulmonary embolism.  With a little luck, he'd leap out and
the doctors would able to detect the formation of the embolus in
time to prevent it from doing its damage.  He couldn't remember how
readily this could be accomplished;  in fact he was sure it was
almost impossible to detect an embolism until about half a second
before it had its devastating effects.  Still, if the doctors had
some sort of warning and knew what they were looking for....
       The Imaging Chamber ground open behind him, but Sam didn't
turn around.  Though Al's footfalls made no sound, Sam knew the
hologram was standing behind him, staring at him, even before he
heard Al's gravelly voice said, gently, "Sam, wait."
       Sam's knuckles clenched on the receiver and he pressed the
first '1' in the number. 
       "Sam," Al's voice took on a note of warning.
       Sam paused.  "I'm not going to let her die, Al," he
whispered.
       "I don't think you have a choice," Al replied quietly.
       Sam slammed the phone down and whirled to face his friend,
his face flushed with irrational anger.  "Don't stand there and
tell me I don't have a choice, Al!  I'm here, as Miriam Ferziger,
less than an hour before her death!  I've got a better chance of
saving her now than I ever did and I'm not going to lose that
opportunity!"
       "But, Ziggy says -"
       "I don't give a damn what Ziggy says!" Sam shouted,
repeating, "I am not going to let her die!"  He turned his back on
the hologram decisively and reached again for the phone.
       "Sam, just wait a minute, will you?" Al pleaded, circling to
intercept Sam's line of sight.  Sam met Al's eyes with resigned
disgust, but clutched the receiver like a life line.
       The irrational anger Sam had harvested for Al, the bearer of
what Sam was sure would be bad news, gave way and the depression
seeped back.  He hung up the phone and slumped onto the bed.  "Why
am I here, Al?" he asked piteously.  His voice trembled.
       "We don't know," Al replied, carefully, "Ziggy says that,
although there's a 19.66% chance you could be here to save Miriam's
life, it's probably already too late.  It's almost two o'clock now.
Miriam reportedly died between two and two-thirty.  Even if you
could get to the hospital in time, there's no way they'd be able to
stop it."
       A tear rolled down Sam's cheek and landed on the carpet
where it was quickly absorbed.  "So how do I save her?" he asked
hoarsely.
       "I don't think you can," Al replied simply and quietly. 
"It's just not humanly possible."
       With a faint meow, a grey and black fluffball of a cat,
which had been resting on the bed, touched Sam's hand gently with
one paw.  Sam looked at the cat sadly and ran his hand along its
back. 
       "Her name's Viola," Al commented.  In times of great
emotional stress, we often focus on the little things.  Verbena had
said something to that extent.
       "Shakespeare," Sam said with a moist smile.  He realized
that, within half an hour, the cat would be orphaned, its human
dead of a pulmonary embolism, and the thought was like a fist of
ice squeezing his heart.  He raised tear-stained eyes to face Al. 
"You're right," he said, standing up.  Viola hopped off the bed and
scurried towards the bedroom door.  Sam opened the door, letting
the cat out.  "It's not humanly possible to save Miriam at this
point."  He emphasized the word "humanly" in a way that made Al
shiver.
       "What are you thinking, Sam?" Al asked cautiously, as Sam
crossed to Miriam's desk.  "Sam?"  Al's voice was more insistent. 
Sam sighed and turned to face his friend.  Taking this as an
acknowledgement, Al asked, "What are you thinking?"
       "I'm thinking there's no reason for Miriam to die," Sam
replied.  The tears were drying on his cheeks, making his skin feel
cool and sticky.  "She had so much potential, so many talents and
it was pointless for her life to be cut off so abruptly, so soon,
so pointlessly." 
       "I've had Ziggy check into the events following her death,"
Al responded, "There were a number of positive results."  Sam
looked at Al, aghast.  Al hurried on, "Her death inspired her
friends to do things they might not have done otherwise, Sam.  In
a way, it's a lot like what you do.  When she died, her friends did
things which had positive effects on their own lives."
       "That's no justification, Al," Sam said after a pause.  He'd
been momentarily swayed, though, thinking that, perhaps, Miriam's
death had some meaning after all.  "The ends don't justify the
means."  Sam gestured skyward with a flailing arm.  "Whatever He
wanted to accomplish, there had to be some other way to go about
it.  I mean, what about me?  I'm constantly changing lives for the
better!  Why couldn't I do something to change her friends' lives? 
Why should she have to die, when I could have made the changes and
no one had to be hurt?"  His voice was reaching a fevered
pitch again and tears tickled the corners of his eyes.  He turned
away from Al, struggling to keep his emotions in control.
       Al watched his friend silently for a minute before
responding, "I don't know, Sam.  It's not up to us to make those
kind of decisions."
       "And that's what's wrong with this whole business of
leaping, Al!" Sam retorted, spinning again to glare at his friend. 
"I never have a choice!  Well, that's going to change!  Right here,
right now."  He straightened his back purposely and inhaled before
continuing in more measured tones.  "Put your handlink away, Al. 
I don't care what Ziggy says.  I don't care why I'm here."  He sat
on the edge of the bed deliberately and said, "Whatever I'm here to
accomplish will not get done.  I'm going to sit right here, and in
a few minutes...I am going to die."
       Realization struck Al, and he stared at his friend.  "Sam,
I don't think that's a good idea."
       "I'm not asking you, Al," Sam said, simply, "I'm taking
control of my fate for a change.  I'm doing what I know is right. 
I'll die in her place, she'll leap back and live her life like
she's supposed to."
       "You can't know that, Sam," Al protested.  He glanced at the
clock on the bedside table.  It was seven minutes past two.  "I
mean, what if, by just sitting there, you accomplish your mission. 
Maybe you're here to prevent Miriam from doing something that she
did the first time.  If you just sit there, you'll succeed and
you'll leap.  And, even if you don't, you don't have any guarantee
that you'll die in Miriam's place!  She could die back in the
Waiting Room, stranding you in the past for good!"
       "Verbena won't let her," Sam said confidently.
       "And, even if you die in her place, what makes you think
she'll leap back?  She may be trapped forever in the future,
surrounded by your aura and people here will still believe she's
dead!" Al demanded, grasping at straws, "You won't have changed
anything!"
       "She'll be alive, Al!  And at this point, that's all that
matters." Sam replied.  He looked up at Al and his face softened. 
"I'm sorry," he said, "I never expected it to end this way."
       "It doesn't have to," Al insisted.  He held up the handlink
and looked at it desperately.  "Ziggy says there's a seventy-four
percent chance you're here to..."
       "Don't you understand, Al?" Sam interrupted, standing up
again.  "I don't care.  I know why I'm here.  I'm here to save
Miriam's life and I'm going to save her, even if I have to
sacrifice myself in the process."
       Al wanted to protest.  Sam was committing suicide and yet
his actions had a valorous, heroic intent that Al couldn't deny. 
Sam was willing to die in the line of duty.  How could Al argue
with that?  He looked at his friend with sorrowful eyes.  "What
about the people who care about you, Sam?" he asked, making one
last attempt.  "What do you expect me to tell them when I walk out
of here?" 
       "Tell them I did the right thing," Sam replied, simply. 
Abruptly, he collapsed.
       "Sam!" Al shouted.  He knelt on the floor of the Imaging
Chamber, praying that he could do something to interact with his
best friend.  His helping hands passed through him without
resistance, and Al felt a tear in his own eye.  Viola, hearing the
commotion, returned to investigate.
       Abruptly Sam relaxed.  He lay slumped on the floor and used
his remaining ounce of strength to turn his eyes in Al's direction,
noting the pained, helpless expression on the hologram's face. 
Slowly, awkwardly, Sam nodded with what he hoped was reassurance.
       In a way, it was euphoric.  All of life's burdens, which
seemed trivial now in an instantaneous flash of retrospect, were
off of him now.  It might have cost him his life, but he knew he'd
done the right think.  He'd saved Miriam's life.
       With a sad meow, Viola touched Sam's cheek with a padded
paw.
       A faint sigh escaped Sam's lips as he smiled. 
       A sharp pain pierced his chest and exploded outward as Sam's
surroundings blurred into a blue-white haze....