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kirsteenaTitle: Let’s face the music and dance, Chapter 1
Characters: (This chapter) Dr Sam Beckett, Noah Puckerman, rest of Glee kids
Rating: PG
Episode: Glee: 2x08, Furt. Quantum Leap, anytime
Word Count: This chapter 2,092
Summary: Dr. Sam Beckett makes a leap into the life of one of the New Directions kids, accidentally changing his future for the worse. Can he put right the problems he caused, as well as fulfil his mission, saving not only three of the New Directions kids’ futures, but also his own?
Previous Chapters: Prologue
A/N: Yes, I know Quantum Leap was set around 1999, and Sam couldn't leap past that date, but creative license works! Call it AU, and Project Quantum Leap is now dated around 2025. Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nozenfordaddy for beta reading and American picking, and being all round awesome. Written for this prompt at the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
glee_cross_meme.
Sam stood up, taking in the scene around him. The girl who'd been berating him had wandered off. Eleven other kids, obviously in a school class room. It looked like a music room as there was a piano there, drum kit, various instruments dotted around the place. But they were a disparate group of kids. One in a wheelchair, with another blonde in the same cheerleading uniform as the girl he was dancing with sitting on his knee. A freakishly tall boy, with a petite brunette next to him. The Asian pair standing next to another blond boy. And this group were working together?
Sam caught sight of himself in a mirror and stared. He never knew what to expect, but he didn't anticipate the most ridiculous hair he'd see in a long time. He couldn't actually remember the last time he'd seen a mohawk like that – sometime in the eighties, maybe - and he pulled a face at himself.
The owner of the mohawk was young, sixteen or seventeen. He looked as if he was the kind of person who worked out and looked after himself, given the state of his biceps, shown off by the t-shirt he was wearing, and his general overall look.
"Dude, I know you love yourself, but are you really gonna stare at yourself all day in the mirror?" Sam spun around to see the tall kid he thought was Finn looking curiously at him.
"What?" Sam replied, embarrassed at being caught in the act of seeing who he'd leapt into for the first time. "Uh... maybe?"
Finn rolled his eyes. "You know, some things never change," he said, obviously exasperated. "How about you care a little less about yourself, or getting naked with whoever you have your eyes on today, and a little more about the rest of us? My mom is getting married on Saturday, and I want this to be right. So please... just focus? For her, and for Kurt? It means a lot to him, and what with everything else going on, he needs this. So I'm asking you, bro to bro. Please don't screw this up."
Sam tried to stop himself from staring at Finn. Just great. He'd leapt into some kind of sex fiend, obviously. He glanced around the room, picking out the boy who'd said his Dad was getting married. So he and Finn were going to be stepbrothers? One relationship figured out.
"Finn, I..." Sam paused, then nodded at Finn. "I'll do my best," he said, not willing to say words such as 'promise' until he knew what the hell was going on. It seemed to be good enough for Finn, who gave him a curt nod, then went back to the short brunette, who promptly plastered herself against his side. Before Sam could move or do anything, the girl he'd been dancing with earlier came over to him.
"How much did you drink last night, Puck? What happened, your latest cheerleader not put out until you got her drunk? You remember what trouble that caused last time?" she sneered at him.
"Just what is your problem?" Sam asked, figuring that if this Puckerman was the kind of person to sleep around as much as people were implying, he'd have an attitude to match.
"My problem? My problem is that you are looking like a grade one-asshole right now, and since I'm stuck dancing with you, I'd really rather you look more like the great Noah Puckerman than a dorkier version of Wheels, which, by the way should not even be possible," she said, crossing her arms, glaring at the kid in the wheelchair who was laughing at something with the girl in his lap, then looking back at Sam. "Normally I wouldn't even care, but Kurt is gonna kill you if you screw this up. It's not exactly difficult. Wave your arms about as we dance down the aisle, reach the end, you push Artie, I dance with Brittany. Try not to push him over."
"I'll cope," Sam said, wincing slightly at her tone. At least he'd managed to get more information about who he was, like a name. Noah Puckerman. When Al finally showed up, he could get more information, figure out what he needed to do, then get the hell out of this freakish place.
Rehearsal took another hour, and Sam managed to struggle through without screwing up too much. Kurt only yelled at him twice – he figured that was an improvement. Now that was over, he wondered what to do next, other than prepare to yell at Al when he eventually turned up. It had been over an hour, what had gone wrong? Most of the kids had left, but he glanced around and saw the kid in the wheelchair deep in conversation with the Asian male – he really needed to learn their names, he couldn't keep on describing them like that. He moved closer, trying to listen to them.
"It's for Kurt."
"You're insane, Artie. First there was football, now this? Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"Look, do you want Kurt to go on being bullied like that? As much as I really hate to admit it, Rachel's right, he looks sick. He's my friend, Mike, and we can't just stand around and do nothing. If he gets hurt, I won't be able to live with myself."
Artie and Mike. Well, that was another two of the group named. Useful.
"Yeah, but... the two of us?"
"Who else is gonna do it? Finn's being a pain and backing down – he doesn't want to get involved, which is ridiculous considering they are going to be brothers soon enough. Sam's desperate to be the most popular kid in the school, so I don't know that he'd do it. It's a hell of a stand to make. Puck..." As if Artie suddenly realized that Puck was standing there, he turned slightly look over at him. "Oh, hey Puck."
"'Sup guys?" Sam asked, hoping he sounded enough like Puck not to draw too much attention to himself. Artie and Mike glanced at each other, than back at Puck. Sam couldn't be sure, but he felt that there was some kind of tension between the two guys, but he couldn't put his finger on it. "What's up? Heard my name." The comment was out before Sam could censor it.
"Puck, dude... just leave it," Mike said, holding out his hand in an apologetic gesture. "You can't get involved."
Well now, that just intrigued Sam more. Something he couldn't get involved in? He jumped into people's lives to put right what went wrong! It had never stopped him before. Artie looked at him, shaking his head. "Dude. You know how it is. Just leave it. It's for your own good." The kid in the wheelchair was giving him a significant look, as if expecting something of him. Sam just nodded dumbly, wishing Al were here and he could find out just what kind of kid he'd jumped into and what the hell was going on.
"Guys, look at the time. Coach Beiste'll kill us if we're late. Or at least give us extra laps," Mike said suddenly after glancing at the clock. He looked at Artie with a frown. "How do you even do laps?"
"Maaaaagic," Artie replied, grinning as he moved towards the door, then looking back, frowning at Puck who hadn't moved. "Puck? C'mon. Practice. The Beast waits for no one." With that, he wheeled out of the room, Mike following quickly, Sam trailing after the pair.
Football practice? Laps? In a wheelchair? This place got crazier by the minute. He followed behind a distance, taking note of where they were going, and what rooms he passed. It didn't take him long to notice that people were moving away from him in the corridor, a few of the kids actively ducking out of his way. Two girls dived into a classroom. Sam began to get a horrible suspicion about the type of guy this Puck was...
He followed the two boys into the locker room, where there were a crowd of large looking boys changing. Artie and Mike looked slender and, well, tiny, compared to the rest of them, but Sam just shook his head, trying to figure out where his locker was. Artie was giving him a curious look, and went up to him. "Dude," he hissed quietly. "What the hell is wrong with you today, do you want Beiste to chuck you off the team?"
"I... uh... bad day," Sam replied. "Forgetting everything."
Artie gave him an odd look. "Get your crap together, Puckerman," he muttered. "They're just looking for an excuse to get us off the team." Sam stared at Artie, then dug around in his pocket for a locker key. Luckily, someone had been smart and numbered the lockers, so he found it fairly easily. Sam nodded his thanks at Artie, thinking how odd a friendship it appeared to be, before changing for practice.
After practice (where Sam realized just how much training these kids were going through), he managed to change quickly, glancing at Artie and Mike huddled together. He frowned as the pair moved over to one of the larger football players, a real bear of a guy. What was his name? Karofsky? Sam had watched him earlier, noted the way nearly all players had moved out of the way of him, deferred to him.
"Stop picking on Kurt," he heard Artie say. He spun round to watch the scene. The two of them were really going to stand up to this guy? They had guts, he gave them that.
"Do you mind?" the Bear said, looking down at Artie. "I'm changing.
"We're serious," Mike said, stepping in, before slamming the guy's locker shut. Sam could see the other footballers taking an interest in the scene. He was guessing the big guy had his followers, and these two were taking a huge risk in standing up to him. "This is a warning."
"From now on, you're gonna leave him alone," Artie said.
"Look. If he wants to be a homo, that's up to him. Don't rub it in my face." Sam watched the scene, moving closer so he could intervene if needed. He noticed the blond boy he'd seen earlier in rehearsal taking careful note of the situation.
"We're not asking you."
"Yeah, we're done talking about this." Sam watched as Mike took a step closer to the guy. "Just back off, alright?"
"Look, you back off." Sam couldn't move fast enough to stop the Bear from shoving Mike right into Artie. Everything seemed to stop for a moment as Artie's chair toppled backwards, and he and Mike ended up in a heap on the floor.
"Artie, are you ok?" he heard Mike ask Artie, concerned, but by now, Sam had seen red. What kind of place was this? He dropped his rucksack, and turned towards the Bear, moving quickly.
"Sam! Stop! Don't do it!" The familiar voice of Al suddenly cut through the gasps and murmurs that followed Artie's fall. But Sam was committed. He swung his fist, connecting with the Bear's chin, knocking him back, but he didn't have time to react before the Bear had tackled him, starting a full blown fight. He heard Al calling out to him to stop, back down, but most of the other kids were cheering the pair on. Sam managed to land another good punch before he was roughly pulled away from the other guy by someone yelling, "Hey hey hey, what's going on?" and splitting the two apart. It was Coach Bieste. "This is football, not a boxing ring! Abrams, you ok?"
Sam glanced over at Artie, who was hauling himself back into his chair with the help of Mike. "I'm fine, Coach," but Sam's attention was now grabbed by Al, who was yelling up at nothingness.
"Ziggy, Doc, run those numbers, fast. I was too late to stop it," he heard his friend say. "This is going to get real messy."
Too late to stop what? Sam thought to himself, as he turned to the Bear who was standing smirking at him.
"Enjoy your time back in juvie, Puckerman," he said, laughing slightly. "I'm sure your parole office is going to love this. Send you right back there."
"Karofsky, get out of here!" Coach Bieste yelled, but Sam didn't really hear her – he was staring at Karofsky. Juvie? Parole? He'd just totally screwed up the mission, hadn't he?
Characters: (This chapter) Dr Sam Beckett, Noah Puckerman, rest of Glee kids
Rating: PG
Episode: Glee: 2x08, Furt. Quantum Leap, anytime
Word Count: This chapter 2,092
Summary: Dr. Sam Beckett makes a leap into the life of one of the New Directions kids, accidentally changing his future for the worse. Can he put right the problems he caused, as well as fulfil his mission, saving not only three of the New Directions kids’ futures, but also his own?
Previous Chapters: Prologue
A/N: Yes, I know Quantum Leap was set around 1999, and Sam couldn't leap past that date, but creative license works! Call it AU, and Project Quantum Leap is now dated around 2025. Thanks to
nozenfordaddy for beta reading and American picking, and being all round awesome. Written for this prompt at the glee_cross_meme. Sam stood up, taking in the scene around him. The girl who'd been berating him had wandered off. Eleven other kids, obviously in a school class room. It looked like a music room as there was a piano there, drum kit, various instruments dotted around the place. But they were a disparate group of kids. One in a wheelchair, with another blonde in the same cheerleading uniform as the girl he was dancing with sitting on his knee. A freakishly tall boy, with a petite brunette next to him. The Asian pair standing next to another blond boy. And this group were working together?
Sam caught sight of himself in a mirror and stared. He never knew what to expect, but he didn't anticipate the most ridiculous hair he'd see in a long time. He couldn't actually remember the last time he'd seen a mohawk like that – sometime in the eighties, maybe - and he pulled a face at himself.
The owner of the mohawk was young, sixteen or seventeen. He looked as if he was the kind of person who worked out and looked after himself, given the state of his biceps, shown off by the t-shirt he was wearing, and his general overall look.
"Dude, I know you love yourself, but are you really gonna stare at yourself all day in the mirror?" Sam spun around to see the tall kid he thought was Finn looking curiously at him.
"What?" Sam replied, embarrassed at being caught in the act of seeing who he'd leapt into for the first time. "Uh... maybe?"
Finn rolled his eyes. "You know, some things never change," he said, obviously exasperated. "How about you care a little less about yourself, or getting naked with whoever you have your eyes on today, and a little more about the rest of us? My mom is getting married on Saturday, and I want this to be right. So please... just focus? For her, and for Kurt? It means a lot to him, and what with everything else going on, he needs this. So I'm asking you, bro to bro. Please don't screw this up."
Sam tried to stop himself from staring at Finn. Just great. He'd leapt into some kind of sex fiend, obviously. He glanced around the room, picking out the boy who'd said his Dad was getting married. So he and Finn were going to be stepbrothers? One relationship figured out.
"Finn, I..." Sam paused, then nodded at Finn. "I'll do my best," he said, not willing to say words such as 'promise' until he knew what the hell was going on. It seemed to be good enough for Finn, who gave him a curt nod, then went back to the short brunette, who promptly plastered herself against his side. Before Sam could move or do anything, the girl he'd been dancing with earlier came over to him.
"How much did you drink last night, Puck? What happened, your latest cheerleader not put out until you got her drunk? You remember what trouble that caused last time?" she sneered at him.
"Just what is your problem?" Sam asked, figuring that if this Puckerman was the kind of person to sleep around as much as people were implying, he'd have an attitude to match.
"My problem? My problem is that you are looking like a grade one-asshole right now, and since I'm stuck dancing with you, I'd really rather you look more like the great Noah Puckerman than a dorkier version of Wheels, which, by the way should not even be possible," she said, crossing her arms, glaring at the kid in the wheelchair who was laughing at something with the girl in his lap, then looking back at Sam. "Normally I wouldn't even care, but Kurt is gonna kill you if you screw this up. It's not exactly difficult. Wave your arms about as we dance down the aisle, reach the end, you push Artie, I dance with Brittany. Try not to push him over."
"I'll cope," Sam said, wincing slightly at her tone. At least he'd managed to get more information about who he was, like a name. Noah Puckerman. When Al finally showed up, he could get more information, figure out what he needed to do, then get the hell out of this freakish place.
Rehearsal took another hour, and Sam managed to struggle through without screwing up too much. Kurt only yelled at him twice – he figured that was an improvement. Now that was over, he wondered what to do next, other than prepare to yell at Al when he eventually turned up. It had been over an hour, what had gone wrong? Most of the kids had left, but he glanced around and saw the kid in the wheelchair deep in conversation with the Asian male – he really needed to learn their names, he couldn't keep on describing them like that. He moved closer, trying to listen to them.
"It's for Kurt."
"You're insane, Artie. First there was football, now this? Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"Look, do you want Kurt to go on being bullied like that? As much as I really hate to admit it, Rachel's right, he looks sick. He's my friend, Mike, and we can't just stand around and do nothing. If he gets hurt, I won't be able to live with myself."
Artie and Mike. Well, that was another two of the group named. Useful.
"Yeah, but... the two of us?"
"Who else is gonna do it? Finn's being a pain and backing down – he doesn't want to get involved, which is ridiculous considering they are going to be brothers soon enough. Sam's desperate to be the most popular kid in the school, so I don't know that he'd do it. It's a hell of a stand to make. Puck..." As if Artie suddenly realized that Puck was standing there, he turned slightly look over at him. "Oh, hey Puck."
"'Sup guys?" Sam asked, hoping he sounded enough like Puck not to draw too much attention to himself. Artie and Mike glanced at each other, than back at Puck. Sam couldn't be sure, but he felt that there was some kind of tension between the two guys, but he couldn't put his finger on it. "What's up? Heard my name." The comment was out before Sam could censor it.
"Puck, dude... just leave it," Mike said, holding out his hand in an apologetic gesture. "You can't get involved."
Well now, that just intrigued Sam more. Something he couldn't get involved in? He jumped into people's lives to put right what went wrong! It had never stopped him before. Artie looked at him, shaking his head. "Dude. You know how it is. Just leave it. It's for your own good." The kid in the wheelchair was giving him a significant look, as if expecting something of him. Sam just nodded dumbly, wishing Al were here and he could find out just what kind of kid he'd jumped into and what the hell was going on.
"Guys, look at the time. Coach Beiste'll kill us if we're late. Or at least give us extra laps," Mike said suddenly after glancing at the clock. He looked at Artie with a frown. "How do you even do laps?"
"Maaaaagic," Artie replied, grinning as he moved towards the door, then looking back, frowning at Puck who hadn't moved. "Puck? C'mon. Practice. The Beast waits for no one." With that, he wheeled out of the room, Mike following quickly, Sam trailing after the pair.
Football practice? Laps? In a wheelchair? This place got crazier by the minute. He followed behind a distance, taking note of where they were going, and what rooms he passed. It didn't take him long to notice that people were moving away from him in the corridor, a few of the kids actively ducking out of his way. Two girls dived into a classroom. Sam began to get a horrible suspicion about the type of guy this Puck was...
He followed the two boys into the locker room, where there were a crowd of large looking boys changing. Artie and Mike looked slender and, well, tiny, compared to the rest of them, but Sam just shook his head, trying to figure out where his locker was. Artie was giving him a curious look, and went up to him. "Dude," he hissed quietly. "What the hell is wrong with you today, do you want Beiste to chuck you off the team?"
"I... uh... bad day," Sam replied. "Forgetting everything."
Artie gave him an odd look. "Get your crap together, Puckerman," he muttered. "They're just looking for an excuse to get us off the team." Sam stared at Artie, then dug around in his pocket for a locker key. Luckily, someone had been smart and numbered the lockers, so he found it fairly easily. Sam nodded his thanks at Artie, thinking how odd a friendship it appeared to be, before changing for practice.
After practice (where Sam realized just how much training these kids were going through), he managed to change quickly, glancing at Artie and Mike huddled together. He frowned as the pair moved over to one of the larger football players, a real bear of a guy. What was his name? Karofsky? Sam had watched him earlier, noted the way nearly all players had moved out of the way of him, deferred to him.
"Stop picking on Kurt," he heard Artie say. He spun round to watch the scene. The two of them were really going to stand up to this guy? They had guts, he gave them that.
"Do you mind?" the Bear said, looking down at Artie. "I'm changing.
"We're serious," Mike said, stepping in, before slamming the guy's locker shut. Sam could see the other footballers taking an interest in the scene. He was guessing the big guy had his followers, and these two were taking a huge risk in standing up to him. "This is a warning."
"From now on, you're gonna leave him alone," Artie said.
"Look. If he wants to be a homo, that's up to him. Don't rub it in my face." Sam watched the scene, moving closer so he could intervene if needed. He noticed the blond boy he'd seen earlier in rehearsal taking careful note of the situation.
"We're not asking you."
"Yeah, we're done talking about this." Sam watched as Mike took a step closer to the guy. "Just back off, alright?"
"Look, you back off." Sam couldn't move fast enough to stop the Bear from shoving Mike right into Artie. Everything seemed to stop for a moment as Artie's chair toppled backwards, and he and Mike ended up in a heap on the floor.
"Artie, are you ok?" he heard Mike ask Artie, concerned, but by now, Sam had seen red. What kind of place was this? He dropped his rucksack, and turned towards the Bear, moving quickly.
"Sam! Stop! Don't do it!" The familiar voice of Al suddenly cut through the gasps and murmurs that followed Artie's fall. But Sam was committed. He swung his fist, connecting with the Bear's chin, knocking him back, but he didn't have time to react before the Bear had tackled him, starting a full blown fight. He heard Al calling out to him to stop, back down, but most of the other kids were cheering the pair on. Sam managed to land another good punch before he was roughly pulled away from the other guy by someone yelling, "Hey hey hey, what's going on?" and splitting the two apart. It was Coach Bieste. "This is football, not a boxing ring! Abrams, you ok?"
Sam glanced over at Artie, who was hauling himself back into his chair with the help of Mike. "I'm fine, Coach," but Sam's attention was now grabbed by Al, who was yelling up at nothingness.
"Ziggy, Doc, run those numbers, fast. I was too late to stop it," he heard his friend say. "This is going to get real messy."
Too late to stop what? Sam thought to himself, as he turned to the Bear who was standing smirking at him.
"Enjoy your time back in juvie, Puckerman," he said, laughing slightly. "I'm sure your parole office is going to love this. Send you right back there."
"Karofsky, get out of here!" Coach Bieste yelled, but Sam didn't really hear her – he was staring at Karofsky. Juvie? Parole? He'd just totally screwed up the mission, hadn't he?
