Split (Or: How Casey Came Back To The Future, Version 2) by Amal Nahurriyeh Email: amalnahurriyeh@gmail.com Summary: Some things can't be reduced down to unity. Genre: Crack. Internal AU. Rating: PG-13 (language) Warnings: None. Angst Level: Medium-low. Universe: Mulder-containing. Timeline: Takes place in 2035. Disclaimer: Intellectual property is a capitalist fiction designed to oppress the working fic-writer. That said, I don't own them either. Author's Notes: This is probably the crackiest of the BTTF scenarios. And I love it, a little. Thanks to memories_child for the beta. Anybody who thought the last one had echoes of Fringe...well, this one is worse. Mulder took Scully's hand. "She's going to be fine." "I hope so," Scully said, and shifted awkwardly. "I wish they'd let me read their protocol." "Just because you're a national hero doesn't mean they want you bothering them." "Yes, they made that perfectly clear." She drummed with her fingernails on the arm of the chair. Will walked back in with three coffees balanced awkwardly in his hands. "They said it would take, what, ninety minutes or so? Half an hour of set up, half an hour down, then about half an hour to stabilize her afterward, right?" "And we're at thirty-seven minutes in," Scully said, taking the cup he held out to her. "I hate waiting." Mulder was about to make a joke about that when the door slammed open, and a stretcher came through with a soaking wet Casey on it, unconscious and surrounded by anxiously snapping doctors and biophysicists. "What happened?" he said, and reached for his cane to try to stand up. The doctors ignored him. Someone was yelling into a walkie-talkie about getting an ICU bed ready--Jesus Christ, what had happened? The doctors pushed the stretcher through the door down the hallway, which led, he was glad to remember, right to the hospital. Scully was on her feet and halfway to following them, her coffee abandoned, when she realized there was someone standing in the lab doorway. She spun, ready to demand answers, and stopped in shock. Casey was standing there with her arms folded, surveying the scene with an appraising eye. "Well," she said. "That was interesting." *** Casey blinked at the bright white light above her. Hospital light: she remembered this from her appendectomy. She tried to lift her head, and couldn't. "Motherfucker," she muttered to herself. "You're not wrong," said a voice next to her. She turned her head, very slowly. Sitting in the chair next to her was--well, was her. This Casey had shorter hair, and her nose was pierced; she wore glasses Casey never would have picked out, but she was flipping through the most recent issue of Historical Linguistics with a red pen out. The Casey in the chair capped the pen and turned to the Casey in the bed. "Hello there." "This is not what I expected," Casey said, honestly. "Nobody did. Seriously, you freaked the lab guys out in a major way. There I was, all pinned up like a damn butterfly, and they open the machine to put me in it and you fall out. Pretty impressive if you ask me." "Huh." Casey struggled to bring a hand up to her face. "I guess I...jumped?" "Something like that," chair-Casey said. "Dad and Mom and I told the scientists all about what you did, and they're guessing that the universe you were a part of has collapsed. But you were the pivot point, and you couldn't be erased. So you had to end up over here." She shrugged. "Mom says we should be able to tell from your DNA what's up with you, but she's having trouble convincing enough of the lab guys to follow through. They just want to set fire to their machine and get the hell out of town." Casey managed to roll over to face her counterpart. "So, what, I'm an undocumented transtemporal immigrant?" Casey grinned. "Pretty awesome, right?" "Oh, fuck yeah," Casey said, and grinned back. "Sorry that I'm about to kind of steal your life. Or, like, half of it." "Nah, I don't think it'll be a problem. I've read your notes from Stark. And I think there are enough differences between us that we should be able to sort things out pretty well." "Differences?" She surveyed the outfit, since that was all she had to go on. This Casey wore sandals, even though it was January. So that seemed accurate. Casey was flipping through the pages of her journal. "Well, for one thing, I'm straight." Casey contemplated for a minute. "Wow. I'm not even the tiniest bit subtle, am I?" "Not so much." She turned a page. "Who's on your committee?" Her knees hurt now, but that at least meant she could feel them. "Raswami, Gilbert, and Garden." *"Garden?"* She made a face. "You can't be serious." "What's wrong with her? Her advanced sociolinguistics class totally blew apart my dissertation proposal," Casey said. *"Socio-linguistics?* OK, I may actually need to change my name and publicly renounce you," Casey said, and tried to sit up. "Wait, what are you doing?" Casey said, and put her journal down. "Look, I'm sure you feel all invincible and shit right now, but you did just almost die jumping through multiple universes. Maybe you should just lay down and let me call a doctor." "I feel fine," Casey said, and struggled to sit the rest of the way up. "I just want to get some clothes on. I'm sure they won't need to keep me here much longer." "That's ludicrous," Casey said, and tried to push her shoulder back down into the bed. "Just lay there, will you? Don't be an idiot." "Oh my God," she said, and rolled her eyes. "I don't see why I should have to convince you I'm fine--" This was the point at which their parents walked into the room. Casey couldn't help staring. Her mother was almost exactly as she remembered: Scully in this universe didn't bother to color her hair anymore, but everything else was right. But Mulder. Mulder she'd only known as he was in his fifties, not this seventy-year-old standing in front of her, cane in hand, hair white but not yet thinning. Scully looked over at Mulder. "What did I say? Totally different formulative stimuli. It was inevitable." He sighed, reached into his pocket, removed his wallet, and pulled a twenty out, which she took with a wicked little smile. Simultaneously, both Caseys raised an eyebrow to question the gesture. Scully sighed. Mulder snatched the twenty back. "Ha." The Casey in the chair sighed, and settled back. "So she's awake." "I see that," Scully said. "Have you called the doctors yet?" "Not yet," Casey said. "I'll go," Scully said, and poked her head out into the hallway. Mulder walked over to the side of her bed. "Nice to see you again," he said, and smiled gently. She looked up at him, half-astonished. "Hi," she said, and was embarassed to realize that she was starting to cry. He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. "It's all right, Sadie," he said quietly, and she let the tears come.