A Question of Charity
Chapter Two
Penelope Hill
"It's just a local legend."
Carson O'Leary was looking a little shaken, which was understandable in the circumstances. Al had offered him that portion of the truth he judged appropriate, including the inevitable confrontation with his reflection. O'Leary had taken the news with the usual disbelief, followed by wary acceptance. He'd studied Sam's sculptured face and then stared at the Admiral with reluctant comprehension; the question concerning the curse had probably seemed irrelevant, but he answered it anyway.
"So, tell me the legend," Al suggested. O'Leary shrugged, glancing back down at the reflection that was not his own.
"My family and the McGowans go back a long way," he said, feeling the familiar curve of his cheek and watching a stranger's hand caress the wrong face. "Way back - three hundred years at least. There's been a McGowan and an O'Leary in Middlewick as long as there's been a Middlewick - maybe longer. Who knows? Anyway, back in 1680-something there was this scandal - something to do with the young McGowan coming back from Boston with a wife when he'd made promises to the O'Leary's daughter. There was bad blood over it, and heated words - you know the sort of thing?"
"Uh-huh," Al nodded, wondering where all this was leading to.
"Well, that would have been that, I guess, except it was the seventeenth century, and the O'Learys have always had the reputation of being more than they seem. We've a touch of faerie blood from the Old Country, and it comes out from time to time." He smiled as he said it, and a small shiver ran down Al's spine. The smile was one of amusement, as if the young man knew more than he was implying. For a brief moment there was a hint of confident power that hovered in the young man's eyes - then it was gone, as if it had never been there at all. "Nan's the one for that," O'Leary went on, with a more normal smile. "She's an O'Leary thrice over - from her great-grandmother on one side, her great-great-grandmother on the other, and she married back into the line. She's got the gift for certain. Anyhow - the young McGowan had a son, and then a daughter, and they both got sick of something or other. At the same time, the crops failed, and several other things went wrong, and the upshot was that the McGowans accused the O'Learys of bewitching them."
"As they would," Al growled, knowing only too well how easily people jumped to conclusions when suspicions were aroused.
"Yeah. Well, there was an investigation; they called in the witchfinders from Salem and the O'Leary daughter confessed, so the rest of the family had to disown her - or they'd all have been tried. She was hanged and then burnt because she'd refused to be shriven or something. Unrepentant to the end. She was the one he'd jilted, you see, and she was the one that put the curse on both of us - the McGowans and the O'Learys. It's said she's still haunting the estate, making sure her words hold true."
Al shivered, although the temperature in the Waiting Room was a constant. He'd seen enough strange things to accept there might well be a vengeful ghost haunting the estate, and he had no desire to meet it - none at all. "So what was the curse?" he asked cautiously. O'Leary laughed.
"Nan says it wasn't a curse so much as a promise." He paused, considering the exact formulation of the words. "There'll be no peace between the McGowans and the O'Learys as long as there are McGowans to hold the name. What they have they will hold, but have no joy in it. No McGowan will achieve high office, nor public acclaim, and the treasures that they win will become chains that profit them not at all."
Al drew in a sharp breath. "She was really mad, wasn't she?" O'Leary nodded sagely.
"One way or the other, I guess she was. But it's the kind of curse that can hold true whether you believe in such things or not. Nothing really tragic has ever happened to either family, but nothing really good either. Even this business with Washington - he was supposed to have entrusted something to Alex McGowan, but the old man died before his son came back from the war and the family never found whatever it was that they were supposed to be taking care of. That was when he rebuilt the house, you see. I'm sure of that, only I've no proof." He grinned self-deprecatingly. "The curse at work, I guess. Never annoy an O'Leary, Admiral. You'll regret it for the rest of your life, and then some."
"I'll bear that in mind," his companion growled. "Have you ever seen the ghost?"
"Nope. But Nan has. She said she was very pretty. A true child of the Sidhe. But I'd guess she'd be real lonely after three hundred years. It's a long time to hold a grudge."
"That's women for you." Al sighed. This was all very interesting, but it wasn't going to be much help to Sam.
"You know," O'Leary said thoughtfully, "I guess this friend of yours may have more luck than I would. He's not an O'Leary or a McGowan, right? The curse won't work on him - unless being in my body counts."
"He's not in your body," the Admiral pointed out. "Just your temporal aura. Where do you think he should start?"
"In the library," the young man answered promptly. "There's a whole bundle of manuscripts that relate to the family kept in the cupboard under the bible. The big family bible," he added in explanation. "It used to be kept in the chapel, but it's too valuable to be left there these days. The library has its own security system and the bible's locked in a cabinet with a separate alarm. I suggested that Mary Ann sell the bible to pay off the bank, but she wouldn't. It probably wouldn't raise enough now anyway."
"She does - eventually," Al identified from the information that Ziggy was feeding him, "and it isn't enough. Which means she loses the house and the bible too."
Sam nodded his comprehension, unable to speak directly to his holographic companion since he was surrounded by other people. Five people to be exact, all female, and all aged somewhere between twenty and thirty. They were stacking pots and bowls and plates of bread onto trolleys, and they were laughing over some meeting or other that one of them had attended in Boston. It had something to do with a protest rally and it was the report of the personalities concerned that had produced the amusement, not the subject of the event. Sam had been smiling in what seemed to be appropriate places and had looked quite relieved when Al had appeared at his side. The Admiral had not been averse to making several appreciative comments over the man's company, particularly since the women concerned were not unattractive, and his explanation of the information he had gathered so far had been offered in distracted fashion. Sam was used to that kind of thing; he managed one disapproving frown and two grimaces of amused resignation as Al dodged among the milling group and considered their attractions wistfully.
"Ziggy thinks," the Admiral continued, pausing to admire a pert behind that wriggled past him, "there may be more to this Leap than just saving the house, although that's the thing that'll make the difference. Seems that this 'group' Mary Ann has put together is providing sanctuary for a number of folk who otherwise end up without any kind of support - youngsters forced to leave home, students who had to drop out of college because the money ran out, those sort of people. It's not really a commune as such, more an alternative 'wayhouse' for drifters needing to find themselves ... Ziggy," Al protested to the general air, "are these facts or philosophy? Never mind," he added with a sigh. "I think we get the picture, anyway."
Sam nodded again, accepting an armful of plates from a dark-haired girl draped in multi-coloured patchwork. "Shall I take this trolley through?" he asked, realising there was no room for anything else on the traytop.
"Thanks, Carson," the woman in the tiedye acknowledged gratefully. "Catch a seat when you get there. We'll bring the rest."
Sam waved a vague agreement back over his shoulder and began to manoeuvre the loaded trolley through the internal door. Al took a last lingering look at the scenery, sighed, and went after him, drawing to a halt as he realised that a long hallway lay ahead. "I'll see you up there," he announced, pointing down the corridor. Sam muttered a distracted "Uh-huh," concentrating on the recalcitrant trolley, which seemed to have a mind of its own when it came to direction. The Admiral watched him weave his way down the passage for a moment, then keyed the required translocation into the handlink. The contents of the Imaging Chamber dissolved around him to reform into a world of dark wood panelling and baronial splendour. He was used to that kind of flip by now; high-gee manoeuvring was a much more disorientating experience. All the same, he blinked and swallowed hard on his arrival in the Great Hall. He just didn't expect the sight that awaited him.
He was surrounded by women. Young women, in varying states of attire from skimpy shorts and halter tops to elegant flowing caftans or gypsy skirts and peasant blouses. The five in the kitchen had been bad enough, but this ... There were blondes, and brunettes, and a redhead or two, some plump, some skinny, and most delightfully in between. They stood around in small groups, talking and laughing as if they hadn't a care in the world. Al felt briefly dizzy. It was little like booking into a science conference and finding the hotel was also hosting a 'Miss Bimbette' contest; he just didn't know where to look first. By the time Sam appeared in the doorway with his trolley he found his holographic friend standing in the middle of splendour with a broad grin painted across his face.
The scientist's reaction to arriving in the Hall was just as taken aback, although for different reasons. O'Leary appeared to be one of only four men in the group, the rest of its members apparently a range of women from late teenage to early thirties. He'd not expected that there would be so many of them; he counted at least twenty five in addition to those he had left in the kitchen. Al, he noted with a martyred sigh, appeared to be enjoying himself. The Admiral was stalking around the hall a little like a merchant at a trade fair, admiring the merchandise.
"Al," Sam hissed, pushing his trolley through the company until he was close enough to attract the man's attention without that of everybody else. The hologram sighed wistfully and returned his attention to business.
"Paradise," he declared, walking straight through one animated group in order to join his companion. "Sam, you've died and gone to heaven."
"Yours, maybe," Sam muttered sideways, unloading plates onto the long table and smiling and nodding as the group acknowledged his presence among them. "Am I supposed to know all these people?"
Al grimaced at the implied rebuke and glanced at the handlink. It gave him no new information, so he shrugged his ignorance. "I guess," he offered, turning his head to follow a well endowed brunette as she sashayed past. "I could get to like it here."
"Sure," Sam growled, unable to keep a hint of laughter from his voice. "Except you're not here. I am."
"Shame," the Admiral concluded. His eye had been taken by one particular figure; one that stood alone in the milling company. She was built the way he liked best, a slender body padded out with just enough curves to make it interesting. A little like Tina was built, except that the absent technician paled in comparison with this work of art. She wore a sombre black, which made her stand out from her butterfly company, and the whole effect was crowned with a glorious tumble of plum-dark hair. Looking at her, and it was a pleasure to do just that, he felt a strong desire to feel the silk of that wild mane running through his fingers. He was used to being instantly smitten on first glance, but this was different. This went deep, deeper even than the desire he had once felt for a body Sam had replaced. It had been because of that incident that Ziggy had adjusted the synchronisation of the biochips, enabling him to see Sam as himself and not the aura that accompanied him. This girl was no Samantha, blonde and model-elegant; instead she was dark and untamed, a hint of wildness about her that should have signalled danger and only added to her desirability. Her current look was wistful and held unspecified longing, an indication of vulnerability that stirred his protective instincts. He didn't know what made her so sad among this laughing company, but he wanted to do something about it, wanted her to see her smile, because he sensed it wasn't something she did very often. Had he been there, in among this wonderful company, he might have waltzed his way to join her, probably to get his face slapped for a forwardness he would not have been able to help. As it was, he merely stood and stared, focused on her presence in a way that would have been rude in any other circumstances. It wasn't fair, he thought dejectedly, that this was thirty years ago. She almost certainly didn't look a thing like that in present time and, even if she did, she'd be married, or gay, or something equally off limits. Sam looked up at his sigh, following the line of his gaze with a puzzled look. The woman turned her head, her eyes sweeping across the gathering as if she were looking for something - or somebody - and her glance settled on the pair of them, her face creasing into a definite frown. Al frowned back. She seemed to be staring straight at him, which was quite impossible - wasn't it? It seemed as if their eyes met; and then she drew in a sharp gasp and hurriedly turned away.
"Sam," he warned warily, "I think she saw me."
"What? Who?" his companion enquired, eyeing him doubtfully. Al jabbed his finger in the girl's direction, then froze, realising that nobody stood there any more.
"A girl - dark red hair, black dress. She looked right at me."
Sam glanced around the room with curiosity, then shook his head with a sigh. "You're seeing things," he decided. "There's no-one here like that at all."
"But ..." Al began, then let the incident go. He had other things to worry about, and it might have been mere coincidence. He couldn't see the woman either, now he looked for her again, and Bettenhoff would be listening; he didn't want anyone thinking he was starting to crack up.
Sam threw him a sideways look, then relaxed into a smile as Mary Ann McGowan appeared through the crowd.
"There you are," she greeted him with a smile. "Are you all right?"
"Fine," Sam assured her, no doubt relieved to find the scarlet caftan hadn't thrown her at all. He looked a little embarrassed at the question. Al shook his head in mild disbelief as Mary Ann melted at the sound of his voice and Sam totally failed to notice it. He seemed unaware of the devastating effect his smile was having; no doubt it was Carson O'Leary's face she was seeing, but the puppy-dog eyes would be pure Beckett and no mistake.
"Admiral?" Bettenhoff's voice cut through the general murmur of the crowd. "Ziggy says the fluctuations are getting worse. She's not sure she can maintain the simulation much longer."
He nodded an acknowledgement of the information and lifted the handlink to study its screen. Sure enough the data breakup was getting worse than usual. Al grimaced at the broken letters and misspaced words, then moved to catch up with Sam as Mary Ann led him to a place at the table. "I may fritz out," he announced, the images around him doing just that for a split second. "Ziggy's having some problems with power. But don't worry about it. We'll get back online as soon as we can." I hope, he added to himself as the vision of the past and its attractive inhabitants flickered a second time. Sam risked a small nod of comprehension, the majority of his concentration fixed on Mary Ann's recounting of a telephone conversation with the bank. The news did not sound good, and it generated a general murmur of gloom around the table. Most of the group had drifted to take up places along the benches, some still occupied with the distribution of food and crockery. Al glanced around for the dark-haired woman and found her standing by the massive fireplace, another of the carved homilies marching above her head. She was watching the domesticity, her eyes fixed on Mary Ann and her companion and her expression drawn into angry confusion. So that's the way the cookie crumbles, Al thought with another sigh. It was bad enough he had no chance of actually meeting this vision, but finding she had the hots for the man Sam was busy being was just too much. He left Sam to his conversation and walked across to the hearth, allowing himself the pleasure of a closer look, even if he would never be able to touch. He was three steps away when the woman turned in his direction, her eyes widening with alarm. He drew to a halt and stared at her with equal startlement; recognition of his presence showed clear in her face. She had seen him before, was obviously seeing him now, her mouth opening in a tiny "Oh!" of astonishment. He glanced down at himself with sudden self-consciousness, wondering what there might be to stare at. All he saw was the royal blue of his suit and the pattern of clouds on his sky-blue shirt; he was not out of place in the sixties crowd, even if the cut of his clothes might seem a little strange. He was a little older than the general company, of course, but that merely made him a stranger, not an object of bewilderment. He tried a reassuring smile while his mind was racing. He knew that small children and animals could see him, but she was most definitely neither of those.
She took a sideways step, the scenery flickering around her as she did so. Al bit back a curse and kept his eyes on the figure in front of him, praying that Ziggy didn't lose it before he figured out what might be going on. It did not register until much later that, although the scenery had flickered, she had not. He was paying too much attention to her eyes to notice that kind of detail. She, in turn, was looking at him with wary concern; she raised a tentative hand and then reached out to touch him. He braced himself for her shock when her hand failed to make contact - and then yelped with alarm himself as her palm impacted against his chest.
Everything fizzled, all at once. Sparks spat from the handlink, images flickered wildly around him, and the light flared into a dazzling brilliance; he dropped the handlink with reactive pain and threw his free hand over his eyes. When he lowered the protective palm he found he was standing completely alone in the empty Imaging Chamber. Somewhere behind him the door hissed open but he barely noticed it. He was shaking, he realised distantly. He felt oddly nauseous and disorientated. The thing most prominent in his perceptions was the fading sense of warmth above his breastbone, as if someone had punched him there hard.
"It's shock," a familiar voice registered to his left. "Ziggy, you'd better call the crash team. Al? Are you okay?"
He blinked, drew in a cautious breath and turned his head slowly. Donna stood beside him, her hand to his shoulder, her face concerned. "Uh -" he tried, then managed a wan smile. "What - what happened?"
Her lips quirked. "Ziggy blew a fuse. How do you feel? You're as white as a sheet."
"Am I?" he questioned, the world still ridiculously distant. "Oh. Just give me a second or two, okay? I'll be fine. Really," he added as she continued to look at him doubtfully. Her face settled into determined lines.
"We'll let Doctor Challens determine that," she announced, steering him toward the door. He went without protest, staggering a little as the world moved at what seemed to be the wrong rate. Her concern deepened into a frown that she covered with difficulty.
Out in Imaging Control, Bettenhoff was halfway into a open control panel. He looked up as Donna emerged with her company, but was saved from having to comment by the arrival of the Project crash team, a gaggle of medical personnel led by the normally dignified figure of Doctor Challens, the Project Medical Officer. He didn't look all that dignified on this occasion; he arrived at a run, the rest of his staff half a step behind him. He was still scrambling into his white coat and his hair stuck out at all sorts of angles. He took one look at the situation, ran a hand over his hair and took control, the way he usually did.
"What have we got?" he demanded, relieving Donna of the Admiral's weight and helping him sit on the edge of the crash trolley.
"Feedback discharge in the Imaging Chamber," she explained, hovering a little helplessly. "Ziggy cut in the dampeners, but I think he took a massive jolt all the same."
"M'mm," Challens acknowledged, waving his hand in front of Al's face. "How many fingers, Admiral?"
"Six," Al growled, beginning to recover his equilibrium. He hated being fussed over, unless it was by attractive women, and was sure he'd be fine if everyone just left him alone. The doctor frowned at him.
"Front and centre, Admiral," he barked. "This isn't an exercise. How many fingers?"
"Two," Al sighed. "Sir," he added sarcastically. He outranked the doctor by several steps, something neither of them usually took any notice of.
"M'mm," Challens said for the second time. "You'd better lie down." He reached to take his patient's pulse, his professional brusqueness slipping a little as he realised it was way above the norm. "Right now," he added, helping the man to do just that. He nodded at the other members of his team who began to push the trolley toward the exit. Al immediately tried to get up again, and two of them reached to hold him down.
"Wait a moment," he insisted, despite the sudden flare of nausea that greeted the effort. "Ziggy? Do we still have the lock? Do we still have contact with Sam?"
"Affirmative, Admiral. Doctor Beckett's situation is unchanged. I have, however, experienced a massive power loss centred in the Imaging equipment. It may take several hours to restore full contact."
"Good," Challens said firmly. "That means you can just lie back and let us take care of things for a while."
Donna smiled at him encouragingly and he made no further protest as they wheeled him away. He really did feel a little faint, now he had time to think about it. He reached to loosen his tie, and relaxed back against the padded surface. If he closed his eyes, he could see the woman again, just staring at him; the impact of her hand still lingered on his chest...
"So, how is he, Doc?" Donna's voice was pitched low, but was still perfectly clear above the subtle bleep of the monitors. Al stirred from his comfortable reverie and focused on the sounds of conversation which drifted through the open door of the room that contained him.
"He seems fine - for someone who's just been used as a lightning rod." Doctor Challens' words did not carry the note of jocularity that the joke seemed to require. Instead there was a definite hint of anxiety underlying the words. The listener frowned and listened a little harder. He'd learned long ago that the only way to find out what might be going on was to pay close attention - even when people thought you might be asleep.
"But?" Donna prompted, her own voice concerned. Challens sighed.
"But - I don't know if there is a but. Just uncertainties. He's taken no obvious damage, beyond a spattering of minor burns - mostly on one hand, apart from the point of discharge over his breastbone."
That was it, Al thought with vague disappointment. The discharge. Not the girl at all. It was an irritation now, a stinging discomfort only soothed by an application of cream, just like the protest of his hand.
"His heartrate was a little high for a while, but that settled eventually, and he's showing classic symptoms of shock, which is only to be expected. A good night's sleep and he'll be none the worse - this time," Challens added gloomily. "I just wish Sam had given a little more thought to what he was doing."
Al winced, mostly in sympathy for Donna, who had more reason to wish that than anyone else. He heard her murmur something in response to the remark, but it was lost as the doctor continued with his thoughts.
"It's this business with the implanted chip," he explained. "I understand some of what it's doing, but not enough. The system wasn't designed for long-term, continuous use - not this regularly anyway. Sam's end of things will be fine - I mean, he's just a passive focus - but every time the Imaging Chamber is brought online there's a prolonged metabolic interaction between the biofield and its host. The Admiral's not a young man, Donna, and I can't disregard the possibility that it will have a debilitating effect."
Al didn't know whether to be annoyed at the implications of the words, or frightened by them. He'd accepted Sam's reassurances as to the safety of the process, but the doctor was perfectly right. The Imaging Chamber hadn't been designed for such ongoing use, and the only one who might understand what the implications of doing so were was stuck somewhere thirty years in the past. He didn't think of himself as old, particularly, but he could see that Challens might have a point. He hadn't suffered any specific ill-effects but time in the Chamber did tend to take it out of him. Up until now he'd considered that the effort of dealing with Sam. Verbeena had certainly thought so when he'd tentatively raised it with her.
"Is there any evidence for that?" Donna was asking.
"Nope. Which is probably why it's bothering me. I keep an eye on him, run all the checks I can think of..."
And drive me crazy doing it, Al growled to himself.
"...and he comes out 100% most of the time. He's in good condition, keeps himself fit - with various forms of exercise - and if he cuts out those damn cigars, he'll live to be a hundred or more. I think. I hope. I just don't know. You know what really worries me?"
"What?"
"I keep wondering - if, by the time we get Sam back, the Admiral will still be centred in present time. You see, every time he goes into the Chamber, Ziggy refocuses him on Sam's timeframe, right?"
"Uh-huh." Donna sounded wary, and Al couldn't blame her.
"Well, what if the chip starts cutting in outside of the Project? What if he starts getting flashback experiences - seeing and hearing things that have happened rather than the ones that are happening? What if - hell, I don't know. I don't know what it might be doing to him."
"Do you really think it's something to worry about?" she queried, a question that the listener was already asking himself.
"After today - I doubt it. I reckon Ziggy will probably kill him first. There are too many ifs in this situation, Donna, as you well know. The whole business is crazy, and when the equipment starts acting up..." He must have ended with a shrug, because Al didn't hear any more than that. A few seconds later Donna appeared in the doorway, a professional smile painted on her face. He forced himself to relax and look as if he'd just woken up. He knew all about the risks really, just never looked at them too closely, because that way lay sleepless nights and poor performance. He'd been shot at and then shot down over Nam, and subsequently been sat on top of a ten-billion-dollar-plus firework in order to get into space; compared to those, the level of risk that he took with the Project was negligible. He sure as hell trusted Sam, and he didn't want to let him down, lightning rod or no lightning rod.
"Hi," Donna said softly. "Feel up to company?"
"I feel up to a forced route march, but I'm not volunteering," he joked, waving her toward the chair beside the bed. "How's Ziggy?"
Her smile softened into genuine amusement. "Annoyed with herself, mostly. She's adamant there were contributing factors she hadn't been aware of in her calculations. She's isolated herself in order to run some diagnostics; Ike says she's sulking, but I think it's guilt. Her programming says she's supposed to protect you, you know."
She'd moved into the room as she spoke, but had not sat down; instead she paused beside the active monitors to study what they might be showing. He lifted himself on one elbow and jerked an imperious finger at the chair. "Sit," he ordered, and she obeyed with a wry grin.
"Aye, aye, Admiral. Are you sure you're okay?"
He leaned back against the angled tilt of the bed and pretended to think about it. "Nothing wrong with me that a little tender loving care wouldn't put right."
"I've told all the nurses you're strictly off limits," Doctor Challens remarked from the doorway. He too paused to look at the readouts on the monitors, then gave a reluctant grunt and moved across to start disengaging the various wires and pickups that were feeding the information to the screens. "Doctor's orders are a quiet night, with no distractions," he announced, looking down at his patient sternly. "And no cigars, either," he added, as the Admiral opened his mouth to speak. Al closed it again with a sigh and threw Donna a martyred look. She smothered a snort of laughter with difficulty.
"He'll be good," she promised. "Tina's gone to Vegas for the weekend."
"Don't remind me," Al groaned, wincing as the doctor detached the heart monitor and its restraining tape from his chest.
"It isn't your day, is it, Admiral?" Challens noted dryly. He switched off the monitors then reached for his patient's wrist to make a final check the old-fashioned way. "Okay," he affirmed. "You can stay here for the night, and I'll look you over again in the morning. I'll order you a light supper and give you something to help you sleep. Don't stay too long," he suggested to Donna. "He ought to be resting."
"I won't." She watched the doctor leave the room and then turned back to her colleague with a smile. "Do you need anything?" she asked. Al shook his head, then changed his mind.
"A change of clothes would help," he realised. "Then I won't have to get back to the bungalow in the morning. And can you feed the Afterburner? He's probably going to wonder where I am."
Donna's smile widened into a grin at the thought of the Admiral's scraggy ginger cat. He'd walked out of the desert one day and started skulking around the back door of the man's apartment; he'd become a fixture within a month and, despite looking as if he'd fought in every war bar the last one, proved to be a soft-hearted animal with an affectionate if possessive nature. Al had made a joke of his adoption - something about every pilot needing a Tomcat if he couldn't get an F-14 - but everyone knew how fond he was of the beast.
"Of course I will. I'll look in on my way home. Keys in your pocket, right?"
"Right - no, left, actually. Save my suit and take it with you, will you? And bring me a fresh cigar for the morning."
She looked at him - didn't say anything, just looked, and he squirmed a little under the scrutiny. "I know what the Doc says," he protested. "Just do it, okay? I'm getting too old to give up my vices."
"Okay," she relented. "One cigar. One clean set of clothes, one overfed cat. Anything else?"
"No," he decided after a moment. "I don't think so. But if Tina calls - "
Donna waited for the end of the sentence. When it didn't come she reached out her hand and patted his arm sympathetically. "If I tell her you've been in an accident she'll be on the next flight back, I'm sure of it."
"Don't you dare," he growled, then sighed. "Look - if Ziggy thinks she needs him, call Gushie and have them both come home. But right now I don't think I could face either of them. Let her have her fun - it'll make her feel even more guilty when she finds out what's been going on."
She frowned a little at this, not least because she'd probably recognised it as the admission of tiredness he'd never make directly. He was tired, bone tired and drained, and the last person he wanted to see was an over-attentive Tina, determined to make a drama out of what was really a minor incident. She was always whimpering about something happening to him in the Imaging Chamber. Well, now something had, and she hadn't even been there.
"All right," Donna agreed softly. "You get some rest. I'll be looking over Ike's shoulder." She rose to leave, then hesitated. "Al?" she questioned softly.
"M'mm?"
"I'm glad you're okay. You really had me worried for a while there."
He laughed. "Yeah, I know. What would Sam do without me, right?"
"Well, yes, but - " She looked almost embarrassed about whatever it was that was bothering her. "I don't know what I'd do without you, either. And Sam would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you. I want Sam back - I want him back so badly it hurts. But not if it costs you everything."
He eyed her thoughtfully for a moment, weighing up what it must have taken to make that confession, then he laughed softly. "Donna - sweetheart," he said. "Wanna know the truth? Used to be I'd risk my life for my country and not really understand what it meant. Came that close to losing it, too." He held his finger and thumb tight against each other, watching her face as he did so. "That was my job. Still is in a way. But I don't help Sam out of duty, and I guess I don't care about the risks - not so much as to think twice about taking them, anyway. Sam's a stubborn, singleminded genius with his head and his heart light years away from the rest of us, but he's my friend, and I owe him. I owe him bigtime. And if it costs everything I've got to bring him home, I'll pay it. Willingly. Because now I do understand what I risk and why I do it. I do for that nozzleheaded kid you call your husband and all the dreams he made me remember I had. And I'll tell you something else too - if it ever came to a choice between Sam and Uncle Sam? I know which way I'd leap, and it wouldn't be toward Washington."
"Oh, Al." She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Sometimes I really don't think he deserves you, you know?" She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. "If I wasn't a married woman ..."
"Get outta here," he growled, reaching for a pillow to throw at her. She went, pausing to wave him goodnight as she closed the door behind her. He relaxed back to the bed with a sigh and stared up at the ceiling. He'd meant everything he'd said. He'd just never said it quite so clearly to himself before. Perhaps shock therapy was good for the soul after all.
Heat and sweat; an all-enveloping heat, suffocating and moist, its fingers clamped in his lungs, its caresses burning at his skin, and the sweat that soaked every pore, drowning him in himself. The cloying scent of swamp water and rot filled his senses, choking him, denying him the comfort of breath; his vision was blurred and his ears bombarded with the endless drone of insects. His limbs were cramped, confined in the cruelty of the cage, too narrow to lie down in, too low to stand up in, and, somewhere very close, someone was screaming ...
He woke with a gasp, sweated and shaking, tucked into the tight ball that the dream always curled him into. The room around was full of unfamiliar shapes and silences, lit only by the dim light of a clock on a monitor panel. He uncurled slowly, drawing in a lungful of the air-conditioned atmosphere and letting the cool texture of cotton register against his skin. It took a moment to remember where and who he was, and when he did it was with a distinct sense of relief.
He'd never get rid of the dream. It had been seared into his psyche by event and circumstance that he would prefer to forget yet could not help but remember. Stress or tiredness dragged it to the surface, often at times when he'd thought it gone forever; it might be thought a small price to pay compared with what some others of his generation endured, but it haunted him all the same. Over the years he'd attempted to avoid it with fast living or late-night company, but would inevitably find it waiting for the moments when he was once again alone. After one particularly disastrous marriage and the strains of its messy divorce he'd tried seeking refuge from its persistent images by crawling from between the sheets and into the bottom of a bottle, thinking it an easy remedy to both the dream and the other demands of a world he no longer liked very much. Of course, from drowning his sorrows it had been too easy to find himself just drowning, a situation from which Sam Beckett had determinedly rescued him. The work, and Sam's inspiration had all helped to push the immediacy of the dream back into the past, where it belonged; the past in which his friend was now trapped, caught in a vortex of his own making.
Al sighed and sat up, running his hand through his hair. He'd have no chance of getting back to sleep. He knew better than to reach for a drink, but right now he could murder a cigar.
"Is it dreams, or demons that plague thee?" a voice asked, soft and unexpected in the dark. He glanced around in astonishment, trying to pinpoint its source. It was a sweet, feminine sound, pitched low and sounding decidedly sultry.
"Who's there?" he demanded, throwing back the covers and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. The room was full of shadows and he could make out nothing in any of them. "Who said that?"
"Only I." A shape moved in the darkness, melting into vision, only to be lost again. The scent of herbs and woodsmoke drifted in the air. "Only Charity."
"Charity?" His mind raced frantically as he failed to place either the voice or the name that went with it. He glanced at the clock, confirming his impression of lateness; it was three o'clock in the morning. Perhaps she was a nurse, looking in on him during the late shift. "Have we met?" he asked, trying to make out more than the vague silhouette of her figure. A very attractive figure, he thought, but that could be wishful thinking. She gave a soft laugh, and it was a haunting sound with little humour in it.
"Before today? I do not know. Perhaps not. I think I might remember if we had." Her voice was rich, despite an odd impression of distance. She was not whispering, but he had to concentrate to hear her.
"Today?" he questioned, conscious of turning into an echo, but unable to formulate anything else. He hadn't met anyone new that he could recall, only seen the images of the past played out around his friend. She laughed a second time, and it was just as painful a sound.
"Perhaps you do not remember seeing me," she said. A hand reached out of nothingness and caressed the curve of his cheek. He jumped at the contact, the touch of her fingers startlingly electric. "I remember you. So vital. So alive. Your aura shone as fiercely as the sun at noon."
"What?" It sounded like a hamfisted chat-up line. The kind of bad hamfisted chat-up line he'd given up using years ago. The problem was, she said it as if she meant it, and he wished he could see her face. This had to be someone's idea of a joke, surely. Someone in the Project had set him up. Someone with a perverse sense of humour - and a great deal of taste, he concluded wryly, eyeing what he could see of his company with appreciation. "Who are you? And what are you doing here?"
She sounded disappointed. "I will leave, if thou dost wish it." She started to turn away and he reached for her almost involuntarily.
"No, wait." There was something decidedly odd about this situation, but company was preferable to the dream, and he wasn't about to let what might be a good thing walk out on him without finding out who she was. His hand tangled in coarser fabric than he was expecting and he let go almost immediately. It was as if she was full of static electricity; he'd felt the sparks jump between his fingers. "I didn't mean to sound rude."
She turned back, moving to sit on the edge of the bed beside him. "Thou wert not," she said, the old-fashioned phrasing sounding oddly natural in the dark. "'Twas I who was rude. I should not have spoken to thee at all."
She smelt of herbs and spices, of smoked wood and open air; it was an attractive perfume that held a slightly bitter edge, and wasn't one he recognised. "I guess it would have been ruder not to," he suggested, leaning toward her a little to see if he could make out any of her features. She seemed to be little more than shape and presence.
"Perhap," she sighed. "It seems so long since I spoke to any who would hear me. I was not sure you could."
He smiled at that. She was good, whoever she was. Her voice seemed to hold genuine wistfulness. Time to end the joke, even if it meant losing her company. He put out his arm and encircled her with friendly intent, his hand coming to rest, ever so lightly, on her shoulder. She was wearing something low cut and interesting; his fingers found cool skin brushed with a tumble of hair. "Okay," he breathed, sounding a little wistful himself. "That's about as compromising as I intend to get. Time to put the light on and spring the surprise. It's not my birthday, and I'm not going to fall for the joke, all right?" Maybe some other time, he considered, caressing the smoothness of her shoulder with genuine regret. Her hand drifted up and caught at his; she tilted her head to brush his knuckles with her cheek, her hair a weight against his arm. No-one turned on the light. No-one else moved in the confines of the room, and no sound could be heard from the expanse of Medcentre that lay outside the door.
"I do not joke with thee," she murmured. "Thou art so warm ..." She left the sentence unfinished, letting go of his hand and reaching instead for his cheek. Her touch was still electric; it sent shivers of anticipation up and down his spine and he moved a little closer despite, or perhaps because of, himself.
"Who sent you?" he demanded warily. Her other hand brushed his knee, a touch so gentle it was like the whisper of a breeze. His heart went into quiet overdrive and his body stood by to go to red alert.
"No-one sent me." The denial seemed genuine, a sadness about it that held the promise of truth. "I am here because I choose to be. Because I saw you and I wanted to be with you." Her fingers caressed his neck above the line of his borrowed pyjamas, then slid beneath the fabric to follow the shape of his shoulder. "You have so much warmth, and I have been cold for so long. Hold me. Remind me what it is to be alive."
Al Calavicci, a little voice said at the back of his mind, this may just be your birthday after all ...
"Anything to oblige a lady," he decided huskily. He closed the last of the gap with a practised shuffle, and let his hand drift down her arm to enfold her waist. It was a slim waist, nestling between curves of all the right proportions, and he pulled her close with pleasure; she melted against him, laying her head against his shoulder and wrapping her arms around him in return. Still no-one hit the light, or made any sound. He lifted his free hand to caress the tumble of her hair. It was soft as silk and smooth as satin. "You are cold, aren't you?" he noted with distant concern, tightening his hold instinctively. She lifted her head and studied him in the darkness, her eyes a gleam of starlight reflecting the emerald of the luminous clock face.
"No longer," she breathed, her voice a whisper against his cheek. "Not for this little while..."
A Question of Charity. Chapter Two. 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.
© 1996 by AAA Press. Written and reproduced by Penelope Hill. Artwork by Joan Jobson
Chapter Three