Al never quite knew what to expect whenever he walked into the Waiting Room. Each new arrival was different, reacting in different ways to a situation none of them could possibly comprehend. The first meeting wasn’t always the worst, either; shock and disorientation tended to moderate the initial contact, while visitors often acclimatised to their strange circumstances after a time. For some that meant a passive acceptance. Other developed a more belligerent attitude. And some just went plain crazy ...

Kent Allen had done none of those. He was sitting cross-legged on the main support couch, gloomily watching music videos as they unfolded on one of the VDUs built into the wall. His own personal edition of MTV, picked - Al had no doubt - from Vega’s carefully documented archives.

Nothing later than 1985, I hope ...

It was hard to tell from the recordings that paraded across the screen; prancing figures faded into blurred nothingness, to be replaced by more obscure images. Sound soared into the perfect acoustics of the room.

"Is this the real life?

Is this just fantasy?

Caught in a landslide

No escape from reality ..."

"Take a break," the Commodore murmured quietly to the attentive medical technician Beeks had left on duty. "I’ll watch him for a while."

The man’s patient expression brightened. "Thank you, sir," he breathed gratefully and vanished into the passageway, leaving the Project Observer alone with his guest. Kent glanced over his shoulder as the sound of the door registered a second time, then turned his attention back to the music, his shoulders hunching defensively as he did so.

Al’s eyes narrowed a little at the sudden implication of tension, but he strolled across the distance casually enough, walking round to lean his weight at the other end of the couch and study the video screen with companionable interest.

"You like rock music?" he enquired in what he hoped was a friendly tone. "Or just Queen in particular?"

The look Kent threw him was suspicious, backed with a hint of how do you know who this is? surprise. "They’re okay," he allowed. "Better than some." He paused and then added, almost in a rush, "He’s gay. Did you know that?"

"M'm?" Al turned from the classic performance to frown at the speaker with wary confusion. It was hardly the way he’d choose to start a conversation, and the question seemed to have no immediate context to it. "Who is?"

Kent grimaced - a young man’s I oughta have known grimace of impatience with his elders. "Freddie Mercury," he explained disdainfully. "Their lead singer. He’s gay. You can always tell."

"Really?" Al reacted. "Oh. Oh - I see." Actually, he didn’t see, although he was only too aware of the history of the brilliant performer that they discussed.

But Kent wouldn’t know about that, not yet. So why had he brought the subject up? Had he remembered what he was meant to be doing, back in 1986? And was it preying on his mind?

"You don’t think that matters?" Kent’s question was sullen. "Richie always says - " He thought better of his threatened words and abandoned them unsaid. "Well - it - it matters." He slapped at the remote that sat beside him and Bohemian Rhapsody was supplanted by silence. "You’re in charge around here, aren’t you?"

"M'm-huh." Al was watching the young man thoughtfully, wondering what was eating at him. He’d had nearly three days of Vernon Beeks’s patented therapy, and he was still wound tighter than the proverbial spring.

"So when can I get outta here? I want outta here. And I don’t like that - that boogie-born couch-doctor trying to get into my head. He ain’t got no right, ya hear?"

The Commodore frowned, not liking the racist overtones of the youngster’s complaint. He hadn’t thought Kent had that kind of problem, and he wouldn’t have left Beeks to deal with him if he had.

"Dr Beeks is just trying to help you," he pointed out, deliberately ignoring the initial question. Kent grimaced bitterly.

"I don’t want help," he grouched, sliding down from the couch and deliberately turning his back. "There’s - nothing wrong with the guy," he admitted, somewhat reluctantly. "I just - I can’t talk to him. He’s so together, you know? All the answers, and all that feeling crap. But he don’t know shit. Not about me. How could he? He’s never been there."

He paused, turning slowly to stare at his company with doubtful eyes. "You have," he recalled cautiously. "Or somewhere like it, anyway. How do you live with yourself when - when you hate what you are? What you feel, what you want ...? How?"

Al studied him for a moment, considering the anxious look in his eyes and the beleaguered desperation that lurked behind it. Whatever was eating at Kent Allen, it was biting pretty deep.

"I guess you stop running away from your problems," he suggested softly. "And start facing them instead."

The young man’s lips tightened and he turned away. "That’s easy for you to say," he muttered resentfully.

The Commodore twitched a small and bitter smile.

Oh yeah. Easy to say. But damned hard to do, kid. Believe me ...

"I had help," he admitted softly. "But so do you, kid. Right here."

Kent shrugged, a discomforted shiver.

"You - ah - married?" he asked, another apparent non sequitur. The Commodore wondered if he should respond to something as personal as that. But at least the boy wanted to continue their conversation.

"Not at the moment," Al admitted, unable to help the wry glance at Sam’s reflection where it lay between them both. "But I have been. Four times so far. Why? You got girl trouble?"

He meant it as a gentle joke, since he’d rarely met a young man who didn’t; Kent shivered again, a little more noticeably.

"I don’t - have a girlfriend. Richie has. My cousin - Richie? He’s always got girls. They even fight over him ..."

Al’s response to that was a reminiscent chuckle. "Huh - tell me about it," he drawled self-mockingly. "I got at least one divorce for that reason. Never could convince ’em there was enough of me to share ..."

Sam would have given him a withering look; Kent’s glance held a hint of envious pain.

"Richie says I’m too much of a geek to get a girl. But I could. If I wanted to ..." He lifted his arms to wrap them defensively around himself. "I don’t want to. But I can’t tell him that. He’d kill me."

"For having a little sense?" Al hazarded warily. The youngster was barely nineteen. Unlike his current company - who’d become addicted to the joys of the opposite sex at a remarkably tender age - he was clearly still wrestling with his maturity; uncertain of himself and his place in the world. He probably wasn’t ready to handle any kind of emotional relationship just yet. "Girls can be trouble, kid. I oughta know. But if you’re after a few pointers - "

"No," Kent interrupted him. "No - really, I - I don’t want to get involved with - with girls."

Al had to smile at the young man’s expression. "They’re not that scary," he pointed out with a hint of amusement. "Matter of fact - "

"I’m not scared," Kent interrupted again, his voice tight. "I’m just - not - interested." He took a couple of paces away from the couch, then turned back, staring at his company with belligerence. "You don’t get it, do you? I - I thought you might, but - but I guess I gotta spell it out for ya, don’t I? And then you can stop being so fucking nice to me, and, and - " He wrestled with words that wouldn’t come, and his inability to express himself twisted his face up into distress. Finally, obviously feeling that he’d explored every other possible avenue of confession, the young man took a gulped breath for courage, stepped right up to the concerned Commodore - and slammed a forceful kiss firmly on his lips.

He had no real time to react to it, just froze in total startlement. It gave Kent time to complete the bruising contact and let go, striding away with his arms flung wide and his breath coming in tight gasps. "Now do you get it?" he snarled. "I’m gay, okay? I’m a fucking homo. A queer. A candy-assed fag." The words were as good as shouted, delivered through angry tears. He made it sound like an admission of shame, lading each insult with self-hatred and disgust. His voice tailed into silence and he stared angrily at the wall, his shoulders set with rigid tension.

So that’s his problem?

It wasn’t that surprising, even if it was a little unexpected. Beeks had theorised problems arising from a dysfunctional childhood, from issues surrounding his parents’ messy divorce, or from peer pressures in his inner city environment. There’d been nothing in Vega’s researches to suggest anything else.

He’s expecting me to condemn him, Al recognised, lifting his hand to brush the point of sudden contact between them. To confirm his sense of horror and shame ...

He took a careful breath, analysing his options. He seriously doubted that the youth would listen to words of comfort or wisdom. Vernon had been offering them for days without getting anywhere. But he had an angle that the patient psychiatrist could not pursue - although it went against most of his better principles and all of his instincts.

Ah - jeez, he realised almost immediately. I must be confusing the hell outta him. That is Sam’s aura he’s wearing. And we know there’s always a certain amount of bleedthrough ...

Getting mixed signals, kid? ’Bout time you got yourself straightened out a little ...

The phrase struck him as funny; it helped put things back into a certain amount of perspective.

"Hey," he offered softly, moving over to the young man’s side and placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. Kent shivered at his touch. "That ain’t the way to do it, kid."

He reached with the other hand, turning the youngster toward him; Kent’s face was sullen, his eyes bleak.

"You gonna hit me?" he muttered. Al shook his head.

"Uh-uh," he denied, stepping closer and returning the kiss with one of his own. One of his best, one he’d been keeping in reserve for Sam when he came home ...

Nobody did. Kent went briefly rigid in shock, and then melted into the contact with a decidedly dazed reaction.

Virgin kisses, Alonzo smiled to himself, stepping back and watching the young man with a wry grin. Supposed to be the best ... There was a certain level of relief settling at the back of his mind. Kissing Kent had felt a little like kissing a dead fish. The young man did absolutely nothing for him, and knowing that was going to make the rest of this easier to deal with. He shouldn’t really be into seducing nineteen year olds these days, whatever their sex; he was getting a little old for cradle snatching.

He drove the memory away with an effort. That was almost twenty years in the past and had no relevance to now other than to remind him that trying to evade the issues that resulted from that night had screwed him up for a long time afterward.

"You ..." Kent was staring at him in total confusion. "But - you’re not ... Are you?"

Al let the grin become a knowing smirk. "Thought you could always tell," he pointed out, moving back to rest his weight against the central support couch. He dipped his hand into his jacket pocket and concentrated on lighting a fresh cigar while the young man went on staring at him. "Look," he said at last, taking pity on the youth’s confusion. "It ain’t that simple, okay? Never is. You’re gay, and think you don’t want to be. Me? I was flying straight as an arrow until a young man with the heart of a saint and the eyes of an angel convinced me differently ...

"Mind you," he observed with flippant confidence, "one thing about walking both sides of the fence is - uh - you do get to lose your virginity twice ..."

Kent’s expression became utterly dumbfounded. His mouth worked, but no sound came out.

"What’s the matter, Kent Allen?" Al enquired sardonically. "Someone knock down all your preconceived notions? Or just never been kissed before, huh? Want me to do it again?"

"No," Kent blurted out hastily, then coloured a little and looked away. "That is - I don’t know."

"That’s okay. It wasn’t a serious offer. I’m not into child molesting."

"I’m not a - a child ..." The youth had swung back with a surge of his earlier anger, letting it tail away under the direct scrutiny he was receiving. "Well, all right," he allowed, looking down at his feet. "Maybe I am to you ..."

"Come here," Al requested, indicating the space next to him on the polished surface. "Someone’s screwed you up pretty tight, and I think it’s about time you took a good hard look at what you’ve become. Come on," he ordered, backing up the command with a beckoning finger. "I won’t eat you, and I won’t hurt you, and I sure as hell won’t seduce you, so sit down."

Kent closed the distance with reluctant steps and perched himself on the indicated spot, his whole body tense and his look wary.

"Two things," the Commodore enumerated, ticking them off with his cigar. "First, you can cut all that macho crap with me, okay? If you want to act like a jerk, that’s up to you, but it don’t impress me, and it don’t convince me. I’ve lived on the street, and I’ve fought in a real shooting war; I know what makes a man a real man and it’s got nothing to do with acting hard or having attitude.

"Second - " He paused to give the young man a shrewd look. "Second is - we’re speaking truth here, capite? I just made one hell of a confession to you, kid, whether you know it or not. There’s barely half a dozen people I can think of who know about that part of my personal life. So you pay me back by being equally honest, right?"

Kent hesitated - then nodded a reluctant agreement to the request.

"I guess - " he said hesitantly, "I kinda confessed to you first ..."

Al chuckled, breathing out a generous cloud of smoke. "You sure did," he grinned. "Damned good job I am who I am. Anyone else woulda slugged you one."

"I wanted you to," the young man admitted. The Commodore gave him a startled look.

"Oh, jeez," he reacted. "You really have got a problem, haven’t you? Look, kid. I don’t know where these notions of yours came from, but you’d better get rid of them damned quick."

The young man glowered at the floor. "I ain’t gonna act limp-wristed," he announced tightly, "and I’m not glad to be gay. I hate this. The way I feel. The things I want to do ..."

Al sighed. "I’m not asking you to blazon your colours to the world, you nozzle. Just to try being honest with yourself for a change. I know it ain’t easy. But you got so much caca between your ears you can’t smell the roses any more." He paused, considering the young man with all the years of experience that had shaped his soul. Not just the hard years of his youth, or the more recent insights of loyalty and love, but all the years that lay between; the discipline and training of the Navy, the knowledge gained from command and responsibility, and the comprehension of both the inhumanity that mankind was capable of and the glory and the wonder of what could be achieved. "There’s a whole world out there, waiting for ya, Kent Allen," he breathed. "But you ain’t gonna find it until you can face yourself."

"But I’m so wrong. So twisted and - perverse."

"Oh, for god’s sake!" Alonzo threw his arms up in exasperation, turning away to grimace his reaction at empty air. "Which century are you living in, kid? The fifteenth?" He turned back to stare at his companion suspiciously. "You a Catholic?"

Kent nodded reluctantly.

"Okay. So you got all the baggage that implies. Do you really believe in a god that made you the way you are and then would condemn you for it? Don’t answer that," he added hurriedly, as Kent opened his mouth to do just that. "Think about it first. And while you’re at it, think about this." He used his thumb to indicate the polished surface that lay behind them, so that Kent turned as he turned and the face of Sam Beckett stared back at them both.

"Take a good long look at the face you’re wearing, Kent. A good long look. Tell me what you see."

Kent looked, the frown he adopted darkening Sam’s features into petulant disquiet. It wasn’t an expression Al had ever seen his lover wear, a small thing that would have betrayed the soul that wore the man’s colours even if he hadn’t been able to see past the illusion to the truth beneath.

"He’s just a guy." Kent shrugged, not understanding the reason for the request. "A good-looking guy, I guess. So?"

"So ..." The Commodore sighed, reaching down a hand to caress the reflection. The frown it wore deepened further, the young man who initiated it turning to stare at his company with puzzled suspicion. "Where would all your labelling put him, huh? Happily married with a bunch of bright kids?"

Kent shrugged a second time. "Maybe." An uneasy smile tugged briefly at his lips. "Or maybe on his second - no, third marriage, with a secretary on the side ..."

Al’s face split into a spontaneous grin.

Now there’s a thought. Sam Beckett, the ladykiller ...

"Nice idea, wrong label," he chuckled, reaching to clap his hand on the young man’s shoulder and convey his amusement with a small shake. "Sam here has been walking your road all his adult life. Discreetly, but confidently. Women - they don’t do a lot for him, you know? I guess if he had to ..." He broke off, recalling moments on Leaps that had twisted his guts with feelings he had thought left behind with most of his broken marriages. He’d told himself that Sam didn’t remember - not even being gay, let alone being committed to a long-standing relationship - but it didn’t stop the jealousy, the possessiveness cramping his stomach and clawing at his soul. And always in conflict, always tearing both ways, since the women concerned were usually attractive and stirred the Tomcat inside him. Irrational, stupid reactions - Sam didn’t belong to him, nor was he inclined to be the physically faithful type - but there all the same. Do as I wish, not as I do ...

Damn it, he couldn’t help being so Italian, any more than Sam could help being a genius.

"This guy is - gay?" Kent’s comprehension held a note of disbelief. He stared back down at his reflection and Sam’s face stared back, equally bemused.

"Uh-huh. Surprised? I know I was ..." The grin came back with gentle self-mockery, savouring the joke and everything that lay behind it. The youth’s expression dropped into total confusion.

"It’s just that - "

"Yeah, I know. Still so sure you can always tell?"

Kent looked at the hand that lay so comfortably on his shoulder, then up at the face of its owner. "I guess not," he breathed. In the treachery of the mirrored surface, Sam Beckett glanced at his lover and he smiled.

"He was the one, wasn’t he?" The young man asked the question in wary comprehension; he had no other information with which to interpret the quiet but despondent sigh the Commodore could not avoid. Elsewhere in the Project it would have been read in a wider context, the trials and tribulations of Quantum Leap itself being perfect camouflage for his beleaguered emotions.

"Yeah," Al admitted softly. The ironic smile that followed held more than a hint of self-mockery; he was well aware of why Sam Beckett was such an important part of his life, but had never quite understood what the man saw in him.

Projected images and protective armour - that was all that had been. A way of dealing with the world; living on the surface because it was easier than facing what lay beneath. It was the image that women always fell for, the easy charm, the earthy sensuality, the up-front wiseguy with the suggestive grin ...

Only Sam had given his heart to the man he’d found drowning, a tormented, dishevelled Tomcat that he’d hauled from the depths and nursed through wretchedness and pain.

Truth was, Sam’s love was precious because it had never had anything to do with masks or illusions, and sometimes that could be scary - knowing he was loved for himself, when he was never entirely sure who that was exactly.

"Let me tell ya something, Kent. You ever fall in love - and I mean really fall in love, not just lose yourself in lust or cheat yourself with expectations - it won’t matter what creed, or what colour, or even what sex they happen to be. It just - won’t matter. They’ll matter. More than - more than what people might think of you, more than your own needs, your own desires - more than - more than taking your next breath.

"And you know what’s really crazy about it? You hardly ever get to know until it’s too late to tell ’em how you feel ..."

He looked at the bewilderment on the young man’s face, and he chuckled softly. "Yeah, I know. You’re nineteen, and you’re confused as hell, and none of this makes any sense. Life don’t come in neat little packages, and people are chockfull of contradictions. You just have to take a deep breath and plunge in regardless. So long as you avoid the sharks," he added affably, "the world ain’t such a bad place to swim."

Kent shivered, much as he had earlier.

"It’s the sharks that make all the rules," he observed morosely. "Like Richie. He’s a shark. I always wanted to be like him."

Al paused to draw in a long, slow breath of smoke. "No ya didn’t," he corrected knowingly. "No-one wants to be a shark. A killer whale, maybe. Now, they got style."

The youngster cracked an involuntary smile at that, and the Commodore found him an encouraging grin.

"That’s better," he noted warmly. "Listen - Kent - I’m not saying this is gonna be easy for ya, ’cause I know that there are still too many people in this world of ours that don’t - won’t understand. But there are those that will. And if they aren’t where you are, well - you just go to them. If you want to, that is."

"I dunno," Kent sighed. "You keep it a secret, don’t ya?"

Al’s supportive grin grew a little wry. "Yeah. Sort of. But it’s not a guilty one, kid. It’s just - well, that’s my business, okay? We’re talking about you here. You gotta start feeling comfortable in that closet of yours - long before you can decide to come on out of it. If you ever do. You may never need to. What d’ya want to do with your life anyhow?"

White-clad shoulders shrugged. "Something with my music, I guess. I never really thought about it," the young man admitted. "Never figured I had a future. Richie always says - "

"Will you leave Richie outta this? He sounds like a mean, narrow-minded punk to me. A real nozzle. I bet he was the one got you into trouble with the law." A sheepish nod confirmed this suspicion; the Commodore sighed. "Thought so. Look - we got a few days before you’re outta here. You want to think things over, talk to Beeks? And I mean talk to him, not stonewall him with all that angry young man stuff of yours. You do that, and - uh - maybe I can drop by and keep you company for a while. If you want me to."

"Yeah," Kent decided after a moment. "Yeah. I - I’d like that." The smile that went with his decision was a faintly embarrassed one, almost as if he were unused to admitting there might be anything he actually liked.

On the morning of Chelsea’s funeral the day dawned fitfully, a sullen sun rising up to peer through ragged clouds at a dismal world. Sam Beckett rose with it, unable to sleep, and spent too much time just staring out of the tiny window in his room, his heart feeling like a lead weight and his thoughts refusing to focus.

When he hadn’t been going through the nominal motions at college, Sam had spent the week in the shelter, putting his efforts into all the little jobs that George had found to throw at him; he’d helped out with the laundry, he’d made beds, and he’d swept floors - all in a numbed haze, functioning because he knew he had to function, but not entirely sure why.

The days had passed in a blur, leaving only empty nights in which to lie awake and wrestle with his confusion and pain. It was all an effort. All too much of an effort, especially when everything seemed so pointless.

Martin had talked at him, George had tried to talk to him, and the others had all offered sympathy one way or the other, but nothing had helped. Nothing, he discovered, could pierce the veil of grief he had found to wrap himself in. He lurked behind it even now, sullen, restless, and feeling utterly isolated.

Utterly desolate.

"...dust to dust, ashes to ashes ..."

Sam let the litany wash over him, his fingers clenched on the stem of the red rose George had handed to him as he stepped off the bus and into the cemetery. The wind was sweeping around the gravestones, rippling the black robes of the assembled nuns and tugging at the coats of the dying, gathered to pay their last respects to one of their own.

"Amen."

The final word was offered in a soft chorus of voices, and the matter was done. Sam waited until everyone else had moved away before he reluctantly stepped forward to the graveside. The bright red rose tumbled from his fingers, landed by his feet - then rolled with inevitability into the open grave, where it lay, a splash of scarlet, on the dark wood below.

’Bye, Chelsea, he thought, bowing his head and turning away. He was somehow unsurprised to find Al there, watching him, the dark colours of the hologram’s sober suit an odd contrast to his usual harlequin appearance. He’d asked that he be left alone until the matter was over. Now it was over. But he wasn’t ready to accept that yet.

"You okay, Sam?" the man asked, his concern mirrored in his expressive eyes. Sam pretended not to hear.

You didn’t want me to help him, his heart accused as he deliberately walked past his anxious Observer. And I wanted so much to help him ...

It didn’t matter that there had been nothing he could have done for the dying man. He just felt as if there should have been something, and his sense of helplessness overwhelmed him. It wasn’t fair. Chelsea had been so alive, so warm, despite the illness that consumed him. And no-one had come to the funeral except the nuns and those few haggard residents of the hostel who were not yet afraid of their own mortality.

Along with Sam, who knew that he had known him, and could not remember when ... or why ...

No-one had questioned his right to be there. Kent Allen had spent the last days the man had known befriending the dying hero, hadn’t he? Harrington had even asked that he attend to those last few things he wanted done. Which was where Sam should be going now, back to the hostel and the scattered papers Chelsea had left for him to deal with.

Only he couldn’t. Couldn’t face that tiny room - or the last remnants of the man’s life that he’d taken there when his wounds were too raw to face the mundane task they demanded. He walked straight past the minibus and down toward the entrance to the cemetery.

"You want us to wait, Kent?"

He shook a dismissive hand at the questioner, not even bothering to look back.

"Sam?" Al had fallen into step beside him, anxiety colouring his voice. Sam ignored him.

"Sam? Where are you going? You have to get back to the shelter. Vega says there’s something you’ve still got to do ..."

"Go to hell," Sam muttered, striding away. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to get away. He wanted to know why this man’s death hurt so much ...

"Sam?" The question that followed him was querulous. "Don’t do this, kid. Not now. Sam - this is important."

So was Chelsea. Six foot six and six feet under ...

"Sam!"

He went on walking, his mouth tight and his shoulders set.

"Samwise Beckett, if you don’t turn around and get on that bus - "

" - you’re either going to have to risk the subway, or you’ll end up walking back."

The shift in voices startled him. One moment Al’s warm and familiar tones, full of pleading and a hint of desperation, as if the man were only too aware of his pain, and the next a woman’s voice, that of a stranger, crisp and efficient. He turned in terrified astonishment. Where his faithful hologram had been standing only a moment before, there was a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman, dressed in a even darker dress.

He didn’t recognise her at all.

But she was carrying Vega’s handlink ...

"What the - ?" There was something wrong. Something seriously wrong. Where did - where did - ? He found he was fighting for the name, for the memory of someone he expected to see. "What did you say?"

The woman eyed him with exasperation.

"Come on, Samwise," she stated firmly. "You’ve wasted more than enough time on this business already. Kent Allen probably wasn’t even meant to have anything to do with Harrington. Heaven knows what you’ve managed to change in the past few days. Nothing, as far as we can figure it." He blinked and walked back toward her. Maybe he did know her, now he thought about it. There was something familiar about her, after all ...

"Where did we meet?" he asked suspiciously. And who are you, anyway?

Her exasperation went into overdrive.

"Sam," she protested, waving her unencumbered hand at the general area. "We’re standing in the middle of a cemetery and you don’t remember that? You always swore it would be the one day you’d never erase from your memory. Not that it was your fault, but - " She paused and eyed his confusion with sympathy. "Okay," she surrendered. "I guess today has got to you more than I thought. We met," she pronounced slowly, "or rather, will meet, just over a month from now. Your now, that is. At Commodore Calavicci’s funeral." Her head tilted slightly to one side as she watched his reaction to this.

At - ? Oh, my god - !

Cold horror slammed into Sam’s heart, cutting through the numbness that had engulfed him and piercing his soul with slivers of pain.

"Donna," the woman went on, seemingly unaware of his inner reaction, "I said to myself, seeing you standing there, that is a man with a real weight on his shoulders. And I came over to see what I could do. Remember now? It was raining."

He didn’t remember. He didn’t want to.

"Raining," he echoed reluctantly.

"Yes." The bus passed between them, sympathetic eyes falling on the single figure it left behind. "Pouring down. Look," she went on, because his face was so distraught, "you asked, okay? Sam - a guy drinks himself into a stupor and then chokes in his sleep, that’s stupid, right? None of us had done anything to help him. The whole damned complex was guilty, not just you. You barely knew the guy."

Of course I know him, his mind insistently informed him. Firmly and without hesitation. He’s my best friend, isn’t he? I owe him. The same way I owed Chelsea ...

But she was standing there, saying impossible things, saying the man had been dead and buried for years.

A month away in the future and more than ten years in the past ...

Circumstance and situation collided inside his soul. It was Chelsea who was dead. Chelsea with the broad smile and the desire to live for today. Always today. And for some reason there was suddenly one more hole in Samwise Beckett’s life than there ought to be.

A hole that belonged to a completely different smile ...

What have I done? he screamed inwardly. Memory was slipping away from him. He fought to hold on to it. The woman was watching him with quiet concern. Donna, she’d said her name was. Donna what? Donna who?

Nothing came to answer him. He turned, seeing the bus disappearing out of the gates. You have to get back to the shelter. Vega says there’s something you’ve still got to do ...

He hadn’t wanted to know, right? What did anything matter, now that Chelsea was gone? He’d just wanted the world to go away.

And it had.

There was a tight knot in his stomach that had nothing to do with his earlier anguish. With it came a sudden sense of urgency, of a countdown started that could not be stopped. All the inner anger he had felt, the bitterness he’d been nursing, all of that was completely washed away by the sense of desperate loss that was now coursing through him. This was somehow his fault. His efforts to help Chelsea had changed time - and by doing so he’d managed to erase someone else he treasured, someone just as important ... and maybe even more so.

But he didn’t know what he’d done. What could he have done, here, today, that would change events over a month ahead?

Chelsea - I couldn’t save Chelsea. But Al - oh, Al ...

What have I done?

"I hate funerals," Sam announced, swallowing hard against a lump in his throat.

"Yeah," Donna breathed, an indication of sympathy. "Me too. But you really are going to have to get back to the shelter, you know." She lifted the handlink and frowned at what it told her. "Omega says you should be dealing with the paperwork right now - that can’t be right, surely?"

Omega? was his first puzzled reaction.

Then: paperwork?

Comprehension dawned, tightening the knot inside him as it did so. Chelsea’s paperwork. He’d promised to take care of it. He’d had a whole week to deal with it, and hadn’t touched a thing. The box was still standing on the dresser in his tiny room.

"I’ve got to get back," he realised, setting off for the gates at a run. He couldn’t catch up with the bus, but he could pick up the subway just down the street.

It was somewhere on the subway that Kent Allen had died ...

It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered except for the images that were slipping from his life one by one. Colour and vitality, dark eyes and a wry smile, expansive gestures and expensive cigars -

- dying alone because nobody cared. He’d been dead three days before anyone found him ...

He ran like the wind, as if the hounds of hell snapped at his heels, running from the tumble of memories that were folding over him with cold insistence. It wasn’t going to happen. It never should have happened.

Kent and his life had been the reason he had Leaped here - and he’d face that, deal with whatever he was really here to do, as soon as he could. But first he had to put right the disastrous results of his own selfish desires. Sure, he’d been there when Chelsea died, despite what he’d been advised, despite the pain of witnessing it, despite everything ...

... and a month away in time another man would follow him down into the darkness because - for whatever the reason might be - Sam Beckett would not be there for him.

Unless he could figure the answer. Unless he could put history back on track.

All he had to do was get there in time ...

He didn’t know. He just knew that by letting the bus go without him he’d started this countdown ticking away and he had to stop it. Stop it before the dark-haired woman and her sympathetic smile were the only reality he had left.

Before he killed his best friend with neglect.

Before he stopped missing something that would never be ...

He fumbled for change when he reached the subway turnstiles, and found nothing in his pockets to help his need for urgency.

Damn.

He glanced around - then quickly vaulted the barrier and headed down toward the tracks, hoping no-one official had seen him.

"That’s a two hundred dollar fine, you know."

The dark-haired woman -

Donna. Her name is Donna.

- was waiting for him on the platform, studying the scrawl of graffiti that adorned the torn billboard posters.

"As much as that?" Sam noted absently, peering down the tunnel in the hopes that a train would materialise out of it.

"At least," she smiled. "Look - I know you’re upset about your friend - "

" - but risking your neck down here is just plain ridiculous. Why don’t you go back up to the street, and Omega and I - "

"I don’t have time," he muttered impatiently. "There’s something I have to do."

"That paperwork isn’t going anywhere," she pointed out with gentle reasonableness. Sam paced down the platform and ignored her. She sighed. "Please, Sammy, just think for a minute ..."

"Don’t call me that," he growled, rounding on her with irritation. One or two people who were waiting for the train gave him a worried look. So did she. "I’m - sorry," he muttered, reacting to the expression in her eyes. "But it’s Sam, okay? Only my aunts call me Sammy."

"Then I’m sorry," she said, still looking taken aback. "But you’re still in danger down here. Omega is giving odds of seventy percent against you making it to your stop. Seventy two," she corrected worriedly, glancing down at the handlink as it squealed for attention. "Seventy four ..."

The train arrived. A rattle of steel and a protesting squeal of brakes that spawned a small torrent of people. Sam dived for the nearest set of doors, pushing through the alighting passengers, who eyed his lack of manners with annoyance. He stepped off the platform into the pungency of downtown subway car, and the doors slid shut behind him with a decisive clang.

"Well, well, well," an arrogant voice drawled with obvious sarcasm. "Look what’s just crawled off of the streets and on to our ride ..."

He turned slowly, the drumming sense of urgency that drove him tipping into overdrive as he recognised who was speaking - and what his presence had to mean.

"Hello, Richie," he managed, not bothering to back the greeting with a smile. Kent’s cousin was standing confidently in the centre aisle of the carriage, his arms folded and his feet spaced easily apart so as to better ride the jerking movements of the train. Behind him - sprawled over the torn seats or leaning against windows - were a selection of the would-be meanest characters Sam had ever seen outside of a Tarantino movie.

And at the end of the car, hemmed in by them, was one meek-looking and obviously terrified business-suited man who took swift advantage of their distraction and bolted for the closing doors. He made it too - despite a perfunctory grab by the nearest thug. Several of the others jeered, turning it into mean laughter as the train jerked into forward motion.

"Freak," they called after the fleeing figure. "Yo-yo! Fudge packer!"

Richie glanced back and smiled.

"Let him go, guys," he drawled. "We already got his wallet ..."

The gang members laughed, and Sam’s expression dropped into a decided frown. He deliberately turned away, and found only two or three other commuters sitting at the far end of the car, all of them desperately intent on their newspapers.

He didn’t know whether to be disgusted or sympathetic; he knew he didn’t have time to waste on either, let alone get involved. He grabbed the nearest rail instead and took up a balanced stance by the middle doors, watching impatiently as the tunnel walls flashed past with syncopated insistence.

He reacted to the bounce and rattle of the car almost without noticing it, swaying instinctively in the rhythm required of any subway rider. A familiar flash of colour flicked his eyes toward the end of the car, and he caught a glimpse of the dark-haired woman, her fingers tapping at the handlink keys and her expression furrowed.

"Hey."

Richie was a looming presence by his shoulder, and he glared in that direction, throwing out a sullen leave me alone kind of glower that ought to have dissuaded anyone. The young man just chuckled.

"What’s the matter, Kent," he teased, glancing back to get a supportive set of grins from his cronies. "Getting too good for your old friends?" His hand shot out, snatching up a fistful of leather, and immediately getting Sam’s full attention. "Listen, lamebrain," he growled. "You may have all that scholarship crap, but you’re still my cousin, and you’re still nothing but a piece of shit, right?"

His captive’s eyes narrowed.

"Let go of me," Sam requested in a dangerously quiet voice. Richie didn’t seem to hear him.

"I know where you’ve been all this time," he jeered, pulling on the jacket so that the two of them were nose to nose. "Where you’ve been hiding your no-good butt. And I bet I know what you’ve been doing with it, too."

"This isn’t good, Sam," Donna’s voice warned anxiously. "The odds are up to eighty-six against - and rising."

"Hey, fellas," Richie called over his shoulder. "Wanna know what my shithead cousin here’s been doing? He’s been babysitting a bunch of cocksucking faggots."

That was it. He’d spent long days living in a world where even the simplest of moments could be an effort-filled struggle. Where men faced the approach of death with quiet courage or bitter bravery. Men who understood the value of every moment, who lived for each and every one of them. Men like Danny. Or Steven.

It was bad enough to have to listen to the man’s insults, to witness his macho posturing and the deliberate intimidation. But to hear this - this punk - mouth off his petty, ignorant prejudices ...

Something inside Sam Beckett snapped. Something already wound intolerably tight by recent events. Something that had been barely holding back all his guilt and anger and grief. Something stretched past breaking point by the urgency that burned inside him.

His hand came up with a twisting jerk, breaking the grip on his jacket and forcing its perpetrator backward.

"That’s enough," he snarled, adrenaline surging through him and igniting into a white-hot rage. "You don’t know what I’ve been doing. You don’t know anything about anything. I know what you think. And you want to know something? I don’t give a damn for your nasty little opinions. I don’t give a damn for you."

He was swaying as he spoke, feeling the rhythm of the track beat up into the floor of the carriage; he used it with unconscious skill, letting it direct his balance, letting it flow through him. Richie backed up another pace, his face creasing down into startled and angry confusion. His hand dipped into his pocket. Somewhere behind him figures were surging to their feet. Sam ignored them, still focused on their leader. He was moving before the knife blade flicked into certainty, a shift of weight with the shift of the car -

- and he spun into a forceful explosion, a dance of kick and strike that sent the knife spinning from a darting hand and its wielder flying back and sideways.

The martial artist landed on his feet, confronting the forward impetus of the gang with a defiant glare. Richie slid down the support of upholstery and collapsed there, winded and groaning; his followers took one look at their would-be victim’s expression and slunk back, feigning exactly the same kind of indifference as the commuters elsewhere in the carriage.

"Get yourselves a life. And just stay out of my way in the future, understand?" Sam’s growl wasn’t even breathless. It earned him a number of anxious nods and a dazed look from Richie. "Understand?"

The train jerked to a halt; the doors swished open, and two broad-shouldered men wearing white teeshirts and scarlet berets loomed in the opening.

"Everything okay in here?" one of them asked, studying the tableau at the end of the car. Sam straightened from his semi-crouch to glance across at the speaker.

Guardian Angel, the teeshirt read.

Oh, great, Sam registered. Now they come to the rescue ...

Released from the impact of his glare the entire gang upped and ran for it, spilling out onto the platform like rats released from a trap. Richie was the last to leave, hauling himself to his feet and backing away from his cousin as if he’d suddenly turned into a fearsome beast. The scramble left the dark-clad hologram behind, standing half in and half out of the wall at the end of the car.

"That was - impressive," she decided. "Are you okay?"

Am I okay?

I guess.

But nothing else is ...

He shivered and half-turned his back on his impossible company, grateful she was there but knowing she wasn’t right.

Knowing she should be someone else entirely.

The Guardian Angels were waiting for an answer. Something told him the train wouldn’t move until they got one. And he needed the train to move.

Needed it desperately.

"Yeah. Yeah, sure," Sam assured them, and her, all in one breath. "Everything’s just peachy ..."

Six stops and four blocks later, Sam Beckett pounded up the steps of the shelter and into its interior as if his life depended on it. The distance across the foyer seemed interminable, his precipitate progress giving cause for alarm. Nobody ran inside the hostel except the crash team, and Kent Allen certainly didn’t belong to that.

"Hey, Kent," Francis called as he flew past the desk. "Slow down, man. Just slow down ..."

His pace didn’t falter for a moment. He ascended the stairs three steps at a time, rounded the corner and slammed hard into George just as he was leaving Kent’s room, his arms encumbered by an overflowing box. George spun round; the box and its contents went everywhere, scattering photographs and paper and books all over the passageway.

"What the - jeezus, Kent, did you have to do that? I just spent half an hour packing this stuff up."

Sam had to take several deep breaths before he could speak. "Isn’t - that - Chelsea’s stuff?"

"Yeah." George bent and stood the box upright, starting to refill it with the tumbled debris. "We thought we ought to send it back to his family, you know? Now the funeral is out of the way ... Hey," he added softly, seeing the look this generated, "I know you took Chelsea’s death hard, Kent, but round here we’ve learned to live with it. We have to. He’s passed from our hands now, and there’s so many more we could help if we only had the room ..."

"I know," Sam gulped, dropping to his knees to assist. "It’s just that - I kinda promised Chelsea I’d take care of all this. And I forgot until now, and I - "

"That’s okay, kid. When you didn’t come back with the bus, I figured you wouldn’t mind if I took charge of all this. I’ve asked Martin to mail all those letters he wrote. I think there’s one left for you in here somewhere ... yeah. Here it is."

Sam snatched at the proffered envelope, and stuffed it inside his shirt. Then he helped George pack the rest of the box and watched as the portly figure staggered away down the passageway with it.

"I told you there was no reason for all that rush," the woman’s voice announced as he stepped into the claustrophobia of the room. She was waiting by the window, watching the inhabitants of the tiny garden below.

"I know." He thumbed open the envelope, finding only a single sheet of paper overlain with words he didn’t want to read. He let it tumble from his fingers with a sigh of despair. He didn’t want the comfort the man had intended for Kent. He wanted - he didn’t know what he wanted. He just knew that he should have been there to help George pack that box, because there was something in it he was supposed to see.

"Sam." Donna’s words were sympathetic. "I know you feel bad about this, but you couldn’t have helped Harrington, no matter what you did."

He wasn’t paying attention. He was frowning at nothing at all, feeling despair welling up inside him again. He’d fought so hard to make the deadline; risked Kent’s future, risked his life - and for what? To miss his chance to review Chelsea’s legacy? To be that fraction too late to correct his mistake?

To ensure that the man’s death demanded a far higher price than it had the first time round ...?

It was all for nothing, Chelsea, he thought, his hands clenching tightly in reaction. And I still don’t know what I’ve done ...

"You still in there, lovebird?" a voice enquired, its owner poking his head around the doorframe. "Oh, hi, Kent. Didn’t think we’d be seeing you back here so soon."

"Hi, Martin. I - I promised Chelsea I’d deal with his things. But George has already done all that."

"Yes, I know. Say - " Martin came all the way into the room, his hands encumbered with envelopes. "I wish you’d come back with the bus. You could have taken these down to the post office for me. They won’t go until tomorrow, now."

Sam snatched them from the man’s hands. "I’ll take them now," he offered. "I can make it if I run."

Martin grinned. "I wish I had your energy, young man. You might make it. But you’ll have to hurry."

"I’ll hurry." Sam had already found his answer: the neat scrawl of his own name, care of an Indiana address. Home, he identified, surprised to recall that much. Dad or Tommy will forward it to - to - wherever I am, right now ...

"You’d better," a familiar drawl interjected. "Vega says you’ve got less than fifteen minutes before the last collection goes to be sorted."

Al?

He risked a sideways glance, suppressing the sudden surge of delight that left him feeling dizzy.

Al!

He was standing where - where - where he had been standing all along, right? But his frown was the most wonderful thing in the world, and the sound of his voice was pure music to Sam’s ears.

"I’ll run like the wind," he gasped, already heading for the door.

One letter. One lousy letter from an old college friend delivered on time ... His heart was suddenly singing, and he didn’t know why. It was if the weight of Chelsea’s passing had been lifted from him, as if the sun had come back to his world after a major eclipse. The man’s death had made a difference after all.

Sam just wished he could remember how ...

The unmistakable strains of Mozart’s sixth symphony echoed around Sam as he bounded down the post office steps with a satisfied bounce; his sense of gratification with a job well done wasn’t hurt in the least by seeing who was waiting for him in the square. Not one little bit ...

His hologram - his hologram - was standing at the edge of the plaza, his face creased in puzzlement while he watched the street performers step out their stately madrigal. A rainbow of seven dancers, each clad in a darkly different colour but otherwise dressed precisely alike in tight-waisted bodices and a flounce of taffeta skirts; a troupe of ornate and highly gothic figures that could have stepped straight out of a Victorian child’s nightmare.

It was only as he got near enough to get a better look that Sam understood Al’s puzzlement. The performers were perfectly matched for height and build, each a slender statement of elegant curves and dark beauty. Long locks, coloured to match the costumes, were piled up on each head, teased out to drop curling ringlets on either side of carefully painted faces. But, despite the deliberately feminine image that the outfits portrayed, the dancers who wore them seemed to be too slender, too athletic in shape and step.

Sam’s face mirrored his friend’s confusion as he joined him in contemplation of the mystery. The dancers were good. Really good. But oddly ambivalent.

Gothic Theater d’Arte, their placard ran, advertising a full performance at some nearby theatre. Fears and fantasies twice daily.

"Life in the Village," Al sighed, a little wistfully. "Go figure, huh?"

Sam threw him a wry glance. "Don’t tell me you can’t tell either," he muttered, joining in the smattering of applause as the routine came to a curtseyed close. "I thought you could always tell."

The look he got back was briefly startled before it melted into one of those warm and familiar smiles. "Not always, kid," the gruff voice admitted with a hint of amusement. "You get those letters in the mail?"

"M'm-huh." Sam watched a scarlet-clad dancer flounce toward them with an armful of playbills. "You sure you can’t tell?"

He’d asked the question just to earn that wonderful patient frown, that look of oh, come on that settled on craggy features with the ease of constant employment. He got it too, in full Technicolor glory, undiminished by the man’s unusually sombre apparel.

"Hi," the dancer breathed, a voice rich with contralto tones and husky promise. "You gonna come to our show?"

"I might," Sam hedged. "Are you one of the principals?"

The ambiguous figure chuckled, a warm-throated rumble, deep with delight. "I wish," came the answer. "Just chorus, for now. But I have ambitions." Long eyelashes fluttered with teasing intent. "Don’t you?"

At another time Sam might have joined in the game, but it had been a long day, and he found himself sighing softly instead. "I guess," he muttered.

"Oh - sweetheart," the dancer reacted, picking up on the note of despondency. "Are you in trouble? Or just weighed down? Tell Domino. I’ll help."

"I bet," Al growled somewhere in the background. "Sam? Is it me, or is that a guy under all that stuff?"

Sam pushed away the remnants of irritation, finally recognising them as overreaction. There would be time, he considered, to talk to his friend about all the things they’d argued over. He’d find it, somehow. The man’s presence in his life was far more important to him than any little misunderstanding they might have had.

"I - lost a friend," Sam explained, recognising the dancer’s query as genuine concern. "Just recently."

Domino smiled sympathetically. "I know what that’s like," the warm voice acknowledged. "Listen - you want to talk about it? Really? There’s this group I help out with ... Hold on." Long fingernails dived into the padded purse that dangled from the ornate belt. "Here. Take my card. Call me." The smile widened into gentle encouragement. "Everyone needs a friend."

Sam studied the painted features with their earnest smile, then glanced involuntarily to where Al was standing, a you got yourself into this look on his face.

"Yeah," he breathed, finding that a soothing sense of acceptance had somehow settled over the raw wounds of Chelsea’s loss. " I know ..."

It was a cold midmorning on the following day that found Sam Beckett making his way across carefully tended lawns. The autumn wind snatched at him; it could not penetrate the snug warmth of Kent’s jacket, but it danced through the leaves and petals that made up the carefully chosen bouquet.

Chelsea’s favourite flowers, picked from among the fall-touched blooms that the florist had continually apologised for.

He’d smiled at the words, torn inside by their irony. Torn, too, by the memories that had finally returned to haunt him in the depths of the night. Memories of Chelsea.

How could he have forgotten? How? Those warm arms that had held him, teased him and tempted him; the sweetness of his kiss, the laughter in his eyes - and the heat and passion of their togetherness, hard muscle and desperate sweat ...

Not just as a friend, not just with the adolescent hero-worship he had assumed, not even with the sure and certain love of brotherhood.

With all his heart; with the bittersweet agonies of first desire, with the innocence and the hopes of a young man coming to learn what he might be.

Loved him and lost him; lost him to fickle pleasures and inconstant needs. Chelsea’s broad smile squandered on other hearts, on other lovers - and he too hurt to understand how no harm had ever been intended.

But the treachery of his Swiss cheesed brain had denied him anything but the pain and the heartbreak. And perhaps had protected him, had held him away from his own truths while he had to face that loss a second time.

He came to a halt in front of the newly turned earth, crouching down to reverently place the wind-ruffled flowers on the curve of the mound. There was no headstone; not yet, at any rate. George and the others had been talking about what it should say. Sam knew what he would put.

"You okay, kid?"

Al’s voice, soft with sympathy. The scientist glanced up, his heart inevitably echoing that earlier leap of delight with which it had greeted the man’s return to his life. His hologram was standing a little way back from the grave, a still subdued figure dressed in dark golds and charcoal greys. The only spot of outstanding colour was the twist of red ribbon he was wearing on his jacket lapel.

"I don’t know," Sam admitted softly. His hand reached out to brush the soft surface of the exposed soil. "I just wanted to say a final goodbye."

He sighed and sat back on his heels, turning his head to study the man who wasn’t there under the trees.

Do you know? he wondered anxiously, seeing only quiet compassion in the dark eyes that watched him with equal consideration. Have you known all along that I was gay ...?

It would explain so much - the man’s insistence that he let the matter go, his anxious concern, even his wary attitude to the whole situation.

The one I arrogantly assumed was ignorant prejudice.

"I told ya not to get involved, Sam." Al’s words were gentle, tinged with apology. "There are some things we just can’t change."

"I know." Sam sighed a second time. "Maybe next time I’ll listen to you."

"Nah," the man denied with quiet amusement. "You never do, kid. I should be used to it by now. You wanna know what happens next?" He tugged the handlink from his pocket and tapped at the keys with offhand expertise. "Kent goes back to school - gets his music degree, and - ah - moves in with Domino. The guy you met yesterday? Yeah - " He grinned a little shamefacedly. "That was a guy ..."

"I knew that," Sam interrupted, allowing the beginnings of a haunted smile to touch his lips. "Are they happy?"

Al shrugged. "How do you measure that?" he asked, half under his breath. "They’re still together, at least. Kent makes a decent living as a songwriter, and Domino does interior design for select clients; they still live in New York - and get this," he added warmly. "They still both work at the shelter."

Sam allowed the smile to take more definite form. "That’s good," he acknowledged. He found he was looking at his companion with new eyes, oddly fascinated by all the things he’d simply taken for granted before. The compact and muscular figure, the hint of curl in the dark hair - and those eyes. Warm, eloquent eyes ...

He drew in a slow breath and glanced away, suddenly aware of what he was doing.

He struggled to remember. To be certain of himself.

Is there someone - waiting - back home? he’d asked. Al’s answer had been so evasive, so noncommittal.

He’d assumed that meant yes. Wanted that to mean yes. But who?

He fought for memory, snatching at the images he’d recalled of Chelsea’s love and using them to reach for the other, more recent recollections that he’d been denied for so long.

Nothing focused. Nothing took shape or form in his head. The effort made him want to weep.

He dipped his head, torn anew by the bitterness of his recent loss and the anguish of the greater loss he carried with him all the time. The loss of himself. Of his past and his future; of the life he had left behind ...

"George and Martin raised enough money to buy the place next door - and the shelter now has places for over forty five patients." Al’s voice was a familiar backdrop to his tortured thoughts. "Kent wrote - will write a song that gets into the charts, and he donates all the proceeds to support the cause. Nothing major, kid, but you did make a difference. A good difference, I’d say."

He’d watched Chelsea slip away from him, had spent too long in the company of dying men, all exhausted and frightened souls.

The tears welled involuntarily. It wasn’t fair. How could he be expected to go on like this? He gave so much of himself in each and every Leap ...

"Sam?" The concerned note in the use of his name reached him, and he looked up, vaguely embarrassed by his loss of self-control.

I’m sorry, Al, he wanted to say, to apologise for his grief. But the words tightened in his throat, and stayed there unspoken.

The hologram had moved across to hunker down beside him, not so close as to mar the illusion of his presence but still close enough to reach out and touch had he been there in the flesh. Sam’s glance in his direction had enabled their eyes to meet - and, in that moment, he remembered.

Remembered whose warmth he had shared and cherished, whose arms had held him, whose voice had whispered endearments and encouragement - not just with the heat of passion, but in long nights of dreaming, through days of discouragement, and at moments of grief just like this ...

Those dark and sympathetic eyes were saying I know this ain’t easy.

They included an encouraging don’t give up, kid.

But most of all they said I love you.

They had always said I love you ...

The comprehension choked him, tore him in two - and filled his heart, filled his soul, with brilliant pain.

Sam had known that the man’s letter would somehow save his friend’s life.

And now he had finally remembered why ...

Oh, god.

All this time.

So close, and yet always so far ...

"Al ..." he whispered, wanting to reach out, knowing that to do so would be useless, conscious of the distance that lay between the two of them.

And the sense of the Leap seized him before he could say anything more, before he could voice the myriad thoughts that hammered to be free.

Seized him and scattered him back into time, stealing not just the memory, but the memory of the memory. He would not recall either the grief he’d faced or the answer he’d found for it for a long time to come.

But, deep in his heart, there finally settled the haunted comprehension that - somewhere that might be called forever - he would never be alone ...