"Damn you, Sam. Why'd you have to go do something so stupid?"

Donna Alessi pushed aside the small stack of papers that lay across the top of her desk with an agitated shove. Now that her fears that he was alive were quelled, her terrors that he was physically okay were, for the most part, allayed, her worries about the Retrieval Program were verified, her anger that he had done the deed, and had done so without consulting her, was given free rein. Her outrage had taken twenty-one hours to build and she couldn't be sure if it was a result of her feeling of abandonment or just plain exhaustion.

"I can't believe you did this!" she shouted bitterly as she picked up the papers and waved them in the air, pretending that she was flailing them in front of his face. She could almost see him pull his head back to protect his nose from papercuts and imagined his features as they took on that look of surprise, mixed with innocence, that they always did during those infrequent few times when she'd had reason to yell at him, dark, bushy eyebrows lifted high in his forehead, eyes wide in astonishment and mouth gaping open, totally dumbstruck.

"Wipe that poor, lost, puppy dog look off your face," she demanded of the image in her mind. "It's not gonna work this time. I refuse to let you rationalize this and I don't give a damn if it was your lifelong dream and the plug was in danger of being pulled. You were selfish and illogical and you brought all this on yourself." She paused in her tirade, let her hand that held the papers fall to the desktop and began the cycle of worry and fear and terror all over again.

The tears that she had managed to hold back for those grueling twenty-one hours started to flow freely from her eyes as the reality that Sam was gone slammed into her like a jackhammer. It struck over and over against her heart, beating in counterpoint to the organ's natural rhythm until she could feel the conflict pulsate throughout her entire body. She released the papers and gripped the edge of the desk in a frantic attempt to stop the tremors. An anxiety attack. She'd never experienced one before and didn't know how she was able to identify that that was what she was suffering from but she was positive of her diagnosis. Clamping her eyes shut and focusing on breathing, she poured all of her concentration on clearing her mind and taking deep, even breaths until the trembling finally stopped.

"Look at what you've done to me, Sam," she cried. "You've turned me into a hysterical woman." She bit down on her lower lip and battled for, and won, control. "I won't let you do this to me." And, as her eyes fell to the papers, her anger bubbled to the fore again. She stared down at the blank line at the bottom of the top page.

So, now what am I supposed to do? she asked herself. How do I explain this? Scenario after scenario ran through her brain, each one as ludicrous as the one before.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir, but my husband had something more important to do."

"My husband forgot what day it was."

"My husband Leaped into the past. What's that you say? You don't believe me? Can I prove it?"

"No, this is not a flimsy excuse. Will you please stop laughing."

"My husband is an irresponsible, inconsiderate lout who has left me to deal with this all by myself. No, you won't be able to find him. It's not like he skipped town."

Donna started to laugh. It began with a small smile that tickled at the corners of her mouth but quickly spread to hardy guffaws that bordered on hysteria as the vision of the stern faces that would meet her comments coalesced in her mind.

The men would be dressed in somber, dark suits, their brows would be furrowed in doubt and confusion. They would accuse her of lying, handcuff her while informing her of her rights, then haul her away because her "wonderful, adoring," God damned husband had willfully stepped into the Accelerator and had Leaped out of her life at approximately 1:57 a.m., on April 15, 1995, without signing the fucking tax return.