The first week passed by rapidly, amid flurries of construction and deconstruction with the train. Things were coming along steadily. As suspected, Emmett's few hours of teaching three mornings a week was barely noticed. Doc and Marty were well equipped to handle what came about, and the lab was fairly familiar to both visitors, since it was almost identical in layout and setup to the one they were used to in their world. And in spite of being offered the opportunity to gracefully bow out, the local Marty was around more often than not, pitching in with his own skills.
Even Jules, Verne, and Emily wanted to help out with this unusual project, around their schoolwork obligations. Emily was satisfied by running the painfully basic tests required for the software verification, while Verne and Jules were old enough to assemble circuitboards, so long as there was someone directly supervising them. The visitors couldn't stop their initial reactions to the eldest boys, as Jules was uncharacteristically incompetent with things like circuits and electronics, and Verne was much better at it -- although his science-related interests clearly lay in something a bit away from computers and electronics. Biology, specifically animals, were more his passion, and he talked excitedly about how he wanted to be a vet or zookeeper someday, maybe. Jules was set on being a rock musician, and the conversations he had with either and both of the Martys blew the visiting one away. He wished he could take video of this kid because he knew that the Jules back home wouldn't be able to buy it in a million and one years!
It was quite possible, of course, to do that. The tapes of the Back to the Future films were proof enough that video media could survive in a different dimension -- though Doc wasn't sure how long it would last before the electromagnetic tape began to deteriorate. The visiting inventor had managed to see all three of the films, in odd moments here and there, along with his counterpart. Doc thought they were fascinating, but not as much as the kids in this world; they begged for copies, seeing it as almost a home video archive of their parents before they were born, even if the events at the end of the third film were not reflections of their lives. Emmett, however, was quite firm in his refusal to allow that. If it was seen by the wrong people, it could cause a lot of problems. The visiting Marty really had no interest in seeing the videos, but his counterpart was as fascinated as the inventors and kids were -- more so, even. Often when there was a spare moment or three, he would be in the study watching the third one, particularly the last half hour of it. Marty thought it was borderline creepy, but no one else seemed to think it was worth commenting upon if they noticed.
Since the first full day they had been in this reality, there had been no real problems with reactions from the foreign dimension. Marty, as Doc had guessed, had absolutely no memory of taking that first jump in the DeLorean; he directed a completely blank look to the inventor the following morning, when Doc had asked him how he had enjoyed that the night before, and in fact thought that his friend was putting him on until Emmett and Clara corroborated the story. Every day since then, around eight or nine in the evening, Emmett would turn the keys of the DeLorean over to Doc, and both visitors would take a quick hop to a minute ahead. Both found the experience faintly unnerving at first -- it had been four and a half years since Doc's DeLorean had been destroyed in a brutal car accident in the future -- but the inventor soon seemed to enjoy them, in spite of the renovations Emmett had given his time machine.
On Saturday night, the work went later than usual, not shutting down until around midnight. Marty was in bed and asleep by one -- before waking up to the cries of Clayton in the room next door. That the baby was wailing in the middle of the night was rather unusual, as the youngest of the Browns had apparently mastered the art of sleeping through the night early on. But even after Clara went in to check on him, the kid wouldn't stop crying. Marty lay in the sewing room staring up at the ceiling, hearing Jules, Verne, Emily, and even Emmett come out to grumble or ask what was wrong. Clara finally took the upset baby downstairs, but Marty could still hear Clayton's unhappy cries -- just more distant and muffled.
The damage had been done, though; now he was awake and, without the distractions of working on repairs or interacting with the local Browns, Marty's mind began to run away with worries. What if everything they were doing was pointless; what if it wouldn't work? What if they never got home again? What if they were here for more than a few weeks? The relentless pace of his brain kept him up the rest of the night, even after Clayton had been settled down again.
Sunday found him dragging most of the day, feeling acute pangs from the loss of sleep he had suffered the night before. That afternoon, around four, when Emmett had gone into the house to grade some midterm exams and Doc had been sent out to the hardware store for more parts, the not-so-unthinkable or unexpected happened.
The local Marty had gone up to the loft to find some plans that Doc had drawn out the night before, in anticipation of recreating one of the circuitboards that controlled the output of power between the fusion generator and the flux capacitor on the train. The visiting Marty had climbed the stairs, some question nagging him that had to be asked at the moment to the local. His biggest complaint was about being tired, and that it didn't seem to be helped much by the couple of Pepsis he'd consumed over the course of the afternoon. Marty was almost to the top of the stairs when the world seemed to sort of skip on him, like a record needle that hit a scratch and suddenly went careening forward.
When the world snapped back into focus, he realized he was lying face up, the edges of the stair steps biting into the back of his spine. The bridge of his nose throbbed painfully, and his own face was staring down at him, pale and scared. It was such a weird sight that Marty had to blink a few times before he became convinced this wasn't some strange hallucination or dream. The physical discomforts helped on that, too, cutting through the rather spacy, tired feeling dogging him.
"You okay now?" the local asked his prone counterpart. "Can you talk?"
"Uh-huh," Marty muttered, still dazed. "What happened? Did I faint or something?"
"I dunno. I heard this thud on the stairs and when I ran over, I found you face down a couple steps from the top. You're lucky you didn't fall back -- or over the railing! I rolled you over and your eyes were open -- but you didn't blink or anything! It was creepier than hell."
Marty raised his hand up and rubbed his aching nose. No doubt he must've landed right on a corner of a step there. "It sounds like one of those dimensional reactions," he admitted. "That's what happens to Doc and I when our bodies start to freak out from being in a different dimension. That's why we have to take a jump in that DeLorean every night. But I shouldn't be having one of these now...."
Even as he said the words, Marty knew why he had probably been struck prematurely. Exhaustion made the body more prone to it, and caffeine could make such dimensional incompatibility worse, not better. He sighed to himself, realizing he should've remembered those things earlier and opted for an afternoon nap instead of Pepsis.
The local Marty looked only slightly more at ease with the diagnosis. "So if you go in the DeLorean, you'll be better?" When the visitor nodded, cautiously sitting up, the local jumped up from the stairs and scooted past his counterpart, heading for the study. As Marty leaned back against the railing, feeling a little lightheaded, he had to ask.
"What are you doing?"
There was the sound of a drawer or two being opened up in the study. "Getting the DeLorean keys," the local Marty said a moment later. "I know where they are; Doc showed me in case there were ever any emergencies."
The visiting Marty's brain was still a bit slow. "And what are you gonna do with the car?" The solution occurred to him before his counterpart could say it. "You wanna jump me forward?"
"Why not?" the local called back. "Both the Docs are busy, and if this will keep you from taking nosedives on stairs, we might as well do it sooner than later. I know my Doc wouldn't mind." Local Marty walked back into view, stuffing something into the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt. "He's been waiting for me to want to time travel again."
The visiting musician started to frown, stopping when that aggravated the ache in his nose. "Are you sure that's all right? Your Doc probably wouldn't care if he had to come out here to take me a minute ahead...."
"We don't need to bother him," Local Marty said, heading down the stairs. The visitor pulled himself up to his feet with the aide of the railing. "He's probably behind on his grading with all the other stuff going on, and I can do it. Trust me."
Visiting Marty supposed there wasn't any reason not to. And if this was something the local wasn't supposed to be doing, it wasn't like he, the innocent victim, was going to get into trouble at all. Plus, the idea of getting rid of the light, spacey feeling in his head sooner rather than later was most appealing. He followed his counterpart after a moment of hesitation. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, Local Marty already had the car doors unlocked and was inside messing with the time circuits.
"We only need to go a minute ahead," the visiting Marty mentioned as he made his way over to the passenger side of the car.
"Yeah," the local said a minute later, sounding slightly preoccupied. He finished inputting the data for the destination just as Marty reached the other side of the car and plopped down in the seat. "Is the fusion generator loaded?" Local Marty asked as he reached for the keys, already in the ignition.
"I dunno."
"Can you check?"
The visitor rolled his eyes at the command. "Fine." Marty got out of the car, checked the small device mounted on the back of the car, and dumped a few things from the trash can in it for good measure. He wasn't sure how often it had to be reloaded, since this was a better model than the basic Mr. Fusion unit from 2015. Better safe than sorry, though, he guessed.
He had closed the unit and was stepping away from the car when the local started it up. Marty frowned, thinking this was pretty impatient of his counterpart. It wasn't as if he was going to fall apart in a matter of seconds, or even minutes. Maybe he simply wanted to get the chore out of the way. He returned to the DeLorean and had hardly shut the door before the vehicle lurched forward, a bit roughly.
"Sorry," the local apologized, his eyes fixed on the outside world beyond the large lab doors. "I'm not used to driving this car at all."
"You'd better make sure you can get it into the air -- and that it's not visible."
"I can do that," Local Marty said, sounding faintly insulted with the insinuation he could not. The time machine stopped for a moment as the driver fiddled with those needs, then, once it was invisible and airborne, the local Marty made a wide turn to accelerate over the back of the property. They reached eighty-eight in less than a minute.
And then the visiting Marty gasped when the transit completed. Instead of seeing the same slate grey clouds hanging in the sky, and a rather dim and wintery world, they were surrounded by blue sky and sunlight.
"What the hell...?" Marty began to ask, turning his head towards his counterpart. The local Marty was already reaching into the pocket of his sweatshirt, and in one quick move pulled something out. The visitor recognized the device in the local's hand immediately; it was the sleep inducer, and it was aiming itself right at his face!
Completely on instinct, Marty screwed his eyes shut and whipped his face away, turning towards the passenger window. His reflexes, and the splintered attention span of his counterpart as he tried to aim and use the inducer, while driving, is what saved him. "What the hell, McFly?" the passenger demanded, keeping his eyes tightly closed.
"Look at me!" the other musician demanded.
"Are you outta your goddamned mind?! No! Where the hell are we? Where did you take us?"
The local Marty did not answer, but he really didn't need to. Visiting Marty had a hunch almost immediately. "Are we back in 1885?"
There was still no answer, but Marty could feel the car start to descend and slow down. Keeping his face aimed towards the window, leaning so close to it that his forehead touched the glass, the musician cracked his eyes open a smidge. When there was no blinding flash of oblivion, he opened his eyes even more in order to see what was below.
In a word -- not much. But it definitely looked like the 1885-era of Hill Valley, with the rust-colored dirt and wide open spaces. Squinting down at the land below, Marty thought he could make out the thin, silver line of the railroad tracks.
"You can't be serious..." he muttered aloud, half to his counterpart. "Do you know how screwed up you're gonna make things if you're thinking of doing what I think you're thinking of doing?"
"I know exactly what I'm doing," Local Marty snapped. "And you're supposed to stay out of this."
"I'm supposed to stay out of it? Jesus, I never wanted in it! If you didn't want company, you sure picked an inconvenient time to take off and do this!"
Once again, Local Marty chose not to respond. The now-unwilling passenger sighed, frustrated, still feeling more confused than anything else, although that spacey feeling in his head had thankfully abated with the shift in time. He continued to face the window, paranoid about the local giving the sleep inducer another try. "Why are you doing this?" he asked, even though he thought it was a pretty stupid question. "You're gonna mess so much up..."
"No, I won't," Local Marty insisted stubbornly. "There's plenty of time -- it's only 7:30 A.M. on September seventh. I can check out the track and make sure it's clear when the DeLorean comes by. The accident didn't happen until about 8:40 or something."
"And how long are you planning on staying here?" the visitor asked. "Until you make sure history is changed?"
Local Marty ignored the sarcasm that oozed out of his counterpart's words. "Until I make sure that I got home on time, instead of five years off. I don't care if you're around, but you're not gonna stop me. I'm not letting you blow this chance for me!"
"Then why the hell did you decide to do this with me here?" Marty asked, not getting it. "Or did you lie to me in the lab about your Doc being cool with you using the DeLorean?"
"I didn't lie... entirely. I haven't gone anywhere since I got home ten years ago. And Doc's never actually offered to let me take the DeLorean anywhere, but he never went out of his way to stop me, either."
"So you think that's like an open invite? Jeez.... Hasn't he told you a million times that preventing you from staying here for five years is a bad idea?"
"He's being paranoid," Local Marty said. "And he won't know about it. Things will change around him at home."
"But what about you?" Marty asked, thinking that his other self was really naive about all this stuff. "You'll either go home to a place you don't even know, or fade out!"
"I'll go home," Local Marty said. "And I'll find a better life for myself there, married with Jennifer. The way it should be."
Visiting Marty started to open his mouth to tell him that this wasn't necessarily so -- but another realization struck him temporarily mute. If the local succeeded in his bizarre mission, then more than his future would be different. Could it be possible -- likely, even -- that the visiting Doc wouldn't be there anymore? Since it would then be a different world and reality with different results? And if that happened, was the visiting Marty completely and totally screwed for ever getting home?
Marty turned to look at his counterpart for the first time, caution flying out the window now that his mind was seizing on a very valid concern. "I can't let you do this!"
The local's guard hadn't relaxed a notch. "Try and stop me!" he snapped.
Marty intended to do just that, and started to lunge over to grab the wheel from his counterpart -- and, what then, he wasn't sure -- but the local's reflexes were a step ahead. Local Marty simply let go of the wheel and made his own lunge towards the passenger seat. He grabbed the visitor's shirt in one hand, pulled him forward, and shoved the sleep inducer in his face with the other. This time, Marty didn't react fast enough to avoid it. He saw a brilliant flash of white light, and then everything faded out.
* * *
Oh shit....
Those words were Marty's first conscious thought, along with the feeling that all was not right with the world. That, in fact, things were decidedly wrong. Although intensely groggy, he managed to drag open his eyes to see what it was that was sending out such strong, bad vibes.
The first thing that he noticed was that he was in the DeLorean. In the passenger seat, to be more precise, leaning against the door rather awkwardly. The driver's seat was empty, the door closed. Marty blinked a couple of times, trying to clear his head, then sat up to better take in the world.
The DeLorean was parked on the ground, perhaps fifteen feet away from a set of train tracks. Outside, Marty saw himself (or, he realized after a very confused moment, his counterpart) on his hands and knees around the tracks, his attention fully focused on the ground along the rails. For about three seconds the Marty in the car was completely and totally baffled -- and then the memories from before came back to him with such a hard rush that he gasped.
Am I too late? Did he already 'fix' history?
Marty reached for the doorlatch, oblivious to any risk to himself. Being subjected to the sleep inducer again didn't even cross his mind. Even if it had, the risks were too great with not stepping in and keeping Local Marty from making a very serious error. He looked at the display of the current time as he pulled the doorlatch. September 7, 1885 at 8:31 A.M. There was still time. Probably.
As he was about to exit the car, his eyes happened to drop upon the driver's seat -- and there, lying in plain sight, was the sleep inducer. Marty grabbed it and slipped it into his back pocket, eager to get it away and out of the hands of his other self.
Local Marty did not look up when his counterpart left the car. The visiting Marty didn't understand why this was so until he glanced back at the car -- and didn't see it. The invisible holographic disguise was apparently still in place.
When the local counterpart either heard or sensed his approach, and glanced up, Local Marty's first reaction was a sort of flinch back. Visiting Marty fixed him with a squinty glare, his eyes not quite used to the bright sunlight outside yet.
"Get away from the tracks!" he said, his annoyance ringing clear in his voice.
Local Marty looked back down at the dirt around the rails. "Not yet," he said. "Go back in the car; I'll be done in a minute."
"Why should I listen to anything you tell me to do? You -- you knocked me out!"
"Well, you weren't cooperating." Local Marty paused a moment, raising his head and looking behind him. "Do you hear something?"
The visiting musician wasn't about to fall for that ruse. He continued to stare at his counterpart, annoyance shifting quickly to anger.
Somewhere not-so-distant, the faint whistle of a train could be heard. A few short blasts. It slipped past Marty's attention for a moment -- and then he blinked, realizing what that meant.
"The train is gonna be here soon!" he told his counterpart.
Local Marty nodded once to himself, then returned his attention to feeling around the rails. "I know. We've probably got a few minutes, though. In that movie, Doc blew the whistle a few times before we started to move onto the switch track. Probably did that here, too, but I don't remember."
The visitor took a few steps forward, unsure if it would be better to keep a cautious distance or close in. "What's the last thing you remember before the accident?"
"Going after the train, after the showdown with Buford," the local said. "Then I was waking up in Doc's place, totally confused, with a hell of a headache. I thought maybe everything was some weird dream -- but it wasn't."
Marty risked a look away from his counterpart to peer in the direction of the train whistles, curious to see if anything was visible in coming yet. After a moment of straining his eyes, he thought he detected a wisp of smoke. Things had to be stopped -- now.
"How do you know what went wrong?" he asked the local. "Maybe it was some fluke -- or something you can't even fix."
Local Marty snorted as he continued his exam. "Doc checked out the tracks after it happened," he said. "I went with him when I was able to. Nothing on the rails was bent or messed up. He figured it was something on the tracks, like a rock or a -- bent spike! Here!"
The musician leaned in close to the left rail for a moment, his body blocking Marty's view. A second later he sprang to his feet and lunged in the direction of the visitor. Marty scrambled out of the way, half expecting another attack, but the local ran right past him for the invisible DeLorean. He slowed only when reaching the immediate vicinity of the car, stretching his hands out for the exterior. They found it a moment later, vanishing under the illusion. A moment later the driver's door was open, giving one a view of the DeLorean's interior, seemingly hanging in midair. Local Marty reached inside and popped the trunk, shut the door, then hurried over to rummage around inside the hood of the car.
The train whistle sounded again, once, a quick blast. It was definitely closer, now, and Marty thought he could almost hear the rumble of the locomotive. A distant thunder-like roll. He looked in the direction of the sounds, then back at his counterpart. Local Marty was running back to the rails with a hammer clutched in one hand. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know what his intent was.
"Don't!" Marty said, taking a step towards the local as he passed by, reaching out for him. The musician easily dodged the attempted interception and skidded to a halt next to the crooked spike. He fell to his knees and began to bang at it with the hammer, the metal-on-metal sound worsening a headache the visitor wasn't aware he had, until then. Marty hesitated only a moment, then hurried to his side.
"Stop it!" he demanded, trying to grab the hammer from the local's hand. The idea was flawed; Local Marty kept swinging it, deliberately ignoring him. His jaw was set forward in a hard, tense line. A few whacks later and he stopped, bending close to examine his handiwork.
"It's not moving!" Marty overheard him mutter. "Damn!"
"Get away from the tracks!" Marty told him, feeling a faint vibration under his shoes, now. "The train's coming!"
The local ignored him. He slammed the hammer down once more on the crooked spike. The head of it wasn't sitting quite flat enough on the rail. Marty had to wonder if that flaw was exclusive to this reality, or if it existed in his world and simply hadn't been a problem. Then there was the possibility that this wasn't even the issue that had derailed the DeLorean. Marty decided to keep that last thought to himself.
The vibrations in the ground grew stronger. The visitor looked up, and this time it took no eyestrain or imagination to see the approaching locomotive. The sunlight glinted off the surface of the pushed time machine. It was probably a couple of miles away, still. But coming quickly. Before Doc had tossed in the Presto logs, they had been moving at about 25 miles per hour.
"Look, give it up," Marty told the local counterpart. "There's not enough time to fix this -- and you shouldn't be messing around with this, anyway!"
"Says the guy who's life is perfect!" Local Marty suddenly spat out without warning, his tone thickly sarcastic. He threw a quick, disgusted look in the visitor's direction, then went back to his project.
Marty took another look at the approaching train, then decided he was through with being remotely nice. "The train's gonna be on top of us in a minute," he said, taking a step forward. "You'll be seen by yourself and Doc -- and how are you gonna explain that?"
A couple of bangs was his only answer. Marty came forward quickly, desperation propelling his feet. "Get back!" he said.
Local Marty pointedly ignored him once more. The visiting counterpart made a grab for his arms, intending to wrench the hammer out of his hands. The local saw the intent. "Leave me alone!" he bellowed, furious, jerking his arm back. His elbow caught Visiting Marty in the stomach and the musician bent over, gasping in surprise and for air. Still, he wasn't intending to give in and give up.
Jeez, he's totally possessed!
"You think this will make it all better?" Marty snapped at him when he had enough breath. The ground was definitely shaking now from the approaching train, and the sound of the chugging engine was loud enough to cause the need to raise one's voice a bit. "You think this will fix all your problems? You're so stupid, McFly! You need to grow up and accept that all the shit you're dealing with now is because you can't move on from something that happened fifteen years ago! There are some things you can't change -- that you're not supposed to change -- and this is one of 'em for you. Deal with that. Live with it -- if you even know how anymore!"
Local Marty turned around, his eyes wide with either surprise or anger. That confusion over the emotions of the local lasted only until he opened his mouth. "You don't know anything about this, about me!" Local Marty yelled, raising his voice to be heard above the thundering locomotive barreling down, no more than a quarter mile away, now. His hand tightened around the handle of the hammer. "You got out of the past. You got Jennifer. You got your family to turn to. You're happy!"
The train's whistle blasted a couple of times, no doubt to edge both of them out of the way. Local Marty was standing in the center of the rails, and the visitor was a half step away. He made another grab for his counterpart's arm, intending to pull him out of the way. "Move it!"
Local Marty jerked his arm back, just as the visitor's fingertips brushed his sleeve. "No," he snapped. "It's gonna end here."
Marty's skin prickled at his counterpart's tone, sensing something more behind the words than simply the urge to right a past wrong. He looked him dead in the eyes, seeing for the first time a desperate and slightly frantic gleam in the gaze. "Not if I've got anything to do with it," he said softly, his words easily drowned out by the train.
Local Marty's body tensed, as if anticipating a blow or a reaction from the visitor. He was not disappointed. Taking a deep breath, Marty lunged forward, throwing all of his weight in the direction of his double. Even the anticipation of something was not enough to keep the local on his feet when the collision came. He fell back, away from the tracks, and the two of them rolled a few feet down the mild incline of the rails -- but if Marty was expecting the local musician to be passive, he was sorely disappointed. They had hardly hit the ground before Local Marty was squirming and struggling under the weight of the visitor. As they weighed about the same, with the identical build and evenly matched strength, it was a fierce battle for each.
"Let it go!" Marty grunted, speaking about both the hammer and the local's bitterness about the whole situation. He tried to close his hand around it, but the local jerked it away, waving his hand around so that it became all but impossible to get a hold on it.
The ground was shaking underneath them, and once more the whistle of the train sounded, so loudly that Marty's ears were left ringing when it trailed off. He risked a quick look up, towards the tracks, seeing with a crystal clarity the Doc gasping at them from the cab of the train. Behind him, unseen by the inventor, Clara was barreling down on a horse, shouting. Any second, now, the log was probably gonna explode, and then....
Local Marty's struggles dragged him back to the more immediate task. The visitor turned his head back to look at the musician -- just as the local's right arm slipped from the grasp that Marty had had on it. Local Marty brought his arm forward, his hand clutching the hammer -- and before the visitor could draw back or duck away, the hard metal head caught him squarely in the side of the head, none too softly. Hot, sharp pain exploded above his left ear, streaking through his entire skull -- and then the world went abruptly silent and black.
Things seemed to fall apart simultaneously from the local Marty's point of view. As he shoved back his counterpart with his right hand, clocking him squarely with the head of the hammer, he heard a bang that could only be the explosion of the first Presto log in the train. Then, just as the visiting Marty went limp on him, quite heavily, there was a horrible screech of metal-on-metal and several loud thuds and booms that vibrated the ground underneath Local Marty's back.
The local musician looked over in time to see the DeLorean rocket off the tracks, pursued immediately by the train, parts deteriorating and flying off the time machine as it went. The driver's side door was bumped open with the first jolt as the car went off the tracks, and there was a quick blur of motion as the earlier, younger Marty was ejected. As he left the car, the top of his head clipped the gullwing door, the blow looking painful enough to elicit a wince from his future counterpart. Through the window of the train's cab, the local Marty got a glimpse of Doc's frantic expression as he tried hard to pull the emergency break and stop the train. On the back of the wood car, he could see Clara clutching the ladder that she had grabbed seconds before the log had blown, her eyes huge in her face.
The DeLorean continued to be propelled forward, bouncing violently up and down, as the train jerked off the tracks. Pieces of the car broke off in its wake. At long last the train slowed, then stopped, but not before creating a huge field of debris. By that time, the DeLorean looked more like a modern art sculpture than a car, and the front of the train was partially resting on the rear deck of the car. Marty closed his eyes a moment, the sight suddenly making it hard to breathe. He wasn't allowed the luxury of mourning, though.
"Emmett!"
Clara's voice was the first to break the stillness that had settled, once all vehicular motion had stopped. Marty opened his eyes in time to see her drop down from the back of the wood car, visibly shaking from all she had experienced and witnessed. "Emmett, are you all right?"
Doc had already climbed halfway out of the cab's window when Clara's call came. He froze halfway into the maneuver, his eyes bugging out and scanning the area frantically. "Clara?!"
"Yes!" Clara followed the sound of his voice and finally caught sight of him in the window of the train. "I came after you to let you know that I believed you and that.... Oh my goodness, are you hurt? What happened?"
"I'm fine," Doc said, though Marty could see a small, bleeding cut on the inventor's forehead. A comparatively minor injury, though, considering the entire accident. "I don't think Marty is, though. He's over there and he's not moving, Clara."
"Marty?" The schoolteacher's voice was puzzled. "Who's Marty?"
"Clint! Clint Eastwood is Marty! And I think he's hurt."
The schoolteacher immediately saw what Doc was pointing to and made her way over there, her face white and pinched with concern. The Local Marty shoved the dead weight of his unconscious counterpart off his stomach, to the side, and sat up, curious to see the events unfold. No one seemed to notice him at all, which was good. He was going to have one hell of a story to share later, especially with another version of himself there.
The seventeen-year-old Marty was sprawled face down on the ground, not moving, no more than two feet from the rails. Clara reached him first and stretched out a hand to turn him over. Doc's shout stopped her.
"No, wait! Don't move him! He could have a spinal or neck injury!"
Clara's hand recoiled as she turned to look at Doc, who had climbed down from the train -- which was hissing and groaning, but not going anywhere -- and was carefully picking his way around the debris. He reached her side a moment later.
"He shouldn't be face down, Emmett," she said as he knelt down next to Marty. "I don't think he can breathe clearly."
"I'll handle it," Doc said, preoccupied, his face pale. "Clara, can you run to town and get the doctor? I'm sure the law authorities are already on their way."
Clara nodded without hesitation. "Certainly," she said. "And I think you should be looked over, too. Your forehead is bleeding, Emmett."
Doc reached up at the cut and wiped it rather absentmindedly. "It's just a scratch," was his distant response. "Marty?"
The name was directed to the face-down teen, and evoked no reaction. The version fifteen years older began to creep closer for a better view, crawling on the dusty ground. He glanced back for a moment at his very still counterpart, his conscience nagging him at the sight.
Christ, he's out cold!
Marty hadn't meant to do that, not really, but the guy was really pissing him off, what with his lousy insisting that the accident was "meant to be" and that preventing it would screw up the world. The local Marty's heart gave a hollow skip when he realized once more that he had done absolutely nothing to stop the incident from happening. When he went home again, it would be to the same depressing, lonely future that he had left. And he was probably going to get a scathing lecture from his Doc about his irresponsibility and such.
Marty pushed those thoughts away for the moment, feeling like there had to be some way he could still change things. Later. But right now....
In spite of his instructions to Clara about not moving Marty, Doc very gently rolled his friend onto his back. The teen was unconscious, his eyes closed, and a very angry-looking welt was rising on his forehead above his right eye, already swelling into dark bruising. Doc hissed through his teeth, concerned. He started to reach out to touch it, then seemed to think better of that and drew his hand back. "Damn," Marty heard him whisper, sounding both frustrated and horrified.
Local Marty crept forward a little more -- and his knee caught a patch of gravel. The crunching sound wasn't too loud -- not compared to the sounds of the accident -- but Doc's head immediately snapped up. His eyes homed in to the source of the noise. At the sight of the crouching Marty, his mouth fell open a little and he gasped, falling back to sit on the ground. "Great Scott!"
Marty smiled thinly. "Hey, Doc. Don't go freaking out on me, now...."
The inventor glanced at the younger Marty, then back to the older one. "How did you get here? What are you doing here?"
"Uh, well, that's kind of a long, long, long story...."
Some of the shock that had been clouding up his friend's face suddenly began to fade. Doc blinked a couple of times, then narrowed his eyes shrewdly at the local musician. "You! It was you that I saw on the train tracks! What the hell did you do?!"
This was going in a direction that Marty hadn't anticipated. "Nothing," he said, holding up his hands -- and only then did he realize he still clutched the hammer. He let it drop to the ground, lest Doc think he was planning on using it anytime soon. "I wasn't trying to make this happen; I was trying to make it not happen!"
Doc frowned. He looked like he had a lot more questions, but a sudden hissing from the train seemed to remind him of more pressing matters. He looked over at the locomotive, then back at the unconscious teen next to him. "There's no time for this now," he muttered. "Get out of sight before the authorities come!"
"Right," Marty said. He stood up and started to turn around, then stopped, literally seeing a problem. Specifically his counterpart, as out cold as his younger self. "Uh, Doc, what about the other version of me....?"
"The other version of... what are you talking about?" Doc asked, plainly baffled. "Your younger self won't cause any problems if people see him."
"But he might." When Doc didn't seem to get it, and simply stared at Marty with a blank look, the musician reluctantly elaborated. "There's another version of me from a different world. He came back here with me and I... uh... kinda knocked him out. He was trying to keep me from stopping the wreck. He's over there."
Doc left the teenage Marty's side to stand and walk a few steps, until he could spot the prone figure of the counterpart. His eyes widened once more. "Great Scott! Two of you! Is he all right?"
"Probably," Marty muttered, feeling the faintest prickles of guilt, then, about his counterpart's state. "I don't think he'll be waking up very soon, though. When I've gotten hit on the head, I'm usually out for a few hours, at least...."
Doc turned to look at him shrewdly. Marty expected another question or two then, but he was spared for the moment. "I think you... and the other you... need to get out of sight. Can you get to my place from here? As soon as Clara returns with the doctor, I'll be heading that way."
For a moment, Marty was completely baffled as to how that problem could be solved. Then he remembered the invisible DeLorean. His eyes slid uneasily in the direction of the car, but it was undisturbed by the wreckage of the train. It wasn't until then that he realized it was a very lucky thing that original DeLorean hadn't smashed into it's invisible counterpart. "Ah... sure, I think I can manage that. But didn't you want me to do anything here?"
"No," Doc said. "I can't have you interacting in events that you never had, originally. Go to my place. I'll be along as soon as I am able. And don't let anyone see you... especially if there's two of you, and you're dressed like that!"
Marty glanced down at his jeans and sweatshirt. Definitely not 1885 attire. "Sure," he said. He paused a moment, uncertain on how to go about the task -- should he move his counterpart to the car, or the car to the counterpart? -- then figured that he might as well move the visiting Marty to the car. No need to let Doc see more than he needed of the future technology.
A wicked and painful-looking lump was already forming just above the visiting Marty's left ear when the local returned to his side. Local Marty grimaced as he grabbed the visitor under the arms, planning to drag him the twenty or so feet to the invisible DeLorean. "Sorry," he muttered to the unconscious counterpart. "But you really should've just let me deal with this on my own.... And it's not my fault you got in the way of the hammer!"
Doc wasn't looking as Marty reached the disguised time machine and managed to get his other self into the passenger seat; the inventor's attention was fully focused on the seventeen-year-old Marty. Even at the distance he was, the local musician could see the lines of concern etched into his friend's forehead. Funny. He would've thought that seeing him would've made any concerns about his younger self's health go away.
Marty had just settled himself into the driver's seat when he heard the sound of rapid and frantic hoof beats approaching. He closed the door just in time; a second later several men on horseback rode onto the scene. The musician could pick out Sheriff Henry Rogers, and Marshal James Strickland as two of them; the others he didn't immediately recognize, but they looked official. They drew their animals to a halt at the sight of the wrecked train. Marty cracked his window open a quarter of an inch, to hear the conversation.
"What in the name of hellfire happened?!" the sheriff exclaimed as he dismounted. "Emmett -- are you all right?"
Doc looked up at the question and nodded once. "I'm fine," he said. "It's Ma--Clint who's been injured. Clara-- ah, Miss Clayton -- went to fetch the doctor. She happened by right after the accident."
Marshal Strickland was slower to get off his horse. Even from two dozen feet away, Marty could see the suspicion on the man's face. "What happened here?" he asked. "We had a report that the train was hijacked by two men."
"It was," Doc said rapidly. "Clint and I went after them, and we tried to stop them with a rail vehicle I was working on... but it derailed the train instead of stopping it. The two men took off on foot; they weren't hurt."
The marshal's eyebrows arched up. "You derailed the train?"
"It was an accident," Doc said. "And I think there are more important things to worry about right now."
Based on the look that the Strickland had on his face, Marty somehow doubted the man shared that very sentiment. "That's a serious offense, Emmett...."
Doc looked up, frazzled. "I understand," he said. "But I think that can wait until later. Clint's hurt, and I don't intend to relax until I know that he's out of danger."
The marshal nodded once, then knelt down next to the inventor's side, likely to have a look at the teen. After a moment he stood and shouted an order to the sheriff, who had drifted in the direction of the wrecked locomotive. "Henry! Ride into town and fetch a buckboard!"
The bearded man stopped and turned around, uncertain about the order. "Marshal?"
Strickland nodded curtly. "Mr. Eastwood's wounded. Make haste."
The sheriff hurried back over to his horse and mounted him quickly. He galloped off in a cloud of dust, just as more people were trickling onto the site, likely drawn by all the noise from the derailment -- or simple curiosity. The marshal took charge very quickly. "I don't want nobody touching nothing!" he bellowed. "This accident is going to be under investigation; this is all evidence. Beckett, Banning, I want you both to ride out and look around for these outlaws. Did you get a good look at them, Emmett?"
It took Doc a moment to answer. "Ah, no, it happened so fast.... They both had masks over their faces."
It didn't seem to matter. Two of the men set off on the task. The marshal ordered a few other men to secure the sight, and they immediately spread out in a rough sort of perimeter. Marty supposed it was a good thing that the rail line the accident had occurred on wasn't being used yet, and led to nowhere. He wondered how much history that would've screwed up if they had to shut down all the trains to Hill Valley because of this snafu.
The musician lingered at the sight until he saw Clara arrive with the town doctor, then decided if he wanted to beat the crowds back to Doc's stable he'd better go now. He felt a little nervous turning the key, sure that the sound of a gasoline engine would draw the attention of those in the immediate area. But the train was still making enough racket as it cooled and settled that it wasn't noticed. Marty took the car up carefully, his skills at piloting a flying vehicle rather rusty; in fact, he couldn't remember ever doing it before today. Fortunately, it wasn't too hard to pick up. He flew around invisible and unnoticed in the skies above Hill Valley for a few minutes until he was able to orient himself and locate the downtown square. Doc's livery stable/home looked to be deserted. Marty landed the car carefully behind the building, and once more shut it off.
Then he had a bit of a dilemma. Should he leave his other self behind in the car, or move him inside? The first option was mighty appealing; the visiting Marty was still out, having exhibited no signs of stirring. He was also a bit of a challenge to move, never mind that the local was the same size and strength. But the bump on his head looked bad, and there was the fear that maybe the visitor would wake up and decide to drive straight back home, ditching him in the past. That last worry, as irrational as it might've been, was what made the decision for him.
Keeping the car invisible, the local went around to the passenger door, opened it up, then grabbed his other self under the arms again and dragged him in fits and starts through the back door of the livery stable. Marty wasn't quite sure where to put him, so he made for the cot that he had used in the early days of 1885-living. By the time he had gotten his other self settled there, a fine layer of perspiration was covering his skin, and he was gasping a little from the maneuvering and exercise. When he had to go back to the DeLorean, he vowed, Doc was either going to help move the visiting Marty, or the guy would walk on his own.
After he had caught his breath, and made sure the car was undetectable in the back, Marty checked out the condition of his other self for the first time. He wasn't sure he liked what he saw. The mark from the hammer had already formed an nasty, swelled bruise, though the ugly marks were concealed nicely by hair, and the visitor's face was on the pale side. His breathing wasn't weird, though, and when the local checked his pulse, it seemed fine. That was about the extent of his medical knowledge and skills, but Marty thought it might be a good idea to get some kind of compress on the bruise, if nothing else than to cut the swelling down. It was probably gonna be impossible to hide from everyone back home, though.
Sheesh. At least it isn't bleeding....
There was a part of him that was telling him to take off right then -- to go home and to face the music. But the local still thought, hoped, and prayed that there might be another way around the problem of his younger self being sentence to a life in the past for five years. He didn't want to leave until he knew how to fix that. Marty knew that once he went home, that was it; Doc wasn't going to let him get anywhere near a time machine again for a long, long time, if ever.
Dammit. I should've planned this thing better!
Marty scowled to himself as he walked over to Doc's bedside and poured some fresh water into the basin next to the inventor's bed. He had wanted to go back before, of course, and change things. But over the years it had become little more than just an idle wish or thought -- especially since Doc was so adamantly against it. Having a counterpart arrive from another dimension -- a dimension where he had gotten home safely -- had rattled him enough to make the thoughts much more serious. But even he was a bit surprised by this spontaneous trip back. The circumstances seemed perfect... well, except for having to have his other self with him. But the sleep inducer was supposed to take care of that right away; the local had planned to just tell his counterpart that the whole trip was some kind of dream. And it would've worked out nicely if Visiting Marty hadn't reacted as quickly as he did. There was no way to convince him that this was a dream, now. Especially not with that lump on the head.
The local found a towel nearby, soaked it in the room temperature water, wrung it out, then carried it over to the cot. He had just folded it and set it down on his counterpart's bump -- which provoked not so much as a twitch from Visiting Marty -- when there came the sound of hoof beats and voices outside. Marty froze for a moment, standing over the cot, then when they grew closer and seemed to be coming in the direction of Doc's place, he started to panic.
What if someone comes in here? They'll see two of us!
The problem was solved in three seconds. Marty spotted the quilt folded at the foot of the cot, grabbed it and shook it out, then draped it over his unconscious counterpart. Once he was covered from head to toe, the local then dropped to the floor and rolled under the small bed. It wasn't much, but so long as whoever came in didn't poke around too much....
The door opened and a woman ran in. "Hello?" she called out, tentatively. "It's Clara...."
Marty blinked once, his chin on the floorboards, then realized that Doc must've sent her over. "Clara," he called, as he pushed himself up -- and slammed the top of his head right into the bottom of the cot, sagging under the weight of his other self. "Ow, dammit!"
The exclamation and apparent disembodied voice made Clara jump nearly six inches. "Goodness! Where are you?"
The musician rolled out from under the cot, rubbing the top of his head tenderly. "Right here," he said, raising himself up on his knees.
Clara's eyes widened once they located him, her mouth falling open an inch. "Oh, my! Clint! Emmett told me that you would be here but... how can you be in two places at once?!"
Marty wondered if he should tell her then that there was actually another version of him inches away. "Ah... well... that's a long story. I'm kind of from the future. I'm an older version of the guy with Doc right now."
Clara took a few steps in his direction, her brow furrowed into a mess of lines as she struggled to comprehend the incredible. Marty hoped she had a really open mind, because it was going to get even more far out from her view. "He said you were hurt," she said, uncertain. "He sent me ahead of himself and... you... to tend to your wounds. But you look well enough to me."
Marty cleared his throat, suddenly nervous and wishing he didn't have to be the one to make the announcement and give the explanation to Clara. Doc probably figured the musician could handle that, though, and the current inventor really knew little about the situation. But at this point in time, Clara barely knew him, or Doc. Marty's memories of the pre-marriage days of the teacher and the inventor were fairly sketchy now, since he'd had so many more pressing concerns at the time. Still, Clara never really struck him before or since as someone who could deny proof when it was staring her straight in the face.
"I'm fine," he said. "Doc was talking about my other self. He's... right here."
As Clara gave him an even more puzzled look, Marty reached down and pulled the quilt down to Visiting Marty's waist, revealing his overly familiar face. The schoolteacher had to come much closer before she could see what it was that the musician was trying to show her. When she saw who was on the cot, she gasped, her hand going up to her mouth. "Oh! But how...."
"Long, long story," Marty said, before she could even try and ask. "I'll probably have to tell it all to Doc when he gets here."
Clara's face was pale as she looked at him, but she didn't immediately pry for any more information. Instead she knelt down next to the cot and lifted up the towel on the bump. At the sight of the injury, she hissed a breath through her teeth. "What happened to him? Was he struck by debris in the accident?"
Marty squirmed a little, not really liking the taste of the truth in his mouth. "No. I did that to him. He was trying to stop me from doing something."
The schoolteacher glanced at him, surprised, then looked back to the patient. "It might be prudent to have the doctor look at him," she said. "But I don't quite know how you can explain this to him."
"He'll be fine," Marty said, knowing that Doc would really be against that idea. "He can see someone at home, probably."
Clara frowned as she dabbed the towel on the visiting Marty's cheeks and forehead. "Home," she echoed faintly. "Where is that, exactly? The future? I don't believe I've seen clothes quite like yours before...."
If there was one thing Marty didn't want to do, it was give Clara the whole long backstory about who he and Doc really were. That was Doc's job, and the musician was more than happy to let him deal with it when the time came. "Doc will tell you everything," he said. "I probably shouldn't even be talking to you now.... Is he on his way back here?"
Clara nodded. "They had settled... you into a buckboard wagon and had started to bring it back here. Emmett sent me ahead and told me that I would find another Clint to tend to, and to make sure that he was not to be seen when the doctor brought the other one in here." She sounded terribly confused as she spoke. "I didn't know there would be two of you."
"Three, technically," Marty said.
The schoolteacher gave a faint smile and replaced the towel on the visitor's bump. A moment later there came a racket from outside -- voices, hoof beats, and the sound of a wagon. Marty would've laid money down that this was the arrival of his younger self and Doc. "Shit," he swore softly, not sure of where to go. His eyes roamed the barn quickly -- and came to rest on the hayloft above the door. It seemed promising. Quickly, he ran towards the main doors, grabbed the ladder, and scrambled up it. He landed on the floor of the hayloft, amid a collection of both stable and Doc-like gizmos, a moment before the door opened. Doc and the town doctor, William Peterson, came in, carrying between them the seventeen-year-old Marty McFly. The older version of Marty inched forward to peer cautiously over the edge, his lofted perspective giving him a great view of almost the entire barn.
Clara stood at their arrival, having replaced the quilt over the older, alternate counterpart, so that the cot simply seemed to be filled with blankets and not a person. "How is he?" she asked as she left the cot's side and headed towards the two men.
"Still out," Doc half grunted. "Let's get him over to the bed." His eyes flickered quickly to Clara as he spoke, searching perhaps for her approval to the suggestion. She nodded once, meeting his gaze, understanding the unspoken question. The medical doctor and Doc lugged the unconscious teen over to the bed and settled him down on top of the covers. A small group of people followed them, trickling inside, drawn by the commotion. One of them was Seamus McFly, who looked quite concerned by what he had witnessed or heard. He hovered near the doors with about four or five other of the townsfolk, clearly reluctant to intrude on what was a serious matter but worried enough that he wanted to be there.
Once the teen was settled on the bed, the doctor paused long enough to gently remove the sarapé Marty wore, along with his boots and pants, until he was clad only in his long underwear. The doctor then began to conduct a quick examination with the aid of a lantern and a few tools in his black bag. Marty couldn't see much from where he was perched, and his words to Doc were pitched too low to reach his ears. After several minutes he seemed to share enough with Doc so that the inventor felt it was logical or polite to give a report to the waiting audience clustered about the door.
"The doctor's having a look at him now," he said softly, once he had joined the crowd. "I know you're all concerned -- I am, especially -- but so far he is finding nothing seriously wrong. No broken bones, nothing worse than bruises or scratches." Doc paused, glancing at Clara who stood a few feet away, her hair still hanging down loose and her dress a bit ragged from the ordeal with the train. "He's taken a hard blow to the head, though, and is still unconscious."
There were a few sighs of relief from his report -- perhaps because the locals thought the scenario was far worse than this. Doc went on before they could ask any questions.
"I know that you're all concerned, but I'd like to ask for some privacy right now. There was an accident on the rails, and I'm still a bit shaken up from that... from everything today." The scientist smiled faintly, wryly. "And it's not even noon yet."
There were a few murmurs of understanding or apology. As people politely left -- with a few pausing to offer food or drink or their prayers for Doc and "Clint" -- the inventor added, "I will certainly let you know if and when things change, when there's more news to share."
Seamus McFly lingered behind until the others had gone, perhaps feeling more of a connection with Marty's welfare than the others. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Brown," he said softly, almost too softly for the older musician to pick up. "What was it that happened? There be rumors flyin' about town."
"There was a train accident of sorts," Doc said. "I'm sure you'll be able to read all about it in the next edition of the newspaper. Ma--Clint was thrown from the vehicle."
"And you?" Seamus asked, no doubt noticing the small gash on Doc's forehead. It had stopped bleeding, but it was puffing up rather nastily. "Are you all right?"
"I'll be fine once my friend is out of danger," Doc said.
Seamus took that as his cue to leave, after pausing to let him know that he and Maggie would be praying for Clint. A moment after all the townspeople had cleared out of the barn -- leaving only Clara, Dr. Peterson, Doc, and the three Martys -- the medical doctor seemed to finish his examination of the teen Marty. He covered the young man with a blanket from the foot of the bed, then made his way over to Doc, who was staring out at the doors with a rather numbed look on his face.
"Emmett," Dr. Peterson said, startling the inventor. Doc turned to look at him. "You'll be relieved to know that I can't find any signs of injury to Mr. Eastwood, beyond some bruises and scratches. The wound to his head is ugly, but I think a cold compress can cut the swelling down. His breathing and pulse both seem steady enough."
"So what, then?" Doc asked. "When will he wake up?"
Dr. Peterson sighed. "It's difficult to say. It could be a couple hours. It could be tomorrow. If he hasn't regained consciousness twenty-four hours from now, let me know."
"Could he be in a coma?" Doc asked bluntly.
"It's far too soon to think that," the doctor assured him. "He has been unconscious little more than an hour, right? Keep an eye on him, and let him sleep this off. He's young and in good health; I imagine that he will pull through fine. He's quite fortunate to come away with nothing more than a concussion from the accident."
Doc nodded once, though based on the look on his face, Marty could tell he didn't quite share in that sentiment. The doctor headed back to the bedside to collect up his tools, and perhaps check on the patient once more. Clara stopped him before he could leave. "Could you look at Emmett's head?" she asked. "He was injured, too, in the accident."
Dr. Peterson nodded in agreement, though Doc looked less than thrilled by the prospect. "Miss Clayton is right, Emmett. You promised me yourself to let me take a look at that cut once I examined Mr. Eastwood."
The inventor grumbled a little, but gave in. It didn't take the medical doctor very long to look at the cut, clean it up, and give Doc approximately the same bill of health as he had for the teen -- scratches and bruises, but no serious injuries. He was warned to take it easy, though, and after another quick check of Marty, the doctor left.
Once they were alone, Doc immediately stood up from the chair that he had allowed the doctor to plant him in and looked around. "Where's the other Marty, Clara?"
"One of 'em is right here," the local called out from the loft. The inventor jumped at the response, clearly not expecting it. Marty quickly climbed down from the loft, though he moved a bit more slowly once he was on the ground, not sure of what to expect.
Doc looked at him a moment, his expression completely impossible to read. "Where is the other one?"
"On the cot, under the quilt. He's still out, I think."
The inventor made his way over there, Marty and Clara both following. "You shouldn't be here, you know," Doc said as he reached down to pull the quilt back. "Neither or both of you."
"It wasn't supposed to happen like this," Marty said. "It would've been fine if he hadn't gotten out of the car and tried to stop me from fixing things."
"Fixing things," Doc muttered under his breath. He lifted the damp towel from visiting Marty's head and frowned at the sight of the swelled bump. "How did he get that?"
"Me," the musician said, not elaborating. "It was an accident." Sort of.
Doc turned around to look at him, his gaze sharp and no longer numbed by shock. "You're from the future? Both of you?"
"Yeah. But the one over there--" Marty pointed towards the bed, where the teen lay. "--is me. This one--" He pointed to the figure on the cot. "--isn't. He's a different version of me. Like when we were in that alternate 1985, and there were weird versions of us and Mom and Biff and my brother. He and another you showed up about a week ago in--"
"Don't tell me!" Doc said sternly, raising his hand to stop the words Marty was going to utter. "I shouldn't know that -- I shouldn't know about you or about this situation." He paused a moment, staring down at the older, unconscious Marty. "You shouldn't be here -- neither of you should," he said once again.
"All of us shouldn't," Marty said flatly. "Not you, me, Clara, or the other me's." Marty sighed, sensing the inventor's irritation. "I just need to fix what went wrong, Doc. I need to get home before... lots of time passes."
The scientist drew his lips together in a tight, flat line. Clara, who had been quiet so far, chose that moment to speak. "What is it that's your name?" she asked Marty tentatively. "I gather it's not Clint Eastwood."
"No, it's Marty McFly," the musician said. "Clint Eastwood was just a cover that I picked when I got here; the first people I ran into were my great-great-grandparents, and obviously I couldn't give 'em my real name."
Clara blinked, then her eyes widened as understanding sunk in. "Oh! You're related to Seamus and Maggie McFly! I see it now...."
"You need to go home," Doc told him before Clara could carry the conversation elsewhere. "Now. He needs to see a doctor." The inventor nodded towards the visitor on the cot.
"But -- I need to fix what went wrong with the train! It shouldn't derail, Doc! It didn't for him...."
"But he is not you, unless I'm misunderstanding what you just told me," the inventor said flatly. "If you're a version of Marty from the future, and your intent in being here was to seriously change his -- your -- history, then the most responsible thing you can do right now is to go straight home! Great Scott! Do you realize the problems that could have come about if you had succeeded in altering this past event?"
Marty scowled at the words, which were almost identical to his counterpart's persuasive efforts. "You don't get it, Doc! I won't be messing anything up -- this wasn't supposed to happen--"
"How do you know that? Granted, I didn't want the derailment to happen, it wasn't intended or planned, but... it's done. The time machine is probably damaged beyond repair." Doc's voice faltered a little, as if he only realized that fact just then. "If we're stuck here, I certainly can't allow you to go back and change history!" The inventor turned to regard him with a look of scrutiny. "Clearly enough time has passed that it would create serious havoc with the space-time continuum and set off any number of paradoxes!"
Marty put his hands on his hips, his temper stirring at this completely paranoid and untrue opinion. "No it won't, Doc! It'll just make my life a hell of a lot better! The future sucks!"
The inventor sighed. "I'm sorry if you feel that way, Marty -- and keep your voice down; you don't want anyone outside to hear you -- but you can't go around trying to right every wrong in your life. Things happen for reasons. It took me a bit of time to learn this. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have taken you and Jennifer into the future to help your kids out. The future's not written, and you're the only one who has the responsibility to make it satisfactory... or not."
The musician clenched his hands into fists, frustrated by the lack of understanding that seemed to plague everyone around him. "Doc!"
He was stopped from a full on tirade by a weak moan from nearby. All eyes looked down to the cot where the visiting Marty was beginning to stir. "Doc?" the visitor mumbled hoarsely.
The scientist looked stricken, as if he wasn't sure whether or not to respond. "I'm right here, Marty," he finally said. "Take it easy, now."
Visiting Marty's eyes fluttered open, though he closed them almost immediately. A look of pain was clear on his pale face. "Oh, God, my head.... What happened?"
Doc looked at the local for the response. Marty sighed, frustrated. "I nailed you with the hammer in the head," he said flatly.
At the sound of his own voice -- so to speak -- the visitor's eyes popped opened. He blinked once, zeroed in on the source, then sat up before Doc could stop him. "You--you asshole! You... oh, God...."
Doc caught him as he started to tip to the side, off the edge of the cot. "Settle down, Marty," he said as the visiting musician moaned. "You've probably got a concussion... how do you feel?"
"My head hurts... I'm so dizzy...." The visiting Marty managed to raise his head enough to look at Doc, his eyes clearly having trouble focusing. More guilt began to nibble at the local Marty's conscience, even in spite of his anger and frustration.
God, I hope I didn't do any permanent damage....
Doc gently pushed the visitor back down to the cot. "Close your eyes and try to relax. I want you to see a doctor as soon as you get back home."
Visiting Marty's response was a half whimper as he followed orders. Doc stood and grabbed the local's arm, pulling him away from the cot. "Clara, can you keep an eye on that one?" he asked the schoolteacher, gesturing to the visitor. She nodded once, sitting tentative on the edge of the cot. Doc pulled Marty to the back of the barn before he finally let him go and turned to face him.
"You've got to go straight home, right now," he said in a low voice, his eyes for a moment flicking over to the still form of the youth on the bed nearby. "Get him to a doctor -- don't linger here any longer, Marty. We'll talk about this all later, since I'm sure I'll remember this when you get back."
Marty groaned softly. "He's fine, Doc -- he's awake, isn't he? Look, you keep an eye on him for a few minutes, and I'll run out and take care of things and--"
"Absolutely positively not," Doc said, his voice gaining a hard edge. He gave the older Marty his full attention now, his dark eyes practically daring him to say anything in response. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that my future self knows nothing about you being here -- and why you're here with another you, I really don't know and shouldn't know right now."
"I'm not going back until I do what I came to do," Marty said stubbornly, folding his arms.
"Emmett?" Clara called out. "He... this one... wants to speak with you about something very important. Right now."
Doc glanced over at the schoolteacher, then back to the local. Based on the look he was given, it was clear that the inventor was strongly considering dragging the musician back to the cotside with him, but in the end he simply said, "Wait right here," and hurried across the barn.
Marty rolled his eyes, his mind spinning even as he stood still. His eyes flickered over to the back door two dozen feet away, beyond which was the time machine. This is probably a good time, he reasoned. If he ran outside now, Doc couldn't stop him in time -- especially once he was in the invisible car. He took a couple of steps in that direction, moving slowly lest he alert the scientist too soon about his motives.
Doc bent over the cot and spoke to the visiting Marty in a low voice. His back was blocking the local's view of the visitor. Marty paid it little mind, set as he was on his goal, now. Twenty feet away... eighteen... fifteen... ten....
"Marty?" Doc asked, causing the musician to freeze in his tracks. The inventor was now a couple of feet away from the cot, walking in his direction. "Where do you think you're going?"
"Uh...." was Marty's unoriginal and vague response. He looked at the door, looked at Doc walking rapidly towards him, and made his decision. He took off at a run.
Doc's reaction was so quick that he had clearly expected such a move from the musician; he ran right after him. As he was closer to the musician than the door, and his stride was longer, he caught up with Marty just as he reached out to shove open the door. "Oh no, you don't!" the scientist snapped, grabbing his arm and yanking him to a stop. "I can't believe your behavior, Marty!"
Marty tried, unsuccessfully, to pull away, but months of living in the past and wielding iron and hammers with blacksmithing had made the inventor's grip tighter than a vise. "Lemme go, Doc!"
Doc shook his head once. "No," he said -- and then he raised his free hand, in which he clutched the sleep inducer from the car. "I'm sorry, Marty," he said as he engaged the device. "This is for your own good."
The local was so surprised by the mysterious appearance of the futuristic device that he didn't have enough time to react. The device pulsed the light right in his eyes.
Oh no, no--
And then Marty slumped forward into Doc's arms.
The visiting Marty heaved a sigh of relief at the sight of his other self finally getting what he deserved -- knocked out by the sleep inducer. He had completely forgotten about sticking the device in his pocket, and might've continued to forget about it, what with his head aching and spinning the way it was, if it hadn't poked at him rather uncomfortably when he was lying down. Doc caught the local before he could fall very far, then dragged him a few feet, over to an armchair.
"What did you do, Emmett?" Clara asked, looking terribly confused. Marty couldn't blame her. He wasn't sure how long he had been out, or what had happened since then, but either way she had to be reeling a lot from the simple news that Doc was a time traveler.
"I knocked him out with the sleep inducer," the inventor explained, though that probably didn't help the woman's bewilderment. "He should be out for at least an hour, I think -- though this device looks to be a bit more sophisticated than the one I got in 2015." Doc left the Local Marty in the armchair and headed over to the visitor's side. "I'm glad you had that with you."
"Me, too," Marty said with a woozy smile. "I'd better get him back before he wakes up and tries something else." He started to sit up, doing his best to ignore the nausea and merry-go-round dance that the room was pulling. He didn't realize he was starting to fall to one side until Clara's hands were on his shoulders, steadying him.
"I don't think you should be going anywhere right now," she said gently. "Emmett?"
Doc frowned, concerned, as he joined the schoolteacher at the cot. "You can't drive anywhere in that condition, Marty."
Marty nodded -- or thought he did. It was hard to tell with everything spinning and tilting. "I'll just take it slow, Doc," he said softly. "I can't stay here any longer, I don't wanna screw up your history. It's not even mine."
Doc and Clara looked at each other. It was clear that the inventor, in particular, was torn. "What if you pass out behind the wheel?"
"I won't pass out," Marty muttered, gritting his teeth against the dizziness and unbelievable headache. If it was this bad sitting, he wasn't sure if he wanted to know what it would be like standing. "At least not until it won't kill me or the time machine."
There was a long pause from the future couple. Doc broke it with a sigh. "I hate to ask -- considering this is probably a lot more than I want to know about my future -- but where is the machine right now? You're in no condition to get to it on your own, let alone move the other Marty in there."
The visiting musician moaned softly, both from the question and from the pain in his head. "I dunno," he said. "I dunno how I even got here. It's probably invisible, though."
"He was heading for the back door, wasn't he, Emmett?" Clara asked, speaking of the local Marty.
"It appeared so. And I never did see him leave the accident site.... If the machine is invisible, how does one find it? Is there a remote or something of that nature to reveal it?"
Marty started to nod, but immediately stopped when it bumped up the pain in his head several notches. He reached up and cradled his head, trying to steady the world. "There is," he murmured. "But I dunno where it is, if he has it on him, or the keys are still in the car."
"The car," Doc muttered aloud, his tone a bit strange.
"The DeLorean," Marty clarified, not thinking about it.
"DeLorean." Clara repeated the word, as if it was foreign to her. Which it probably was. Damn. Having a head injury in a place where one had to watch what they said was really a pain! And not just literally....
"Sorry," the musician apologized meekly. "It's just so hard to think straight when I can't even see straight...."
Clara patted him on the shoulder as Doc sighed again. "Is there a way to find the vehicle without the remote? Or the keys, I should say?"
"If you run into it -- and I mean that literally -- yeah."
While Clara urged the visitor to lie back down -- a matter that, as tempting as it was, Marty was inclined to refuse, since he knew it was going to be that much harder to sit up again -- Doc briskly headed over to the back door and went outside. A few minutes later, during which the visiting Marty concentrated on the simple act of swinging his legs over the side of the cot, and sitting up on the edge of it, the inventor came back inside, his face filled with tension, curiosity, and relief. "I found it," he said. "It's in the pasture out back -- thank God the horses aren't in there right now. And the keys are still in the ignition."
Marty grunted his answer, rather than chance speaking. He had both of his hands braced on the cot, leaning forward with his head bowed. It didn't seem to help ease the headache, dizziness, or nausea. His heart skipped a little as he replayed Doc's earlier question about piloting the time machine back to the future. What if he did pass out behind the wheel and crashed the car somewhere? Oh God....
But what choice did he really have? He didn't dare stay here -- he probably had some kind of concussion or whatnot. And then there was the matter of the local Marty, who was clearly in no condition to be reasoned with -- unless he was unconscious or asleep. The musician gritted his teeth again, trying to ignore the not-so-ignorable. It was just a short drive in the time machine. Nothing more strenuous than that. He could hang on that long... probably.
"Are you sure you can handle this?" Doc asked, returning to his side. "We could wait until your... other self wakes up."
"He won't wanna go home, Doc," Marty murmured. "He's obsessed with not having the train derail and... oh, God, did it do that or not?"
The inventor nodded once, rather grimly. "Yes. Marty -- not the one who came with you -- hit his head in the collision, and is still unconscious." Doc glanced up, in the direction of his bed nearby, where the teen no doubt lay, blissfully unaware of the chaos around him. The visiting musician almost envied him, but if he had remained out longer, his counterpart probably would've gotten away with the time machine to right the so-called wrong to his life. And then he would've been really screwed.
"He'll come around... later," Marty said. "But I guess you already knew that since his future self is over there." He tried to smile at the inventor, but the expression halted almost immediately. Just that simple facial expression seemed to make his head hurt more.
Doc saw the grimace on his face and once more tried to talk him out of leaving right then. "I don't know if you can make it, Marty...."
The musician took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I can handle it, Doc. It's just a little drive. Just get my counterpart in the car, and help me out there, and I'll be good to go."
The scientist gave him a skeptical look, but he stopped trying to persuade him. "All right."
It didn't take Doc more than five minutes to carry the other Marty out to the car, get him settled in the passenger seat, and then return to help the visitor. This proved to be more difficult, ironically. Although both Doc and Clara helped him stand from the cot, the rush of blood from Marty's head caused him to actually black out for a second; he came back to earth as the couple tried to lower him back to the cot, and put up such a fuss that they reluctantly decided to proceed. After a few wobbly, shuffled steps, clinging to both Clara and Doc, the latter finally decided it would be easier on all of them if he carried the visiting Marty out to the car as well. The musician found little energy to protest this, and in a few minutes he found himself in the cab of the DeLorean, behind the wheel. It was rather surreal; he hadn't sat there in the driver's seat since before his Doc's DeLorean time machine had been destroyed in 2030.
"Go straight home," Doc advised him from just outside the door. He seemed rather reluctant to look into the car or spend more time near it than he had to -- and he hadn't even seen the exterior at all, since it was still hidden by the HIS.
"Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars," Marty muttered under his breath, leaning back into the seat and wishing that the world would stabilize for more than a minute.
Doc didn't crack a smile at the joke. "I'm quite serious, Marty. You need to see a doctor. I'm sure that I'll remember this incident later -- I don't really think I can forget something like this -- so I really doubt you'll have any trouble convincing me of the urgency of your situation. Now I'm going to ask you one more time: Are you sure you can and want to do this now?"
Doc's face briefly faded out of focus as he was talking. Marty blinked a couple of times and it snapped back, but the incident left him feeling chilled and weak. "Sure," he murmured.
The scientist looked so unconvinced by the answer that he seemed about ready to call the whole thing off. Clara, oddly enough, stopped him. "Emmett, let him go back home. There's very little we can do for him here; we certainly can't ask the doctor here to look at him."
Doc hesitated a moment, looked at her, then nodded once. "All right," he said. "But please take it slowly and be careful."
"Don't worry about that," Marty said. "Can you close the door?"
The inventor obliged. Marty started the car and looked at the time circuit display, which was different from what he was used to -- a flat panel LCD, not digital readouts. "Shit," he muttered, not sure of how to program it. There was a keyboard right below it and, tentatively, he tapped the keys. After a moment of fiddling with it, Marty was able to put in the destination time: November 19, 1995, at 4:39 P.M. -- five minutes after the last time departed.
"Good," he mumbled aloud, gripping the steering wheel tightly. "Let's get this over with...."
The car responded without a problem, raising up as the hover conversion kicked in. Unfortunately, being in a flying vehicle only increased Marty's vertigo, which was bad enough lying down on his back in a stable environment. The musician groaned aloud as he struggled to turn the car around, away from the town. He slouched down lower into the seat, leaning back in hopes of easing the symptoms. It didn't work so well.
Oh please, just let me get back to the future in one piece....
Marty swallowed hard, trying to focus on the driving rather than the distractions of his body, then accelerated fast. He shifted carefully through the gears, watched the speedometer climb up to eighty-eight -- and then the flashes of light and the sonic booms hit him. He hit the breaks immediately, feeling like the car was doing corkscrews through the air. Through the window he glimpsed the Brown home, perhaps a mile distant.
Gotta get there, at least.
Marty tried to sit up straighter and leaned forward, his skin breaking out in a cold sweat. Everything was spinning... he felt like he might puke... his head felt like it might split in two... his vision was getting more fuzzy and blurred.... He gripped the steering wheel as hard as he could, as if that alone could maintain his tenacious hold on reality and consciousness.
I'll just land in the backyard. Someone should see me.
Marty took down the car fast, feeling panicked now. The world blurred around him once more; he felt like he was stuck in some kind of amusement park ride from hell. There was a jolt as the car landed on the back lawn -- not very softly -- and he bounced in his seat from the impact. Naturally, he wasn't wearing a seatbelt, though Doc had strapped his other self in. The top of his head slammed into the ceiling of the car. He gasped at the surge of agony in his head, then fell forward against the steering wheel. His foot slipped off the gas, and the DeLorean rolled a few more feet before coming to a stalled stop, no more than ten feet from the back porch of the home.
Marty raised his head enough to look up through the windshield, see that the car hadn't been wrecked and had arrived back in one piece -- and then he sighed and let his head fall back down on the face of the steering wheel. He heard the car's horn begin to blare under his cheek, the noise making his head ache even more... and then he passed out.
* * *
When he woke, he was still in the car -- or was he? Marty's vision was still blurred when he opened his eyes, and things still felt sickeningly unstable. But after he blinked a couple of times, he realized that he wasn't in the cab of the DeLorean any longer; rather, he was belted into the passenger seat of what appeared to be a minivan, with Doc at the wheel, driving. It was really impossible to tell which inventor it was, especially in his dazed and blurry state.
"Doc..." he managed to mumble.
The inventor turned his head to look at him at the sound of his voice. "Shhh, Marty. I'm taking you to the emergency room."
The car hit a bump, which kicked off a fresh wave of dizziness for the reeling musician. His stomach rolled at the sensation. Marty moaned aloud, reaching up to touch his forehead. His skin was slick with perspiration. "How long... how long've I been out?"
"If you drove yourself here in the DeLorean, then perhaps twenty minutes. I heard the horn from inside the house and came out right away. I found you and my Marty in the car. Clara's looking after him. We couldn't find any signs of injury to him, and it threw me a minute until I remembered what happened on September seventh."
This was the local Doc, then. And he knew everything. Good. It saved him the trouble of explaining. "Is he awake, yet?"
"He wasn't when I left. But Clara remembers what happened, too, and doesn't intend to let him get near any of the time machines again -- or leave the living room, where we've got him sequestered, until I get home. I'm going to have a good, long talk with him." Emmett's tone darkened a little before shifting to one filled more with concern. "How are you feeling?"
Marty groaned as a response. He felt even worse now than he had earlier; the car ride was no doubt not helping matters. In fact.... "Can you pull over for a minute?"
"We're almost there, I promise."
"I can't wait.... Pull over, Doc!"
There was a desperate pitch to his voice that apparently reached Emmett. He slowed the car and pulled off the road, onto the gravel strip at the side. Marty sat up, fumbled with the door latch, and ducked under the shoulder harness. The door popped open and he leaned out just in time to avoid mussing the interior of the minivan with the remains of his lunch. Things got a little hazy for a few minutes; bending over didn't make his headache feel any better, and the entire world seemed to be one big spinning blur. When the worst of the nausea passed, and he was able to raise his head again, he found Emmett's hand on his shoulder. Possibly the only thing, beyond the lap belt, keeping him from toppling out of the car.
"Better now?" Emmett asked softly.
No, Marty thought. He slumped back into the car seat and managed to pull the door closed. "It's my head," he muttered.
"You've got a concussion, Marty. Don't worry," Emmett added, checking the traffic on his left. "We're almost to the hospital. I'll do all the talking and they'll simply think that you're my Marty."
Marty closed his eyes as the car began to move forward again, touching his the side of his head tentatively where the center of the pain seemed to be. He drew his fingers back almost immediately, hissing at the pain that provoked. "And what're you gonna say when they ask how this happened?"
There was a pause. "That you fell, I suppose -- unless you have a better idea."
"You're the doc -- or one of 'em."
As promised, the emergency room was reached a few minutes later. Emmett pulled the car up near the sliding glass doors and honked the horn a couple of times to summon someone from the inside. A nurse ran out a moment later and, after one look at the pale and shaky Marty, grabbed a wheelchair and took him inside. The inventor joined him several minutes later, after parking the car, in one of the small curtained examining areas. Marty had been instructed to lie down on the bed, and informed that a doctor would be coming by shortly to look at him. One of the nurses had already taken his name and the problem down, along with his vitals.
Emmett said little to him as he took a seat in a chair next to the bed to wait with Marty. It was just as well. Consciousness got a little spotty for a while. He wasn't sure if it was ten minutes or a couple of hours later when a doctor finally showed up to conduct an exam. Emmett explained to him the circumstances of the injury; something about tripping and falling down the stairs and cracking his head on a table at the bottom. The man didn't seem to question it; no doubt he had probably heard stranger things in his hours as an emergency room doctor. After looking over Marty, and listening to his list of complaints, he seemed concerned enough to suggest a CAT scan, just to make sure that things were all right.
"It's probably a mild to moderate concussion," he said. "But I'd just like to rule out a couple things, including any bleeding in the brain."
Marty paled even more at this suggestion, horrified. Emmett looked surprised and distressed at the possibility.
"Do you really think that's possible?" he asked.
"It can't hurt to check," the doctor said. "I'm concerned that he vomited on the way over here -- but I can't find anything wrong with his reflexes. He's probably fine, but I'd feel better knowing for sure. If there's any bleeding in the brain, it may require emergency surgery."
The assurance that the medical doc thought he was "probably fine" did little to make Marty feel better. He groaned as the doctor left to make the arrangements. "Oh, God, this is perfect. When I get outta here, I'm gonna kill my other self...."
"He won't be getting away with this without some consequences," Emmett said. He looked at his watch and frowned. "I hate to do this, but I should call the house and let them know what's going on. My counterpart has got to be climbing the walls about now -- he wasn't home yet when we left -- and I'd like to see if my Marty is awake, yet."
"Go ahead," Marty told him. "It's not like I gotta go anywhere."
Emmett left to use the phone and Marty passed the time lying back on the bed with his eyes closed, about the only thing that would ease his headache a little -- until he noticed yet another physical discomfort to add into his list of complaints. Specifically, he had to pee. He opened his eyes with a sigh, realizing that this would require movement on his part. Not unless he wanted the experience of using a bedpan, and he wasn't feeling quite that bad.
The musician got to his feet, rather wobbly, but this time was spared any blackout spells. He left his little curtained off area and headed in the direction of the hallway, figuring that the restrooms had to be located somewhere along there.
Rounding a corner, he was nearly knocked off his feet by a figure moving in much more of a hurry than he was. The collision slammed him back into the wall, knocking the back of his head into the plaster. He yelped in pain and surprise as the person stumbled forward. A cascade of small objects hit the floor and rolled across the off-white tiles.
"Oh, damn, I'm sorry."
The voice of the hurried stranger was familiar, but Marty was too busy trying to stay on his feet to notice. As if getting hit in the head with a hammer wasn't enough, he had since gotten bounced into the ceiling of the DeLorean, and now slammed back into a wall.
Cripes. Maybe a CAT scan isn't such a bad idea after all....
"I'm really sorry. Are you okay? I didn't see you-- Oh my God! Marty!"
Marty -- who had screwed shut his eyes in reaction to the new ache on the back of his skull -- cracked them open at the sound of his name. The person standing before him was a woman, but her face was too fuzzy to recognize. He had to blink a couple of times before her features sharpened into focus -- and found himself face to face with Jennifer Parker.
"Jennifer!" he exclaimed, thoroughly shocked.
Jennifer nodded once, managing a faint smile, though her face was filled with worry. She looked different from Marty's own wife, back home. Her hair was cut and styled a bit differently, in what seemed a more contemporary, layered style, and her way of dressing seemed slightly less casual; she was wearing a pressed white blouse and grey skirt, high heels, and her face was carefully made up. In her hands she held a small purse -- the contents of which were now scattered across the floor.
"How are you doing?" she asked. "Are you all right? You look pale...."
"I.. uh...." Marty wasn't quite sure what to say. "I thought you weren't in Hill Valley anymore?"
Jennifer didn't answer the question, leaning forward for a closer look at his face. "Are you hurt, Marty? Is that why you're in the ER? Oh my God, did I just throw you into the wall when you're already hurt?" She looked horrified.
"Uh, well...."
"Oh, I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have been running, I should... oh, damn, my purse." Jennifer dropped to her knees to scoop up the various items that had fallen out. "I'm just... scattered right now. My dad picked me up from the airport -- I just flew in today -- and then we get hit by a car! We're okay... I guess," she added before Marty could even ask. "I just got some bruises and Dad broke his arm, but it's... I think I'm still shaken from it." She laughed nervously as she collected the rest of her things from the floor.
"Beats a concussion," Marty muttered, finally stepping away from the wall. He reached up to gently feel the back of his head where he had collided with the plaster. He wasn't pleased with the dizziness, or the pain, but it wasn't any worse than earlier, really.
Jennifer heard his remark. She straightened up and looked at him, aghast. "You have a concussion? How did that happen?"
"Uh... I fell and hit my head," Marty said, feeding her approximately the same story that Emmett had given the doctors. "They wanna give me one of those CAT scans before I leave."
"Oh! Oh, I'm so sorry!"
"It's not your fault." Marty looked at her, not sure what else there was to say. The sight of her face made his heart give a little twitch, though; he didn't realize how much he missed his own Jennifer until right then. "Well, uh, you were in a hurry, so you'd better get going...."
Jennifer blinked, as if only then realizing she had been deterred in her journey. "Oh, yes. Marty," she added as he started to turn around. He paused rather reluctantly. His reason for being on his feet in the first place was still there, and it wasn't getting any better....
"Yeah?"
Jennifer looked down into her purse, fumbling around for a moment before she pulled out a business card. She held it out to him. Confused, Marty took it from her. "What's this?"
"I'm in town for the next week," Jennifer explained. "For Thanksgiving -- and one of my friends from college is getting married. If you'd like -- I mean, if you're not busy -- give me a call. I'd like to catch up over a cup of coffee or something. I saw they opened a Starbucks in the square."
Marty looked at the card, then looked at her face. She was smiling at him, and looked genuinely happy -- and a bit concerned, probably because of his injury -- to see him. There was something else, too, in her eyes, that he couldn't quite read. He managed a faint smile for her and slipped the card in his pocket. "All right," he said. "Thanks."
"I hope you feel better," Jennifer said before she finally left, her pace a bit less frantic now. Maybe she was scared at toppling another hospital patron. Marty watched her go for a minute, wondering if this was some weird dream, then turned around to continue his search for a restroom.
I wonder what the local Doc will have to say about this?
He also wondered if he should even tell his other self. Since Jennifer thought that's who she was speaking with -- and had clearly, thank God, not noticed that this Marty had a wedding ring on -- it seemed only fair to do that. On the other hand, after everything the guy had done that day....
"He really doesn't deserve it," Marty muttered under his breath, finally spotting the men's room at the far end of the hall. But even as he thought that, he felt a little guilty. One of the reasons he thought his other self seemed so screwed up was that he never got what he had wanted so much in the past -- Jennifer. And if she was finally willing to try things again, and he just squelched that possibility before it could develop....
I'd be just as much of an ass as he is.
Marty pulled out the card to look at for a moment as he pushed open the restroom door. I'll run this by the Docs later, he decided, slipping it back into his pocket. And, as long as the other me didn't screw up my head enough to make me have surgery... I guess I'll let 'im know.
* * *
Emmett was waiting for Marty when he returned from the bathroom, with the news that Doc was indeed back at the house and "a little concerned" about his friend, and that the local Marty was awake, oddly silent, and putting up no fuss whatsoever at being confined to the Brown's living room until they returned. A few minutes later the doctor took Marty up to get the CAT scan -- a tedious and slightly claustrophobic experience -- and then the local inventor and the visiting musician endured a wait of half an hour before the results were in.
Fortunately, it was good news; there was no sign of serious damage, and the doctor cleared him to go home with instructions to take Tylenol for the headache, and to rest -- but he was to be woken up every two hours and watched carefully. If anything got worse, or he couldn't be woken up, it was back to the emergency room. Marty rolled his eyes at the instructions -- "How's this going to be any better than staying the night in the hospital?" he complained on the way to the car -- but Emmett just nodded and gave his word that it would be done.
By the time they finally returned to the Brown house, it was almost eight P.M. Emmett headed straight for the living room, where the other Marty was still waiting, while Doc immediately barraged the visiting Marty with so many questions, the musician finally had to plead the fifth -- or at least tell him to talk to Emmett about it later. The visiting inventor finally backed off -- sort of.
"You and my other self didn't go out of your way to convince the doctor to let you come home tonight, did you?" he asked as Marty was settling himself on the couch in the family room. By some consensus with the other adults in the house, they decided that it would be best if Marty spent the night there, instead of in the sewing room. Doc had thought it was only logical; if the visiting musician had to be watched, it would be easier to keep an eye on him in a location that had a lot of foot traffic. Marty seemed less than thrilled by this idea -- as did the kids, who found themselves booted out of their favorite hangout room -- but as the family room had a television, and the sewing room did not, he didn't put up too much of a fuss.
"No, Doc, they said I could go," Marty said, easing his head down on the couple of pillows that Clara had pulled from his bed in the sewing room. "Everything's fine -- except for, you know, the obvious. But I'll live. I just hope that Tylenol kicks in soon...."
Doc frowned, still worried. He didn't like the peaked cast to Marty's face. "Nevertheless, I think you can be exempt from the work tomorrow -- and I'm going to stay down here with you tonight. Someone has to, and it might as well be me."
The musician sighed as he reached for the television remote. "Just don't take it personally if I want to rip your head off for waking me up every couple of hours." He looked over suddenly at Doc. "Hey, the DeLorean's okay, right? I didn't mess it up when I landed, did I?"
"It's fine. I took a quick jump in it myself, before you got here. You really shouldn't have driven it in your condition, though."
Marty snorted softly. "Like I had a choice."
The visiting inventor sighed at the answer, then left the family room for the kitchen and, subsequently, the back door. If he was going to be sitting up all night, he might as well make the time productive. There were some circuitboards he could bring inside to reassemble....
Doc stopped as he stepped into the kitchen, the sound of voices -- specifically, the voices of his and Marty's counterpart -- distracting him. Without really intending to, he moved closer to the door that led into the dining room... and began to listen.
"You just don't understand, Doc. You really don't."
"I certainly don't understand how your mind is working right now. Great Scott, Marty! Your behavior this evening was completely reckless and out of line. If you had prevented that train from derailing--"
"My life would be a hell of a lot better than it is now!"
The cry was filled with enough anguish that Doc leaned forward, pushing open the door an inch to peer inside. Beyond the dining room table, in the adjacent living room, were the local counterparts. Emmett was on his feet, pacing about the room, and Marty was perched on the edge of the sofa, looking as if he was about to jump up to his own feet. At the sound of Marty's interruption, the local scientist turned to look at him. Doc could only see part of his counterpart's face; his expression wasn't terribly empathetic.
"That's not true, Marty. How many times do I have to tell you -- your life right now is the way it is because of you. Not me. Not from the circumstance that was beyond your control. But you."
"Don't feed me that bullshit, Doc," Marty said bitterly. "You and I both know where I'd be now if I hadn't had to spend five years rotting away in the past."
Emmett's frown was clear. "If you're looking at the other Marty's life as a template--"
"Yeah, I am," Marty said, a challenging glint in his eye. "I saw those movies, Doc."
"Those movies? Marty -- those are cinematic representations created in another reality! They should be taken with more than a grain of salt as a projection of what your life would be like. And your counterpart's life is not yours. He's from a parallel, alternate reality. There could be a number of differences and factors other than just him getting back home from 1885."
The local Marty lifted his shoulders in a sullen shrug. Emmett's tone grew softer. "Marty, you've got to move past this. It's turning into an obsession -- an unhealthy obsession. It's been ten years. I'm very sorry that things didn't work out between you and Jennifer, but--"
"Christ, you think that's what this is about? That I'm trying to change things just for her?"
Emmett was silent as he simply stared at the musician. "I do think that's a great deal of the matter, yes," he said. "But it's been ten years, Marty. She's moved on -- and you need to do the same."
Marty threw a hot glare in Emmett's direction. "Easy for you to say -- you've got Clara."
Emmett frowned again, looking perturbed, though Doc wasn't sure if it was from the musician's words or the look he was giving him. Probably a little of both. "Would you prefer I was alone and miserable, too? Don't blame me for your unhappiness, Marty!"
"Why not? It's your fault my life is all screwed up...."
Emmett let out a single chuckle, moving his face out of view from Doc. His tone made his scorn perfectly clear. "That is one of the most flagrant copout excuses I have ever heard -- and, believe me, between the boys and Emily, I've heard my share!" The local inventor took a few steps forward, closing the distance between himself and Marty. "I did everything in my power to help you out, now and in the past. I think I've been very patient and tolerant, Marty, under the circumstances. Especially considering your frequent forms of careless behavior over those years. We're fortunate nothing had an influence on history."
"For Christsakes, I was a kid, then, Doc...."
"And you're acting no better now!"
Doc winced at the angry tone in his counterpart's voice. There were only a few times in his friendship with Marty that he had sounded and felt that thoroughly disgusted or exasperated with his friend. Of course, if his Marty had pulled half the stunts that this one had in the last day....
"You're twenty-seven years old now, Marty -- or thirty-two, if you want to look at it from a technical standpoint. When are you going to grow up and realize that the world isn't perfect? That, specifically, a time machine cannot make the world perfect?"
Marty's lips were pressed together so tightly they were white. "I don't have to listen to this shit...." He started to get up, but Emmett's hand promptly pushed him back down to the couch.
"Oh, yes, you do -- especially after what you've done today! I think we should've had this discussion a long, long time ago. You crossed the line today, Marty -- and not only did you injure your other self, you put the space-time continuum at a great risk. If you had succeeded in your goal, you would've erased yourself right out of existence, and created a hell of a paradox."
"No, I wouldn't, Doc. Nothing would've happened!"
Emmett's back was to Doc, but he could practically hear the other inventor roll his eyes at the rebuff. "Not so, Marty. Did you ever stop to think about what your life would really be like without the accident? Specifically, if you were able to prevent it from happening, and you got home as you should have, how could you have known to come back and do what you did to prevent the accident in the first place? That's a paradox -- and the fabric of time can't deal with a contradiction like that."
"And how do you know it can't? Have you tried setting something up?"
"No -- but I don't need to jump off a cliff to know that it would kill me. If, by some stroke of luck, you didn't cause the universe to unravel, then you would essentially kill yourself by erasing the person that is you from existence. You wouldn't be around if you changed history and allowed yourself to get back home as planned. You wouldn't be the same Marty McFly; you wouldn't have a place to go home to."
"So what? My life sucks...."
Emmett's sigh was loud and long enough to be audible to Doc's ears. "I don't think it does, Marty. You've got a successful career going with your music -- isn't that what you always wanted? Your parents and siblings are doing well, and you've got your health. From an outsider's standpoint, you've got a lot to be thankful for."
"But I don't... there's more to life than just that stuff." Now the local musician's tone grew softer. Emmett sat down on the edge of an ottoman nearby, allowing Doc a clear view of both of their faces once more.
"There is indeed," the scientist agreed, nodding once. "But what you feel you lack -- happiness or a family of your own -- I cannot provide. Only you can do that by the choices and decisions you make in your own life. You can't go back in time and hope to get those things by rearranging previous events in your life, Marty. Look to the future; that's far more within your control than something that happened yesterday, or fifteen years ago."
Marty looked down at his hands, and the floor beyond them. A grimace crossed his face, and for a moment Doc glimpsed the pain and misery that this version of his friend was feeling in his life. Emmett saw it, too. His tone grew even more gentle as he continued to speak. "I know you loved Jennifer, Marty. Even in that first future I visited in 2015, as many problems as your family had, you were both together. But things can change." He paused again, and Marty remained silent, continuing to stare intently at the floor. "Have you tried contacting her at all since high school?"
"No," the musician said softly. "Why bother? She dumped me, Doc. Why the hell should I let her reject me all over again?" His voice broke on the question and he paused a moment to compose himself. "She's on the other side of the country, now, all successful and well-known. She's probably engaged to some hot shot anchorman and forgotten all about me."
Emmett's lips moved into a faint, sympathetic smile. "Well, then, you need to move on. There are many other young women out there, Marty. I know some have been interested in you in the last ten years--"
"But none of them are Jennifer," Marty said, looking up, the words coming out before he could stop them. He clenched his jaw once they were said and abruptly lowered his head before Emmett or Doc could really see his face. This was news that he obviously didn't want to share with anyone, though it was painfully obvious to everyone.
The room was quiet for a moment; Doc could clearly hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the living room, and the faint sounds of the TV from the family room where his Marty was camped out. It reminded him he was neglecting his duties of observation, but curiosity continued to hold him rooted to the spot. Oddly enough, he felt no guilt from essentially spying and eavesdropping. When it was yourself -- or a different counterpart -- it seemed permissible, somehow.
"You need to get over her, Marty," Emmett finally said.
"I know, Doc," Marty half whispered, staring at his lap. "It's like my head knows it, but I still feel... I still want her and miss her. God!" He laughed once softly, almost bitterly. "I'm a total nutcase, huh? Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and just stop me from ever meeting her. That couldn't hurt as much as keeping the train from derailing...."
"No," Emmett said flatly, clearly in no mood to even jest about the matter. "Have you ever... well, thought about talking to someone, Marty?"
"You mean a shrink?" Marty snorted. "No way. They wouldn't get it, and the second I'd bring up time travel, they'd have me in a padded room faster than you could blink."
The local inventor nodded once, rather ruefully. "I suppose it would be difficult to get successful therapy if you couldn't tell them quite everything about the past circumstances."
Another silence fell between the two locals. Marty finally looked back up, first at Emmett, then over at one of the clocks nearby. "Are you done talking to me, now? I'd kinda like to go home, if that's okay. It's been... a long day."
Emmett stared at him a moment, hard, before grudgingly nodding. "But you realize I really can't trust you anymore, Marty. Not around the lab or the machines. You violated that trust."
The musician shrugged as he got to his feet, as if he could have care less. "Maybe it's a good thing," he said. "All this dimensional shit is too weird and depressing, if you ask me." He headed for the closed french doors that led to the foyer, Emmett following him. Doc stepped back, letting the swinging door from the kitchen fall completely closed. He let out a deep breath, glad that the fireworks had been brief and that things seemed to once more be at peace between his and Marty's other self.
Well, more or less.
There was still enough to feel troubled over, and Doc mulled it over as he went out to the lab to get some things to work on, and bring it back to the house. He half expected to run into Emmett when he came back in, but the local wasn't anywhere to be seen -- or at least wasn't in the kitchen, or downstairs hallway, or family room.
His Marty was still lying on the couch before the TV, watching what appeared to be an Indiana Jones movie -- unless Harrison Ford was in a different film with a whip and fedora in this world. The musician glanced over as Doc came in with the box of parts in his arms.
"What took you so long?" he asked.
Doc didn't think that what he had witnessed was private enough to purposely keep from Marty, but there was a better time to share the news. He wasn't too comfortable with the idea of talking about it, and having his counterpart walk in, either. "It took me a bit of time to collect all the parts that I needed," he said instead, setting the box down on the coffee table. "How are you doing? Is your head feeling any better, yet?"
Marty shrugged, reaching up to touch his forehead. "I dunno. If I don't move, it helps."
"Well, why don't you try to get some sleep, then? That will probably help the most."
"Until you gotta wake me up, anyway...." Marty muttered, his eyes drifting back over to the television screen. He didn't say anything more, and Doc went about spreading out the parts and tools on a TV tray nearby, his mind shifting gears from the problems of the counterparts here to the very real one in his own life with the time machine repairs. Things were perhaps a week away from being done. And if they lost the other Marty's helpful hands....
The inventor sighed softly as he set the small bag of wires down, thinking about how much time they had already been away from home, and how much more time it was going to be before they got back. If they were able to patch things together good enough to make the jump.
Of course we will. We can't spend the rest of our lives living like this. It will all work out fine! It certainly can't get much worse....
Doc was quick to throw himself into the circuitboard work, deciding that doing something productive was much more important than worrying at the moment.
Around ten, Emmett finally came into the family room, his intentions more to check on Marty than anything else, as made evident by his first question to Doc.
"How is he doing?"
The visiting inventor looked up for the first time in a while, over to the couch. The TV was still on, and tuned to the action movie, but Marty wasn't watching it anymore. Rather, he had taken Doc's earlier advice and appeared to be sleeping, his face turned away from the flickering glow of the television. "Fine," Doc said. "So far as I can tell."
Emmett made his way over to the couch. "How long has he been asleep?"
"Uhh... I'm not entirely sure. But if you want to wake him to give yourself peace of mind, go right ahead. It saves me the trouble at least once."
The local decided to do just that. He shook Marty gently by the shoulder. The musician reacted after about ten seconds, with an irritated groan.
"What?" he croaked, not even bothering to open his eyes.
"What's your name?"
"Marty McFly. My birthday's June 7, 1968, and I'm in some weird alternate world right now." Marty yawned. "Does that prove to you I'm not going comatose?"
"Almost. Can you open your eyes for a moment?"
Marty grimaced, but complied. Emmett held up a finger. "Follow this with your eyes, all right?"
The musician did so, and the local seemed satisfied, then. "Is your head still hurting?" he asked when he was done.
"It is when I'm awake," Marty said, pulling up the blanket from where it was hovering near his waist and tugging it up around his shoulders. He rolled over, away from Emmett, until he was facing the back of the sofa.
The local inventor took the hints and backed off, picking up the remote from the coffee table and clicking the TV off during the middle of a bad guy's death scene. "You should probably wake him again around midnight," he said softly to Doc. "Just check his eyes like I did to make sure nothing's changed, and talk to him for a minute."
"Of course," Doc said, knowing that Marty almost certainly had to be listening to this right now. He changed the subject before the musician could voice any objection or complaints to the advice. "I was looking over some of the progress we've made on the train, while you were both at the hospital. I think we're only halfway done, if that."
Emmett sighed, as if this was old news to him. "Yes. And I'm afraid work is going to go even slower for us the next few days. Marty is under doctor's orders to take it easy for a couple of days -- and my Marty has a few things to tend to in his own life right now. I'm not sure if he'll be helping us anymore."
Doc asked the question, although he already knew the answer to it. "Oh? Are you not comfortable with his assistance after today's incident?"
"No, not entirely." Emmett paused, his eyes flicking over to the lump of blanket on the couch. "Marty is just going through a difficult time in his life, now -- or, rather, is still going through a difficult time. I'm not trying to make excuses for his behavior today, at all -- frankly, he still owes both you and your Marty a sincere apology -- but I think it might be better for him if he doesn't have to come here every day to work on the repairs. Besides, he does have responsibilities with his career, and I know he's been pushing some of that aside in the last week."
There was a faint movement from nearby as Marty rolled onto his back and raising himself up on his elbows to a half sitting position, squinting at the two men. "I almost forgot," he said. "I ran into someone at the hospital who thought I was the other me."
Emmett and Doc both winced, almost simultaneously, from this revelation. Marty, though, smiled faintly. He fumbled around with something under the blanket, the withdrew his left hand and stretched his arm out towards the inventors. Something small and rectangular, like a business card, was dangling between his middle and forefinger. "Here," he said. "She gave this to me."
Emmett, who was still on his feet and standing between both Doc and Marty, was the one to take it. He looked at the front of it and his eyebrows almost leapt off his face. "Jennifer? Jennifer Parker gave you this?"
Marty gave a small, slow nod as he eased himself back down on the pillows. "She's in town this week for Thanksgiving, and was in the ER because I guess there was some kind of fender bender. She told me to give her a call and we could go out for coffee or something to catch up." The musician yawned, closing his eyes against the light of the couple of lamps in the room. "I thought about not telling anyone about it, but what the hell...."
Emmett looked at Doc, his eyes wide and surprised. Doc shrugged, taking the card from his counterpart's hand for a look. "Interesting," he said. "I imagine that your other self will be quite eager to hear this, Marty."
"Quite," Emmett echoed, still sounding surprised. "I suppose I'll have to call him over here tomorrow -- and I'll let you give him the news, Marty, since you can probably tell him all the details he wants to know."
"There's not much more to tell, unless he wants to know how she looks," Marty murmured. "But tomorrow works, as long as he's not gloating about giving me a concussion. That's still pissing me off...."
Doc set the card down on a corner of the coffee table, next to the remote, where he thought it would be safe for the night. "You'll probably feel more charitable tomorrow," he said to Marty. The musician grunted faintly at the words, skeptical. Doc looked back to his counterpart, who still wore a look of complete and thorough shock on his face. "I take it you weren't expecting anything like this?"
"Uh... no, not really," Emmett said.
"Does that mean you never looked at your Marty's future since that first trip to 2015?"
Emmett moved his eyes until he was staring at Doc dead in the face. The look was clear. "Do you really have to ask that question?"
"And what did you find?" Doc asked, curious. He didn't mind if his Marty overheard this; it wasn't his future, after all.
"Ah... variations," Emmett said, vaguely, looking a little uncomfortable. "After he and Jennifer broke up, I didn't see him married to her any longer -- or anyone else for that matter. He seemed quite successful, professionally, but... well, perhaps that future won't come to pass, now. I hope not."
"He wasn't happy, there?" Doc asked.
"No," Emmett said. "Not so far as I could tell. But there's only so much you can glean from news articles and viewing someone from afar. Especially when they turn downright reclusive." The local's eyes flicked to the business card and he sighed. "Well, the future changes constantly, and I haven't peeked for a while at what it has in store for my Marty. Who knows? Maybe things are better now."
"Maybe," Doc said thoughtfully, feeling a strange tickle of disquiet at the thought. Before he could put his finger on it, though, it had vanished.
"Well, I think I'll turn in early tonight to get an early start tomorrow. You're staying out here the whole night?"
"Someone should -- and it might as well be me, since this is my Marty. We're overtaxing your family enough with our presence here."
Emmett smiled faintly. "I think they've enjoyed it," he said. "Let me know if anything changes with Marty, all right?"
"Of course. Good night."
Left alone, once more, Doc frowned, trying to figure out what that almost-thought and realization had been a moment previous. The more he tried to remember, the more in the dark he felt, until he finally just bellowed a sigh and picked up the wire clippers again.
Whatever it was... it'll come again.
Much to Marty's chagrin, Doc was paranoid enough to actually follow through on his word, and the doctor's orders. Every two hours, the musician would be dragged awake to answer painfully simple questions, and forced to open his eyes so he could track the inventor's finger and prove that there was nothing wrong. It bugged him the first couple of times, and really started to tick him off by the wee hours of the morning. When Doc roused him again at a quarter 'til eight, Marty was unable to stop himself from letting him have it -- as much as he could half awake, anyway.
"Stop this!" he moaned pitifully, his face half buried in the pillow. "I'm fine! If something was gonna happen, it would've by now. Can't you just let me sleep more than a couple hours?"
The musician clearly heard Doc's sigh from above. "I suppose this technically constitutes as morning, now," he said. "This will be the last time, Marty. Now, could you please look at me...?"
The musician reluctantly raised his heavy head, squinting hard against the early daylight and lamplight in the room. The inventor looked tired himself; but, of course, if he had been sitting awake all night, making sure Marty wasn't going to go comatose, it was to be expected. After going through the same eye motions once more, Doc nodded, pleased.
"Good," he said. "And how's your headache?"
Marty let his head fall back on the soft pillow. "Not as bad as yesterday, but still hanging on," he murmured around a wide yawn. "I should probably take some more Tylenol."
"All right. I'll go get some for you."
But by the time Doc returned with the medication, Marty had fallen back to sleep. And the inventor wisely let him be.
So when he found himself being shaken, once again, back to awareness, Marty reacted as anyone might have if they had been awakened one too many times in the last twelve hours. "Go 'way before I hit you," he mumbled, his face to the back of the couch. "How d'you expect me to feel any better if you keep waking me up?"
"Sorry," said someone who was definitely not Doc. In fact, it sounded just like his own voice, meaning it was probably the local Marty. The visiting one groaned softly, in no mood to deal with his counterpart. Especially after the day before. "Doc said I could come in and wake you up."
"Which one?" Marty muttered, annoyed.
"Mine. Yours is taking a nap, I guess, since he was up all night."
So he couldn't get mad at Doc, then. All right. Marty easily transferred his irritation past Emmett and directly to his counterpart. He didn't say anything, hoping the guy would get the hint and go away, but when a minute passed, the local Marty decided to speak again. "Doc called me and told me to come over. That there was something you wanted to tell me.... Sorry it's so early, but I have a meeting at ten with my local agent."
Marty didn't know what the hell he was talking about for a minute, before the memory of Jennifer came back to him. He winced, wishing that his counterpart had better timing, or more tact, than to drop by first thing in the morning and wake up the guy that he already owed big time. "Can't you come back later...?"
"It's almost 9:30. It's not that early. And Doc sounded... weird on the phone." There was a pause that the visitor didn't feel up to filling. "Look, I'm sorry about what happened yesterday. I didn't mean to hurt you...."
Marty rolled away from the back of the couch to look at the local for the first time. "You didn't mean to hurt me?" he repeated. "Why the hell did you hit me in the head with a hammer, then?"
The local's face flushed with the question, but he didn't look away or shy from an answer. "You were pissing me off -- and trying to stop me from doing what I wanted to do. Don't tell me that you would've done anything different if you were me.... Anyway, like I said, I didn't mean to hurt you, and I'm sorry about that."
Marty looked at his counterpart through narrowed eyes, not entirely buying the apology. It didn't sound sincere as much as something that simply needed to be said, for the sake of etiquette. "Right," he muttered, unconvinced.
Local Marty seemed to know just what the visitor was thinking. He sighed, annoyed. "Look, the only reason I'm over here now is because Doc told me you had something to tell me. He seemed to think it was important. Sorry I had to wake you up, all right? No one will probably stop you if you wanna go back to bed after this."
The visiting musician wasn't too sure about that. He sat up with a sigh, taking it slowly. He felt a little lightheaded, and the dull ache in his head increased a bit, but it was nothing compared to the day before. That was something to be thankful for, at least.
"All right," he said. "Fine. Last night, when your Doc took me to the ER, I ran into Jennifer Parker."
The local Marty stared at him, his eyes wide. He clearly hadn't expected this. "You... what?"
Marty threw the blanket back and swung his legs over the side of the couch, then leaned forward to pick up the business card that the newswoman had given him. "Jennifer ran into me -- literally -- when I was trying to find a bathroom. She's in town this week, I guess, and she thought I was you. I--"
"How did she look?" the local interrupted, dropping down to sit on the edge of the coffee table. "How was she? What did she say?"
"She looked fine. Great. She'd gotten in some kinda car accident -- that's why she was in the ER -- but she was all right. Her dad broke his arm, but that's about it." Marty paused, fingering the card. His counterpart didn't seem to notice it, his full attention focused on the visitor's face. "She apologized for knocking me into the wall, said she was gonna be in town for a week, then gave me this and told me to call her for coffee or something. To catch up."
The musician held the card out to the local. Local Marty was slow in taking it, a dazed look blunting his eyes. He was taking the news about as well as Emmett had the night before. After a minute he plucked the business card from the visitor's fingers and tilted it up to his own face.
"She said that?" he asked as he scanned the card. "Are you sure?"
"It wasn't my hearing that was the problem last night.... Yeah, I'm sure. So I guess you should call her."
The local didn't say anything, staring at the card with a look of wonder on his face, now. "You are gonna call her... right?" Marty asked, suddenly uncertain. His counterpart wasn't acting exactly the way he thought he would with the news, although if it was because he was just surprised or simply uninterested, the musician couldn't really tell.
"Yeah," the local said, his voice hardly more than a whisper. "Yeah, I guess I will." He looked at the visitor straight in the eye, suddenly suspicious. "Are you sure she said all that stuff? She told you to call her?"
"Like I said before, I heard her fine. I gotta admit, though," he added, "I thought about not letting you know about this."
Local Marty went white at the idea, dropping the card to his lap. "You -- why? Why? Why the hell would you do that? She thought she was talking to me!"
Marty rolled his eyes as he leaned back into the couch. "You gave me a concussion! After you knocked me out with the sleep inducer which, thank God, you left behind in the car. You've been acting like an asshole for the last day."
The local exhaled sharply as he picked up the card again. "You sound like Doc," he muttered under his breath. "Look, I'm sorry, all right? It's not like I got away with anything... at all. Nothing changed in the past, and Doc raked me over the coals about everything last night. You gotta know how much this means to me -- I can't believe you almost threw it away for me!"
"Well, I didn't," Marty said, before his counterpart could get too freaked out. "You got that; you know. That's what your Doc wanted you to come over for."
Local Marty stood up and looked once more at the business card in his hand. The sight of it seemed to calm him down immediately. A faint smile curved his lips -- one of the few smiles the visitor had seen his counterpart wear. "Yeah," he said. "Thanks. I -- I'd better go now. Sorry for waking you up."
Marty sighed again. "That's okay, I guess. Listen," he added, stopping his counterpart as he turned around and headed for the door. "Good luck with that. Let me know what happens, since I don't think Doc and I are gonna be leaving by the end of the week."
The local musician smiled at him -- another real smile. "I will. I'll come by later, all right? Hope your head feels better...."
Marty snorted softly. "Me, too."
Once his counterpart had gone, the visitor opted not to go back to bed. The family room wasn't the greatest place in the world to get real rest, and the couch was almost too narrow to sleep on comfortably. Plus, he could smell something delicious coming from the kitchen, and it reminded him how he never did eat dinner the night before. After popping a couple of the Tylenol from the bottle nearby, and washing them down with a thoughtfully provided glass of water, he stood -- slowly -- and made his way across the floor to the hallway, and the kitchen beyond that.
Clara was busy at the sink, clearly cleaning up after breakfast. She looked up as the musician came in and smiled warmly, though her eyes still bore a bit of concern. Marty hadn't looked in a mirror for a while; he wondered if there was something about his appearance that looked really worrisome. After he ate something, he'd have to look into getting a shower and some fresh clothes on his back.... He still had on the same stuff from yesterday.
"Good morning," Clara said. "How are you feeling today?"
"Better," Marty said, a little cautiously. "And starving. Is there anything left to eat?"
"I set something aside for you and your Emmett -- if you don't mind it reheated," Clara added, setting aside a pan she was scouring. After drying her hands on a towel, she headed over to the fridge. "Have a seat."
Marty did so. He looked around, thinking it was unusually quiet. When they had arrived home the night before, from the hospital, he hadn't seen the kids more than a couple of minutes; Clara had ushered them out of the family room where they had been hanging out, watching TV, to prepare for bed. And since today was a weekday, that had to mean....
"Are the kids at school?" he asked.
Clara nodded as she pulled out a covered plate of food. "Yes. Except Clayton, of course. Emmett's taken him on a walk. I expect him back shortly."
"And Doc -- uh, my Doc -- is sleeping?"
"Yes, he went to bed shortly after I got up. I urged him to do so, as I saw no need for him to watch over you when I could easily check on you myself. I'm not to let him sleep past noon, however. I sense he is eager to work on his time machine once more."
"He's not the only one," Marty muttered, not really looking forward to the idea of "taking it easy" for a couple of days. How strenuous was it to sit in a chair at the lab and fit together components, or hold something in place for the inventors? He'd have to talk to the Docs about that when he saw them again....
"I suppose you won't be leaving by Thursday, will you?" Clara asked as she put the plate of food in the microwave.
Marty sighed. "What's today, again?"
"Monday -- November twentieth."
The train definitely seemed like it was going to need more work than could be done in the next three days. "I guess we'd probably still be here then," he said. "But Doc would probably know for sure. Last time this happened, it took three weeks until we could get home, and we had a lot more people working on everything."
Clara smiled sympathetically at him as the microwave beeped. "Well, there is no need to fret," she said as she retrieved the now-warm food. "You're not burdening us in any way. I just wanted to know if I should plan for the both of you to join us for Thanksgiving this year."
The musician couldn't stop a faint smile at the mention of the holiday. He and Doc had already celebrated an out-of-time Thanksgiving once, about four years ago, when they had been stuck in 2030 frantically building a new time machine. There was probably some irony there, though he really couldn't see why such a thing had to happen twice in a person's lifetime.
"Thanks," he said. "But aren't you guys gonna have any guests over?"
"Well, Marty's invited -- he's chosen to spend part of the holiday with us since we moved here; I believe his family has an earlier supper than us -- but he's already privy to your presence, so I don't see that as being a problem." Clara set the food down before the visitor, then went off to fetch some utensils. "What was it that he wanted to talk to you about?" she asked as she set down the napkin, knife, and fork, her light tone nevertheless betraying her curiosity.
"Who? My double?" With Clara's nod, Marty elaborated. "Oh, I ran into Jennifer at the hospital last night. She thought that I was him, and told me to give her a call this week when she was in town, to get together."
Clara blinked, pausing a moment in her task of filling up a glass of milk at the counter. "Did she?" The local sounded just as surprised as everyone else.
"Yeah," Marty said. "She even gave me her business card. I passed that along to the other me, even though he doesn't really deserve it."
The woman recovered from her shock to bring the drink over to Marty. "Well, I'm quite certain he appreciated that. For as long as I've known Marty, he's loved that young woman.... I'll be delighted if they finally get together again. He was so devastated when they went their separate ways."
Marty tried to think of a tactful way to say what he wanted to say, then realized there really wasn't one. "He seems nuts," he said bluntly, taking his first bite of the reheated pancakes. "I dunno if he'd be committable nuts, but he's got a hell of a lot of issues...."
Clara sighed. "I won't argue with you that he is... troubled," she said slowly, as if searching for the right words. "Emmett has worried about him for years. I can't pinpoint any sort of change as he can, since Marty has always been a bit serious and moody as long as I've known him. Emmett thought it would pass when he returned home; Marty was rather miserable in the past. Perhaps things would have been different if he and Jennifer hadn't broken up, but I cannot say for certain. Next to the children, I'm the one who knows the least about the situation."
Marty thought about that for a few minutes as he finished off one of the pancakes. "You must've been really patient with him all these years," he finally said.
The local sighed again, brushing a lock of hair off her forehead. "It wasn't so bad once we moved to the future. I'll admit, though, there were some difficult times when he was living with Emmett and I. I think I only lost my temper with him once, though, when he made himself gravely ill. The boys were quite young at the time -- Verne was just a baby -- and I was terrified that they would catch it, too."
The musician frowned. "Your Doc mentioned something about that before. What did he have?"
"Scarlet fever. I wasn't angry with him for getting sick; one can't necessarily help that. But he chose to work through the earliest symptoms and not take it easy. The fever could have quite easily killed him -- it was touch and go one long, terrible night -- and I thank the Lord to this day that the rest of us were spared. As soon as he was out of danger, I couldn't help but give him a good tongue lashing. Emmett didn't try to stop me; I think he was more worried than he let on about the boys and myself contracting it, too."
Marty gulped a little. It sounded almost like something he'd done before, himself. "Did he take it easy after that?"
"Yes -- but only because Emmett and I kept a very close eye on him. He was quite driven to get home, which I suppose I can understand. Emmett was really the only person he knew in the past." Clara frowned at the old memories. "I suppose it didn't help terribly that both Marty and Emmett had to keep to themselves, since neither of them were supposed to be there. Nor I, apparently. Emmett told me about the fate I had once met, when I was worried about myself changing history by marrying him."
Marty didn't know if the Clara at home knew about the buckboard accident; it wasn't a subject that had tended to come up. "I guess you could see why you guys needed to move back here, too, then."
The local nodded. "Yes. And though I miss the time where I grew up, I really have no regrets about coming here. Our children have much better futures here, with the education systems and opportunities offered. Emmett is happier, and far less worried about a trip to the store unraveling the entire world, and I've grown rather accustomed to the marvelous wonders of electricity and indoor plumbing and dishwashers."
Clara smiled faintly, then shook her head, as if to clear it. "I'm sorry, this is probably rather boring for you. Or is the Clara you know so very different?"
"Not really," Marty said with a smile. "I just hope we can make it back home soon -- like, before Christmas."
"That's five weeks away," Clara said. "I would certainly guess so." She paused, then changed the subject back to a previous matter. "I do hope that our Marty will fill us in about what happens between him and Jennifer, now. I'm quite curious to see if anything has and will come of it."
"Yeah, me, too," Marty admitted. "I guess we'll probably know by the end of the week. If he blows it, though, he's only got himself to blame now."
* * *
By the time Emmett returned home from his walk with Clayton, Marty had finished his breakfast and had a shower. He wasted little time in asking the local about helping out with the time machine repairs that day. Emmett was opposed, at first, but the musician was so adamant and vocal that he finally caved enough to okay it -- though the tasks he gave Marty were rather brainless and painfully mundane.
Doc joined them right after lunch, still looking a little tired in spite of his long morning nap. Over the course of the night, though, he had assembled a lot of necessary pieces, and when things were looked over, the inventors came to the conclusion that they had gained more ground than lost in the past twenty-four hours. Most of the afternoon was spent in the cellar, installing some of the newly repaired pieces of equipment. Doc took to running back and forth between the lab and the train, grabbing the things that Marty was checking over with the computer program to make sure the circuits were all correctly assembled.
Around three, Doc went upstairs to retrieve the latest pile of green-lit boards. The musician's head was down, pillowed on his arm, but it wasn't until Doc got closer that he saw his friend was actually asleep, breathing slowly and deeply through his open mouth. He quietly collected the boards from the desktop next to Marty and left him alone, unwilling to disturb him after the night before.
An hour later, Doc and Emmett was busy installing some new wiring in the cab when the call came from above. "Doc? Yo, Doc, where are you?"
Emmett's head jerked up at the cry, as faint as it was, whacking it on the underside of the time circuit casing. "Damn," he swore, dropping a screwdriver in order to slam his hand on the back of his head. "Can you see what he wants?"
"Of course," Doc said. He set down the schematics that he had been examining, climbed out of the cab, and headed up the stairs. Halfway there, he saw a form darken the light falling through the open trap doorway at the top of the stairs.
"Doc..." he heard Marty begin. "Oh, wait, you're the other one, aren't you?"
Doc squinted at the dark shadow standing in the lab, but it wasn't until he was fully out of the cellar that he was able to clearly see that the one speaking wasn't the visiting Marty but the local one. His Marty, Doc saw in a glance, was now awake -- probably from the shouts of his other self -- and still seated at the computer desk, though he appeared groggy and dazed.
"I guess I would be, to you," the scientist said to the local. "Is something wrong?"
The local Marty shook his head once. His face was serious, but there was a gleam in his eyes that Doc didn't ever recall seeing before. "Where's my Doc? Down with the train?"
"Well, yes, but what's--?"
Local Marty was going down the stairs before Doc could finish the sentence. The inventor looked over at his friend, still sitting down at the desk. "What in the name of Thomas Alva Edison is going on with him?"
Marty shrugged his shoulders, leaning back in the chair and rubbing his forehead. "You got me. I just woke up when he came in here. How long was I out?"
Doc checked one of the clocks for the time. "Less than two hours, I would guess. Feeling any better?"
Marty grimaced. "Actually, no. It's probably that nap. Sometimes those things backfire and I feel worse when I wake up. You could've woken me up... I didn't mean to fall asleep."
Doc smirked at the complaint. "And risk having you chew me out about interrupting your sleep yet again today? No, that's all right."
Marty rolled his eyes, propping his elbow up on the desk and resting his chin in his hand. A frown started to crease his mouth. Then his face went inexplicably blank, his eyes fixed on something distant and unseen. Doc would have thought he was simply thinking hard or daydreaming if it hadn't been so sudden and lasted more than a few seconds.
The inventor looked critically at his friend and took a step forward. "Marty?" he asked.
The musician didn't move or even blink. Doc hurried to his side, now, certain about what was happening. He waved his hand before Marty's eyes. Nothing.
Damn, he's having an episode! But it's been only about twenty-four hours since he last jumped! It shouldn't be so soon!
A moment later the reason occurred to him. If exhaustion could make one more prone to these sorts of reactions, shortening the time it took between episodes, then a concussion would almost certainly make it worse. And didn't Doc recall his counterpart from last year mentioning something about how things like illness or injury could make a body more prone to being hit sooner than later?
Doc leaned across the desktop and reached for Marty's shoulder, then drew his hand back, thinking better of it. It wouldn't do any good to shake his friend in an attempt to bring him out of it; he would come back on his own.
But as the seconds ticked by, and then became a full minute, there was still not a flicker of movement to Marty. Doc became more concerned. As soon as serious worry was setting in, he heard footsteps coming up the stairs from the cellar, and a moment later Emmett, closely followed by the local Marty, stepped into the lab.
"That sounds great, Marty," Emmett was saying. "But be careful. You don't want to overwhelm her -- or get hurt again." He stopped and glanced around, seemingly confused, then caught sight of Doc. The visiting scientist's worrisome feelings were clearly visible on his face, for his counterpart immediately asked, "Is something wrong?"
"Something is certainly not right," Doc said softly, glancing once more at the still Marty. Emmett followed his gaze, then frowned with his own concern and came right over.
"Great Scott! How long has he been like that?"
Doc looked at the clock yet again. "Two minutes," he murmured softly. "A minute and a half too long, if you ask me."
The faint smile that was on local Marty's face vanished as he stared at his counterpart. "Jesus. Is it the concussion? Shouldn't we get him to a doctor?"
Emmett looked to Doc for that, his eyebrows raised. "It could be a reaction to the blow to the head, not the dimensional frequencies," he said. "Enough time hasn't passed for him to react already, has it?"
"Well, maybe it has," Doc said. "I think--"
Marty suddenly moved, his chin slipping out of his palm, his eyes blinking slowly and taking in the concerned faces peering at him. He groaned softly and slumped away from the desk, deeper into the chair, allowing his head fall back against the headrest. "Shit..." he murmured, closing his eyes. "What happened?"
"You had a dimensional seizure," Doc explained. "It lasted more than two minutes. How do you feel?"
"Crappy...." Marty opened his eyes again and looked at Doc, then Emmett, his eyes suddenly filled with fear. "I was out of it for a couple minutes? I thought these things didn't last that long!"
"Generally, they don't," Doc said. "Though I think the intensity and length depends on some internal and individual circumstances. It's probably due to your head injury. That can weaken the body's resistance to the syndrome. I should've remembered that and taken you on a jump earlier, but I suppose we can rectify the situation right now."
Marty nodded once, though he made no move to stand right away. The musician's counterpart still seemed faintly distressed about the whole situation. "Are you sure he didn't do that from the concussion?" he asked the inventors, looking between both of them.
"Well, if it happens again after we take a jump, then we'll know for sure, and take him to the hospital," Emmett said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the DeLorean keys -- a modification, now, from keeping them in a drawer in the lab, since his Marty could obviously no longer be trusted around them. "Here," he said, tossing them to the visitor.
Doc caught them without a problem, and looked at Marty. "Need any help to the car?"
There was a brief pause before the musician answered. "No, I can handle it." He took a deep breath then stood -- slowly -- bracing his hands on the arms of the chair to help push him up. Doc eyed him, uncertain, but after a moment Marty stepped away from the chair and came around to the other side of the desk. He looked a little shaky, but he was able to walk without a problem. Doc allowed him to lead the way to the DeLorean, just in case he needed to be caught from stumbling or worse, but he made it to the car fine. Emmett watched the visiting inventor carefully as he unlocked the door, got inside, then unlocked the passenger door for Marty.
"I'll take us ahead a couple of minutes," he announced to both Marty and Emmett. They each nodded at the news. By the time the musician finished climbing into the car and had shut the door behind him, Doc had completed his work in setting the destination time.
"You think this is why I blanked out?" Marty asked softly as the inventor shut his own door and started the car. "Not because I'm on my way to a coma or something?"
"I'm quite sure," Doc said. "But we'll find out soon whether or not that was the cause."
A few minutes later, once the temporal transit was complete, Doc asked the oh-so-important question of the moment. "How do you feel now?"
Marty lifted his shoulders in a vague shrug. "The same, I guess." He was silent as Doc steered the invisible car back down to the ground just outside the barn. "I was really out for two minutes?"
"More than two minutes, yes. But don't dwell on it, Marty. It was no doubt caused from the combination of your head injury, the erratic sleep you had last night, and this dimension. I remember now that my other self from last year said that illness, injury, or exhaustion could cause things to move quicker than they might otherwise."
"But two minutes?" This point clearly bothered him.
Doc sighed. "Don't worry. If it happens again today, we'll take you back to the doctor."
Marty wasn't given much more time to worry about it. The moment they stopped the car in the lab and got out, their waiting counterparts came over. "Everything go all right?" Emmett asked Doc as the latter handed the keys back to the former.
"Everything went as it should," Doc said. He glanced at Marty as the musician got out of the car. "He's still concerned about the seizure," he said softly, pitching his voice low enough to escape his friend's detection. "We should keep a careful eye on him into the evening."
Emmett nodded emphatically, taking his own look at the younger visitor. The local Marty was also staring, but he seemed to relax much sooner than either of the inventors. Perhaps he saw something subtle in Visiting Marty's face that told him more subconsciously about the musician's state of health than anything else; or perhaps he was just eager to spill the news that had propelled him into the lab in the first place. "Did you hear the latest?" he asked the visitor.
Marty frowned faintly at the question as he made his way over to one of the stools at the worktable. "The latest what?" Before the local could answer, he added, "Is that why you ran in here shouting for Doc?"
The local nodded, unable to resist a smile, now. It wasn't until the expression crossed his face that Doc really realized that he hadn't really seen anything but scowls, frowns, or pained and serious looks on Local Marty's face since their arrival. He glanced over at Emmett, beginning to have a faint inkling of what it was that had caused the change in the musician. Doc didn't verbalize his ideas, though, not wanting to steal the local's thunder if he was correct.
"I called Jennifer as soon as I got out of my meeting," he said. "She actually sounded happy to hear from me! She wasn't doing much today, so we decided to meet at one o' clock for a late lunch at that new restaurant that opened near the mall." Local Marty's smile widened. "She looked... great. Just great."
"What's she up to now, anyway?" Emmett asked. "You never shared that with me."
"She's got a job in Boston as an anchorwoman for a TV station there. But she misses the west coast and wants to move back out here again, if she can. And, no, she's not married or even seeing anyone." The local sounded incredibly relieved by that particular part of the news. "We talked for a long time -- two hours! She told me she'd been tracking my career, and that she'd thought about me often. And she told me to call her again!" Local Marty was clearly delighted by the prospect.
Emmett's expression wasn't quite overflowing with joy. He looked more cautious to Doc's eyes, and with good reason. If Jennifer had broken this Marty's heart once before, she could quite easily do so again, and perhaps cause even more damage than what was already done. "Be careful, Marty," he advised.
"Yeah," the visiting Marty added, without warning. "You don't wanna scare her off or come across as desperate or something. She probably wouldn't like that. I know my Jen was always immediately turned off if a guy acted like that with her."
"I'll be careful," the local Marty promised. "I've already lost her once before.... I'm not gonna screw up my second chance."
"That's exactly what it is, Marty," Emmett said. "A second chance -- nothing more, nothing less. And if it doesn't go the way you want it to, you must accept that. There will be no trips through time to suit your whims." The local scientist's voice was quite firm, and a bit sharp on this last matter. "Human relationships are difficult to influence, anyway, as you should rightly know."
Unless their histories had strongly diverged, Doc took that implication to be about Marty's parents. The local nodded in understanding. "Yeah, I know. But this'll work out, Doc. It's gotta."
Emmett glanced over at Doc, and the visitor could see the unease in his counterpart's face. The visiting Marty frowned faintly at the statement. "Why?" he asked.
"Because... I just feel like it's meant to be, you know? Like Jennifer and I are meant to be together. Don't you know how that feels?" The local stared at his counterpart intently. The visiting musician looked back -- then smiled faintly, crookedly.
"Yeah, I can understand that. You know, in all the weird realities Doc and I saw, I was always married to either a Jennifer or Susan Parker -- or not at all."
The local frowned, confused. "Susan Parker?"
Doc took over the explanation. "It seemed to be an alternative to the name Jennifer -- one that came up again and again. It almost makes me wonder if there's some sort of pull to having certain things happen in everyone's life -- a weight to certain events or possible events that increases the likelihood, or lack thereof."
"I never really thought about it, but don't you think that's weird, Doc?" the visiting Marty asked. "How some of the things we found never changed across dimensions? Like, you're never married to anyone but Clara -- if you're married at all. And I'm always married to a Jennifer or Susan Parker, or I'm not at all."
"I'm sure that there are some variations to those somewhere out there," Doc said, quite certain about that. "Or perhaps it lends weight to the idea about their being one person out there for everyone."
Both Martys looked to the visiting scientist in surprise. "I still remember when you thought the idea of love at first sight was full of shit," the visiting one said, smirking. "So now you're believing in soul mates, too?"
"If you're asking me whether or not I believe that there is one person that is apparently destined to be with another person, I would have to say... I have no idea," Doc said, quite honestly, glancing over to the local Marty. He was listening intently to the conversation. "It could very well depend on the individual. I can't entertain the idea of ever being married to anyone other than Clara, and I suspect she feels the same way. But we've seen a lot of strange things in the last couple of weeks, so it wouldn't entirely surprise me to find some deviation where she or I married other people -- and you, too, for that matter. We've probably simply scratched the surface of potential worlds out there."
"Yes," Emmett agreed, rather confidently for someone who hadn't had any real experiences with alternate dimensions. "It doesn't mean that you are destined to be alone or marry Jennifer Parker, Marty," he added to the local. "The future is whatever you make it. There could be another girl out there for you."
Local Marty looked thoroughly unconvinced. "But some things are probably meant to be, or at least pretty damned consistent," he argued. "I mean, they'd know, right? How many places did you guys see, anyway?" he added to the visitors.
Doc looked over at his Marty, who simply shrugged at the question. "Honestly -- I have no idea," the inventor said. "I lost count at one point, and by the end I was just pausing long enough to see if I lived in the house or not. I'd guess we saw more than three dozen; more than four dozen, perhaps."
The local musician nodded once, to himself, and folded his arms across his chest. "Those odds are good enough for me."
Emmett sighed and gave Doc a look that clearly said, "Thanks a lot!" The visiting scientist smiled weakly and apologetically, wishing that he had kept those thoughts to himself, now.
"I still wouldn't believe that this is necessarily a sign of a larger message at work," the local scientist said. "I don't want to see you get hurt again, Marty. And remember, Jennifer is only here this week. Then she returns to the east coast, unless I'm mistaken."
"All the more reason to not let this chance slip on by," Marty said, sounding a little annoyed with his friend. He and Emmett stared at each other for a long, silent moment, neither saying anything. Doc looked at his Marty, who was once more frowning at this sight. There was something almost confrontational about it.
After a minute, the local musician finally spoke again, his voice a little softer. "Well, I just came by to let you guys know the news. I really shouldn't stay longer -- I have a couple songs that I need to have done by Friday for a band."
"All right," Emmett agreed, his voice not betraying any of the tension that had been in his face a moment earlier.
After a quick glance at the visitors, Marty left. As the door closed behind him, Emmett let out a deep, weary sigh. "He's so damned stubborn," he muttered under his breath, running a hand through his hair.
"I'm sorry if I made things worse between you both," Doc said immediately. "That wasn't my intent."
"I know," Emmett sighed -- and said nothing more on the matter. "We'd better get back to work. The sooner you're both out of here, and back home, the better for all of us."
Doc couldn't disagree with that.
For the local Marty, the week of Thanksgiving was like some bizarre, unreal dream. Over the years, he had wished, prayed, and fantasized so much about seeing Jennifer again sometime in the future, sweeping her off her feet, and living happily ever after. Somehow. Never mind that she had moved to the other side of the country, that she had been the one to call it quits in the first place, and that she hadn't kept in touch with him at all since leaving the area. Somehow, someday, she would come back to him.
And, for a few days, it seemed like everything was falling perfectly into place. The first time he saw her face, on Monday afternoon, his heart had nearly stopped dead and he actually pinched himself, amazed at both her beauty and his luck. He hardly remembered what they talked about that day, too captivated by her mere presence and, then, the idea that she wanted to see him again, if he wasn't busy to give her a call. It didn't take Marty too long to answer that question.
He called her the next day, and they set up arrangements for dinner Tuesday evening.
It was another fantastic evening, from his perspective. Never mind that Jennifer's favorite subject seemed to be herself; that was a subject he was really, genuinely interested in. But there were a few things he found out that night that surprised him. For instance, Jen apparently had taken up smoking back in college, drawn in by some former classmates. And her sense of humor seemed... different. More sarcastic and edgy than Jennifer's in high school.
Nevertheless, he was happy when she called him on Wednesday and asked him if he might want to go with her to the wedding she was due to attend on Sunday afternoon. Why not? Marty figured. Since Jennifer had to fly out late Sunday night to return to Boston, it would pretty much be his last chance to see her. And he still wanted to see her, definitely.
The wedding was due to begin at two o' clock. Being a close friend of the bride, Jennifer had opted to drive herself at noon to the private estate that was hosting the ceremony and reception, in order to help out the bridal party. Marty arrived uncharacteristically early, at 1:30, nervous about being late for the girl he had loved for so many years. Once there, it took him a while to find Jennifer -- and when he did, he found her surrounded by a small group of people they had gone to high school with. All guys, Marty noted with a pinch of jealousy.
"I'm one of the anchors for the top evening news show in Boston," Jennifer was saying as her ex-boyfriend approached. "I've been doing that for a couple years. It's really fun, and I get a lot of big interviews. I've even met the President; they had me cover a fund-raising dinner. He's actually quite nice...."
"So you're basically working in television," said one of the guys -- a football player, Marty vaguely remembered, though his name wasn't immediately memorable. Something Green.
Jennifer nodded, smiling prettily. "Yes," she said. "But it's a lot of hard work! I'm not simply acting; I'm giving people the chance to see the world through me! And I do a lot of reporting on my own...."
The men all smiled at her statement, but there was something about the way Jennifer was acting that Marty didn't like. She sounded almost... well, either stuck up, or like an airhead. There wasn't any time to puzzle it out further, though; the wedding ceremony was supposed to start any minute, now.
"Jennifer?" he called from the fringes of the group.
Jennifer reacted to the sound her name, though it took her eyes a moment to pinpoint the source of the call. "Marty," she said, smiling pleasantly. "You remember Marty McFly, right?" she added to the group of admirers.
There were nods all around and several greetings of, "Hey, McFly, how're you doin'?" Marty muttered a couple of, "Fine, thanks," before Jennifer finally joined his side. She looked fantastic -- her hair was hanging around her face in soft, rippling waves, and the rust colored dress she wore hugged her figure in all the right places. She clutched a half empty glass of wine and wore a wide smile on her face as she turned her face to his.
"Hello," she said softly, amid the hum of chatter around them. "You made it on time."
"Yeah," Marty said, recalling his perchance for tardiness. "I'm not always late anymore, you know."
"Well, you know I always said better late than never," Jennifer said. She took a sip of her drink, then reached out to take Marty's hand. "We'd better head for our seats, now. Kristy's supposed to do the aislewalk at two-fifteen."
Marty nodded, feeling nervous as he and Jennifer made their way through the crowd of guests to the chairs set up. It was slow going; Jennifer was stopped frequently by old friends or neighbors. Or so the musician thought until, seeing the clock tick towards the quarter after two hour, he noticed that it was mostly Jennifer who spoke first to people, not the other way around.
She really likes being the center of attention, he realized, frowning a little. It seemed so different from what he remembered of her.
The wedding ceremony finally got rolling, which shut Jennifer up. She continued to cling to Marty's hand and sat very close to him, the smell of her perfume and shampoo making him feel faintly dizzy. It wasn't until he noticed a weird sort of ache in his arm and right shoulder that he realized he was tensing up from her close proximity. How weird -- and ridiculous! This was Jennifer; she was actually sitting next to him! He should have his arm around her shoulders and be hugging her close! Not be tensing up and leaning away!
Marty started to get a funny, tight feeling in his gut.
The wedding ceremony lasted about half an hour. Jennifer seemed to inch progressively closer to the musician during the course of it. By the end, she was sniffing softly and dabbing her eyes.
"Oh, they're so lucky," she murmured into his ear as the couple kissed for the first time as marrieds. Her hand squeezed Marty's leg, and he tensed up once more, without thinking about it. "I can't wait to get married someday...."
There was something in her voice that suddenly made the musician even more nervous. "Uh, yeah..." he murmured under his breath. "Sure."
After the newlywed couple headed down the aisle, the reception began in what had once been the ballroom of the old estate. Jennifer wasted little time in getting herself and Marty a glass of champagne from the open bar. Champagne wasn't really his drink of choice and, in spite of a desire to escape his weird feelings, he didn't have more than a few polite sips, the drink not welcome in a stomach already churning from stress.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Jennifer shared no such inhibitions when it came to alcoholic beverages; she had two glasses of champagne within half an hour, then acted even more clingy toward the musician -- much to his discomfort. Fortunately, the alcohol seemed to blunt her perception, and she didn't notice how tense Marty was. After she had her drinks, and the hired DJ began to play CDs, she dragged him out to the dance floor. The musician didn't put up too much of a protest, thinking that dancing would help. And, for a while, it did. He began to relax a little, and smile.
And then a slower song from their high school days came on -- Bon Jovi's "Never Say Goodbye."
"Oh, I like this one," Jennifer said, grinning. "Remember how it came out around the time we graduated?" She wrapped her arms around Marty and laid her head on his shoulder, her breath still smelling like the champagne. Marty once more felt uncomfortable for reasons he couldn't quite figure.
Why? Why do I feel so weird? This is what I've been waiting for and wanting all these years! I should be enjoying every second of it, not freaking out!
The song seemed terribly apt for the moment. Marty found himself listening to the lyrics, remembering the times he and Jennifer had shared back in high school, before Doc invented a time machine and it all went south. He drew in a deep breath, his heart aching a bit in yearning from the memories. Oddly enough, the presence of the very girl from those memories being in his arms made no difference at all.
That's not right, Marty thought, frowning faintly, confused.
After the song ended, Jennifer raised her head and looked at the musician rather coyly. "Do you want to take a walk?" she asked. "I don't think they're going to do the toasts for a bit."
The newswoman had asked him almost the very same question the day she had decided that she would be better off without him. Marty swallowed hard, faintly unnerved. "Sure," he said.
They walked away from the crowds of people, down a path that led to a small stream near the back of the property. It was cold out, but clear and sunny. Jennifer's dress was low cut, and without any sort of sleeves; Marty did the polite thing and draped his suit jacket over her shoulders, though he was freezing his ass off by the time they reached the creekbed.
"What do you think about us, Marty?" Jennifer asked as she rummaged around in the small purse she had brought with her.
"Is there an 'us,' Jen?" Marty asked shrewdly.
The newswoman glanced up at him as she pulled out a small silver cigarette case and a lighter. "I don't know," she said. "That's what I want to know -- what do you think about the idea?"
Marty sighed heavily, his breath frosting the air before his lips. "I don't know," he said honestly. "If you would've asked me a week ago, I would've jumped at the idea. But...." He frowned as his ex-girlfriend slipped a cigarette in her mouth and lit up. "You've changed a lot, Jen."
"So have you," Jennifer said. "People do that when time goes by. But you look good, Marty. I've really missed you." She smiled after exhaling her first puff of smoke, her free hand reaching out towards his face and laying itself on his cheek. The smell of the cigarette smoke merely made his already-queasy stomach feel worse; in another world, more than ten years ago, his mom had carried the habit since the '50s. He couldn't smell tobacco without automatically thinking about those years and that time when his parents were so unhappy and on the road to nowhere. It was a smell filled with bad memories.
Jennifer's hand felt cool on his face, slightly clammy. "You live on the other side of the country," Marty said, taking a step back. Jennifer's hand fell away from his cheek, but her fingers began to play with the collar of his shirt, instead. "How the hell could this work?"
"I'm trying to get transferred back here," she said. "I told you that, remember? San Francisco, maybe, or L.A."
"But those aren't Hill Valley, Jen. And I'm not moving."
Jennifer frowned, taking another drag from her cigarette, her free hand falling down to her side. "If I moved to Hill Valley, it would completely set my career back," she said. "We could still see each other regularly if I'm in the same state. If I went to San Francisco, I'd be less than two hundred miles away."
It was Marty's turn to frown. "I dunno, Jen," he said, turning away and taking a couple of steps, mostly to get away from the smoke surrounding her. It wasn't the distance that bothered him as much as....
...As much as she is. Oh, Jesus! That can't be true!
"Marty...." Jennifer's voice was close to a purr. "Please look at me when I'm speaking. It's rude of you to turn your back on me."
The musician turned around, though he didn't appreciate the demanding tone in the woman's voice. Jennifer smiled at him, but it wasn't the same, not at all, as it had been ten years ago, or in his multiple daydreams and fantasies over the years. It wasn't the fact that the face before him had aged over the last decade, accumulating tiny lines around the eyes and a thinness that seemed almost unhealthy. It wasn't the fact that the face before him wore too much make up. It wasn't the presence of smoke drifting to form a cancerous halo above her head. It wasn't any of those things; yet maybe it was all those things.
The face before him was that of a stranger. She may have looked like Jennifer Parker. But she wasn't, not really. And she was certainly not the same person that Marty had fallen in love with and dated in high school. She had changed.
And maybe I have, too -- more than I know. Christ, why couldn't I see this earlier?!
Jennifer seemed oblivious to his thoughts. She dropped the remains of her cigarette on the ground, grinding it out with her heeled pump, then stepped forward and slipped her arms around him, pulling him close. Her breath reeked of tobacco and alcohol and he almost gagged at the smell.
"What do you say?" she murmured, her eyes searching his face. "Do you want to try this again? I think it will work this time... we can make it work this time."
Marty swallowed hard. Here it was, the chance that he had wanted for the last ten years. And yet, the words that came out of his mouth were ones that he never, ever imagined saying. "You know... no, Jen. No. I don't think we can. I don't think I can. I don't think we should."
Jennifer blinked a couple of times, her eyes widening a bit. She had clearly expected something entirely different. "What?"
Marty pulled free of her arms, taking a step back. He felt better the moment he did so. "We're through, Jen. There's no future for us as a couple. You decided a long time ago to let it go, and maybe that was the best thing. Maybe it was," he repeated softly, mostly to himself. "Things aren't the same as they were back then; we aren't. I don't even recognize who you are, now."
"I'm not the only one who's changed, Marty," Jennifer said once more, sounding a bit hurt by his words. Maybe she wasn't used to rejection by men, not with her prestigious job.
"No, you're not," Marty said, realizing the real heart of the matter. "I've changed just as much as you have. We... we never had the chance to grow together. So we grew apart." He paused, wistfully, once more really realizing for the first time the other forces at work that had made a relationship with Jennifer all but impossible to continue upon his return to 1985. "Maybe it was inevitable."
Jennifer was silent as she considered his words. "You don't believe in second chances?"
Marty sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. There was a part of him that felt torn -- this was something he'd wanted for so long! -- but a larger part of him felt nothing but relief with the answers he was giving to the newswoman. "Not with this," he said. "Not when I know this would be doomed from the start. I'll never forget you, Jen. Ever. But I think both of us should just move on now. You're part of my past -- and I'm part of yours."
The newswoman frowned faintly at the words, but she didn't storm off or start yelling at him or crying. Something in her eyes told Marty she understood the truth of the situation, and accepted that. "I suppose so," she said softly. "Well... well what else is there to say, then?"
Marty smiled. "Goodbye, Jen," he said. He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the mouth. She tasted like the cigarettes she had just smoked, but even if she hadn't, he doubted that he would have felt much of anything. It was just a kiss -- a friendly kiss, devoid of the romantic passion that had sizzled between them in high school. He was reminded of his mother's reaction when she had pounced on him in the car, outside the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. "When I kiss you, it's like I'm kissing... my brother."
Jennifer seemed to feel the same thing. She smiled at Marty as he began to lean away and kissed him back quickly, her lips soft. "Goodbye, Marty," she said. "But aren't you going to stay for the rest of the wedding reception?"
Marty glanced at the estate nearby, then shook his head. "No, I think I'm gonna cut out now, if that's okay. I don't know the people there that well -- and there's someone I should really see, now...."
* * *
The local Marty drove straight to Emmett's place from the wedding. Fortunately, there was little traffic, being late on a Sunday afternoon, but as he got closer to the Browns', he started to wonder if that was a good thing. It wasn't as if he and Doc had been fighting over the last week, but their exchanges -- when they had spoken -- had been brief and businesslike. Marty clearly sensed the disapproval in his friend's views of his renewed contact with Jennifer, which bugged him. Especially since Doc had his own wife and family, now. It was like he didn't want the musician to be happy, or have his shot at happiness.
Although even Marty knew that idea had a few serious flaws to it.
He sighed as he drove, realizing that there were a few problems he was still dealing with when it came to Doc. He was still angry and annoyed with the scientist -- but why? Was it really just because he had refused ten years ago to take Marty back in time to stop the train from derailing? Because Doc had now banned him from anything remotely resembling time travel for the foreseeable future? Or was there something else bugging him, something he hadn't quite figured out yet....?
A few minutes later, such contemplations had to be put on hold. He pulled up to the Browns' house, parking on the gravel driveway that led up to the stand-alone garage Doc had built a few years before to house the family cars.
Marty had talked to the inventor a couple of days before, checking in for news about their dimensional counterparts and the time machine repair project. Progress was coming along slowly, apparently, because the two scientists and the visiting Marty were about the only ones able to pitch in and work on it. Clara had a baby to tend to, and the other kids all had school and homework. The local Marty had deliberately made himself rather scarce for the last week, under the guise of both working and spending all the time he could with the local Jennifer.
Marty's other self, fortunately, was doing fine, after complaining for a few days of headaches from the concussion. And there were no further incidents of him blanking out; the two minute incident appeared to have been an isolated event. The other Doc apparently became methodical in timing the jumps through time so that there would be no more unpleasant experiences for either of them. Sometimes, said Emmett, if they had worked especially hard or late, the visiting scientist would take them through twice in one day, just to be sure.
The local Marty left his truck and walked straight out to the lab, sure that he would find his Doc out there. He shivered as he made the brief trek between the car and the building; Jennifer still had his jacket, and he really hoped that she'd remember to bring it by later before she took off on her return trip to Boston.
The lights were all on in the lab, but the door didn't budge an inch when Marty tried the knob. He knocked on it, hard, and a minute later it was pulled open by his counterpart.
"Hey," the local said, coming in without being invited.
"Hey," the visiting Marty echoed without much enthusiasm, closing the door. Local Marty watched as the visitor returned to a worktable nearby, where a bunch of electronics were scattered around -- wires, microchips, unfinished circuitboards, soldering tools, screwdrivers, etc. -- and picked up a small tool. There was a plan spread out across the table, before the circuitboard that the visitor was assembling. The musician glanced at it, curious.
"How's that project going?" he asked. "Are you guys any closer to going home?"
Visiting Marty frowned out of one corner of his mouth, his attention clearly elsewhere. "Past the halfway point, probably," he muttered. He finished whatever connection that he had been working on before the local had arrived, then looked up. "I guess you've been pretty busy."
There was something about the statement that annoyed the local. "Yeah, I have," he said, a touch defensively. "I have a life here, you know."
The visiting musician raised an eyebrow, but he didn't say a word in response to it. "Were you looking for your Doc?" he asked, changing the subject. "He's in the cellar."
"I wanted to talk to him, yeah," Marty admitted. "But I also thought I might see if you guys needed any help with this stuff tonight. I've got tomorrow pretty wide open, too."
The visiting Marty looked both surprised and suspicious by the offer. He had been treating the local differently, with a distant sort of coolness, ever since the incident in 1885 -- though the local supposed he couldn't blame him, much. He had acted a little... possessed, there. "You probably can, but you'll definitely want to clear it with your Doc."
"With which Doc?"
Both young men jumped at the sound of the voice, turning their heads to the source. Emmett was emerging from the cellar, then, and had apparently caught the last words of the conversation. He looked surprised to see the local Marty there. "Did you have a question for me?" he asked the musician.
"Not a question, exactly..." the local hedged. "Well, actually, I guess part of it is. Did you need any more help on this time machine stuff? I've got some free time this week -- and today."
Emmett frowned, thoughtful. "Any help would be welcome," he admitted. "But I don't want you here unless you want to be here, Marty...."
"I want to be here," the local musician said softly, quite serious.
Emmett looked at him curiously, and even the visiting Marty turned his full attention over. "Did Jennifer dump you again?" the latter asked, bluntly.
The scientist looked faintly horrified at the query, but Marty merely smiled faintly, thinking of the scene next to the stream. "No, she didn't," he said. "But I don't think we'll be seeing each other anymore when she's in town."
Now the visitor looked confused. He wasn't the only one. Emmett looked thoroughly baffled. "Why?" he asked. "What happened?"
The local pulled up one of the stools to the worktable and took a seat. "That's a semi-long story," he said, glancing down at the plans that his counterpart was following.
"What's the short version?" the visitor asked, setting down the tool in his hand.
Local Marty picked up the circuitboard that the visitor had been carefully assembling and looked it over, checking the handiwork of his double. "Short version? I just realized today that Jennifer's changed since I knew her," he said simply. "She wasn't the Jennifer that I remembered."
"Well, of course she's changed," the visiting Marty told his counterpart. "It's been... what, ten years since you saw her?"
"Sort of," Local Marty said. "I mean, we basically didn't see each other much after graduation, except for occasional sightings around town. And I knew time passed for her, but... it didn't really make her a great person. She smokes now, all she likes to talk about is herself, and she seems really self-centered and kind of... I dunno. Not Jennifer."
"Did you honestly expect to find that she was the same girl you knew a decade ago?" Emmett asked gently.
"I don't know. I guess I never really thought about it. The thing was, she didn't change at all during that time I was in the past. I mean, I guess it's kinda obvious why, since no time passed for her like it did for me. But maybe I just figured she'd never change."
Emmett sighed, sounding weary. The visiting Marty simply stared at him. "So it's over? That's it? No more Jennifer?"
"Yeah," the local agreed. "No more Jennifer. I don't like who she's become. She's this stranger. It's weird." The puzzlement he had felt about the matter crept into his voice. "I went to this wedding with her today -- that's why I'm dressed like this -- and the whole time I was with her I felt really uncomfortable. It wasn't like I thought it would be at all."
"But what about the social events that you both engaged in earlier in the week?" Emmett asked. "Were you feeling such things then?"
Marty shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe I just didn't notice it because I was so excited about seeing her again, period."
The visiting musician continued to stare at the local, clearly take aback by this turn of events. "So does that mean you don't want to change history anymore? That you've realized that it'd be a really shitty idea?"
Marty set the circuitboard down and looked at his counterpart, frowning. "No, I still think it would solve a lot of problems. Obviously, if you got married to Jen, she didn't turn into this weird stranger to you."
"But that's not your world, either," Emmett said immediately. "There's no guarantee that this situation would end differently if you had returned home on time." There was a weariness in the scientist's voice, as if he was sorely tiring of repeating this oft said bit of information. The perspective annoyed Marty; just as Emmett seemed to relentlessly believe this, the musician disbelieved it.
"I don't agree," he said flatly. "But maybe we shouldn't talk about that right now. Is there anything I can do to help out?"
Emmett stared at him a moment, then nodded. "Of course. Follow me."
The local inventor led his friend up the stairs into the study, which was empty in spite of all lights blazing. "The blueprints need to be organized," he said, gesturing to the messy stacks and piles of papers that were spread out over every available surface -- including the floor. "Emmett and I have been setting things aside as soon as they're drawn or constructed, and if we need to consult them again, it wastes a lot of time, searching for what we specifically need."
Marty made a face at the task. Filing and organizing was not his idea of a fun time. "Wouldn't I be better working with something more hands on?" he asked. "You know I can deal with the electronics all right."
"At the moment, no," Emmett said.
Something in his tone created a ripple of suspicion in the musician. He looked hard at his friend. Emmett's eyes were turned away from his, scanning the sea of paper on the floor, couch, and tabletops. Marty wasn't sure if the lack of eye contact was accidentally or deliberate; nevertheless an idea immediately occurred to him, and he was quick to blurt it out.
"You don't trust me to work with the mechanics, do you?"
When this elicited no immediately denial -- which Emmett would do if it wasn't true -- Marty felt hurt, insulted, and angry. "Jesus! What do you think I'd do, try to sabotage their trip home?!"
"Now, Marty, I didn't say that -- you did."
"But you're not denying it! I can't believe you'd think I'd do something like that!"
Emmett sighed. "You've been doing a lot of things lately that I never thought you would do. I don't know what goes through your head anymore."
"Well, when's the last time you really acted like you cared? It seems like every time I try to tell you something, you mow me down with some lecture on how I'm wrong and you're right."
Emmett stared at him, looking a little hurt by the words that had just come out. "Well, it seems to me like every time I try to talk to you, this happens," he said. "When was the last time we had a discussion that didn't end in an argument, Marty? I really can't remember -- can you?"
The musician shrugged sullenly. "Maybe it's because you really weren't there for me when I needed it," he half muttered.
Emmett heard the words and reacted immediately. "That's absolutely not true!" he said, an edge to his voice. "I did the best I could for you in the Nineteenth Century. I took you to the future to erase as much as the aging process I could before you came back to 1985. I tried to ease you through the transition of returning home. I did everything in my power to help you. Why do you think I was trying to work against you?"
"Because you let me down!" Marty cried, remembering the bombshell of news that Emmett had dropped the night before he had returned home. "You didn't take me back to undo things!"
One could almost hear the noise of Emmett grinding his teeth at the stirring of this subject once more. "If you're going to bring that up again, then maybe it would be better if you just left right now. I'm not discussing this subject anymore. And any disappointment over this matter is strictly yours to bear; never once did I imply or say that I would be doing that once we had a working time machine again."
Marty didn't want to back down, too wound up now about the old wounds. "I was miserable back there, Doc. Don't tell me that you didn't know that getting home was the only thing I cared about. It's the only reason I lived through that time!"
"Oh, I knew, believe me.... But even with a time machine, Marty, you can't always go back. You can't travel back and undo memories or certain experiences. They simply happen. And sometimes they need to happen, and to stop them would change the very person you are today. Did you ever stop to think about that? That if you or I had stopped the train from derailing from a point five years in the future, the person that was you would be essentially erased?"
"No -- that's not true. I didn't get erased when I changed things with my parents. And I probably had a different upbringing and everything."
"Well, then, we were lucky. Very very lucky. But I don't think that we would've been given any leeway by making a very severe alteration to your personal past -- and my personal past. Not to mention the paradoxic consequences... but I'm not discussing this anymore." Emmett's tone had a note of finality to it.
Marty exhaled sharply, frustrated. "You should've helped me out with that," he said once more. "Especially after telling me to go back to the past for you! I saved your life, Doc. Twice."
"I dare say that debt has been repaid a few times over," Emmett said dryly. He frowned at the musician, the expression more puzzled than angry. "When did I ever tell you to go back to 1885? If I remember correctly, I gave you explicit instructions not to go back for me!"
"Yeah, but after we found out you got shot, you sure as hell changed your tune!"
"No, I didn't." Emmett's eyes widened, then narrowed. "Unless you think not stopping you from going after me constitutes permission."
Marty was silent, choosing not to answer that question. Emmett's response to the silence was an explosive, "Marty! I could tell that nothing I said or did was going to change your mind! I didn't see there was anything I could've done to discourage you! But I did not actually order you to go back there!"
"Well... what else could I've done? You were gonna die if I didn't!"
"Perhaps," Emmett said with a shrug that was almost careless. "But I had told you to leave me alone in the letter, after all. I wouldn't have blamed you if you hadn't gone back... though I think I might've avoided Buford Tannen much more when I was in the past."
"You helped me get everything ready, though."
"Well, what was I supposed to do? Let you go back in time without the proper clothes or any supplies? That wouldn't make me a very responsible scientist. If you were set on going back in time -- and, sorry, Marty, but I sincerely believe that any arguments I would've tried in talking you out of it would have fallen on deaf ears -- then I wasn't going to let you do it foolishly unprepared."
Marty traced his somewhat muddled thoughts back to the frantic days spent in 1955, getting the recovered DeLorean fixed up and ready to go to save Emmett's life. He hated to admit it, but the scientist had made some good points. Even if the younger version of Emmett had put up a huge fuss and forbade him to go back to 1885, Marty would've just switched the destination time once he was in the DeLorean. Nothing was going to stop him from preventing his best friend from dying an early death in a strange time far from home.
As he thought these things, he looked over at Emmett, who was staring at him with a look of hurt and irritation on his face. Marty tried to hold onto his anger and annoyance with the scientist, emotions that he realized he'd been carrying with him for fifteen years, now... and suddenly found he couldn't. Not anymore.
I always thought he made me go back there, the musician thought, both sadly and with surprise. But maybe he's right.... I would've blown him off if he tried to stop me from going to 1885.
He couldn't blame Doc for ending up back there, anymore. That was his fault; it had been his fault the entire time.
Jesus... that's why I've been pissed at Doc all these years! It's not just about the stuff with the derailment; it's my being back there at all!
Emmett almost seemed to read Marty's mind with what he said next. "Don't tell me that you've twisted things around in your head to think that I actively told and encouraged you to go back there, Marty...."
"Uh, well..." the musician managed, weakly.
The scientist closed his eyes a moment and rubbed his forehead, as if his head was aching. "Do I even need to tell you how foolish that is, now? And why didn't you bring this up much, much sooner?"
"Well, I never really thought about it before. I just assumed--"
"Marty, your 'assuming' is the entire problem right now! If you would simply ask me about my views or thoughts or decisions instead of leaping to foregone conclusions -- the wrong conclusions, I might add -- then you might find out that I'm not the monster you make me out to be."
"I never made you a monster, Doc--"
"No," Emmett said, cutting him off again, "you did worse -- you made me the scapegoat of all of your problems, from the point you left 1955 to right now. If you want anyone to blame, Marty, all you have to do is look in the mirror." The inventor grabbed some of the papers from the floor and set them down on the overflowing couch, clearly venting some of his irritation.
Remembering what he was supposed to be doing, Marty tentatively picked up some of the plans and sketches that were on the desk next to him and started to quickly sort through them. It was easier to look at those than it was to look at Emmett's face right then, even though he wasn't sure what the hell a lot of the drawings were for.
Neither man spoke for a few minutes, working in a rather tense silence to gather up and sort the plans. Marty started to sweat, uncomfortable with the way things were hanging between the two of them. "Look, Doc... I'm sorry about this stuff. I'm sorry about blaming you all these years for everything."
Emmett sniffed softly, untouched by the words. "There's a but coming, isn't there?"
Marty set the papers in his hand down on the table a shade too hard; they slid right off and scattered about on the floor, like oversized snowflakes. "Well, how would you feel if you were in my place? Trapped in a weird time all alone?"
"Marty -- I was in your place. Or are you forgetting that I spent nine months before you arrived in 1885 trying to survive and repair a busted time machine while blending in as best I could? Those were far from pleasant times for me."
"But at least you had Clara, later--"
"And then I worried every night how much that relationship and my saving her life was disrupting the space-time continuum. And how much your presence and mine were possibly altering history -- and then when the boys were born, those fears and worries got much, much worse. Contrary to what you've obviously thought all these years, the time I spent in the past was neither restful nor without stress. I don't think I relaxed at all for five years, not really."
This revelation also surprised Marty. He blinked, trying to remember the years he normally went out of his way to banish from memory. "You never said anything, or acted weird...."
"I dare say you wouldn't have noticed if I had. You were pretty self-centered then, obsessing about home all the time."
The musician opened his mouth to fire off a sharp response, then closed it quickly before the words had a chance to escape. No need to make the already bad situation worse with name calling and such. Emmett went on, his back to the younger man.
"You have this idea about the way the world is, Marty -- and I don't really know where or how your ideas are created. But I think that if you actually asked questions and really really looked around you, you'd find that things are not as you've perceived them all these years. Maybe that's why you've been so unhappy all this time. You're focused on these little things that are not important anymore -- or are outright false. If you would simply let it go and move on, I suspect you would be a great deal happier."
"I'm letting Jennifer go, now," Marty said softly. "That's huge, Doc."
Emmett nodded once, turning around to look at him. "It's a step in the right direction -- though I wish it hadn't taken you ten years to get to this point."
Marty sighed, not about to argue his friend out of that idea. "Me, too," he said. "Look, Doc, I'm sorry. I really am. I'm sorry I've been such an asshole for the last fifteen years."
Emmett stared at him intently, but the musician was unable to gauge anything about his thoughts. "I'm more upset by how you feel than your behavior," the inventor confessed after a moment. "I can tell you're not happy. That you haven't been happy for a long time."
Marty wasn't going to deny that. "Well... maybe things can change now."
"They can, if you want them to," Emmett agreed. "You can always change the present, and therefore alter the future. That's what I've been trying to tell you for years, Marty. Your life is yours to live and control, for better or worse. I know you probably spent about five years feeling anything but in charge of your destiny, when we were in the 1800s, but that's all in the past now. It should stay in the past. Regrets are terrible things to have in life, especially if you dwell on them daily."
Marty sighed deeply at the advice once more. Yet even though he had heard Emmett say similar things to him before -- many times, actually, over the years -- the words seemed more meaningful this time. He felt a strange, light feeling in his chest, and it took him a moment to figure out what that was.
Oh my God... I think it's hope!
It had been a very long time since he felt anything remotely like that in connection with his own life and future.
"Yeah, they really suck," he agreed softly. "But sometimes it's hard to stop my mind from going back and rewriting things the way I wished they would've been."
"But they weren't," Emmett said bluntly. "There are a number of things in my own life that I wish I could have done differently, decisions that I wish I had made or not made. But even with a time machine, there's no way I could ever allow myself to go back and change those events. Especially with my personal history. The consequences could be disastrous. You have to simply accept what happened, perhaps make the decision to do things differently in the future, and let it go. If you don't, it can become a very unhealthy obsession."
Marty felt his face redden at this very clear jab at him; it was the second time in the last week he'd heard that word used in conjunction with his recent behavior. But the inventor was right. Obsession was definitely the term for some of his little regrets about past events, considering he had thought about them every damned day for years and years.
"Yeah," he murmured. "It can drive you completely nuts!"
It was Emmett's turn to sigh. He set down the papers in his hands and came over to Marty's side. "One of the regrets I've had, lately, is that I was never able to make my mind reading helmet work. If things would've gone as I had hoped with that project, a long time ago, then I might've been able to alter or spare you some of your memories from that time in the past. But... maybe it's for the best. Learn from your mistakes, Marty. Don't let them fester."
The musician managed a faint, tentative smile. "Thanks, Doc," he said, giving his friend a pat on the back. "And thanks... for everything else over the years. I should've said that a long time ago. Everything else changed around me, but you really didn't."
Emmett smiled himself, amused. "Oh, I think I've changed, too -- but you've been around me the whole time, so I doubt it was as jarring as coming back home after five years of growth, or seeing Jennifer for the first time after ten years. I'll bet if you asked your counterpart about his thoughts on the other me, he might have a very different story to share, since he missed seeing my wedding, being around for the arrival of Jules and Verne, the creation of the second time machine, and a number of other things you were there for."
Marty hadn't thought about that, before. He puckered his mouth, trying to imagine that, then shook his head. "Weird. Well, maybe it's like they say -- the grass is always greener on the other side."
"Perhaps. It's odd, though, that in all the places that our counterparts saw, never once did they mention any sort of personal utopia or a world better off than the one they left. It makes me think that the truer cliché may very well be that there's no place quite like home."
* * *
Later that same day, close to midnight, the visiting Marty lay on the couch in the Browns' family room with his eyes closed. He wasn't sleeping, although he was definitely tired enough; there was something bothering him too much to allow him to do that, something that he wanted to talk to Doc about... once the inventor came in for the night. And that could be a while; lately, Doc and Emmett hadn't called it quits until after midnight.
Such late nights were becoming increasingly normal simply because the repairs were still going too slowly for everyone's tastes -- although more progress had been made over the long holiday weekend than one would expect. Still, it wasn't enough to really satisfy both of the visitors. They had been away from home for a little more than three weeks, now; they wanted to simply go home and sleep in their own beds in their own homes with their own families around them. Doc's cautious guesstimation was that the train might be ready to return home during the first full week of December. Marty hoped that would prove to be so; his comment to Clara last week about not wanting to spend Christmas in this world was starting to seem frighteningly prophetic.
The musician sighed at the thought of home, trying to ignore the faint ache in his chest stirred by the memories. It only really bothered him when he was alone like this and had enough energy to reflect about their situation. Fortunately, it didn't happen too often as the days crept by, what with work going on with the train from sunrise to long after sundown. Often he crashed in his clothes, too tired to bother changing when one of the Docs would be waking him up around eight A.M.
But tonight was different. Tonight, when he tried to go to bed, he had remained wide awake, bothered by something that was only now becoming clearly apparent to him. Marty opened his eyes again as the realization struck him anew.
We're messing things up, being here.
He was surprised that Doc hadn't noticed and commented on it sooner. Or maybe the inventor had noticed and simply assumed that it was too obvious to verbally point out to Marty. After all, some part of the musician had known this since before they had even arrived in this world. But it wasn't until tonight when his brain had seized upon the idea and kept bouncing back to the problems that the local Marty seemed to be having, all touched off by their arrival, that it really hit him. If they hadn't been around, the local musician would be doing fine. He wouldn't have seen those videotapes and gotten to re-obsess over changing history. He wouldn't have had to see his counterpart married to the girl he'd wanted so much himself. He and the local inventor wouldn't have had the argument in the loft that the visitor had overheard earlier in the afternoon.
But they seemed a lot better when they came down, later.... Maybe that ended up clearing the air between them. But we are still so screwing things up, being here.
The back door leading into the kitchen opened and closed, and Marty heard footsteps cross the floor. He sat up, wondering which inventor it was that was coming in for the night. "Doc?" he called out hopefully.
A moment later the scientist was poking his head through the doorway. "Marty?" he said, surprised. "What are you still doing up?"
The musician saw at once that this was his Doc; the two inventors may have looked almost identical, but they weren't prone to wearing the very same outfits every day to emphasize their twinness. "I wanted to talk to you about something that's been bugging me," he said honestly. "Got a minute?"
For some reason, the question immediately brought about concern in Doc. "Of course," he said, stepping into the room and taking a seat in the armchair. "What is it? Are you feeling well?"
They had taken a jump after dinner that evening; Marty knew that his restlessness was in no way connected to the dimensional incompatibilities. "I'm fine," he assured the inventor. "I just couldn't sleep. There's something that I realized tonight, and it's really bugging me."
Doc's worry immediately shifted to curiosity and interest. "What is it?"
Marty tried to think of exactly how to phrase his thoughts. "I think we're really screwing things up here for everyone," he finally settled on.
Doc blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Well.... Look at my counterpart here. If we hadn't showed up, he probably would be a lot more sane. He wouldn't have seen those videotapes you got from another world, and gotten obsessed with changing the past. It was because we came here that all that stuff happened, Doc. I really don't think anything like that would've gone down otherwise."
Doc was silent for a moment, clearly thinking over the words. "Perhaps so," he said. "But I also think he might be more miserable, still, if we hadn't come at all. You were the one who ran into Jennifer, again -- not him. From what I've heard from my counterpart, this ended up being a good thing. He finally realized that that particular dream and desire was never going to come true -- and now he can hopefully move forward with his life."
"Maybe -- but after that, he and the local Doc had this argument in the loft," Marty said. "I mean, I guess that ended okay, since when they came back down they weren't ignoring each other and seemed pretty much back to normal... I guess. But isn't this really gonna mess up this world's history, Doc?"
"Hopefully not," Doc said. "Hopefully the things that have happened over the last couple of weeks while we've been around will have a more positive impact on the lives here, not negative." The inventor sighed, looking away from Marty to peer out the window nearby. "I must admit, I never really thought about this before. I hope our other stays in alternate realities didn't create too many problems. Just because we're in a present time doesn't mean we couldn't do damage...."
"But we weren't anywhere super long," Marty said. "Not like we've been here, or were last year in that other reality."
"Perhaps, but it doesn't take more than an instant to seriously change history, as you should well know. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time." Doc paused once more, looking a bit perturbed. "I don't know why it never occurred to me to worry about altering parallel realities.... We should know how much the presence of a visitor from another dimension can influence the lives in another. The Doc B incident was proof enough of that. So was the time we spent in the other reality last year."
Marty remembered one of the earliest alternate realities that they had seen when this insane trip had started -- the one where Doc and Clara had been childless, and the musician and his wife had ended up divorcing. He shivered, wondering again if that's what would've happened if he and Jennifer hadn't ended up in the other reality last year, where they had finally been able to settle their marital problems with some help from the people and technology in that dimension. And would Doc have decided on his own to stop borrowing money from the future and turn to inventing for the general public and for profit and bettering the world, if not for the intervention of his counterpart from that place?
"Yeah," Marty said softly. "It definitely changed all of us, probably for the better."
Doc smiled. "And I think maybe we did some good here, too," he said. "More good than bad, anyway. Of course, I can't speak for the other me, or the other you, but I have noticed a certain... lack of tension this evening between the two that's been present since before we even arrived. Emmett didn't mention anything about it -- though I did hear about the local Marty's decision and realization concerning the Jennifer here."
Marty shrugged. "All I know is that the two of 'em went up to the loft to do something, there was a lot of yelling, then things seemed to calm down, 'cause when they came down later, they didn't look pissed off. Actually, I guess they seemed a lot... not happier, but, you're right, that tension or whatever it was that's been around wasn't there anymore. My counterpart didn't say anything about it, but I didn't ask, either."
"Well, it's probably not any of our business," Doc said. "Was that what was concerning you so much? That us being here was changing the history here?"
Marty nodded. "Pretty much. I think it's been nagging me ever since we left home, but I was too tired or too stressed or too preoccupied to really figure it out before."
"Actually, I think I've had similar feelings on and off during this trip. Well, now that we know what we do, we should take extra precautions next time we crash land in another dimension."
That brought up another matter that was bothering Marty. "What if we never get home, Doc? What if all the stuff we're doing with the time machine won't make any kind of difference?"
"We'll get home," Doc said, rather grimly. "I'll make sure of it somehow, someway. It's no use to assume that what we're doing now will have any other outcome beyond success. There may be no proof positive that it will work, but there is no proof, either, that this will fail."
"Maybe," Marty muttered. "And we've got another week left here?"
"Give or take, yes."
The musician sighed as he finally stood, stretching to get a couple of the kinks out of his back. "I hope it's take more than give. I can't think of anything I want more now than to get home and see my wife."
"You'll find no argument from me over that," Doc said, joining Marty on his feet. "Think you can sleep now? We've got another long, busy day tomorrow."
"Yeah, probably. Now that I know we're not gonna destroy the universe here. See ya tomorrow, Doc."
"Eight A.M.," the scientist confirmed as Marty headed for the hallway.
The musician sighed. "Eight A.M." he repeated under his breath, shaking his head. "And I don't even get up that early for my job...."
Doc turned to regard the laptop screen as the computer emitted a soft beep. "System Analysis Complete," was displayed on the screen. "No errors detected."
"No errors detected," the visiting scientist mumbled aloud, numb with the exhaustion that came from being awake nearly twenty-four straight hours. Then, again, in a louder voice, once the words really sunk in. "No errors detected!"
A smile broke out across his face, and he cleared the message to double check the readings. Everything was green across the board -- but whether or not they were fixed enough to escape the dimensional deterioration factor remained to be seen. Nevertheless, this was the best news Doc could have hoped for.
"So, then you'll be leaving today," Emmett said, appearing in the doorway of the train's cab. He had been checking and rechecking the exterior connections on the train, making sure that nothing had been forgotten or was too loose for transit. "That's rather appropriate, I think -- it was December second when Marty and I finished my train. One hundred and five years ago today." He smiled, his eyes distant and faintly nostalgic.
"Is that what today is?" Doc asked. "I've just about lost count." He ran a hand through his unruly hair, mussing it worse. "So it's Saturday morning?"
"Four-ten A.M., to be precise," Emmett said, looking past Doc to the time display. He leaned inside to catch a glimpse of the laptop's screen. "Everything appears normal?"
"According to the diagnostics program, yes. And this thing is quite sensitive. There's no way to see if the problem that brought us here is still around, not now. But if Marty and I don't arrive back home, then we'll be able to get some idea of the true magnitude of this mess."
Emmett grimaced at the possibility, which was nothing compared to the way Doc felt about that idea. Just the thought of not arriving home after all this time and work was enough to make him feel physically ill. He had to keep an optimistic front up for Marty, though; any sign of doubt and the musician would no doubt sink into dire straits.
"Well, everything out here looks fine. I tightened a few screws, but nothing was so poorly attached to constitute a reinstallation. When do you want to leave?"
"As soon as possible," Doc admitted. The discussion he and Marty had had almost a week ago, about altering the lives of those in alternate worlds, had weighed heavily on him. Since then, he had increased his hours in working on the train. He wasn't sure if that's why they had finished sooner than he had anticipated, or if it was the added assistance of the local Marty that made such a difference. Probably a combination of the two.
Emmett nodded. "I can understand. Well, if you're sure about that, let's try and have you out of here before dawn, before it would be more difficult to move the trains around unnoticed."
Doc looked at the time and realized they had about three hours. "I think we can make that deadline," he said. "Let me get Marty and let him know. I promised him I'd wake him the second the diagnostic check was done."
"I'll get my train moved out of the way," Emmett said. His vehicle was parked down the tunnel, near the doors that led to the outside world. "Then I'd better wake Clara -- she'd be upset with me if I let you both leave without giving her the chance to say good-bye. And I suppose my Marty should be informed, just in case he wants to see you both before you go."
"And the kids?" Doc asked, standing up from his place on the floor of the cab.
"I don't think any of 'em would care enough to get up really early on a Saturday morning," Emmett said, smiling. "No offense. I think they've found this entire experience somewhat bizarre."
"Considering they've never seen anything like this before, I really can't blame them."
Emmett headed out towards the tunnel while Doc went the opposite way, up the stairs to the main floor of the lab. He found Marty to be exactly where he had left the musician around two A.M. -- sacked out on his stomach on the cot Emmett kept on the main floor of the lab, one arm wrapped around the pillow, the other coming perilously close to dangling off the side of the small, narrow bed. Once everything that could possibly be done had been done -- leaving just the computer diagnostic check -- Marty had allowed himself to crash after a solemn vow from Doc that he was to be roused the second the laptop finished the work... for better or worse. In spite of the promise, Doc hesitated to wake him. It would take a couple of hours before they'd actually leave, and his friend was far from a cheerful morning person. Especially after two hours' sleep.
But he had wanted this, so....
Doc crouched next to the cot. "Marty?" he tried softly. That earned him no reaction. His friend was sleeping too soundly. The scientist reached out and shook him gently by the shoulder. "Marty."
Marty suddenly jerked his head up, clearly startled, slamming it right into the gooseneck lamp suspended no more than a foot above the cot. "Ow..." the musician moaned weakly, reaching up to rub the point of collision. Doc hid a smile, patting him on the shoulder.
"Are you all right?"
"I think so.... What time is it?"
"A quarter after four in the morning. The laptop finished its work. It hasn't found any problems."
Marty stared at him through half-closed eyes. "That's good?"
"That's very good. We'll be leaving in a couple hours."
The words took a moment to sink into the musician's groggy brain. "Leaving... like leaving here? Going home?"
Doc nodded, reaching up to move the dangling lamp out of the way. "If all goes well," he said. Just as he didn't want to depress his friend too much by reminding him of the possibility of failure, Doc did not care to thoroughly convince Marty that everything would go according to plan. Even the scientist wasn't that positive.
"Yeah, hopefully.... What time is it, again?"
"A little after four in the morning. You've been asleep about two hours."
"Two hours...." Marty groaned softly, letting his head fall back to the pillow.
"Well, you wanted me to wake you up once the computer finished the work. And your help would be appreciated in getting things ready to go. Emmett's still up, but his are about the only hands that are pitching in right now. And you need to change," Doc added. "We both do." They were still wearing borrowed clothes from their counterparts.
"Okay," Marty muttered, even as his eyes closed once more. "Just give me a minute...."
"A minute?" Doc asked, skeptical.
"Uh-huh. A minute to get up." The musician yawned widely.
"Sure," Doc said, still quite skeptical. "I've heard that before. I'll get you some coffee."
Indeed, by the time he went into the house to brew a fresh pot and returned with a thermos of the stuff -- he and Emmett needed it just as much as Marty -- he found his friend had not moved... in spite of the passage of not one minute but fifteen. The scientist wasn't surprised; in high school, Marty was late more often than not due to hitting the snooze button one too many times on his alarm clock. And a few mornings over the last few weeks, after particularly late nights, Doc had to practically drag his friend out of bed, literally.
Doc roused the musician once more and shoved a mug of coffee under his nose before his head could hit the pillow again. By the time Emmett returned to the lab, a few minutes later, Marty was sitting up on the edge of the cot, taking tentative sips from the very strong brew and making a variety of sleepily disgusted faces at the bitter taste.
"I moved my train to the far end of the yard," Emmett said, shutting the door behind him against the bitterly cold wind. "We can move yours anytime, if you'd like to take it out to the yard beforehand -- or you can simply pull it out of the cellar when you're ready to leave. Your choice."
"I think we can do the latter," Doc said. "No use in being outside more than we have to."
Marty spoke up, then, having apparently consumed enough coffee to find his voice. "Why do we have to wait a couple hours to leave? I thought everything was done?"
"For the most part, it is," Doc said. "But we've got to clean up the cab, make sure we bring everything back with us that we brought here, and change clothes. And I believe that Clara and the local Marty wanted to have one last word with us?" He looked to the local scientist, his eyebrows raised in a silent question.
"I still need to rouse them," Emmett admitted. "Did you want anything to eat before you go?"
"Honestly, I just wanna go home," Marty said, glancing over at Doc.
Unless, of course, we don't end up arriving back at home, the inventor thought. He didn't express the idea, though. "I think we'll be okay, unless you have something that could be consumed quickly."
"I'll see what I can do," Emmett said, once more leaving the lab, heading for the house.
Doc picked up his mug of coffee and looked over at Marty. "Well, what do you say we begin by preparing the train for the departure?"
Marty offered no protest to the idea. By five A.M. they had everything stowed and put back where it was supposed to be, in preparation for a temporal transit. Doc put in a destination time, culled from his and Marty's combined memories: November 12, 1995, 3:30 P.M. If they indeed arrived home, as expected, then it would appear to their families that they had been gone no more than several minutes. Not more than a month.
Emmett returned to the lab as they came up the stairs, with the news that Clara was making a very quick breakfast for the soon-to-be travelers and that the local Marty was making his way over, in spite of the obnoxiously early hour. There was time enough for both visitors to have showers and change into the freshly laundered clothes that they had arrived in.
When they had completed those necessary chores, the simple breakfast -- pancakes -- was on the table, waiting. The local Marty arrived at the back door minutes after the visitors sat down, looking as if he had just climbed out of bed himself; his clothes were slightly mussed, and his hair stuck up at a number of odd angles.
"I'm not too late?" he asked as soon as he came in, a moment before his eyes caught sight of the visitors at the table. He relaxed, a little. "Good."
Doc looked at the clock, and saw that it was around five-thirty in the morning. "You're up early," he remarked to the local musician. "Do you have any meetings today?"
"Later," the local Marty said, taking a seat at the table next to his counterpart. "In the afternoon. I figured I'd come by, though, since you guys aren't sticking around too much longer, are you?"
"We'll be leaving as soon as we finish eating," Doc said, glancing at the partially consumed pancakes on both his and the visiting Marty's plate. "We're both eager to get home."
"More than eager," the visiting musician muttered, taking another bite of his breakfast.
"Is there anything more I can do?" Clara asked, hovering nearby. She looked tired but anxious, perhaps about the impending departure. "Emmett?" she looked to her husband, seated at the far end of the table, but having nothing more than a cup of coffee.
The local inventor shook his head after a moment of thought. "No, I think they've got everything under control," he said, glancing over at Doc, who nodded in agreement.
"Well, then," Clara said, looking to the visitors. "I hope you both have a safe trip back. It was no trouble at all hosting you both these last few weeks."
Doc smiled at her. "Nonetheless, thank you for your hospitality."
The local woman turned her own smile to the visitor before the baby monitor squawked to life. Clayton was awake. Clara sighed. "Well, I suppose that's my cue to leave. Goodbye, if I don't see you again before you go."
"Goodbye," Doc echoed.
"Thanks," Marty added as she headed out of the kitchen. He let his fork suddenly drop to the plate and pushed it away, most of the food still left. "Doc, can we just go now? I'm too nervous to cram anything more in; let's just get this over with."
It took little persuasion on the musician's part to convince the scientist of that fact. His own stomach was filled with more butterflies than food -- which, as good as it might've been, simply wasn't very appetizing at the moment. "Sure," he said. "Now that everyone's here."
Both the local Marty and Emmett stood, and each wore peculiar looks on their faces. Emmett looked almost sorry that this moment had arrived, while Marty seemed more curious than anything else. "What's it like, going across dimensions?" he asked as they all headed for the back door.
"Precisely the same as it is going to another time," Doc said. "This is why you may not be aware that you're even doing it."
"So how will you know if you made it home or not?" the local musician asked.
"Doc said there shouldn't be any doubles of us," his counterpart answered. "And, I guess, it would feel like home, too. Though we gotten fooled a couple times before...."
"We'll know when we get there," Doc said, positive about this. "Though I suppose it's not beyond the realm of scientific possibility that there could be an almost identical world we could land in -- barring only the faintest of changes, like someone's hair color or eye color or whatnot. However, the time machine should take us back home, now -- not to a new dimension."
"What if it doesn't?" Local Marty asked.
"We'll deal with it," Doc said simply, even as his Marty gave a shudder at the idea.
The group went into the lab and down the stairs to the waiting train. Marty wasted little time in climbing into the cab, clearly eager to bring on the inevitable, while Doc lingered a moment on the steps.
"Thank you so much for your help," he told Emmett, sincerely. "I don't know how much more Marty and I could've taken if we had to keep going."
"I didn't mind at all," Emmett said. "It brought back some good memories of my own -- and piqued my own curiosity about this dimensional travel business."
Doc sighed wistfully, remembering a time several years ago where he had actually lamented his lack of experience in that area. "Oh, it'll pass quickly when you're in the middle of it all," he said. "Frankly, I wouldn't wish it on anyone."
Emmett shrugged, and Doc knew he didn't really see that particularly point of view on that statement. Well, it took a few bad experiences to cure him of that desire, so he really couldn't blame his counterpart. He held his hand out to the local. "Thank you, again, for everything. Good luck with your future."
Emmett took his hand and they shook. "Good luck to you both, too," he said. "I'm sure you'll make it home."
Doc smiled. "Indeed." He looked to the local Marty, standing a step away. "Good luck to you, too, Marty."
"Thanks," the musician said. Doc turned and stepped all the way into the cab, nearly running right into his Marty, who had been hovering right behind him. The visiting musician leaned out of the cab door, towards his other self.
"Go out and meet some girls, now," he advised. "And stop obsessing about the past. Okay?"
Doc half expected the advice -- given almost as a demand -- to generate a sharp retort. But instead the local Marty -- who had genuinely seemed happier and more at ease in the last week than any of the days prior -- simply grinned. "You bet," he said. "Just as long as you realize how lucky you are."
"Oh, I know, believe me," the visiting Marty said with his own smile. He ducked back into the cab, and Doc finally shut the door as the engines roared in anticipation of transit.
"This it, Doc?" Marty asked as he took a few steps back and sat down at the rear of the cab.
"One hopes," Doc said softly. He double checked the destination time and all the readouts, then eased the throttle out and forward. The train lurched a few feet, groaning, then smoothed out. Doc sighed a little, relieved, and the noise was echoed behind him by Marty. The time machine inched down the tunnel, eventually emerging into the predawn air. The inventor paused long enough to activate the hover conversion, then they were moving up and away from their home-away-from-home for the last near-month.
"How fast, Doc?" Marty asked. "I can't see the speedometer from back here; it's too dark."
"Fifty, now," Doc said. He counted up as he increased the speed of the time machine. "Fifty-eight.... sixty.... sixty-five... seventy... eighty... eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight!"
There was a blinding flash of light and the triple sonic booms rattled the train and everything in it. Then the glow dissipated, the darkened skies of Hill Valley replaced by a grey, mid-afternoon one. Rain suddenly slammed into the vehicle, the sound a roar. Doc gasped at the sound, startled. He had all but forgotten the wet and miserable weather that had drenched almost every version of November 12th that they had come across.
"Rain," Marty muttered from the back. "Well, that's a good sign, I guess."
"Perhaps so," Doc agreed, slowing the train down in order to peer through the windows. Through the sheets of water now streaming down the glass, he could glimpse the terrain below, and was able to ascertain a guess as to their current locale. "We're a few miles away from my place. Sit tight; this shouldn't take too long."
Marty didn't sit tight. He unstrapped himself from the seat and was standing at the window next to Doc a moment later, perhaps eager to confirm visually whether or not this was finally, indeed home. After a few moments, he spoke. "I see your house, now."
"As do I," Doc agreed.
Another moment of quiet passed, broken only by the roar of the rain on all sides of the train. "It's not run down," Marty said. "There're lights on."
"Good," Doc said evenly, his voice not betraying the tension he felt inside. It took every bit of self-control he had not to rush ahead with landing the train in his yard, and run outside. Only the nagging possibility of this not being home prevented him from doing just that. Slowly, he eased the time machine closer to the ground, finally settling it on the lawn beside the barn. If this was home, then he could simply park it in the cellar later, once everything was confirmed.
"Let's go see what there is to see," Doc said, once the machine was shut down.
Marty looked almost pale, but he nodded and took a step forward confidently. "Right."
The two men left the train, running towards the house in a misguided attempt to escape getting completely soaked to the bone. Once they reached the semi-sanctity of the covered porch, they slowed their paces considerably. Marty, who had been leading the jog from the train, stopped and gestured for Doc to take the first steps forward.
"It's your house," he said. "You go in."
Doc supposed it was only fair. He took hold of the back doorknob, hesitated a moment, then turned it and pushed it open.
Clara looked up from the oven, where she had been bending in and checking on something. "The turkey is coming along fine and should be ready at six, as scheduled," she reported before Doc could say a word. "Hello, Marty. Emily said you had come over."
Doc turned and glanced at Marty. The musician's eyes were wide and hopeful. "Yes," Doc said, finally finding his voice. "I.. ah... I called him over to help me out with testing the modified circuits of the train."
"Oh, yes, that's right," Clara said, closing the oven. "How did that go?"
Once more, the inventor glanced at his friend. "I think it's a long story," he said mildly, still cautiously optimistic that this was indeed home. "Did Jennifer call for Marty at all?"
"No," Clara said, not reacting as if the question was the least bit unusual. "Did you expect her to, Marty?"
"No," the musician said softly. "She's... she's probably still out running errands."
"And I've been in the lab all afternoon?" Doc asked Clara. "Since lunch?"
The woman nodded, the faintest traces of confusion now showing in her eyes. "Yes, Emmett. Is something wrong? You're both acting awfully peculiar."
"I don't know," the inventor said honestly. "Let's go back to the lab, Marty. You need... you need to get your jacket before you leave, don't you."
"My jacket," Marty echoed. "Right."
The scientist and musician left the house under the puzzled eyes of Clara. They paused on the porch a moment, once the door was closed. "You think this is it, Doc?" Marty wondered. "It seems like it might be."
"If I'm not in the lab, then it might very well be home," Doc said, still cautious. "Let's see what there is to see."
What there was to see was... nothing. Nothing unusual, anyway. The lab was empty, and looked absolutely identical to how Doc had left things before their casual departure to test the train. He sighed deeply as he looked around, and a moment later there was a soft cry from Marty, who had gone up to check the loft.
"What is it?" Doc asked, immediately alarmed.
"Nothing!" Marty called down. "I just found my jacket, Doc -- right where we left it. And it's even still wet!"
Doc smiled at the news, finally beginning to relax. If this wasn't home, then it was a damn close imitation of it. Marty came down the stairs, his jacket slung over one arm and a smile of relief finally showing on his own face.
"I think we did it!" he said, jumping down the last three steps to the floor. "I think we're home, Doc! What do you think?"
"I think...." The inventor paused, his face so serious for a moment that poor Marty blanched. The musician's smile vanished in seconds.
"Oh, God, what is it? What's wrong this time?"
Doc stared at his friend -- then grinned widely and clapped him on the shoulder. "Nothing! Absolutely nothing I can see! I think we did it, Marty! I think we're finally home!"
Marty sighed hard at the announcement, wobbling for a moment, then smacked his friend on the arm none too softly. "Jesus, Doc, don't ever do that to me! I almost had a heart attack!"
"Sorry," Doc said, unable to stop smiling. "I suppose you'll want to continue on to your own home now and make sure everything's as you left it. And if it isn't, Marty, by all means let me know immediately."
"Hell, yes." Marty pulled on his jacket and headed for the door. Doc stopped him two steps from it.
"Oh, and I'll see you and Jennifer later tonight for dinner."
"Dinner?" Marty turned to look at him, his face completely blank for a moment before his memory seemed to catch up with him. "Right. You still wanna do that?"
"Well, our families are expecting it -- and I think it will give us the chance to tell everyone the long story about today's events just once, without repeating it."
Marty shuddered at the idea. "You bet I'll be there, then. If I never have to tell this story again, it'll be too soon."
* * *
"Jesus!" Verne exclaimed several hours later, once the entire convoluted tale had been told, over the dinner table. Everyone from Clayton to Jennifer was in attendance, save for Jules, still down at med school and missing out. "You and Marty have really been gone for a month?"
"More than a month, technically," Doc corrected. "Though honestly, I can't specify beyond that. Time gets a little hazy when you spend fragments of hours in a wide variety of dimensions."
Jennifer frowned faintly as she glanced at her husband, seated close to her at the table. "I thought your hair looked a little longer than it was this morning, Marty...."
The musician smiled faintly, too content to really care what he looked like. "Can't slip anything past you, can I, Jen?" he asked, giving her leg a warm squeeze under the table. Her hand found his and grabbed hold of it tightly, hard enough to bring about a wince.
"No, you can't," Jennifer said softly, her eyes utterly serious and almost scared.
None of the Browns noticed. Verne was shaking his head, so captivated by the story that he had barely touched the food spread out around them. "I can't believe that.... Are you sure you're back now, Dad, that we aren't a different alternate family?"
"We're back," Doc said, his tone leaving no room or trace of doubt. "But the train is out of commission until I can replace everything we had to rip out -- again!" He sighed, looking and sounding exhausted by the very idea.
Marty didn't blame him at all. He was still wiped after the last few days. He had gone straight home once it was confirmed they were back and, intending to wait out Jennifer's absence -- she was indeed still out running errands -- laid down on the couch to watch TV. He figured there was no way he could miss her, since she had to pass through the living room from the garage -- but, unfortunately, he had fallen asleep before the first commercial break and was so exhausted that he didn't wake up when she had arrived home.
Marty would've probably slept right through the evening, possibly all night, if Jennifer hadn't finally woken him at 5:30 and advised him to get ready for the dinner at the Browns'. She knew something was up the second she looked into his eyes, since heavy afternoon naps weren't exactly a habit of his -- and, then, the first thing he did when he saw her face above his was kiss her with a passion that had taken her breath away. That, more than anything else, told her something unusual had happened. Fortunately, Marty's grogginess worked for him, and he was able to keep his mouth shut until Doc could help out with the very long story.
Clara frowned as she pulled Clayton onto her lap. The baby was fussing to get out of his high chair, no doubt annoyed with being confined for the bulk of an hour. "Are you sure that train is even safe anymore, Emmett? What if all the time you spent in other dimensions has harmed it beyond repair?"
"There's nothing wrong with the actual machine," Doc said. "The only areas that were spectacularly failing were the parts that we had to replace in the other dimension last year. I should've remembered to replace them all here the second we came home, but it completely slipped my mind. The train hadn't been used since then, which gave the dimensional frequencies here a lot of time to play havoc with the more sensitive electronics."
Emily had looked rather baffled for most of this conversation, quietly listening, but now she spoke up. "You were gone a month, Daddy?" she asked. When her father nodded, she frowned. "Then how come you're already back? You were here this mornin'...."
The seven-year-old's concepts of time were still somewhat muddled. Verne tried to explain it. "Remember how we've sometimes gone places for a few days or a week and come back and no time has passed here?"
The girl nodded, slowly.
"Well, that's basically what Dad and Marty did today. But we're the only ones who know they left -- no one else does."
"Yes," Doc said. "And I wouldn't bother telling anyone about our little 'vacation'; they wouldn't believe it, Emmy."
Emily stared at her father a moment, then blinked her blue eyes. "Okay," she said. "I didn't know you were gone, anyways."
"Are you sure time travel is even safe, Doc?" Jennifer asked, looking once more at her husband in concern. "I mean, a month.... I don't blame you, not really, but I thought you had precautions in place to keep anything like this from happening."
Marty rubbed the back of his wife's hand, trying to sooth her nerves, as Doc answered the question. "I do have precautions in place to avoid being stranded in a foreign time," he said. "But I've given very little thought to the problem of being stranded in another dimension. It's not as simple as another time machine coming after us; you should know that, after last year."
Jennifer nodded once. "Yes, I remember. But isn't there anything you can to do to avoid things like that happening at all?"
Doc was being put on the spot, and Marty felt someone had to defend him, especially since he recognized the investigative reporter tone in his wife's voice. "Not really, Jen," he said to her, not unkindly. "Who could've predicted that we'd hit a bird that one time? No one. Who would've thought that a door that wasn't shut all the way could cause problems? No one, really. And Doc didn't know that anything was wrong with the train. There's no way in hell he'd set foot in it if that was so -- let alone take me along for the ride!"
Jennifer looked at him, still not appeased. "But Marty... it seems like something always goes wrong when you get near one of Doc's time machines. Didn't you break up your parents the first time?"
"This isn't my fault, or Doc's," Marty said. "What happened with the train was just a weird random thing -- and it probably would've happened to anyone who used that time machine next."
"Time traveling is like driving a car across the city," Verne added. "It's always possible there can be accidents, but most of the time it's pretty safe. Dad wouldn't let any of us come along if it wasn't -- and even if he was cool with it, Mom definitely wouldn't let it slide!"
Jennifer considered the words a moment then sighed. "Yes, I know. I just... a month, Marty? You were gone a month?"
"Hey, I did it that one time before our wedding, and you didn't seem half as upset."
"That was different... that wasn't in another dimension."
Doc cleared his throat, clearly uneasy with the banter between the younger couple. "You have my solemn vow, Jennifer, that I would never intentionally put Marty, or any member of my family, in any situation I deem dangerous or risky. I was just as surprised as your husband was when we found ourselves in the circumstances we did. I will admit some of the blame, though, since I should have remembered to rebuild everything we replaced in the dimension last year."
"I dare say that's a forgivable mistake, Emmett," Clara said. "You had an awful lot on your mind, then." She looked down at the baby on her lap, reminding all of them about just one of the big the events following last years dimensional mishap.
"I'm not blaming you, Doc," Jennifer said again. "I think this whole thing just caught me so off guard... I never expected when I left Marty this afternoon that he might not come home again!"
Marty slipped an arm around his wife's shoulders and pulled her as close as he could, considering they were seated in two different chairs at the dining table. Jennifer rested her head on his shoulder, relaxing into his half embrace, and slipped her own arm around his back.
"Yes, well... that could happen anytime," Doc said softly. "Time travel or no. But right now we're all together, and I think that calls for some celebration." He smiled, a gleam coming to his eye. "It was forty years ago tonight, now, that I sent Marty back home."
"And Biff gave himself the sports almanac and you ended up getting sent back to 1885," Marty said, rattling off a few facts that were so firmly etched in his memory and Doc's. "I don't know why you think this is such a great day, Doc, because it really seems like a lot of crappy things happened...."
"That's not so, Marty. We met success when I sent you home that first time. Biff's stealing of the almanac and my crashing in 1885 set forth the events that allowed me to meet Clara." The inventor looked at his wife and the two exchanged smiles. "November twelfth is a day that represents a triumph over the odds. And I think that tradition has continued today."
"Eh.... Technically, I'd peg the day we left the other dimension for that, but I guess I see your point."
Verne smirked, grabbing his glass of soda. "To November twelfth," he said dramatically, raising the glass high in the air. "May it always be remembered for what it is -- the day that lighting struck the clocktower and created a lasting monument to... time! Or maybe it's the day that time stopped in Hill Valley... or that Man triumphed over Time!"
"Verne..." Clara warned.
Doc chuckled at his son's antics. "No, I think he has a good point." He raised his own glass, of water. "To friends and family."
The rest of the guests picked up their beverages and raised them in the air -- even Emily. "And to never, ever having to live through more than one November twelfth per year," Marty added.
The scientist smiled. "I think that can be arranged," he said.
The group drank from their glasses. And as he swallowed his own water, Marty couldn't help wondering if, somewhere out there, in another dimension, another him in a reality almost identical to this one was doing just that at the same time, in the same circumstances....
Heavy, he thought, and decided right then to stop speculation. He and Doc were home, now, finally. And after seeing everything else out there that the universe or whatnot had to offer, Marty could honestly say that he didn't want to be anywhere else, then.
There was no place that could quite compare to your own home.