Picture Perfect
By Jen

Episodes referenced to: "Another Mother." Post-"Mirror Image."

Your usual disclaimer: These characters are not mine. They are property of Donald P. Bellisario and Universal Television\MCA. I am earning no money for this; it is just an extension of own (sometimes over active) imagination.

Notes: It’s finally finished!!!

That aside, this story involves an interesting (I can think of no other word) divorce and how it affected one little girl. No, we don't have any total horror inflicted dramatics. It is loosely based on a story one of my friends (of child of divorce) shared with me. And no, it didn't happen to her. And to answer another question, my parents are very happily married. :)

This story, and others I’ve written can be found at my temporary website: http://www.angelfire.com/home/jenr13/index.html

Last, but not least, feedback is appreciated. Drop me a line at JenR13@aol.com.

May 14, 1991

“Scott?”

He found himself on a couch, something in his lap. He jumped immediately, almost as if he had been asleep. Sam Beckett looked down on his rumpled white lab coat and decided he must have been. A look down at his lap found a chart in it, opened. He squinted down at it.

“Scott, you have to find more time to sleep. I told you residency was going to be a bitch. You can make it through as long as you take what you can get.”

{Residency?} Sam looked up to find a blond-haired women staring down at him. She offered him a hand up. He took it, not knowing what else to do.

“Your patient in exam room 3 is threatening to leave again. Told him, ‘leave before you’re sober and the next time we see you it will be a body bag.’ But Patrick never listens to anyone but you.”

{Patrick?} “Oh boy,” he whispered and wished he could gain more information in the first few minutes of any leap. So far he had learned his name was Scott……{Scott what?} He glanced down, breathing a sigh of relief when he found his ID clipped to his lab coat. Scott Stevens, it read back at him and the man in the picture was young, he couldn’t be more than 26, 27 tops. Brown hair, brown eyes, attractive, but tired looking.

Well, at least he wasn’t a woman.

He got a strange look from the woman as he studied the ID, so he let it drop and looked around him. He was on a couch in what appeared to be the doctor’s lounge of a hospital. He had had his feet up on a table and noticed a cup of coffee sitting near his feet.

“Scott, are you okay?” The woman’s tone sounded worried.

“I’m fine,” he answered, pushing himself off the couch. “I think,” he muttered to himself as he banged his leg on the table.

“Patrick in 3?” the woman reminded him, her eyebrow slightly raised.

“Right.” {Now if I only knew which way that was….} He picked up the chart and exited with the woman, hoping perhaps she could give him a clue to where three was.

As he followed her, the woman looked at him strangely. “Three is that way,” she said, pointing behind her. “Are you sure you’re okay, Scott? I mean you looked like shit this morning. Did Christine have another one of those nightmares?”

“Nightmares,” he repeated softly. “Yeah, I guess she did.” He had no idea who Christine was or why she would have nightmares, but he seemed to have given the right response because the woman nodded sympathetically.

“Maybe you should think about taking her to see a shrink, Scott. I know she’s only four, but she can’t go on like this. She’ll never get over it.”

{Get over what?} “Yeah, well I guess I’ll think about it.”

The woman smiled and pointed to a room ahead of them. “There’s 3,” she said with a slight smile. “You need some sleep, Scott. Don’t need you to get sick now. This isn’t exactly the best place to be when you’re rested, never mind a walking zombie.”

Sam watched her walk off, wondering who she was. He needed Al to show up and give him some information. He’d gathered Christine must be his daughter, so he checked his hands, but they were barren; no ring of gold stared back at him. {Maybe I’m divorced} he thought as he walked toward exam 3, chart in hand. Reaching the door, he finally looked down at the chart to get a better idea of who this “Patrick” was.

As he opened it, his own days of residency came back to him. Glancing around at the busy hallways, he was glad that at least this time he could handle this leap. {Couple of twelve hour days with little to no sleep, no problem.}

“I want to get the hell out of here. I gotta pick up Amy from day care,” was the slurred greeting Sam got as he walked into the room. His patient was drunk, obviously, with a nice looking gash above his left eye. Sam could understand way the woman didn’t want him to get into a car, let alone let him go get his daughter and let her get into the car. Luckily, he wasn’t violent; in fact, he did listen to what Sam said, and agreed to call his wife so she could pick up Amy. A few stitches and a half-hour later, he was more coherent and close to sober. Just as he was finishing up and about to move on to his next patient, Al decided to show up, cigar and handlink in hand.

“Where have you been?” Sam hissed as he signed the chart at the bottom and grabbed the one that a nurse was offering.

“Well, hello to you to you, too, Sam. You can thank our visitor for that. The guy’s a wreck, and looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. It took forever just to get his name. When he leaped in, he was close to collapsing, and then, he, uh, did.” Al punched a couple of buttons on the handlink.

Sam moved back toward the lounge, and noticing it empty, stepped inside. “What do you mean collapsed?”

“Just looked up, eyes rolled into the back off his head, and-” he made a motion with his hand, “he was out for the count.”

“Just great,” Sam muttered to himself as he opened the chart in his hands to examine its contents.

“It’s May 14, 1991 and your name is Scott Stevens. _Dr._ Scott Stevens. You’re 28, and a second-year resident whose specialty is going to be in emergency medicine.” Sam looked up from the chart to find Al whacking the handlink. “You have a daughter, Chris-, Chris” -another well placed whack on the handlink “Christine, who’s four. Oh, and you’re divorced. Happened about nine months ago.”

{That would explain the absence of the wedding ring.} “Why I am here?” It was the most important of questions, yet, sometimes he felt like he was better off not hearing the answer. It was like a test you just failed; you didn’t want to look up the answers because then you’d find out how bad you actually did.

“Well, Ziggy’s thinks it has something to do with the daughter. What, she doesn’t know. And we’re not going to know more until Scott wakes up.”

“Figures,” Sam said, walking out of the door toward another exam room. He’d only been there for an hour, yet he had learned the layout pretty quickly. “Is that all you can tell me?”

“Well, the guy in the waiting room keeps murmuring something about ‘Christine’ and ‘nightmares.’ But Ziggy doesn’t know where they fit in.”

“Nightmares?” Sam repeated. “When I first got here some woman was saying something about Christine having nightmares.”

“All little kids have nightmares, Sam. Maxine had them almost every night when she was four. She was afraid that something was living under her bed.”

{Maxine?} Sam thought to himself and then remembered. {Four daughters. Al has four daughters.} He was still getting used to that fact. He had almost laughed out loud when he learned that Al had named two of his daughters after two ex-wives that existed in another lifetime. Al had just looked at him. Sam _did_ enjoy hearing the tidbits and snippets of parts of the girls growing up. Sure was different then hearing Al talk about the stories pertaining to his ex-wives.

Al looked at him strangely and then back down at the handlink. “Ziggy’s got nothing. The divorce was filed about a year ago and came through three months later. Though, here’s something.”

“What?”

“Seems the document was only signed by Scott. He got the court to declare spousal abandonment on his wife, Cara. She disappeared about a year ago. Nothing more on it though. The divorce went through, no problems, just the normal processing period.”

Sam smiled to himself, realizing that Al didn’t know in another lifetime, he had gone through that waiting period four times.

“Geez, Sam what is with you today? The divorce went through, that’s it. Ziggy doesn’t have anything else.”

“So, I don’t know what I’m here to do and I’m going to have to go home to a four-year-old.”

Al nodded. “Well, the angel routine worked on Teresa. Though it depends on the kid. If I spouted some story like that to Christina when she was four, she would have looked at me like I was crazy.”

Sam looked at him like he was crazy. “At four?”

“Don’t underestimate the four-year-old, Sam.”

Sam just sighed as he walked into the exam room to find a couple dressed up, the wife (he supposed) throwing up in a basin. Al took one look and hit the handlink.

“I’m going to see what’s up with Scott in the waiting room,” was his good-bye as Sam heard the chamber door close. He sighed. It seemed as if this was going to be a long day.

***************

It was a long day. Sam had through some careful digging discovered his shift ended at eight, at which time he headed home; he found his address on his driver’s license. Of course, just as he remembered he didn’t get out of work on time. He had located his car (after getting a strange look from the woman he had first met when he leaped in. He learned her name was Linda, and she just smiled and told him to get some sleep) and was fumbling with the map he had found in the glove compartment. Al hadn’t told him where he was, but by looking at the map he had discovered he was in New Jersey, currently sitting in a parking garage located in Hackensack. He had just about located how to get home when Al showed up.

“A map, Sam? What about just following your gut?”

Sam just glared at him. “Are you going to help me out or just stand there?”

“It’s about 15 blocks from here. You could walk home if you wanted to.”

“Could you be more specific?”

Al watched Sam squirm for another moment that gave him directions to the small blue house. Sam fumbled for his key chain and was about to open the door when someone opened it for him.

“Daddy!” he heard as he felt something attach itself to his legs.

“She wouldn’t go to bed. I tried, Dr. Stevens, but she wouldn’t listen.”

Sam looked up from the ball of child to find out the other voice belonged to a young teenage girl. “That’s ok,” he said, bending down to pry the girl off of his legs. It was when he did that that she got a good look on him.

“Who are you?” the little girl, Christine asked, puzzled.

The teen sighed. “Christine, no more games. That’s your father and _he_ can put you to bed. I have to get going and started on my geometry homework.”

As she spoke, Sam located his wallet to pay the girl, but realized that he had no idea how long she’s been there and how much to pay her.

“Give her about $3 an hour Sam. Figure she’s been here since three,” Al broke in. “It’s ’91. Babysitters don’t start hiking their rates for a couple more years.”

Sam counted the amount and handed it to the girl, who smiled, satisfied and ran across the street to a brown house that he assumed was her own. Now he had no choice but to turn to the little girl in front of him.

“Who are you?” she repeated, again, her little voice sounding a bit impatient. She didn’t run away, in fact she stood her ground. Then she realized that Sam wasn’t alone. “And who’s that?” She pointed toward Al, taking a step closer to him. She shook her head. “Bright colors aren’t in this season. Mary’s older sister, Lisa, said so. And she knows _everything_! She’s eighteen!”

Sam had to laugh at her statement as he ushered her inside, closing the door behind him. Al followed stepping through the door.

“Hey how did you do that?” She looked at Al with childlike curiosity. Then she put her hands on her hips. “Who are you?” She directed her question to Sam this time.

He bent down to her level, glancing at Al. “Ever play pretend?” he ventured, and Al nodded. Christine smiled.

“That’s my favorite game!” she said happily.

“Well,” he continued. “My name is Sam and this is Al. For a few days everybody is going to pretend I’m your daddy.” He had used the same wording with Teresa and it had worked, perhaps he could be two for two.

“Why?” was her answer, just like Teresa. Little kids sure seemed to like that question.

Al jumped in with this one. “To give your daddy a break,” he said. “He’s been working hard.”

Christine nodded. “He fell asleep in the middle of our story last night. I had to wake him up. He needs a nap.”

Sam smiled. “Well, sometimes it’s hard for grown-ups to get a nap, so Sam is here to, uh, give your dad a little break.”

“That’s good, Al,” Sam said as they watched the little girl take it all in. Finally she looked up at him.

“Will you still read me a bedtime story?” she asked.

“Actually, Al here, tells the best bedtime stories. He does a better job then I do.” Sam shot a glance at Al, who had now crouched down to Christine’s level as well.

Christine turned to Al. “Will you?”

“Sure, kid,” he said.

“You have to hold the book and turn the pages for him, though,” Sam reminded the little girl.

“Why?”

“I’ll show you why,” Al said as he held up his hand. Christine touched it, smiling as she watched her small hand go through it.

“Ok, I’ll turn the pages. I do the same thing for Daddy when he gets tired.” With that she ran up the stairs calling “Come up!” as she ran.

“Lots of energy,” Sam commented.

“I remember when Maxine had that much energy. Or any of my girls.” He sounded a bit wistful.

“What happened?”

“They did what any kid does. They grew up.”

********************

An hour later, Christine was asleep and Sam was rummaging through the amount of paperwork that Scott had to complete. It was only 9:30 p.m., but Sam found himself yawning while he was reading. Al had left to check on Scott again, bringing no new information, due to the fact that Scott was still out cold.

“Nooooooo!!!!!!”

Sam shot up as soon as he heard the cry coming from upstairs.

{Christine} he thought as he rushed up the stairs to find the little girl tangled in her blankets, wide-eyed and scared.

“Daddy?” she whispered first, then saw Sam. “Sam?” Her brown curls fell into her little face making her look a lot smaller than she was. Sam immediately flipped on the light and walked to the bed, sitting down on it, and realized the girl was shaking. He reached out for her, not sure what else to do. He didn’t have kids, at least he didn’t remember having kids (he could for all he knew), and had no idea how to handle the nightmares of a four-year-old. He just picked her up and held her in his lap until her shaking began to cease. He didn’t want to ask her what the dream, or perhaps nightmare was a better word, was about, for fear of stirring up another scream from the girl.

Finally she seemed to settle in his lap, falling asleep. He laid her carefully back down in the bed, staring at her sleeping form for a second, a lump rising in his throat. Sighing, he shut the light and exited the room, still wondering what kind of nightmare could plague a girl so small.

It happened three more times that night, and each time it took longer for Christine to settle down. Sam didn’t finish his paperwork and didn’t get any sleep either. He suddenly understood why Scott had collapsed. The poor guy worked twelve hour shifts, then came home to a sleepless night spent comforting his daughter. To make matters even worse, Scott’s beeper went off at about 4 a.m., and Sam had to get one of the neighbors (Scott was lucky he had an insomniac neighbor) to watch Christine as he ran back to the hospital. Returning to the house at 6:30 only to have to get Christine dressed, dropped off at preschool and back to work at 8, he was completely drained as he dragged his tired feet in the ER doors.

To make matters more worse, a tracker-trailer had caused a major accident on the near-by highway. Traumas came in and took up most of the day. Things quieted for a while after that and Sam did manage an hour of sleep somewhere, but when he looked at his watch and found it only three o’clock he was ready to throw something at a wall – hard. He was staring at the clock in the lounge, almost daring it to move, when Al showed up. Sam’s glance didn’t turn from the wall.

“I never underestimated sleep so much,” Sam said in a monotone, as he heard the chamber door.

“You should talk, Sam. For close to three years you lived on less than an hour of sleep a night. I practically had to drag you out of your office.”

Sam ignored his comment. “Did Scott wake up yet?”

Al nodded, though Sam wasn’t turned around to see it. “Yeah, about an hour ago.” He walked into Sam’s view, blocking the clock Sam had been staring at. “Up and complaining. Doctors make the worst patients,” he said with a smile.

Sam’s glance broke from the wall up to Al, smiling a bit. “Patient? What happened?”

“Well, Ziggy finally dug up part of the reason that you’re here. Believe it or not, it _is_ actually to give the guy a break. According to Ziggy, in the original history, he collapsed at work today, right in the middle of a trauma room.” Sam raised his eyebrow. “Yeah, not the best place to pass out, huh? Anyway, he spent about two and a half weeks in the hospital with a bad case of pneumonia and actually signed himself out way to early. He relapsed two weeks later.”

“Well, I changed that, right?”

Al nodded. “Right. Now, Scott’s in the _future_ with a bad case of pneumonia. If you want to believe Ziggy’s preliminary prediction, she thinks you’re here to just give Scott some downtime.”

“Downtime?”

“Well, the guy’s…., well, a wreck. Can barely keep his eyes open, delirious, stuff like that.”

Sam looked down at his hands. “Did he say anything about Christine? She had some nightmares last night.” He paused. “They weren’t just ‘nightmares’, Al. The little girl was terrified and shaking after them. Four times last night I had to go into her room and just pick her and rock her back and forth. She settled down eventually, but, Al, no little girl should go through nightmares like she’s having. And I can’t even guess what they are about.”

“Neither can Scott. What I found out, or Beeks could get out of him, was that Christine has been having these nightmares since her mother left.”

“Left? You mean the divorce?”

“Yeah. Scott couldn’t tell us that much, but it turns out that his wife, Cara, just left one day, without packing. She left Christine sitting on the counter and that’s where Scott found her when he got home from work.” Sam saw Al’s eyes glance off at that sentence. He just looked up. Al’s past was a bit of a mystery to him, but he did remember something about his mother leaving. However, it wasn’t enough to question Al.

“Poor kid. Is that what the nightmares are about?”

Al shrugged. “He doesn’t know. During the day she’s a normal kid, but at night she gets those terrors. His co-worker, Linda, has been telling him he should take her to a shrink.”

Sam sighed. “Please don’t tell me I’m here to take a little girl to a psychiatrist.”

“Nah, Ziggy gives that only 23% odds. Beeks says at that young, she may just remember the dreams being scary, but not what they are about. Taking her to ‘seek professional help’ may only scare her more. She could never open up.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“Well, maybe you should start with your job. I think you’re being sought,” Al answered pointing to the nurse in the door with a chart in her hand. Sam got up and took it walking out, surprised at the lack of a comment at the fact the nurse was attractive. {Beth. Four daughters. You fixed it for him} he reminded himself as he walked out the door. The nurse watched him go, shaking her head.

“He’s losing it. First it’s talking to thin air, then it just gets worse,” she muttered to herself as she, too, walked into the hallway.

******************

Eight o’clock rolled around and Sam was glad to finally get to go home. Another night of nightmares from Christine was not something he was looking forward to, however. Al had nothing more to offer on the problem, and their visitor was having a hard enough time being lucid enough to remember his own name at this point. So, Sam brought home another load of paperwork (though he didn’t think he would get a chance to do it), and found Christine standing in the door, a story book in her hand. She looked disappointed to see that Al wasn’t there, so Sam took the book from her hands, and paid the babysitter.

“We finger-painted in art, today,” she announced proudly as she held up a painting. Sam took one look at the paint in her hair and herded her upstairs and went through a ten minute argument on why she needed a bath.

“But I don’t want a bath!!!” Her high pitched voice was adding to the headache that Sam already had from work.

“You _need_ a bath,” he said, lifting her towel wrapped self and placing it in the tub, ignoring the squeals. She did settle after a few minutes and succeeded in splashing and completely soaking Sam. He immediately felt for every parent and the many clothes they must get wet during baths.

A half-hour later, after a story and two trips to the bathroom, Christine was asleep, but if tonight was to be anything like last night, he knew it wasn’t going to last long. He searched the medicine cabinet and came up with two Tylenol for his headache just as he heard the chamber door opening behind him.

“If it means anything to you, Christine missed your story-telling tonight. I’m just not the same,” he said as he swallowed the Tylenol.

“Nobody ever is,” was Al’s reply. Sam wished for the life of him that he could remember Al’s four daughters, but he could still only remember the four ex-wives. It took time, he supposed, and his swiss-cheesed brain may never remember it. As long as he was leaping anyway.

“Please tell me that you’re not just here to say hi,” he said, with a tired sigh. “And that you know why I’m here. _Completely_.”

“As a matter of fact, Ziggy just dug something up.”

“What would that be?” He shut the cabinet.

“Well, two days for now, Scott - you - drops Christine off at preschool and goes to work. Sometime between the time you drop her off and noon, Christine disappears.”

“Disappears?” He lowered his voice as he walked past Christine’s bedroom and down the stairs where he found Al waiting for him at the bottom.

“Without a trace. The teacher had her back turned for a second, but when she turned back, Christine was gone. In the original history, Scott had been out of it at the hospital, but when he found out what had happened he signed himself out early. You changed history on Scott’s end, but Christine still disappears. The article Ziggy found on the disappearance says that the police suspected foul play.”

That got Sam’s attention. “Foul play?”

“Yeah, it seems that Scott never bought that. He thought she was taken by one person.”

“Her mother,” Sam replied before Al could continue.

He nodded. “And Ziggy says that the odds that she’s going to take her are 89%. Either way, whoever takes her, she never comes back. Even in our time, she’s still on milk cartons. Guess Scott never gave up on looking for her.”

“So I just won’t let her go to preschool that day. That seems easy enough.”

Al shook his head. “Ziggy says even if you can keep at home, the chances of you keeping her completely within your sight are low.” He lowered the handlink and sighed. “She’s four. She won’t just stay put. Even if her father were here, which he’s not, _he_ couldn’t even make her sit still.”

Sam threw his hands up. “So now what do I do?”

Al shrugged. “Buy one of those kiddie hand-cuff like things? Beth used to have one of those with Trudy. As soon as she learned to walk, she learned to wander.”

Sam just looked at him. “Somehow I don’t think that’s going-” His sentence was interrupted by a scream.

{Here we go again} he thought as climbed the stairs to Christine’s room, finding Al already at her bedside, bent down and trying to comfort the little girl. Whatever he was saying seemed to be working, because, although she was shaking, she was looking directly at Al. Sam went to flip the light, but decided against it, when he saw her settle again. He knew it wouldn’t be that last nightmare of tonight, but he was surprised as how quickly she’d settled. In less than five minutes for once.

“What did you say?” he asked Al as he walked out of the now sleeping girl’s room.

“Oh, nothing really. Just the usual stuff.”

“What’s the usual stuff?”

He grinned. “How dreams can’t hurt you and sometimes they are like pieces of a puzzle that’s not quite put together in your head. And when some pieces get mixed up, well you get bad dreams.”

Sam had to smile at that. “Who told you that?”

“Well, one night Trudy had such a bad nightmare that Beth and I couldn’t say anything to calm her down. I don’t know how I came up with that, maybe it was a lack of sleep, but I did, and…she went to sleep.”

He shook his head. “Four daughters,” he repeated to himself.

“You don’t remember them, Sam?”

He looked up at Al. “No, not really.” He wasn’t going to tell Al that he remembered another lifetime. Not yet, at least. He’d changed things for the better for Al; he didn’t need to know the details. He just hoped he’d never figure there _were_ details.

“You look beat, Sam. Get some rest,” Al took him before disappearing and Sam found himself staring into the thin air where he had been for a few minutes afterward. He’d had a couple of leaps after he changed Al’s life before this one, but he didn’t find himself dwelling so much on it before now. He was glad to see his friend happy; glad to hear about four women that neither existed before. He sighed and walked over to the paperwork he had left on the coffee table, pushing it out of his mind.

**************

Christine woke up another two times that night, and just as the last night, the nightmares seemed to get worse as the night went on. Sam spent two and half hours up on the third nightmare rocking the little girl. He tried what had worked for Al before, and although it seemed to calm the girl a bit, she was still terrified.

{Maybe it would just be better if I asked what the dream was about} he thought as he stared at Christine, who was finally asleep. He laid her back down in her bed and checked his watch. 5:30 a.m. and he still had paperwork that _needed_ to be done. For the next hour he worked, then woke Christine up at 7 and battled with her over what she wanted to wear to school. He made himself some _black_ coffee as she munched happily on her cereal. Although Christine had been up half the night, she didn’t look tired at all. He just choked it up to little kid energy and ushered her to the car.

“Sam, I need my lunchbox,” she protested before she got into the car, so it was back into the house to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Ten minutes later, they make it back to the car, and barely got her to school on time. Sam was already ten minutes late for work. Though he didn’t care much at this point. Christine was still having nightmares, she was still going to disappear tomorrow, and he had no idea how to stop it. Plus, the fatigue of the last two nights was beginning to catch up with him and he didn’t know if he could make it through another day. He was used to at least an hour of sleep but he hadn’t even gotten that.

“You look like shit, Scott,” was the greeting he got from the same woman he’d met when he first leapt in. He had learned her name was Linda Hartman, and obviously she and Scott were friends, if they were anything else, she didn’t give any clues.

“Well hello to you, too,” he replied. She smiled.

“You’re late, but luckily I don’t think anyone noticed. It’s slow this morning. I’ll be glad to have my day off tomorrow.”

Sam perked up from the chart he was looking at when she said she’d be off tomorrow. {Let’s see how good of a friend Linda is} he thought.

“Linda, can you do a favor for me?” he asked in his best ‘please’ voice.

She sighed. “I know that look, Scott. It’s my day off. What, the babysitter can’t come tomorrow?”

Scott had already pulled this once or twice he guessed, but Linda seemed concerned with Scott’s well-being so he pushed further on.

“Linda, I haven’t slept in over 48 hours-”

“God, Scott, no wonder you look so bad. You’re going to make yourself sick you know,” she scolded gently.

“Christine doesn’t have school tomorrow and I was wondering if you could watch her at least for awhile.” {And keep her from school and let me try to find her mother} he added silently to himself.

She looked at him, seeming to take in the circles under his eyes. Finally she gave in. “Okay, I’ll be by around 7:30, okay?”

He breathed a sigh of relief. At least Christine wouldn’t go to school tomorrow. He’d deal with the rest later. “Thank you.”

She nodded. “Anytime for you, Scott. Remember that. We’ve been friends too long.” She looked at him. “You really look beat. If you want to catch a nap, I’ll cover for you an hour or so.”

“You would?” he asked, so tired that her offer sounded very tempting.

“Like I said, we have a slow day. I can fend off Patti for awhile.”

“Thanks, again,” he said as he handed the chart in his hands off to her.

“What’s tomorrow? A holiday?” she murmured to herself as she watched him walk down the hall.

******************

The day was slow for awhile and although Sam had gotten an hour of sleep, it didn’t make much difference. He just worked through the day hoping that during it he would get some clue as to how he was to stop the person who was going to take Christine.

Al showed up at about 4 to tell him that Ziggy had found another article on Christine’s disappearance. This one talked about how someone spotted the girl at the supermarket with a woman that matched the description of Cara Stevens, Christine’s mother. Now Sam knew who he had to look for. Although Scott had hid most everything that reminded him of his wife, a wedding picture still remained on the fireplace. Sam had looked at it, realizing that somewhere down the line the couple must have been very happy. It made him wonder what went wrong.

When he got home from work, he picked up the picture again, staring at the pretty black-haired woman in the photo. {What made her walk out? How could someone who seemed so happy walk out so suddenly?} he thought as he placed the picture back down. Christine was back to begging him for just another half-hour so she could watch the end of her tape. Sam, too tired to argue, let her, grateful for the peace the TV gave him. Even after another half-hour spent thinking his mind was still drawing a blank. Scott didn’t even know, wouldn’t even begin to explain why even if he wasn’t suffering from a fevered delusion. He thought again of the photo.

“Picture perfect,” he muttered as he walked back toward TV room. There seemed no other way to describe the photo. It was like the one that came with a picture frame.

Christine was falling asleep in front of the TV, so all Sam did was take her upstairs and laid her in her bed. He had made her get into her pajamas earlier so he just tucked her in, and, almost as a reaction, pushed a brown curl off her forehead. She was still so little. Four years old. He suddenly found himself wondering if he _really_ did have children. If he even had a wife. Did he? He didn’t know. Being with Christine made him wonder more than he ever did. But, just as always, his brain couldn’t supply him with any answers. He had been tempted to ask Al, but knew even if he wanted, Al couldn’t tell him. And he probably wouldn’t remember from leap to leap. As he watched Christine’s sleeping form for a few minutes, he found himself longing for a family that went beyond the one he knew in Elk Ridge.

He walked into Scott’s room, stopping in front of the bureau and looked at a box that was placed on top of it. It was pushed off to the side, like it was to be forgotten. He turned it an inch to find the name “Cara” scrawled carelessly across one side of it. Tempted, he opened it, finding photographs mostly, but there were also a few other items mixed in as well. And at the bottom was a ring box. Opening it he found a gold wedding band inside. Scott’s wedding ring.

Looking at the photographs all he could see was happiness, just as he had seen in the wedding photo. There seemed to be no warning signs here. But something had happened.

He placed the items back into their box, placing the ring on top. He closed the lid, and returned it to its original place. It was only a matter of time before Christine awoke again, screaming, so he just went downstairs, almost jumping when Al greeted him.

“Don’t do that,” he said as he sat down on the couch.

“Sam, we have to talk.” His tone sounded a bit urgent.

Sam shielded his tired eyes from the light. “About what?” he mumbled.

“The fact that, according to Ziggy, Scott - you - is going to die late tomorrow afternoon.”

********************

Sam practically jumped up at his sentence.

“What??”

Al punched the handlink, reading out the information as it came. “You changed history, Sam. Christine doesn’t disappear. All Ziggy can tell you is that tomorrow afternoon at 4:34 p.m. you’re pronounced dead, from a gunshot wound to the chest. Inflicted by a Cara Stevens.”

“What??” Sam said again, trying to take in the new information. “I get shot? How? Why?”

“Ziggy doesn’t know. All she can say is that getting Linda to watch Christine prevents her disappearance. Looks like it doesn’t stop Cara’s appearance in town, though. She’s gotta be mad, Sam.”

“About what? From all the pictures I can find, Scott and Cara had a storybook marriage. They were happy, had a family. Al, I’m having a hard time following this.”

Al shrugged. “No picture can tell the whole story, Sam. No every marriage works out. Something _had_ to happen.”

Sam sighed. “Does it really?”

Neither of them had an answer to the question.

*****************

Christine was right on schedule that night, her first cries coming only an hour after Sam had put her to bed. He walked upstairs and flipped on the light, and was surprised to find Christine, up in bed, scared still, yet looking calmer. As soon as he flipped on the light she looked right at him.

“She’s gonna come back, you know,” the little girl said. “Daddy said she never would. Grandma said that, too. But she’ll be back.”

He knew who she was talking about but asked the girl anyway. “Who’s going to come back?”

She just shook her head. “Promise me you’ll change things. I like the way it is. I don’t want Mommy to come back.” Her eyes were filled with tears. Sam swallowed the lump in his throat and sat down next to her.

“Why don’t you want her to come back?”

Christine’s tears just grew worse. “ ’Cause,” she answered and then buried her face in her blankets.

Even after he had calmed her down, Sam wondered what exactly what she meant. He walked out of her room, and came back into it twice more to calm her cries that night, but couldn’t get the girl to tell him anything else. It seemed as if something had happened between mother and daughter. He was going to find out what.

*********************

Morning came too quickly for Sam, who had stayed up, not able to fall asleep because of Christine and the questions behind her nightmares. He was running around the house looking for Christine’s favorite hair bow when Linda walked in.

“Scott?” Sam looked up from his position on the floor at her. “What are you doing?”

“Hair bow,” he said simply. “Pink one.”

Linda smiled and nodded. “You mean that one right under the coffee table?”

Sure enough when he looked there, he found it. “Thanks,” he mumbled as he picked it up off the floor.

Linda shook her head. “You look terrible,” she said as he straightened up. “You know, you could call into work sick today, and while you sleep, I’ll take care of Christine.”

As tempting as the offer sounded, Sam knew he couldn’t take it. “I’ll be okay.”

Linda just eyed him. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked, her voice serious and concerned. “You have been looking worse than usual these last couple of days.”