* * *

Over the next few hours, Marty plotted and refined his plan with some assistance and input from Emmett Brown. The kid was filled with a number of creative ideas, though the inventor had to step in a few times and remind him of the physical limitations to the scenario. (Namely, that George still lived at home with his parents, and that there existed the possibility that they could hear a noise and investigate.)

By the time the two sat down for dinner -- TV dinners, which apparently amazed Marty, since they had to be heated in the stove, naturally, and seemed worlds different from the “frozen, cardboardish stuff” he was used to seeing with TV dinners at home -- the only thing really left to do was figure out exactly what he wanted to say to his father.

“I definitely want to tell him to take Lorraine to the dance,” he told Emmett as he scooped up a forkful of mashed potatoes from the tin foil meal. “But should I tell him why?”

“You mean about the time machine?” With Marty’s nod, the inventor shrugged. “I don’t think you need to do that -- definitely don’t tell him that ‘Calvin Klein’ is his future son! That could create a host of new problems.”

Marty rolled his eyes at the suggestion. “Um, yeah.... I guess I can just tell him that he needs to take Lorraine to the dance because he screwed up history, and if he doesn’t do that I’ll come back for him and make him wish he was dead. Dad’s never been able to say no his whole life, and if he really believes I’m an alien from another planet.... The picture could be back to normal in a few hours!”

“Maybe,” Emmett cautioned.

Something in his tone caused Marty to halt his fork halfway to his mouth. “You don’t think this is gonna work? Why not?”

“I didn’t say that.... But it might take several hours for the photograph to change; the effect may not be instantaneous, just as your siblings didn’t instantaneously fade out.”

Marty looked disappointed and annoyed by the idea. Emmett didn’t quite blame him. No doubt he had hoped to be able to go to bed that night with one less thing to worry about. But all he said was, “Oh,” and resumed his consumption of the meal.

After dinner, Emmett returned to the lab to work out some calculations relating to sending the teenager back home on Saturday night. Marty kept him company for about an hour before he swiftly grew bored with the complicated-looking mathematical formulas, and the even more complicated explanations Emmett offered when asked. His eyes would start to glaze over just a sentence into things.

Finally, near nine, Marty announced he was going to go into the house and watch the television in the study. Emmett let him go with merely a nod -- and as soon as the kid left, he set down his pencil and turned to look at the television in the lab. The portable camera was still wired into it from Saturday night, privy to witnessing the curious circumstances that had begot Marty McFly’s trip back in time.

And probably involved things Emmett dare not pry into.

His internal battle was fierce. Part of him was itching to interview Marty, show him the video and demand to know what it was that had apparently scared his older self so much at the end of the tape. “Oh my God, they found me... I don’t know how, but they found me.” Who were they? And what had happened next? Why hadn’t Emmett’s future self used the time machine instead of -- or in addition to -- Marty?

Come to think of it, if I had gone back with him, I doubt very much he would need my help now.

The larger part of the inventor, the one that withheld him from acting out his more reckless impulses, was dead set against looking into his future. It could have serious negative repercussions and he wanted no part to the possible mind games. It was already starting to sink in how hellish the next thirty years were going to be when it came to the time machine. What if he invented something sooner or later than he had originally? Or what if knowing of the machine’s eventually success made him sloppy on some part of it, and it turned out to break down or malfunction during Marty’s transit to 1955? That could create a catastrophic temporal contradiction!

And I’m not even going to think about how Marty and I meet and become friends... let alone when....

Try as he might, though, the film footage continued to haunt him. The sight of the blank television screen was mesmerizing. It couldn’t hurt to watch it again -- “In the interest of science, of course,” Emmett murmured.

The scientist stood from his seat at the worktable and walked over to the TV, turning it on. The camera, which apparently operated off a battery power, had shut itself off sometime Saturday night, after Emmett had first played the video. He had managed to refrain from rewatching it on Sunday -- mostly because Marty was constantly around -- and earlier in the day today, having more pressing issues to consider. Now, though, there was nothing to stop him. Nothing but his own conscience, of course. And it was remaining mute at the moment.

Emmett turned the camera on, rewound the tape from where it had ended last time, and played it from the very beginning. This time he paid a special attention to the setting of the parking lot and mood of his future self instead of the time machine aspects. When the video concluded, he was left with only a cold, empty feeling of vague foreboding; whatever it was that had happened, it was bad.

Emmett replayed the last minute of the tape six more times before it grew too distressing. The fact that the viewings shed very little light on everything was a problem, too; each replay made Emmett feel more frustrated. He felt like the answer was right under his nose.

Technically, it is. All I have to do is ask Marty. He’ll tell me if I really want to know.

The scientist sighed loudly as he shut the TV off with a quick twist of the knob. He couldn’t do that; it could possibly derail his future. And yet, what if...?

What if I have no future? What if something serious happened to me then? And that’s why I didn’t use the time machine and Marty did?

Emmett swallowed hard, his mouth dry, as he allowed the thoughts to freely come for a moment, rather than pushing them aside with a “don’t-ponder-possibly-untrue-scenarios-until-there-is-serious-evidence-to-suggest-otherwise” attitude. It was like staring down a dark abyss.

Uneasy, he turned away from the television and put all his efforts into finish his calculations and formulas for Saturday’s time travel experiment. He remained deliberately engrossed until the sound of the clock chiming midnight startled him out of his work and encouraged him to call it quits for the night -- especially since Marty planned on scaring his father in just an hour.

After concluding his latest calculation, Emmett went into the house to check on his future friend and see what the latest plan was for his alien performance. He entered the house through the side door, which led into the living room. A distant, static-like sound permeated the downstairs, drawing his attention and feet to the study.

There he found his houseguest before the television -- but the station had ended its broadcast for the night, leaving nothing but electronic “snow” on the screen. Marty was sprawled across the length of the couch on his stomach, one arm hanging off the side, the other flung over his head and draped over the arm of the couch. One of his legs looked as if it might shortly join the left arm in falling off the furniture -- his knee was already hanging over the edge a few inches -- and the other was half propped up on a pillow. Marty’s face was turned in the direction of the staticy television screen, one cheek resting flat on the seat cushion of the couch, but his eyes were closed and his mouth was gaping open. He was, quite obviously, sound asleep. Emmett studied him a moment, amazed.

That kid sleeps in the strangest positions.

The scientist checked the time once more and, seeing it was closing in on twelve-thirty A.M., now, decided to wake Marty from his likely-unplanned rest. He turned the television off, then leaned over to shake the kid awake. “Marty?”

At the sound of his name and the touch, the kid suddenly snapped his head up, his eyes half open and still clouded with sleep. “Yeah?” he asked, his voice slightly slurry from his nap.

“Time to wake up and get ready.”

Marty blinked once. “I wasn’t sleeping,” he said. “I was just... resting my eyes.”

Emmett managed not to smile his amusement at this blatantly false claim. “All right,” he said evenly. “Did you need any help with your preparations?”

“No.” Marty sat up, raking one hand across his eyes, still looking slightly dazed. Half of his hair was sticking up in strange angles. “What time is it?”

“Twelve-twenty-eight A.M.”

“Okay.”

The kid got up and wandered off in the direction of the kitchen. Emmett watched him until he left the room, then looked at the collection of futuristic costume and props that Marty had earlier collected from the time machine, now stacked on one of the armchairs in the room. He hoped they had a more menacing appearance in a darkened bedroom than now, otherwise Marty might find himself in trouble.

The kid returned a few minutes later, chugging a Pepsi from the refrigerator. Emmett watched as he pulled on the radiation suit over his clothes. “You sure you have everything?” he asked.

Marty eyed the props piled on the armchair. “Yeah. The hairdryer, the Walkman, the chloroform... maybe I should get a bag to put it all in, though. I don’t know if I wanna try juggling that stuff when climbing up to Dad’s room.” He frowned suddenly, eyes widening. “Oh, shit -- I don’t know which room is Dad’s!”

That particular problem hadn’t occurred to Emmett, either, until now. “Well... I suppose you can either peek into windows, or get into the house and check rooms then.”

“Yeah,” Marty muttered, sounding uneasy.

Emmett went off to find a bag for the gear, turning up a small black number that had once belonged to his physician father. It was short order to load the belongings in, and by the time they were ready to go, it was almost one. Marty went into the kitchen before they left and returned with yet another bottle of Pepsi. He had drained the first one in just a couple minutes.

“Thirsty?” the scientist asked as they left the house to walk to the Packard, parked outside the garage doors.

“Tired,” Marty admitted after taking a few quick gulps of the drink. “I had to get up early for school today, remember? And I didn’t sleep so hot last night. This should help wake me up, and it’s a hell of a lot better than coffee.”

“Why haven’t you been sleeping well? Are you worried about your parents, or getting home?”

“There’s that, yeah,” Marty said. “But there’s other stuff, too. You just don’t wanna know what it is.

“If it has anything to do with my future, no, you’re right,” Emmett said. “It would be better if I didn’t know.

Marty stared at him a moment, then sighed loudly. Perhaps he would have said more if they hadn’t reached the car then. Emmett changed the subject, though not without a bit of reluctance. “You know where your father’s house is, right? Because I’ll need some directions.”

Fortunately, the kid knew that information. It wasn’t too far away -- a ten minute drive. Emmett slowed the vehicle as Marty pointed at the house. The street was quiet and deserted at this late hour of the night, all the homes dark save for illuminated porch lights. The McFly residence was no different.

“How do you plan to get in there?” Emmett asked, noting the second floor.

Marty’s eyes flicked between the first and second stories -- then drifted over to the driveway. A smile played on his lips. “I got an idea,” he said. “Can we put the top of the car down?”

“Well, yes... but why?”

“If you pull into the driveway, I could stand on the back of the seat and reach those beams over the driveway, then pull myself up there that way.”

Emmett eyed said-beams above the driveway, which also covered the front porch and became the main support for the floor of the small second floor porch. He quickly calculated the distance. The slabs of wood were set about a foot apart -- easily covered in a stride. And Marty would probably be able to reach them if he stood on the very top of the seat, and possibly jumped. “Sounds good. I’ll back in. But before you go to all that trouble, you might want to check the front door. Not everyone locks their homes now, especially not in Hill Valley.”

“I never thought about that,” Marty admitted.

The time traveler left the car before Emmett backed into the driveway and headed up the walk to check the door. By the time the scientist had parked the Packard, and was busy taking down the top, he came back shaking his head.

“My grandparents must be paranoid,” he said softly. “Even the windows are locked down here. What if they are up there, too?”

“Well... maybe we’ll have to postpone this another night, then,” Emmett said. “Unless you want to break a window, but that might destroy any illusion of mystery that you plan on creating.”

Marty nodded once, exhaling. “Let’s just get this over with, now,” he said.

Emmett waited outside of the car as the kid climbed into the convertible and stood on the bottom of the seats. He paused a moment as he looked up, then glanced at the inventor. “Can you toss this to me once I’m up there?” he asked, holding up the black bag of supplies.

“I suppose. Be careful; breaking an arm or leg right now would be very troublesome.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Marty said, passing the bag over to Emmett. He stepped onto the back of the front seat, then reached up towards the beams. A little hop, and his hands were wrapped around them. Emmett watched nervously as the kid lifted himself up, albeit with a few muttered curses. A couple of minutes later Marty was perched on the beams above, peering down at Emmett. He made a gesture, the meaning obvious: toss the bag.

The scientist took a moment to examine the distance before he made his move. The bag sailed up between two of the beams next to Marty -- and then the teenager was catching it between his gloved hands. Emmett sighed, relieved. The kid gave him a quick, satisfied smile, pulled the radiation suit’s hood on, cautiously stood up on one of the beams, and turned to walk carefully across the slats to the second floor porch. The inventor couldn’t resist a crooked smile of mild amusement as he tracked Marty’s movements with his eyes. In the full garb, he did look rather otherworldly.

“He’s gonna scare the shit out of his pop,” he murmured, a part of him wishing he could witness it firsthand. Alas, it was not possible. Emmett got back in the car, instead, readying himself for their getaway.

* * *

Marty’s smile of satisfaction at a job well done lasted until he heard the thud that shook the floorboards. He paused just feet from the window of George’s bedroom, turning to see his father in one of the most awkward positions imaginable, passed out against the wall from the hit of chloroform the teen had administered. Marty winced at the sight from under the hood, then hastened his steps a little more towards the window. If his grandparents had heard that and came to check it out....

He got out the window without a problem and stepped carefully across the beams, back to the Packard where Doc was waiting at the wheel. Marty eased himself down, until he was sitting right above the passenger side of the car, then took off the hood and let both that and the bag drop into the vehicle before he followed suit.

Doc started the car as soon as Marty was safely in the seat. “How’d it go?” he asked.

“Great,” Marty said, starting to peel off the uncomfortable rubber gloves. “That chloroform you had really put him out. I just hope we didn’t overdo it.”

“What gives you the impression that we did?”

Marty shrugged. “I don’t know.... He just seemed really out cold when I left.”

Doc frowned crookedly as he eased the car out of the McFly driveway. “I’m not sure how long I’ve had the chloroform... or if it’s supposed to get weaker or stronger as it ages.”

Marty blinked, looking over at the inventor with faint alarm. “You’re not sure? And you’re a scientist?”

“A minor fact of little importance in my own experimentations and interests. I’m sure your father will be fine,” Doc added. “He didn’t inhale the chemical for longer than a minute, did he?”

“No. Maybe thirty seconds, if that.” Marty sighed as he recalled the event, leaning back in the seat. “God, I hope this works. He seemed to swallow everything I said like a ton of bricks. But what if he talks himself out of it later?”

“That’s always possible,” Doc admitted. “He could easily persuade himself that the entire experience was a dream by tomorrow. What does the photograph look like now?”

Marty slipped his hand down the neck of the radiation suit, snagging the picture from his shirt pocket. He had last checked it after dinner, and had been dismayed to find his brother completely missing. He frowned as they passed under a street light, which illuminated the photograph for a moment. “Dave’s still completely gone, now, and Linda looks like she’s starting to get fuzzy near her head. Nothing’s gotten better!”

“But has it gotten visibly worse since you last checked?”

The teen squinted at the picture another moment. “I can’t tell. But shouldn’t it be getting better now, after everything I did?”

“It could take time to change,” Doc said. “Remember what I said earlier? This may not be an instantaneous reaction. Thus far, your father has done nothing at all to alter the projected course of events; he has made no move to ask your mother out. A decision won’t be enough. According to my theory, the photograph didn’t begin to show signs of changing until after you interfered with your pop’s encounter with the car. A physical event that skewed your family history, not simply a thought or decision.”

“Oh,” Marty muttered. “I guess that makes sense.” He stuffed the photo back in his shirt pocket then leaned back into the seat and grimaced a little. Doc caught the expression in a glance over.

“Anything wrong?”

There was a number of things Marty could say in response to that: the mess with his parents, being trapped thirty years in the past, feeling frustrated beyond belief that Doc was being childishly stubborn at not learning anything about his future, and the dark twist that lurked for the inventor the same night he saw his time machine work. But the reason behind Marty’s expression was none of the above at the moment, and for a much less complicated reason that could be resolved without any trouble.

“I just need to -- uh, well, I don’t think I should’ve had those two Pepsis like that right before we left.”

“Oh.... Well, we’re almost to my place. You’d better get to bed, too, if you’re going into school tomorrow.”

Marty sighed at the idea of attending class again. “Can’t I just pop in during lunch to see how Dad’s doing? I mean, it’s such a drag blowing away all my time there, and being around Mom probably isn’t helping any if she’s got the hots for me.”

“Perhaps -- but you want to make sure that your father follows through with asking her out to the dance. The sooner that is taken care of, and you repair the damage you did to your family, the sooner you can relax a little.”

Marty wasn’t sure about that. He shifted uncomfortably in the seat, partially from the dark fate that still loomed for Doc -- but mostly from the increasing pressure in his bladder. Fortunately, they were no more than a couple blocks from Doc’s house. He’d have to avoid chugging Pepsis like that in the future; aside from this side effect, he now felt powerfully wide awake, almost jittery. No doubt from the caffeine, as well as the events in George’s room, and the drive back in a convertible on a cool night. He was probably going to be awake until close to dawn again -- only to have to get up for an absolutely pointless day of killing time at the high school. Perfect.

The Packard reached the Brown mansion not a moment to soon for Marty. He hopped out of the car before it had come to a full stop, forgetting to collect the bag of future devices and the radiation suit’s hood in his haste. Rather than head for the house, he made a beeline for the garage. It was much closer and there was a bathroom out there.

But the door, when he tried it, was locked. Marty rattled the knob in his hands for a moment, frustrated, then turned to look at Doc, who was slowly -- or so it seemed to the teen -- getting out of the car.

“Did you lock the garage?” he asked.

“Of course; there’s a time machine in there. The last thing we need is for some punk kid to get in there and look around, or decide to vandalize anything.” Doc reached into his pocket and fished out the keys. “Here,” he said, tossing them over to the teen.

Marty wasted no time in unlocking the door and hurrying inside, not bothering to try and find the switches for the overhead lights. He easily dodged the DeLorean -- but a second later tripped over a tool box on the floor and hit the cement. He was lying there, stunned, when Doc entered and clicked on the lights.

“Careful,” the inventor cautioned too late.

“Yeah,” Marty muttered, pushing himself up to his feet. “Now you tell me....”

He made it to the bathroom without further incident. Marty sighed as he closed the door behind him, and reached up to unzip the radiation suit -- but the zipper didn’t want to budge from where it lay at the base of his neck. Marty wiggled it up and down rapidly, hoping to loosen it, but the thing didn’t want to move.

“Shit!” he hissed, annoyed and increasingly desperate. Marty jerked the zipper down as hard as he could, but it remained frozen where it was. “Dammit!”

Doc apparently heard his curses through the bathroom door. He knocked on it a moment later, the sound startling Marty so badly he nearly wet his pants -- not that it would be so hard to cause that at this point. “Something wrong?”

If he hadn’t been almost squirming where he stood, Marty would’ve denied it all. “Um, yeah,” he said. “The zipper’s jammed on this radiation suit. I can’t get outta it, Doc. And... I really gotta pee!”

“Can I come in?”

“Be my guest.”

Doc opened the bathroom door and peered into the small room for a moment before stepping inside. “What’s the trouble?”

Marty grabbed the zipper at his throat and tried pulling it down, emphasizing his point. “This,” he said. “I need to get outta this thing!”

Doc leaned forward for a look, giving the zipper his own go -- unsuccessfully. “Hmmm,” he muttered after a minute of fussing with it. “It appears to be jammed.”

“You think?” Marty asked, his sarcasm prompted by his mounting discomfort.

The inventor didn’t react one way or another to his comment. “Let me see if I have a lubricant that can pry it loose.”

Marty waited impatiently while Doc went off to find something. He shifted his weight frequently, trying to stay calm and avoid looking at the toilet. The sight of some girlie pictures tacked on the wall above the porcelain throne was a faintly amusing distraction for a minute. Who knew the Doc clearly had such an interest in the opposite sex? Although he had been ogling the Playboy earlier that his future self had packed. And, Marty wondered, what the hell was Doc doing with something like that at his age?

I can’t believe he thought that magazine was important enough to bring with him on a trip to the future! But I guess he is human....

The younger version of the inventor returned about then, a couple different bottles in hand. “One of these should do the trick,” he said, setting them down on the back of the toilet, on top of a Life magazine. “Hold still.”

That was getting hard to do. Marty managed to stand in one spot, but he started to seriously sweat. If Doc didn’t have him out of that suit soon....

The scientist tried a few foul smelling sprays and creams on the zipper. Each one made absolutely no difference in the problem; the thing was still stuck dead at the base of his throat. And not only was Marty’s situation approaching the breaking point, the nasty chemicals of whatever it was that was supposed to lube up the zipper were making a beeline right for his nose, giving him a swift headache and burning eyes.

“Well,” Doc finally said, giving the zipper yet another fruitless tug. “It looks like it’s really stuck. Perhaps one of the prongs broke off and it’s wedged in there. I don’t know what else to do.”

Marty gritted his teeth together, fighting against the urge to cross his legs. “Look, you gotta do something right now,” he said, unable to keep the strain out of his voice. “I’m not kidding, Doc!”

Doc stared at him a moment. “There’s one thing,” he said. “It would ruin the suit, though. Tell me, is it necessary for you to wear it upon reentry to the future?”

“Uh, no....”

Doc reached out and pinched some of the radiation suit material between his fingers. “It feels rather lightweight... but is material in the future fabricated to be resistant to things like tears?”

“It depends,” Marty said, clenching and unclenching his hands into fists in an effort to distract himself from his pressing physical need. “If you’re thinking of cutting me out of this thing -- just do it! I don’t think the you of the future is gonna give a damn.”

“All right,” Doc said. He left the bathroom and returned a minute later with a knife in hand. Marty eyed it uncertainly. It looked quite sharp, and the idea of that thing getting close to his skin brought him no comfort.

Of course, possibly getting a scratch or two didn’t seem so bad next to the alternative of being trapped in the suit another few minutes -- or more. Marty raked the back of his hand across his damp forehead, his discomfort getting physically painful.

“Hold still,” Doc said, grabbing a handful of the bold yellow fabric from his chest.

“I’ll do my best,” Marty muttered, drawing back as much as he could.

The scientist brought the knife forward, hesitating a moment before he attempted to stab it through the fabric. The material withstood the assault for only a moment before giving way with a soft ripping sound. Doc sliced it open parallel to the frozen zipper, down to Marty’s waist before he stopped. “Is that enough?” he asked. “Can you climb out of it now?”

“I’ll sure as hell try,” Marty said, already shucking his arms out of the sleeves. “Thanks.”

Doc nodded once as he stepped back, still clutching the knife in hand. Marty quickly undid the utility belt and pulled the sad remains of the radiation suit down past his hips. Doc was still standing there. Marty glanced over at him even as his hand was fumbling with the zipper of his pants.

God, if that jams now....

“Uh... I think I’m good now, Doc.”

The inventor blinked, realizing he was being dismissed. “Oh... of course.” He left the bathroom quickly -- just in time from the teen’s point of view. Marty sighed deeply as he finally started to go, his entire body relaxing.

“Now I know why it’s called relieving yourself,” he mumbled under his breath.

After he finally finished, Marty untangled the tattered remnants of the cursed radiation suit from his legs. He couldn’t resist giving the pile of fabric a kick once it was freed of his body, annoyed by the trouble that it had given him.

Doc was bringing in the radiation hood and bag from the Packard when Marty emerged from the bathroom. “Feeling better, now?” he asked as he set the objects from the future on the hood of the DeLorean.

“Oh, yeah,” Marty said. “Sorry about that... I guess I should’ve skipped knocking back Pepsi like that before we left.” He sighed, rubbing his forehead. “I’m gonna be up all night, too, now.”

“Are you still worried about your parents?” Doc asked.

“No -- well, yeah. But I’m wide awake from all that caffeine.”

“Ah, yes. And I’m sure the sugar won’t help, either. Well....” Doc kind of shrugged. “What did you want to do with these items?” he added, gesturing to the objects on the hood of the car.

“They can go back in the DeLorean, I guess. Might as well bring back the radiation suit, too... what’s left of it, anyway.”

Once the objects from the future were placed back in the car, Doc looked at one of the clocks hanging on the wall and grimaced. “It’s quite late,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t want to try and get some sleep tonight?”

Marty checked out the clock for himself, surprised to see it was about two in the morning. Unfortunately, he still felt fairly wide awake. And he’d have to be up for school in about five and a half hours. “I’m still pretty wired,” he admitted. “There’s probably something I could do out here, right?”

Doc pursed his lips together a moment, clearly thinking. “Yes,” he finally said. “I’m going to need some small boxes and bottles for something tomorrow. If you really don’t want to go to bed quite yet, your help in collecting them together would be most appreciated.”

Marty blinked at the random request. “What for? Are you cleaning out your lab?”

“No... and you’ll see tomorrow.” Doc smiled mysteriously. The smile faded a moment later, replaced by a faint look of anxiety. “Do you think you’ll be comfortable out here doing that? I could stay out here, too, if you’re not--”

The teen cut him off before he could finish. “Doc, if you’re tired, go to bed. Don’t let me stop you.”

The scientist hesitated. “If I didn’t have such big plans for tomorrow, I wouldn’t have any reservations at seeing the sun rise. But--”

“So don’t,” Marty said. “If you’re gonna get me home, I don’t want you to make a mistake ‘cause you didn’t sleep the night before or something. Go to bed. I’ll be fine. And I won’t touch anything that looks... weird,” he added, thinking of his friend’s most repeated instruction in the future.

Doc hesitated another minute before he nodded. “All right,” he said. “Good night, Marty. Don’t stay awake all night; remember you need to go to school tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Marty muttered.

Once the inventor left for the night, Marty got started on his unusual task. He wasn’t really sure what Doc wanted, exactly, or if he cared that the bottles and boxes that the teen turned up were filled with anything. Most of the stuff he found did have things in them, but there was a surprising amount that was doing nothing more than taking up empty space. Marty stacked his finds on a table nearby after he cleared off some of the odds and ends strewn about -- diagrams and drawings, mostly, of inventions that the teen didn’t recognize. By four A.M. he had a good sized pile of things, and was starting to feel the side effects of his near all-nighter setting in.

Once he had taken care of his assigned chore, Marty climbed in the DeLorean for the bag of odds and ends, wanting to grab his Walkman before he headed out to the house. But after it was retrieved and in his hand, he paused for the first time in hours, leaning back in the driver’s seat. A sigh escaped his mouth as he glanced around the cluttered cab of the car. The time machine. The cause of all of his current problems -- and Doc’s, too.

If he hadn’t made this, he wouldn’t have borrowed the plutonium and gotten shot by the terrorists, he thought, both annoyed and sad. His eyes moved to the darkened digital time display, to the gearshift, and then over to the gauges mounted on the dashboard, above the glove compartment. There was nothing else that was quite like it here in 1955. He let his head fall back against the headrest with a yawn. A bone deep sort of weariness was sinking in, part of it no doubt due to the other stresses in his life beyond the events of the last day. The house, and his bed, suddenly seemed too distant to walk to.

Even so, there were far more comfortable places to crash in the lab, which boasted an armchair and cot, than in the modified sports car. But Marty didn’t move from the DeLorean. Closing his eyes, he could pretend he was at home... and, in fact, the car was a piece of home, a piece of 1985. It felt and smelled familiar. And so it was, with such thoughts in mind, that he drifted off into a doze. And then to sleep. And, finally, to dream.

But perhaps nightmare was a better term. In his sleep, Marty found himself back in the mall parking lot, once more witnessing the shooting of Doc. This time, though, the terrorists didn’t see him, and once they had gunned down his friend, they sped off amid cheers and whoops of success. Marty, who had been crouching behind the DeLorean, immediately ran to his friend’s side to see what there was to see.

“Doc?” he called out when he was a foot away. The inventor did not move. “Hey, Doc?”

Marty knelt down next to his side. Doc’s eyes were wide open, staring up at the night sky. He didn’t move. “No,” the teen whispered aloud, horrified, his eyes filling with tears. “No, Doc....”

Suddenly, the scientist sat up and grabbed Marty by the shoulders. Tightly. His eyes were as wild as his hair, and there was a twisted kind of grimace to his mouth, as if he were in pain. “Stop this, Marty!” he said, shaking the teen hard. “You have to stop this!”

Marty blinked in the dream. And suddenly the scene changed and it was Doc’s much younger face looming inches before his. Completely rattled, his mind not knowing what the hell was going on, what was real and what was not, Marty reacted before he could think about it.

He screamed. Loudly.

Doc flinched away, shooting to his feet and bumping his head on the sagging gullwing door of the DeLorean. Marty managed to regain control of his wits enough about then to snap his mouth shut. His heart was thudding hard against his ribs. “Sorry,” he blurted out automatically. “I’m sorry.”

The inventor stared at him wide-eyed, obviously startled himself. “Are you all right?”

Marty swallowed hard, his mouth and throat bone dry, and nodded after another moment. “Yeah,” he murmured. “You just... you scared me.”

“Well, you scared me! If you’re in the habit of waking up like that, I don’t envy your family. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Uh huh. I was just having a... bad dream.”

“Well.” Doc didn’t ask what about, instead glancing towards one of the clocks. “You’ve got about an hour before school begins. You’d better start getting ready, especially if we don’t want a repeat of yesterday.”

Marty nodded and climbed out of the car, his muscles aching a little from sleeping sitting up. His neck, in particular, had a nasty crick in it. He rubbed the back of it absentmindedly as he looked around the lab, still trying to wake up all the way. Doc had already forgotten about Marty’s unusual reaction upon awakening, busy examining the stack of boxes and other containers that he had requested the night before.

“Good,” Marty heard him mutter. “Very good....” The inventor looked up at him. “You didn’t stay up all night, did you?”

Marty shook his head once. “No. I started feeling tired around four and went in the car to get my Walkman and just decided to stay there for the night.”

Doc blinked. “Why on earth for?”

The teen shrugged, not sure if he wanted to explain. “It just... I just felt at home there, you know?”

The scientist stared at him a beat longer, then smiled faintly. “I guess that’s understandable,” he said. “But, Marty, don’t worry about returning home. I’ll get you back there. And today when you come back from school, I’ll show you exactly what I have in mind for Saturday night.”

After a shower, a change of clothes, and a breakfast of cold cereal, Marty reluctantly headed out to Hill Valley High. He walked to school, taking a detour past his father’s house just in case George happened to be leaving around the same time. After lingering for a few minutes behind one of the trees across the street, the teen came to the conclusion that he had missed him and hustled to make it to high school before the first bell rang. He was only a couple minutes tardy -- but since he was not expected in any classroom, it didn’t really matter.

Having arrived the day before in the middle of the first period, it didn’t take Marty too long to locate the classroom where his father was supposed to be. Except that when he furtively peeked through the window, George wasn’t in there at all; his seat was empty. Marty frowned at the sight, quickly scanning the other chairs in the room, hoping that maybe the teacher had just recently moved all the students in the room to new seats. But no; there was no sign of his father at all.

Shit, Marty thought, worried for the first time. He’d better be all right....

The teen had the sudden urge to call Doc to report this new development. Maybe the inventor could stop by the McFly house and see what was up. He headed for where he knew there to be pay phones, near the gym -- but turning the corner he bumped into the one person he had thus far managed to avoid confronting the day before.

Mr. Strickland.

The bald vice principal blinked in surprise at the sight of Marty. “What are you doing out of class?” he demanded immediately. Then, a moment later, his eyes narrowed, taking in more details of the seemingly tardy student. “Wait a minute... who are you?”

Marty gulped, his mind immediately blanking out. “I... uh... I’m new,” he said. “I was just trying to... find the bathroom.”

Strickland gave him one of his famous suspicious, scrutinizing looks, his eyes acting almost as a lie detector. “What’s your name?”

“Uh... Calvin Klein.”

“Well, Mr. Klein, you’d better have a hall pass on you.”

“Uh, well, I’m sorry, sir, I don’t. I didn’t know you had to have one to be out here during class.”

Strickland shook his head once and scowled, annoyed. “Who is your first period teacher?”

Marty continued to play dumb, widening his eyes in innocent confusion. “I -- I don’t know, sir. I only started school yesterday. I just needed to find a bathroom. If you can show me where one is, I’d be really grateful. And then I’ll go straight back to class.”

Strickland’s eyes narrowed once more. “Follow me,” he ordered. Marty did as he asked, trailing the older man to the restrooms near the gym. The men’s room was literally across from the gym doors -- and the pay phone booths. Marty’s eyes flickered longingly in that direction before he nearly ran right into Strickland again. The vice principal had stopped and pointed directly at the restroom door.

“There,” he said needlessly. “And if you don’t return to class straightaway, I’ll find out about it. Don’t let me catch you out here unexcused again.”

“Oh, no, sir, of course not.”

Strickland didn’t seem all that convinced. Marty could feel his gaze as he went into the bathroom. He waited in there a few minutes, just in case the vice principal was lingering outside, then cracked the door open a half inch to peer outside.

The hallway was empty.

Marty breathed a quick sigh of relief, then left the restroom and crossed the width of the hallway to slip into one of the pay phone booths. Inside, he pulled the door closed and slid way down in the seat, hoping to escape anyone noticing him if they happened to walk by. He reached into his pocket for some money Doc had given him for his stay and pulled out a quarter before he realized that phone calls now were much cheaper. Shrugging, he deposited the coin -- and then realized he didn’t have Doc’s current phone number memorized.

Fortunately, the telephone operator he contacted was most helpful and put him through. Unfortunately, the line rang and rang without any answer. Doc was either out running errands, or else in the garage -- and Marty had no clue if there was a phone installed out there yet.

He hung up after twenty unanswered rings and took out the photograph from his pocket, which he had transferred from his old clothes that morning. Linda’s head was half gone, now. Things were still getting worse, not getting better. Marty sighed, worried and frustrated. Obviously George hadn’t asked out Lorraine, yet; where the hell was he?

The teen spent the rest of the school day trying to find that answer, and his father. George was absent from the rest of the day’s classes, though Lorraine was most certainly not. Marty managed to avoid being spotted by her and making his already bad situation worse.

Like the previous day, he killed a lot of time in the library. After lunch, between his boredom, the quiet of the facility, and his exhaustion from a couple hours’ sleep the night before, Marty wound up dozing off at one of the tables, his head cradled in his arms. By a stroke of luck, no one caught him. He was startled awake by the shrill sound of the final bell of the day, and wasted little time in leaving the school, more anxious than ever to track down his father.

Marty had intended to stop by the McFly house again, and maybe knock on the door and pretend he was a friend of George’s with homework from the day’s classes, but the idea of interacting with either of his grandparents made him uneasy. What if that made things worse? As he trudged down the front steps of the school, surrounded by most of the student population, he caught sight of his mother with her friends, Babs and Betty. Surreptitiously he began to trail them, figuring that if for some inexplicable reason George decided to show up later, it might be a good idea to keep tabs on his mother to speed up the asking-out process.

Lorraine and her friends walked from school and into the town square, heading for what was apparently the teenage hangout of the day -- the cafe that Marty had stopped in when he had first arrived in 1955. He watched them go inside and take a seat at one of the tables next to the window. Good. He could keep an eye on her without going to the trouble of being in there and possibly being spotted by her or one of her friends. Feeling pleased with this development, he got a bottle of Pepsi from the Texaco on the square. The problems that the beverage had caused him the night before were all but forgotten; he needed something to boost his slumping energy.

It was about then, as he was trying to open the bottle, that he heard someone call his name. Marty turned around to see George McFly running towards him across the street. The kid nearly got slammed into by another car. His eyes were wide and frantic, his clothes disheveled, and his hair was hanging down into his eyes. “Marty,” George called again, even as he got closer. “Marty....”

The teen breathed a very heartfelt, silent sigh of relief at his appearance. So they hadn’t killed him after all. Thank God. “Hey, George, buddy, you weren’t at school,” he said casually. “What have you been doing all day?”

“I overslept,” George said, the statement sending a brief thrill of terror into Marty’s heart. Jeez. He somehow doubted Doc had intended that with the chloroform. “Look, I need your help. I have to ask Lorraine out and I don’t know how to do it.”

Marty tried not to show his pleasure in the request. So things had apparently worked out the way he’d hoped, after all. “All right, okay, keep your pants on, she’s over in the cafe.” He tried to twist the top off the bottle of soda, but the thing continued to resist his efforts. It was like it was welded on or something. He tried it again, nearly cutting his hand on the sharp metal edge of the cap. “God, how do you get--”

Without a word, George took it from his hand and reached over to pop the top off with a small bottle opener mounted on the side of the soda cooler. He handed it back to Marty, then made his way in the direction of the cafe, his jaw set in a rather stubborn line. Marty remained where he was for a second, still faintly dumbfounded by the idea that soda didn’t seem to have twist tops yet, then chased after his father.

“What made you change your mind, George?”

“Last night Darth Vader came down from Planet Vulcan and told me that if I didn’t take Lorraine out, that he’d melt my brain.”

Marty managed to keep a completely straight face at the outlandish story. “Yeah, well, uh, let’s just keep this brain melting stuff to ourselves, okay?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah....”

The teen pulled his father over to the wall next to the cafe’s window and pointed out Lorraine’s table. She was giggling with her two girlfriends over something. The beat of the jukebox could be faintly heard through the glass. “All right, there she is, George. Now just go in there and invite her.”

George took one look at her and drew back a little, fidgeting nervously. “Okay, but I don’t know what to say.”

Marty reminded himself to be patient. “Well, just say anything, George. Say whatever’s natural, the first thing that comes into your mind.”

George thought a moment. “Nothing’s coming to my mind.”

And Marty had thought the hardest part of this was behind him. “Jesus, George, it’s a wonder I was even born,” he muttered under his breath.

“What? What?”

Marty sighed, tilting his head back and rolling his eyes heavenward. “Nothing, nothing, nothing.... Look, tell her destiny brought you together. Tell her that she is the most beautiful girl you have ever seen in the world. Girls like that stuff.” He paused as he noticed his father had pulled out a notepad and was scribbling in it, his hair still drooping into his eyes. Marty hoped those weren’t notes for another sci fi story. “What are you doing, George?”

“I’m writing this down -- this is good stuff.”

Marty figured that this was enough foreplanning. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go....” He took a step forward towards the cafe doors, nudging George to follow and reaching over to push the hair out of his father’s face. “Can you take care of that?” he added.

“Oh, right...” George said, reaching up to smooth his hair back even as he still studied his “lines.”

When they reached the cafe doors, though, he hesitated just a step inside. Marty, who had planned to linger outside, sighed to himself and stepped in to give his father a small, firm push, propelling him forward toward Lorraine’s table. “Go on,” he muttered softly, then veered off to conceal himself at the crowded counter, where he could watch the proceedings unnoticed. He only wished he could get close enough to hear what would be said, but he didn’t want to risk interfering in this event any more than he had to.

George’s back was to him, but he could see Lorraine’s face fairly well. After George apparently spoke to her, she looked grossly confused. Then, a moment later she smiled -- a sweet, touched smile. Marty couldn’t help smiling himself, thinking that maybe he was beginning to see the end of his troubles.

And then, a moment later, when Biff Tannen walked in, that hope was extinguished as effectively as the music on the jukebox.