Al stopped reading aloud. So Gooshie's first novel was an erotic thriller about a time-traveling private dick and his cross-dressing holographic sidekick. He smiled. So maybe Gooshie had hidden depths. Or maybe this explained all those extra sessions with Beeks.

“Sorry, Sam.” He set the book down on the floor next to his chair. “I’ll bring in something different tomorrow, okay? Some Asimov maybe—you always liked him, right?”

The steady beeping of the machines answered him. Sam had tubes coming out of him everywhere—oxygen, saline, another drip with some cocktail of antibiotics the med staff cooked up to prevent infection.

“So Tina called me this morning, did I tell you? Her maternity leave is up next month and she’s raring to get back, pissed as hell that she missed the retrieval and all this craziness. She says you owe her a new pair of Manolo Blahniks and first dibs on the paper for International Journal of Modern Physics. Little Irving's doing great, she says, and she can’t wait for you to see him, though if he takes after his dad, I think we can all skip the experience, don’t you think?”

The door slid open and the night nurse came in. It was midnight—time to take the vital stats: pulse, temp, check the pupils. A syringe full of something ordered by Beeks went into the drip, and the nurse handed Al a paper cup with pills of his own to take.

“So Sam,” he swallowed the meds with a cold up of coffee, “you should really wake up and get a look at these nurses. I don’t remember them looking this good when I was in here last year for that polyp.” The nurse smiled at Al and started tightening the cuff around Sam’s arm. “If you’d wake up I bet your blood pressure would go through the ceiling.”

“One thirty over ninety. That’s good, Dr. Beckett.”

“See, Sam? Flat on your back and out of it, and you’re still hitting your marks.”

The nurse noted the new numbers in the computer next to the bed and printed out a report. She passed it over to Al, and switched off the light above Sam's head before leaving. Al looked at the numbers and relaxed, settling back in his chair.

“Nothing here to worry about, Sam. You’re doing great and getting better all the time. Beeks says all of the scans are coming back fine, too—maybe a few scrambled wavelengths but nothing to worry about. Any day now you’re going to open your eyes and it’ll be hell keeping you away from Ziggy.” He slipped the report into a folder on the nightstand, and dialed down the other light, the room sinking into darkness. “So, Sam, do you remember that time we went to the conference in Stuttgart...”



The sun is hotter than you remember, like a blazing eye in a cobalt sky, a picture postcard, and you feel the heat settle on all of your exposed places, your face and arms, the back of your neck and your knees. Your skin, so pale, too long indoors, too long asleep, tingles with the sudden change in temperature, and you squint, blocking out some of the light, even as you feel the warmth bleed into your flesh, burrowing deep towards muscle and bone.

Al passes you a pair of sunglasses that blunt the cutting edge of the sun. The dark lenses grey the landscape, leeching color from already colorless sand and scrubby desert plants, the stark white buildings, subduing even the candy red leather of Al’s jacket.

You follow Al, stepping off the abbreviated porch of the prefabricated building, past the sign cracked and faded from exposure.  You wonder, apropos of nothing, if there have ever been visitors. Not that you would have known, even before, buried in your lab hundreds of feet under the earth, shielded, insulated, by the thick layers of concrete and steel, state of the art security, and Al. Al might have known, might even have met some of them, curious desert hikers, nosy environmentalists, tourists who took the wrong turn at Albuquerque. Amateur scientists who came to see the mountain that glowed―incandescent, shimmering brilliant evidence of your handiwork.

You take your first deep breath of unfiltered air in weeks, hyper aware of your lungs expanding and contracting, the acrid taste in the back of your throat. It feels good. It hurts a little.

You stumble just a bit as you get close to Al’s car, your legs flirting briefly with the notion of gravity, and feel Al’s hand on your arm, gently steadying. You’re still not used to this, standing, walking, only four days out of intensive care, all those jammed up nerves and cross wired connections in your head, and your left leg is a little stiff. It’s frustrating and irritating, but your temper rides too close to the surface these days, and so you try not to think about it.

Al doesn’t take notice, beyond the helping hand, and unlocks the passenger door with his remote, asking you if you want Italian or Chinese. Chinese is faster, he says, there’s a nice joint we can hit on the way to the house, but the Italian will taste better, homemade and all. You nod. You have no preference really, the Italian is fine, the Chinese is fine, and Al seems to understand, the way you count on him to do so.

It’s hot in the car, hotter even than in the sun, but then it’s been sitting in the heat for days, weeks even. Stale air sears on its way into your lungs, and you can feel the sweat gather under your arms and on your forehead, slick above your lips. Your headache spikes, and you take a deep breath. You know all the things you can do to make the pain less—breathing exercises, relaxation techniques—and it seems to help a little, easing the pressure.

Christ, it’s hotter than my third wife in here, Al complains, tossing his jacket into the back seat as he slides in next to you. The car rumbles to life and the air comes on, a hot breeze that you know will gradually cool. Al activates the windows, lowering them front and back, and as the car begins to move the heat is sucked away, motion creating a warm breeze that feels good against your face.

Fall asleep if you want, Sam, Al is saying to you. There’s less than nothing to see between here and Santa Rosa. You nod again, it seems that is your answer to everything these days, and Al just looks at you, reaching back again for his jacket. Here, put this under your head, he says, passing it to you before he shifts into fifth, and the car jumps ahead, desert and sun blurring.

You watch through half-closed eyes as Al adjusts the radio, then flips down the visor to help shield his eyes. You realize, suddenly, that he never wears sunglasses, and you wonder if this means anything, and if it does, what it means, but then you’re lulled by the soft rhythm of his fingers dancing against the steering wheel and the thought flies away in the breeze. Al’s humming along with the music, a stray word or two sung in a distracted whisper, and the sound of his voice settles in, curling up like a cat against your ribs.

It’s been a constant, these last few weeks, that tobacco roughened voice that was in your head even before you woke up. Someone probably told him to talk to you, told him that the sound of his voice might help you come back to the world, give you something to concentrate on. And perhaps it did. You have memories, stories in your head that weren’t there before. At least, you don’t remember them being there before. It’s hard, still, to be sure of anything.

And the sound of that voice is your first real memory of coming home. Soft and tired, a little slurred, the words indistinguishable at first but becoming clearer as the world around you slowly coalesced, coming back into focus. He sat by your bed for weeks, reading to you, telling you stories—about him, and about you, reminding you of what you were, what the two of you had done, together. And it surprised you a little, all of it. That Al could be so patient, could sit so quietly, talking, without needing to move, to pace. That he remembered so much, in so much detail, with such clarity. You never knew before how closely he watched, how much he saw.

And as he talked it was your turn to watch, to look and observe. You saw how the strain had recarved his brow, the weariness that had bowed shoulders too used to carrying your burdens and his. The twinkle that had never deserted those eyes, those eyes that watched you watch him. You didn’t talk, just listened and watched, and he filled the silence for you.

Sam, Al is saying as he shakes your arm gently, and you realize you did fall asleep, or close enough so that it makes no difference, and the car has stopped in front of a small house. It’s your house, or so Al tells you, and you have vague memories of being here before. You remember how the boards creak on the low porch that spans the front of the house, with its scarred wooden deck and mismatched chairs, and you taste the memory of cold beer after a long day, keeping Al company while he smoked.

You have memories, it seems, but no key, but that doesn’t matter because Al has one, and he’s opening the door for you. Inside it’s dim and a little bit cooler, and very, very quiet. Al makes a circle around the room, turning on the lights here and there, and you begin to make out the details. The furniture, neither old nor new, mismatched as the chairs on the porch. There are photographs scattered about, on side tables and bookshelves, and you recognize the faces: Mom and Dad, Katie and Tom, and children that look like them. Al.

Always Al.



“Why don’t you take a shower, kid? I’ll rustle us up something to eat.” Al watched as Sam ventured further into the room, running a hesitant hand over the back of the sofa, wandering over to the bookshelf to look at the collection of photographs. The service he’d hired had done a pretty slipshod job of cleaning—the floors were swept, but there was still a lot of dust around, and the windows hadn’t been cleaned. He’d have to call them back out tomorrow to do the job right.

“Sam?” He came up behind him, put a hand on his shoulder. “Sam, c’mon, why don’t you go take a shower and lay down for a while? You’re not really supposed to be up and around anyway.”

“I feel fine. I just...I don’t...I don’t recognize much, Al.”

Al nodded his head. “That’s understandable, Sam. Beeks says you’re still not firing on all cylinders, and you’re still trying to get used to all the changes. You got a lot of conflicting memories to piece together.”

“Donna...?”

Al sighed, coaxed Sam over to a chair. “Like I told you, she’s married to some neurosurgeon over at UCLA, and she's teaching physics at one of the colleges nearby.

"So after she didn't show up…?"

"That's not in this timeline, Sam," he said gently. "This timeline, you only worked with her a few months on StarBright. She was already involved with this other guy, already married, and she left the project just after you joined, when she got pregnant with their first kid. After that, she took up teaching."

Sam nodded slowly. "And Tom…"

"Tom's fine. He's still in the Navy, assigned to NATO over in Germany. I update him along with your mother and Katie twice a week. And if the next few days go okay, we can let them know you're home, bring 'em down for a visit. Or you could go there."

"He's married to…?"

"Different timeline, Sam." Al leaned forward and put his hand on Sam's knee. "Different timeline. Tom's never been married in this one, although he's got a kid with a woman he knew right after Nam."

"Right. Sorry. You told me that. And, uh, Mom thinks…"

"What she thinks, I don't know. What we told all of them is you're on a top secret project, need-to-know and all that." Al nudged him with his shoulder. "C'mon, Sam, let's stick to the schedule. Shower, food, sleep. Then Beeks will come by in the a.m., see how you're doing."

Sam nodded again, and took the hand Al offered to help him to his feet. "You're staying?" he asked, and Al wasn't sure if it was a request, or just confirmation of what they'd already discussed.

"You couldn't get rid of me if you tried, Sam. C'mon, get your skinny butt in the shower."

"Okay." And Sam gave him a smile, small but there, and Al relaxed a little, and headed on into the kitchen.



You feel better after the shower, even after you look in the mirror. The face looking back at you doesn’t match what you remember, and you’d think by now you’d be used to that, but it‘s different this time. Because the face is supposed to match, this is supposed to be you, this thin pale man with the faraway look in his eyes. This face is older as well as thinner, and those eyes—these are eyes that tell you too much (or too little, you’re not sure), but it will take you some time to get used to them again.

You study what you see in the mirror. Your muscles aren’t what they used to be, but you can fix that. Your hair is too long, and it’s darker than usual from the lack of sun, just as your skin is too pale, but you can fix that too, with time. As for the rest...

You don’t want to get dressed again after the shower, and you pull out drawer after drawer until you find a pair of pajamas, drawstring pants that you can tighten around a softer waist. You skip the shirt—it’s just too hot—and start out of the bedroom, back towards the kitchen.

The memories will all come back, Al keeps reassuring you, and they are coming back, a little at time. You remember more today than you did yesterday, and you'll remember a little bit more tomorrow. It's like still being swiss-cheesed, except each new memory needs to be vetted against the yardstick of this timeline, because apparently you remember timelines that don't exist. This thing happened, this thing didn’t. This thing is real, this thing isn't. Anymore that is, because they were all real, once upon a time, different pasts and futures, constantly shifting, colliding, constantly changing, with each new wrinkle you pressed in the fabric of time. Until you came home and everything stopped. Like the children’s game, you realize, musical timelines. While the music played, everything was real, everyone was in the game, everything was possible—if not in this moment, then in the next, or the one after that—and then the music stopped and everyone had to find a chair, and there just weren’t enough chairs to go around, so some things become real, became the way things happened, and some things just became memory. At least your memories, your memories and Al’s, because he remembers, too.

You poke your head into doorways as you go down the hall. Another bathroom, another bedroom—empty, impersonal, a guest room maybe. You should remember. Funny, the things you are remembering, and the things that you’re not.

There’s a small room off the end of the hallway with the door closed, and you push it open gently. This must have been your office, you think, taking in the bank of computers on one wall, the drawing table in the corner, the shelves lined with reference books. It’s quiet and even dustier than the rest of the house—more abandoned. A memory hits you, a sudden flash of the last time you were in here, listening to Al’s voice mail about no more funding and facing the end of all of your hopes, all of your dreams and plans. Knowing that you should wait for Al to get back, knowing that you should talk to him before you do this, and yet getting up anyway, driving to the Project with the setting sun in your eyes, making small talk with Gooshie while you programmed Ziggy, ignoring his shouts when he finally realized what you were doing, and then there was the heat, and the light, and suddenly knowing it was working, feeling it work, feeling yourself sucked out of time and place even as you could hear Gooshie screaming, he’s leaping, Sam’s leaping...

You shiver, even though you know it’s not cold, and leave the room, closing the door quietly behind you.

You can smell sausage and pepper and garlic as you get closer to the kitchen, hear music playing softly. You turn into the doorway and see Al's coat draped over the back a chair, along with his shirt and tie, his arms bare and dark brown against the white of his t-shirt, the faint mark from a Navy tattoo on one shoulder. He's singing softly with the radio again, dancing back and forth across the tile floor to get a can of tomatoes from the pantry, a ball of cheese from the refrigerator, a corkscrew for the wine bottle. His movements are easy, relaxed—he's at home in this kitchen, in this time, in his skin, and something wells up from deep inside you, something that begs you to remember, and when he turns and sees you, he smiles, like he's always smiled at you, across a desk, across the room, through the distance of time, and across a pillow, and something inside you breaks.

You remember.



"Sam! That was quick! I thought maybe you'd take a bath, soak a little." Al finished pulling the cork from the bottle and reach up to take a glass off the shelf. "The idea is for you to take it easy a little, y'know. Get used to being up and around. Here," he held out the glass for Sam to take, "have a sip. Beeks said it was okay, just a glass or two. Sam?"

And Sam just looked at him, almost not breathing, and for a minute Al panicked. Maybe the damage was worse than they thought, maybe the shock was too much, maybe he should have never talked Beeks into letting him take Sam home, and if he called Gooshie, how fast could he get an ambulance here. "Here, Sam, why don't you sit—"

"You." Sam stopped, and Al watched him take a deep breath, force the word out again. "You."

"Me?" He pulled out his cell phone. "What about me? I'm right here, Sam, I'm right here. What's wrong, what do you need?"

"You—" and Al really wished he would stop saying that, "—and me. You," and Sam nodded at him, and held out his hand, "and me."

And that could mean anything, Al told himself, despite the giant leap his heart made inside his chest. That they were a team, that they were friends, that they had made Quantum Leap happen, together. Maybe Sam was remembering the first time they met, or the time that they simo-leaped, or even when Sam leapt into him back in San Diego, in 1957. Or…or maybe…maybe…

"You," Sam said softly, and gave Al a tentative smile. "You and me."

"Holy shit," Al whispered.



You look over at Al, standing in the shadows by the doorway, and his shoulders are tight with tension. You dragged him out of the kitchen, down the hall to the bedroom, and you know that he's waiting for you to make the first move, even now, to make sure this is what you want, and you wonder how he can doubt that you belong to him. You reach out to him, inviting him closer, and his eyes burn dark and hot, and finally he moves on his own, comes to you.

There's a dizzying strength in Al's fingers as they touch your cheek and you turn blindly into the caress, nuzzling the callused palm of his hand. You hear the sharp breath he draws, followed by a shuddering exhalation, and you press your face into Al’s shaking hand before he can withdraw it.  I love you, you say, pressing your mouth to his wrist, where the frantic pulse races against your tongue, and you do, you love him so much, so much that you can't believe you could ever forget, that it could ever have been different than this. Al 's hands come up to cradle your face, lifting your head, and then he kisses you again, all wet heat and hunger and you think maybe you could do this forever, and never stop, ever.

You're being devoured, hungry mouth, hungry lips. Al’s kiss is hard and brash, his tongue pushing its way into your mouth, tangling wildly with yours, and then he's licking your face, your cheeks and your throat, as if he can't get enough of the taste of you before he finds his way back to your mouth again. More kisses, deep, deep, drugging kisses that fracture your mind into a thousand brightly colored pieces, like the sharp, bright prisms in a child’s kaleidoscope.

You were standing, and now you're laying down, and Al's hands are all over you, and you're on your back on the bed, twisting up underneath him. You can't stop yourself from grabbing at him, holding him tightly like he might disappear, and it's so hot, so damn hot, and your hands are sliding over the slick surface of his arms, his shoulders, then up under his t-shirt and it's off, and you can press your face into the tangled hair on his chest, dark brown and grey and covering the wild beating of his heart.

Sam, Al is saying, Sam, Sam, Sam, over and over, and he's reaching inside your pants, fingers wrapping tightly around your cock, and you're hard, so hard, and you bite his neck, his shoulder, and you both groan as you push up into his grip, over and over, feeling the heat slide down your spine. You want to touch him, too, but your fingers aren't working, you can't get to him, and you settle for pressing the heel of your palm against him, where you can feel him, hard against the wool of his pants.

I've missed you, kid, Al's saying now, breathing hard through an open mouth, and you want to tell him you missed him, too, even when you didn't know it, even when you didn't know it was him, but his hand is driving you crazy, crazy, crazy, and so you just drag his mouth down again and kiss him.

You can't last, you won't last, it's been too long, and the noises coming out of your mouth sound fierce and frantic. You're holding onto Al's shoulders again, like a preserver in a storm-tossed sea, and you push into his hand, again, and again, and his voice, that voice, the voice that you love, is in your ear, love you, love you, love you, and you give everything over, everything that's in you, everything you have to give, and finally, finally, you're home.

Written for the e-zine Quantum Instability #8.  The Quantum Instability zines utilized a common introduction for each story.