Written: February 12, 2001 - February 25, 2001
Word Count: Approximately 13,000 words
Background Notes: You might notice that this story is not on the main list. There are several reasons why it's tucked back here for die hards to find:
The plot is kinda weird and evolved in an equally odd way. One night, while chatting with Mary Jean Holmes, we were exchanging tales of BTTF dreams and I dug out some real vivid ones from back in April 1997. The only reason I remember them still, and know exactly when I dreamed them, is due to the fact I was doing a semester project on sleep in high school that entire semester and for my "creative piece" requirement, I kept a dream journal for a whole month as an experiment.
Anyway, there was a real twisted one I had one night that was sort of a strange new version of Back to the Future Part III. In this "take" on it, Marty saved Clara's life instead and, when she visited him when he was staying with Doc, he misread her intentions and kissed her on the lips. (Oddly enough, when this happened, I zipped from viewing it as a distant third person to experiancing it from Clara's perspective with my brain fully intact -- in other words, I enjoyed the kiss tremendously, but the character did not.) Clara got all embarassed at that and ended up giving Marty a pencil to thank him for saving her life. Later, she came back to talk to him about something, he was asleep, and she ended up speaking with Doc instead, the two of them hit it off, and things pretty much progressed from there on as they would in the real film.
Mary Jean commented how she could see Marty having such a twisted dream if he was sick (the subject of fever dreams came up then, how dreams people have when they're sick can be ten times more vivid and crazy than normal), and what if he read into it a little too much....? Having had such overanalytical problems myself (there is a reason I call myself The Neurotic Writer), I could definitely see such a thing happening and understand the problems it could cause, intimately. Anyway, one thing led to another, the dominos were knocked over in my head, and, well, what the hell? Some stories are just supposed to be amusing. And I hope people find this one to be, or at least parts of it, or I'm really
in trouble....
Wednesday, May 22, 1991
8:56 A.M.
Approximately Two Miles
South of Barbados
Jennifer McFly opened her eyes and smiled as she stretched lazily. Life, she thought, was good, quite good. Four days earlier she had married Marty McFly after an eighteen-month engagement and more than six years of dating. The wedding had more or less gone according to plan, with its share of unexpected, last minute bumps that the young woman supposed was normal in all weddings. After flying out to San Francisco to spend their wedding night in a nice hotel, they had caught a plane early the next morning to the Caribbean for a week-long honeymoon cruise. Although it had been raining in California when they had left, the weather here had been warm and sunny. There had been no problems on the flight, no problems checking in or boarding the ship, and things were going so perfectly that, frankly, Jennifer was astonished. She'd half expected one of them might lose their luggage or one of their flights might be delayed, at least.
Maybe we got lucky,
she thought, sitting up and glancing to her left. Marty lay at her side, still asleep, oblivious to the warm sun that was spilling across the pillows from the porthole window across the room. Jennifer studied him a moment, smiling, then leaned over to wake him. "Marty," she called softly in his ear, then moved to stir him with a kiss. Her lips were suspended just an inch above his when his eyes opened, blinked once. She smiled."Good morning," she whispered. Before she had the chance to say or do much more, however, Marty shoved her back, hard, nearly pushing her off the bed, sat up, threw the covers aside, rolled off the bed, and ran into the bathroom. Jennifer frowned as the door slammed shut behind him, annoyed and puzzled. The former emotion dissolved to worry when she heard what sounded like Marty getting sick behind the closed door.
Nice to know I have that effect on my husband,
she thought, getting out of bed to investigate the matter. "Marty?" she called tentatively through the door, knocking on it."Don't come in!" Marty said immediately, his voice weak and frantic. "I'm--" Whatever he was about to say was lost as Jennifer heard him get sick again. She made a face at the noises, but her concern did not diminish.
"Marty, I'd like to come in," she said. "I'm not going to run out of the room screaming if you're sick."
It took her husband a moment or two before he could answer again. "I don't want you to see me... like this," she heard him say, finally.
"The vows were 'in sickness and in health,'" Jennifer said. "And you're making me more nervous out here...."
"Fine. Come in. But it's not pretty."
Jennifer opened the door and stepped inside the small, narrow bathroom. Marty was kneeling next to the toilet, his forehead resting on the porcelain rim. He looked up at the sound of her entrance, his face a pale, sickly color. "Morning sickness, already?" she asked dryly. "We've only been married four days...."
"I'm sick, Jen," Marty whimpered, clearly not in the mood for teasing.
Jennifer sighed, mentally chiding herself for the bad joke. "I gathered," she said gently. She stepped over to his side and put her hand to his forehead. A frown settled on her face. "You've got a fever," she said.
"Do I?" Marty moaned softly. "I was hoping it was food poisoning. Or seasickness."
"I doubt it's the second one," Jennifer said. "It's so calm on this ship that I keep forgetting we're even at sea." She turned her hand over to feel his forehead with the back of it, trying to guess how high the fever was. Unfortunately, she couldn't even begin to get an idea. "Maybe I should call the ship's doctor," she said. "If it is food poisoning, you could still be running a fever, and that can be serious."
"Oh, man..." Marty groaned, clearly miserable. "This is-- is--" He couldn't finish, leaning over the basin and gagging instead. Wincing at her husband's clear misery, Jennifer turned and left the bathroom, heading for the phone next to the bed and the little card that listed a number of extensions and their codes. She scanned it for a moment before finding what she wished, the code for the ship's doctor, and quickly called it.
The line was busy.
"Damn," she swore softly. She stood for a moment with the buzzing receiver in hand, thinking, then set it down and reached for the complimentary terrycloth robe hanging next to the bathroom door. She slipped it on over the silk nightgown one of her friends had given her at her bridal shower, then leaned into the bathroom.
"Marty, I'm going to see if I can find a doctor myself. The line's busy. Will you be okay?"
"Hopefully," Marty whispered, raking a hand back across his damp forehead. He looked up at his wife. "I'm sorry, Jen."
"What's there to be sorry about?" Jennifer asked with a cheerfulness that was clearly false; Marty looked more miserable at her question, sighing and dropping his forehead into his hands as he continued to kneel on the floor. She stepped into the bathroom and kissed his unnaturally warm forehead. "I'll be back soon," she promised.
As she left the cabin and stepped into the hall, Jennifer sighed softly to herself, remembering the feeling of contentment that had lingered upon her just a short time before, thinking everything was turning out perfect. You just had to gloat over that, she thought, shaking her head.
* * *
Marty McFly hardly heard the door shut behind Jennifer as she left, too distracted by the misery his body was feeling. It amazed him how things could change so drastically. When he had gone to bed the night before, he had been feeling perfectly healthy and normal, happy at the way his life was right now and enjoying the first real vacation he'd had in a long time with his new wife.
His new wife.
Even feeling as ill as he was, Marty couldn't help smiling faintly at that. So far, he loved being married, though the idea that he was still caught him off guard and made him feel oddly old. The fact that Jennifer was handling his sudden illness with calmness and not freaking out made him feel even more love for her -- and a lot worse at the same time. It was her honeymoon, too, after all.Why this, why now?
Marty wondered, tentatively standing and heading to the sink. His stomach rolled at the move, but he ignored it, for now, in favor of splashing cold water on his face and the back of his neck. Of all the rotten times he could've gotten sick, this was probably one of the worst, and made all the more ironic in that he had taken a trip into the future with Doc Brown a week before his wedding to ensure he wouldn't be sick during this time.Although Jennifer was right, and it could be serious, Marty almost hoped what he had was food poisoning. At least then he wouldn't have to worry about making her sick, and he was pretty much guaranteed that it would pass in a day or so, once whatever it was that made him ill was out of his system. If it wasn't, and he had something else like the flu.... Marty groaned aloud at that idea.
After a few minutes passed without him getting sick again, Marty took a tentative drink of water then slinked back to bed, dizzy, chilled, and feeling unsteady on his feet. Jennifer returned shortly after, frowning and clearly annoyed.
"You have to go down there to get looked at," she said. "Apparently they can't spare the doctors or the time to come up here."
"Maybe I'll be okay," Marty said, forcing a smile at Jennifer. "It's probably nothing."
"Not if you're running a fever," Jennifer said. "Come on, get dressed. Save me some worrying, okay?"
Already feeling guilty about the morning, Marty did as she asked -- slowly -- without argument. On the way out the door, he had to run into the bathroom and get sick again, prompting him to start worrying about such an incident happening en route to the health clinic on the ship. Luckily, it did not, and he didn't have to wait very long before a doctor saw him. The diagnosis came fairly quickly -- not food poisoning, unfortunately, but the stomach flu. There was nothing that they could do for him, aside from giving him some over-the-counter free samples of medication that would ease his symptoms. Jennifer sighed at the news; Marty merely felt sicker.
"I'm sorry about this," he muttered to her as they returned to their room, Jennifer having to keep a steady arm around him as his dizziness had grown worse.
"It's not your fault, Marty," Jennifer said, helping him over to the bed. "It's just stupid luck."
"Maybe so," Marty agreed, "but I'm still sorry. If I wasn't puking, I could probably still leave the room...."
Jennifer shook her head hard. "You've already got a fever of a hundred and two," she said. "Get into bed and get some sleep."
Marty frowned, hating to admit to her that she was right about that. His head was pounding, now, the room felt like it kept tilting (aggravating his stomach all the more), and he was shivering one minute, than roasting the next. Even if he was able to keep the Tylenol down that they had given him, the last thing he felt like doing was strolling the deck of the ship or disembarking to the island of the day, Barbados.
"I can take care of myself," he said, sitting up on the edge of the bed as he felt another wave of nausea hit him. "I don't want you to be stuck in this room having to take care of me the rest of the trip."
Jennifer shrugged. "If I do, it's my choice," she said. "Do you need help to the bathroom?" she added, almost reading his mind.
"I can make it," Marty muttered, getting to his feet and hurrying in that direction. He did make it -- barely. When he left the bathroom -- ten minutes later, after making sure he wasn't in any immediate danger of getting sick again -- he found Jennifer looking out the small window with an expression of clear longing on her face.
"It's a beautiful day out," she said, turning as she heard him leave the bathroom. Marty dragged himself over to the bed and got under the covers, still dressed in the shorts and t-shirt he had thrown on to visit the clinic.
"Go out," Marty said, closing his eyes with a wince. "I won't hold it against you."
Jennifer sat down next to him on the edge of the bed. "I don't want to abandon you, Marty."
"You won't be abandoning me." Marty opened his eyes to look at her and rubbed his forehead, aching dully from the fever. "We're spending a lot of money on this, and you should at least be able to enjoy it, even if I can't. Take some pictures and get some video. Please, Jen. I don't want to drag you down with me."
Jennifer clearly thought about his words, her mouth slipping to a thoughtful frown. "Will you be okay?" she asked.
"I'll be fine," Marty said, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. "Go out, check out the island, and tell me all about it when you come back."
* * *
Despite feeling prickles of guilt, Jennifer left Marty in their room and spent most of the day on the island that the ship had docked at. Although the weather was wonderful and the sights were interesting, she couldn't help feeling lonely and, later in the afternoon, returned to the cabin to see how Marty was doing. He was asleep when she entered, and a gentle touch to his forehead told her that his fever was still as high, if not higher, than it was that morning. She frowned, fetched a fresh glass of cold water for him when he woke, then settled herself at the small table in the room with a stack of postcards and a can of soda. She had hardly started one to her parents before Marty stirred, opened his eyes, and noticed her in the room.
"Feeling any better?" Jennifer asked softly.
In response, he got out of bed and staggered into the bathroom. By the time he came out, Jennifer had finished her postcard, neglecting to mention the recent turn of events to her family. Marty leaned in the doorway for a long moment before offering any sort of answer to her question. "I've got dry heaves now," he explained weakly. Jennifer set aside her project and started to come over to help him back to bed, but he waved off her assistance, using instead a hand on the wall for balance.
"Have you taken anything?" she asked, concerned by the paleness of his face.
"I can't keep it down long enough for it to take effect," he muttered as he reached the bed and got back in. Jennifer deftly tucked the sheets back in around him, sympathetic.
"Get some more sleep," she advised.
"That doesn't seem to be helping too much." Marty sighed, rubbing his forehead, clearly uncomfortable and miserable. "Maybe 'cause I'm waking up every hour to get sick -- or not, as the case may be now."
Jennifer sat down on the edge of the bed and lay her hand on his cheek again. Marty smiled faintly at her touch, but she frowned once more. "You feel warmer than earlier."
"You don't." Marty sighed again, this sound a little happier. "Your hands are so nice and cool."
"And you're burning up. I'm serious. I think your fever went up."
"Can't do much about that 'til I stop giving back everything I eat or drink... Can you put your hands on the back of my neck?"
"Only if you roll over."
Marty obliged, rolling onto his stomach. Jennifer rubbed the back of his neck, and she wasn't sure how long it was before she noticed he had fallen asleep -- perhaps when she paused and he didn't immediately complain or ask why. She stared at him for a few minutes, worried but trying not to be. Finally, her stomach growling faintly from hunger, she gave him a kiss on the cheek and collected her things for a solo dinner, hoping that whatever it was her husband had would run its course by the next morning.
* * *
Although there was little else he could do, and he wasn't feeling up to doing anything else, Marty found that what sleep he was able to get was sporadic, not particularly restful, and filled with snatches and snippets of really weird dreams. The turmoil in his stomach was partially to blame for that, waking him up literally once an hour to run to the bathroom. But the fever, no doubt, was most of the reason why. Marty rarely slept well when he was sick, unless he was on death's door. And although he felt like he was now, he knew that it wasn't quite that serious.
When he woke up after drifting off as Jennifer had massaged his neck, he found the room considerably darker and himself alone, chilled, and his stomach cramping up to warn him he had a minute or two, at most, before he'd need to make another trip to the bathroom. Marty felt so crummy then that he just wanted to cry. It was his honeymoon, for god sakes! He should be having a margarita with Jennifer and watching the sun set on one of the dazzling beaches, not stuck in the cabin dizzy with fever and puking every hour. It was utterly unfair, the cruelest trick that Fate could've played.
This must be how God gets back at time travelers,
Marty thought, having wondered more than once that day if this was some sort of warped punishment for escaping the diagnosis of mono he had been given a week before the wedding and would, in fact, still have had Doc not had access to a time machine and taken him to the future to get well. He would've thought they'd already paid the price for that by spending almost a full month in the future when the DeLorean had been destroyed in an accident.After lying in bed and whimpering a little, Marty finally sat up, watched the room tilt around him, and practically crawled to the bathroom to let his stomach convulse up nothing but air. When things settled down, he remained sitting on the floor of the bathroom for a while, too weak to really bother moving back to bed when he knew that he'd have to move back to where he was, anyway, in an hour or so.
Somehow, he dozed off sitting up against the wall, and, somehow, was thrust into the middle of the past.
He was in the old west. Marty knew that at once. He smiled as he surveyed his surroundings -- the inside of Doc's old livery stable home. As he walked around, feeling pretty good, he heard a creak of protesting hinges from behind. Marty turned to see Clara step into the barn, dressed in the same lavender outfit she had been wearing the day that Doc had rescued her from an untimely death. So this was 1885, then.
"Hello, Marty," she said pleasantly, smiling. Marty returned the smile with a nod.
"Are you looking for Doc?" he asked, having not seen the scientist anywhere yet.
"No," Clara said, coming into the stable and making her way over to him. "Actually, I was looking for you."
"For me?" Marty asked. "What for?"
Clara halted just a foot shy of where he stood. "I wanted to thank you for saving my life yesterday," she said.
Marty blinked. "I didn't save your life," he said. "Doc did."
The schoolteacher shook her head firmly. "No, you're the one who did," she said. "Don't you remember?"
Marty thought about it a moment and realized he did remember doing that. How weird. He accepted the new memory with ease, however, and no questions. "No problem," he said, smiling at her. "I was glad to do it."
Clara returned the smile. She continued to stand there, smiling at him, as if she was waiting for something. So, without thinking about it, Marty leaned forward and kissed her. On the mouth. The kiss seemed to last forever before Clara stepped back, her hand to her lips and a startled look on her face. Before she or he could speak, however, the scene dissolved before his very eyes. Now, he saw Jennifer's face hovering before him, her featured strained with worry.
"Marty?" she asked softly, gently shaking his shoulder. "Marty, are you okay?"
Without thinking about it, Marty flinched away from her, the memory of his dream burned onto his brain. Oh my God, he thought, feeling sick for reasons unrelated to the flu. I just kissed Clara!
His distress and horror over that apparently showed on his face. Jennifer's face grew even more worried at his reaction. "Marty?" she asked softly, looking into his eyes. "It's Jennifer. Are you okay? Did you fall and hit your head?"
"N--no," Marty stuttered. He drew back as far as he could from Jennifer, feeling like he couldn't breathe. His stomach twisted with nausea and he knew he'd be sick again, though the reasons for this bout might not necessarily be related to the bug in his system. "I -- I'm gonna get sick again, Jen."
Jennifer immediately backed away and gave him the space he needed. He could feel the worried gaze of his wife on him as he bent over the toilet again, screwing his eyes shut as he gagged in an effort to banish the vivid pictures in his head. Instead, it seemed to bring them into sharper focus. Him. Clara. Kissing. The feel of her lips on his--
He nearly fell over at the hand laid on his back, his eyes shooting open. Jennifer stood next to him, rubbing his back. "Better now?" she asked gently.
Thought he felt anything but, Marty forced himself to nod. He allowed himself to be led back to bed by Jennifer, who was clearly quite worried about him.
"Have some water," she urged once he was tucked in. "You're still too warm, Marty. You're probably dehydrated."
"I'll just lose it later," Marty muttered, but he took a few sips to appease his wife. Jennifer sat next to him on the bed, staring down at his face and touching his cheeks, running her hands over his face. Although her hands were still wonderfully cool, her touch did nothing to make him feel better.
"What happened?" she asked after a moment. "I came back from dinner and found you in the bathroom."
"I fell asleep there," Marty said, grimacing as the dream memory surged forward again. "I didn't see the point in coming back to bed when I knew I'd be in the bathroom again in an hour... but I didn't try to sleep in there, it just happened."
"You scared me," Jennifer said, her face serious. "I thought you'd fainted and hit your head."
"No," Marty said, turning his face away from her touch, and the harsh light of the bedside lamp. "It was just sleep."
"Well, good, then."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of movement, a shadow move, and knew she was leaning down to kiss him. Marty stopped her before she could touch him. "Don't, Jen. I don't want you to get what I have."
"Trust me, Marty, there's no way I'll get out of catching it if I haven't already."
"Maybe so, but I -- I just feel crummy."
He could feel her puzzlement and a touch of hurt. "All right," she agreed after a moment. The light next to his side of the bed turned out. "Get some sleep," she said. "Maybe this will all be behind you tomorrow."
And, in some ways, it was. The fever broke in the middle of the night, and by the next morning Marty was able to eat and have what he put in his mouth stay in his stomach.
But, in other ways, it was just the beginning -- of the dreams.
Sunday, May 26, 1991
7:13 P.M.
Hill Valley, California
Jennifer scanned the crowded airport terminal with a frown, turning to look at Marty behind her.
"I don't see him," she said. "Do you think he forgot?"
Marty smiled, though his face was a little pale under the recent tan he picked up. "Doc? Forget? Doubt it. Knowing the airport, he probably had a time and a half of finding a parking space. And we did land early, remember?"
Jennifer did indeed. Not wanting to miss the inventor -- who was their ride from the airport -- she found a couple of empty chairs that gave them a good view of the surrounding area and sat down with a deep sigh. Marty followed her move. Jennifer glanced at him sidelong without him noticing, his eyes scanning and rescanning the surrounding area for a sign of their friend. He seemed jumpy to her, on edge, and as much as Marty tried to deny it, she knew better. Ever since he had gotten sick he had seemed a little... off to her. He blamed it as being a side effect from the flu, but that didn't quite wash with her; he'd had just a twenty-four hour bug that was long gone, now. It didn't explain why he flinched -- a lot -- whenever she touched him without warning. It didn't explain why he was avoiding kissing her -- the excuse that he didn't want to get her sick was ridiculous. It didn't explain his behavior the night before, where he had made a scene and ruined what was supposed to be a nice, romantic dinner for them. And it didn't explain why he was so tense today -- Marty claimed he got nervous flying, but she hadn't seen an ounce of that feeling on the way down. And she thought anyone who spent some time in flying vehicles, as Marty had with Doc Brown's time machines, couldn't possibly be skittish about flying on a jet. Frankly, she wasn't sure what was going on, but she was certain that she had gotten sick of it two days ago. If Marty didn't start acting like his old self soon, she wasn't sure what she would do.
"There he is," Marty said, standing up. Jennifer blinked, snapping out of her thoughts, and saw Emmett Brown striding their way. He smiled as he got closer to the newlywed couple.
"How was your trip?" he asked them both, reaching for a couple of the bags lying at their feet.
Jennifer raised an eyebrow at Marty as she looked over at him, wondering how he was going to handle this question. Marty looked at her a moment, then turned to face Doc. "It could've been a little better," he admitted.
"Oh?" Doc asked, curious. "What happened?"
The story was relayed as they headed to the baggage claim to collect their suitcases, then out to the Brown's minivan in the parking lot. Doc was quite sympathetic and immediately dismissed Marty's comment of his flu being a form of payback for escaping mono.
"Likely you caught it at the wedding," he said. "Stress can weaken the immune system, and you must've interacted with dozens of friends and family, hugging them and giving and receiving kisses."
At the mention of kisses, Marty immediately stiffened up and his face, which had gained back some color, paled again. Jennifer stared at him, frowning, but the scientist, busy trying to merge his vehicle with the others leaving the airport parking lot, was oblivious.
"Maybe," Marty finally said, his voice slightly unsteady. That snagged Doc's attention. He looked at Marty, belted into the passenger seat.
"Are you all right, Marty?" he asked.
"Fine," Marty said, putting a smile on his face. The expression was beyond false to Jennifer and she sighed inwardly. Doc either did not notice or he decided to accept the response. At any rate, he dropped the subject, changing it to the couple's trip, asking what they had done and seen.
When they arrived at their new home, a one bedroom apartment in a new development, Doc helped them unload their belongings from the car, extended an invitation for the two of them to come over for dinner Friday night, then left. After he was gone, Jennifer couldn't resist trying a little experiment, wanting to clear the air between her and Marty and get to the bottom of his odd behavior. While Marty was searching through the cabinets in the kitchen for something to snack on -- the airplane dinner had been questionable, at best -- she snuck up behind him, grabbed him by the shoulder, spun him around, and kissed him firmly on the mouth.
Marty's reaction was immediate and violent; he simultaneously jumped back and pushed Jennifer away, hard. As she stumbled back into the sharp edge of the kitchen counter, Marty's feet tangled with the legs of one of the kitchen chairs and down he went, taking a hard landing bottom first on the tiles.
The couple stared at each other a long moment, neither moving. Jennifer's eyes were filled with hurt, anger, and tears. Marty looked oddly terrified. "What's wrong with you?" she finally burst out, the words shrill.
"Nothing," Marty responded automatically from the floor.
"Nothing? Jesus, Marty, that wasn't nothing! You acted like I was trying to kill you or something!"
"Jennifer, I swear it's not you! It's just -- me. I'm just a little... stressed... from everything."
"I've seen you under a hell of a lot of stress before, and you've never acted like this." Jennifer blinked hard, trying not to lose her composure now. "Are you afraid of being married? Is that it?"
"No! God, no, not at all!"
Jennifer stared at him a long moment, her eyes narrowed. She sniffed softly. "Fine," she said, lowering her voice. "I think that until you've got... whatever it is out of your system, maybe I should stay with my parents. It hurts me too much to see you flinch every time we touch."
That said, she turned and headed out of the kitchen, grabbing her purse from where she had dropped it by the door. Still fighting back tears, she opened the front door and slammed it shut behind her as hard as she could as she strode out to her car. She didn't drive directly to her parents' house, however; she paid a visit to Doc, first, hoping that he might offer an answer to her new husband's obvious problem -- whatever it was.
* * *
Emmett listened carefully as Jennifer told her story to him. When the young woman had unexpectedly showed up, near tears, he had led her out to the lab and his loft study for privacy in the matter that she wanted to talk to him about. When Jennifer finished her tale, he was silent a long moment as he thought.
"Do you think this has anything to do with the trip to the future you both took?" she asked when the scientist didn't immediately offer any guesses.
Doc leaned back in his desk chair as he considered the question, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Offhand, no," he said. "Marty seemed fine at the wedding. Was that just an illusion?"
Jennifer shook her head. "No, he was fine -- until the day he got sick. Since then, he's been freaking out and I don't know why. He says everything is fine, but that is such a lie."
"If something is bothering him, I certainly don't know what it is. I only saw him this evening when I picked up the both of you. You say he panics whenever you try to kiss him?"
"And anything else. Whenever I even touch him he tenses up. I can't believe how nuclear he went when I kissed him tonight, though. It was like I was some kind of stranger to him." Her eyes filled with tears once again at the memory. "He says it's not me, but that seems like a pretty lame excuse."
"I imagine so." Doc was silent another minute. "Aside from this, have you noticed any other unusual bits of behavior? Has there been anything that you think Marty might've read or seen or experienced?"
Jennifer closed her eyes as she thought. "I don't think he's been sleeping well," she said after a moment. "He's woken me up more than once the last few days from tossing and turning too much."
Doc blinked, as if something just occurred to him. "If something is bothering him greatly, I wouldn't be surprised," he said. "And if it's keeping him from sleeping well, I'd almost bet that he's dreaming about whatever it is."
Jennifer looked at him rather puzzledly. "At the risk of sounding rude, Doc, how does that matter?"
The scientist smiled at the newlywed. "Not much, unless you can see what's going on in his head... literally." Upon the deepening puzzlement on her features, he elaborated a little. "Come on, I'll show you."
Doc left his chair and headed down the stairs to the lab and over to a large locked cabinet where he kept a number of smallish inventions and projects that were in various states of completion, things he wasn't actively pursuing enough to keep out on the tables and in the open. After a brief search, he found what he was looking for and hauled it out onto a less cluttered portion of his worktable. Jennifer watched as he pulled out a tangle of wires connected to what looked more or less like a flexible headband or sweatband that athletes might wear while working out -- and, in fact, Doc had purchased it from the athletic store at the mall.
"What is that?" she predictably asked.
"This is something I made about five years ago for Verne when he had nightmares. I've used it on Marty, too, when he was having those odd Titanic dreams -- remember?"
"I do," Jennifer said, sounding surprised. "I totally forgot you had this, Doc."
"It's not exactly something that gets a lot of common use," the inventor admitted. "But this could give you some insight to Marty's problem if he's as stubborn as I suspect he's being with this whole thing. It is rather invasive, however...."
"If this keeps up, I don't really care," Jennifer said flatly. "How does it work?"
Doc gave her a quick demonstration on his laptop computer, which had the software he'd written for the device installed on it. It was fairly simple to teach and even simpler to use. Jennifer smiled as she got the hang of it, looking over at Doc with an almost mischievous expression on her face.
"So, I'm assuming you're going to loan this to me to see what's bothering Marty. Sneaky. But I like that."
"If all else fails," Doc clarified. "You might want to wait a day or two to see if this is something temporary. Maybe being back home will help him get over whatever it is that's bothering him."
"If not, though, I'm using this," Jennifer said, her tone leaving no room for argument. "This is too big for Marty to keep to himself." She sighed a little. "I just hope that he is dreaming about this problem, whatever it is. Or I guess this thing won't really do much, will it?"
* * *
Jennifer had nothing to worry about. Although she and Doc didn't know it, dreams were precisely Marty's problem. And the more he tried to fight it, the worse it got.
He'd had bad dreams before, of course. Bad enough that he had tried to avoid sleeping. Bad enough that he had wondered if he was going crazy. Bad enough to make his time awake equally miserable as his time spent asleep. But this recent crop of nocturnal visions was ten times worse than any of the other nightmares he'd had combined.
The night he'd still been sick, after that first disturbing nightmare with Clara and him, Marty had had another one. This second dream had run a lot like the first, except in this one Marty hadn't rescued Clara, she had come looking for Doc, and the scientist had walked in on them mid-embrace. The shock of seeing the expression on his friend's face -- a mixture of hurt and disgust -- startled him awake like a bucket of ice water and, after that, he found it hard to rest. One dream, he supposed, was explicable. Having a second hours after the first, though, dipped into the realm of being a sign of serious problems.
Although he was pretty much well the next day -- though he felt sore and a little weak from getting sick so much the day before -- the memory of the dream continued to tease and haunt him, coming to surface at the most inconvenient and unwanted times. Or, specifically, whenever Jennifer touched him, especially when she tried to kiss him, hug him, or have any kind of physical contact with him. Tried being the operative word, of course, because he'd slip away as quickly as he could before contact came and, with it, a splash of too vivid dream memories of him and Clara together. Each time he escaped, he saw hurt and confusion flash across his new bride's face. Although she had asked him multiple times if anything was wrong, Marty knew there was no way he could tell her. There was no way he could tell anyone, not unless he wanted people to think he was some sicko pervert who really was harboring secret desires for his best friend's much older wife.
But I'm not!
Marty frequently thought.The disturbing dreams continued Friday night -- not one but three, all involving him and Clara kissing in some manner. By the time he woke up -- before the sun rose -- Marty was sure he was going crazy. He got up and, after a long shower, went out to the deck of the ship, leaving Jennifer still asleep in the room. He stood outside in the warm, humid air for a long time, watching the sky grow lighter and the sun kiss the horizon. His mind was far away from the sights, however, as he sipped a black, bitter coffee and tried not to think.
Trying not to think backfired Saturday night, when Marty had the brilliant but misguided notion that alcohol might ease his major anxiety and racing thoughts. So, before a long planned romantic dinner with Jennifer, in the ship's most elegant restaurant, he went to the bar and had a half dozen shots to help him relax. By the time his wife joined him at their table, he was feeling pretty good and loose -- and kept forgetting they were in a place where loud voices and boisterous behavior was neither appreciated or tolerated. Before their dinner came, one of the maitre 'd asked Marty to leave and, way past tipsy, he stood up and told the man where he and his fancy dishes, prices, and accent could go, then grabbed Jennifer's hand and pulled her out of there. Jennifer was so furious with him that she locked herself in their bathroom for several hours, ordering him in a deadly cold voice to leave her alone. Marty passed out in their bed not long after, still fully dressed in the suit he'd had to wear to dine in that establishment, and woke up around three after the worst nightmare yet -- Clara had kissed him, this time, and he had been more than a willing participant. The too clear memories of that, combined with a wicked hangover, prompted him to stagger into the bathroom and experience a rerun of Wednesday morning.
By the time Jennifer rose, around eight, Marty had gotten most of it out of his system, took a handful of Tylenol to curb his throbbing head, and apologized profusely for the night before. Jennifer had been a little cool to him, though, as they packed up, left the ship, and caught their plane back home. Her sudden embrace in the kitchen had come as a complete shock to him, and he was incredibly embarrassed at the way he had reacted to it, and her. The memory of the look on her face at that moment came to haunt him just as much as the damned dreams.
Marty sighed, miserable, as he flipped his way through the channels on the new TV that had been a wedding gift from Jennifer's grandparents. His wife had been gone several hours, now, and, last he checked, she had not yet arrived at her parents' home. Where is she? Marty wondered, trying hard not to worry. His mind was occupied with a number of unsettling possibilities when the sound of a knock at the door brought a welcome distraction.
"Jennifer?" he wondered aloud, turning the TV off as he got up from the armchair. It wasn't Jennifer standing on the other side of the door, however; it was Doc.
"Good evening, Marty," he said.
"Doc?" Marty blinked, wondering if he had fallen asleep in the chair and this was another bizarro dream. Would he turn around and find Clara behind him, smiling or about to kiss him? He cast a quick, hurried glance behind him, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, before asking the inventor, "What are you doing here?"
The inventor shrugged casually, stepping inside without an invitation. "You've come by my home at a number of odd hours without warning over the years. I just thought I might return the favor, now."
Marty stared at him as he shut the door. "I suppose," he agreed. "But, really, why are you here?"
Doc smiled faintly. "Have a seat, Marty. I'd like to talk with you."
For one utterly horrible moment, Marty was sure that, somehow, Doc knew -- he knew exactly what had been going on in his head and he was about to... Marty wasn't sure. Yell at him about it? Threaten to tell Jennifer? Order him to see a psychologist? Disown their friendship? He broke out into a cold sweat just thinking about it and could hardly look at his friend as he took a seat on the edge of the couch.
"Yeah?" he asked tentatively.
There was a long pause -- too long, from Marty's view. As he waited, his mind skipped over all that he had seen and experienced in those nasty dreams and he felt even more uncomfortable around Doc. "Is there something you'd like to talk about?" the scientist finally asked.
"No," Marty said quickly. "Why?"
"You seem a little... uptight and tense for someone who just got back from a vacation, especially a honeymoon."
"It's been a crazy month," Marty said, lying just a little. "Going back to work after it all is going to be kind of a pain. And, you know, I gotta get up early tomorrow, so I should probably turn in soon.... I'm still set on East Coast time."
"I suppose it would feel about one in the morning to you, now," Doc said. He didn't leave, though, not quite yet. "Are you sure there's nothing to talk about? Something that you aren't comfortable speaking with Jennifer about?"
Marty studied Doc for a moment through narrowed eyes, a little confused. Then things clicked into place -- sort of -- for him. "Did Jennifer talk to you or something?" he asked.
Doc hesitated for a moment. "She stopped by for a visit," he said. "She's quite upset, Marty. What's going on with you? Are you having post-wedding jitters, now? Are you still bothered by what we saw in the future?"
"No.... I'm fine. I'm just a little stressed out. It's not her and it's not marriage, Doc -- trust me."
Doc hesitated again, suddenly looking faintly uncomfortable. "You aren't having any problems with... well...."
Marty immediately caught the drift of what he was implying and felt his face suddenly burn for dual reasons -- one being that Doc was even asking such a personal question and the other being the disturbing memories of the dreams. "No!" he said immediately. "Everything's fine. Don't worry, Doc."
"I don't think they are fine, or Jennifer wouldn't be staying over at her parents' tonight," Doc said. "I think something is bothering you and I think that the only way you might feel better is if you tell someone what that might be."
Marty remained stubborn, though, in keeping the dreams to himself. Doc was probably the last person he wanted to confess them to. Just thinking about them made him blush; the symptom was magnified times ten worse thinking about them with Doc sitting a few feet away. Verbally talking about it was out of the question. "Doc, I'm fine, I swear."
His friend studied him a moment, then got to his feet with a sigh. "All right, Marty. I'll let you go, now." He headed for the door before the young man could stand and escort him out. "Have a nice evening. And if you want to talk about something, anything, feel free to drop by or pick up the phone and call."
Marty nodded, said good night, and watched him leave. He let out a deep sigh, sinking back into the couch, and hoping like mad that tonight might bring him a nice reprieve from the Dreams From Hell. Maybe being back home was just the remedy for him.
Wednesday, May 29, 1991
1:47 A.M.
Two days after her conversation with Doc, Jennifer drove herself over to the Brown home after work and personally picked up his little dream reader creation with the inventor's full blessing. Marty had grown even more impossible to deal with since their return home -- a possibility that she actually found hard to believe -- and she felt fully justified in taking advantage of him without his consent. If he got mad, so be it; she'd had her own share of hurt and anger since their honeymoon. Frankly, her job at the radio station was the only thing keeping her sane. The only reason she had come back to the apartment so soon, after spending Sunday night at her old home, had been to keep her parents from asking any nosy questions, and in the hope that Marty would actually settle down to being sane again now that they were in familiar surroundings.
Jennifer knew reading his mind, such as it was, wasn't going to be as easy as Doc made it sound. Drugging Marty to ensure he would be oblivious to her work, or else using the sleep inducer from the future on him, would hinder the process in provoking an unnatural sleep, Doc had explained, one that may or may not include reaching the dream state of sleep. And him sleeping "naturally" was a bit of a pain, too. Marty had spent the night before on the couch, a move that Jennifer was all but sure was done purposely, though he claimed he had just fallen asleep there during "The Tonight Show." She was sure she'd heard him get up more than once that night, prowling around the apartment. And if the circles under his eyes and the generally tired look he'd had on his face all day was any indication, she was not imagining things.
She had managed to sneak the bit of equipment Doc had loaned her for the project into the apartment without Marty noticing, setting it in the closet next to the front door under a couple of winter coats. Then, after a strained dinner and another failed attempt by Jennifer to draw out what was clearly bothering her spouse, Marty had turned his attention to writing some songs in their dining room and she had gone into their bedroom to brood and figure out how she was going to pull off what she wanted to do. She finally went to bed around ten, needing to rise at five A.M. for her shift at the station, and a check on Marty before she turned in found him still hard at work at the table, scribbling things on paper.
"Coming to bed soon?" she asked after watching him a moment.
"Later," he replied, clearly distracted.
Jennifer watched him another moment or two, then headed back down the hall, thinking. After a bit of debate, she set her alarm clock to go off around one, hoping that her husband might be asleep then -- and, if he was and in bed with her, that the sound wouldn't wake him, too.
When the alarm did go off, she caught it on the third beep. Jennifer sat up and looked to her right, but that side of the bed was still empty and untouched. She listened a moment, hearing nothing but silence, then slipped out of bed, opened the door, and padded down the hallway. Lights were still on in the living room and dining room. She found Marty still at the table, but exhaustion had clearly claimed him; unless he was faking, he'd fallen asleep, his head resting on one of his arms. Jennifer looked at him a moment, circled around him as quietly as she could, then figured that she might as well take her chance now.
Moving quickly but quietly, she crept over to the closet, eased it open, and brushed aside the coats to access the laptop computer and wired headgear. Jennifer picked it up and brought it over to the dining room table, setting it down as quietly as she could, hoping that Marty wouldn't wake from the vibrations as it settled on the table. Luckily, he didn't. Jennifer quickly booted up the machine, sensitive to even the faint click of the keys as she opened the proper program and got everything set up.
Then came the very tricky part for her: physically getting the headband onto Marty without waking him. Although he could be a heavy sleeper sometimes, lately, it seemed that the faintest touch made him jump -- even when he was asleep. Jennifer bit her lower lip as she thought, once more examining him from all angles. Finally, she gently touched his forehead, holding her breath. Marty didn't move and his breathing -- slow and deep -- did not change. Well, she thought, might as well try it. She stretched out the band as much as she could, slipped it over the top of his head, then gently relaxed it until it was fit snugly across his forehead and around to the back of his head. Marty stirred a little at the touch of the sensors and Jennifer was sure he was going to open her eyes and start yelling at her in a minute. Instead, he turned his head a little and grew still once more. She let out a great rush of breath, then hurried over to the computer to see what she could.
Disappointment struck her as she got a look at the screen. Doc had explained, briefly, what the displays would show and, so far, Marty wasn't dreaming. He was in the phase before REM, however, so she remained hopeful. She sat and stared at the screen for a while, then, feeling faintly ridiculous, decided to take a break and have a snack. She had just returned to the table with a bowl of grapes when the screen flickered and started to spit out words. Jennifer almost dropped her bowl in her haste to get a look -- and when she started to read, she couldn't believe it.
"Oh my God," she whispered.
* * *
Marty stood in a dimly lit room, looking outside through a window. At a touch on his shoulder, he turned around and saw Clara standing just an arm's length away. He also got a better look at his surroundings -- he was in Doc's lab. For some reason the room was lit with candles -- not a single electrical light burned. A power outage, Marty figured immediately, and with the faintest of concern. He figured Doc might be a little paranoid about starting a fire with so many open flames about.
"Clara," he said.
Clara smiled. "Emmett's not here, Marty," she said. "He sent me to tell you that."
"Did he?" Marty asked, smiling. He stepped closer to the woman and slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her close to him. "I guess that means we don't have to worry about anyone interrupting us, then."
Clara giggled softly, the sound girlish and her breath tickling his cheek. "What are you talking about, Marty?" she asked.
"This," Marty said, and kissed her deeply on the mouth. His heart raced at the feel of her lips, at the sensation, and it took his breath away. So much that he felt like he couldn't get it back. He pulled away suddenly, looking at Clara. She smiled at him, but the expression on her face made his stomach twist for some reason. "Something's wrong..." he murmured aloud, his heart skipping even harder.
* * *
Jennifer had both of her hands over her mouth in an attempt to stifle the laughter that wanted desperately to escape. Her eyes watered and her entire body trembled as she reread the words spit out from Marty's dream. Oh my God! she thought. He's dreaming about kissing Clara?!? Is that all?!
Marty moaned softly and started to stir as his dream self told Clara that something was wrong. He was going to wake up -- and, now knowing what she did, Jennifer didn't particularly want to be caught "eavesdropping" into his head. She had maybe thirty seconds before he'd open his eyes and see her. Quickly, she held her breath and bit her tongue, hard, hoping that would stop her from bursting into laughter. Then, pain darting through her mouth, she removed her hands from her lips, slammed down the screen of the computer, quickly tugged the headgear off Marty, then dived under the table, hugging the computer and wires to her chest. A moment later, she heard Marty wake up, gasping for air like a man drowning.
"Not again!" he moaned aloud, standing up. Jennifer held her breath and held deathly still as she watched her husband hurry away from the table, out of the dining room and go into the kitchen. She heard the sink turn on and the sound of water splashing. Jennifer's mind raced as she huddled under the table, thinking about how she could get out from where she was without Marty catching her. The apartment was so small; unless he went back into their room or into the bathroom, there was no way she could move from where she crouched without catching his eye.
After a moment, Marty shut off the water. Jennifer heard him breathing hard, as if he had just jogged a mile, then his footsteps abruptly headed off, in the direction of the front door. It opened and closed softly, then there was silence. Jennifer waited a minute, and when she was sure she was alone in the apartment, she crept out from under the table, quickly moved towards the closet, dumped the equipment there, quickly concealed it with the coats again, then quickly hurried back to the bedroom.
Once under the covers and safe from any suspicion, Jennifer turned her face into her pillow and laughed long and hard about what she had found out. She supposed she could understand why Marty was reacting the way he was if he was having dreams like that, especially if they had started up on their honeymoon. She could also understand why he might be reluctant, at best, to tell her or Doc about them. Still, Jennifer couldn't help the utterly mischievous thought that ran through her head as a way of getting back at him for his behavior as of late. She smiled slyly in the dark and hoped that Doc would cooperate.
* * *
"Well, yes, this definitely explains a lot," Doc said the next evening, when Jennifer had come by to drop off the equipment and show him Marty's dream. The scientist couldn't resist smiling as he scrolled back over the brief text of the dream. "So, Marty's dreaming about Clara...."
"Yeah," Jennifer said with a chuckle. "That's probably the last thing I expected to see."
"I don't think that means anything," Doc said. "If he had this dream while he was sick, it could explain a lot. Fever dreams -- at least the ones I've had -- tend to have an extreme realism to them. If you add into that stress he might've been feeling due to him being sick on your trip, or perhaps just from being newly married, I can definitely see him reading into the dream far more than he needs to."
"I don't think they mean much, either," Jennifer agreed. "I think the whole thing is hysterical, actually, probably because Marty is taking them so seriously." She smiled. "Which reminds me -- I have a rather wicked idea I think we should try...."
She explained it quickly. When she had finished, Doc was silent for a moment as he thought. "That's almost mean, Jennifer," he said. "Marty is already in a delicate state."
"Maybe so, but if he's going to take this so seriously and read into it more than is healthy, maybe this will teach him a nice lesson. And he shouldn't keep something like this to himself, anyway, not if it's going to bother him as much as it has."
"I'll agree with you on that point," Doc said thoughtfully. "Marty does have a rather bad habit of internalizing things -- and even several brushes with death from such a habit hasn't made a dent in stopping it." The inventor thought another moment, then shrugged. "Well, why not?"
Thursday, May 30, 1991
8:12 P.M.
Marty was positive that he was going insane. It had been a week -- a very long week -- since he had first been visited by The Clara Nightmares, as he was coming to think of them, and there seemed to be no sign of them stopping. The dreams pretty much had the same thing happen -- he would be somewhere, Clara would show up, and either he would kiss her or vice versa; at any rate, in the dream, he enjoyed it a lot. Usually he woke up right after that, his heart racing and his mouth dry -- from panic, not passion.
He couldn't talk about it with Jennifer. He couldn't talk about it with Doc. And there was no way he could tell anyone else -- not his family, not his friends, not his co-workers. Hiding his "problem" was becoming an increasing challenge as the dreams continued. Even the people he worked with, that he barely really knew and spent any time with outside of the job, were starting to pull him aside and ask him if he was okay. Jennifer was practically not speaking to him now, he could hardly speak to Doc without feeling like running far, far away -- and he hadn't even seen Clara since he came home, thank God.
But Thursday night, Doc called and asked him to come over. He needed help with a project of some kind, and the other members of his family were all busy. Marty couldn't think of a legitimate excuse to say no, and he already felt bad for deliberately avoiding the scientist all week. Frankly, he had no idea what tomorrow would be like, since he and Jennifer had planned to have dinner with the Browns. Marty wondered if he could get away with faking sick to get out of it -- but he knew the move would probably hurt Jennifer even more and make Doc really wonder what was going on.
So he headed over to the Browns' after leaving a note for Jennifer, who had called to say she was going to be home late, something to do with a big project at work. Doc had told him to go out to the lab, where he would be waiting. But when Marty got out there, he found he was able to get into the lab but there was no one inside it. Very, very weird, considering Doc's paranoid security habits.
"Yo, Doc!" Marty called after arriving inside. "Are you in here?"
There was no answer. Marty half expected that the scientist might be up in his loft study, but the lab remained silent. He frowned, a little worried, but a moment later he heard footsteps coming into the lab behind him. He turned, expecting it to be Doc, but instead found himself looking at Clara. The older woman smiled, oblivious to the sudden blanching of Marty's face.
"Hello, Marty," she said, shutting the door behind him. "Emmett wanted me to let you know he'll be a little late. I sent him off on an errand to the store."
"Okay," Marty said, his voice cracking. He took a deep breath and told himself to keep calm, that he was being ridiculous. Clara still seemed oblivious to his discomfort, treading deeper into the room, closer to where Marty stood, his back pressed up against one of the worktables.
"How was your honeymoon?" she asked innocently.
"All right," Marty said, watching her warily. Clara continued to move closer to him, her eyes locked on his.
"Emmett and I never had a honeymoon," she said, a touch of remorse in her voice. "Traveling back in those days was considerably more challenging than today."
"Yeah, that's what Doc said." Marty tensed up as she came closer, scooting over an inch or two against the table. At the back of his mind he started to wonder if this was a dream, too, if he had fallen asleep or something in the lab while waiting for Doc and this was all in his head.
"Is something wrong?" Clara asked as she reached his side, her face concerned. "You're quite pale, Marty. Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm fine!" Marty said, the words coming out at close to a squeak. He leaned as far as he could away from Clara, his heart skipping uncontrollably. She was way too close to him, and the memories of all the dreams overwhelmed his brain, turning up details he hadn't even recalled until then. Too many details he didn't want to remember. This is too creepy! Marty thought, having to restrain himself from bolting out of the lab. The only thing that kept his feet rooted where they were was the knowledge that if he ran, he'd have more explaining to do than he wanted to consider.
Clara, meanwhile, didn't accept his response. She came even closer to him, reaching out a hand to his face. Marty jumped back, sliding onto the table, knocking aside a stack of papers and a couple of tools in his haste. Clara looked even more concerned as Marty pressed his back up against the wall, wishing that it was possible for him to slip right through it and out of this room. A cold sweat broke out across his forehead.
"Marty, what's wrong?" she asked softly. "You're looking at me as if I'm about to bite you."
Marty tried to smile but the expression came closer to a grimace. "I"m fine, Clara," he said. "Really."
"If you don't tell me what's wrong, I can't help you," she said.
"There's nothing wrong!" Marty insisted, a little irritated by that question by now. Clara frowned, clearly doubting the words. She reached out and touched Marty's face, as if checking for a fever, before Marty could stop her. At the feel of her hand against his cheek, he freaked out, lunging forward, off the table (knocking an assortment of things to the floor), and running halfway across the room before he regained enough of his senses to stop. Clara stared at him as if he was an alien from another planet.
"Marty, what's wrong?" she asked, walking rapidly to where he stood.
"Nothing!" Marty snapped. "Just -- just give me some space, okay?"
Clara didn't stop. "Why?" she asked. "Are you ill?"
You might say that,
Marty thought. In fact, you might say I'm really sick -- in the head. Jesus. His heart raced uncontrollably and he was teetering on the edge of full blown panic. Where the hell was Doc, anyway? "I'm fine," he said again, unconvincingly, taking a step back. The back of his heel caught something on the ground, and he stumbled back, falling ungracefully into some boxes Doc had stacked in the room, filled with God knew what. His weight knocked the boxes to the floor with a most unnerving crash. Clara darted to his side in an instant as Marty winced, sitting up."Are you okay?" she asked, leaning in close to his face -- too close for Marty's tastes. His heart raced anew as image after image danced through his head, multiple memories from dreams of him leaning in to kiss her at this close distance. He felt dizzy and breathless from the panic -- what if he did do that? Or what if she kissed him? He moaned softly, but before he dared move or say a word, he heard the lab door open behind him. He turned his head just enough to see Doc, followed closely by Jennifer, come into the room. Doc frowned at the sight that greeted him -- his wife on her knees, leaning over a half sprawled Marty.
"What's going on here?" he demanded, looking annoyed. Jennifer blinked at the sight as well, her eyes widening.
"Marty!" she demanded. "What are you doing?"
Explanations whirled through his mind, but didn't reach his vocal cords. Marty looked at the faces of his wife and his friend, looked back at the looming face of Clara, then did the only thing he could in his high-strung state.
He fainted.
* * *
Doc and Jennifer had been watching the proceedings in the lab through one of the windows, unnoticed by Marty. When the scientist had approached his wife the night before about the little joke that Jennifer had come up with, she had been reluctant to participate, though rather amused by the news of Marty's dreams and his reaction to them. Clara had agreed only when Doc had assured her that she wouldn't have to act any differently than she usually did towards their friend, and she suggested that perhaps she could even pry the explanation of his skittish behavior out of him. Doc thought that was farfetched, at best, but agreed to have her give it a go.
Doc hated to admit it, but the way Marty had reacted when Clara had come into the lab, alone, was almost funny. Jennifer snickered a little from his side, but when it was clear that he was truly terrified, it stopped being very amusing. "God," Jennifer remarked as her husband ran halfway across the room to get away from Clara, "he can be so stubborn. Why doesn't he just admit what's wrong to Clara? Hiding it is making him look worse than admitting it might."
"Marty has been stubborn as long as I've known him," Doc said. "We'd better make our entrance now before he runs out of there."
The expression on poor Marty's face at the sight of his best friend and his wife walking in, just as Clara was leaning in close to get a good look at his face, was one of pure terror and guilt, as if he had just been caught committing robbery or murder and was about to be executed. Doc didn't have to act too hard to summon an appropriate expression of shock on his face at the sight of Clara and Marty -- Marty's clear state of panic over Clara's innocent intentions was surprising enough to him. But, despite it all, he was honestly stunned when, after uttering his question for an explanation on what was going on, Marty fell back to the floor, out cold.
"Marty!" Jennifer exclaimed, running to his side, Doc a step behind her. Clara looked at her husband, clearly baffled, as he knelt beside her and the young man.
"I didn't do anything out of the ordinary, Emmett," she said. "You're right, though, he did react strongly."
"Too strongly," was Doc's opinion as he quickly examined Marty. "His pulse is racing. Clara, can you get some water?"
Clara hurried off to the house to do the job requested of her as Jennifer repeatedly touched Marty's face and cheeks, gently patting them. "Doc, he's white," she said, sounding almost scared.
"That can happen if you're under stress enough to faint," Doc said. "I've got some smelling salts around here somewhere...." He went off in search of them as Jennifer remained by Marty's side, trying to prod him awake with shaking, gentle slaps, and calling his name. When a couple of minutes passed and none of that worked, she sat back and looked to the scientist, who was still rummaging around boxes and shelves in search of the first aid kid he knew was around somewhere.
"This is my fault," she said softly. "Maybe this was too drastic a thing to do to him. I had no idea that this would happen."
"Neither did I," Doc said as he finally found what he was looking for, tucked under one of the worktables. "But I think it might be for the best, too. Marty couldn't hide this forever, and clearly the problem was growing worse for him, not better."
"Maybe so," Jennifer agreed. "But I think he might kill me when he finds out what I decided to do." She grimaced.
Doc opened the kit, found what he wanted, and brought the smelling salts to Marty's side just as Clara returned with both a glass of water and a bowl of it, complete with a washcloth. "It might be best if you're not the first thing Marty sees when he wakes," Doc told Clara gently as she crouched next to his side. She nodded in understanding and headed for the door.
"Let me know how he is, Emmett," she said on her way out. Doc promised he would, then leaned over to wave the salts under Marty's nose. He was able to resist the smell for only a moment before he started to cough and his eyes opened. Jennifer, holding onto his hand, gave it a squeeze as he woke.
"What happened?" Marty asked fuzzily, blinking up at the pair of faces above him.
"You fainted," Doc said matter-of-factly. "Really, Marty, you should've told Jennifer about your dreams about Clara. Or told me, for that matter."
Marty froze, his eyes widening. He sat up, despite the hand Jennifer extended to prevent him from doing so. "How do you know about that?" he blurted out.
Jennifer cleared her throat. "Ah, well, that's my doing," she admitted when her husband shifted his eyes to look at her. "Doc loaned me that dream reader gizmo he made and I took a peek inside your head last night."
Marty drew back from her, quickly. "You did that without telling me?" he asked, sounding both horrified and angry. "Jennifer! That's a violation of my privacy!"
"Well, you're violating one of the promises we made to each other on our wedding day," Jennifer shot back immediately. "To be honest with one another and not keep anything from each other. And this was a biggie, Marty."
Marty blinked, the anger on his face vanishing. "The last thing I wanted to tell you on our honeymoon was that I was dreaming about making out with Clara." His face flushed with color at the words, and he cast a quick, uneasy look at Doc, as if he expected the scientist to lunge for his throat.
Doc couldn't help smiling, however. "Was that all you were doing?" he asked. "Kissing her?"
Marty nodded miserably and reluctantly. "On the mouth," he said, his cheeks flushing a deeper crimson.
Doc started to laugh; Marty frowned. "It's not funny, Doc! It's gross! I like Clara and all, but not like that. Never like that!"
"Dreams are dreams, Marty," Doc said, doing his best to choke back the rest of his laughter. "I don't think you really want to do that with my wife. Especially considering your reaction to the dream and to her just being in the same room with you."
"Doc's right, Marty," Jennifer added. "I don't think those dreams mean anything and I don't think something's wrong with you because of them."
"Then why do I keep having them?" Marty wanted to know, sounding frustrated. "When I've had the same dreams before, they've always meant something...."
"If you're worrying about this as much as I think you are, it's no wonder you're having repetitive dreams," Doc said. "And I'm sure that's it, nothing more."
"Really?" Marty asked, sounding cautiously hopeful.
"I'm positive," Jennifer said before Doc could confirm his hope. "If I'm worried about something it always gets into my dreams. You have no idea how many anxiety dreams I had about our wedding the few weeks before it."
"But why am I dreaming about this?!" Marty got to his feet shakily, pushing away Jennifer's assistance. "It's sick and twisted!"
"My guess is that it's due to stress," Doc said, standing and watching Marty as the young man fidgeted about the room, clearly uneasy. "If you had the first dream while ill -- which I'm guessing you did, since that was when you first reacted strongly to Jennifer -- it was probably a great deal more vivid from the fever and therefore disturbing to you. And I imagine that you worried so much about what it meant, especially coming right after you married, that it caused you to have another similar dream, which gave you greater concern."
"Yeah," Marty said. "But why did I have it in the first place?"
Doc shrugged. "It's hard to say. Maybe your brain just threw it together. Maybe it was a manifestations of your hopes for the future, that perhaps you and Jennifer would have a long, happy marriage like the one Clara and I have had."
Marty frowned at the suggestions, still looking troubled. Jennifer slipped an arm around him and, for the first time in a week, Marty did not flinch or draw back from her touch. "Marty, they were just dreams," she said softly. "You didn't do anything like that in real life, did you?"
"Jesus, no!"
"Then stop worrying about it so much. They'll stop, then. And Doc doesn't think you're after his wife -- do you?" Jennifer added, looking at the scientist.
Doc shook his head firmly. "Absolutely not," he said.
Marty bit his lower lip, clearly thinking hard. "You think the dreams will stop, now?" he asked.
"They might, now that you aren't internalizing this so much," Doc said.
"Yeah," Jennifer added, smacking her husband's arm none too softly. He winced at the blow and looked at her, confused. "That's for not telling me about this, Marty, and treating me like I was carrying the Black Plague for the last week."
"I kept remembering the dreams every time you got close to me," he said. "It freaked me out."
"Well, next time try telling me when something is bothering you -- it might make you feel better, you know. And we're supposed to be honest with each other."
"Yeah," Marty sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm sorry."
"Do you feel any better now?" Doc asked.
Marty shrugged. "I don't know. I guess there's one way to find out...." He turned to Jennifer and, without warning, pulled her close and kissed her on the mouth. She jumped at the unexpected embrace, but responded accordingly. After a long moment, so long that Doc averted his eyes out of a feeling he was seeing something a little too personal, Marty pulled back, wearing a crooked smile.
"You know, I think things will be okay, now," he said, relief clear in his voice.
"So do I," Jennifer said after catching her breath, grinning at him.
"Wonderful," Doc said, smiling. "Then my work here is done. I suppose I'll see you both tomorrow for dinner -- if you can handle being around Clara now, Marty."
Marty sighed deeply, glancing at his wife for a moment. "As long as she doesn't lean right into my face tomorrow or pull me in any dark corners, I think it'll be okay," he said.
And it was.