From: kitkin@aol.com (Kitkin)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.quantum-leap.creative
Subject: WHATEVER IT TAKES 2/9
Date: 10 Jun 1996 22:21:22 -0400
Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)
Message-Id: <4pil72$557@newsbf02.news.aol.com>

WHATEVER IT TAKES PART 2

    The tears which had stopped shortly after she had begun this
stroll down memory lane, now began to shine once again in her
eyes, as she remembered how Al had come over to her table to
ask her to dance, when Ray Charles' "Georgia" began to play.
They had danced and talked,and laughed, for hours, and
somewhere along the line, they began to fall in love.
     Sniffing back the tears of her memories, another thought
occured to her. She had been thinking of that first dance last
night too, as that same song played on the record player here, in
the home that she and Al had moved into shortly after they had
gotten married in 1961.She had begun to move slowly to the
music, pretending to dance once again in Al's strong but gentle
embrace. She imagined his voice whispering close to her ear,
"Awe,Beth.I love you so much honey." At some point, after the
song ended, she must have fallen asleep on the sofa, because
she could remember a strange dream.
   She had been dancing in her dream with her eyes closed,
again pretending to be with Al. She was beginning to cry,
because she knew that Al was dead and he would never dance
with her again. Suddenly, from somewhere in the room, she
heard a man's voice,"Beth?" She opened her eyes and saw a
man standing in her livingroom. It wasn't Al, and it wasn't Dirk. It
was someone she had never met. He had green eyes,and brown
hair that had a single swatch of white in it that tended to fall over
his forehead.
   "Who are you, h-how did you get in here?" She said, feeling a
growing panic. Looking into her eyes with deep compasion, he
answered softly, " I'm not going to harm you, I'm here to help
you. To help you, and to help Al."
   "To help Al?" she asked, now feeling a bit more at ease. The
stranger simply nodded, but never moved his eyes from hers.
Feeling like she had when Al's intense gaze had captured her at
the jukebox, she asked, "You're a friend of Al's?"
   At first he said nothing, but then , in a choked voice, he
replyed, "Yeah, I'm a friend of Als."  When he said this, he
punctuated it with a boyish lop-sided grin that told Beth she had
nothing more to fear from this man. She let out a small sigh, and
then he said,"Do you think we could sit?"  Nodding her accent,
she moved to the sofa, while the stranger sat on the floor in front
of her.
   "I'm gonna tell you a story, Beth...a story with a happy
ending.But only if you believe me." he said in that same calm
and soothing voice.
   "And if I don't?" she asked.
"You will." he said with a smile, "I swear you will."
Beth looked at him, not knowing  what to think, or how to
answer. It turned out that she didn't have to, as he continued.
   "But instead of starting with once upon a time, let's start with
the happy ending." He smiled again, as she listened with
growing interest.
   "Al's alive," he said, as his words once again choked with the
tears that shown in his eyes.  " and he's coming home."
As the words made themselves at home in her heart, Beth felt a
joy that could not be contained. Through tearful gasps of relief
and happiness, she put her hand up to her mouth. At first it may
have been an attempt to perhaps cover her mounting joy as
people often do, but it ended in a faint gesture of a kiss being
blown to this gentle bearer of wonderful news.

   Recalling every detail of it now, she softly said out loud,  "A
dream." yet, it had seemed so real to her this morning. Even
though she had cancelled the date with Dirk, she was no longer
crying about it. She felt a re-newed hope. Of course it had been
a dream, but, so what. She knew in her heart that the next tears
she shed, would be  ones of pure joy when she got the letter
from the Navy, saying Al was coming home. Beth smiled.
..........................................................................
.........

    As he paced, Al ran the fingers of his left hand through his
hair, while the right held a lit cigar. Smoking was forbidden in
most areas of the Project, and under normal circumstances, or
as normal as they ever got here, Al complied. However, these
were not normal circumstances---far from it, and besides, he
reasoned,  smoking helped him think.
    Where had Sam been when he had last seen him, and who
had he leaped into? If he could remember, he just might be able
to figure out what Sam might have changed, that had so
drastically altered this timeline for Al. He could ask Ziggy, but it
would have to be when no one else was around. It just wouldn't
do for anyone else to find out that the changes Sam made in the
past, sometimes had a direct and sometimes very profound
effect on the present.
   Al and Ziggy were always the only ones who knew what had
changed. Some privilege, huh? Ziggy, because she was the
Great Bio-mechanical Keeper of All Knowledge, Al supposed.
And he, he was the observer. He walked off his comfy, familiar
circle on the spider web every time he went into the imaging
chamber to talk to Sam. While he was in there,  sometimes the
circle shifted, like a Great Gear in the Cog-Works of Time, and
when he came out, a new connecting thread was waiting for him
to walk on, to take him to a new circle.
    Ordinarily, Al would talk privately to Ziggy in his quarters,
however, HIS quarters were now THEIR quarters, and he just
didn't want to go through another encounter. It usually didn't take
him long to adjust to most of the changes that he was witness to.
More residue from his military conditioning most likely. If it had
taught him anything, especially while in a war, it was that things
could change at any time, and usually did.
    Even when the 'Al /Tina scenario' was, from leap to leap,
changed to the ' Gooshie/ Tina' scenario, after a time, Al was
able to cope with it. After all, sometimes he needed "like a rest"
from Tina, and this way they didn't have to go through the pain
and hassel of an actual break-up. But this was Beth, and that
was a very different story. He hoped with all his heart that a
miracle would somehow suddenly occur, that would let him
forget all the past and just be able to enjoy his new present, with
the only woman he'd ever really loved. Opting for an abandoned
office for privacy's sake, Al summoned Ziggy.
   As soon as he had secured the door to the office, he growled,
"Ziggy, I need to ask..." but before he could finish,
"Admiral," Ziggy interupted, "smoking is expressly forbidden in
this area"  Forgetting that he still had the lit cigar, Al rolled his
eyes and quickly extinguished it while mumbling," Uh, sorry
Ziggy"
    "How are you and Mrs. Calavicci doing this morning? Did you
have a pleasant night?" Ziggy asked, with a little too much
suggestive emphasis on the ' pleasant night' part for Al.
    "Stow it Ziggy!" he snapped. " Just give me the answers I'm
looking for and leave the rest out of it.You got that?"
For a moment, there was silence, and then Ziggy replied with
what in a human voice, would have been sympathy, "Yes
Admiral, I understand completely, please begin your questions." 
   Al knew that the silence had been Ziggy's attempt to gain a
better understanding of his reaction, by correlating and cross
referencing all of the data concerning Al and Beth,original
timeline and the present one, along with all references in popular
literature that had been programed into her, that touched on the
subjects of love and loss; and all in the matter of a few seconds.
Just one of the many abilities that Sam had programed into the
hybrid computer.
    "All right, all right, just forget it." Al grumbled, as he waved off
the equivalent of an appology from Ziggy. He was also feeling
somewhat embarassed at his volitile reaction, and wanted to
stay on friendly terms with the only ally he felt he had.
    "Who's in the waiting room right now?"
    "Dr. Samuel Beckett."
Annoyed, chewing his now un-lit cigar, and squinting his eyes, Al
said,  "Ziggy, you know what I mean.Who is IN Sam's body in
the waiting room?"
    "There has been no activity since Dr. Beckett's last leap."
Shifting the cigar to the other side of his mouth, Al sought a
clarification.
   "What, you mean like when Sam leaps and his body just stays
sort of dormant for awhile until the next guy he leaps into shows
up?"
    "No Admiral. I mean that brain wave activity has all but
ceased in the body of Dr. Beckett.He is currently on complete life
support systems, but I'm afraid his condition will only continue to
deteriorate." The cigar dropped from Al's mouth, as he stared in
stunned silence, while Ziggy's concise if not detached
explanation registered on his brain.The strength in his legs
began to drain away and he dropped into a near by chair.
   The part of Al that was tired and confused with all of it, simply
had shut down. Interminable minutes went by and then, like the
lights coming back on after a blackout, the part of Al Calavicci
that would sooner die than to abandon a friend, sprang to life.
   Suddenly remembering about the theory to bring Sam back,
that Sammie Jo had been working on, Al silently sent up a brief
and heartfelt prayer,"Please God, let her have found a way."
Now, turning his attention back to the computer, he asked,
"Ziggy, in this time line, is Sammie Jo still here?"
    "Yes, Technical Assistant Fuller is currently assigned to the
Quantum Leap Project."
 So far so good, and now for the important part. "Did she ever
figure out how to get Sam home?"
    "In studying her theory," Ziggy said,  "I would have to
hypothesize that there is a 96.4% chance that it would in fact be
succesful."
Looking up, with a smile of reverent gratitude, Al said "Thanks."
   "You are quite welcome, Admiral," the computer replied. Al
smirked at the over inflated ego that mistook his reply as one
meant for her. Then Ziggy continued, "but may I remind you that
my hypothosis as well as Assistant Fuller's theory is pure
conjecture, since we have no way of testing it."
   Fearing that he already knew the answer, he asked anyway,
"And why's that?"
   Answering in her usual matter of fact tone, Ziggy
said,"Because we no longer have any knowlege as to Dr.
Beckett's location.Without that, we cannot lock onto his nuerons
and thus activate the retrieval sequence."
    Now operating on sheer gut intuition, Al pressed onward,
"Well, what about the last known location, don't you have that
information stored in memory? I seem to recall something about
a bar." After a brief pause, Ziggy answered,
   "Yes, Admiral Calavicci, Al's Place." and after a moment, and
what passed for a giggle in Ziggy, she added, "How quaint."
   Now was the time for the $64,000 question. All of the detective
stories that Al had ever read or seen on T.V., made one point
clear over and over again. If the trail of someone fizzled out, you
went back to the last known location and started looking for
clues.
  "Ziggy, can you leap me to that bar?"After a time, Ziggy finally
answered,  "It would take considerable preparation."
  "Ziggy, come on." Al knew when Ziggy was hedging, and if
Sam were here, he'd tell Al that he had borrowed that somewhat
annoying attribute from Al himself.He said it helped give Ziggy a
more human quality.
   "The odds of success could not possibly be computed with any
degree of acuracy..."
   "Ziiiiggggyyyyy." Al said in a warning tone.
   "Given the parameters of Assistant Fuller's theory, and the
probability out come of a number of hypothetical scenarios..."
Ziggy continued waffling in an almost Gushie-like manner.
  "ZIGGY!!!!!" Al roared, as the last of his patience had dwindled
away."CAN YOU LEAP ME TO THAT DAMNED BAR!!"
  With no other answer, Ziggy simply replied,
  "Unknown Admiral."
This at least was a straightforeward and truthful answer. He
could live with that. Taking out and unwrapping a fresh cigar, he
placed it in his mouth. Talking around it, and with a look of
fearless determination, he said,
  "Let's go find out."
 .....................CONTINUED IN PART 3..........................