"Hey, Kent! How’s public enemy number one, huh?"

The voice held a scornful note, a sneer of superiority that raised Sam’s hackles with instant dislike. He half-turned to locate its origin, letting the group of students he had been about to push past walk on ahead. For a moment he couldn’t pick any particular individual out of the scattering of youths that milled around the college entrance - and then he found himself confronted by a real character: a young man with cropped dark hair and attitude written all over him. The jeans were tight and ripped in defiant places. The teeshirt above them was blazoned with something Sam suspected was intentionally offensive, and the leather jacket that topped it had had its sleeves ripped out. Fingerless leather gloves, a pair of dark glasses, and a tattered headband completed the outfit; if the young man’s skin had been several shades darker he’d have looked like a refugee from a Michael Jackson video. As it was he just looked menacing, an effect Sam suspected was as deliberate as his choice of slogan.

Strength Through Purity, he read, deciphering the words that ran beneath the logo of martial eagle and swastika-crowned dagger, and winced.

"Look at you," the self-assured voice continued. "Ain’t you the big man on campus today?" He backed the question with a mocking laugh, sharing his derision with the leggy young woman who was hanging off his shoulder. She giggled.

"Oh, Richie," she pouted. "Let him alone. He’s only here because his old man would kill him if he skipped."

Richie smiled indulgently, reaching to buff her under her chin with his curled knuckles, a gesture half caress, half possessive blow. It narrowed Sam’s eyes into wary distrust.

"My uncle’s all mouth and no guts," the young man sneered. "Like his kid. Right, Kent? Hey," he went on, before Sam could formulate a response to this obvious and peremptory insult, "you’re outta this preppy pigsty, ain’t ya? We’re heading for the tracks - gonna cut a little action. Want in?"

It took Sam a moment or two to untangle all of that; my uncle meant that Richie was Kent’s cousin. Preppy pigsty was obviously the college, and the tracks - ?

Al’s request was suddenly making a lot more sense. If Richie’s cutting a little action took place down on the subway, then Kent was more than likely to get himself into trouble if he tagged along. Richie was bad news - that much was obvious, from the cultivated macho attitude right down to the aggressive in your face stance he’d adopted. A big fish in a small pool - who’d one day meet a real shark and not get the chance to regret it ...

"I have to get back to work," the time traveller announced, glancing over to check if his bus was there yet and trying to ignore the face the young woman was making at him. Her dark hair was combed over rather than away from her face; she was heavily made-up, and her mouth was full of gum. She couldn’t be much more than seventeen, he judged, but trying to be twenty two and worldly-wise. Which was about what Richie probably was - twenty two, that is - and might help explain an awful lot about Kent Allen’s uptight attitude.

"Work?" Richie’s laugh was scornful. "Oh, man ... Look, the pigs can’t make you do that stuff. What have they got ya doin’ anyhow? Helping little old ladies cross the road?"

Sam bristled at the derisive note in the question; some of it was Kent, undoubtedly reacting the way he always did. But a lot of it was Sam too, angry at the young man’s arrogance, at his contemptuous attitude.

Al would probably call Richie a punk. Sam had a distinct feeling there wasn’t any better term for him.

Which thought made him wonder whether it would be a good idea to tell Richie just where his cousin was working off his community service. Something about that teeshirt slogan was ringing distinct warning bells.

"Just - stuff," he shrugged warily, trying to sound dismissive about the whole deal. His attempt at conveying sullen hostility was right on the nail; Richie frowned with obvious irritation.

"Yeah. Right. You coming or not?"

Sam shook his head, which deepened the frown even further for a moment. It was clear that this was not the reaction the young man was expecting. Tension briefly tightened the space between them, and the girl took a wary step away from them both.

"Last chance," Richie snarled, leaning forward a little, his eyes narrowing intimidatingly. Sam glared back. He didn’t want to go anywhere with this young thug; he needed to get back to the shelter. Back to Chelsea, who needed him.

I don’t have time for this.

Neither did Richie, apparently; after a second or two of threatened confrontation he dismissed the whole business with a contemptuous laugh.

"Well," he decided, reaching out to brush nonexistent dust from his cousin’s jacket collar, "you just be a good little boy and - I’ll see you around, right?" He turned to his company and grinned. "He don’t want the action, he don’t want the action. It’s his loss. Jerk," he added over his shoulder as they strolled away. Sam found himself breathing a sigh of relief.

Which realisation had him tensing his shoulders and glancing around in case that had been what he was there to do and he was about to Leap ...

Nothing happened. No warning tingle, no sense of completion - and no hologram, either, waving the handlink at him and detailing the change in history.

Thank you, he mouthed under his breath, looking up in the general direction of the sky. Then he was running for the bus, scrambling onto the step just before it pulled away.

I can’t wait to get back, Sam considered happily, jamming himself down between a plump black woman with a small child on her lap and a surly looking man in a grubby pair of bib overalls. Kent Allen’s problems could wait. He was heading for another evening of company, and the prospect of being greeted by Chelsea’s broad smile filled him with an anticipatory glow that quite banished his anxieties over the encounter with Richie.

Only the freshmen’s meet had been pretty interesting - and perfect material to take back to the exiles waiting in the shelter. Exiles from life - and he with the gift to take them a taste of it, to offer Kent’s experiences along with Sam Beckett’s sympathy and support.

He watched the world go by with impatience while the bus inched its way through traffic, and found himself thinking that it would have been faster on the subway.

But I promised, he sighed to himself, shifting distractedly to let the woman on his left get to her feet and a bag-laden office worker take her place. The recollection brought back memories of the morning and the abortive conversation he had almost had with his intangible friend, and he sighed a second time.

Remember the time before the Leaps, and the life he had left behind him. All he had were disjointed moments and a scattering of details that he couldn’t place in context. Images of his mother and the rest of the family, gleaned from early glimpses of life on the farm. Odd snatches recalling time spent in academia and study - amongst which lurked the hint of Chelsea’s smile - and even odder ones of more recent history -

Recent future, he reminded himself, smiling distractedly at the harassed-looking young mother who’d replaced the man in overalls.

But nothing else. No clear faces of friends or colleagues to summon up, no memories of his work or the Project, no images of its setting or its construction -

- and no memories of that special someone, of dreams shared or moments spent in togetherness. No-one important in his life ...

There must be someone, he considered anxiously. Al would have been free to say if there wasn’t ...

Which thought should have been comforting, but wasn’t.

His fingers clenched in distraught frustration as he fought for memories that just weren’t there.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he nearly missed his stop again; he virtually flew off the vehicle and down the street, his long legs determinedly eating the distance between himself and his destination.

And he wanted to be there, because one thing he had remembered was how Chelsea liked a taste of lemon in his tea, stirred in with a hint of sweet honey.

Sweet and black, he’d always laughed. Just like me ...

Sam remembered laughing too, although he couldn’t have understood the joke back then. He did now, or some of it at least, comprehending the man’s chosen lifestyle and the secrecy with which he must have protected it, back in those college days.

He hauled the key George had given him out of his pocket and let himself in, closing the heavy door behind himself with care. The desk in the lobby was unattended, and he dropped his bag under it for safekeeping before heading for the common room.

"Hey, Kent," Danny greeted him. "Good day at school?"

"Uh - yeah." Sam stared round in puzzlement. Mark and Damian were in their chosen corner, and several of the others had lifted their heads at Danny’s words to smile or wave in acknowledgement of his arrival, but Chelsea’s chair was empty, and there was no sign of him anywhere. "Have you had tea?"

"Not yet." Danny waved a languid hand in the general direction of the kitchen. "Crisis city, you know? George calls in the crash team and we all starve by inches. That’s how it goes."

"Crash team?" Sam gave up his frantic searching and turned to stare at the speaker instead. Danny Andrews was a young man in his late twenties, gifted with a face that had once inspired artists and now only inspired pity; his wry smile was painful to watch.

"Yeah," he breathed. "It happens. You breathe too deep, you reach too far - " He leaned forward with care, including Sam in a conspiratorial confession. "And you know what? We all thank god that it wasn’t us. Not this time. Bastards, aren’t we? But it’ll happen. One day." He leaned back again, trying to look nonchalant and only succeeding in looking resigned. "I tell ya," he confided diffidently, "I want my lungs to go. Not my mind. Dying’s bad enough without going crazy with it."

"Who - ?" Sam began to ask, but caught himself. He knew who. Of course he did. And the understanding - the sheer terror of knowing - slammed his heart to a halt inside his chest.

He went cold all over. He forgot to breathe.

And then he was through the door and racing down the passageway, heading for the medical wing and the intensive care facilities it housed.

Praying as he ran.

Praying with all his pounding, desperate heart.

No.

Dear god, no!

Please, oh please. Don’t let it have happened.

Not to Chelsea.

Not so soon ...

Al knew there was trouble afoot even before he walked into the Imaging Chamber. It might have had something to do with the way Vega had clammed up on him when he’d asked for a situation update, but even without that he’d have known; he’d always known, with that inbuilt sixth sense that he’d come to recognise over the years.

It had warned him about going back to ’Nam, and stubborn pride had made him ignore it. It had warned him long before that sympathetic officer had found a way to break the news about Beth - and it might have warned him that day over Edwards, if only he’d been willing to listen to his gut and not so determined to meet the impossible deadlines he’d been set.

It had even warned him that Sam might Leap ahead of schedule - and he’d been cursing the way he’d argued himself down over that ever since.

A nagging feeling of impending disaster wasn’t unusual company halfway through a Leap; he always made himself separate simple anxiety from the more serious concerns and had learned to live with them both. But this was different. This was a gut-centred certainty.

Something bad has happened ...

He just didn’t know what.

The Imaging Chamber door slid open as he strode toward it, and he stepped through the brilliance of the buffer zone immediately, ignoring the inevitable shiver of static that crackled around him as he did so. Beyond the light stretched the upper corridor of the hostel and a doorway which he approached with trepidation. It was dusk outside, and the deserted passageway was dimly lit by one electric bulb; the room beyond the open door was dark, and he had to pause in the archway to let his eyes adjust to the lack of light.

"Sam?" he called softly, needing assurance that the dejected figure who sat slumped on the edge of the bed really was the man he was looking for. A little part of him hoped not - mainly because the anxious misery of the pose implied the worst.

"Go away," Sam’s voice muttered in tight response.

Al lifted the handlink the barest amount, tilting it so that he could catch the readout without making the consultation too obvious. All his instincts were screaming at him; what he really wanted to do was walk over and wrap an arm around those hunched shoulders - and if he’d been there, rather than too many years away he would have done so. He knew that if he could just do that, then the man would turn into the comfort he could offer, knew that there would be no need for words between them.

Only Sam was utterly beyond his reach and had been so for three long years. There were times when it felt as if it would stay that way forever. Right now, for instance ...

The reason for the man’s misery escaped him; the handlink clearly showed that Chelsea Harrington had not died - would not die - until the following day.

He winced at the data Vega was finally feeding him. Nobody dies of the AIDS virus itself. They just lose the ability to fight everything else. And Chelsea was going to lose one hell of a battle in his final hours. A minor throat infection had spread, inflaming his lungs - and in the end it would be his own body that would kill him, wrestling with the kind of bug that everybody else would dismiss as just another cold.

To all intents and purposes, he drowned. From the inside out ...

The Commodore plunged the link into his pocket, not wanting to know any more. It hadn’t happened - not yet - so that couldn’t be the reason why Sam ...

"I wasn’t here." The admission held pain - and anger. He looked up, to meet a glitter of eyes staring at him through the gloom. "I wasn’t here, Al. I was at college. I was on the bus. I was doing what you asked me to." Sam’s words were tight, laced with resentment, underwritten with distress. "I left him. I should have been here."

"Here for what, Sam?" He had to ask the question - ask it softly, with wary sympathy. It earned him a resentful look.

"You know," was the instant comeback. "You had to know - and you didn’t tell me. You should have told me."

The accusation was sharp; it was backed by a hint of deep frustration, a sense of utter helplessness - and it hurt.

Not least because he didn’t have the faintest idea what Sam might be talking about.

"Told you - what?" Al requested tentatively. Hesitant because whatever had happened it had clearly cut deep - and because he had the distinct feeling that he was currently standing in the middle of a shooting range with no cover and no means of defending himself.

"About Chelsea," Sam growled, climbing to his feet and stalking round the edge of the bed. "About the attack ... Damn it, Al," he exploded angrily, "you didn’t even bother to check, did you?"

The vehemence in the verbal assault forced its target back a reflexive step, even though he was in no danger of physical violence.

He’s upset, Al reminded himself, taken aback by the expression in his lover’s eyes. He’d seen that look before - one of betrayal, one of angered wretchedness - but he’d certainly never thought to see it directed at him.

Understanding that helped a little - but it didn’t stop the icy hand of inner guilt that clenched hard around his guts.

Except that he had to keep Weitzman sweet, and feed something back to the committee every now and then. He’d taken the risk - given Sam time to make his way back from college alone - and now it looked like the entire farm had hit the fan.

"What’s happened, kid?" he asked warily, wanting more than ever to reach out and pull the man into his embrace. He folded his arms instead, a defensive reaction which probably only helped distance his angry company even further.

"What’s happened?" The echo was bitter. "Chelsea’s down there, in intensive care, on oxygen, and you ask me what happened? I wasn’t here, Al. And I should have been. He needs me."

Al’s reaction was one of instant and sympathetic comprehension - the exclamation mouthed, rather than vocalised, the eyes widening with enlightenment, and the whole thing followed by a slightly guilty look which was directed away from the speaker and down at the polished board floor.

All of which conveyed a great deal more than any words might have done.

"You didn’t know." Sam still sounded accusatory, but a little less certain of his assumptions. The Commodore shook his head quickly; a reluctant denial overridden by the concern he brought to bear.

"I’m sorry, Sam, I - if anything had been on record I would have warned you, I swear, but - "

The look he was getting went back to being hostile. Suspicious. Sam’s lips were tight, his eyes brimming over with hurt and pain; he was in no mood to listen to anything, let alone explanations.

"Don’t," he requested tightly, turning away to stare at the wall. "Don’t lie to me, Al. You know how long he’s got. I know you do. So don’t - stand there, making excuses." He glanced back, his whole stance distraught and discomforted. "I know you don’t want me involved in this, but I am involved. I can’t just walk away. He’s my friend, goddamn it, and he’s dying.

"I thought you were my friend. The least you could have done was warn me."

"Sam - " It was no good saying I did warn you. He’d tried, and all he’d done was strengthen Sam’s misplaced assumptions. This whole crazy mess was exactly what Al had feared, right from the moment he’d realised where and when the Leaper had found himself.

"Forget it," the time traveller interrupted bitterly. "I don’t want to hear it, anyway. No more excuses. No more lies. I don’t give a damn what you, or Vega, or anyone thinks this Leap is about. I’m staying right here, with Chelsea. Whether you like it or not."

And seeing that hurt hurt him in turn - a savage slice through his heart, which the note of betrayal in his lover’s angry words was tearing into a deep and bleeding wound.

The lie - that had never really been a lie, just a misdirection, just a misassumption he’d never disabused - now sat between them with leaden weight. Sam had misconstrued his motives, misread his intent - and he knew that the words that might shatter that deceit were ones that, in this situation, might shatter the man at the heart of the storm.

He desperately wanted to help, but he didn’t know how. Didn’t know how to breach the barrier that Sam had raised between them, the wall of assumption and misconception that he had helped to build. He tried, nonetheless.

"Sam - " he offered a second time, that one syllable laden with distraught concern. It elicited what might have been a shiver, a tightening of those already tense shoulders.

"Don’t," came the request, delivered at the wall with tight control. "Don’t push me on this, Al. I’ve made up my mind and you aren’t going to change it."

Al winced at the weight of emotion that lay behind those words. Sam was torn, wrestling with his heart - with a conflict he didn’t even know about, let alone recognise.

"I think you should go." Sam’s voice was laced with distress. "At least until this is over."

"Go?" If the time traveller had been in a state to listen, then the wounded sound of that startled word might have shifted his entire perception of the situation - but listening was the last thing on his mind. He delivered the rest of his determined speech as if he’d rehearsed it.

Perhaps he had ...

"I know you can’t - face all of this, Al. I - I guess everyone has their limits, and I can’t blame you for that, no matter how disappointed it might make me feel. But this is something I have to do. Something I have to face."

He turned then, fixing his eyes on his company, staring at him with an odd combination of bewildered hurt and determined stubbornness.

"You’ve always been there for me. Always. And I don’t - I don’t want to end up hating you over this. Not this one thing. So - go, okay? I don’t want to see you. Not until it’s over. Until it’s all over. Then - then I promise I’ll finish the Leap, and - and - please, Al. Let me do this. Take a break. Take Tina to Vegas. Do anything you like, but - let me do this."

The Commodore drew in a careful breath, a little surprised at his own self-control.

"If that’s - what you want, Sam."

"It’s what I want." Sam turned away, dismissing his company, wrapping his arms around himself as if unconsciously seeking the one thing his faithful Tomcat wanted to offer him and could not.

The comfort of a loving embrace ...

Al had never felt so helpless in his entire life. He reached for the handlink with almost mechanical reflex, retreating to the last refuge of a military man.

Obeying orders.

When it came down to it, you did what you had to, no matter how much it cost, no matter how loudly your instincts were howling otherwise. And something told him that if Sam had calmly handed him a knife and told him to cut his own throat, then he undoubtedly would have done so.

Although it probably wouldn’t have hurt as much ...

Sam waited until he heard the soft swish of a nonexistent door before he moved again. Actually, he waited a lot longer than that: he stood, wrapped in conflicting emotions, wrestling with conscience and impossible choices, for what seemed like forever.

Because while a good part of him was gratefully acknowledging a sense of thank god for that, the piece left over was silently whispering I’m sorry, Al ...

He had, he suspected, taken the coward’s way out, driving away the cause of his inner conflicts in order to cope with the drama that awaited him below. Perhaps, instead of getting mad at his friend, he should have found time to talk the issue out, to confront and dispel the hateful demons of ignorance and prejudice.

Challenge them, at least, he sighed to himself, finally letting his arms slide down to his sides and letting the weight of the confrontation slide away with them. His inner anger helped push it away; it was over, done with. He’d said what he’d had to say, and now he could get on with what needed to be done.

Without interference.

Without help or hope from the future ...

He’d turned his back on his best friend, driven away the one man who anchored him in time. And he’d done it to protect his heart and his sanity, hating himself, wishing - wanting - that things might be different, that instead of being a target for his anger his Observer might have found a way to offer his support. The way he always had before.

The way - Sam's small voice of conscience tried to point out - he might have done, had he been given a chance to try.

Samwise Beckett shivered. Once. A bare shudder that reached all the way to his soul. He was alone in this now. Alone. Left to face the grim realities of the world, knowing - however much he might deny that truth - that this time there would be little he could do but watch and wait. Hoping, deep in his heart, that he could still change something. That - somehow - he could add meaning to what seemed such a senseless waste.

"Kent?" George’s voice dropped softly into his anxious reverie. "The doctor’s just left. You said you’d sit with Chelsea. Are you still okay with that?"

Sam turned, reacting with an anxious eagerness that only his banished hologram would have understood. "Yes - yes, of course I am. You want me down there now?"

The man’s smile was still impossibly benign, although it carried the weight - the effort - of being so.

"If you don’t mind. We’ve a new admission coming tomorrow, and Martin and I - look, Kent, if it gets too much, just say so, okay? I don’t like throwing you in at the deep end like this, and we’ll deal with it if you can’t - "

"I’ll deal with it," Sam interrupted firmly. "It’s okay, George. I like Chelsea. I want to sit with him. I just wish there was more I could do."

"Don’t we all," George sighed, resignation briefly tainting his smile. "Come on. Hop to. The man’s down there all alone."

That was all the impetus Sam needed; long strides carried him along the passageway and down the waiting stairs, heading for one tiny room and the fragile life it contained. He had no time to brood on the damage he might have done to one friend - his whole attention was focused on the fate of another, and how he would be there to help him face it.

"What exactly did he say, Al?"

Vernon Beeks was being reasonable. Professionally reasonable, which was a sure sign that his patient was not - and, being his current patient, Alonzo Calavicci wasn’t reassured by the tactic.

Not one little bit.

"What the hell does that matter? He told me to scoot. Skedaddle. Vamoose. Take a powder. Leave him alone ..."

Beeks shook his head, watching his company pace up and down the plush carpeting in his office, much as he had watched him pace a hundred times or more.

This is getting to be too much of a habit, Al observed sourly, pausing at the apex of his imposed path to turn and glare at the owner of that familiar consideration. But he needed to sound off at somebody - and it might as well be Beeks, because that was what they paid him for.

"That might be what he thought he meant," the psychiatrist was pointing out, "but it wasn’t what he said. He needs you, Al. Whether he knows it or not. So you need to be there - even if it’s only so that he can face all of this when he comes home again."

And for my own peace of mind, the Commodore interpreted shrewdly. Treat the patient as well as the problem, right Beeks?

But he was right - which was what made the whole situation so frustrating.

He quit the pacing and moved to rest his weight against the desk, absently picking up one of Beeks's many desk ornaments and turning it over in his hand as he did so. He caught sight of the psychiatrist’s knowing smile, filed his obvious slip under the usual note of things you shouldn’t do in a shrink’s office because they reveal too much about you, sighed, and put the object down again. The cool and fluid shape of the carved stone slid away from beneath his fingers and he deliberately put his hands in his pockets instead. Beeks only smiled a little wider, and his company frowned at him.

You do all this intentionally, the Project Observer considered a little testily. Stack your desk with executive toys and tactile temptations ...

Like the hand-carved puzzle blocks, and the Chiralaquoi sandstone pieces, and the magnetic pile of paperclips, which right now seemed to be shaped into something vaguely obscene ...

"So what did he say? Exactly?"

Al sighed a second time. It wasn’t hard to replay the words. They were as good as burned into his soul.

"He said - I don’t want to see you. Not until it’s over. Until it’s all over. And a whole bunch of other stuff, about not wanting to hate me over this and - "

"I don’t want to see you," Beeks interrupted, with a slow-dawning grin. "He didn’t tell you not to be there, did he?"

Comprehension took a moment to register; when it did, it felt a little like stepping out of utter darkness into a blinding light.

Sneaky. Underhand. Totally at odds with the spirit of Sam’s impassioned demand. And an utterly, utterly wonderful idea.

"When did you turn into a barrack-room lawyer?" the Commodore demanded suspiciously, trying to stop himself from breaking into a broad grin. Beeks chuckled softly.

"I’m learning from a master," he declared, with more than a hint of warmth. "Come on, Al. You’re too close to all this. Take a step back. Look at it from a wider angle. Sam’s mental state is fragile right now, isn’t it? There is no way you could justify to me - or any other member of this Project, come to that - your simply abandoning him to work through this alone. You need to be there. So be there.

"You’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t see you ..."

It was too simple a solution. There had to be a catch. Somewhere.

Hadn’t there?

"It’ll take power." Practical considerations rose to mind; issues, not obstacles. "Vega’s bound to complain about it. And Gushie doesn’t like me using the damping field too often - he says it scrambles the circuitry in the handlink."

"But you do use it," Beeks pointed out. "You have watched Sam on other Leaps without him knowing that you were there."

"Not for any great length of time ..." Al allowed himself the beginnings of a smile. "Guess I’ll just have to make sure I’m not in Sam’s line of sight when it decides to fritz out on me." He paused, and the hint of a smile became the ghost of one instead. "This isn’t going to be easy, you know."

He wasn’t talking about the technical difficulties, and Beeks knew it.

"Yeah," the psychiatrist acknowledged softly. "I know."

The room was warm; softly warm, the air whispering with a hint of incense. That had probably drifted in from the hall, and wouldn’t reach the frail figure that lay cocooned in the bed; Sam suspected that all he could taste was the sharp metallic tang of bottled oxygen, even if he’d pushed the mask to one side and left it dangling on the pillow, ready for the moment when he might need it again.

"Hi," the time traveller offered, wrapping the greeting in a tentative smile. One that relaxed into genuine pleasure as the man it was addressed toward smiled back.

"Hi, yourself," Chelsea murmured, reaching an effort-laden hand to pat the side of the bed. "Come on over. Tell me all about your day."

The invitation was irresistible; Sam all but bounced across the intervening space and perched himself on the edge of the mattress before the man could change his mind.

"It was just a day," he dismissed, not really concerned with Kent’s life when the time his friend had left was so precious. Chelsea’s smile grew a little wider.

"Ain’t no such thing," he noted with certainty. "You gotta live for the moment, you know? Tomorrow never comes - and yesterday’s forgotten. So today is the only day you ever have. The only day that counts ..." He broke off to fight down a cough, and his hand fumbled for the oxygen mask. Sam reached over to help him, holding the slippery plastic steady as the sick man pulled the life-giving gas into his damaged lungs.

"Thanks," Chelsea acknowledged, once he could speak again. His hand slid from the mask and settled weakly over that of his company instead. "You don’t belong here, kid. You should be out there, living. Not in here, with me."

Sam’s hand curled over, capturing long, fragile fingers within his own.

"If all I have is today," he considered softly, "don’t you think that I’m the one to decide how I should spend it?" His lips curved into a quiet smile. "Is there really nothing left of yesterday that you want to keep with you?"

Dark eyes stared into his for a thoughtful moment, then their owner sighed and turned to stare at the ceiling instead. "Maybe," Chelsea allowed, his voice reluctant. "I didn’t used to think so, but - " He sighed a second time, and his fingers tightened their grip a little. "Can you keep a secret, Kent?"

That was a little like asking the Mona Lisa if she knew how to smile ...

"I’m good at secrets," Sam assured him, adding a careful glance toward the door in case anyone else might be within hearing distance. Nobody was.

Not even an intangible hologram.

"Then I’ll trust you with mine," Chelsea decided. He hesitated for a moment and then admitted softly, "I’m scared, kid. I’m real scared. I’ve spent all my life trying to prove I didn’t need anybody - and now I find it was all a stupid lie. What’s the good of having today - if there’s no-one there to share it with? Friendship - love - I’m finding they’re things that are worth so much more than I ever wanted to admit. I used to think you could fall in and out of love the same way you could catch cold.

"And now a stupid cold is killing me, because there’s no cure for it."

He paused to tilt his head and draw another slow breath from the mask. Sam’s fingers had tightened even further, trying to convey the strength - wanting to convey the reassurance - that he knew the man needed.

"I guess I never really fell in love. Love should be a forever thing. A chance at something like that only comes along once or twice in a lifetime. It might have come to me - but if it did, I just let it slip away. I always wanted the easy life, the no commitments, no hassles kinda game.

"Strictly exhibition play - without the pressures of the big league." He lifted his head a little, staring into Sam’s eyes with an intensity that sent a shiver through the time traveller’s soul. "The big league is where it counts," Chelsea whispered urgently. "Staying on the team. Seeing it through to the final whistle. That’s what matters, kid. I found out too late.

"Don’t you go making the same mistake. You find someone - someone who cares - and you stick with them, no matter what, no matter how hard it might be ..."

He was fighting for breath, and Sam had to let go of his hand to help him with the oxygen. The eyes that held his over the curve of the mask were etched with pain and effort - and a whole lifetime of regret.

"Before it’s too late," the dying man was insisting. The words cut as deep as a surgeon’s scalpel.

The guilt that thought engendered must have shown in his eyes; Chelsea’s anxious look softened into one of sympathy.

"Don’t pay me no mind," he rasped. "I’m just lying here, dying. Makes a guy say crazy things, ya know?" His lips twisted into a smile - a warm one, backed with wry acceptance. "All I’m trying to tell ya is that - just ’cause I screwed up my life - doesn’t mean you should, too."

A hacking cough interrupted his thoughts and he groped for a tissue in the box on the side cabinet; Sam tugged one free for him, and he used it to wipe the spittle from his lips.

"’Course," the ex-athlete went on, once he’d recovered his equilibrium, "I wouldn’t want anyone I cared about to be a witness to this mess. So maybe I’m better off alone. Better without someone to hurt, without someone to leave behind, ya know? No one will mourn me once I’m gone. Nothing left behind but a couple of write-ups in the sports pages - and maybe one or two who’ll pause to give me a thought before they get on with their lives. Just a few old lovers and a few old regrets. Nothing significant. Nothing that’ll matter."

"It’ll matter to me," Sam told him softly, and Chelsea smiled.

"You’re an okay kind of kid, aren’t ya, Kent? Got your heart in the right place. Martin didn’t think you’d make the grade around here, but - uh - " He paused to gasp another effort-filled breath, "What does he know, right?"

Sam returned the smile with one of his own, aiming for the unspecified embarrassment that the implied praise required. Inside, he shivered, recalling that Kent Allen had not made the grade the first time around. He’d run - probably straight back to the arrogant Richie and his "action" down on the subway.

Which should have been a self-satisfying thought, since it gave him a way to justify his decisions, even if he’d not given Kent Allen a single thought while making them. But his conscience prickled all the same.

At which point Chelsea was seized by another of those hacking coughs, and the brief moment of doubt was banished by the need to help him. This dying man needed him.

So Samwise Beckett felt no need to make excuses for his being there.

"I’ve rerun all the diagnostics, and everything looks okay ..."

Gushie was fussing, a sure sign of internal agitation; he’d already checked the handlink at least three times, and he’d insisted on checking it yet again, despite Al’s muttered growl of could we just speed things up a little here ...?

"Then it is okay. Isn’t it?" Tina noted, only too aware of the impatient stance of the man who stood beside her, and equally aware of his reasons for it. Gushie sighed.

"I’m really not sure about this, Commodore," he said, turning the link over and staring down at it worriedly. "Do we have to make this kind of demand on the equipment? We’ve never run the damping field for more than a few minutes at a time. The system just isn’t designed - "

"The system," Al interrupted tersely, tugging the link from reluctant fingers, "was designed to bring Sam home after the first Leap. Which it didn’t. So don’t talk design specs at me, Gushie. I don’t have time for them."

"Time," Vega observed from somewhere overhead, "could be considered the issue, Dr Gushman. I measure it, the Commodore observes it - and Dr Beckett experiences it. You are simply wasting it," s/he added tartly.

It was hard to tell if it was the remark or Gushie’s reaction to it that elicited the bare twitch of his smile, but Al’s upward glance contained more than a hint of gratitude. He’d snatched a few moments to speak to Vega alone, and had found himself faced with questions that he suspected had no answers; even so, he had dealt with them as best he could, forced - as he was often forced when dealing with Sam’s brilliant and enquiring child - to face issues he might have preferred not to think about.

There had been times when he’d cursed Sam’s generosity toward his brainchild; the presence of that overblown ego and its insatiable curiosity had added childish petulance and stubbornness to the list of problems he had to deal with on a regular basis. But it appeared that, for once, all that emotional baggage had actually worked in his favour.

Or maybe it was just that - whether admitting to it or not - Vega really did care about Sam Beckett after all.

"Okay," he decided, bringing the handlink from standby to full activation with the relevant jab of his finger. "Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?"

The suggestion sent everyone scurrying, spurred into action like a set of clockwork automata; after three years of practice the process had become a smoothly oiled routine. The Commodore waited until all the relevant places were filled, offering out his right wrist so that Beeks's reflex reach for his pulse was met halfway.

I don’t know why you still bother to check it ...

He didn’t do so all the time, of course, but just often enough to make it part of the ritual, to add that level of professional reassurance to the whole affair. Since Al was only too aware of the way his heart upped into overdrive every time he headed for the Imaging Chamber door, he’d long since resigned himself to the knowing frown that followed the doctor’s last-minute check.

He strode away from Beeks, up the ramp and into the impact of the buffer zone; behind him Imaging Control took up its usual quietly murmured conversations and, as usual, he paid them no attention. He was already focused on the past, on the expectations of what he might see, and his heart was beating a little faster than usual.

Whether it was from sheer anxiety or apprehensive guilt was hard to say.

But want and need were two different animals, and the basis on which Sam had judged the situation had been one of mistaken assumption and empty memory.

Sometimes, Al had to remind himself severely, there are things you have to do, despite what people think they want.

Like hugging a tantrum-torn sister until she stopped punching and screaming and hugged you back.

The buffer zone flared white around him, and then he was back in 1986.

In a room full of people.

Noisy people, laughing and chatting as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Danny Andrews was holding court in the centre of the shelter’s main lounge, his crowd of friends draped around him like the figures in some ancient Roman tableau.

"... so then I said, Sweetheart, I said, you’d never be man enough for me ..."

The punchline elicited a surge of laughter and Al quirked a small reactive smile, wondering what the rest of the joke might have been.

Remembering, because he couldn’t help but remember, how he had once joked and told outrageous stories to dying men, because hope and humour were the only weapons left to him ...

He pushed away a shiver and focused on the matter in hand; literally in hand, since he needed to check the readout on the handlink before he risked getting close enough to Sam for the man to see him. According to the display, everything was functioning as expected.

That is, if a readout of ‘Damp ild OperIIItio**&<>’ was what you were expecting.

He sighed and thwacked the side of the link with the heel of his hand, getting the inevitable squeal of protest before the display settled into comprehensible lettering. The normal holographic transmission was two-way, the process that enabled the Observer to see the Leaper’s surroundings being the same subatomic manipulation of space and time that enabled the Leaper to see him. But the presence of the damping field was supposed to suppress the receiving end of the broadcast, dispersing it with a quantum equivalent of white noise. It was something he’d used only sparingly before, conscious of the power it demanded and of how it had never really been properly tested.

Just as the rest of the system hadn’t, before that first precipitate Leap ...

He didn’t feel any different from usual, but, deciding to take his invisibility on trust, he tucked the link into his pocket, took one last look at the gathered crowd, and walked away, strolling straight through the closed doors and down the passageway in search of the man who was never far from his heart.

No matter what the actual distance might be.

"Would you do something for me, Kent?" Chelsea’s voice had developed a rasping note, the inevitable sound of air forced from fluid-clogged lungs. The message it carried added an extra layer to the cold weight that was growing in Sam’s gut; he was there, but that just didn’t seem to be enough.

"Sure," he responded to the question, backing it with a willing smile. "I’ll do anything you want."

The dying man grinned at him, still perfectly capable of reading an implied meaning behind an innocent remark or two. "Don’t make offers you can’t keep," he advised warmly. "Listen - up in my room - in the top drawer of the dressing table? There’s some paper and stuff. Could you fetch it down for me? There’s some letters I need to write. Only a few - just to some people I know. I want them to hear about - " His hand lifted in an effort-filled gesture, indicating his current situation with eloquent ease, "From me, ya know? So - can you bring me the stuff? And when this is over - will you make sure they get mailed for me?"

"Of course I will." Sam half-climbed to his feet. "You want it now?"

His eagerness brought back the knowing grin. "Oh, baby," Chelsea growled. "That’s the best offer I’ve had all day ..."

The time traveller blushed; a warm surge of colour that painted his cheeks and added depth to the embarrassment of his smile. His reaction turned the grin into a delighted chuckle, one that echoed the deep, resonating laugh that Sam recalled so well.

"I’ll - go get - the stuff," he said, deflecting his further embarrassment with vague gestures and a dash for the door. His cheeks were burning, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or curse as he vaulted up the stairway two steps at a time.

But it had been good to make the man laugh - to know that he was still capable of doing so - and wasn’t that what he was there to do? To make the hours his old friend had left a little easier, to distract and entertain him, as well as keeping him company?

The thought sent him up one more flight of stairs - to collect Kent Allen’s guitar - before he turned down the middle hallway and into Chelsea’s abandoned room. The writing paper and envelopes were just where their owner had described, and he bundled them up, torn between getting straight back to where he was needed and being distracted by the remnants of a man’s life, by the scattering of photographs that jostled for space on the desktop.

Team pictures abutted more personal images. Most of those were of young men: white, black, Hispanic, and all types in between. There was one of a dark-skinned older couple, smiling kindly out of the gloss, and there - almost hidden behind a slew of other portraits - one particular image, imprisoned in a gilded frame.

Sam paused to pick up that one picture - or rather three pictures, since that was what the frame contained. The first was a candid snapshot of a young man at a basketball game, in college strip, his hair mussed, and his expression determined. Tucked behind that was a second, more formal, shot of the same young and intense face. And behind that a creased magazine cover, the logo folded over and the bylines covered by the earlier pictures.

From the glossy depths of all three prints, familiar eyes stared out at him. His eyes - the ones that belonged to the reflection he hadn’t seen in a long time.

It was flattering to find himself in among the man’s souvenirs; to be remembered, and his career so obviously followed, long after their association had come to an end. But it was disconcerting, too, since so many of the other photographs carried scrawls of dedication, messages of affection and regard.

Always the best, one read.

He shoots, he scores! proclaimed another.

Sam shivered and put his pictures back where he’d found them. He had no business prying into Chelsea’s memories; it should be enough to find he still had a place among them. That the affection he felt for the man, and those glimpsed recollections of his friendship, were not self-deceptions but a shared truth. A confirmation of the debt he felt he owed.

One that he was determined to repay ...