Title: Alternate Thinking
Author: Sasscat Bu-to-y
Rating: PG-13
Codes: Fraser/Thatcher, Kowalski/Thatcher, Alternate Universes
Parts 25-27

Teaser: Meg finds herself in situations she could never have predicted...

Disclaimer: Alliance owns all.

Alternate Thinking
          (c) Sasscat Bu-to-y 1999-2000

On Friday morning, Meg was discharged. She was wearing some of the clothes Fraser had brought her from Meg-two - a dark navy dress that was sleeveless, to accomodate her broken arm, and entirely impractical for winter. Fortunately Fraser had provided a thick overcoat with loose sleeves that just fit over her cast.

If she ever did get home, Meg thought absently, she'd have a lot of injuries to explain. Those she'd gathered from falling into that tree, her sprained wrist from even before that, *and* she'd undoubtedly encounter future hazards.

She sighed at that, missing her home universe. It was a good universe, as universes went. She was in charge of the Consulate, Fraser was relatively sane - and Ray. She didn't even want to think about Ray right now. She was being discharged. She wasn't going home, but she was doing the next best thing: Fraser and Meg-two were coming to collect her, and it had been implied that she could stay at the Consulate until she moved on. Idly she wondered if Fraser lived in the Consulate in this universe.

Not that she'd have long to take advantage of the situation if he did; her week was almost up-- Meg stopped short, halfway through the action of closing the bedside cabinet. She had a week?

/I suppose it would be advisable for me to leave you here for a week./ Fraser had said that, the Fraser from another universe. Meg stood up, then sat on the edge of her bed with a frown, trying to remember the rest of the conversation.

/Well-- how long am I here, then?/ she'd asked him. /Before the next,/ she'd paused and grimaced, unable to believe she actually believed his story, /universe./

Fraser had looked at a clipboard he was holding - her medical chart? - and frowned. /You're fortunate I doubled back when I did. Inexplicably appearing in a hospital bed is unlikely to be the best way to get consistent treatment. I suppose it would be advisable for me to leave you here for a week./

He'd said something more, something about another 'Maggie' Thatcher, then Ray had wheeled in his trolley and Fraser had left.

Here and now, Meg pondered the questions he'd left behind him. *Fraser* was the one putting her through this. Why? Why wouldn't he send her home? Maybe... what if the first shift had been an accident, and he couldn't send her backwards? Was there such a thing as 'backwards' in terms of the direction from universe to universe? But wait, he'd doubled back. Doubled back from where?

/I just wanted to keep her off my trail,/ he'd said at the beginning of the conversation. /I assumed you would be able to adjust to the transitions./ So, someone was chasing him. Another performance arsonist? One with the ability to traverse dimensions?

That didn't give him the right to uproot her for the sake of a decoy or false trail or whatever he wanted from her. He could have just *asked* for her help. Or maybe, she thought suddenly, he couldn't have. Maybe this was the first chance he'd had to find her, make sure if she was all right...

Would she have helped him?

"So, you're, uh..." Meg looked up to see Ray shrugging slightly from the door. "Discharged, huh?"

"Yes," she said noncommittally, glancing at her bags. After... after what had happened between them, she wasn't sure what to say to him. Let alone what she *wanted* to say to him.

Ray came and sat by her on the bed, clearing his throat uncomfortably. "Ca-- Ms Thatcher--"

Meg tried not to flinch. "Please," she said, a little too pained, "Canada. Or Meg. Just don't be so formal."

Ray opened his mouth, then closed it again, shaking his head slightly. "I'm sorry about... what I said to you the other day," he said, looking at the floor. "I mean, we do have rules that I've got to follow, but I didn't have to be such a jerk about it."

That wasn't what Meg wanted to hear. "It's all right," she said stiffly. "You said what you felt."

"But I didn't-- I mean, it's not--" Ray shook his head in frustration and glanced behind himself at the rest of the room, conscious of the other patients. "Forget it." He sat silently for half a second, then pulled the Mad magazine from the top of the bag by his foot. "Heh. You liked this?"

"Yes, it was..." Meg smiled. "Perfect. Thank you."

He waved her thanks away. "Nah, it's all part of the job."

"Really?"

"Well, I mean, not technically, but..." He grinned as he realised she was teasing him, and started flipping through the pages. "Hey, Spy vs. Spy! Love that."

Meg read the cartoon strip with him, their heads bowed together over the page. Her eyes flickered from him to the antics of the white and black spies and back to him again. When he caught her looking she blushed and returned her eyes to the page. This was stupid. She was acting like a teenager.

"You know," Ray started, and as Meg looked up from the page again she noticed visitors by the door. Meg-two was smiling politely and Fraser's face was devoid of expression.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" Meg-two asked sarcastically.

Oh, now Meg *really* felt like a teenager. Talk about high school cattiness. She refrained from answering; instead stood up and gathered her bags. "Thanks for taking care of me," she told Ray, then shot a look at Meg-two, daring the other woman to comment.

"My pleasure." Ray bobbed his head. "Hey, if you're ever in this, uh... well, in town again, look me up."

Meg smiled. "I will." She glanced at Fraser a little guiltily, then headed for the door.

"Oh!" Ray jumped off the bed and joined them at the door. "Inspector - no, that one - I gotta call you about..." he made a generic movement of his hand, "followups and stuff."

Meg-two frowned slightly, then nodded in understanding. "You can reach me at the Consulate."

Meg took a little longer to realise what he meant. But of course, the hospital would expect to check on her as an outpatient, and if she was in another universe, well, this other Meg would have to fake it. Weren't they using her medical insurance?

"Okay," Ray said, giving his characteristic multi-directional nod. He turned back to Meg. "I'll, uh... I'll see you. Well." He nodded at the floor. "I won't see you. I'll remember you."

"As will I," Meg said, wanting to linger. She caught Meg-two's impatient look and grimaced. With a flare of sudden perverseness, she leaned forward and kissed Ray on the cheek. Then she left, taking with her the image of his shy, pleased smile.

--

When they reached the Consulate, Meg was quickly dispatched to the Queen's Bedroom - ostensibly for rest, although she suspected that Meg-two's desire to keep her away from Fraser played a significant part in the suggestion as well. Really, that woman was the most irrationally jealous-- She cut that thought off with the acknowledgement that she *did* need to rest, and she could talk to Fraser later.

When 'later' arrived and she finally awoke, she remembered that anything higher than the ground floor was not necessarily a safe place to be, and hastily went downstairs.

Now that she was awake she couldn't hide from her persistent headache. In fact, just the jarring from walking down the stairs proved too much for her. She sat on the bottom step for a moment, pressing the heel of her good hand against her right temple. This... How would Ray put it? This truly sucked. But then, Ray - this universe's Ray... Nurse Ray... Well, he wasn't top of her popularity charts right now either.

Meg got up, seized by an urge to do something other than just sit there in pain. She made a face at Meg-two's office door and went to find Fraser.

Fraser was, unsurprisingly, in his office. Well, perhaps a little surprisingly; he could have been down at the station with-- oh. Or not. Meg shook herself and walked in, closing the door behind her.

"Ah," Fraser said when he saw her. "How did you sleep?"

Meg considered that for a moment, then finally decided, "Very soundly. That's the one good thing about this concussion."

"Mm," Fraser agreed sympathetically. "If you'd like some paracetamol..."

Meg nodded. "I would appreciate it." She was slightly surprised he didn't offer her some kind of herbal concoction, and more than a little relieved. She'd tasted his 'native remedies'. Disgusting was too good a word for that leaf-litter.

She followed him into the Consulate kitchen, every step a conscious thought. She felt as though she couldn't be bothered to do anything, only forcing herself to continue with the minutiae of day-to-day existence because otherwise she'd just stand in a corner of Fraser's office for the rest of her life. Oh, how she loathed being concussed. But being concussed here was better than being concussed in hospital.

"So," she said, watching him move between cupboards and resolutely refusing to acknowledge how much her head hurt, "tell me about your universe."

He glanced at her over his shoulder as he fetched a glass. "My universe?"

"Yes." She nodded briefly. "What's it like? Tell me about..." she thought for a moment then seized on something she really wanted to know about, although couldn't quite believe the words actually came out of her mouth, "your relationship with Meg."

Fraser slowly moved to fill the glass with water. Meg's eyes rested on his shoulders, drawn by the broadness of them. And the red, obviously. But it was a deceptive broadness, she recalled, remembering that time she'd walked in on him using his office as a locker room. Under the loose singlet his body had been slim and smooth, the sort of smoothness that begged to be touched. To be stroked. Her fingers curled slightly, brushing her dress.

Fraser was, of course, oblivious to her scutiny. "She's... my superior officer," he finally said, sounding wary and a little unhappy.

Meg raised an eyebrow at his obvious state of denial. "Which is why you kissed me in hospital?"

He cleared his throat slightly, not looking at her. "Well, obviously there are some unresolved... issues between us. Unfortunately our professional roles preclude any kind of, ah, romantic entanglement."

"Mm," Meg agreed. Boy, did she know what that felt like. But oh, what a vision he was out of uniform.

She moved closer to take the glass and the aspirin from him. Swallow one, swallow two, brief grimace at aftertaste... "Of course, *I'm* not your superior."

"No." Fraser took a breath, looking at the bench uncomfortably. "No; you are a woman whom I have known for less than a week."

Meg paused slightly, suspicious of that answer. "I'm also Meg Thatcher; you've known me for two years."

He shook his head. "You're from another universe. I have no way of knowing... *who* you are--"

"That's ridiculous!" Meg exclaimed. "I'm exactly like your Meg Thatcher."

"Well, no; for one thing, my Inspector Thatcher is considerably more monogamous."

"For crying out loud," Meg muttered, then his words sank in and she stopped short. "I beg your pardon?"

"Ah..." Fraser coughed slightly. "What I meant to say was..."

"Fraser, did you just call me a tramp?"

"Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say..." He hesitated. "That is, I wouldn't exactly..." He rubbed his thumb across his eyebrow awkwardly. "Well, yes."

This was incredible. Meg stared at him in disbelief for several seconds. Bastard. How *dare* he--? What gave him the right to stand there and judge her? "I'm obviously not the only one who's different in this universe," she said in a low voice, and walked out on him.

Out of the Consulate, she walked along the street, wherever her legs took her, walking off her seething anger until she no longer knew where she was. Well, that wasn't, strictly speaking, true; she recognised the street, just wasn't sure quite how it related to... any other street.

Concussion. Damn. She rubbed her forehead tiredly and leaned against a wall to rest.

It couldn't have been more than a few minutes later when a vaguely familiar black car pulled up and a very familiar nurse got out. "I find you leaning against walls in the weirdest places."

"Ray," Meg said in surprise.

"Yeah, the hospital's got a new outpatient policy." He nodded seriously. "If we're driving along and we see an outpatient, we say hi."

"Hi," she said, awkwardly, not able to forget what he'd said to her in hospital. And what he hadn't said to her.

Ray looked at her for a moment, obviously expecting a more enthusiastic greeting. When it became apparent he wasn't going to get one, he sighed with his entire body: head dropping, shoulders slumping, back and legs bending slightly. "Right. I'll... I dunno. I'd better go, my lunchbreak isn't... that long."

Meg stared at the concrete, scolding herself. All right, she didn't know what to say; there was no call to be rude. Ray had rejected her more nicely than Fraser, after all. Fraser... damn. "Ray," she said, before he could get back into the car. "Can you give me a lift back to the Consulate?"

He glanced at her over the top of the GTO in surprise. "Yeah, sure, but it's not far--"

"I know that," she interrupted patiently. "I... got lost."

"Huh." He looked at her a while longer then shook himself. "Zz-- right. Headcase. Uh, get in."

Meg did so, wishing he wouldn't call her a headcase. Once was cute, maybe even twice, but after that it began to grate on one's nerves. "Thanks," she said anyway, because after all, he *was* giving her a lift.

"No problem." Ray glanced at her, looking as though he was going to say something more, then shook his head and pulled into the traffic.

Well, this was... awkward. Meg grimaced, keeping an eye out for the Consulate. It wasn't that she disliked Ray (anymore), but the sooner she got out of this car, the better.

Ray slowed as they neared the Consulate; she reached with her right hand to undo her seatbelt. Ray grabbed her wrist, "Hey, wait til I park," and then there was a fall, and something hard and rough, and a piercing jolt to her broken arm, and Ray swearing.

Meg blinked at the asphalt, and slowly pushed herself up, wincing at the graze on her right hand. It had happened again. Of all the rotten luck... The car had disappeared from under her. Again.

"What the hell--?" Ray started, looking around.

Ray had come *with* her? Meg stared at him for a moment then thought to get them both off the road, and onto the sidewalk where they could stand in safety. Then she kept staring as she slowly dropped her arm, torn between confusion and a slight malicious glee that at least she wasn't the only one going through this anymore. Too many seconds passed before she collected herself. Fortunately Ray was too occupied in gaping around this universe to notice her own unbalance, but she quickly put on a confident expression, as if this were merely par for the course in her life - which it almost was. "Welcome to my nightmare."

--

Ray kept staring around himself. "What-- you mean-- We're in another universe?"

"Just one of many." Meg frowned slightly, trying to figure out why he was here. They'd been in the car, and then-- of course. "You were holding onto me! That must be it."

Ray glanced at her, looking lost. "How do I get home?"

Meg laughed cynically, and grimaced at her aching ribs. "Getting home isn't part of the deal." At the expression on his face - oh, this *must* be what kicking a puppy felt like - she softened. "I'm sure we'll find a way."

A vague memory stirred in her mind. The other-universe Fraser, speaking in a calm, unconcerned voice. /You'll continue to traverse universes until I am satisfied that I have lost her, at which point she will probably manage to find you and send you home./ Lost who? Whoever was after him.

"So, uh..." Ray shrugged slightly, uncertainly. "What do we do?"

"Go to the Consulate." Meg nodded along the road and headed in that direction.

Ray stared after her for a moment, then jogged to catch up. "Ha-- how long did you say you've been doing this, Canada?"

Oh, so *now* he started calling her Canada again. "Um..." She put her good hand to her head, trying to think. "One... Two weeks. But I spent a lot of that in your hospital."

"Yeah, I-- I remember that." He shook himself, a fluid ripple of his limbs. "And I'm here 'cause... I was holding onto you when you came here."

"That's my theory." As they neared the Consulate, Meg saw Fraser coming out of the gate. He was out of uniform, in jeans and a red flannel shirt that reminded her more of the other-universe Fraser. She bristled for an instant before reminding herself that this was a new Fraser, one who hadn't insulted her yet.

"Maggie, I've been waiting for you," he said.

That was when Meg noticed the odd device attached to his belt. It *was* the other-universe Fraser.

She stared at him for a moment, caught off guard. Too many responses fought within her - she was torn between wanting to dress him down for everything he'd done to her and wanting to press him with the several dozen questions she longed to ask. "I... what?" And wanting to stand him on top of a runaway train and kiss him senseless.

"I found a doctor for your concussion. If you'll--"

"She's seen a doctor," Ray interrupted, glaring at him. "You're that jerk from the hospital, aren't you?"

Fraser stood very still for a second, keeping his eyes fixed on Meg. After an almost unnoticeable breath he said steadily, "I found you a better one. He wasn't supposed to be with you."

She refused to melt under his gaze. It wasn't easy, but she managed it. "So send him home."

"It's not that simple."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Ray said in surprise. "Canada, he can send us home?"

Again Ray was using his pet name for her. Meg let her smile show, hoping this Fraser was bothered by her closeness with Ray. He deserved to be. And indeed, his cool eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

"No," he said tersely, still looking only at Meg although he addressed his answer to Ray. "Not without more effort than you're worth. Maggie I could send home, but I need her."

"Meg," Meg corrected, more confident of her self-control. "What do you need me for?"

"I thought I explained that."

She tried hard not to blush. "I've forgotten." She ought to be getting used to that by now, but she was more used to her brain working with some small measure of *competence*.

"I... see." He looked her up and down as if measuring her. It was completely non-sexual, and yet Meg found herself responding to his gaze. She fought it back sternly, even as Fraser gave her a charming smile. "I'm being pursued. I need you to divert my pursuer until I've lost her."

Her. Meg thought briefly of the Victoria Metcalf file, then discarded that idea. She may not have been able to remember the *details* of what this Fraser had told her before, but she had a vague sense that there was more to it than that. If only she didn't keep forgetting everything! "You're not telling me everything."

"No, I'm not," Fraser agreed mildly. "Shall we visit that doctor now?"

Meg put her hand on her hip and gave him her best impatient glare, but all he did was wait. With a frustrated sigh she set off along the pavement in the direction she'd been going before.

"Maggie--"

"Meg," she snapped, whirling back to face him.

He smiled easily and gestured at the vividly blue car on the side of the road. "It's a long way on foot."

Meg stared at him for a moment, working hard to make a point of not automatically doing whatever he said. "All right then," she said, with a forcedly polite smile. "You're driving."

"So this is *your* universe?" Ray asked Fraser, then cast a charming smile at Meg as he opened the car door for her.

"Hell, no," Fraser laughed. "I'm not going back *there*." He got in the car and started pulling out from the curb before Ray had finished getting in, sending the nurse tumbling against the back seat with a loud curse.

"Fraser!" Meg said, shocked.

He briefly raised his eyebrows at her, then shrugged unrepentantly. "Sorry."

Meg shook her head and turned around to look at Ray as she finished fumbling one-handedly with her seatbelt. "Are you all right?"

"Oh yeah, I'm just--" Ray pushed himself up and slammed his door shut emphatically. "Sorry," he said quickly, as Meg winced at the sound. "--Uh, hunky dory." He glared at Fraser.

Meg started to nod, and Ray's eyes suddenly snaplocked back onto her. He grinned brightly. "You could kiss it better."

The corner of her mouth twitched, but she held back her amusement. At least he hadn't specified what 'it' she ought to kiss. She kept her voice even. "What happened to wanting something longterm?"

Ray glanced involuntarily at Fraser. "When I said that, I thought you were skipping out on me. If I knew I was coming along for the ride..." He made an expansive gesture.

Meg understood what he wouldn't admit. He didn't want Fraser to have her. How very mature. She rolled her eyes and turned back around to face forwards. In a carefully neutral voice she said, "Put your seatbelt on, Ray."

--
End part twenty-seven

Continue with Alternate Thinking