A Question of Charity
Chapter Four
Penelope Hill
He spent a discomforted day after that, settling the churn of his stomach with too much black coffee and trying to retain an appearance of good humour. Some of that time he spent considering the readouts of Ziggy's diagnostics; neither he, nor Donna, nor Bettenhoff could isolate the source of the problems, but the apparent fluctuations showed no signs of further destabilisation and they agreed to merely monitor the situation rather than risk readjustments that might lose the focus altogether. In between these discussions he went back to join Sam in his investigations, his shoulders crawling and his nerves at full alert every second that he stood among the images of McGowan House. He saw no further sign of ghostly manifestation, but Sam must have wondered what made him quite so jumpy on such an unexciting day. The scientist was deciphering documents - or trying to, slowly getting more and more frustrated with his allotted task. Even with Ziggy's help - and hindrance, because the handlink insisted on stuttering with almost as many nerves as its operator - every clue they found seemed to lead completely nowhere. Those few hints they did uncover proved too obscure to follow up, and some things just made no sense at all. At the end of several hours of intense work Sam seemed to be further away from his goal than ever; the pile of documents had grown and he was still finding papers out of sequence, undated, and even re-used for other annotations.
"This is crazy," he determined, pushing yet another piece of scrabbled handwriting away from him. "Half of these things seem to hint at some great secret, and the others just hint. I can't even get the dates to match on the family tree. Look," he went on, pulling some of his scribbled notes to the top of the pile, "Alex McGowan is supposed to have died three days before his son came back from the war, right?"
"Right," Al acknowledged, wishing he hadn't raised the subject of dead people. He couldn't shake the sensation of being watched - by someone other than the usual observation team.
"Well - " Sam extracted a third piece of paper from the pile. "This is his death certificate, which is dated four weeks after that adjudication document we found. The one Patrick McGowan signed?"
Al leaned over his shoulder and examined the suspect date. "But if Patrick agreed the adjudication before his father died - I dunno, Sam. Maybe the kid did get home and his father was too ill to tell him the great secret. At least that adjudication thing proves they were in dispute with builders during the war."
Sam grimaced. "Why the hell," he asked, tipping back his chair and staring frustratedly at the ceiling, "was Alex McGowan building himself a mansion while the rest of the country was tearing itself apart? I think Carson is right. He must have been rebuilding the existing shell, but I'm damned if I know why."
"Don't ask me, Sam," Al remarked, getting nothing but a screenful of 'insufficient data' messages from the handlink. "And Ziggy doesn't know either. But we're working on it."
"Yeah." Sam stood up and stretched wearily. "Well, I'm going to sleep on it. After dinner, of course."
"Of course," Al growled in mock envy. "Lucky devil. Just you and all those women ..."
Sam threw him a knowing look. "Nope. Just me and Mary Ann, tonight. Most of the group are taking the minibus into Boston for the evening. Some meeting or other."
Al shook his head resignedly, well aware that Sam was unlikely to even consider taking advantage of such a situation - even if that was almost undoubtedly the reason Mary Ann had arranged it. "Well, have fun, anyway," he suggested, which evoked a look of wounded innocence. Me? Sam seemed to imply and the Admiral sighed. "You know what I mean," he growled. "And remember Carson has the hots for this lady of his. Don't play the icicle with her."
Sam managed to look more wounded still. "I won't," he promised. He glanced around the cluttered library and sighed. "I guess I'll have to start checking the upper level tomorrow. There may be some more of those diaries tucked away up there."
The Admiral looked up at the narrow balcony and the bookshelves which towered to the recesses of the ceiling. "Well, be careful," he said. "Things aren't in too good repair around here, and that looks dangerous. Remember the curse."
His companion chuckled sceptically. "I'll watch my step." Sam jerked his head in the general direction of the garden. "Get outta here, why don't you? I'll see you in the morning."
"Right." Al keyed up the Chamber door, taking a final glance around the room as he did so. Dusk had crept in, darkening the windows and filling the place with shadows. Thankfully, none of them moved.
It proved fairly easy to persuade the support team to take the night off; Bettenhoff practically jumped at the idea and Donna, after an anxious pause, nodded her agreement with every indication of relief. Al felt a little guilty at that - not that Sam was in any trouble, of course, just that his wife trusted his Observer to be honest with her over his situation, and the Admiral wasn't being entirely genuine in his reassuring assessment. The guilt was short-lived, since there really was no reason to keep the team up for yet another night, and it was quickly replaced by a resurgence of anxiety. He watched as they locked everything into standby mode, only leaving the main time transmissions untouched, since Ziggy was still having problems with the focus. This was just as he wanted it, everything ready to go but nothing online - including the monitoring systems. He hovered next to an unoccupied console and surreptitiously transferred the Imaging Chamber environmental control back to full power after Bettenhoff checked it had stabilised on standby. He didn't particularly want to freeze that night - or suffocate, for that matter.
Donna had already bid Ziggy goodnight, which meant that the computer did not think to comment on the change. Al ensured the scientist did not change her mind and linger in the Control Centre by the simple expedient of dropping his arm around her shoulder and inviting her to dinner. She looked a little startled and then grinned, accusing him of being forced to last resorts and agreeing on the condition he didn't mention it to Sam - who just wouldn't understand, she said with assumed grimness. He let go of her shoulder as if burned and protested his innocence all the way to the elevator, by which time she was laughing so much it must have hurt. Verbeena met them there, and nodded a surreptitious approval at him behind Donna's back; they all worked hard to ensure that she did not brood overlong on Sam's absence, and laughter was something that did not come to her easily.
Al tried to look as smug as the approval warranted, extending his invitation to include the psychiatrist. She immediately joined in the game by refusing to act as chaperone; he tried to imply that hadn't been the idea at all, and succeeded in sounding so suggestive that the technician who entered their elevator car three floors up must have thought all three of them to be crazy. Donna was laughing so hard the Admiral had to support her - which just set both women off again. For the first time that day, Al felt Tina's absence as a nagging ache, conscious that, despite the joking, he would be going home alone. Not that he wanted company that particular evening - far from it in fact - but her spiteful manoeuvring had hurt him more than he might have cared to admit.
They ate lasagne in the Project canteen, but did not linger over it. Donna looked tired, which was a reasonable excuse to send her home, and Verbeena volunteered to escort her. He walked with them as far as the visitors' carpark and then watched as the two women made their way across the well-tended lawns toward the living quarters that lay in the Project's shadow. He paused to light a fresh cigar and to stare up into the night. The last tinge of sunset was painted over the mountains and a few tentative stars were beginning to appear in the velvet sky. It was a clear, autumn desert evening, warmed by the lingering heat of the day.
Voices greeted him as he walked the short distance to his own residence, a gaggle of giggling youngsters gathered under firm control. "Trick or treat!" they carolled, reminding him sharply of the season. They were dressed in home-made costumes, monsters and movie characters not much more than three feet high. He found a beam of sympathy for their escort, a young lady he might, in other circumstances, have volunteered to assist. She grinned back, blushing a little, and ushered her charges onward; the last of them was a small girl complete with cloak, hat and broomstick. The Admiral's skin went cold and he hurried the rest of the way, suddenly conscious of the time.
He fed the Afterburner, poured himself a stiff drink, and killed the couple of hours that remained by checking both mail and video messages. Tina had left a cheery call, probably intending to twist the knife while giving the impression she was missing him; he replayed it twice, the resultant self-torture a sufficient means to keep him from contemplating what might await him later that night. There were two letters from lawyers, one demanding money, the other offering it, half a dozen circulars, a new publication he was requested to review and a chatty letter from a friend in New York. The other calls on the video service included one from Washington and he recorded an answer to send back, offering congratulations on an old friend's promotion. The gossip seemed a world away from the Project, the more so this particular evening; he wandered into his bedroom feeling isolated and abandoned. Not for the first time since the whole crazy business began he wished he could just call Sam and talk to him - really talk to him, man to man, friend to friend, not needing to spin any outrageous yarns or remember just what he could or could not reveal. But Sam was thirty years away, sharing a meal with a woman who had no idea who he really was, and suffering from the Swiss-cheese effect that had wiped most of their shared experiences from his memory.
At 23:31 precisely, Admiral Albert Calavicci left his desert view bungalow, locked the door behind him and walked back to the main Project complex, his progress casual and his metabolism on overdrive. The night guard in reception greeted him cheerily and passed him through without comment. The Project never kept normal hours and his presence in the complex at that hour was hardly unusual. Even so, several of the security men on duty in the upper levels stared after him in some surprise; he was wearing plain Navy-issue fatigues topped by a regulation black leather flight jacket. One man even stopped him to ask for ID, apologising profusely when he realised his mistake. Al merely threw him a wry look and went on his way, unaware of the consternation he had stirred behind him. The duty security officer assumed his anonymity had been a means of testing his team's alertness and hastily conducted a review of his men in case there might be a problem. He didn't find one, but he'd never forget the night he met the Admiral actually looking like a man who'd been in the Navy for most of his life. It scared him; he'd almost forgotten that their easy-going Commander was also a combat seasoned veteran and had earned both rank and respect the hard way.
Al had dressed for sense, not sensibility. While his peacock layers were matters of self-expression, they also served a significant purpose; he deliberately dressed up for Sam, putting on a show of confidence and cocky assurity that helped him cope with the man's situation. The coming meeting was something else again, demanding self-discipline and combat-sharpened reflexes. He felt a certain reassurance in the uniform and the authority it carried with it. Dress whites were the best for that, smart and certain, but he'd reasoned against overdoing things and settled for the more casual image. His flight jacket had been a last-moment addition, snatched to protect against the chill of the night air, but it felt right, and he'd forgotten how comfortably it fitted him.
Less comfortable was the weight of the crucifix that hung over his breast bone; its chain tangled in his dogtags and its ornate chasing irritated the remnants of the burn on his chest. He'd picked it up almost as an afterthought, uncertain if it would provide any specific protection but willing to believe it might. His imagination was full of horrors drummed into him at an impressionable age: images of malevolent witches, demons and the terrors of the occult coloured his expectations, inspired by strict and unforgiving priests and the wild-eyed warnings of tyrannous nuns. Every step he took closer to the lower chambers and the unknown that awaited him there added to the racing of his heart. His mouth was bone-dry as he stepped out of the elevator and turned toward Imaging Control and he paused to take several deep breaths, seeking refuge in the ritual process that had once prepared him to face death in the sky. He closed his eyes, clenched his fists and counted backward from ten in Italian, savouring each number with a slow inward breath and an even slower expellation. By the time he reached quattro his heart had steadied at a fast but not impossible pace; he opened his eyes and completed the countdown with a sense of building anticipation. It wasn't possible to just stop being afraid, but it was possible to redirect it, and he walked the rest of the distance with the studied prowl of a pilot on full alert, every nerve aflame and every sense sharp and focused.
"Talk to me, Ziggy," he requested softly, activating the interface with a touch of his hand. The lights in the room flickered and then came fully on, the systems reacting to his presence.
"Good evening, Admiral," Ziggy purred. "Is there something you require?"
"Yeah," he breathed, adrenaline adding a deeper growl to his voice than usual. "But give me a situation update first, will you?"
"Certainly," she responded with sultry pleasure. "The time focus is still locked and the resultant power demand is still abnormally high, but the fluctuations appear to have stabilised - as has the Imaging Chamber environment, which is now back to expected temperatures. It is 01:31 in 1967, and - Doctor Beckett is asleep." Al frowned at her, sufficiently distracted by her tone to wonder how you programmed a machine to not only have curiosity but to fish for hints in order to satisfy it.
"I should hope so," he acknowledged. "I want to take another look around the house while I have the chance. Will you centre the Chamber in on the Great Hall?"
She paused, which wasn't a good sign. "You wish to make use of the Imaging Chamber, Admiral? Shall I summon the control staff?"
"No, no," he ordered quickly. "I can manage a quick trip alone. Just you and me tonight - okay, baby?" He glanced up at the interface as he said it, hoping he hadn't overdone the cajoling note in the question.
"This is highly irregular," she observed, although she did so with what seemed to be a distinctly flattered purr.
"Just think of it as - personal business," he suggested, sinking into his best persuasive tones. "This won't take long." I hope, he added to himself. "Come on, Ziggy. You owe me a favour or two. Strictly off the record, all right?"
Had she been human she probably would have sighed. "Very well, Admiral. You know I can't resist a challenge. I've never done this entirely on my own before."
"I have every confidence in you," he assured her, moving across to release the handlink from its storage cradle. It was the backup link, of course. The main one was still in Gushie's workshop, awaiting his return for its repair.
"I'm sure you have," Ziggy murmured, sounding decidedly condescending. He allowed himself a small smile. The one thing he could always rely on was Ziggy's ego getting the better of her moral judgement - probably something she'd inherited from him, now he came to think about it. "I have established the coordinates. Shall I initiate recording now?"
His fingers clenched around the handlink and he bit back a curse. He'd nearly forgotten about that. "Yeah. Store it under my personal access code, will you? And - uh - lock down the online monitor. I'd like a little privacy for once."
"On what authority, Admiral?" she enquired sweetly.
"Security clearance 'O', for Observer One," he growled back. "As you well know. Hold on," he added, "I'll give you an interrupt code - this key sequence-" He tapped a series of keys on the handlink, "or a verbal request in the form of-" He wrestled to think of something he wasn't likely to say accidentally. "Red alert, repeated three times in immediate sequence. Okay?"
"Okay," she acknowledged. "Anything else?"
He shook his head, flexing the fingers of his right hand and trying to prepare himself for what might be ahead. "Uh-uh. Go back to sleep. This really won't take long."
"I do not sleep," she retorted with a hint of injured pride. "I shall be in the seventeenth century if you require my attention."
He winced. That's where I'll probably be, he thought, and quickly turned his attention to the Imaging Chamber door. His heart was racing back into overdrive and he forced himself to be calm. If Ziggy picked up extreme physical distress on the metabolic monitor she'd probably override his request for privacy, security clearance or no security clearance. He took one more deep breath and stepped forward before he could change his mind.
The light of the buffer zone flared around him with familiar impact, accompanied by the subtle tingle of the activated biofield. He blinked to clear his eyes of the flare and the Imaging Chamber door slid shut behind him with a breathy hiss. He was standing, completely alone, in the dim and shadowed recesses of the Great Hall, moonlight piercing the upper windows to spill like silver bloodstains across the polished floor. Everything held the quiet of the small hours, the hushed expectancy of a world that slumbered unawares; an owl hooted somewhere in the distance, the sound fading away to leave him in total silence. He glanced around cautiously. Nothing moved, nor even stirred in the shadows.
The handlink was equally subdued. With Ziggy offline, apart from the Chamber's basic control systems, the normally hectic device showed no more than a set of ready lights and a single system prompt. He had orientation control if he wanted it, but no data connection unless he initiated one; he tucked the link into the pocket of his jacket and carefully walked forward, moving from under the jut of the balcony out into the main space of the room.
"Thou art late," her voice murmured from somewhere to his left. He jumped and spun in that direction, his heart thudding to a momentary halt. She stood outlined in the moonlight, a figure shaped from shadows and rimmed with silver light. He tried to speak but failed utterly, neither his voice nor his thoughts formulating a coherent response. She hadn't been there a moment before, and now was, impossibly real, impossibly present in a way that the images conjured by the Chamber systems never were. He stared at her with fascinated terror. It was true, he realised distantly, swallowing against the dryness in his mouth and throat. It is possible for every single hair on your body to stand on end.
"I affright thee," she whispered, sounding oddly disappointed. Her head tipped slightly to one side, sending a cascade of dark hair tumbling back from her shoulders. "Yet thou still cam'st. How is that? How can a man fear what I am and yet come at my request? Didst thou fear I would harm thee if thou didst not?" She shook her head with slow sorrow. "I will not haunt thee. I should never have spoken at all."
It took a moment to register that she was leaving, was fading into nothingness before his eyes. The pain in her voice had been disconcerting, and the dejection in the movement that turned her away was so palpable that it hurt. "Wait," he managed to blurt out, surprising even himself. She froze, insubstantial smoke through which the moonlight gleamed. "Just wait," he requested, shaking a little at his own audacity. "I need to talk to you."
She turned back slowly, still a half-seen image written in mist and moonlight. Her expression was wary and she stared at him with a look that seemed to go right through to his soul. "To talk," she echoed, her voice distant and hollow. He swallowed again, his throat mutinously tight.
"Yeah," he croaked. "Just - talk, okay? I need to know ... I have to..." He was not making any sense even to himself, unable to formulate just what it was that had made him call her back. The need to understand what she was and what threat she might represent, he hoped, but there was another part of him, a silent irrationality, that wanted her there just so that he could look at her. Despite her insubstantiality, despite the nature of what she was, despite everything, she was just as beautiful as she had been the moment he had first seen her.
Her hesitation held reassurance; she seemed as uncertain of him as he was of her. After a moment she nodded, her form coalescing into certain definition as she did so. He made himself relax a little; she was easier to face like that, an illusion of reality perhaps, but one he could relate to. "I would like to talk," she said wistfully. "I have not done so in many a year. And there are things you can tell me that I have need to know... Very well." She lifted up her feet to sit down cross-legged on empty air, then drifted across to make her seat the surface of one of the long tables. She reached down and settled her skirts around her in a billow of black cloth, then carefully folded her hands in her lap. "Let us talk, if thou hast the heart for it."
Al drew in a slow breath and stepped three steps closer. The subtle stir of air-conditioned air in the Chamber brought him the echo of her scent, spiced and muskily warm. "I - don't know where to start," he realised, and she laughed.
"Thou didst not have that problem last night," she murmured, looking coyly at the floor as she said it. The remark froze the air in his lungs and churned his stomach with reactive malice.
"Last night," he managed to gasp, "I didn't know you were dead!"
She lifted her eyes to meet the accusation, and they were infinitely sorrowed behind the pale smile she found for him. "With thee I do not feel so."
"That's no excuse," he growled, discomforted both by the look and his conflicting reactions to it. "What am I doing?" he asked of the general air, an excuse to turn away from her, to pace the floor and dissipate some of the undirected energy he was accumulating. "I'm standing in a place that hasn't existed for nearly thirty years, talking to a ghost who shouldn't exist at all. This isn't real," he decided, turning back to stare at her. "It can't be real. I'm just cracking up."
She flowed down from the table, a fluid movement that bore no relationship to the physical objects around her, and moved forward to stand in front of him, her head tilted slightly to one side as she studied his face. "Doth this not feel real to thee?" she asked, her hand reaching for his cheek. He flinched and stepped back, the electricity of her touch lingering on his skin.
"Too damn real," he muttered, his palm scrubbing abstractedly at the point of the offending contact. She sighed and drifted away, spinning back to the tabletop where she leaned against the edge and looked crestfallenly at her bare feet.
"I am sorry," she said. "I have no wish to hurt thee. It is only that I have been alone so long. Just mist among the living, only glimpsed or suspected, barely heard and never touched - until you came, and looked me in the eye, soul to soul. I am bound to this place and walk a weary path between the warmth of the living and the freedom of death. With all else I am but the ghost you name." She lifted her head to look at him and he realised that she was crying. Instinct took him a step closer, despite his fear of her. "With thee," she went on softly, "I remembered what it was to be alive. For thee I would wish I could be so again. But I am only an echo, a prisoner - and a creature you fear, and pity, and cannot bear to touch." She dropped her head again, her hair spilling down around her like a dark veil. "Forgive me," she whispered, almost too low to hear.
If it was an act, an attempt to deceive and ensnare him, it was a damn good one. He took another step forward, responding to the pain in her voice, the dejection in her stance. "Charity," he breathed, "I-"
She shook her head and slid away from him, through the scarred tabletop, putting up a hand to ward him away. "No," she announced with a sob. "I thought to deny my fate and I was wrong. I should not have come to thee last night. Should not have spoken or asked of the generosity of thy soul. This, this is what I am. Thou art right to be afeared of me!" Her arms went wide and her image flared into ghostly flame, a fire that entangled her skirts and her hair. A savage welt welled on her neck and throat, dark bruising mottling the delicacy of her features. "Burn!" her voice demanded hysterically. "Burn, witch, burn!"
Terror briefly held him, reinspired by the horrendous sight. Then anger kicked in, anger that anyone should be asked to suffer such a death, let alone this fragile spirit, whose ageless beauty was being eaten away in front of him. He didn't stop to think about what he might be doing, might be risking; he strode forward, the solid tabletop no obstacle to his progress, and caught at her outstretched hand, pulling her from the silent conflagration. She came without resistance, the fire vanishing as she did so, only the charred edges of her skirts remaining as witness to her savage end. He let go almost at once, shaking a little as he realised what he had done. The flames had bitten at his hand, as if they had power to hurt him, and his skin tingled in protest, reawakening the older damage.
Charity O'Leary dropped to her knees before him, her head bent and her shoulders shaking. "It was my strength," she protested with quiet bitterness. "It fuelled my anger. But there is nothing left for me. All is ashes. All is dust."
"Charity," he demanded, with a firmness that surprised him, "will you look at me?"
She looked up, the emerald of her eyes filled with moonlight and tears. There was a power in those eyes, an old power, and a sadness that went so deep it seemed to have no end to it. Something stirred inside him, a response to that ancient pain, an understanding that had no words to shape it. This dark angel needed him; an aching emptiness opened up in his soul in answer to that need. He wanted her, wanted to hold her, to protect her, to drive away the sorrow that destroyed her and make her whole. Terror and desire conflicted in his heart, both struggling with a drowning rationality that seemed to have no place in this situation. She was a witch, and a long dead one at that, but the spell she cast was irresistible. For a brief moment his Catholic upbringing balked at the chasm that yawned before him - and then he made the mental jump, expecting to fall forever and instead discovering what it really felt like to fly.
She seemed to flow into his offered arms, her warm and familiar shape trembling against him as she returned the embrace with tentative hope. He pulled her closer, held her with determination, one hand tangling in the cascade of silk that was her hair, the other sliding tight around the curve of her hip. She was pure energy in his arms and he shook, inside and out, at the sheer audacity that had brought her there. "I hope - you're not the vengeful spirit you're supposed to be," he croaked, knowing he had to say something. That wasn't what he'd intended exactly, but nothing else came to mind at all. Her hesitant embrace tightened into firm reassurance.
"Nay," she denied. "It is not so. Once perhap. Once I thought I loved and was betrayed by it. Such shallow feelings quickly turned to hate, but that burned even quicker and left nothing but cold embers to warm my heart. I cannot escape my own cursing, for I have tried and reaped nothing but emptiness in return for it. I know now that it was pride that wrought my downfall, not love. I wished to possess Joseph McGowan and thought it blighted love when I could not. Envy and anger chained me as true feeling had not. And thou - " She looked up, her eyes seeking his own, "thou offer'st me comfort against thine own fear. I am not worthy of such sacrifice."
He found a wry smile from somewhere. "Don't sell yourself short, sweetstuff," he suggested. "This is probably just my macho pride getting in the way of my commonsense. I'm a real sucker for a pretty face. Ask Sam. He'll tell ya."
She smiled back, a shy smile that she obviously didn't use much. "Thy words deny what thy heart reveals," she said. "The warmth we shared before was simple courtesy and pleasure, an exchange of strangers seeking human comfort in the dark. But it was not the desire of flesh that pulled me from the flames this night. Thine eyes speak to me, and it is to them I answer; that were I free to act as I wished I would gift thee my soul, nor think it offering enough."
There was too much in that statement to even begin to contemplate. He wasn't used to women who were so directly honest, let alone one who seemed able to read him better than he could read himself. He kissed her instead, an electric contact that made his senses swim.
"I thought thou cam'st to talk," she protested with a hint of laughter, then returned the compliment eagerly. By the time he came up for air the pounding of his heart had nothing to do with any lingering terror, although it skipped a disconcerted beat when her hands slid through the heavy leather of his jacket to caress the skin beneath.
"Plenty of time for talking," he murmured, passion already stirred beyond commonsense or rational consideration. He shrugged free of the jacket, letting it and the silent handlink slide to the floor. Her hands were already beneath his shirt, and she giggled as she encountered the silver cross that was hidden there.
"They put me to the fire for denying such as this," she murmured. "Their hypocrisy, rather. The symbol is true enough, although the faith that sustains it narrows the mind and clouds the heart. This has no power against me. Did'st thou think it might?"
"I didn't know what to think," he answered distractedly, his attention focused on the curve of her neck and the scent of her skin. She giggled again, arching with catlike pleasure under his hands. "I'm crazy, you know that?" he asked, not expecting an answer. "I'm meant to be Observer on this Project, not - oh, what the hell. Ziggy's absorbed in the seventeenth century, anyway. I just hope Sam doesn't come down for a midnight snack, that's all. He wouldn't believe his eyes."
"Certes," she whispered, equally distractedly. "For he would not see me at all ..."
"Tell me about your friend," she asked thoughtfully, idly waving her fingers through the trail of smoke that drifted from his lit cigar. Sam Beckett's face materialised in ghostly outline then vanished, pulled apart by the air-conditioning. Al blinked at the unexpected manifestation; clearly Charity's capabilities were not dictated by the limits of normal human expectations.
"Sam?" he drawled in answer to the question. "It's a long story. Too long," he realised with a sigh.
"I have all night." She was tucked against his left side, her head resting comfortably on his shoulder, the two of them sat at a junction of floor and wall at the back of the Imaging Chamber. The Great Hall of McGowan House surrounded them, their apparent backrest being one of the pillars that supported the gallery. Moonlight still streamed in silver patterns across the polished floor, although a distant clock sounded the hour in three unhurried notes.
"I'm not sure I have," he told her. "I've probably been here too long already. Ziggy will be wondering what I'm up to."
Charity giggled, blowing in his ear. "She will not guess," she murmured. "But I need to know - about your friend. Why he has put on Carson's guise and come to this time and place. What quest brought him, and thus thee to my dominion?"
"That's the long story." He took another long pull at the cigar and then used the same hand to indicate their surroundings with an expansive wave. "This is all Sam's fault, you know. He built all this. Designed Ziggy and put the Project together. I just came along for the ride. Some ride, huh?"
She smiled, more at the tone of his words than for understanding of them. "Then I have cause to love him, if that be the truth," she murmured. "For the magic he wrought has brought thee here to me, a warrior knight and his silver stallion." He threw her a puzzled look and she laughed, rolling over so that she ended in his lap. "They were not wrong when they named me witch," she teased. "I have more than eyes to see with." She reached up to stroke his shoulder, her fingers slipping through the fabric of his shirt so that her palm settled over the tattoo that lay beneath. "This was wrought by one with skill in sorcery."
"Oh," he laughed. "I see. I thought you might be talking about something else."
"That too," she grinned, and rolled away entirely as he grabbed for her.
"Minx," he accused, still laughing. "Shameless hussy. Witch."
"All those things," she agreed, unrepentantly. She sat up, and looked at him, a shadowed shape rimmed in moonlight. "And because of them, imprisoned here, until the McGowans walk these halls no more."
"So that won't be so long then," he said without thinking, then winced. "Damn. Maybe it will."
"How dost thou mean?" she asked, her voice suddenly suspicious. "What foreknowledge dost thou have? I know thou art the future. What of it? What quest does thy friend pursue?"
"Oh, boy," Al breathed, suddenly recognising the dilemma he had entangled himself in. A few hours ago he had had no problem with Sam's situation and now - well, now he had a personal concern in the matter and he didn't know which side he should be rooting for any more. "Listen, Charity I-" He bit back what he might have said and settled for being honest for once. He rather suspected she'd know if he lied to her. "Sam's here to help Mary Ann save the house. See," he went on warily, not sure how she was going to take the information, "first time round she lost it - to the bank. It was sold to some faceless corporation, and they knocked it down. It doesn't exist in my time. We think - we're fairly certain, that Sam's here to change that. I'm sorry. I guess, if he does, that means you'll have to stay here."
"No!" She threw her arms over her head and pulled herself into a tight huddle. "No ..."
"Charity?" He scrambled to his feet and went to her, tentatively touching her shoulder. "Are you okay?"
She looked up, her expression filled with fear, then reached for his embrace, burying her face in his shoulder. He held her gently, feeling her shake, and wondered what the hell he'd said. "I'll tell him to forget the whole idea," he suggested, "if you need to be free that badly ..."
"Nay," she denied quickly, tightening her hold. "Tell him he must succeed. That he must maintain my curse, or break it. All else is cruel and hopeless." She was weeping almost uncontrollably and he caressed her hair with a sense of helplessness.
"Okay," he acknowledged softly. "If that's what you want. But I don't understand. Surely if the bank gets the house, you go free."
She shook her head, a tight and angry denial. "Not so," she told him. "For the breaking of my curse is to witness the end of the McGowan line. If she goes from this place, I will be held here forever, never to know when my chains are broken. Don't you see?" she insisted, finally looking at him. "I promised they would hold what they had, but gain no joy from it. If the house is lost, so am I."
"Okay," he agreed. "No problem. We just make sure Sam finds this evidence, or treasure, or whatever it is, and - bingo, you and the house are safe. Just stuck a little longer."
She shook her head a second time. "That will not be either," she said. "I am bound to prevent it. I cannot let benefit come to the McGowan from what is hidden here. I am my own undoing. I cannot stop your friend, but I cannot aid him, either. And without my aid ..." She stepped away from his arms, moving through him to do so. It felt like a bitter wind cutting through his soul. Despite that, he followed her.
"We can work this out," he offered. "Somehow." She sighed and drifted further away, losing substantiality as she did so. "Charity," he pleaded. "Don't go."
"The wheel of fate turns relentlessly," her voice considered, filled with ancient pain. "No hand can turn it back."
"Sam can," he insisted, no longer sure of where she was. "At least - nudge it a little. Even fate makes mistakes sometimes." He was speaking to empty air now, turning in the deserted hall, hoping she could still hear him. "That's what he does. Puts things to rights. Damn it, Charity! Trust me!"
There was no answer. Not even an echo, since the Chamber was designed so as to eliminate them. He was completely alone. He let his shoulders slump and shook his head with brief despair. He should never have told her, but how could he have known? The silence held no comfort for him. No answers, either. He felt as if he'd somehow betrayed a promise he had never made.
Al Calavicci, he told himself severely, bending to pick up the abandoned jacket and retrieve the handlink, you are a grade-A nozzlebrain and no mistake. The first real human contact she's had in three hundred years and you blow it. Screwed up. Just like every other relationship you have. He snorted in self derision. As if it were possible to have a relationship with a ghost who exists in the past. He keyed in the sequence to open the Chamber door, pausing to take one last look around the moonlit hall. Here in New England it was thirty years ago, and he was flying Corsairs over jungle somewhere in the Far East, dreaming of the woman he thought was waiting for him back home. Outside it was Halloween and a world where Charity O'Leary was cursed to wait forever - a ghost with no hope of reprieve. He shivered and stepped out into the buffer zone, letting the door slide shut behind him. It was late, and he was beginning to realise just how tired and drained he felt.
"Al Calavicci," Donna's voice greeted him with icy impact. "Of all the irresponsible, sneaky, low-down tricks you've ever pulled, this one has to be the worst."
"What?" He stared at her in total bemusement, not expecting anyone to be there.
"You know," she insisted, her tone still confrontational, "I can understand the sneaking around in the middle of the night, although it seems a bit redundant with Tina in Vegas all weekend. But in the Imaging Chamber? Al - how could you?"
Comprehension dawned with a mixture of amusement and total embarrassment, followed by an instant of incensed anger. How dare she assume that he'd engineered all of this for an illicit liaison ... The anger died as quickly as it flared. He wasn't exactly innocent of the accusation, after all. Just not in the way she was thinking.
"Donna," he began with reconciliatory intent, but she cut him off with an impatient gesture.
"I don't want to hear it," she announced. "Just tell me who you're hiding in there."
"No-one," he answered, lacing his reaction with wounded innocence. She frowned at him.
"Ziggy?" she asked the general air. "Who did he leave behind him?"
Ziggy's interface flashed into life. "There is no-one in the Imaging Chamber, if that is what you mean, Doctor Eleese. The Admiral has been its only occupant for the past two hours."
Her indignation collapsed instantly. "Oh," she acknowledged a little weakly. "But you said - "
"I informed you that the Admiral had not made contact with Doctor Beckett," Ziggy interrupted somewhat huffily. "Since he requested privacy, I cannot tell you what he has been doing. Whatever it was, however, he did it alone."
Not entirely,' Al thought to himself, suppressing the ironic grimace that came to mind. "I was taking a look round the house," he explained, managing to sound appropriately hurt. Donna's response was contrite.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I just thought ..."
"I know what you thought," he growled, wondering just how much he ought to explain. "I couldn't sleep, I got to worrying about Sam and these odd power fluctuations and I came down to take another look."
"Me too," she admitted softly. "Find any answers?"
"I don't think so," Al said, the sigh that went with the words a genuine one. "Sam is asleep, and I guess we should be too. I'm the one who should be sorry, Donna. I didn't want to disturb you, so I circumnavigated procedures a little."
"M'mm," she considered sceptically. "You know better than that. Yesterday you experienced a massive shock because of feedback overload in the Chamber and tonight you just waltz in without any kind of backup or monitoring ... That's the kind of crazy stunt I'd expect Sam to pull. Not you."
"I know." He shrugged uncomfortably. All the reasons and excuses that came to mind either sounded extremely lame or completely crazed. "And the last thing you need is for me to start acting crazier than usual, right?"
"Right," Donna concurred with feeling. "So stop it - okay?"
"Well ..." He took a deep breath and gestured apologetically with the cigar. "I hope this isn't going to disappoint you, but - I think our 'problem' is due to the ghost."
"What?" Her reaction was startled; she stared at him suspiciously.
"You heard me," he ploughed on, deciding that this had to be his night for honesty. "The ghost. I saw her, Donna. She exists. And I think she may be drawing on the Project's power through the focus."
Her mouth dropped open in complete astonishment and inwardly he winced. That may have been a mistake.
"Al Calavicci," she pronounced slowly, moving a little closer as she did so, "are you telling me that you went in there at midnight on Halloween - to look for a ghost?" She shook her head in amused despair. "That either means you are going crazy - or else it's one of the bravest things I've ever known you do. And that's saying something," she added with a hint of wary respect. "You? Ghostbusting? Wonders never cease."
He squirmed a little, both at her words and their tone. She was quite right. Anyone who knew him would know that the thought of his going to actually look for a ghost was completely out of character. But he could hardly tell her the ghost had found him first without telling her the rest of it, and somehow he didn't think that would be a good idea at all. Maybe if he hadn't ... Nope. No way could he explain that to anyone. He wasn't entirely sure he could explain it to himself. "It - just seemed like a good idea at the time," he said. It sounded decidedly lame, but she didn't seem to notice.
"And you actually saw - something? Wasn't that a little scary?"
His lips quirked. "Terrifying," he admitted, honest enough in that. "I'm - still shaking, see?" He was too, he realised, a tremble of soul recalled along with the impact of her presence and the fires that consumed her... Donna closed the gap between them instantly, reaching for his shoulder with concern.
"Are you okay?" she asked, all trace of banter stripped from her voice. "Ziggy told me your vital signs were erratic, but I'd assumed that was - you know? You really did see something in there, didn't you?"
"Yeah." The admission was tinged with guilt, mostly because her assumptions were too accurate for comfort, but the shiver that went with it was a genuine one. The enormity of what he had just experienced was beginning to sink in. Being with Charity - and reacting as he had - had seemed entirely comfortable somehow, as if her nature were of no importance compared to the way she made him feel; but now, away from her, able to consider the situation with only the memory of her dark eyes to haunt him ... He dropped his head into his hand and shook, a reaction he could not suppress. "I'm - okay," he protested as Donna reached for his other shoulder, then realised he wasn't and let her complete the reassuring embrace. "I - guess I got a little more scared in there than I thought."
"I guess you did," she murmured, sounding concerned. She stepped back from the closeness of the contact but did not release her hold on his shoulders. "It's probably metabolic overload," she diagnosed, trying to sound professional about it. "Too much induced adrenaline reacting to fatigue poisons. I know you've got a healthy imagination but - Ziggy? Can you substantiate the presence of any unnatural phenomena?"
"I don't know, Doctor Eleese." Ziggy sounded vaguely peeved. "Primary monitoring was not online. But there was an increase in the power drain shortly after the Admiral entered the Chamber, and the fluctuations I have been experiencing in the time focus became more erratic. It is possible there is some sort of local temporal distortion creating echoes which have been intensified by the presence of our timelock. Input of power from this end might create an interference pattern - which could explain the feedback we have been experiencing. Since the Admiral is surrounded by the inductive field while within the Chamber he would be particularly sensitive to any fragmentary images retained within such an echo."
"Of course." Donna sounded distinctly relieved. "Sam postulated that local time vortexes might explain so-called 'supernatural' sightings. We've just plugged into one, that's all." Al looked at her perplexedly and she assumed a sympathetic grin. "Your 'ghost' was just an afterimage. An eddy in the local timestream - probably associated with subsonic interference and a certain amount of environmental change. A physical phenomenon, not a supernatural one at all. Still pretty unsettling, I guess. All that metabolic interaction in the bio-inductive field..." She trailed off and stared at him a little worriedly. "You haven't - seen 'things' outside of the Imaging Chamber, have you?"
"No," he denied, not an entirely honest reaction, but the safest in the circumstances. He recalled her conversation with Challens only too clearly, and he knew that that was what had occurred to her now. There was nothing wrong with the chip inside his head, or his perceptions of the world that resulted from it, and he didn't want her thinking there might be. He didn't think Charity was a localised time eddy either but the proof of that was going to be hard to explain.
"Good," she breathed, the relief in her eyes personal rather than scientific. She was worried about him as well as the Project, although he was well aware that - for her - the two issues were irretrievably tangled together. He'd been quite right - the last thing she needed was for the Project Observer to go crazy on her. "Congratulations, Admiral." Donna's tones reassumed their professional assurance, although her eyes twinkled with quiet excitement. "You have managed to solve our mystery. Not our problem, but at least we've got some idea as to why it's happening. Now - why the hell didn't you tell me what you were thinking of doing tonight?"
"I wasn't sure you'd take me seriously," he said.
"No," she drawled, giving him a sideways look that spoke volumes. "Ghost hunting - at midnight on Halloween. Honestly, Al. What would Sam say?"
He shrugged, a kind of embarrassed apology in its way. It was safer to let her think of Charity as some kind of temporal echo rather than the vital spirit that had - had what? Seduced him? Bewitched him? There were too many implications twisted around his night's adventure for him to be certain of any of them, and the after-effects were beginning to catch up with a vengeance. He felt completely drained and had to stifle a sudden yawn.
"Yes, I know," she sighed. "If it wasn't for Sam in the first place ... You look exhausted. Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine," he said, the yawn forcing itself back around his words. She frowned at him affectionately.
"Sure," she agreed sceptically. "Listen - why don't you make it a late start tomorrow? I mean later today. Ziggy and I are going to have to run some correlation checks on the timelock to see if this theory's a good one, and Sam won't miss you for a couple of hours. I mean it," she went on pointedly at the look he gave her. "And I don't mean just sleep in late either. Get some exercise. Burn off some of this adrenaline you've accumulated. I know you're addicted to it but that's no excuse for letting it get the better of you. Go jogging or something. I worry that you'll give yourself a heart attack one of these days - probably in front of Sam, and that wouldn't be fun for either of you, now would it?"
"I guess not," he said, knowing better than to argue with her. He happened to know that his heart was obnoxiously healthy - had to be, or he'd never pass the stringent medical checks that allowed him to maintain his flying hours. The thought gave him an idea though. "Ziggy - can you e-mail my flight crew to have the T-45 prepped up by nine thirty? I can log a couple of hours and still be on hand by the time Sam gets back from Rose O'Leary's Sunday lunch."
Donna shook her head in mild despair. "That wasn't what I meant, and you know it. Still, I suppose since Tina's in Vegas ... I guess it will have to do."
"Your request is logged, Admiral." Ziggy announced smugly. "Do you wish to file a flight plan?"
He looked up at her interface and realised he was probably too tired to make sensible decisions. "Just the usual jaunt, Ziggy. You know what's on my testing schedule. Put something together for me."
"Very well," she acknowledged, sounding somewhat pleased. She liked to be trusted with that kind of detail, although constructing suitable route and manoeuvring profiles for his test flights was a job she could do standing on her head. If she had a head, that was. It had been one of the tasks Sam had used to test and challenge her during her initial programming, the equivalent of kindergarten sums beside her capacity for temporal mathematics; these days he had no concerns over trusting her judgement in either field.
"You want me to walk you home?" Donna asked as Al moved to replace the handlink in its storage cradle. He looked up and shook his head, grateful for the reasons behind the offer but wanting time alone to marshal his thoughts.
"That's the way rumours get started round here," he reminded her, and she laughed.
"Guess so. Walking you home at two o'clock in the morning might be misconstruable. From anyone's point of view. You going to be okay?"
"Yeah," he growled, sliding his arms into the comfort of his jacket. "A few hours' sleep and I'll be fine."
A Question of Charity. Chapter Four. 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 Five