Chapter Text
I was like a puzzle piece that didn’t fit.
It wasn’t so bad, not at first. In fact, at first it was great. My house was cleaner than I’d ever seen it, my family was thriving, and Jennifer was still my girl. Plus, I had that awesome new truck. There was really nothing that could have been wrong.
Well, except me. I was wrong.
The first thing that should have made me question my place there was Jennifer. The trip to the lake was such a blast I never gave it much thought, but she was different than the Jennifer I remembered. I chalked it up to not having seen her in a week, but I knew there was more to it than that. The first real sign was when she started talking about her best friend, Lisa.
“Lisa?” I said. “I thought your best friend was Angela.”
Jennifer looked at me as though I were crazy. “Are you kidding? Angela’s such an airheaded mall-maggot. We haven’t been friends since the second grade. You know that.”
I just cleared my throat and nodded vigorously. “Right. Sorry.”
Another thing about this Jennifer was that she loved to talk. And my Jennifer hadn’t exactly been a quiet girl, but when I say this Jennifer loved to talk, I mean she loved to talk. And of course I liked hearing Jennifer's voice, I liked Jennifer. I was just always used to carrying a bit more of the conversation, if you know what I mean.
The visit to the lake was over faster than I really wanted it to be. Even if she wasn’t the Jennifer I remembered, she was still a nice girl. We never got much alone time like we got up there, and I convinced myself the whole “this Jennifer that Jennifer” thing would all pass. Eventually I’d figure the ups and downs of the new universe out, and Jennifer and I would be just fine. So we made the most of our time up there, even if it was sometimes a little awkward on my part.
I expected Jennifer to notice more. My Jennifer was real smart. It seemed the new Jennifer was, too, because she talked to me about astronomy for what must have been four hours, but she didn’t notice my strange behavior like I expected she would. It occurred to me that maybe this Jennifer didn’t know me as well as my Jennifer had.
“Hey, Jen,” I asked on the ride back. Oh, that was another thing. This Jennifer liked being called Jen. “How long have we been together?”
Jen contemplated it for a minute. “‘Bout six months, if I’m counting right. How come?”
I blanched. Six months? No wonder she hadn’t noticed, we’d only been together for six months. I’d been dating Jennifer for a year longer than that.
“Just checking to make sure you knew,” I teased, hoping I sounded convincing enough. Jen shoved me playfully, so I was pretty sure I had.
When I got home from the lake, I went to my room and cried. It almost felt as though Jennifer had died. Hell, maybe she had. Or at least, we’d never be able to see each other again. Jennifer was in some other universe, and I’d never see her again. The DeLorean could only time travel, not universe hop.
Now I was stuck with Jen. Not that it was anything against Jen- she was extremely nice, and interesting too, but it felt like I was dating Jennifer’s identical twin.
I decided I didn’t want to suffer alone. I always liked the company of other people. I grabbed my skateboard and took off towards Doc’s, but not before grabbing a quick bite of dinner.
My family didn’t watch television while we ate, which was weird. I wondered if it was like that every night. My mother cooked a whole, juicy chicken, with peas and baked potatoes to go along with it. I thought it had to be the most extravagant, delicious meal I’d ever seen her cook.
My father and Dave talked about work, how it was good, and my mother went on about the book club she was in. Linda still gave sarcastic comments, so that was reassuring. At least one person is still similar around here , I thought.
Doc’s was about the same as before, too. I was pretty sure one of the clocks was different, but I couldn’t quite remember. Other than that, things hadn’t much changed. It was a relief.
“Hey Doc!” I called.
“Marty! In here!”
I found Doc in the garage, fixing up the DeLorean so he could travel to the year 2015. It had broken when I came back and crashed it into the movie theater, it wouldn’t start no matter what we did and the plutonium chamber had a high chance of exploding (Doc assured me it wouldn’t if we were careful, but I was still wary around the thing).
“Any progress, Doc?”
Einstein bounded over to me when I came in. I ruffled the soft fur on his head and bent down to scratch behind his ears.
“I’m afraid not, Marty. There are too many consequential factors. I could easily set off a chain reaction and the plutonium chamber-”
“Doc, Doc, I’d really not like to think about how I’m sitting in a small garage with a nuclear bomb.”
“Well not a bomb , Marty-”
“Doc!”
Doc sighed. “Right, of course. I know it’s slightly perturbing, but I can assure you there’s no real danger. Well…” He trailed off after that. I felt like I was a little more than “slightly perturbed” at the idea, but I wasn’t no chicken. Anyway, the time machine was cool, I was just getting the hell out of that garage if any signs of radiation started showing themselves.
“Hey Doc?” I said as Doc puttered around the DeLorean. Doc hummed. “Um,” I swallowed thickly. “Is it weird that I feel like things are… different now?”
Doc stilled. “Why, whatever do you mean?”
“I just- I don’t know, Doc. Things aren’t the same as I remember. People aren’t the same as I remember.”
“Well Marty, you changed the timeline,” Doc said. “Everything you did back in 1955 greatly impacted the future. It would be most curious if things were exactly the same as when you’d left them.”
I mulled that over. Doc was right, of course, but it didn’t really help me with Jen.
“In my 1985,” I said, because that’s what I’d begun thinking of it as, my 1985, “Jen goes by Jennifer, and my brother works at a fast food place. My dad works for Biff Tannen instead of the other way around. My mom is an alcoholic and my sister is always getting her heart broken by boys who don’t want her. But here it’s all different.”
Doc nodded thoughtfully. “Is it a good kind of different?”
I almost felt like I was going to cry just thinking about it, so I lied. “Yeah, I guess.”
That night as I tried to fall asleep, I wondered why it wasn’t a good difference. It had something to do with how everyone in my life was suddenly a stranger, which I thought was a fair enough reason. I knew their face and their name, but under the surface they weren’t really my parents, my siblings, my girlfriend. And I hadn’t even talked to my friends yet. I wondered if maybe Needles would be a nice guy now. That’d be a hoot.
Needles was still an asshole. I learned that first period.
I wondered why I felt so grateful for it. I hated Needles, he’d been a real jerk to me as long as I could remember. But the fact that he was pretty much still the same guy (with an even worse fashion sense) had me letting out a relieved sigh, and some of the tension in me dissipated. I still had Doc and Einstein, and I guess I still had Needles. It wasn't exactly reassuring, but it was nice to know.
First period was chemistry. I always thought it was a mistake, making a class that had to do with flames and dangerous chemicals the first period of the day, but it’s not like it was my call. Once, the girl in front of me fell asleep on her bunsen burner and almost all her hair burned off. It was kind of funny, actually, especially since she’d spent over a hundred dollars on a perm the day before.
There was a new kid in class. He was standing at the front of the classroom, talking to the teacher. He was tall, taller than me (which, honestly, has never been a very hard thing to be), with curly black hair that he kept in a short mullet. He was attractive, too, strong jaw and straight nose.
He looked over at me while talking to the teacher and I sunk down a little in my seat. I hadn’t meant to be staring, but I realized pretty much everyone else in the class was, too. I felt kind of bad for him. I’d lived in Hill Valley my whole life, so I didn’t know what it was like to be a new kid.
The teacher stood up then. “Class, this is our new student, Daniel Ramirez,” she said in that bored, tired way of hers. “You can go sit down, Daniel. We’ll start the lesson now.”
Daniel started making his way over to my side of the classroom, and I realized after a moment that he was going to sit next to me. On the way to his seat he high fived Needles. Oh, they’re already buddies. Well that’s just fantastic .
Daniel sat down next to me. He was handsomer up close, and he looked like he worked out too. He was staring at me out of the corner of his eye, sizing me up just like I was him.
“Hi,” he whispered after a moment, so as not to draw the teacher’s attention.
“Uh, hey. Daniel, right?”
Daniel shrugged. “That’s what’s on my birth certificate, but you can call me Blaze.”
“Blaze?”
“It’s my middle name,” he explained. “My dad’s name is Daniel too, so I go by Blaze.”
Blaze was a weird middle name and an even weirder thing to go by, but my own name wasn’t particularly one to die for, either. Plus, Blaze was kind of cool, in a way. It made him sound like some kind of pro wrestler or something.
“What’s your name?” Blaze asked.
“Marty,” I said. “Marty McFly.”
He immediately stiffened. “Oh.”
I wondered for a moment what the problem was, but then I peered past Blaze’s head and saw Needles making faces at me. I gave him the finger. He must have already spread the news to Blaze that I was a no good loser or whatever he liked to tell the new kids about me. Goddamnit, Needles. I wished for second that he really had turned into some kind of nice, considerate do-gooder.
The teacher was giving the lesson by that point, and I figured after a week without school that I should maybe try to get back into the swing of things. 1955 was a nice break from academics, especially since nobody actually knew I’d missed anything. As much as going back had fucked up my life, it was sort of a fun secret.
“Marty, why don’t you work with Daniel.”
I was snapped out of my thoughts. “Huh?” I said, but the teacher had already moved on.
Blaze quirked an eyebrow at me. I could tell he didn’t like me now that he knew who I was. “We’re partners for a project,” he said, voice dripping with distaste.
I sighed. This was going to be fun.