Title: Faces
Fandom: Quantum Leap
Rating: G
Length: ~300 words
Author notes: This will probably only make sense if you're familiar with the series.
Summary: Drawing from memory.

Faces

Sam picks a sketchpad up off of his -- off of John's -- coffee table and flips through it, looking for he's not sure what. Clues of some kind, maybe. Face after face looks back at him, all of them recognizable as the one he glimpsed in the mirror earlier, though each has a subtly different expression. Portraits of the artist. They're really very good, and Sam wonders if perhaps he's here to help John break into the art world. That could be a problem, if he's expected to produce something. He's not at all sure about his own artistic skills.

Halfway through the pad, he's confronted by a blank page. Hesitantly, he picks up a pencil and starts to create a self-portrait of his own, a face different from the rest. His technical skills, he quickly decides, aren't bad, but he's not at all satisfied with the results. Are those really the eyes he used to see in the mirror while he was shaving? Or has he gotten them wrong? Was there white in his hair somewhere? He thinks there was, but he can't quite remember where.

When he hears the holographic door whoosh open, he tears the paper from the pad and holds it up. "Al," he says, with a small, hopeful smile. "Does this look like me?"

"Sure," says Al. "Sure it does." But Sam notices the moment's hesitation, sees the tiny flicker of sadness in the hologram's eyes.

He wonders if his friend can still detect the slightest strain in his voice, or whether he sounds like a stranger to Al, as well as looking like one. He folds the picture in half once, and then again. "Tell me, Al," he says, as he drops it into the trash. "Why am I here?"