Penelope Hill
"I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it when
I sorrow most;
’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
Stallion’s Gate, New Mexico
September 1997
"So. Do you want to talk about it?"
"No. Are you going to make me?"
"Do you want me to?"
Do I want - hell, Beeks, are you crazy?
Or am I?
"What do you think?"
The attentive psychiatrist smiled - professionally, but underwritten
with a great deal of empathy. "We can sit and swap questions all night if you
want to," Beeks observed, leaning back in the chair. "But I’m not entirely sure
it would get us anywhere."
Al Calavicci sighed, dipping his hand into his pocket to
extract the cigar he’d put there earlier. "Are we meant to get anywhere
with this? Yeah, yeah - I know. That’s another question, isn’t it? Look,
I’m tired, and I want to go home, and I ought to go and water Sam’s plants, and ..."
He let his voice tail off, staring at the unlit cigar as if wondering what he
was doing with it. His hand clenched with sudden violence, and the tobacco crumbled
into broken pieces under the assault.
I hate this. It isn’t fair.
None of it is fair.
Beeks considered him with sympathy.
"Tell me about Beth." The suggestion was offered quietly,
an invitation to unload, to make sense of senselessness.
Beth.
Oh god, Beeks, don’t do this to me. It was over twenty
years ago.
And less an hour away, dancing in her arms, savouring her
face, her presence, being close enough to touch her and wanting to, so very much
...
It’s the not being able to touch that’s the worst.
It’s always been the worst.
"I loved her. I wanted Sam to - to ... All she had to
do was wait a little longer, dammit. Just have a little more faith."
The way I had in her ...
"And if she had? Have you considered that, Al? Have you really
thought about it? About the effect it would have had on your life?"
He didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to wrestle
with the endless implications of the way that Sam Beckett affected time and the
lives of others. He just knew that he had glimpsed a second chance - and had it
snatched away from him, by time, by - by some power that had judged him
and measured out event without concern for his pain.
"I’d have come home and she would have been there." It was
a simple statement; it held a whole bundle of broken dreams and promises,
and expectations. It covered that whole period of his life when nothing had mattered,
nothing had seemed important, except perhaps the need to kick out and scream,
and prove he didn’t care ...
Only he had, of course. Cared. Cared so much it had ripped
him to shreds, inside. Destroyed his trust and his faith, and left him cold and
empty for a very long time.
"And what then? Would you stayed together? Would you have
had that family she wanted? Would that have been it, Al? A nice little house down
by the Cape while you chased stardust and your wife raised kids you hardly ever
saw?"
He winced. Beeks could deliver a mean right hook sometimes.
But the picture was there. He couldn’t deny it. Himself, and a dutiful wife, a
smart house, a gaggle of kids ... and it had no substance to it, no background
painted in to give it depth or reality. He’d been angling for the place with NASA
before he left for ’Nam, and he’d fought and struggled for it when he’d come home
again. It had meant long hours in the air to prove he hadn’t lost his skill, longer
hours of study at night; days of lobbying the right people, of sweet-talking selection
committees and sceptical psychiatrists. Just like the one he faced now.
He’d even got married again somewhere in that insanity -
married and divorced, all within six months, to a woman he’d thought he’d needed,
and then hadn’t had time for at all ...
Would I have had any more time for Beth in those hectic
months? Or would I have given her the time and not myself?
Would I have made the programme at all?
He’d been convincing enough - and part of that had
been his willingness to go back to MIT, to complete the doctorate that would give
him an edge over all the other, younger Navy jet jocks wrestling for glory. An
important year in his life; it had earned him respect and given him a taste for
life again, although a lot of that was surface bravado. It had been that
way for a long time ... He’d been empty without Beth, hadn’t he? Occupying
his spare hours with frivolous company and trying to kill the memories that haunted
him. Would she have filled that yawning gulf inside him?
Or would she have resented the long nights immersed in textbooks,
the disrupted weekends, and the hours the Navy demanded of him in between?
Maybe I wouldn’t even have gone to Cambridge.
Would that have made a difference?
Would it?
It was at MIT that he’d first met Sam ...
Oh god. Sam ...
"Maybe," Beeks suggested, having watched the emotions play
over the man’s face, "there’s a world somewhere where Beth waited for you. An
alternative timeline where you were happy, huh?"
Happy?
Maybe. But challenged? Fulfilled?
The man that this life had made him?
What if he’d never met Sam Beckett, never been tangled in
the man’s dreams, never known his friendship - or his love?
An infinite number of possibilities suddenly yawned before
him. Patterns of time where one single change could wreak innumerable differences.
Who was Al Calavicci anyway? Who was anybody, if not the sum of his own
experiences? A world where Beth had waited for him? And if she had ...?
He stared at the tapestry of his life, watching it unravel,
watching the things he had come to cherish tumble from its folds; watching the
pains and the terrors and the joys erased as if they had never existed. Erased
and replaced.
But replaced with what?
Other terrors, other joys - and some the same, but coloured
in a different light.
A world where he might have had what he’d thought
he wanted.
But would never have known what he could have had.
"If you had to choose," Beeks asked softly, "which of them
would it be, Al? Had you thought of that? Had you really thought about
what you were asking Sam to do?"
I thought I wanted her back.
But all we really had was two years out of five - and
five more years of an illusion that kept me sane and which I couldn’t bear to
let go afterwards.
Sam and I had nearly nine years before his dream took
him away ...
And what would he do if he came home and I wasn’t here
to welcome him?
If I’d never been here ...?
The pain was real. It was strong - too strong, her image
dancing in his mind, the promise of her just within reach ...
But it was a promise he could not judge, a Pandora’s box
that, once opened, could never be shut again.
"But I don’t have either of them, do I?"
The statement was bitter. The blow was self-directed, just
like always. Beeks merely watched him, refraining from judgement, offering no
assessment, only comprehension of his dilemmas.
Would I give it up?
The uncertainty. The terror of his journey, and the trauma
of each and every Leap?
I’d give those up without a second thought.
But the rest of it?
Ten years of my life. The faith he had for me when I had
none of my own? The surety of his friendship - and everything else he gave me?
For what?
The chance of a happiness I can’t measure?
A world without him in it?
He shifted in his chair, uncomfortably weighing up matters
he normally tried to avoid. The impact of Sam’s Leaps on the constancy of time;
the implications of what putting matters right really meant.
Sam’s brainchild maintained it was all to do with percentages.
That the scenarios were determined by the maximum positive effect on the greatest
number of people. But how could anyone judge that?
Was one man’s happiness worth another man’s pain?
The thought finally brought the hint of a smile to his face.
Stupid question, Calavicci.
Sam was worth it. Had always been worth it,
hadn’t he?
But oh, Beth - my beautiful Beth ...
Beeks was still watching him.
At least I finally got to say goodbye.
Sam gave me that much, at least.
He sighed, finally looking up to meet the psychiatrist’s
eyes.
Maybe that was all I really needed after all ...
"I know this can’t be easy," Beeks said softly. "But don’t
make it any harder on yourself. Your reaction was completely understandable -
and you might have been right."
Right?
No.
Not right. Selfish, maybe. Trying to pretend that the
old pains had more relevance than the new ones.
Trying to convince myself that I still wanted something
that died a long time ago.
Because wanting that seemed easier than wanting what I
know I can’t have ...
He shook his head with a hint of self-derision. "I wasn’t
thinking. You know - it’s a damn good job Sam doesn’t remember,
sometimes."
Bad enough I tear myself apart like this ...
The psychiatrist’s smile was a sad one.
"He’ll come home. And you’ll be here waiting for him when
he does."
He sighed. Yeah. That’s a lesson Beth taught me only too
well.
Never give up hope ...
"Sure," he agreed, finding the curve of a haunted smile with
which to conceal his bruised soul. Not that Beeks was fooled for a moment, but
they both knew that he had to face the world outside.
"Al?" The question was gentle. "Are you going to be okay?"
He thought about it. Thought about Beth’s face and the second
chance he had thought Sam might have been there to give him; thought, too, about
what he would have had to give up had the Leap really been for him ...
"Yeah," he breathed after a moment. "I guess so. Vernon -
this - " and his hand managed to indicate the Project
and the whole mess it represented with a single gesture, "this is difficult. But
I guess - when it comes down to it? I’d rather have difficult than never
to have had - what I have - at all, you know?"
Never to have known him, never to have shared his life,
or his dreams ...
"Why don’t you go get some sleep? We can save the rest of
this until you’ve had a chance to think about it." The psychiatrist’s words were
soft, but their implications were firm. Think about it. You have to. Don’t
shut it away. I’m here if you need me ... The man had a way of persuading
people to face the things they thought they didn’t want to; it was one of the
reasons he was so good at what he did. And was so effective with it. "I’ll get
Vega to call you if anything changes down here."
"Okay." Al got wearily to his feet. "Tell Tina - tell her
I’ll see her tomorrow, willya?"
"Sure." Vernon Beeks, Project psychiatrist and personal friend
to both the absent Project Director and his beleaguered Observer, watched him
leave with an anxious sense of sympathy. He wondered if the pressures of the past
few days would have been any easier if the two men didn’t share the intense
and personal relationship that his departing company had referred to. Probably
not, he decided, suppressing a sigh of his own.
Harder maybe.
Harder to give up the first true love of your life
if you didn’t have the surety of your current relationship to sustain you.
Even if that relationship was with a phantom traveller in
time who couldn’t remember exactly what it was that you shared ...
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Disclaimer:This story has been written for love rather than profit and is not intended to violate any copyrights held by Donald P Bellasario, Bellasarius Productions, or any other holders of Quantum Leap trademarks or copyrights.
© 1994 by AAA Press. Written and reproduced by Penelope Hill. Artwork by Joan Jobson