Chapter Seven

Monday, December 7, 1987
9:00 P.M.

"Something's not right," Verne said softly, out of the blue, almost as soon as they arrived.

Jules would've looked at him if he hadn't been putting all his energy into seeing through the swirling mess of snowflakes falling around them. "What makes you say that?" he asked as he tried to see out the windows.

Verne made a noise that sounded almost like a whimper. "Jules, our house isn't there anymore!"

Jules didn't understand what Verne meant at first, until he looked down and realized that his eyes were not playing tricks on him, nor the weather causing him to see things. Below them was an expanse of white, and not a trace of a building. It was definitely where there house was supposed to be -- Jules recognized the tree line, as well as the surrounding homes -- but their house simply wasn't there.

"Weird," he breathed, too curious to be fearful just yet. Jules looked at the time display. "It says we're in the right place and time," he said.

"But we're not!" Verne said. "Does this look like home to you?"

Jules had to admit it didn't. Wanting to investigate further, he took the car to the ground and shut it off, allowing it to still hover a couple feet over the snow. "I'm going outside," he said, reaching behind the seats for his winter coat.

"I'm going with you," Verne said, his voice leaving no room for an argument.

Once he had shrugged into his coat, Jules opened the door. A cold, biting wind slipped into the car, ushering out the last of the warmth from a May day more than five years in the past. He shivered a little as he jumped down to the ground and looked around. Verne joined him a moment later, a flashlight clutched in hand.

"This was in the glove box," he explained, switching it on. He swept the beam around them. Flawless snow was the only thing that surrounded them, though in the distance he could see a sign near the road. He hurried through the snow to investigate.

"Where're you goin'?" Verne called.

"To have a look at this sign over here. Bring the light with you, will you?"

Verne followed rapidly. In a couple minutes, Jules reached his goal. He brushed the snow off the sign and read it slowly, then again, the words making no sense to him.

FOR SALE: 50 Acres for Residential Development
CONTACT: M. Dewey, Valley Realty
(916) 842 - 0330

"For Sale?" Verne said aloud. He looked at his brother. "Why are they selling our land? And where's our home?"

"Probably torn down," Jules murmured. He felt a funny little lurch in his chest.

Verne frowned. "Why?" he asked. "What happened? I mean, I know this isn't our time, but why is our house gone?"

"Yes it is," Jules said, thinking hard and not liking what he was slowly realizing. "The time circuits wouldn't lie. We are in our own time."

His brother looked skeptical and opened his mouth to perhaps protest that. Jules, however, explained before he was asked. "I think we're in an alternate reality."

Verne was quiet a minute. "What's that mean, again?"

"Do you remember when an evil version of Dad came and kidnapped us a couple years ago?"

"Yeah," Verne said, shuddering a little.

"Well, he was from an alternate reality. A world that was like our home, but different enough so people and places evolved differently."

"And you think this is it? That we're in the bad world that Evil Dad came from?" Verne sounded horrified.

Jules frowned. "I don't know," he said honestly. "Maybe it is... but I think we must've done something in our trip that made us not live here anymore."

"What? All we did is see a movie, for cryin' out loud! And why would our house not be here now? Dad didn't build it, he bought it from someone when I was born, an' I'm pretty sure if he hadn't bought it, it would still be standing."

"I don't know why it's like this, Verne, and I don't know what we did," Jules said, a little irritated, for once, that his brother automatically assumed he had all the answers. "Let's get in the car and go find a phone book so we can see where we live."

"Shouldn't we leave it here? You're way underage to drive!"

"Do you want to hike in this weather to the nearest pay phone?"

Wordlessly, Verne followed him back to the car.

Jules kept the DeLorean both in the air and invisible as he left their property and headed for the road, hovering just above streetlight level. The closest place that Jules could think of that had a payphone was a small gas station and auto garage located near the end of Elmdale Lane, where it intersected with 173rd Avenue. He drove there and landed the car, still invisible, behind the building. The phone booth was on the corner, next to the sidewalk. The boys got out of the vehicle without being seen. Jules left the doors unlocked, not seeing the point in securing it since the car was invisible. Verne beat him to the phone booth which, thankfully, still had its book.

"The book's the latest one," he reported as he opened it and started to flip through the B pages, in search of their father's name. "That's probably good, right?"

"Definitely," Jules said. "The listings will be most up to date."

Verne located the appropriate page and ran his finger down the listings of names. He frowned, then started from the top again. The frown grew more intense. "Dad's not listed," he said, sounding surprised.

"Let me see." Jules slipped next to Verne to take his own look at the book. He skimmed the listings himself, first quickly, then slower when the Browns shifted from David to Frederick without an Emmett in between them. He shifted his eyes up a few rows, to the C's, but didn't find a Clara Brown, either.

"That's odd," he said softly, feeling colder all of the sudden.

"What does it mean?" Verne asked, for the third time that night.

"I don't know. But we have to find out. Let's get back to the car."

They sat in the DeLorean in silence for a few minutes, the heater running on high, before either of them spoke. Jules was trying desperately to get a feel for the situation and remember what little he had heard over the years from his father or Marty about alternate realities. Verne was biting his lower lip, his face pale in the multicolored glow thrown off by the glowing switches, flux capacitor, and various LCD displays in the time machine.

"We should go to the library," Jules said at length. "There we could see how history is different and maybe get an idea on what went wrong."

"The library's closed now, Jules," Verne said softly. "Anyway, what do you think you'll find? So far, we know that we don't live where we used to, and that neither Mom or Dad are in the phone book. That's not a good sign."

"So what are you saying?" Jules asked, though he was pretty sure he already knew.

"I'm saying that maybe our parents aren't alive anymore, Jules," Verne said. "Maybe we did something to kill them." He looked like he wanted to cry.

"It could be worse than that," Jules murmured, hating to even suggest what was about to come out of his mouth. "Maybe our father never invented a time machine, and if he never went back to 1885 and met Mom, then we would never be born. Which means, if that's so, we'll be erased from existence soon."

"So we're dead, too?" Understandably, Verne sounded depressed at the prospect."

"Sort of," Jules said. "We wouldn't be dead -- we'd just cease to be. It's like how Marty almost was never born when he prevented his parents from their original courtship." The older boy shook his head a moment, as if to clear it. "We shouldn't think about this now, Verne. We're jumping to a huge conclusion. We should just go to the library and see what we can find about Mom and Dad."

"What are we gonna do?" Verne asked. "Break in?"

"No," Jules said. "I have a better idea." He paused. "Before we do that, though, I think we should look up Marty. If he's still here, he might be able to give us answers so we'd be able to spend less time looking for them."

* * *

Jules sent Verne back outside to check the phonebook for a Martin or George McFly, figuring that would cover all their bases if the Marty from this reality was living alone or still with his parents. Verne accepted the task eagerly, grateful to have something to do, even if it was for only a couple minutes. His heart was pounding hard in a sick sensation of fear as he ran to the phonebooth, checked the book, and reported back to Jules that there was a George and Lorraine McFly, no Martin, listed at 9303 Lyon Estates Drive. It matched the address that both of them remembered Marty living at from when they were used to, so Jules headed over to that area of town via the air.

Verne watched the snowy streets pass under them, feeling chilled despite the heat pouring out of the car's vents. "Jules, if we don't exist now, how much time will it be before we fade away?" he finally asked as his brother landed the invisible time machine in the large backyard of a vacant and up for sale house near Marty's.

"I don't know," Jules said. "We should assume we have a day, though, at most," he added. "Maybe we have more, but we don't have any time to rest or slack off now. We have to figure out what went wrong, then how to fix it and do it right away. Better to err on the side of caution."

"But if we fix things before the deadline, we'll be okay?" Verne asked.

"I think so," Jules said. "That's the way it's gone according to Dad's stories and experiences."

They got out of the car, leaving it invisible. Verne glanced back at it as they were about to round the corner, noticing with a touch of amused shock how their footprints in the snow just started randomly in the middle of the yard. He hoped that no one else would happen by this house and notice the same.

Marty's house was four away from the vacant home. As they approached it, Verne tried to remember if he had ever been over to it before. Offhand, he didn't think so, though he could remember his family driving past it before and their father pointing it out, just on the off chance if they were ever in this neighborhood and needed help. At the time, it had seemed like a remote possibility to Verne, who didn't know any kids from school who lived in Lyon Estates, possibly because it was at the opposite end of town from the brand new elementary school he went to and therefore kids from Marty's neighborhood wouldn't be going to school with him.

Jules, who was walking before his younger brother, slowed as they saw Marty's house ahead. "I don't see his truck out front," he said.

"Might be in the garage," Verne pointed out. "Anyway, there're two cars in the driveway and another one next to the house, so it looks like someone's home."

The porch light was also lit, as was a light burning in the kitchen window. The boys halted at the foot of the driveway, looking at the house.

"Do we just walk up to the door and ask for Marty?" Verne asked, uncertain.

"I guess," Jules said. He eyed the vehicles parked in the driveway and next to the curb. "I thought the McFlys had better cars than those," he said, gesturing to the snow-covered autos that were all clearly models from before the 1980's. "I could swear I remember Marty once mentioning that his father drove a BMW, and none of those are that brand."

"So maybe his dad's away on business," Verne said, bored with the car question already. He took a deep breath of the chilly air, building his nerve for what they were about to face. "Let's just get this over with now, since we're runnin' on a deadline an' all."

Jules nodded once. The boys marched to the front door and rang the doorbell. Footsteps slowly padded to the door, and it was opened a moment later by an older woman that Verne first took to be Marty's grandmother -- except she looked a little too young for that and too much like his mother, Lorraine McFly. Verne had seen her a few times since his family had moved to the eighties, but this woman before them looked older, heavier, and less stylish than the blond boy remembered.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked politely, her eyes moving sluggishly over the boys' faces. Her words came out slower, too, and Verne noticed she smelled like the inside of the Palace Saloon from Hill Valley of the past.

"Um, ah, is Marty home?" Jules asked when Verne didn't immediately open his mouth.

The woman -- Marty's mother? -- squinted at them a moment, then leaned back a little and looked in the direction of the hallway. "Marty! You've got some visitors!" she yelled, then turned back to the boys. "He'll be along in a minute," she said before walking away from the door somewhat unsteadily.

Verne looked at his brother. "Was that Mrs. McFly?" he whispered.

Jules shrugged. "I think it was, but she's really let herself go since we first met her," he answered in a whisper of his own.

They waited more than a minute before Marty McFly finally came to the door. He didn't bother to push the screen door open, just stared at the kids for a minute as they stared back. Verne realized he looked different, though at first he couldn't figure out why. He looked the same in many respects -- the same haircut, same face, same way of dressing and all that -- yet the boy immediately and instinctively knew that this wasn't the same Marty that they had left snoozing on the couch. The expression on his face was more guarded than they were used to seeing on their Marty's face, and his features were more tense, hardened in a way. As Verne looked into his face more deeply, he saw a couple of faint scars that weren't on the Marty they knew, most noticeably one an inch across on his left eyebrow. Interesting.

"What do you kids want?" he asked. "Are you selling something?"

Verne swallowed hard. "You don't know us, then?" he asked softly.

Marty shook his head once. "Nope."

"Do you know Dr. Emmett L. Brown?" Jules asked.

Marty leaned against the doorframe, his brow furrowing. "I know that name..." he said, half to himself. "Wasn't he the weird scientist?"

"Yeah, lots of people around town considered him a crazy mad scientist," Verne said, the words coming out almost as a challenge. He hated what was said about his father around town, so much of it utterly mean and untrue.

Marty snapped his fingers. "Yeah, him. No, I didn't know 'im," he added. "Why, are you looking for him?"

"In a manner of speaking," Jules said. "Do you know where he is?"

"Sort of," Marty said. "Back in January of '86, he was gunned down in the Twin Pines Mall parking lot. An act of terrorism or something, and it made real big headlines in this town. We even had government agents interviewing people!" He shook his head, looking more awed than upset. "So you'd find him in the old city graveyard."

Verne closed his eyes for a minute, tight, something in his chest suddenly aching fiercely. He clenched his hands into fists without thinking about it, almost as if he could literally fight the news and make it not so. That a part of him had expected this from the time that they had arrived didn't make it any less disturbing or hurtful. Dad is dead! his mind wailed. He's dead!

"Are you sure about this?" Verne heard Jules ask, his voice soft and tentative.

"Well, yeah. It was big news. I had a lot going on then, but I still remember." Marty's voice darkened a little, enough of a puzzlement to Verne so that he opened his eyes again.

"Have you ever heard of a Clara Brown?" Jules asked, either not noticing or caring about Marty's clear displeasure with something he had gone through more than a year ago.

The nineteen-year-old blinked. "As in, related to Emmett Brown? That's insane; the guy had no living relatives when he was murdered, at least none in Hill Valley."

"What about Clara Clayton?"

Marty frowned, thoughtful. "That sounds sorta familiar, though I can't figure out why right now...."

"Do you know what happened to the house on 2115 Elmdale Lane?"

Marty gave him a blank look. "Huh?"

Jules pressed on. "There's a For Sale sign up now, but there used to be a big farmhouse there, and a barn...."

"Oh, I think I know what you're talking about. The old Walter place. They tore it down a couple years ago, since the building was some kind of health hazard 'cause the guy who lived there last had a drug lab or something."

"Oh." The noise was almost a squeak from Jules. Verne looked at his brother, miserable, and saw the same hollow-eyed look of horror and grief reflected on his sibling's face.

Marty eyed them for a minute. "Uh, listen, I don't know who the hell either of you are, but why are you over here and why'd you want to see me? If it's to just ask me about Brown and all that, anyone in town could've told you the same."

Verne wondered if they should tell them the truth and, if so, what the reaction from their father's old friend might be. Surely Marty had heard more fantastic things in his life -- but if he didn't even know Emmett Brown, maybe he hadn't. Something was definitely missing and changed about his life, that was for sure.

"We thought you could help us," Verne said.

"With what?"

Jules stared at him for a moment. "I think it's too fantastic to tell you," he said softly. "I don't think you'd believe us."

Lorraine called to him from the living room. "Marty! If you're going to talk to your friends, can you go in or out?"

"Now, Lorraine, he's not hurting anyone...." The male voice spoke softly, tentatively, and sounded like George McFly to Verne -- but a George McFly that he had never heard before, one that sounded frail and meek, not like the confident and self-assured writer they had met a couple times.

"We're not paying to heat the whole neighborhood, George," Marty's mother rebuked. Marty sighed and rolled his eyes, pushing the screen door open and closing the front door at his back rather hard as he stepped onto the stoop.

"I can't wait 'til I make enough at the store to move out," he muttered.

"But I thought you were working at the university's radio station," Verne said without thinking. In fact, he knew that Marty was working there -- he had mentioned it at least once just that day as being why he was so tired.

"How can I possibly work there when I don't even go to school there?" Marty asked, slightly sarcastic. He changed the subject. "Who are you kids?"

Verne looked at Jules, who looked right back. Jules raised an eyebrow in a silent question; Verne shrugged. Marty waited for their answer, hugging his arms for warmth against the chill in the air.

"We're just two lost children, I suppose," Jules finally said. He paused. "Can you help us?"

"How and why?" Marty asked immediately.

"We need to go to the library to do some research."

"Now?! It's almost ten o' clock!"

"We're up against a tight deadline," Verne said.

"But the place is closed!"

Jules shrugged. "Forgive me for being presumptuous, but I'd assumed you'd know a good way to get in."

Marty stared at him a moment, his face not revealing anything that was going through his head. "Even if I was gonna help you -- and I'm not saying I am -- I'd have to take my dad's car."

"What happened to your truck?" Verne asked, his mouth moving before he could stop it.

Marty turned a rather puzzled and suddenly guarded look to the blond boy. "I've never had a truck," he said flatly. "Never even had my own set of wheels, since my parents have been a little paranoid since I got in the accident and the insurance went through the roof."

"What accident?" both boys asked in unison.

Marty exhaled sharply in the cold air, his breath frosting before him. "Yeah, like you didn't read about it in the papers," he muttered.

"Actually, we didn't," Jules said. "We seem to be a little foreign to around here."

The teen looked at him skeptically, but said nothing else on the matter. "If you're lost, why don't you go to the cops or something? Or is this some big joke someone paid you to pull on me?"

"It's no joke," Verne said sincerely. "You're the only one who can help us."

"Why? What makes me so important? I've never seen either of you before in my life!"

"I wouldn't be so certain of that," Jules said softly. "If you don't want to help us with our project, that's fine. But could you drop us off at the library so we won't freeze to death in the walk over?"

Verne looked at his brother, confused. "Jules, what about--"

Jules shot him a look to keep quiet, just as Marty suddenly reacted. "Your name is Jules?" he asked, looking at the older boy.

The brown head nodded slowly, once, perhaps seeing no point in denial. Marty frowned for a minute but said nothing. Jules allowed him a moment of silence before speaking up.

"If you take us to the library and help us out, we'll tell you everything," he said. "Please, Marty. It's a matter of life and death now."

Marty stared at Jules for a minute, then shifted his eyes to Verne. Finally, he sighed. "What the hell, I'm not doing anything else tonight. Let me get Dad's keys. I'll be right back."

He went back inside before either of the boys could say a word. Verne looked at his brother. "Are we gonna tell him who we really are?" he whispered.

"I don't know if he'd believe us even if we did," Jules said. "But we might as well, once we get more information from him. I have a theory on what might be so different now, but until Marty talks to us more, I can't really confirm it."

"Why are things so different here?" Verne asked. "Dad's dead, Mom probably is, too, Marty seems off, too.... And did you notice his face? He has a couple scars on his forehead, with one right across his left eyebrow. He didn't have those before, I'm sure of it!"

"And he also doesn't have a truck now, never has," Jules added. He frowned. "I wonder what that accident he mentioned was about? If it's in the papers as he said, though, I guess we could look it up in the library...."

Verne had noticed a few more odd differences -- like the name of the mall, as well as Marty's odd comment about not being a college student, at least at Hill Valley University -- but before he had the chance to discuss it with his brother, Marty returned outside, bundled in a winter coat with a set of car keys in hand.

The vehicle that Marty unlocked was definitely unfamiliar to Verne, and it puzzled the boy that it belonged to Marty's father. The car looked older than the station wagon his family had, and it was definitely not a fairly current BMW. It took Marty two tries before the engine turned over, and then it ran rather noisily.

Verne and Jules sat in the back seat, a move that gave them more of a chance to exchange words if they wanted and not be overheard so much. Marty grimaced slightly as he shifted the car into reverse, taking a moment to slowly flex the fingers of his right hand after he took it off the gearshift before he placed it back on the steering wheel and backed the car out of the driveway. Verne possibly wouldn't have noticed, except his mind was still trying to figure out what their once friend had meant by "the accident." He wondered if something had happened to his hand in the accident, or if it was something else entirely.

Or maybe he just cut it or something earlier today, Verne told himself, promptly allowing his mind to forget what he had seen. It didn't seem really important in the big picture, and there were other things that needed his thought more. Like how they had caused this mess, and how they were going to get out of it before they failed to even exist.

Chapter Eight

Monday, December 7, 1987
10:17 P.M.

Much to Verne's pleasant surprise, Marty didn't just drop them off at the library and leave them to their own devices. Instead, the teen parked the car half a block away and walked with the boys to the back of the library, where he proceeded to take out a set of keys and unlock the back door.

Verne was stunned by that. As far as he knew, no one in Marty's family worked in the library. When Jules, who looked similarly shocked at the move, tentatively asked how he had gotten the keys, Marty had shrugged.

"Part of that community service sentence I got after the accident," he explained. "They made me volunteer in the library for a hundred hours, and one time they had me close down. I made copies of the keys they gave me for that since... well, I figured I might need 'em for something someday." Marty hesitated before opening the door. "I thought that's why you came to me, since somehow you knew about that."

The boys shook their heads. As they stepped inside, Marty quickly punched a code into an alarm box next to the door before it had the chance to go off. "What did you two kids wanna get here, anyway?" he asked.

"We need to look at back issues of the Hill Valley Telegraph," Jules said immediately. "From the mid-1880's and from 1982 'til now, I suppose."

Marty gave them another weird look as he headed towards the stairs that led to the archive room in the library's basement. "A little random. What the hell are you trying to research, anyway?"

"Our family history," Verne said honestly.

"That's it?! Man, you kids are weird. I can't believe I broke into the library for that!"

"It's more than that," Jules said.

Marty helped the kids locate the bound newspaper volumes they wanted and find what they were searching for by just flipping through the volumes, which were bound in chronological order. Jules and Verne caught on quickly and in no time at all were flipping through pages and pages of aging newsprint. Verne took the Nineteenth Century newspapers while his brother took care of the Twentieth Century ones. Marty hovered around a few minutes, but when it was clear that the boys didn't need him right then he wandered off elsewhere in the library.

Twenty minutes after they began the project, Verne found something on the front page of the September 5, 1885 issue of the Telegraph. The headline said it all: NEW SCHOOLTEACHER KILLED IN RAVINE!

Verne let out a soft moan. "Jules, Jules, look at this," he said softly.

His brother got up from his table and came to his side in a hurry. "What is it?" he asked.

Verne pointed to the frightening headline. "Look," he said in a voice not much louder than a whisper. "That was Mom! Clara Clayton! It says she died in Shona-- Shouna-- Show--"

"Shonash," Jules supplied. "Shonash Ravine." His eyes skimmed the text of the article, which Verne hadn't yet been able to bring himself to read, beyond the first couple sentences. "It says that Mom -- Clara -- was coming from the train station and driving herself when something startled her horses and they ran her right over the edge!" Jules sounded horrified. "They found her later that day, when she didn't show up at a meeting." He paused. "It says the town is thinking of naming the ravine after her, so it would be called--"

"Clayton Ravine," a voice said from nearby. Both boys started at the sound, too wrapped up in the increasing bad news to notice anything else beyond the newspaper. Verne turned and saw Marty standing nearby, gently massaging his right hand. "I knew that name sounded familiar earlier," he added when the kids said nothing. "That story about the teacher falling into the ravine... I've heard that since elementary school, 'cause we all had teachers we wished had gone down there, too."

Verne blinked hard at those words, taking them more personally than they were meant. That was his mother who had gone over the edge, not some faceless stranger! Perhaps noticing the way his brother had suddenly gone ridged, Jules put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Maybe it's time we asked you some questions," he said to Marty. "Verne, do you want to take over what I was doing?"

Verne was confused for a minute, then remembered the task his brother had been working on before he had interrupted his older sibling. "All right," he muttered, not trusting himself to say much more. He felt dangerously close to crying, and it wouldn't help anything if he gave into it. He got up and went over to the other table, starting to flip through the faintly yellowed newspaper pages as he glanced between Marty, Jules, and the front headlines for any mention of his father. As of December 15, 1985, where Jules had halted, there was apparently none.

Marty had the guarded look about him again. "Maybe I should ask you some questions, first," he said. "I heard what you said about that schoolteacher. Mom?" He frowned, his eyes narrowing. "There's no way in hell that chick could've been your mom. She's been dead for more than a hundred years."

"She's not our mother now but she was before," Jules said, rather blunt. "And you were different, too, as was your family. I don't know what the Marty McFly is like now, but where we came from, his father was a successful science fiction writer, he drove his own black truck, he was a student at the university majoring in something related to music, I think, he dated Jennifer Parker... and his best friend was our father. Emmett Brown."

Marty closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. "You kids are making absolutely no sense," he said. "Did you escape from some weird home or something?"

"No!" Jules said. "Now before you make me get ahead of where we should be, tell me if you've ever been friends with Emmett Brown."

Marty snorted. "No way! The guy was crazy! Why would I want to hang around him?"

Jules frowned for a moment, his expression more that of someone concentrating hard than one of disapproval for the words Marty had just uttered. "Do you remember when you were thirteen and passed out all those flyers, trying to find a job?" he asked. "It was in May of 1982."

Marty's face didn't reveal any of his thoughts as he stared at Jules. "How the hell do you know about that?" he asked, almost snapping.

"You told me about it," Jules said, literally standing firm, not wincing in the least from Marty's tone of voice. "That's how you and Da-- Emmett Brown met. He showed up at your door with an offer you couldn't refuse."

"Brown never came over," Marty said flatly. "I'd remember that."

"Are you sure about that?" Jules asked.

"Yes," Marty said quickly. "I never spoke to him, but I know that he tried to get a hold of me a few times. I was never around when he did, though. How'd you know about those flyers?"

Jules hesitated. "Well, you see--"

Verne turned the newspaper page and on Sunday, January 26, 1986, he saw the bold headline: LOCAL SCIENTIST MURDERED IN MALL PARKING LOT; TERRORISM SUSPECTED.

"Jules," he said, his voice breaking. "I found the stuff about Dad."

Whatever Jules was about to say to Marty was halted as the boy turned and hurried to Verne's side. The blond leaned back to allow his older brother to read the article; he didn't think he could handle doing it himself.

"So, what's it say?" Verne finally asked, when Jules didn't say anything immediately.

The older boy looked cautiously at his brother, his expression pained. "It's sort of disturbing," he said softly.

"I think it's safe to say that I'm already gonna have enough nightmares if we survive this," Verne said. "Do you wanna tell me or do you want me to read it myself?"

Jules sighed. "This says that Emmett Brown was shot six times early Sunday morning in the parking lot of the Twin Pines Mall. The people who did it -- the articles says it was believed to be a terroristic attack -- also firebombed one of the cars that he had with him... a DeLorean sports car."

Verne tried to ignore the twist he felt inside at the details of his father's death and concentrated on the last part. "A DeLorean?" he asked.

Jules nodded. "You know what? I'll bet that was the night he was conducting his original experiment -- almost three months to the day after he did where we're from. I wonder if that delay has anything to do with Marty not being around...."

The teen in question let out an explosive sigh. "Will one of you tell me what's going on?" he asked, sounding surprisingly angry.

Jules turned his head to look at him. "I was trying to do just that, but you were too concerned with other issues," he said coolly.

"But I think I have a right to know how you two seem to know so much about me when I haven't seen you before in my life," Marty argued.

"Are you sure about that?" Jules asked again. Before the teen could answer, the boy rushed ahead. "Before we got sidetracked, you were saying that you've never befriended Emmett Brown?"

Marty threw up his left hand. "Yes! How many times are you gonna ask that question! I've talked to him maybe three times my whole life, when I couldn't get outta it, and I'd never be friends with someone who's so clearly got stuff missing up here." He tapped his forehead once.

It was the last straw for Verne. He bolted to his feet and glared at Marty, even as his vision began to blur from tears, his hands balling into fists. "Stop saying those things!" he yelled, his voice echoing in the cavernous space. "I can't believe you're acting like that and being such a... a bastard! Our father is not crazy, was never crazy! He invented a time machine! He was a raging genius, just misunderstood's all, an' I'm not gonna let you bash him anymore!"

"Verne!" Jules gasped, perhaps in the shock that his brother had sworn (and at Marty, no less), or perhaps at the venomous force that the words had spilled out at the teenager.

Verne blinked hard through the tears flooding his eyes, determined not to lose hold of his composure, even if it was tenuous already. Marty stared at the blond boy, a touch of shock on his face. Verne continued his tirade, the feelings of exhaustion, fear, and confusion making him increasingly angry at their father's old friend.

"You're not some perfect person yourself!" he shouted. "Even back where we're from. You're the one who always screwed things up whenever we'd go time traveling. An' you're worse now, Marty! You're so much worse! At least at home you were nice 'an you were goin' to school. What, did you drop outta school here? Dad said that's a real stupid thing for someone to do. And what's the accident we keep hearin' about from you? Did you kill someone or something? The Marty we know was never in an accident, and his family was a whole lot better. Everything here is so much worse!"

Verne ran out of breath and was forced to stop his flood of words. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, then felt a sob start from the back of his throat. He turned around suddenly and started to run as fast as he could, almost as if he could outpace the tears that he could already feel running down his cheeks, as if he could outrun the clock that was ticking against them before they'd fade away, as if he could just leave behind the images and news about his parents that were now seared into his brain.

"Verne!" he heard Jules call. "Come back!"

Verne ignored his brother, not looking back as he raced up the stairs to the main floor of the library.

* * *

Jules sighed when he heard the sound of a door slamming from somewhere upstairs, outside of the archive room. "Wow, I haven't seen him this upset since Mom and Dad told us they were going to have another baby," he said, half to himself.

Marty spoke with some hesitation, his voice soft. "Aren't you going to go after him?"

Jules thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I think he'd rather be alone," he said. "If I were him, I know I would. Anyway, we only have so much time and I can't waste it trying to calm him down." He looked at the teenager. "I can't really tell you he didn't mean what he said, 'cause I think he did, but we're just in a real weird position right now and it's frustrating because we don't know what happened and what to do -- and, right now, both of our parents are dead before we've even been born. We only have so much time before we'll fail to even exist."

Marty stared at him for a while, not saying a word, rubbing the wrist of his right hand as if it ached. A couple times he opened his mouth, and just as suddenly closed it before a word could be uttered. Jules let him be without saying anything himself, taking a few minutes to review what was written about his father in the newspaper article. He skimmed over it as fast as he could, not wanting to linger over the words or really see the photograph that someone had taken of the bombed out DeLorean. He was going to be the one who'd have worse nightmares later, if they fixed things; Verne didn't know the gritty, grim details like how their father's body was found by a security guard on rounds, or that the terrorists were still at large.

When Marty spoke again, his voice was tentative. "What did Verne mean when he mentioned a time machine?"

Jules looked up at the teen cautiously, wondering if this version of their friend was open minded enough to accept such a thing. He knew that when his father had broken the news to the Marty from home, he had done it by showing him the time machine and demonstrating what it did before actually telling him what it was. Jules had always thought this was a very wise move, since he was sure if he hadn't been raised knowing that time travel was possible, he would've almost surely dismissed claims of time travel and time machines as the ravings of someone who needed some psychiatric help, or of someone who lived in a fantasy world.

Still, at this point, they really had nothing to lose by telling Marty the truth. Jules just hoped that the teen could understand it all. He had a feeling what knowledge Marty had now of science and that sort of thing was drastically reduced without Emmett Brown's influence.

"Just what he said," Jules said. "Our father, better known as Dr. Emmett Lathrop Brown, invented a time machine. Where we're from."

"And where is that?" Marty asked, leaning against the shelf next to him, skeptical. "Wonderland?"

"From another reality, another timeline," Jules said. "I don't really understand it all that well myself, so I can't explain it better than that. But that day when you and your friends snuck into the movie theater to see Conan the Barbarian... that is where you met us before. Do you remember, Marty?" Jules continued to speak softly, even as Marty's eyes suddenly widened and his face abruptly paled. "Verne and I came up to you and your friends and asked your group if you could purchase tickets for us. We did eventually get in, along with your friend's sister, Emily. To Verne and me, these events happened just a couple hours ago, though I know to you it's been years. When we came home, though, we found all this. Our parents are dead, and you are a different person, like Verne said -- and so is your family."

Marty took a step back, looking almost as if he was seeing a ghost as he stared at Jules. It was only then the boy wondered if being blunt was perhaps the best approach. The Marty McFly standing in the room with him looked more or less the same as the Marty they knew, but was clearly quite different and had gone through a different life and experiences than the one he was used to being around. Maybe this one didn't take shocks so well.

"Don't panic or anything," Jules cautioned, holding up his hand. "Just because we can travel through time doesn't mean we're strange or anything. In fact, you've done it more than us, I think, where we're from." He went on rapidly. "Where we're from, you met our father, Emmett Brown, when he came to your house with one of those flyers you passed out in May of 1982. He offered you a good job and you accepted it and ended up being good friends with him. Best friends. You were also his assistant for a while, and on October 26, 1985, you were there with him in the mall parking lot when he revealed his time machine made from a DeLorean sportscar. In fact, after Einstein, our dog, you were the first to use it."

Jules paused for breath. Marty continued to stare at him, his eyes narrowing now. "There were a series of trips done after that first one, in that weekend. In one of those trips, our father was accidentally sent back to the year 1885, where he met our mother, then Clara Clayton, when he saved her from a runaway buckboard wagon. They fell in love and married and Verne and I were both born. But our living in a time that none of us really belonged in prompted our father to build another time machine -- the original one had been destroyed -- and we moved to November 1985 where we've been living ever since. That's why our parents are from different time periods."

Another pause for breath. Marty didn't say a word. Jules exhaled once, then continued in a slightly different vein. "The only thing I can really figure out about this place, this world, is that somehow you and Dad never met and became friends. It's the only way I can see that made you so different, but I don't really understand why that changed Dad's life in such a bad way."

"As if my life is freakin' perfect," Marty said, his tone sarcastic. Jules looked at him in surprise. "My family is on a road to nowhere -- my mom's a drunk, my dad's a pushover who lives to serve Biff Tannen, my brother is twenty-four and still lives at home an' works at Burger King, and my sister just got knocked up by her loser boyfriend. And me...."

Marty scowled, angry, and held up his right hand. "I busted my hand up good in a drag race with a jerk back in November of '85 and had to give up the one thing that really made me happy: playing the guitar. I also got slapped with community service and my license was suspended for a year, since I hit another driver. No one died, but they might as well have from the way the judge went on. I almost flunked out of high school before I graduated; why go to college?"

"Are you dating Jennifer Parker now?" Jules asked, curious.

Marty nodded, once, a bit of the bitterness draining from his face. "As soon as I make enough money to move out, we're gonna get married," he said. "She's been the only reason that I didn't give up long ago." He rolled his eyes. "Her parents think I'm Satan or something, though, so we're probably gonna go to Vegas or Reno and elope. No way in hell I'm going to ask her father for her hand or any of that. I'll be cheaper, anyway, since we can honeymoon right there."

"And she agrees to this?" Jules asked, a little skeptical. He couldn't think of one girl he had ever known who wanted elope to such places -- not that he really knew many girls well enough to know such things.

Marty bristled a little, immediately defensive. "She loves me and I love her. We'll do what we can to be together, okay? Anyway, it's none of your damn business."

"True," Jules agreed. He paused and changed the subject. "I know what I've told you is farfetched, but it is the truth. I'd like for you to believe me and help us out, but if you don't, I can understand that."

Marty cleared his throat, his voice softer now. "I believe you," he said. "And before you think I'm some nut who'll believe anything anyone tells me, let me just point out that I remember you and your brother now, from that day. I knew the name Jules sounded familiar, but once you reminded me of sneaking in that movie.... I remember you both and damned if you haven't aged a day since then! I think I even remember you both wearing those clothes, or something like them, since they were so wrong for the day. There's no way I can think of that being possible unless... well, what you're saying is true."

Jules was astonished. "I'm surprised you don't want more proof," he said.

"Why? Do you have something?"

"Well, yeah... but maybe it's best that you don't see it."

Marty looked curious now. "Is it the time machine?"

Jules didn't see the point in denying it. "Yes," he said. "But that's not important right now. After you and your friend found Emily, where did you go?"

Marty blinked at the change of subject. "Uh... home," he said. "Took me a while to get there -- I'd biked to the mall. I was supposed to be home at four-thirty, and would've made it fine if Kevin's sister hadn't gone off with you guys and freaked Kevin out so that he made all of us comb the mall for her and... what's wrong?"

Jules' eyes were wide and he almost jumped as the realization on what might've happened really dawned on him. "Did Emmett Brown try to contact you at all for a job back then?" he asked. "Maybe by phone or in a message, if not in person?"

Marty frowned. "Yeah, he did. He called a few times, but I was always out and there was no way in hell I was gonna return the phone calls. And once he cornered me in the town square, near the courthouse, but I booked it outta there quick before he could say much. The guy was creepy -- sorry. But I'm positive he never showed up at my door, unless it happened when no one was home or no one told me. I would've remembered that. Why?"

Jules started to circle one of the tables, thinking as he moved. "Maybe he came to your house that day of the movie, but because you were delayed in returning home immediately following the movie, he missed you and therefore you never ended up working for him and never became friends! And if he never had an assistant those years, maybe that also explains why the test run of the original time machine was delayed by three months! And his later attempts to talk to you apparently failed, maybe because of poor timing on his part. You told me that yourself, in the other world, that you didn't want to do it at first. The only reason you accepted his offer was 'cause of the money he would pay you."

"How much was that, anyway?" Marty asked.

Jules thought for a moment, back to the conversation that he had had with Marty more than a year ago, back when he and Verne had last gone on a trip together and ended up in a lot more trouble than they had first expected. Must be a curse of ours, he thought without a trace of humor. "Uh, I think you said it was fifty dollars a week...."

The teen blinked. "Fifty bucks a week? Hell, I think I would've worked for anyone at that price back then!"

Jules hardly heard him, his mind already leaping ahead to the next problem. "Verne and I being there.... Maybe if we weren't there and weren't with you, your friend's brother would've allowed you all into the theater. And Emily wouldn't have been left behind. And then she wouldn't have gotten spiteful and gone off on her own and you wouldn't had been delayed in going home and... oh my God!" He sat down in the nearest chair available. "I can't believe Verne and I caused such a mess!"

"So, let me get this straight," Marty said slowly. "My life wasn't supposed to be this crappy originally?"

"I wouldn't put it that way, exactly, but you've got the gist of it." Jules sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Oh, man, if Verne and I get out of this alive, our dad is gonna kill us!"

"And how do you think you can fix it? What happens then?"

"If we fix it, this world will change back to the way it was originally," Jules said. "So this path that we've put you on won't be anymore; you'll be back to the way we're used to... I think."

"Sounds heavy," Marty said. "But anything beats this. Sounds like the other me was much happier."

"I think you were, too," Jules said. "You were a sophomore in college, you and Jennifer were still dating but as far as I know neither of you were talking marriage yet, though I know that's supposed to happen someday. Your family was much different.... Apparently when you used the time machine the first time, you changed the way your parents met, almost making it so you weren't even born, and influenced them in such a way so that your dad is now a real successful science fiction writer, your mom isn't at all like that woman we saw at your house, your brother lives in L.A. and works for some big company, and your sister also lives away from your parents and I don't think she's having any kids at all yet."

Marty blinked at the news. "Wow," he said, sounding surprised. "Did the other me have to give up his music, too?"

Jules shook his head. "No. As Verne said earlier, he was never in an accident like that at all, as far as I know." He paused. "You know, I think this has to be one of the strangest conversations I've had in my life."

"I'll agree with you there," Marty said. "I don't think I really understand most of what you've said but, you know, I think it's true. It feels like that's right and this isn't."

"Even if it means that your best friend is the town eccentric?" Jules asked, skeptical.

Marty grimaced a little. "Well, I guess he must not be as bad as the town says he is if I end up being his friend. So, are you gonna go now and fix things so they'll be back to normal?"

Jules nodded. "I wish we could just stop ourselves from going to that movie theater, but that's not smart. I've picked up a lot from Dad and all about time travel and I think that would cause a paradox, since if we made it so this never happened, we wouldn't've gone back to stop ourselves in the first place."

"Sounds like you have your work cut out for you," Marty commented. "Glad I'm not in your place."

Jules smiled a little. "Where I'm from, you've been there more times than you'd like to know," he said. "I'm sorry we wrecked things for you so badly, Marty. Verne and I never meant for this to happen at all. We just wanted to see a movie because it was our way of rebelling against our parents' rules, especially since they were in the hospital having their third child when we left. That might be why Verne acted the way he did," Jules added. "He's having a lot of trouble dealing with it."

"I don't think you meant this at all," Marty said. "Mistakes happen. As long as you fix things back to the way they were, I really don't care."

"We don't have a choice," Jules said, his voice softer. "If we don't repair what we did wrong in time, we're gonna fade from existence in about twenty four hours. After all, if our parents died before they even met, we can't exactly be alive, now, can we?"

"But you're here now..." Marty said, sounding confused.

"When you do something like this, it takes time to catch up with you," the boy explained. "Dad called it the ripple effect, since it's like chucking a stone into a pond. If you're on the shore, away from where it dropped, there's a delay before the ripples reach you. And time is like that, too, like the water. Which is lucky, otherwise mistakes like these wouldn't be able to be corrected."

Marty sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I hope my twin gets this stuff better than I do, especially if he's mucking around in time himself."

"He does only because he lived through this sort of thing more than once," Jules said. He stood up. "I'd better find Verne now so we can figure out what to do and how to fix it before we really do run out of time."

Chapter Nine

Monday, December 7, 1987
11:44 P.M.

There were many places that a boy could hide in a closed library, Verne had discovered. Only one out of every four lights seemed to be running, giving him many shadows and dark corners in which to conceal himself, and there were many rooms that were both unlocked and completely dark. Not feeling a hundred percent comfortable in the pitch darkness of a strange place, however, Verne ended up in the children's portion of the library, seated on the floor by the reading corner, hugging his knees hard against his chest as he allowed himself to shed a few tears over the terrible situation he and Jules were in.

He was alone for a while. At first, he didn't mind, since he didn't want to deal anymore with Marty's snide remarks about Emmett Brown, or Jules' eerie calmness. But when twenty minutes passed and his surroundings remained as quiet as ever, he started to get a little uneasy and a little madder.

They probably didn't even care that I left! he thought, scowling in the semidarkness. I can't believe that! What jerks!

Just as he was toying seriously with the idea of leaving the library altogether and to head back for the time machine on his own, he heard a door open and close nearby, and the faint sound of footsteps began to head his way. Verne stiffened a little, a part of him wondering if it wasn't his brother or the other Marty, but maybe a janitor or something. His unease dissolved a moment later when he caught a glimpse of his brother as Jules passed by without seeing him. Verne didn't say a word, not moving.

"Verne!" Jules whispered loudly. "If you can hear me, you'd better say something! We don't have time for one of your pranks now."

Verne had almost allowed himself to forget the deadline that they were up against and now that he remembered, he wasn't happy. Still, he didn't want to die or be erased from existence. When Jules passed by his hiding place again, Verne said, very quietly, "Boo."

The older boy jumped at the sound, managing to simultaneously twist around and stagger back a couple feet, his hand on his chest. When his eyes focused on Verne, they promptly narrowed. "Verne Brown, you almost gave me a coronary!"

"Big deal," Verne said flatly. "We're not gonna be around much longer, anyway."

"Not with that attitude," Jules said. "You should apologize to this Marty. With his help, I think I've nailed what happened and how we can fix it."

Verne shrugged, not moving though his legs were starting to get a little numb from being in the position they were for so long. "He insulted both our parents, Jules," he said. "Dad is not crazy, and he didn't deserve what happened to him!" His lower lip trembled for a moment as he remembered that terrible newspaper article detailing the murder.

"Marty never said he did," Jules said. "That's you putting words into his mouth."

Verne shrugged again and didn't say anything. Jules sighed hard. "Verne, will you stop acting like such a child and come back to the archives?"

"I am a child," Verne said, scowling.

"No kidding -- and you've been acting like half your age ever since Mom and Dad told us about the baby!" Jules snapped.

"Whoa, since when did this become the new subject?" Verne demanded, staggering a little as he finally stood.

Jules rolled his eyes. "You are so egotistical, Verne! All you think about is yourself and how things will affect you -- never others. When Mom and Dad told us about the baby, you didn't once take into account how your actions made them feel, how much they stayed up late taking about you, worrying about you, and wondering how they could make you feel better about the whole thing! All you thought about is how you wouldn't be youngest anymore -- and big deal about that! Who cares? It's not worth being so upset over and being so mad at Mom and Dad and the baby! And this situation right now is just one more fine example of how self-involved you are!"

"That's not true!" Verne said immediately.

"Yes it is!" Jules said. "You haven't even thought about how this entire nightmare of a trip has made me feel. Do you think I like having to deal with this? Do you think I like having to take charge all the time? My mother and father are dead right now, too, not just yours!" His voice cracked and he looked away quickly.

Verne stared at him oddly, his head cocked to one side, feeling as if he was suddenly looking at a stranger. "You're always together and runnin' things," he said. "'Scuse me if I thought this wasn't any different."

Jules sniffed. "It is," he said softly. "Ever stop to think I do it because you never take charge when things get serious? And someone has to, especially in these kinds of situations. While you were up here sulking, I got enough out of the Marty here to have a good idea where we went wrong."

"You never asked me if I wanted to run things," Verne said.

Jules looked at him, his eyes still damp from unshed tears. "You're not supposed to ask, Verne -- you're supposed to just do it. That's why they call it taking charge, not asking for charge. I think the whole reason you're so bent out of shape about not being youngest anymore is because it means that you'll have more responsibility and someone will look up to you. And I think that scares you."

"Why would it?" Verne asked, his hands on his hips. "I can handle responsibility!"

Jules snorted. "Yeah, you've handled it beautifully so far tonight. I may not be so great with people as you are, but I'm definitely not stupid and you can be really transparent sometimes, little brother. Whenever Mom and Dad give you a job to do, unless it's a real serious situation, you usually try to find some way to squirm right out of it!"

"Oh, like you don't?" Verne asked. "You try to get outta your chores, too!"

"Not as much as you, and this goes beyond chores," Jules said. "You're even changing the subject a little, trying to put this on me now. But we're not talking about me right now, Verne, we're talking about you. Every time something comes up that you want to avoid, you always change the subject. I'll admit that you have a great talent for it, since half the time when you do it I don't even notice. You probably get that from Dad. But I'm not about to let you wiggle out right now."

"Since when did you become a shrink, Dr. Brown?" Verne asked, rolling his eyes.

"Very funny." Jules scrunched his face up for a minute, then sighed and let his hands fall to his side. "I'm just concerned about you, Verne. If you keep up this pattern, you're going to have terrible times in your teenage years. Because the fact is, you're getting older, and gaining responsibility is just gonna happen whether you like it or not, whether or not Mom and Dad have another baby. You can't be a kid forever, oblivious and protected from the complicated and difficult things in life. Look at what happened right here -- we have a responsibility now, both to ourselves and our family and the rest of the world, to make sure that Marty and Dad meet, to fix what we made go wrong. It's our fault, and we have to accept that. I have, but I don't know if you have at all. I'll just bet a part of you wishes you could stay here and have things change around you or something, but that's not gonna happen. You can't run away from things in life just because you don't wanna accept any responsibility, because you're either too lazy or scared to fess up."

Jules finished, breathing a little hard from his long, passionate spiel. Verne folded his arms across his chest, rather chilled at some of the things his brother had said, which felt to him as if they had hit too close to home. He didn't want to think about it now, though -- but I never want to, he realized, wishing already that Jules would've just stayed downstairs and kept his mouth shut and maybe let Marty come find him. He doubted the teen from this world would've given him such an earful.

"Like you're perfect," he said, rather lamely.

"This isn't about me, Verne," Jules said quietly. "You're changing the subject again." He looked at his watch and frowned. "I'd love to keep this conversation going, but we should get back on track now to fix things. I don't know how much time we have left, and three hours have already passed since we arrived. Who knows how much time it'll take to make things the way they were supposed to be?"

"And what are we gonna do?" Verne asked, relaxing a little now that he was out of the spotlight. "What happened?"

"You mean, what didn't happen," Jules corrected, starting to walk towards the archive door. "And that which didn't happen would be Dad and Marty never meeting at the critical time they did because we delayed Marty from returning immediately home from the movie. That, apparently, was the day our father decided to go over and ask him to work for him, but Marty wasn't there when he stopped by, and his other attempts to befriend him failed to the point of scaring off Marty more than anything."

Verne frowned. "How'd we delay Marty? We hardly even saw him!"

"Marty's friend, Kevin -- Emily's brother -- got all worried when she wasn't where she was supposed to be, because she was with us, and made his friends help him look for her. That delayed Marty almost an hour in getting home. If we hadn't been there, Emily wouldn't have turned up missing."

The picture started to become clear to Verne. "Oh, wow," he said softly. "I can't believe that caused all the problems!"

"Just proves what Dad's told us multiple times before," Jules said. "Even the littlest or most insignificant of actions can create huge changes. In this case, it was a series of little things that basically resulted in a delay that ended with two people never forging a friendship. I find it rather disturbing, personally, that such tiny things out of place can cause such huge disruptions." He paused as he opened the door to the archive stairs. "After this, I don't know if I'll ever want to time travel again."

"I think I'll enjoy a break, too," Verne said. "Just as well, since Dad'll know what we did the second he gets home and sees the lab... if we can fix things."

"I think we should be able to," Jules said. "But it's going to be all about timing."

* * *

By the time they had placed the bound newspapers back in their proper places and cleaned up the archive room so it appeared as if no one had been there in the night, Jules had come up with a plan of attack to get the friendship between his father and Marty back on track. They would have to make sure that the meeting would happen later in the day of May fourteenth, and in the same circumstances as it had originally. Jules wasn't sure if it was so important that it did, but since he only knew the details of how the original meeting had gone from Marty himself before things changed, he had to wonder if changing things so that the scientist would meet the thirteen-year-old in a different manner would change that story and then create some kind of paradox later. It would be better not to chance it, he figured.

Verne didn't venture an apology at all to Marty, which both annoyed and didn't surprise the older boy. Marty hardly said a word as they cleaned up and left the building, but when they got back into the car, covered under a good layer of snow that had been falling thicker and faster, he turned around to look at the boys in the backseat before starting the vehicle.

"I'd like to see your time machine before you go," he said.

Jules had been expecting the request, sooner or later. He couldn't see much harm in allowing the teen a look at the time machine, especially since this version of reality was -- hopefully -- going to change back to the one he and Verne knew best. Plus, this Marty had helped them out an awful lot....

"All right," Jules said. "It's not far from your house -- we can walk to it from there."

Marty blinked, looking a bit surprised. Jules wondered if he had expected them to put up more of a fight against the idea. Verne looked slightly confused, but said nothing as Marty turned back around, started the car, and started driving slowly through the white and slippery streets.

It took twice as long to return to the McFly home, since the weather had grown much worse while they had been in the archives. The car skidded more than once, causing Marty to curse under his breath, especially when it almost ran a stop sign when the tires couldn't get a grip. Jules wondered if the weather would get this bad back at home, or if it was isolated to this particular world.

When they reached the McFly's and got out of the car, the first question out of Marty's mouth was, "Which way?"

"We parked it in the backyard of the house that's up for sale," Jules said.

"You mean the King's place?"

"I suppose so, unless there's another home up for sale near your house," Jules said, leading the way. The footprints that he and Verne had made only a few hours before were almost concealed by the new layers of snow that had been added since. Earlier, Jules had had the idle question of whether or not any snow gathered on the DeLorean would show, even if the vehicle was under an invisible illusion. Now, as they rounded the back of the house, he got his answer -- there was no trace that anything was in the backyard.

"Where is it?" Marty asked as they headed for the middle of the yard, where Jules had parked the car.

The older boy smiled as he pulled the keys out from his coat pocket. "Right here," he said, thumbing the switch. The snow-covered DeLorean appeared, seemingly out of thin air, a second later, five feet before where they stood. Marty took a step back, startled, and lost his footing, falling to the ground with a rather muffled thud.

"Holy shit," the teen breathed, his eyes wide as he gazed at the modified sports car. "That's a time machine?"

"What'd you expect?" Verne asked. He brushed some of the snow off the top of the car and windows before opening the passenger side door and climbing into the car. Marty got to his feet slowly and leaned inside the open doorway as Jules circled around to the other side of the car to get in, brushing the snow off the hood, windows, and roof as he went.

"This is amazing!" Marty said, sounding suitably impressed. "Can you go to any time and any place?"

"More or less," Jules said as he closed his door. "If you really want to see something interesting, stand back."

Marty took a couple steps back. Verne closed the door as Jules started the car and got the time circuits running. "What time are we gonna go back to?" Verne asked.

Jules looked at the Last Time Departed: May 14, 1982 6:57 P.M. "Let's come back at seven P.M.," he said. "I don't think it would be very wise to show up there while there are copies of us running around."

"But if we're gonna go see Dad and try to convince him to see Marty again, shouldn't we do it sooner?"

Jules shrugged a little. "Maybe. Actually, I think it's still a good idea to go later, since if we do have to do the task earlier, we'll have the time. Get it?"

Verne frowned. "Sort of," he said, punching in the destination date and time. "Shouldn't we say good bye to this Marty?" he asked, looking outside at the rather anxious teenager.

"I suppose that would be polite," Jules said. "Open your door."

Verne did as instructed. Jules leaned across the time circuit control switch. "We're going to leave now," he said. "Thanks for your help."

"If you can fix things, you have my thanks," Marty said. "Good luck."

Jules nodded and settled back in his seat, throwing the appropriate switch to induce the hover conversion. Before Verne closed his door, Jules caught a brief glimpse of Marty's jaw dropping as the car's wheels folded underneath and it started to hover about the ground. The older boy was slightly amused, enjoying, just a bit, seeing these reactions from a friend that, to him, considered such things as time travel and flying cars almost normal.

"I hope we never, ever see this place again," Verne said softly as Jules took to the snowy skies.

"I am complete, in one hundred percent, agreement with you," Jules murmured.

* * *

Unlike their original arrival to the mid-May date, this one presented Jules and Verne with a new challenge in hiding the time machine. Jules felt that they shouldn't put it back on their future land, since if versions of themselves from the future had to come back to fix things at an earlier time, they might use that same place. Verne, on the other hand, didn't understand how that could be possible, since their father had always said that the future was whatever one made it to be. And, the younger boy pointed out, if that was true, then there shouldn't even be another Jules and Verne from the future since they hadn't even made that trip yet and it could change. Jules had looked at him a moment, a rather odd expression on his face, before nodding in agreement.

"But I still say we avoid our future house," Verne said as they hovered above it. "It's on the other end of town from Dad's old house, and Marty's neighborhood. That's a long way to walk."

Jules saw the wisdom in this, apparently, and after some debate the boys agreed that they'd hide the time machine at a halfway point between the McFly house and their father's old home. Jules cruised over the area, the DeLorean long ago made invisible, and finally settled on landing it in the currently empty parking lot of the Gale Elementary School, approximately halfway between Emmett Brown's current home and Marty's. Once that was taken care of, and the boys had again shucked off as much as they could of their winter clothes, they set out for their father's home on foot.

The walk took them more than fifteen minutes, even with the shortcuts they were able to take across parking lots and fields on the way. When they arrived at the building, Verne had to wonder if it was the right place. He knew that their father had lived next to a Burger King, in the sole remaining building of what had once been a sprawling estate, but the structure that they saw looked so run down and small that he thought it was a large storage shed at first glance, rather than their father's past home.

Jules seemed to share the sentiments. "This was his old home?" he asked, sounding a little incredulous.

"This is the only Burger King in Hill Valley," Verne said. "It has to be." He made a face. "I can't believe Dad lived here for so long. The place is a real dump."

"As if he really needed much more," Jules said. "We might as well get this over with."

"What do you plan to say? 'Hi, we're your kids from the future and we want you to go over to Marty McFly's right now and force him to be your friend?' "

"Not in those terms, exactly," Jules said. "We shouldn't be so obvious as to tell him what he has to do, or that could make things worse. We'll have to persuade him to visit Marty again, and do it in such a way that he doesn't start asking questions on why we're so insistent." He sighed a little. "I don't think it'll be very easy, especially since our father is more open to the unusual possibilities in life. However, since this is prior to him finishing the time machine--"

"Sort of," Verne said. "Remember, he saw Marty and the first time machine in 1955."

Jules frowned. "Did he?" he asked. "I don't know if that's true anymore."

"What do you mean?"

The older boy frowned more intently, his brow furrowing. "I don't know if this can be understood by you," he began, "but it's possible that we could be in a different history now than we were when we were in 1982 earlier."

Verne didn't really get it. "What do you mean by that? Like another different reality?"

"Sort of.... Think of it this way -- when we came back here originally, before we messed things up, it was to a world where Dad and Marty were on their way to meeting and when we left, we saw what happened if they kept missing each other."

"Yeah," Verne said, wishing Jules would hurry up and get to his point. He was sweltering out here in the sun and his winter clothes and, frankly, wanted to get the task of speaking to their father over with.

"Well, since as of this second, if we don't do anything, Dad and Marty won't become friends, meaning Marty won't use the time machine and go back to 1955, it's possible that we could be in a world where that incident never happened. So he wouldn't have met Marty in 1955."

Verne tried as hard as he could to understand what Jules was saying. The effort increased the already dull ache in his head, brought about by stress and exhaustion, no doubt. "I don't get it," he finally said.

"That's all right -- it's just a theory and I don't know if I understand it all the way, either." He paused, his features twisting a moment. "I wish Dad was with us now. He would know everything."

Verne nodded, a lump rising in his throat when he remembered what would happen if they didn't change things. "Let's go," he said, tugging on his brother's arm a little. "We should get this over with."

Chapter Ten

Friday, May 14, 1982
7:42 P.M.

Verne was the one who knocked on the door. As soon as he made the noise, a dog started barking from within. "Is that Einstein?" he whispered, looking at Jules.

"Probably," his older brother agreed. "I wonder if he'll recognize us--"

The door opened then, and they found themselves facing the man who would someday be their father -- if their plan worked. Verne's first reaction was that Emmett Brown looked older than he remembered him being, even though this version was a younger one. There were more lines on his face, his posture a tad more stooped, and he just didn't look quite as fit as the father Verne had grown up with. But the same energetic spark was in his eyes, and he moved the same and dressed the same. Verne had to restrain himself from throwing his arms around him.

"Yes?" he asked, rather curtly, holding Einstein back by the collar. The dog stopped barking, whining a little now as he surveyed the two boys on the stoop.

Verne didn't know what to say. He looked at his brother and saw Jules wasn't opening his mouth, either. When the silence persisted, Emmett sighed. "Can I help you with anything?" he asked.

"Ye--yes," Jules said, finally finding his voice. "We were wondering, well... did you visit the McFly residence today to see Marty?"

Their father's dark eyes widened for a moment, then narrowed. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because one of his friends saw you go over earlier and he wasn't home," Verne blurted out before he could stop himself, thinking it was a good lie.

The scientist looked at the boys strangely. "What?"

"Yes, we know that you wanted to ask him for some help," Jules said. "And, normally, he would've been at home, but he got a little delayed today. So we thought you might want to go over there again."

Emmett frowned. "Visit the McFly's now?" he asked. "But it's almost eight in the evening!"

"So what?" Verne asked. "No time like the present."

Their someday-father continued to watch them with an odd expression on his face. "Who are you kids?" he asked.

The Marty McFly from the other future had asked the very same question just hours before. "We're here to help," Jules said, sincerely. "This isn't a joke. We know Marty would really love to work for you and if you miss your chance now, you'll never get it back -- trust us."

"We know how much you need an assistant an' a friend," Verne added.

One of Emmett's white eyebrows arched. "Oh, really?" he said, a strange tone to his voice. "Is this why you two are here, then? Do you both want jobs?"

"No, no, no, we're fine," Jules stammered, clearly taken aback by this unexpected offer. "Marty's the one who needs the work and companionship, not us."

The scientist stared at them intently. Einstein whined, drawing back a couple steps. Feeling him strain against his grip the opposite way of the door, Emmett looked down at his pet. "What's the matter, Einie?" he asked, letting go of the dog's collar.

Einstein sulked back a few more paces, whining. Emmett turned back to the boys, clearly puzzled. "That's odd..." he murmured, mostly to himself. "I don't think I've ever seen him react that way before...."

"Maybe he knows we have a dog," Verne said, which was, technically, the truth. He quickly brought the conversation back to its original topic. "Will you go visit Marty McFly for us?"

"Perhaps if you let me in on why it's so important to you," Emmett said. "Pardon me for being suspicious, but I am quite aware of what the town thinks of me and the grossly exaggerated rumors. How do I know this isn't some joke?"

"We swear we're not trying to pull somethin' on you," Verne said. "We've heard what they say about you, and we both think they're all a bunch of dumb jerks."

"Yes," Jules agreed. "This town is filled with narrow minded people who have utterly no creativity or imagination to understand those who see the world in a different way."

Emmett looked taken aback by the words. "I see," he said. There was a long pause.

Verne leaned a little closer to the open doorway, feeling a cool draft from inside. "Can we come in?" he asked. "It's real hot out here and we're not wearing the right kinda clothes an' all."

Again, the scientist seemed startled, perhaps due to Verne's bold question (which he knew wasn't real polite, but, really, he was dying out in this heat) or perhaps by the fact a stranger he didn't know wanted to go into the home of the supposed town crazy. "I suppose," Emmett said, stepping aside to allow them to enter.

Einstein whined as they came inside and retreated to the space under a cot nearby. Verne gawked a little at the inside of his father's home, mostly at how messy and cluttered it was. While his father wasn't the neatest person in the world, at home things weren't quite this bad. Verne wondered if that had anything to do with their mother making sure the clutter didn't get so bad, since she was considerably neater than Dad.

"Wow," Jules said as Emmett closed the door behind them, awed for a different reason. "You certainly have a lot of projects going."

The scientist grunted softly. "Am I to understand that you both want me to visit the McFlys tonight to ask Marty about the job?" he asked. "Why are you so insistent that this be done tonight and not tomorrow?"

"Because he won't be around tomorrow," Jules said. "It has to be now -- trust us. And you can't telephone him or anything. You have to visit him in person."

"But why? Phoning would save me the trip if he wasn't there."

"If you don't go in person, he won't accept the job," Verne said sagely. "Marty's narrowminded enough now that he'd chicken out on workin' for you unless you do it face to face."

"But he'll also accept because of the generous compensation you're offering," Jules said.

Emmett's eyes narrowed again. "How do you know about that?"

"We just do," Verne said. "Will you promise us? Swear that you'll visit Marty right now?"

Their father didn't seem entirely convinced. "Are you sure that no one set you up to this?"

"Yes," Jules said. "We promise you, no one did. And," he added, "when you see Marty, don't tell him that we came over. Don't mention us to anyone."

"Why?"

"I think you'll know someday," Verne said. "And I know you know you don't wanna know too much about your own future. Just know that this was supposed to happen, it's meant to be an' all that."

The dark eyes widened now. "All right..." Emmett said slowly, sounding a little doubtful.

"Great," Jules said, heading for the door again. "Good luck, then, and we'll see you later."

Verne paused before he left the building, taking another look back at his younger (but older looking) father, who was watching the kids with a clear aura of confusion. "Things will turn out great this way," he said. "An' good luck with your flux capacitor, though ya don't really need it."

Just before he closed the door, Verne saw Emmett's face pale and the scientist literally stagger back a couple feet. He smiled a little as he followed Jules out of the gate that separated the tiny property from a parking lot.

"Verne!" Jules moaned when they were far enough from the building that there was no chance of being overheard from inside. "How could you say something like that! Are you crazy? Do you want to be erased?"

Verne shrugged. "I think something like that needed to be said," he explained. "That way he'll maybe pick up on how important it is that he get to be friends with Marty an' all. Anyway, he doesn't know who we are, 'specially since we didn't tell him our names or anything."

"Still," Jules said. "You and I both know that Dad didn't breathe a word about his flux capacitor to anyone until he demonstrated the original time machine to Marty in 1985. Your mentioning that is going to confuse him like crazy."

Verne shrugged again. "Oh, well," he said. He changed the subject. "I say we go by Marty's house now and make sure he does what we asked him to."

"Why? If he did, we'll know as soon as we get home."

Verne looked at him as if he was crazy. "Jules, do you really wanna go back to that other place if we didn't fix things?" he asked.

Jules puckered his mouth as if he had tasted something bitter. "No," he admitted. "Not really."

"I don't either. I'd rather go to the dentist every day for a year than go back there for a just minute! We can easily go over near Marty's and watch his front door to see if Dad comes by and once we see them talking, we can go home."

Jules frowned. "I suppose," he said slowly. "But we can't do anything -- anything -- to interfere or draw attention to ourselves."

"I know," Verne said, rather insulted that his brother would think he didn't know that. "How about we take the DeLorean, put it on invisible, and land it in front of Marty's house? We can watch through the windows, and no one will know we're there."

"That might be too dangerous," Jules said. "The way our luck's been going, someone will probably want to park right where we're situated and give us a new mess by damaging the time machine. Can you imagine if that happened, and if we had to go back to the Dad of now with that problem?" He shuddered at the very idea, but Verne thought it was kinda cool. Still, the younger boy knew as well as his brother that could be quite dangerous for them, and he did want to get home as soon as possible, not hang around in limbo in 1982 for a few days.

"All right," Verne conceded. "We can hide in some bushes or something."

By the time they reached the McFlys' home, dusk was settled around Hill Valley, the shadows both cooling the temperature down and allowing the boys better concealment. A row of hedges in the yard across the street was the perfect place to lay in wait, with a couple gaps in the leaves through which it was quite easy to see the front of the McFlys' without being seen.

They had hardly settled in when a voice from behind nearly scared both boys out of what wits they had left.

"What are you doing in my yard?"

Jules and Verne both whipped their heads around. The voice sounded too young to belong to an angry housewife, and when Verne's eyes focused on the person who had spoken, he found himself looking at none other than--

"Emily?" Jules asked, as surprised as his brother was.

The blond girl nodded once. "Yeah. You're the guys from the mall. What're you doing in my yard?"

Verne wasn't even going to try to answer this one. He looked at Jules, who, from the expression on his face, was thinking hard and fast. "We're playing a game, sort of," he hedged.

Emily looked skeptical as she crossed her arms over her chest. "What sorta game?"

"We're waiting for Marty McFly to get a visitor," Jules said. "Someone we know promised he'd stop by, and we want to make sure he follows through."

Verne was taken aback that his brother was telling so much of the truth. Emily looked more curious now, not less. Hoping to distract her, Verne thought back to what had happened earlier in the day (and what felt like a million years ago), when she had hung out with the both of them.

"Did we get you in trouble earlier?" he asked.

Emily smiled rather mischievously. "No," she said. "Kevin didn't say anything to Mom an' Dad, since he knew he'd get in trouble, too, if he explained why he ditched me and all that. He's still kinda mad at me, though, but...." She shrugged.

"A car's coming," Jules said suddenly. Verne turned around and leaned forward as best he could to peer through the hole in the foliage. The vehicle, a small two door sportscar, pulled up to the curb before the McFly home. A moment later, Emmett Brown got out. Emily, still standing and tall enough to see over the shrubbery, watched the older man head for the front door.

"Is that Dr. Brown?" she asked, speaking too loudly for Verne's comfort. Jules shushed her, grabbing her hand to pull her down to their level.

"Keep quiet and stay down," he whispered, his face serious. "We don't want to interfere or distract."

Emily frowned, looking irritated. "What's the big deal?" she asked, nevertheless keeping her voice lower now. "And why is that guy wanting to see Marty? He's crazy, y'know," she added.

Verne scowled. "He is not!" he hissed. "Do you believe everything you hear?"

The blond girl blinked, momentarily stunned by the harsh response to her comment. "Sorry," she murmured.

Meanwhile, Emmett had reached the front door. Verne watched as he knocked on it. A long moment passed.

"Maybe no one's home again," Verne whispered to his brother.

"Very doubtful," Jules said. "Why would they have lights on inside if no one was home?"

"Marty's not home," Emily said. "I know that much -- he's inside with my brother."

The boys whipped their heads around to look at the girl. "He is?" Verne asked. "Why didn't you say anything sooner?"

Emily shrugged. "You never asked."

Jules grabbed Emily's arm, his grip tight enough to cause her to wince a little. "Emily, please, please go inside right now and bring Marty out here. Do whatever you have to to make it happen, but it's critically important that Emmett Brown speaks with him now, tonight."

"Why?" Emily asked, tugging her arm free from Jules' grip.

"Because we're time travelers from the future, an' if he and Marty don't meet, our history will change so that we won't end up being born because he and our future mom'll both die before their times," Verne said, figuring he might as well tell the truth. Jules made a strange noise as his brother spoke, burying his face in his hands. Emily stared at Verne, her expression odd.

"Sure," she said, her tone slightly sarcastic. "And I'm a really rich princess from England."

Verne shrugged. "I don't care if you believe it or not," he said, though a part of him was both relieved and stinging that she didn't. "Can you please go inside and just tell Marty that his parents need to talk to him right now or somethin'?" He glanced across the street and saw the door opened by Lorraine McFly. "Hurry, before he goes away!"

Emily sighed and leaned back for a moment. "What the heck," she said, getting to her feet. "I'll be right back."

Verne watched as she scurried back into the house, then felt something sock him in the arm, a little roughly. Verne looked up and saw Jules, who had induced the blow, frowning at him, clearly not happy. "Are you crazy?" he hissed.

Verne rubbed his arm. "Like it matters anymore," he said, watching as Lorraine shook her head to their father's query. "We've gotta do something, Jules! We have to stall Dad so Marty won't miss 'im!"

"I know, I know!" Jules sighed. "God, I can't believe how precise this meeting thing has to be, how it has so much to do with the timing...."

A minute passed, both slowly and rapidly, during which Emmett seemed to exchange more words with Marty's mother and neither Emily nor Marty emerged from the house. Verne fidgeted, trying to figure out what the might have to do to stall their father or drag the young teen from the house. Lorraine closed the door and Emmett turned around, pausing for a moment on the porch. Just as Verne was about to suggest a distraction technique that might delay their father, now walking to his car, the front door to Emily's house opened and slammed shut and Marty ran outside, heading for his house. He didn't even notice Jules and Verne, concealed by both the hedges and the shadows.

"Good," Jules whispered, not noticing Emily emerging from the house a moment later. Verne was hardly aware of it, either, leaning forward with his brother to see through the gap as Marty crossed the street, his rapid footfalls slowing down as he saw the figure standing beside the unfamiliar car.

"Marty McFly?" he heard Emmett ask.

"Yeah?" Marty answered, sounding a little suspicious as he stopped walking entirely, standing a couple feet away from Emmett.

"You're just the person I was hoping to see! I'm Dr. Emmett L. Brown. I saw one of your flyers posted in the Burger King, and I came by to see if you were still looking for work."

Marty cocked his head to one side as he eyed the scientist. "Maybe," he said. "It depends on what you'd want me to do...."

"Nothing dangerous, I can assure you of that," Emmett said with a rather uncomfortable chuckle. "I'm afraid I'm a bit of a packrat and was hoping you might be able to help me clean out my house. I also need someone to assist me with some projects -- nothing harmful, don't worry. It sounds like a lot less work than it actually is, but I can pay you fifty bucks a week for your troubles if you work a couple hours every weekday."

Marty's eyes nearly leapt out of his head. "Fifty bucks!" he breathed. "Wow!" As quickly as his enthusiasm surfaced, however, it was just as quickly replaced by suspicion. "Why are you paying so much?" he asked.

The scientist shrugged. "I can afford it, I need the help, and I know how tough it can be to earn money when you're not quite old enough to hold a real job," he said. "When I was your age, I had to spend an entire summer doing yardwork just to earn enough for a microscope."

"Yeah, I've done some of that," Marty said. "I'm trying to get a guitar, since me and my friends wanna start our own band, but my parents think it would be better if I bought one with my own money instead of getting one for a birthday gift, even if my birthday is in a few weeks. But, man, those things are expensive...."

The inventor smiled faintly. "Some things never change with time," he observed. "Do you want to accept my offer?"

Marty pondered it silently for a moment. "Say yes," Verne whispered, wondering if this had been their friend's reaction originally, or it was a new twist to the slightly different meeting.

"I guess so," he said finally. "I'd have to clear it with my parents, though...."

Emmett nodded. "I just spoke with your mother and I have a feeling she won't have a problem with it." He reached into his pocket and withdrew what looked like a flyer, removing a pen from another pocket. "Here's my address and phone number," he said, writing it down against the roof of his car as he spoke. "You can start on Monday if you'd like."

Marty nodded slowly. "I guess I'll just come over after school lets out," he said. He accepted the flyer from Emmett, then cautiously shook the scientist's outstretched hand to seal the bargain.

"I'll see you then," Emmett said with his own nod, then circled around to the driver's side of the car. Marty remained where he was for a moment, watching him, then turned and headed for his front door.

"I think that did it," Jules whispered, a wan smile slipping across his face.

"Thank goodness," Verne sighed. He turned around as he heard his father's current car start and saw Emily, kneeling a foot away, watching them with a thoughtful look on her face, her blue eyes narrowed.

"Is that really why you came all the way out here?" she asked, not sounding nearly as skeptical as she had earlier.

"Not exactly," Verne said, remembering the movie they'd seen that had seemed now like a lifetime ago. "Thanks for helping us get Marty out here."

Emily shrugged modestly as the boys both stood, brushing the dirt and leaves from their clothes. "Are you really time travelers?" she asked.

"I suppose that will be up to you and what you want to believe," Jules said. "At any rate, we have to go home now. We're past due as is."

Emily followed the boys as they headed for the sidewalk. "I think I might believe you," she said.

Verne smiled a little, both amused by her change of heart and gladdened by it. "That's good," he said. "You really are pretty cool, y'know."

The blond girl's blush was visible, even in the dusk. "You guys are both pretty fun to hang out with," she returned generously. "If you're ever in the neighborhood again, don't forget about me!"

Jules nodded politely, though Verne knew as well as he did that they would probably never see each other again -- or, if they did, Emily would be far older than they would be and probably wouldn't even remember or recognize them. "Have a nice evening," the older boy said, grabbing his brother's arm to pull him along at a faster pace.

Verne waved before turning around and pulling himself free of Jules. "You don't have to be so rude," he said.

"Forgive me for my lack of manners, but it's not every day we almost erase ourselves, see strange futures, and tell perfect strangers about our family's secret. Verne, how could you do that! It was bad enough when she didn't believe us, and now...."

"Don't be so uptight, Jules. She'll probably forget about it soon, or later remember and think we were just lying to her. No biggie. And I really don't think she'll tell other people about it, since they might think she's weird an' all that."

Jules sighed. "I hope for all our sakes that your right. Let's just get to the DeLorean and go home now -- if we did everything right, it should be just as we left it."

"Yeah," Verne said softly, remembering what had been going on when they left the first time. "An' when we get there, things will be changed forever anyway with that new baby."

Jules' eyes slipped sideways to look at his brother. "Don't start on that again," he warned. "I'd rather have ten new brothers or sisters than go back to that terrible world where Mom and Dad were dead."

Verne shrugged, silently agreeing with that statement. He paused to scoop up a couple rocks from the yard of a house and chucked a couple at a plastic garbage can on the curb a few houses down. "Things still won't be the same as when we left," he said softly. "They'll be different forever."

"Welcome to Life," Jules muttered, rolling his eyes. "It's unnatural for things not to change. And, as I said earlier in the library, you're worrying far too much about how this will affect only you. Maybe if you relax, for once, you'll see things won't be nearly as bad as you're making them out to be in your head."

Verne tossed a rock at a mailbox. The stone hit the metal and bounced off, into the street, the clang hanging for a moment in the air. "Mom and Dad will probably make us babysit," he said. "They'll blame us if this kid gets into trouble."

"I don't think they'll have us babysit -- at least not now, since they won't even let us stay home alone by ourselves! --and maybe once or twice we might get in trouble if the new baby gets into something or other if we were supposed to be watching it.... but, honestly, Verne, it's not going to be so bad."

Verne aimed another stone at a flower in a garden and missed it clean. "You really think I'm selfish?" he asked softly.

Jules was quiet for a minute. "In some ways, yes," he said. "But 'selfish' is sort of the wrong word.... Self-centered, perhaps."

Another rock tossed that missed its target, a street light pole. "I don't want to be a role model," Verne said. "I don't really want to be an older brother."

"Why not?"

"Because... I dunno, probably because all that stuff you said at the library. Having someone look up to me... that's sorta creepy."

"No, it's supposed to be flattering," Jules said. "And perfectly normal to have that sort of adoration with a younger sibling. It's better than them hating you."

Verne tilted his head to one side, thinking of that for a minute. "I don't want to be the responsible one," he said. "I don't want to be the one who has to make rules and make things happen and all that."

"That's what Mom and Dad are for," Jules said. "But it's stupid to think that you won't have some more responsibility once this baby comes. But it'll be fine, Verne. And it's normal. Remember when you were younger and because of your age you couldn't do so much? You had to go to bed earlier and didn't get to just visit a friend when you wanted because it was too dangerous for you to walk over there alone? Do you really want to go back to all that?"

"No.... But I don't wanna be forced to grow up so fast that I can't enjoy life now. I don't wanna have to babysit and keep an eye on this kid instead of playing with my friends or doing video games. I get less and less free time anyway, since homework gets so much more and harder."

Jules half shrugged. "You won't be the only once making sacrifices," he said. "We'll all be doing that -- even Mom and Dad. But I think you can handle it, Verne. And it won't be as bad as you're thinking now. Trust me."

"I hope you're right," Verne sighed, meaning it with all his heart.

"And I hope you're thinking of names now, because the last thing we want is to have this kid be named something like Gabriel or Galileo."

The blond boy smiled a little at that. "I guess I'll have to make sure that doesn't happen," he agreed, feeling his heart skip a little at that first bit of responsibility he was going to have over his new brother or sister.

Chapter Eleven

Monday, December 7, 1987
9:10 P.M.

They arrived in the future ten minutes after their original arrival time in what Jules was beginning to think of as The Bad World. Coming back after they had departed that place was impossible, as it would have to be after midnight, and if they arrived that late, their absence would definitely be noticed and questioned. Jules wasn't sure if there would be two of them around for a few hours, but he didn't think there would be if things were back to normal.

And, anyway, their other versions didn't hang out at their land for more than a few minutes after they had arrived, meaning that running into them wouldn't be very likely, if they did exist.

When his eyes had cleared from the bright flashes of light brought about by the temporal displacement, Jules forced them down to the ground with a little reluctance, afraid to see the house and the other buildings on the property missing as they had been in The Bad World. Instead, he saw things restored to the way they had been before, the way he was used to seeing them, all buildings present, accounted for, and fully repaired. Despite the snow swirling around them through the air, he could even spot the barn doors being open and the trampled snow around the front of the barn from their original entry.

"We're back," he said with the deepest sigh of relief he had ever had. "Thank God!"

Verne grinned in the passenger seat beside him. "Excellent!" he cheered. "So this means we're not gonna vanish anymore? That Mom and Dad are alive and well?"

"I believe so," Jules said, trying to land the car as fast as he could so he could get out and look around. The task was done with a little difficulty from both his suddenly shaking hands and the swirling wind around them. Once the DeLorean touched the ground, the front of the car facing away from the lab, Jules backed the vehicle carefully inside and shut off the engine, then the time circuits.

"Let's go," he said softly, reaching for his door latch.

"Aren't you gonna do anything about what the time circuits will show?" Verne asked. "Dad'll know for sure what we did next time he turns it on."

"We're not gonna get away with this, Verne," Jules said as he stepped out of the car, reaching immediately for his coat stuffed in the space behind the seats, as well as his backpack. "There's no way we can hide all this from him at all. We might have a little time, since he's distracted right now, but when he finds out...."

Verne groaned softly. "I guess I'd rather be grounded than dead," he reasoned, bundling back up for the trek to the house. The boys got the doors shut again and tried to clean up as much of the evidence they had left as possible. While Verne went up to the loft with a pair of sharp scissors to try and get the rope off the beam, Jules opened the breaker box door and eyed the switches, trying to figure out how to turn on the ones for the house without triggering the lab's, which would likely trip the alarm system with the sudden surge of power. His task wasn't made very difficult, once he spotted (with the aid of a flashlight) the small penned labels next to each fuse for where it distributed the power. In seconds, he had given power back to the house, then carefully replaced the DeLorean's keys where he had found them after rendering the car invisible again. The illusion was so sharp that when Verne returned from the loft with the cheerful news that he had managed to get the entire rope cut down, he walked right into the edge of the unseen car.

Once they had left the lab, they stopped briefly to gather the rope, rake, and can of WD-40 now lying before the double doors and drop them off in the shed before continuing on into the house, now cheerfully illuminated again. Jules, still feeling uneasy that things weren't quite back to normal, entered the house though the back door uneasily, half expecting to find a new family living in his home. Instead, he saw things exactly the way they had been left in the kitchen, right down to Verne's boots sitting next to the back door in a rather untidy pile, still damp with melted snow.

"Looks like we did it," Verne said, plopping down in one of the kitchen chairs and letting his head fall on the table. "Things look the same as we left them."

"So far," Jules said, hating himself for being so pessimistic, though the evidence strongly supported Verne's view. "I wonder if Mom and Dad telephoned about the new baby yet?"

Verne shrugged. "Who cares? I'm too tired right now to think about it. We've been up more'n all night!"

Jules nodded. Now that the danger of them being erased was gone, his whole body ached from the exhaustion he had been suppressing. "Let's check on Marty," he said. "We should make sure he's the same as we remember."

Verne dragged himself back to his feet and followed Jules into the family room, where they found Marty in more or less the same state as he had been when they had left, so long ago. Rather than let him continue to sleep, however, Jules leaned over him and shook him by the shoulder until, with clear reluctance and difficulty, the teen's blue eyes opened. He squinted up at Jules with groggy confusion.

"What's wrong?" he mumbled thickly.

Jules sighed, glad that the first words out of his mouth weren't, "Who are you?" "Nothing," he said, though that was quite far from the truth. "We just, ah, thought we'd tell you that we're going to bed now. The phone didn't ring, did it?"

Marty sat up and looked at his watch, then at the boys. "It's not even ten and you're both going to bed?" he asked, doubtful.

"We're way tired," Verne said from behind his brother. "It's been a long day."

Marty looked at the blond boy for a moment, his expression still sleep-dazed, then shrugged. "Sure, I guess it has," he said around a yawn. "I'm still beat."

"But you've been sleeping forever," Verne said, cutting off his own words with an abruptness that once again caused Marty to look at him.

"Not more than a couple hours, I think," he said. "Anyway, I was up more than a day before then."

The telephone rang, the sound shrill and loud, causing all three to jump. Marty didn't immediately make a move to pick up the cordless phone, sitting on the coffee table just a foot away. Jules, knowing in his heart who was going to be on the other end of the line, reached for it first.

"Hello?" he said.

"Jules!" It was his father. "Is your brother nearby?"

"Yes, Verne's right here and so is Marty."

"All right, have Verne -- and Marty, too, if he'd like -- get on the extension. I've got some news that I want you all to hear at once."

His father's voice was bubbling with enthusiasm and happiness. Even Jules, as exhausted and apprehensive as he was feeling, had to smile. "Sure," he agreed. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. "Marty, Verne, Dad wants you both to get on the extensions now."

Verne's face paled a little as Marty climbed stiffly to his feet. "This is it, huh?" his brother murmured.

"I think so," Jules said with a nod. He patted Verne on the arm. "It'll be okay, though."

A couple minutes later Verne was on the extension in the downstairs hallway, while Marty had the phone in the bedroom of the boys' parents. When they told the scientist that they were on the line, there was a pause for a moment from his end, then:

"It's a girl! Six pounds, nine ounces! Born at nine o' four P.M. and fifty two seconds. The baby's perfectly healthy and your mother is doing just fine now!"

"Congratulations, Doc!" Marty said immediately. "So, you've got a daughter now, eh? That should be real interesting!"

"All she needs is a name, now," the scientist said, his grin powerful enough to be heard in his voice. "Verne, do you have one for us?"

There was a silence from his brother. Jules sighed to himself, wondering if his sibling was going to throw a fit now of some kind. "I don't want to give you a name until I see the baby," he finally said. "Can we come over there?"

"Right now? Well, I don't see why not. Marty, are you up to driving out here?"

"Uh... I guess so. You guys are at the community hospital, right?"

"Yes. They have Clara settled in room 321."

"All right. I'll bring us all over in a few minutes. Anything you need from here?"

"No, I think I got everything when we left. Thanks, Marty. I'll see you all soon!"

"Bye, Dad," Jules said.

"Bye," Verne echoed before they all hung up.

When the three of them met back in the family room, there was a moment of silence. Jules was the one to break it, and he did so sort of tentatively.

"Well, Verne," he said. "You're still the youngest son in our family. You've still got that ranking, at least."

Verne looked at him. "I guess so," he said softly.

* * *

Marty hadn't actually realized he had fallen asleep until Jules had woken him up and, since then, he'd been feeling more or less like he was sleepwalking through the motions. Driving his truck to the hospital several miles away wasn't exactly the best thing he felt he should be doing in his groggy state, but he was just as curious as the boys were to meet this new member of their family.

Unfortunately, he had no clue on how much the weather had changed while he had napped. When he, Jules, and Verne stepped outside, they were greeted with snow stinging their cheeks as a brisk wind blew the flakes nearly horizontally through the air. Marty hesitated on the porch as the boys headed for his car, suddenly uneasy about driving across town in this weather feeling as wiped as he was already. His truck did have four wheel drive, but it looked like they were headed right for a snowstorm, if they weren't there already.

"Why do Doc's kids have to be born in this kinda weather?" he muttered to himself as he lowered his head and headed out to his truck, where they boys waited. At least Doc and Clara hadn't gotten stuck at home, this time.

The drive to Hill Valley Community Hospital was just as bad as Marty had feared. He drove about five miles the entire way, never shifting past second gear, white knuckled, and skidding all over the streets, even with the four wheel drive on. Jules and Verne didn't say a word on the trip, gripping any handholds nearby when the tires would temporarily lose their grip on the road. By the time they reached the hospital, more than half an hour after leaving the house, Marty's entire body ached from the tension of avoiding wrapping his truck around a telephone pole.

"Okay," he exhaled when he finally parked the car and shut off the engine. "Let's go see your parents and let them know we didn't kill ourselves on the drive over!"

The boys, looking as drained by the ride over as Marty felt, got out of the vehicle without further prompting and walked briskly to the front entrance of the hospital. As he followed them a pace or two behind, Marty realized that almost six inches of snow had accumulated on the ground. No wonder driving had been such a bitch. And it looked to him like the trip home would be just as bad, if not worse.

He pushed such exhausting thoughts out of his head when they stepped inside the warm lobby of the hospital and headed for the elevators to take them to the third floor. The boys hung back a little as the elevator cars headed down to where they were.

"Are you guys doing okay?" he asked. "Nervous?"

"Of course," Jules said softly. "We're about to meet a brand new person who is going to be part of our family for the rest of our lives."

"And it's not like we can send her back if we don't like 'er," Verne murmured.

Marty tried to smile at them reassuringly. "It'll be fine," he said. "And you'll have plenty of time to adjust to the baby in your lives before she starts talking and all that. I think you'll like her just fine."

The boys -- especially Verne -- looked a little skeptical. The elevator arrived before they could say much else, however, and promptly whisked them up to the third level. The room belonging to Clara was right around the corner from the elevators, across the hall and four doors down from the waiting room. The door was shut and Marty knocked softly for the three of them, feeling a little uncomfortable.

"Come in," he heard Doc call from within. He paused with his hand on the doorknob, glancing at the boys. Verne was chewing his lower lip, his eyes a little wide and a touch scared; Jules fidgeted nervously where he stood. The older boy caught Marty's eye and nodded once, slowly. Marty drew in a breath, then turned the doorknob and pushed it open.

Clara lay in an elevated hospital bed, awake but looking exhausted, dressed in one of the thin cotton gowns provided by the institution. The line from an IV bag ran into one arm. Doc stood up from a chair next to the bed when the door opened, looking tired but happy. Clara smiled faintly as her sons came reluctantly forward, while Marty hung back in the doorway. In her arms was cradled a small bundle, wrapped in a white blanket. Marty couldn't see anything of the infant; even her tiny head was covered with a small pink knit cap.

"Hello, boys," she said softly. "Come meet your new sister."

Verne looked at Jules, nervous. Jules gave him a gentle poke forward. Marty, feeling a little uncomfortable to be there in such a private family moment for the Browns, stepped back outside the room and wandered down the hall a little. Not more than a moment passed before Doc came after him.

"Marty? Is anything wrong?"

Marty shook his head as he tore his eyes away from the critical examination of a rather bland painting of a garden scene. Doc hovered in the doorway of his wife's room. "No," he said softy. "I just thought you guys might like to have some time alone for a few minutes."

Doc nodded once, understanding immediately. But rather than retreating back into the room, he stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him, walking over to his friend. "The boys should probably have a little time alone with their sister," he explained.

Marty nodded. "How did things go?" he asked. "You look pretty tired."

Doc smiled for a moment, but the expression didn't quite reach his eyes. "There were complications," he admitted softly. "I didn't want to tell you that over the phone, not with the boys listening, but it was quite frightening for a while. They almost had to do an emergency Cesarian on Clara."

Marty blinked, stunned. "Wow," he murmured. "I didn't know...."

"Neither did Clara -- I didn't want her to know unless it was absolutely unavoidable. I know she wanted to have this baby the natural way, as she had with the boys. And surgery would've scared her half to death. She's been amazing the last several months with keeping up on doctors appointments and all, but I know that it still makes her rather uneasy. I think she went mostly for the health of the baby more than herself. She had wanted to have the baby at home, actually, but I talked her out of it. Thank God."

Marty's eyes drifted to Clara's room. "Is she okay now?"

Doc nodded. "She lost some blood -- enough that they had to give her a transfusion -- but she's out of danger now. And the baby was fine. No problems there. But it was very frightening for a while." The scientist blinked quickly a couple times. "I don't know what I would've done if I lost her...."

"But you didn't, Doc," Marty said. "She's all right now, and so's your baby."

"I know, I know... but I can't ever remember feeling so helpless as I did when she was in danger." Doc leaned heavily against the wall. "This is one problem that I don't think even having a time machine could really help."

Marty hated seeing his friend in this mood and did his best to snap him out of it. "Doc, that's all past now. Your wife is fine and so is your new daughter."

Doc smiled again, the expression weary. "Yes," he said softly. "I just hope we never have to go through anything like this again. If it was this bad now, I don't want to think how much worse it might be in the future, if Clara was to get pregnant even again. If that was to happen, I think I'd take her to the future to have that kid, never mind the mess it would create with birth certificates and all."

Marty saw his point. "I'm glad this stuff is still down the road for me," he admitted. "If what happened to Clara happened to Jennifer, I think I'd still be flipping out."

"She and the boys have no idea how much danger she was in," Doc said. "And I'd prefer to keep it that way."

"No problem, Doc," Marty promised. "I won't say a word."

Clara's door opened and Jules came out, carefully shutting the door behind him. Doc turned his attention to his oldest offspring. "Is something wrong, Jules?"

The brown haired boy shook his head as he came over to his father and, quite without warning, hugged him tightly. Doc staggard back a little from the unexpected embrace before returning it. "No," he said softly. "Mom wanted to talk to Verne alone, since he's feeling a little weird and all, and told me to come out here and see if we could go to the hospital cafeteria."

As the scientist nodded in agreement, Marty looked at his watch. "Hey, Doc, are you gonna need me for much else now? It's snowing like crazy outside and if I'm gonna get home tonight, I'd better do it now."

"Go ahead," Doc said. "We'll be leaving shortly, anyway. Thanks for your help, Marty."

Marty smiled. "No problem. Let me know what this kid's name ends up being. I'm real curious to see what Verne cooks up."

* * *

Verne watched his mother with some uneasiness from the foot of her hospital bed. "Why'd you wanna talk to me alone?" he asked.

Clara shifted a little in her bed, her face twisting in pain a moment before smoothing out. "Well, Verne, I know how you've felt about the baby since we told you the news," she began softly.

"Yeah, so?" Verne asked.

Clara sighed a little. "Verne, come sit down, here, next to the bed," she said, tilting her head to the chair at the bedside. Verne, who was still reeling a bit from the trip back to '82, followed her request without a protest. But when his mother took the quiet, small bundle in her arms and tried to pass it off to him, he couldn't help speaking up.

"Mom! What're you doing?"

"I think you should hold the baby," Clara said, matter-of-factly. "After all, you're the one who will name her. And you said you wanted to meet her before giving her the name you chose. Don't worry, Verne, she's not very heavy and she won't squirm around terribly much."

Not knowing quite how to get out of it, Verne accepted the baby from his mother. She had been right -- he'd held groceries that were heavier. But almost as if sensing that she wasn't in her mother's arms anymore, the baby's eyes suddenly opened and looked up at her older brother. Her eyes were bright blue.

"She has blue eyes like me," he said, half to himself, surprised. He didn't entirely know why, but for some reason the rest of his family had brown eyes. When he was about five, Jules convinced him, briefly, that his blue eyes meant he was adopted, since no one else had them in their family. It had upset him terribly, but his parents had quickly dismissed that notion and told him that his blue eyes were due more to genes and other things he didn't quite understand then, and really didn't even now. But if his sister had blue eyes, then that didn't make him such an outsider in the family any more.

Clara smiled. "Yes," she agreed. "But her hair is like mine." She reached over and removed the pink cap from her tiny head, revealing a surprising head of dark, curly hair.

"Wow," Verne said softly. "That's a lot of hair. I thought all babies were bald."

"Many are, but some are born with a full head of hair. It isn't quite that thick for her, but she definitely has more hair than you or Jules did when you were born."

Verne stared at the big eyes in the tiny, pink, face. "Were we all this small?" he asked.

Clara nodded. "Yes -- although you and Jules were both a tad bigger than she is." She stroked her daughter's hair for a moment, then allowed her hand to drift to her youngest son's fair hair. "What do you think of her, Verne?"

Verne frowned a little, still not entirely sure of his feelings. "Don't they cry a lot?" he asked. "How come she's so quiet?"

"She's tired, I think. And babies do cry some, but usually they do so because they need something and they have no other way to communicate."

The baby grunted softly, almost as if she was agreeing with her mother's words, and shifted a little. One tiny arm squirmed free of the blanket she was wrapped in and reached up, the small fingers flexing in the air, towards her brother's face. Without really thinking about it, Verne reached over with his free right hand, as he was supporting the baby in his left arm and on his lap, and touched her hand with his finger. The infant wrapped her fingers around one of his and gripped it with a strength that surprised the boy.

"Wow, she's strong," he said.

Clara nodded again. "Verne, I know you've been feeling a little odd about not being the youngest any more," she said. "But just because you have a younger sister now in no way means that your father and I will love you any less. You're still our Verne and nothing, nothing, will ever change that."

"I know," Verne said, though, in fact, he had been worrying about that a little. "But Jules helped me figure out what's really bugging me."

"And what's that?"

Verne shifted a little, uneasy now that he had his mother's full attention on the matter. "That you an' Dad are gonna want me to be all responsible and stuff and that the baby's gonna look up to me."

Clara blinked, clearly taken aback. "And that's a bad thing?"

Verne nodded vigorously. "Uh-huh. I don't wanna have someone copying me and worshiping me. That's too scary. I mean, there's some stuff I can do that she won't be able to, since she's so much younger an' all, and I don't want her to get hurt if she does it. And I'm only ten -- I don't wanna be stuck babysitting all the time. I still wanna see my friends and be able to go to the arcade and bike around town and all that stuff."

Clara listened to her son's concerns with a serious expression on her face. When he finished, she smiled a little and squeezed his shoulder. "Oh, honey, your father and I aren't going to expect you -- or Jules -- to watch the baby all the time. Neither of us work, so we'll have plenty of time to care for her. And if we need a sitter, then we'll have Marty or Jennifer come over. A baby is a lot of work to care for alone, even if both you and Jules pitched in and it was just for a brief time."

"What about when she's not a baby anymore?" Verne asked.

"Well, I'm sure there will be times when we'll ask you or your brother to keep an eye on her -- but if you already have plans with your friends, we won't expect you to cancel them."

"Do you promise? Because I'm still a kid, too, and I'm too young to act like a parent."

Clara's mouth quirked a little, as if she was trying to conceal a chuckle. "Yes," she said. "You have my word. Is that why you're so afraid of her looking up to you?"

Verne shrugged as best he could with the baby in his arms. "I guess," he said. "It's just sorta scary, y'know?"

"Oh, Verne," Clara said softly. "And that's why you've been so upset? Why didn't you tell your father and I this sooner?"

"I dunno.... Maybe 'cause I thought you guys would laugh or be like, 'Yeah, that's how things are gonna be around here.' And if that was true, then I might as well run away from home."

Clara sighed. "Are you still afraid of that now?"

Verne thought about it a moment and realized that he actually felt a lot better. Still, he wanted a little more assurance that his worst fears wouldn't come true. "Promise me that stuff won't happen? That you won't make me stop being a kid an' all?"

Clara nodded emphatically. "Verne, I want you to enjoy your childhood as long as you can," she said. "You only have one chance at it and I can promise you that your father and I will not cut it short."

"Okay. Then I won't worry about it anymore." And, in fact, he let it go right then and turned his mind to other things. Like the warm baby in his lap. Her eyes had closed during the conversation and she looked like she had gone back to sleep. "Do you still want me to name her?"

"Yes, we would like that very much. Have you figured out a name?"

Verne paused, looking at the baby a long moment. His sister, not just a baby, he corrected himself. And he didn't want to give her a bad name, that was for sure. He bit his lower lip for a second as he thought, then nodded to himself when he was sure that the selection he had made was both appropriate, tasteful, and would be a constant reminder to himself and his brother about the day's events and the caution one should use when time traveling.

But, of course, his parents would never know that.

"Yes," he said. "Her name's Emily."

"Emily?" Clara asked. When Verne nodded, his mother smiled, looking both pleased and surprised. "I've always liked that name," she admitted. "You didn't know that your father and I had considered that before as a girl's name, when we were expecting you and your brother?"

Verne shook his head. "No. It just fits her," he said simply.

Chapter Twelve

Monday, December 7, 1987
10:49 P.M.

Emmett had taken no more than three sips of his coffee when Jules -- seated across from him in the hospital's cafeteria with a heaping slice of chocolate cake on a plate before him -- suddenly frowned, his eyes focusing on something behind his father's back. "Marty's coming this way," he reported.

Doc turned around and indeed saw the nineteen-year-old heading their way, looking quite peeved. "Doesn't look like he has good news," he sighed, bracing himself already for whatever it might be. He didn't have to wonder long.

"Well, Doc," Marty announced, sitting down at the table, "it looks like we're all stuck here for the night. I tried to leave and they wouldn't let me -- we're having a snowstorm now and they closed the hospital. They're not letting anyone leave until things lighten up."

Doc was astonished. "Are you serious?" he asked. "I knew it was snowing out but I didn't think it was that bad...."

"When's the last time you looked out a window? It is really nasty out, but I can't believe they're actually closing the hospital down." Marty let out a sigh of pure weariness. "Thank God I don't have any finals tomorrow...."

"If they're shutting down the hospital, they might very well be shutting down the university, too," Doc said. "This storm must be pretty serious if they're closing up the medical facilities."

"You mean Verne and I won't have to return to school tomorrow?" Jules asked.

"Looks like it," Doc said. "Sorry if that's disappointing to you...."

Jules shook his head. "No, definitely not. I could use a break tomorrow. So, if the hospital is closed, what does that mean? Will they stop helping people who need it?"

"No, they're just not letting people leave," Marty said. "That includes the doctors and staff, too. Everyone who makes it here is gonna be stuck here all night, at least. The snow's not supposed to stop until tomorrow morning."

"It could be worse," Doc said. "At least Clara went into labor this morning and not even twelve hours later."

Marty shuddered a little. "Yeah, thank God for that. But what now? I mean, where are we supposed to hang out? I don't wanna bug Clara or the baby, and I think that room isn't the best place to cram five people and a newborn, anyway."

"Last time I checked, the waiting room upstairs was empty," Doc said. "We might as well go up there now, before that changes, so you and the boys can get a place to sleep. I can stay in Clara's room with her and the baby. The staff already asked me if I wanted to stay there tonight on a cot, anyway."

When they returned to the third floor, they found the waiting room still deserted and quiet. Doc had Jules wait there while Marty went to the nearby nurse's station to ask about blankets and pillows and the scientist checked in on his wife. She was still awake, as was Verne, who was holding the baby in the chair beside the bed.

"How are you doing?" he asked Clara, who greeted him with a faint smile.

"I'm rather tired," she admitted, then glanced at their son. "Verne's chosen a name for the baby."

Doc wondered if he really wanted to know what that choice had been. It hadn't been his idea to allow their youngest son the privilege of naming the baby, but when Clara had suggested it, he thought it might be a good idea and would make Verne feel better about the entire thing. Instead, he didn't seem to care at all. If worse came to worst and he bestowed a rather hideous first name on the infant, he and Clara had discussed the possibility of calling the child by their middle name instead, though such a thing would mean they would probably have to skip their tradition of giving their children middle names of important people in science.

"Oh?" he said, looking at the blond boy. "What's her name?"

"Emily," Verne said.

The inventor blinked in surprise. "Emily?" he repeated, not sure if he had heard right. He looked at Clara, knowing how much she favored the name because it was a feminine form of his first name. (And he was dead set against ever naming a son of theirs after himself. Too confusing and egotistical for his tastes.)

Clara, knowing perfectly well what he was thinking, smiled. "I had nothing to do with it," she insisted. "Verne came up with it on his own. It is a rather funny coincidence, I'll admit. Why did you pick the name Emily, Verne?"

Verne's cheeks reddened a little. "I told you earlier, it fits her," he said, glancing down at the sleeping infant. "And, you know, it's a cool name for a girl."

Doc couldn't resist smiling, picking up on what his son wasn't saying. "Or perhaps you like the name because it belongs to a cool girl?" he asked, gently teasing. Verne's face reddened even more and Doc decided to change the subject before Verne did it for them. "Well, whyever you selected it, I think Emily is a wonderful name."

"What's her middle name gonna be?" Verne asked. "You aren't gonna give her something really weird, like me and Jules have, are you?"

"Actually, I think Marie will suit her fine," Clara said. "After the famous scientist Marie Curie, who discovered radium."

"So, it's Emily Marie Brown," Doc said, nodding in agreement to his wife's suggestion. "That sounds great. I'll let the nurses know so we can finally have something other than 'Baby Girl Brown' on her records." He took the newly named Emily from Verne's arms, earning a puzzled look from his son. "We should let your mother get some sleep now," he explained. "She's had a rough day."

"We have, too," Verne said, his face serious. "Are we gonna go home now?"

"Ah... not exactly. Apparently there's a storm outside that's gotten bad enough for the hospital to be closed. We won't be able to leave until it's gotten better out, so we're staying in the hospital tonight."

"Oh, Emmett, really?" Clara asked, as her husband set their new baby back in her small plastic incubator.

"It's not so bad," Doc said. "I had Jules and Marty make sure that they got some of the couches in the waiting room down the hall. And I can stay in here on a cot, no problem." He looked at Verne. "Why don't you head down to the waiting room and get settled? I'll be down there shortly."

Verne hesitated for a moment before getting to his feet and heading for the door. "Okay," he said softly. "Goodnight, Mom. Goodnight Emily," he added as he passed the incubator.

"Goodnight, Verne."

When the boy had left the room, Clara settled back in the pillows and sighed. "Emmett, I don't think we'll have to worry about him anymore, at least when it comes to the baby," she said.

Doc looked at her in surprise, pausing as he tucked a blanket around his daughter's tiny form. "Oh?" he asked. "What makes you say that?"

His wife reviewed the conversation she had had with their youngest son, about the concerns he had finally voiced. It certainly did explain a lot about his behavior in the past few months, and why he had balked so much about not being the youngest any longer. If he hadn't been so distracted the last few months, what with preparing for the baby's arrival and worrying about both Clara's and the child's health, he might've noticed it himself.

"Well," he said with a sigh when Clara had finished. "At least he's feeling better about everything now."

She nodded. "I think he'll make a fine older brother," she said, trying to conceal a yawn behind her hand. Doc picked up on it immediately.

"We can talk about it later," he said. "You need to get some rest now. You more than deserve it."

Clara smiled at him as he tucked the blankets around her shoulders and kissed her on her forehead. "I suppose," she agreed. "I don't think I've ever spent the night in a hospital before, though."

"If it's any consolation, you certainly won't be alone tonight. The boys are just down the hall with Marty, and I'll be in here with you and the baby -- Emily," he corrected quickly, having grown a little sick of referring to their daughter in such an impersonal way. "I'll be back soon. You try and get some rest while you can."

"Yes, Emmett," Clara said, continuing to smile even as she closed her eyes. Doc gave her hand a squeeze, then let her go so that he could visit the nurses' station to request a cot. It took a little longer than he expected, since the rollaway beds were so popular tonight with stranded staff and family members. By the time he returned to the room with one, as well as a pillow and blankets, almost half an hour had passed and Clara was sleeping peacefully. Doc set up his bed as quietly as possible, then left the room before turning in to look in on his sons, as he had promised earlier.

They had been fortunate; no one else had taken refuge in the waiting room, so far. Doc entered the room as quietly as he could, not wanting to disturb anyone. Marty, who had taken the couch closest to the door, grunted softy at the sound of the door closing behind the inventor but didn't wake from the sound. He shifted a bit, rolling over to turn his face away from a lamp burning right next to his head. Doc clicked it off, then covered him with one of the blankets that Marty had collected, some of which were still sitting in a folded pile at his feet at the opposite end of the couch. Jules, lying on the sofa across from the door, had already snagged one and was burrowed under it. He didn't even twitch as his father moved past. Verne, too, was asleep but, like Marty, had neglected to get himself a blanket. Doc took another from the pile and tucked it around his son. At his touch, however, Verne let out a whimper and suddenly opened his eyes.

"Dad," he whispered with unusual intensity. "You're not dead, are you?"

Before Doc could say a word to the bewildering question, Verne suddenly started to cry, softly but with a heart wrenching and -- under the circumstances -- shocking intensity. Doc knelt beside the couch and tried to calm him down.

"Verne, what makes you say such a thing? Great Scott, of course I'm not dead! What a question! What's wrong? Are you feeling sick?"

Verne shook his head and choked back a sob, though tears still ran from his eyes. "I dreamed you were dead again," he whimpered.

"Dead again?" Doc echoed. "What do you mean?"

"What he says," Jules said from behind, startling his father quite nicely. He squinted at his brother, looking a tad irritated at being wakened.

"I never was dead," Doc said, now terribly confused. "What are you both talking about?"

There was a moment of silence, then Verne spoke up, his voice still trembling. "We broke into the lab and took the DeLorean tonight."

Doc felt his face both pale and flush simultaneously, his body unable to make up its mind over whether it was either horrified or angry. "You did what?" he asked, struggling not to yell and succeeding only marginally well.

"We got into the lab and took the DeLorean -- but only to see a film on the big screen, since Marty wouldn't allow us to see the video," Jules explained.

Doc glanced at Marty for a minute, who was so far sleeping through the conversation. "And I'm sure he had a perfectly good reason for not allowing such a thing," the scientist said, not letting his kids lay the blame elsewhere for their actions. Unless, of course, Marty had gone along with them, but he had a feeling that wasn't the case this time. Which just added to his curiosity about one particular matter....

"How did you get into the lab and around the security devices?"

"We prefer not to say," Jules said. "But I'm pretty certain that you'll figure it out on your own once you see the barn."

"You didn't break one of the windows, did you?" Doc asked immediately, his eyes widening. He wouldn't believe that either of his sons would deliberately vandalize the property to get in (not to mention that such an act should've immediately triggered the alarm system), but it never hurt to ask.

"No, we didn't," Jules said. "Nothing was broken or damaged --not really -- but that's not the point. The point is that when we were back there, we accidentally changed things so that we created this terrible world where you and Mom were both dead and Marty was someone with no future."

It was making more sense to Doc, now, but the picture was still too fuzzy. He wanted to ask exactly what they had done to change history, but just as surely decided he didn't want to know. "I gather you fixed things," he said evenly.

Verne nodded. "Dad, were you really gonna get shot by terrorists?" he asked.

"Is that how I died in this other reality?"

"Yes," Jules said. "And because you didn't save Mom's life, she died in a ravine accident."

Doc shuddered a little, knowing full well that both could've happened had a few little things been done differently. "It didn't happen, Verne," he said, patting his youngest son's arm. "Those people were arrested after their attempted murder and, thanks to Marty's stubbornness in warning me about it in 1955, I was protected by a bulletproof vest when they did come after me."

"How did you meet Marty, Dad?" Jules asked, his voice holding a strange note of curiosity to it.

"You know that -- I met him when I went over to ask him to work for me, after he had advertised him out for odd jobs. He wasn't home at first, but the same day I'd gone over there, these two kids showed up and--"

The rest of the words died in his throat. Doc's eyes widened and swung between Jules and Verne. Things began to click and a mystery he had been wondering about for years was finally solved. He gasped. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed, loudly enough to be heard in the hall outside the room, even through the closed door. "You were the kids who came over!"

"It was the only thing we could think of," Verne said, shrinking back a little at the force of his father's words. "If you and Marty didn't meet, we'd all be dead but him." His face crumpled and new tears filled his eyes.

Doc struggled to catch his breath, his heart pounding at this startling revelation. He stood up enough to sit down on the couch next to Verne, not quite trusting his legs to support him yet. "I can't believe you were the kids," he marveled. "Do you know how much I wondered about that, how boys I'd never seen before or since knew about the flux capacitor? I thought for sure someone was spying on me for a while!"

"Maybe you didn't know until today because it wasn't until today that we did It," Jules said, his grasp on matters of time travel and cause and effect almost startling to Doc.

"It could be possible," he admitted. "But since I only saw those boys -- both of you, apparently -- for about five minutes, your faces had gotten rather fuzzy in my memory since. And you never gave me your names, which was quite a smart move. But, boys, that was such a terribly risky thing to do!"

"It worked, though," Jules said. "You can't argue with that."

No, Doc supposed, he couldn't. But he could make sure it never happened again. How in God's name did those kids manage to get into the lab and take one of the time machines? he wondered, rather annoyed that his many security precautions had been beaten by a ten and not-quite twelve-year-old. As he looked at his sons' faces, though, he could see that any lecture he gave to them now would pale in effectiveness compared with what they had gone through.

"I think you've both seen why time travel isn't child's play, nor something one should take on lightly," he said seriously. "Nevertheless, you should be punished for what you did, so you're both going to be grounded the rest of this week. I'd consider that getting off lightly, though. I may change my mind if I find you did do any serious damage, breaking into the lab."

"We figured as much," Jules said, nodding at the sentence they more than deserved.

Verne sniffed a little, clearly not pleased with the punishment, but not bothering to argue against it. "What about the nightmares?" he asked. "How long are they gonna go on? I don't wanna keep seeing you and Mom dead."

Doc sighed, not without sympathy. "I don't know, Verne," he said. "I think that's one of the nasty side-effects from seeing alternate realities, especially disturbing ones. And maybe it's a good thing that happens, since it makes one all the more careful when they go out time traveling again."

"Which I don't want to do for a good long while," Jules said emphatically, while Verne nodded in agreement.

Doc couldn't help but smile a little at that. "I'm sure you'll change your minds, sooner rather than later. In the meantime, try not to think about what you saw. You're not in that reality, now, you're home. And things are fine."

Verne sighed at that, then wrapped his arms around his father and hugged him tightly. "I love you, Dad," he said softly. "Thanks for not goin' nuclear on us."

Jules, too, gave his father a hug, once his brother had released him, and tried to settle back on the couch. "Please try to keep yourself alive as long as possible, Dad," the older boy said seriously. "Mom, too."

Doc felt a brief chill inside, remember the day's earlier events when Clara's delivery had veered dangerously from normal. "I'll make sure we all stay alive and well for a long time," he said softly. "What good is having a time machine if you can't use it for that sort of thing once in a while?"

Looking relieved, now, the boys settled back down on their temporary beds and, in minutes, had drifted back to sleep. Doc stayed in the room for a bit after that, reviewing what they had said earlier. He hadn't expected such a stunt from either of the boys, at least not at this time, and he wondered if it was a good or a bad thing that such an event had happened now rather than later. They were growing up fast, he realized, a little wistfully, and he felt a strange mixture of sadness and relief that they had experienced what they had. Although he seriously doubted that either of the boys would stick with their vow of never time traveling again, the inventor was fairly certain that seeing and experiencing what could happen when one accidentally or unintentionally interfered with a past event would stick with them forever. Doc remembered, more vividly than he wanted to, every one of the various twisted realities that had been created from past trips he had taken.

This won't be the last time they'll do this, he thought with a great deal of certainty, standing up. He could only hope, and pray, that the kids would continue to be as lucky the next time as they had this time, whenever it would be.

* * *

When Marty woke up -- on his own, this time -- he was completely disoriented for a minute. Such a thing wasn't very abnormal, considering some of the strange places and times that he had stayed in over the last few years, but it seemed to catch him off-guard each time it happened. He blinked a few times, staring up at a shadowy ceiling and a portion of a wall covered in a flowered wallpaper for several minutes before finally turning his head, and eyes, elsewhere. It looked like he was in some kind of windowless living room, currently illuminated by only one lamp. Two smallish forms were burrowed under blankets, and at the sight of them, his whereabouts, and the events of the day before, came back to him.

"But what time is it?" Marty murmured aloud, sitting up. Based on the way he was feeling now -- pretty much rested -- it seemed to him that more than a couple hours had passed since he had laid down to wait for Doc's return and never really gotten up again. Indeed, when Marty checked his watch he saw that it was just after six in the morning. He briefly considered trying to go back to sleep, but a mixture of curiosity (over both the state of the weather and the name of Doc and Clara's new baby, which surely had to have been given by now; he had fallen asleep before Verne had come in) and needs for both a bathroom and food made the idea of additional rest pale. After making sure that Jules and Verne were both still asleep, he left the waiting room and started down the hall to where he knew the restrooms, as well as windows to the outside, were.

He was a little surprised to see Doc sitting in a chair outside Clara's room, the baby cradled against his shoulder. The scientist was awake, though he still looked tired. He glanced up at the sound of Marty's approach. "You're up early," he said. "Did Jules or Verne wake you?"

Marty shook his head as he stopped. "No, they're still sleeping. They must really be worn out from yesterday, unless they ended up staying up a lot later than me."

Doc wore an odd expression on his face. "They're both exhausted," he said. "Though the reason for it is a little more traumatic than the arrival of a new sister."

Whatever implications those words held were lost on Marty, who was more focused on the baby. "What did Verne name her?" he asked, nodding at the infant. "Something real hideous?"

Doc shook his head. "Surprisingly, no." He shifted the baby a bit, so her sleeping face could be seen by the teen for the first time. "Marty, meet Emily Marie Brown."

Marty smiled as he leaned over for a closer look. "Emily, huh? That's not so bad. Weren't you and Clara gonna name Jules that if he was a girl?"

"Yes, which is what makes it all the more amazing that Verne plucked that name out of the air." Doc chuckled. "I think he chose the name because a girl he likes has it. There are worse ways to select a name."

"Why are you both out here?"

"Emily started fussing and I decided to see if she'd settle down if I walked her around before waking up Clara on the assumption she needed to be fed. It worked like a charm."

Marty turned his eyes critically to his friend now. "Don't tell me you've been up all night, Doc."

"No, I haven't. I've gotten about six hours of sleep, and I've done far more on far less. Don't worry, I'm used to odd hours. You should know that by now."

Marty half shrugged, though he clearly remembered how Doc still routinely pulled all nighters when he was wrapped up in one of his projects or on the verge of a potential breakthrough. "Yeah, but you and Clara are gonna need all the rest you can get with a new baby, now. I still remember how much Jules cried those few days I was there."

"He simply cried a lot as an infant," Doc said. "Verne wasn't nearly so bad, and Emily's been pretty quiet so far, when the nurses aren't poking her and she's not hungry or needing her diaper changed."

"Is Clara doing okay now?"

"Yes, she's catching up on her rest. I know that Dr. Watson wants to keep her here another night, just to be on the safe side, so she and Emily will probably be coming home tomorrow."

"That's good. Things should start to get real interesting once you have the whole family back under the same roof." Marty glanced in the direction of the windows, at the far end of the hall. "That is, if we can ever leave this place."

"I think so," Doc said. "I wandered down there when trying to calm down Emily and I noticed it just about stopped snowing a half hour ago. Looks like there's at least a foot of it outside, though."

Marty made a noise that was half sigh and half groan, leaning against the wall. "Great," he muttered. "Even if they let us go, driving's gonna be impossible 'til they plow the roads."

Doc shrugged. "Well, if it's any consolation, I really do think that they're going to shut down the university today. I know your exams aren't until later this week, but there could be a ripple effect of sorts that could delay them."

Marty, personally, didn't see the advantage in that, as later exams would mean a shorter winter break, but he said nothing. "I guess things could be worse," he murmured.

Doc nodded. "Thank God this kid decided to come yesterday and not twenty four hours later." He changed the subject. "Marty, were Jules and Verne on their own for any prolonged period of time last night?"

Marty thought about it for a moment. "They were in Verne's room for an hour or so before dinner, but that was about it," he said. "Why?"

The scientist studied him for a moment with an intense scrutiny. "There was no time at all where you were distracted or otherwise sidetracked, when the boys could've left the house?"

"Well, after dinner when they went outside to play in the snow, I did fall asleep for a couple hours -- 'til right before you called about the baby, when Jules woke me up." Marty paused, frowning. "You know, I did think it was sorta weird that they spent so much time outside without freezing to death, but I figured they probably came in a lot earlier. Why do you wanna know?"

Doc hesitated for a long moment, the pause causing Marty to get a little suspicious. "Did something happen I don't know about?" the latter asked. "I know we left in a hurry, but I'd swear nothing was really out of place in the house or around it."

"No," the scientist finally said. "Nothing happened, exactly. Don't worry."

Marty didn't really buy it, but he allowed the subject to drop. "Do you wanna get some breakfast in a few minutes?" he asked. "Do you think Clara or the kids will miss you?"

"I think I could slip out for a while. Let me just put Emily back in her bed."

Marty watched Doc as he stood, focusing on the careful but efficient way he held the newborn in his arms. "Are you happy to be a father again?" he asked, remembering how much the concept had scared him when Clara had first told him of her latest pregnancy.

Doc's face softened as he glanced at his daughter. "I don't have any regrets," he said. "I know this one is going to have her share of mishaps and scrapes in the coming years, probably upsetting Clara and me more than once, but I'm very glad she's here and wouldn't want to ever take it back."

"You think raising a girl will be much different?"

"I'm sure it will offer its own set of unique challenges, but I wouldn't trade her at all for another son."

Marty laughed a little. "I think she's already got you wrapped around her finger," he said.

Doc smiled, looking at him again with a startling intensity. "You're a good friend, Marty," he said. "I'm glad you were able to be here for this. Thank you."

"Well, I'm glad I could too, Doc. I wouldn't have missed it." Marty looked at him hard, feeling as if he wasn't picking up on something. "Is anything wrong?"

"No, no, I'm fine. I'll meet you at the elevators in a few minutes, all right?"

"Sure, no problem."

Marty watched him disappear in the dark room, then continued on his way to the restrooms. Perhaps stirred by Doc's mention of their friendship, he couldn't help thinking about the first time he had really seen the scientist (excepting the occasional spottings around town), parked outside his house one evening in the late spring, about five and a half years before.

Hard to believe that much time had passed, and harder still to believe how much those years and that one friendship had changed him -- for the better, Marty felt. He couldn't help wondering sometimes just how different his life, and Doc's, might've been if he and the inventor hadn't met and become friends, but he never dwelled on it for long. Marty had the feeling he didn't want to know.

Copyright 1999 - 2000