* * *

After a very late dinner of what turned out to be the leftovers of a roast and potatoes -- a little dry for Marty’s tastes, but seeing as the last time he’d had anything to eat had been the night before at his house in 1985, he really didn’t care -- Doc took the teen on a quick tour of his home. The size and furnishings boggled his mind. He had only seen exterior photographs of the place before, in Doc’s stuff, and the most prominent picture Marty knew was a grainy newspaper snapshot of the skeletal remains after the place had burned down to the ground. He hadn’t really realized before tonight how loaded Doc’s family had been, and just how much dough his friend had gone through in making a time machine.

When they reached the upstairs, Doc showed him to a bedroom near the head of the stairs. “You can use this room during your stay,” he said, clicking on the light switch on, activating a couple lamps next to the bed. “My room’s down at the end of the hall. The restroom is two doors down, on the right.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Marty said.

“I’ll let you get some rest, now,” Doc said, looking once more at one of his watches. “We can talk more tomorrow. It’s after midnight, and I’m sure you’ve had a very... eventful day.”

You don’t know half of it, Marty thought. He hesitated a moment in the doorway of the room as the scientist turned around to go back down the stairs, no doubt intending to return to the time machine, then decided he might as well try to turn in and put this bizarre day behind him. He stepped into the bedroom and closed the door, pausing to lean against it a moment as he took in the room.

It was furnished with the same dark wood furniture and shades of red and browns and golds as the downstairs area of the house. The room was larger than Marty’s bedroom at home but smaller than any of the rooms on the first floor, containing a double bed, a rug, an armchair, wardrobe, and full length mirror. Two tables bookended the bed, each with a matching Tiffany lamp, and there was a chest at the foot of the bed, on which a folded blanket lay.

For a so-called guest room that probably saw little use -- unless Doc had a lot more visitors than he did when Marty knew him in the future -- it was pretty nice. It lacked the more personal touches that the teen had seen elsewhere in the house; there were no photographs or decorations on the walls. And when he took a few steps forward, Marty saw that there was a fine layer of dust over everything. The air, too, had a faint musty quality that one found mostly in rooms or buildings that had been shut up for a while.

Marty shrugged off his denim jacket, tossing it onto the armchair, then took a moment to sit on the edge of the bed and untie his shoes. He frowned as his fingers worked the laces, bothered by a number of thoughts and concerns. None of them really clarified themselves, though, until he had lain down on top of the covers of the bed and found himself staring up at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come. In spite of the beyond stressful events of the last day, though, it remained at bay.

Part of this was no doubt due to the long spell of time he had passed unconscious earlier in the day; he still felt wide awake. Most of it was definitely due to the thoughts spinning around in his brain. Traveling thirty years out of his own time, the problems with his parents, meeting Doc now, killing time for a week in the past.... Now that he had quiet, uninterrupted moments to really reflect, his mind wasn’t about to let him go without a fight.

His parents. Marty closed his eyes with a wince as he thought about that matter. Just the memory of waking up in his mom’s room, clad only in his underwear and t-shirt, was enough to make him feel ill. After years and years of hearing his mother go on about what a good girl she was, how girls like her had never pursued or called boys, how the teens of her children’s generation were messed up due to drugs and poor role models, it had just about blown his mind to see her in that way -- so young, and acting like one of his classmates! He wondered how she had managed to hide that little fact from her kids; when Grandpa Baines had hit George McFly, the guy had ended up half naked in her bedroom.

Only this time it wasn’t Dad... it was me! Her son! Jesus....

The experience replayed in his head without permission. Waking up disoriented. The cool touch on his face from the damp washcloth. The moment his mother had turned on the light and he saw her impossibly young face -- and then she had come over to sit on the bed next to him, her eyes staring him dead in the face with an intensity and look in them that was almost predatorial....

Marty opened his eyes with a shudder. Okay, I’m not going to think about that anymore! I’ll think about Dad, instead....

That subject wasn’t much better, though. Seeing his father being ground under the heel of Biff Tannen -- who’s bullying tactics had clearly changed little over thirty years -- brought a different kind of sickness to Marty’s gut. He had no idea that such a thing had been going on for so long. And then their was the discovery that his father apparently had a habit of spying on women undressing in their bedrooms. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed it. Marty couldn’t help smiling faintly at that memory -- but then he recalled what happened next, how his father had fallen out of the tree and into the path of the oncoming car, and the smile faded. It was bringing him right back to Lorraine’s bedroom, and that was a bad thing.

New subject!

But now that this one had been stirred, Marty reached down into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the photograph of him with his brother and sister. He looked at it a moment, studying it hard. Was it his imagination, or was more of Dave fading out, now? The tops of his shoulders? He was still a little vague as to what it all meant, but the sight filled him with dread. It was just so unnatural. He set the photograph on the nightstand, propped up against the base of the lamp, and rolled over onto his side, deliberately turning his mind away from, and putting his back to, the family matters. He’d think about Doc, instead.

It was weird how familiar the inventor seemed here, how little changed he was -- physical aging notwithstanding. Although, now, he seemed to use an awful lot more complex words and phrases to explain the simplest things, making Marty’s head spin sometimes. Not that the Doc he knew in ‘85 was much different, but he didn’t seem to do it as much; maybe it was a habit that had fallen away as he’d grown older. So far, though, the similarities far outweighed the differences when it came to the inventor, and the teen was glad. He needed something he could still relate to in this world, now, since it was so incredibly different. It was even better that the one familiar person in this time also happened to be the same one who knew the most about his unique problem. And that he seemed, after that first immediate reaction of denial, fairly open minded to the problem.

Of course, Marty had absolutely no idea what was possibly going through Doc’s head about the whole thing. He seemed to accept all the weirdness in stride, and apparently had no problem in letting this strange kid from the future stay with him while he tried to fix things. Maybe he felt guilty that his future self had created the problem. Or maybe he was just excited to have company around, especially company that had come in a time machine and proved to him less than a day later that his vision from the morning would be a success.

Marty sighed, blinking, as his mind drifted to the way he had left his friend behind -- lying shot on the cold pavement of the Twin Pines Mall parking lot. He shivered at the memory, chilled. “I won’t let that happen,” he murmured aloud. “I’ll tell him about it before I go, even if he doesn’t want to know. I won’t let him die like that!”

He had a week; surely he could find some way to impart the news to Doc over that time. Especially if he really was stuck in the house the whole time. The idea did not thrill Marty too much. If he was going to be here just a week, he wanted to see the town and the local color. He wouldn’t mind avoiding his parents, definitely, but what harm could really come if he went to the town square to look around... as long as he was dressed in something more authentic to the period, of course. It would be interesting to compare the reality of 1955 to the stories he’d heard from people about the time.

So far, Marty was thinking that the fifties were pretty overrated. They didn’t have any diet colas; there were no microwaves or cable TV or instant anything; plutonium was apparently beyond scarce; and rock and roll still looked like it hadn’t been invented yet.

The last realization made him sit up. Maybe that was yet another reason he couldn’t sleep; it was too damned quiet. He was used to hearing a lot more noise at home -- either from his own stereo, or his family, or having the small TV on in his bedroom. Too bad there wasn’t a radio in here, though the music would probably be almost worse than the silence....

My Walkman, Marty suddenly remembered, smiling. I almost forgot about that!

Unfortunately, the personal stereo wasn’t in the room with him; it was still out in the DeLorean. Shrugging, Marty pulled his shoes on again and left the room, heading downstairs. Doc was nowhere to be found, but lights were still on and the teen had the feeling he hadn’t yet gone to bed himself. The theory was proved a few minutes later as he entered the garage and found the inventor peering into the mass of circuits mounted on the back of the car, a gooseneck lamp providing the light.

Doc’s head snapped up at the sound of the door closing. He nearly dropped the small pad of paper and pencil that he had apparently been taking notes with. “Marty,” he said, after a moment, once he had recovered. “Is anything wrong?”

The teen shook his head as he walked over to the car. “No -- I just wanted to grab my Walkman. I left it behind in the DeLorean when I went into town.”

Doc blinked. “Walk man?”

“It’s, uh... like a personal radio, I guess.”

Marty circled around to the passenger door and pulled it open, finding the stereo right where he had left it, on the passenger seat. The scientist continued to stare at him for a moment more, then turned back to the rear deck of the DeLorean. Marty shut the door, then lingered in the lab, the stereo and headphones clutched in one hand. He wasn’t terribly eager to go back into the huge house alone and give sleeping another stab. Not if the same damned thoughts were going to bounce around in his head without stop.

“How are things going out here?” he asked, stalling his retreat.

“As well as they can, I suppose,” Doc muttered. “Some of these devices on the back are a bit puzzling; I’ve never seen anything like them before. I don’t suppose there are any blueprints of the machine somewhere? I looked around in the trunk, but I didn’t see any.”

“I doubt it, if they’re not in there,” Marty said. “There’s no way they could be in the car; there’s no room for anything like that.”

“I thought as much.”

Doc went back to his note taking, frowning faintly. Marty stared at him, somewhat uneasily, remembering once more the cruel twist fate had in store for his friend. The scientist seemed blessed with an impeccable talent of shutting out the distractions of the world at large when he was fully involved with something, but even he noticed Marty’s attention after a moment. He looked up again.

“Is anything wrong, kid?”

Marty opened his mouth to tell him the truth, then changed it before he could speak. Now, obviously, wasn’t a good time. Doc would probably try to cut him off before he could begin. “No, I’m fine,” he murmured. “Is there anything you need my help with now?”

“Not really. I think you’ve told me everything I need to know -- unless you’ve been holding out on me.”

Actually, I have, but it’s not really something I want to do....

Marty shook his head, though, even as his eyes drifted uneasily to the static-filled screen of the TV. “No.”

“Well, why don’t you get some sleep, then? I’ve got everything under control here; you can relax. Tomorrow we can worry about what to do with your parents.”

Marty recognized a dismissal when he heard one. “Sure. Good night, Doc. Don’t stay up all night.”

The inventor merely nodded.

Marty left the garage reluctantly and returned to the house. He ran into Doc’s current dog, Copernicus, as he stepped into the mansion. The dog whined at the sight of the teen, following him close as he headed for the stairs.

“Are you lonely, too?” Marty asked softly. “Or are you just weirded out by all the craziness today?”

The dog didn’t answer, though he did stop whimpering. He followed Marty into his room, and the teen saw no point in kicking the animal out. He liked dogs; Einstein felt almost like his own pet, too, since his mom didn’t want anything that would shed fur in the house. He left the door ajar a few inches, in case the dog wanted to leave at any point, then settled back down on the bed. Copernicus hesitated a moment, then hopped up on the covers next to him and lay down. The dog looked at him uncertainly as he did so.

Marty smiled at the dog as he slipped the headphones on. “I’m not gonna kick you out,” he promised. Copernicus lowered his head onto the bed as Marty dropped back to the pillows and pushed the play button on his Walkman. Loud, familiar music filled his ears and he smiled faintly at the sound, closing his eyes. He could almost pretend he was back home, now.

Maybe that was the trick. He stopped thinking about all the weird problems of the last day -- his parents, the time travel, Doc’s shooting -- and just concentrated on the music. It was loud and fast, but it was familiar to him, and therefore as good as a lullaby. After a few minutes, Marty found himself relaxing and, somehow, in spite of it all, he eventually fell asleep.

* * *

Emmett Brown finally finished his inspection of the rear deck of the time machine around two in the morning. He stepped away from the vehicle reluctantly, but exhaustion was beginning to nibble away at him. His eyes ached and the lump on his head was throbbing at a steady pitch. It wouldn’t be smart to push ahead, not when everything could easily wait until tomorrow.

Emmett sighed as he lowered his notebook. There was one more thing he wanted to look at before he called it a night. The portable television camera that Marty McFly had brought with him from the future, and the video footage of his successful time travel demonstration. There were a few things on there he needed to know if he was going to successfully send that kid back home next Saturday night.

Although it was Marty who had operated the controls on the camera, it took Emmett little time in figuring it out himself. The buttons were clearly marked as to their function on the side of the camera, and after rewinding the video footage to the beginning of the tape, he began to play it out. He scribbled down the important highlights in the notebook, lest he forget them later. 1.21 jigowatts... Flux Capacitor stores power... He watched the tape straight through to the end -- and was surprised when it continued past what he had seen earlier.

The version of himself, aged sixty-five, was on the screen in the doorway of the time machine, making his solemn statement to the camera. “I, Dr. Emmett Brown, am about to embark on a historic journey.” The older Emmett suddenly laughed, slapping his forehead and shaking his head. “What am I thinking of... I almost forgot to bring extra plutonium! How would I ever expect to get back? One pellet, one trip, I must be outta my mind....”

A dog started to bark, off camera -- the same animal that had previously traveled through time, no doubt. Older Emmett looked off in the direction, behind the camera. “What is it, Einie?”

The smile on the on-camera scientist’s face abruptly faded as his eyes focused on something beyond and behind the camera. His eyes widened. “Oh my God, they found me,” he said, his voice deadly serious -- and not without a trace of fear. “I don’t know how, but they found me. Run for it, Marty!”

The video abruptly stopped as the camera’s picture jerked to one side. Static once more filled the television screen.

What the hell was that about?

The thirty-five-year-old Emmett frowned, reaching up to rewind the footage. He watched the last couple moments play out once more, confused. What was it that had occurred to provoke such an adverse reaction in his future self, after such a joyous moment? Who were “they”? And why hadn’t Marty mentioned anything about it?

I shouldn’t ask; I shouldn’t know, Emmett thought, immediately feeling guilty. He had the distinct feeling he wasn’t supposed to see that part. Marty had stopped the tape before it had come up and told him that was all of the footage he had. Granted, there was nothing in that extra minute or so that was relevant to the time machine. But maybe it did have something to do with why Marty was in 1955, and Emmett’s future self was not in 2010. The kid had been vague when pressed for the reasons why he was here in the first place, beyond that it had been accidental. But, of course, Emmett had told him he didn’t want specific knowledge on his own future.

The inventor reached over and turned the television off after he had watched the footage twice, too tired to ponder it further, and knowing full well that it might be something he should leave well enough alone. There was probably a perfectly logical explanation for the reaction of his future self; he was reading into it far too much.

But he -- I -- appeared frightened... that doesn’t make sense.

Emmett sighed as he leaned away from the television, determined to keep that off his mind until at least tomorrow. He had a number of other things to consider at the moment that were far more important. There was the time machine, of course. And the situation with Marty’s family. And then there was the out-of-time kid himself.

Emmett shut down the lights in the lab and finally left for the house, once he had locked the doors tightly behind him. There was a time machine out there, now, and even though it wasn’t about to go anywhere, he couldn’t help feeling a little bit paranoid as he crossed the lawn to the house. His mind went back to the video once more, and the look of fear on the face of his future self. What if there was someone else who had seen the time machine, or knew about it here? But Marty hadn’t mentioned anything of the sort. The kid had reacted rather responsibly once he had realized where he was, hiding the vehicle. It hadn’t appeared that anyone had come across it during his hours away from it, and if it had, Marty hadn’t mentioned it.

After shutting off the lights in the downstairs rooms of the house, and making sure that the fire in his study’s hearth was out, Emmett headed upstairs. He was surprised to see the door to Marty’s room ajar, light spilling out of it from within. He poked his head inside, opening his mouth to ask if everything was all right. The breath drawn was let out in a sigh, though, when he saw the kid was curled up on top of the bed. Marty’s arm was partially blocking his face from Emmett’s view, but the inventor saw enough to determine that he was finally sleeping, in spite of the blazing lamps in the room. Next to his side lay Copernicus. The dog raised his head at the sight of his owner, his tail twitching in a halfhearted wag.

Emmett smiled, stepping quietly into the room. “Does he know you’re in here?” he whispered to the dog. He wasn’t sure if Marty would mind such a thing, but he barely knew the kid. His eyes flicked over to the other form on the bed, but Marty didn’t seem to be aware of much of anything; he was snoring softly. Feeling slightly emboldened by his apparent deep slumber, Emmett continued to stare at him, thinking.

Marty McFly...

To say that he had been surprised when the kid had showed up that evening at his doorstep was an understatement. He hadn’t ever imagined anything so fantastic, and his was a mind that had visualized a lot of unrealistic and fantastic things! But a seventeen-year-old time traveler from the future was never one of them. Equally surprising to him was that this kid was apparently a friend of his. What a sixty-five-year-old was doing hanging out with someone so young, Emmett could only wonder. Maybe Marty was a student of his, from the University.

Except he’s not quite old enough for college, and I don’t think his talents lie in the realm of physics and sciences, Emmett mused, recalling his few hours of observation and interaction with Marty. Well, there was no doubt a good reason that they were aquatinted. And whatever reason it was, it was clear they knew each other well. Marty’s habit of calling him “Doc,” spoke strongly about that. No one called him that; it was either Dr. Brown, Emmett, or simply Brown. (And that was when people were being polite; he’d heard other things said that were decidedly less kind.) Then there was the fact that Emmett couldn’t imagine why he would invite Marty out for his time machine demonstration unless he was close to the young man. Which brought up another related matter.

Why is a kid like him hanging around with a guy like me?

Aside from the students in his classes at the University, he really had no contact with the youth of Hill Valley. None of his students had ever seemed even remotely interested in spending time with him -- not unless there was a boost in it for them with their grade or GPA. His peers on the faculty would treat him with the degree of respect and civility required for people in their profession, but often times he found himself uninvited to the BBQs and dinners that they would throw in their private homes. If not for the fact that Marty’s parents were apparently high school students right now, he would’ve suspected that perhaps one of them would someday work with him, and that would be how he knew the young man.

Of course, if I was friends with either of his parents, it still doesn’t quite explain why he was the one invited to the time machine demonstration over either of them.

Emmett decided to stop thinking about that. He could always just ask the kid, point blank -- but he also knew that would be the one thing he shouldn’t do. If they had become friends on their own somehow, in part due to a random encounter or situation, he didn’t dare want to know for fear of accidentally altering that event when it did come to pass in it’s own good time. The inventor rather regretted his earlier, rash behavior at going through his someday belongings; it might be more dangerous to know personal specifics than it would be to know vague, worldwide news -- such as an actor becoming president of the United States. Marty’s situation with his parents was all the confirmation he needed on that suspicion.

Emmett shook his head once to scatter the thoughts in his head and reached for the folded blanket on the chest at the foot of the bed. He gave it a quick shake -- stirring up a small cloud of dust -- and covered the snoozing kid with it. As he leaned forward over the bed, tucking the blanket around Marty’s shoulders, he heard a faint, rhythmic noise, almost tinny in nature. He looked at Marty with a frown -- and only then noticed the small black headphones clipped over his ears. A thin cord trailed from them to a small, rectangular device, perhaps half the size of a book, lying on the bedspread a few inches from the kid’s hands. Emmett recalled only then that Marty had grabbed something out of the car a couple hours earlier -- a “Walkman.” This had to be it; certainly he had never seen anything like it before in his time.

And the noise was apparently from whatever music Marty was listening to. It was on considerably loud if Emmett could hear snatches of it from a foot away, and sounded like nothing he had ever heard before. At least nothing that was supposed to be music. Curious. He sighed, amazed anyone could actually sleep through something like that -- and then noticed the photograph of the McFly siblings on the bedside table, under the lamp. He picked it up to study, curious to see if it had changed in the last couple hours. It took a just moment of examination before he realized something had, subtlety; the shoulders of the older boy in the photograph, Marty’s brother, were beginning to fuzz up. They had been crystal clear a few hours ago.

“The effect is still in play,” Emmett murmured softly, concerned. He took a couple steps away from the bedside, thinking. Marty had obviously interfered with his parents meeting one another, and subsequently falling in love, marrying, and having kids. Logic would suggest that he simply needed to introduce them, now, and this problem would solve itself. It puzzled him that their kids were even fading out at all, though; Hill Valley wasn’t exactly a large metropolis, and most people seemed to know one another or run into one another. It would be reasonable to assume that Lorraine and George would simply see each other at a later date and nature would then take it’s course.

Oh, well. Maybe one of them left town after high school and never returned. It’s difficult to theorize without knowing all the facts.

Emmett replaced the picture where he had found it and turned off the lamp. “C’mon, Copernicus,” he said softly as he circled the foot of the bed. “Let’s go to bed.”

The dog looked at him, clearly reluctant to leave where he was right then. Emmett smiled at his pet as he clicked the other lamp off, snuffing the room into almost total darkness. Only the light out in the hallway, falling through the open door, provided any illumination.

“Come on,” he murmured. “Let’s leave Marty alone, now. He’s had a very long, stressful day.”

Copernicus whined softly. When he saw Emmett was unmoved, however, the dog sighed a doggy sigh and climbed up to his feet. He jumped off the bed and trotted to the open door, Emmett following his footsteps. The scientist paused as he reached for the doorknob to pull the door shut, glancing back at the still lump on the bed.

This is going to be a very interesting week, Emmett thought with some excitement -- and then the sensation of guilt hit him. His good fortune was not shared by Marty, who was in a rather unenviable position. He sighed as he closed the door, looking down at his dog, waiting in the hallway.

“We’ll get him home,” he said softly, with a quiet confidence. “It’s just a pity I’ll have to wait about thirty years to see the results of that experiment.”

Marty was standing in the mall parking lot, watching in horror as the terrorists stopped their van and aimed a machine gun at Doc. He tried to yell, tried to move, but seemed temporarily paralyzed by the sight.

The terrorist smiled as he cornered his prey. Doc froze, slowly raising his hands and tossing the gun in his hand away, out of the bright beams of the headlights.

“Doc,” Marty managed to whisper, the word coming out in a gasp.

Doc’s eyes were wide, meeting the terrorist’s gaze unflinchingly. The foreigner bared his teeth in a satisfied grin -- and then shot the inventor in a barrage of bullets. Doc screamed as he was thrown back, but by the time he hit the pavement he was silent. And didn’t move.

“No!” Marty yelled, finding his voice. “Bastards!”

The terrorist swung the gun over in his direction, no doubt intending to finish the job by leaving no witnesses to the crime. Marty broke his paralysis to run, intending to circle the stepvan and check on Doc and see if there was anything he could do. The terrorists anticipated his move and cut him off before he could go more than ten feet, aiming the gun at him. He was trapped, just like Doc, with nowhere to immediately go. He squeezed his eyes shut, unwilling to see any more.

I’m gonna die. Shit.

And then he heard the Libyan curses ring out in the night. Marty opened his eyes to see the terrorist shaking his gun, which had clearly jammed. He had a chance, now! He turned and dove for the open door of the DeLorean. As he scrambled to slam the door shut, his eyes fell on Doc’s legs, the only part of him visible from that perspective, and he froze, undecided. He couldn’t abandon his friend, now! Not unless he was really...

Dead. No!

He started to get out of the car, then was forced to abandon that plan when he heard the van’s engine roar. It was coming after him again. He slammed the door shut, started the car, and floored it. The DeLorean responded without a hitch, whipping him back into the seat as it surged forward.

Staying alive suddenly became his main priority. He drove around the parking lot as fast as he dared, weaving around the gunfire aimed his way from the angry terrorists -- and then, suddenly, the car’s time travel enhancement kicked in.

There were three flashes of blinding light -- and then he was driving across the parking lot again, but it seemed later. There was a fog choking the air, and the terrorists seemed to be gone. Doc’s van was still around, though. Marty slammed the breaks on and stopped the DeLorean nearby. He leapt out and ran over to the still form of the inventor sprawled on the pavement.

“Doc!” he called, almost tripping in his haste to get to his friend. “Doc?”

Doc didn’t move. Marty skidded to a halt and fell to his knees on the ground beside his friend. He reached out to touch him, to roll him onto his back. His fingers recoiled after a second, at the strange hardness to Doc’s shoulder. He swallowed hard, unnerved, but quickly turned him to his back. His face. He had to see, to make sure.

Doc’s head rolled back with a rag doll sort of limpness. His eyes were wide open, and for a moment Marty felt relief -- until he noticed they were vacant and unblinking, staring up into the night sky, fixed on something beyond the teen’s grasp. Hand trembling, Marty reached out to touch his neck, to feel for a pulse. Even through the radiation suit gloves, he could tell that the skin was as cold as the pavement under his knees. He jerked his hand away, knowing the truth, now.

“No,” he moaned softly, his eyes beginning to burn with tears. “No, Doc! No, dammit!”

He lowered his face to his friend’s chest and began to weep. This can’t be happening. This has gotta be a dream. A bad dream. A--

“Nightmare!”

At the sound of his own voice gasping the word out, Marty woke with a jerk, his head snapping up from the pillow, a cold sweat chilling his skin and clothes. For a moment, he had absolutely no idea where he was. The room and furnishings were unfamiliar, and a disorientation from the vivid dream muddled his mind. After a moment, though, things fell into place, and he remembered. He wasn’t at home, or anywhere near it. He was in 1955, staying with the younger version of Doc Brown for at least the next week.

Marty let out a shuddery sigh, dragging the back of his hand across his damp forehead. His heart was still skipping unevenly from the dream, and he felt faintly ill. The image of Doc’s blank stare from the pavement replayed in his head and he shivered.

Just a hell of a dream, he reminded himself firmly.

It was morning, now; light from an overcast sky was falling through the windows. There was a clock next to the bed, displaying the time as about a quarter after eight. Marty sighed again as he saw the hour; if not for the nightmare, he might’ve rolled over and given sleep another try. Eight was too early, considering he hadn’t fallen asleep until well after midnight. But the memory of the dream was more than enough to encourage him to get up now.

As he slipped off his headphones from where they had fallen down, around his neck, Marty noticed that someone had been by since he had crashed. The door to his room was now closed, the lamps were both off, Copernicus was gone, and the blanket that had previously been on top of the chest was now covering him. Doc, no doubt, had probably checked on him before retiring for the night.

Marty sat up and tossed the blanket aside, chilled from the sweat that still clung to his skin from the wicked dream. He set his headphones and Walkman aside, on the bedside table next to the clock, and picked up the snapshot for a look. Dave’s shoulders were half gone. Marty grimaced as he got to his feet, not pleased with the development.

God, I hope Doc has some clue on how to fix this....

He left his room, uncertain if the inventor was even awake yet. A moment later he got his answer; he could smell breakfast cooking and hear faint movement from downstairs. Before joining Doc, Marty made a quick stop at the bathroom down the hall. He couldn’t help staring at himself in the mirror for a moment, making a face at what he saw. His hair was sticking up in a number of weird and crazy angles, and there was a pale, hollow cast to his face -- no doubt due to stress or maybe that unsavory dream.

Just thinking about that brought it all back. Marty closed his eyes a moment with a wince, remembering what he had seen, the feel of the night air on his skin, the choking feeling around his throat when he saw that Doc was no more. It had seemed so real.

Jesus. That could happen. That probably will happen if I don’t warn him before I go....

Before leaving the bathroom, he took a moment to splash cold water on his face in the hopes of clearing out the last of the nightmare from his head. It didn’t work so well, but Marty couldn’t really think of anything that would, really.

He found Doc downstairs in the kitchen, eating what looked like scrambled eggs and French toast. The inventor looked up from the table as Marty arrived in the doorway. “Good morning,” he said cheerfully. “Did you sleep well?”

The terrible nightmare once more popped into his head. Marty struggled to push it out of the forefront of his mind. “Fine,” he murmured. “You didn’t stay up all night, did you?”

Doc shook his head once. “Nope. I got up about half an hour ago. Help yourself to some breakfast,” he added, waving a fork towards the stove, where the rest of the food was still residing on pans and skillets. “I made a little more than I usually do.”

Marty did as he suggested, though he wasn’t particularly starving at the moment. He noticed Doc staring at him a little oddly as he sat down at the table.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, I suppose. I just.... Did you sleep in your clothes on purpose?”

That was a really weird question. “What do you mean? What else was I supposed to sleep in?”

“Well, do people still use pajamas in the future? Or do everyday clothes fulfill all types of occasions?”

Marty smiled, faintly. “There’s still pajamas in the future,” he said. “I just don’t use ‘em all that much. And I don’t have any, here. It’s not like I thought I was gonna go anywhere when I met you at the parking lot.”

“Yes, I’ve gathered.” Doc set down his fork. “Speaking of clothes -- we’ve got to get you some to wear this week.”

The teen looked at him in surprise. “I thought I was supposed to stay in here the whole time? Not look at anything or see anyone?”

Doc sighed. “That would be the ideal situation. But after thinking about it last night, I don’t think we can do that. Your parents need to be introduced to one another; you’re going to have to go to school tomorrow and do just that.”

Marty made a face. “School? Jeez, Doc, why? It’s bad enough going there when I have to.”

“Well, it’s the only subtle way I can think of going about introducing two teenaged people to each other. Unless you know of them frequenting another area.”

“Not really.... So I’m just supposed to go there tomorrow and drag them together? Do you think it’ll be enough?”

“I can’t think of why it wouldn’t be. You interfered with your parents original first meeting. I find it a little odd that they wouldn’t have met otherwise, later, at another time, but who knows what else has changed due to the missed encounter? So long as you introduce them, the sparks should fly and the picture will restore itself, and you’ll be out of danger erasing yourself from existence.”

Marty thought about his parents and frowned. “What if the sparks don’t fly? No offense, Doc, but it’s not like you’re talking about two people who are really compatible. I’ve never gotten what it was that my parents saw in each other.... Dad’s a wimp who can’t even say the word ‘no’, and Mom’s spent most of her life trying to wiggle out of reality by hitting the bottle.”

Doc blinked, clearly taken aback by this news. “Really? Well, maybe they’re quite different, now. Thirty years is a long time. You never mentioned this earlier....”

Marty snorted softly, looking down at his plate of food and separating a corner of the French toast for his fork. “There was a hell of a lot of other things that seemed more important last night,” he said, popping the bite into his mouth.

The inventor conceded the point. “It doesn’t sound as if your family life was very pleasant,” he said tentatively.

The teen lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Coulda been worse. At least my parents weren’t breathing down my neck all the time. Dad bugged me more than Mom, though. He always let Biff Tannen walk all over him. The asshole wrecked Dad’s car the night I left, and I was supposed to use that Saturday night to go to the lake with Jennifer. We’d been planning that for weeks.”

“Jennifer?” Doc asked.

“My girlfriend. Jennifer Parker.”

“Ah, yes. And your mother, I assume, didn’t mind this?”

“She had her own problems, like I said. Even my brother and sister are heading nowhere. I try to be home as little as possible, honestly.”

“Where do you go?”

“Your place, mostly. At least you never let me down....” Marty’s voice faded as he recalled the nightmare again, and the way he had left Doc behind in his haste to escape the terrorists.

...But I let you down, dammit. I left you to die!

“Well, I’ll try not to do that here, either,” Doc said, misinterpreting his pained expression for something entirely different. He smiled at Marty, the expression confident. “You’ll get back home, I promise you.”

The teen blinked, dragging his thoughts back to the present. “Did you figure out everything last night?”

“I’m still working on it,” the inventor admitted. He stood from the table and took his plate to the sink. “I’m going to need your sizes for some clothes. I’ll get you enough for this week, at least.”

Marty frowned. “Can’t I go with you?”

“In those clothes? No. And nothing I have will fit you. Even if it did, I don’t want you leaving the house.”

“Whoa, wait -- I thought you said I had to go to school tomorrow? Aren’t I gonna have to leave the house then?”

“Yes -- but I would prefer to have you interact with as few people as possible until then. We don’t need any more problems, wouldn’t you agree?”

Marty was certainly not going to argue against that.