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One day the kid holding onto the back of his truck was gonna get himself killed. Barney knew this and dreaded the day the kid’s death would be on his hands. He’d contemplated putting something on the back of his jeep to deter the little troublemaker from grabbing it, but when he brought the idea up to Ally she gave him the dirtiest look this side of the Rockies, so Barney stopped budgeting for barbed wire and simply dealt with the kid every other morning.

He understood the ‘why’ of the whole grabbin’ the backs of people’s trucks. The kid wanted to get somewhere fast (probably school, the kid always had a backpack on and got off near the high school’s football field), and grabbin’ a lift is faster than skating on your own power. Still, he could at least not wear those headphones! What if an accident happened, or a car behind Barney got fed up with seeing a hitchhiking kid and decided to tap bumpers, or something just as stupid.

Glancing at his rearview mirror again, the kid gave him a polite, embarrassed wave. Barney rolled his eyes and kept his eyes on the road. If the kid wasn’t going to be safe, Barney would have to make up for it and drive quickly but carefully. Every teenager was reckless, but this was on the border of what Barney considered ‘sensible.’ He at least hoped the kid wasn’t this reckless when the cops were around, otherwise they were both gonna get in trouble, and he was attaching that barbed wire on the back of his truck no matter how many dirty looks Ally gave him.

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Edna Strickland didn’t begrudge her lot in life. She had a small apartment to call her own, her loving little Elizabeth, her extensive newspaper collection, and a perfect view of Mulberry Avenue.

Is it the best street in the world? No, but it’s leagues better than living it up like her little brother in his perfect, white-picket fence neighborhood where nothing goes wrong. From here, perched at the window like a hawk with her binoculars and megaphone, she can do her best to end the corruption festering in Hill Valley.

While she focuses on the hooligans roaming the streets that believe they can act so indiscreetly in the streets, she occasionally shifts her attention to the hideous video rental store across the way. She remembers, all the way back in her heyday, how the store used to be that disgusting speakeasy burned to the ground (pride swells in her chest whenever she remembered the glorious flames). Now it was a different den of filth: distributing disturbing and nonsensical movies to every dullard in Hill Valley.

Speaking off, Edna raised her binoculars as she spotted one Biff Tannen exiting the video rental store. She spotted the scantily-clad woman on the front cover of the case before the title and raised her megaphone to scream down at him, “Biff! Don’t think I didn’t spot that disgusting ‘film’ in your hands!”

Biff shouts something up at her, but he’s too far away for Edna to make it out. She can, however, see him raise his middle finger skyward, and she belts a disgusted noise towards him before settling back in her chair.

“Honestly Stanford, were you slacking when that lousy layabout was attending Hill Valley?”

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Lorraine hadn’t thought much of the Hill Valley High Prom of ‘85. Dave attended his Prom begrudgingly, saying that he wanted to hang out with his friends more than slump around a dumb ball, but he came back with a positive attitude about the whole thing. Linda took to the Prom like a fish to water, flaunting her dress with her girlfriends and apparently gaining a new boyfriend out of the party (whatever happened to the old one, no one asked, because Linda gave them all that look that told them they’d regret the tale).

But Marty? Well, Marty definitely wanted to play at the Prom with the Pinheads. That’s what the whole audition fiasco was about, and Lorraine supported her son to the ends of the earth. If Marty got to play, great! If not, well, that Jennifer girl was nice, wasn’t she? No matter what, it looked like Marty had plans for Friday evening no matter what. With any luck, the Prom would wipe the frown off his face and bring back the spark in his eyes that had faded when Emmett Brown left town.

She wasn’t expecting the suit.

Marty hated suits. He said they were stuffy and uncomfortable, and he’d rather wear the school’s mascot costume than ever wear a suit. From what Lorraine has heard from George and Dave, he wasn’t wrong, and if his music really took off he wouldn’t always have to wear one, so she never pushed the issue.

But here he was, standing in the middle of the living room, pacing anxiously back and forth as he fiddled with a red tie. The jacket wasn’t a standard black, either, it was a tight-knit gray-black weave that caught her eye and made something at the back of her brain itch. It felt oddly familiar in a way Lorraine didn’t know if she liked or not.

“What if she doesn’t want to?” Marty asked, looking at his reflection in the backdoor’s glass. “I mean, she already said she would go, and we’ve been talking about the dance forever, but… a lot’s happened since. What if she gets cold feet?”

“Oh Marty, Jennifer adores you!” Lorraine smiled and tried to calm Marty down. Marty always was a worrywart, even about the simpler things, but lately his anxiety seemed to be elevated. Lorraine had chalked it up to be the standard bout of end of high school fears, but something about the way Marty acted the past few months felt wrong in a way that made her gut churn. “Think of it this way, the worst that can happen is she wants some time outside. After all, you’re going to play with your band, right? You’re not going to miss it! It’s not the end of the world!”

That was the wrong thing to say. Marty flinched and looked down at his suit, pulling at the jacket as if to take it off. Lorraine hurried over to place her hands over Marty’s keeping the jacket firmly in place and loosening his tie just a tad. Marty had fidgeted with it so much, the darn thing was almost choking him! “Honey, do you want to go to the Prom with Jennifer?”

“Of course!” Marty insisted. “It’s just… I don’t know if I want to go. I think I’ve had enough of big hoedowns for the rest of my life.”

That was the other thing: sometimes Marty said things that just didn’t line up. Ignoring that Lorraine can’t remember any other parties that have happened recently that would wear her son down, Marty was always eager to go to parties. Not like Linda, no, he was never a very social boy, but he liked them all the same. Now any crowd larger than their little family made him break out in a sweat, and he was always looking over his shoulder. 

“Oh honey,” Lorraine leaned down and kissed Marty’s forehead, holding back tears as she felt Marty flinch away from her. Marty didn’t like it when she got too affectionate, but he’d never flinched before. Lorraine knew she should pry, she wanted to pry, but she was terrified of making things worse. Maybe George could handle it better? Or Doc Brown, whenever he came back. “If you really don’t want to go, no one’s forcing you. I’m sure the Pinheads would understand if you really couldn’t make it.”

Marty smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Nah, I’m already dressed up. I might as well go, damn the consequences.”

“Language young man!”

Marty laughed, a light, polite thing that felt more uncomfortable than happy. Lorraine suddenly recalled another young man wearing a red tie and gray-black tight-weaved suit from thirty years ago, smiling in that same, uncomfortable way that Marty was, and truly felt the depth of whatever she was missing.

Chapter Text

George McFly knows his family could be better. He knows he had his flaws, that Lorraine has her vices, but they could be better. George makes himself out to be a model citizen and did his best to keep Lorraine and the kids that way too, keeping an eye on them as they went about their lives in town, always watching, always caring. 

At the very least, they’re all doing better than Biff Tannen, who has a file of demerits packed tighter than David’s suitcase when he left town. Once, George hacked a security camera in First Citizen Edna’s office and spotted the file, along with a scratched-up placard with Biff’s face on it titled “Most Demerits Accumulated.” George knows that if Biff knew about the title, his old bully would wear the title with pride, and he’d take every chip the matriarch of Hill Valley could put in his block.

Despite his knowledge of the town, George is somewhat lacking in knowledge of how to get his family to be better. Ultimately, there isn’t much he can do, other than tell them to obey the laws and keep their noses out of trouble. He’s already lost Dave and Linda, both his kids booking it out of town once they hit eighteen. Martin is the only one of his kids that actually acts the way George always wanted, a shining example for all of Hill Valley’s youth, but Gorge always worries, especially with his infatuation with that crooked Jennifer Parker. If Biff was Edna’s pet project, then Lorraine was his, because they’ve already lost almost everything, he refused to lose his wife. She was the only good thing that came out of this town, and dangit if George was going to leave her to drown in demerits or, worse, illegal substances.

He wants to set a good example for his family. He does, truly, and has done his best to be that good example. He made sure they memorized the Hill Valley bylaws, that they watched all the educational tapes Citizen Brown released to the public, he always had back-ups of all their regulated outfits. He was a good citizen, he was.

…Except for one thing.

George looks left, then checks the monitors to see if the road is clear. He turns the security camera pointed at the garage to the right just enough to look natural and not suspicious. He waits another seven minutes (lucky number seven!) before standing up and stretching, making sure it looks like he’s just going to take a quick walk around the garage’s inner area before going back to his desk. He walks over to the cabinets, searching through the VHS cases as though he remembered something, digging a little deeper until his fingers hit cardboard.

It’s contraband. It’s so unbelievably contraband that just that little brush sends goosebumps up George’s arm. But it’s in George’s cabinets and with Biff gone to attend that fancy new Citizen Plus program the odds of George ever obtaining it again are slim to none. He’s been pacing himself, just one a day, and only when he’s certain no one will see.

George reaches into the cardboard box and pulls out a single peanut brittle. 

He wants to savor it, but he’s already spent too much time crouched over the box to look natural. He shoves it into his mouth and slowly chews it, savoring the peanut that coats his tongue, the crunch of the nuts, the way it turns gooey as it heats up in his mouth. Normally he keeps the peanut brittle hidden in the house, away from Lorraine’s judging eyes (George knows the hell it would raise if she found the box, the way she’d call him a hypocrite and demand he give her the same amount of slack), but with the dust mites and the condemning of the property until it’s exhumed, George has had to make due with his garage snacking.

George takes the box back to his desk and slumps back in his seat, chewing slowly and only when he’s turned away from the camera. He goes to adjust the camera back to its original setting, only to freeze as he sees Martin standing in the entrance of the garage. George yelps, nearly throwing the precious peanut brittle to the ground and scattering the crackers along the cement. “Son!”

“Hey, dad.” George holds the box close to his chest and can’t look up at Martin. Guilt churns in his gut, along with the sweet crackers. George knows that he’s raised his son well, and he knows that Martin has the county’s penal codes memorized by heart. He knows what his son is about to say, and so, he braces, waiting for… “What are you doing?”

“Huh?” George looks up and his jaw nearly drops, because Martin isn’t in uniform. He’s wearing denim. Double denim, actually, because he has jeans and a jacket on, and a big, puffy vest, and, and…

Maybe George didn’t raise his family well enough, or maybe his one guilty vice made the crack in the foundation of their family. David and Linda’s first signs of rebellion were skirting the dress code regulations, and if Martin is foregoing it entirely, then that means George has lost, lost, lost.

But. Marty doesn’t mention the peanut brittle. He asks if George is okay. He wants to know ‘what’s up’ with his camera system. He even has Lorraine’s time sheet. If Marty isn’t going to mention the illicit substance George has, then George can at least return the favor and not mention how horribly out of line he is with his outlandish outfit (where did he even get a vest like that?).

Maybe George can pull his son back before he goes too far. Maybe that Marty is old enough now (eighteen, eighteen, he can leave just like his siblings) and he should know just how unhappy Hill Valley is. Maybe he already knows, and has decided that if everyone is miserable, why not join along?

Maybe this is penance for his peanut brittle.

Chapter Text

“I figured I’d give this to you as an early gift,” George says, handing Biff a copy of his debut novel. Biff takes it reverently, trying to not let the disgust show on his face. “The signing’s probably going to be a mess, so… why not bend a few rules and get you an advanced copy, already signed?”

Biff isn’t sure where he and McFly stand exactly. Biff has his own business, George has his nerdy books. Biff has a scrappy daughter and an absent wife, George has his three ‘little’ tykes and Lorraine. Biff peaked in high school, George somehow aged like the fine wine he keeps in his liquor cabinet, only used for social events.

It’s weird. Thirty years ago, Biff would’ve sworn things would come out differently. Now, here he is, holding A Match Made in Space, his fingers wrinkled and tired from applying wax all morning. Biff’s never been a literate guy, least of all for anything George McFly had a hand in, but at the very least he could resell it at a jacked-up price to supplement the autoshop’s income. Buncha buttheads would probably fall head over heels for a signed copy of this pulpy trash.

…but maybe he’d read a chapter before scalping it. Just to see how bad it is.

Chapter Text

Mom’s drunk. Again.

No one’s surprised, but Dave thought she’d at least wait until dark to pass out on the couch. Dad’s the only schmuck working late at the office on the fourth (he’s willing to put a twenty on it being Biff-related), so that means the three of them are effectively home alone on the holiday.

When Dave was young, real young, he thought that was a good thing. It meant mom and dad couldn’t nag him, and he could do whatever he wanted. Then he learned that your parents passing out drunk or being at work every hour of the day wasn’t normal, and that holidays are usually spent, y’know, with the family. He watched Linda learn it at six when mom was too drunk to take them to see the fireworks. He saw Marty learn it a little later at eight, when he tried to make his own fireworks and ended up burning the rug, the one good piece of furniture in the whole house.

Dave didn’t blame him. The rug looked stupid anyways.

Before, Dave couldn’t really do a thing for his siblings. They’d sit in their rooms and hear the neighbor’s fireworks crackling overhead, maybe sneak downstairs and turn the TV on low to watch the Macy’s thing that started a few years back. But he’s eighteen now, got his license, got a crappy job at Burger King, got a paycheck and time off for the holidays. He can do something and he’s going to do it right in their backyard.

Dave snuck through the living room, careful to not disturb his mom with the shifting of his plastic grocery bags. Safeway was practically picked clean with the holiday, but Dave managed to snag a six-pack of Tab, a packet of hot dogs on discount, and a few buns. The grill out back hadn’t been used in years, but it should be fine for an hour, maybe. Hopefully.

He wasn’t going to risk calling upstairs for Linda and Marty, he’d wait until the hot dogs were nearly done, or for them to follow their noses once they smelled the meat cooking. He hoped they wouldn’t have to come out because the grill exploded or something, but it’d be just his luck to make the holiday worse.

Oh well, knock on wood. If Mom and Dad weren’t going to put in any effort, Dave was, even if he burned the dogs to charcoal. He’s eighteen, he can do this, he can do this… because no one else will.

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Saturday, October 2nd, 1982A

Marty tried his best to look like he belonged walking down the ratty streets of Hill Valley. He needed to get the hell out of Biff’s casino and shake off his ‘protection contingent.’ Yeah, right, Biff just wanted to keep an eye on him to make sure Marty wasn’t being a little shit.

The distant roar of a bike’s engine was enough warning for Marty to duck into a nearby alley and hide behind a dumpster. A few seconds later, one of the biker gangs came blitzing down the street, shooting wildly into the air and slamming bikes against the lamp posts as they drove by. The screams of those caught unaware in the street were drowned by the crazed laughter of the bikers as they left chaos in their wake.

Envy swirled in Marty’s chest as he waited for them to leave. Despite Biff’s fortune, Marty didn’t have much, if any money. Mom managed to squirrel away probably a couple hundred every month, but she had to be careful with spending it, otherwise Biff might catch on that all the money went to Marty. Marty knew she would send some of that to Dave and Linda… if she knew where they were.

Still, if Marty could somehow get a slice out of Biff’s many, many pies, he’d use that money to get a bike. Marty always wanted his own set of wheels--skateboards were all the rage, but the streets were nowhere near safe enough for him to walk down, let alone ride a board--and bikes were total freedom. They were fast, they were risky, and they didn’t get as vandalized as the cars parked on the curb were.

Hellion. He’d call the bike Hellion. And he’d buy it, convince mom to get on, and ride them both out of this shithole. 

It’d never work, of course. Maybe it would if Marty flew solo, but there was no way he was leaving mom here to fend for herself. Frankly, that was the biggest factor Marty hadn’t left: mom already took so much shit for him, the least he could do was take some for her some evenings. If Marty somehow convinced mom to come with, Biff would chase them both to the ends of the earth. He’d either kill Marty (he’s not stupid, he knows that Biff would gladly kill him and get away with it, just like dad) or keep him under even stricter lock and key to control mom even more. Marty was lucky he could walk outside when Biff was out playing slots with his ‘pals,’ if he lost that…

Better to not think about that. The bikers were long gone, the sound of their revving engines ringing in Marty’s ears. Marty wished it could be humming through his bones, too. Feel something other than the anxiety that filled his chest with every breath, waiting for 3-D or Slick to suddenly pop around the corner.

He didn’t have a lot of time, he never did. Maybe he’d have a little more if he went down a new road, throw the two buttheads off his usual haunts. Marty left the alley and looked up at the fading street sign. 

John F. Kennedy Drive, huh? Haven’t gone down that way yet. The street was dark--either no power, or they wanted as little attention as possible. 

That suited Marty just fine: if he could stay hidden, he would too. Maybe he’d find an old bike he could hotwire or something, try to live out that dying dream before it was too late.

Who was he kidding? It already was.

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Emmett could practically feel Laura’s curiosity all the way across the store as her eyes rove over Marty. The boy (the time traveler! Thirty years! Brought here by something he made!) had been shoved into one of Emmett’s tighter shirts and disastrously rolled up pants as they made their way into town. He’d had the good grace to not complain when handed the scrounge up clothing, though he’d clearly looked uncomfortable walking to and sitting in Emmett’s car, and right now he looked like he wanted to dive into a hole and disappear.

Bad mental word choice there, Emmett thought. The boy was already liable to literally disappear as a result of his own actions. Best not to think that into existence as they stand at the mercy of the boutique owner.

“Well, we have a lot of clothes for sale,” Laura said with the barely-restrained tone of someone who really wanted to ask “what in the hell have you dragged in here this time Emmett Brown?”

“Good,” Emmett replied, patting his jacket pocket where his wallet sits, heavy with recently withdrawn bills. “Because we need at least a week’s worth.”

Laura rolled her eyes but raised her hands in defeat. “So long as you can pay for it, the store’s yours to peruse. Changing room’s in the back, kid.”

“Uh… thanks.” Marty said, tense until Laura goes to the counter and starts flipping through a magazine. He made his way to Doc’s side, looking at the counters and display mannequins like they’d bite him if he doesn’t maintain eye contact. “You sure it’s okay for us to be here, Doc?”

“Of course it is!” It was odd hearing someone as young as Marty call him doctor, and with such affection as well. There was a weight behind it that the other scientists in Los Alamos didn’t have whenever they addressed him. ‘Doctor Brown’ was addressed with the mutual respect formed out of the knowledge of the dangerous task they had taken. ‘Doc’ was built on the mutual respect of years shared together, a familiarity that was unfamiliar to the him of the present. Such an odd thing to think about.

Emmett physically shook the thoughts from his head. He’s not here to think about the war and what he’d done, he’s here to buy a seventeen year old period-appropriate clothing. He’s already spied a few shirts that look like it would suit Marty’s tastes… though, he only had the one outfit to go off. Still, patterns seem to have stayed a consistent fashion trend in the 80s, even with nuclear fallout. “Why wouldn’t it be okay?”

“Well, the owner was giving us a weird look…” Marty carefully picked up one of the silk shirts. It was on the fancier end, certainly, but Marty treated it as though touching it would crumple if he held it wrong. “And a lot of this stuff looks expensive.”

“The ‘weird look’ was likely because she recognized you’re wearing my clothes. You’re hardly inconspicuous right now, future boy.” Emmett almost ran towards the pants section, finding a few respectable pairs and holding them up to see if the length was correct. Thankfully, he and Marty had a somewhat similar build, but Emmett easily had a foot of height, thus everything on Marty was much longer than necessary. “And yes, the clothes here are high quality, so they are a bit pricier. Still, you needn’t worry about the cost, I have enough to foot the bill.”

Marty gave him a surprised look at that. Emmett did his best to not dissect it. Too much knowledge concerning his own future could have catastrophic repercussions, but it was hard to not consider the possible explanations behind said look. It could be that Emmett simply didn’t have a lot of spare cash (which is likely, that car looked expensive, not to mention the costs of modifying it for his purposes and building the necessary circuitry in the first place), or perhaps Emmett rarely bought things for the boy (unlikely, considering the supposed depth of their relationship and that Emmett was currently spending a decently large chunk of cash on the boy’s wardrobe of all things).

“Wait, why would she know what your clothes look like?”

“Because I purchased my entire wardrobe here.” Emmett smirked. “Laura’s known me for years now. I may not buy clothes here regularly, but she likely has an idea of what her own catalog from a few years back had. Besides, I walked in with you and those pants are clearly only long enough for me.”

Marty blushed and self-consciously adjusted the waist of his pants. Ironically, because of the height difference, they were as high up as his time period’s jeans. It was possibly the only thing Marty seemed to not mind about the ensemble, even if his belt was probably choking his midsection. Still, Emmett grabbed a new outfit--a pair of pleated slacks, a pink shirt, and one of those two-colored jackets that the teens around town seemed to love. He all but threw them at Marty and ushered him towards the changing room. “Now, tell me if these fit, and I’ll grab more for you to try. Let me know if there’s anything you like specifically!”

“Jeez, alright Doc, no need to rush.” Marty said, holding the new clothes close to his chest. The changing curtain swished closed and Doc stood there for a few seconds, almost waiting for the future boy to burst out and have second thoughts about his new attire.

A warm chuckle from the counter drew Emmett’s attention. Laura winked at him from over her copy of this week’s ONE Magazine. “The rumor mill is going to spin like crazy, Emmett.”

“Oh, hush now.” Emmett kept his voice low, not only so Marty wouldn’t overhear, but also embarrassment. He knew exactly how this looked, which is why he took Marty to Laura’s and not Bloomingdale’s. Laura was usually discreet, even when it came to gossip. They both knew better than to flaunt their… odd tendencies.

“You’re going to be famous with the girls this week.” Laura teased. Before Emmett could retort, the changing curtain rustled, and Laura ducked behind her magazine just before Marty poked his head out.

“Hey, Doc?” Marty held the shirt out. “This is a little too tight. Could you get me one that’s a size larger?”

“Of course.” Emmett took the shirt, ignoring Laura’s gossip-hungry eyes burning his back as he went to the shirt section. Even when Marty left for his home time period, Emmett knew he was certainly going to be remembered by a small section of Hill Valley’s populace.

Chapter Text

“You. You did this to me.”

Marty winced at the budding anger in Emmett’s tone. He knew that this was going to be bad. Marty saw just how Doc fell head over heels for Clara and knew that the only reason he hadn’t been glued to her side was because of the Delorean and Tannen. He saw just how doe-eyed and weak-kneed Emmett became whenever he talked about Edna, or saw Edna, or even thought about Edna for longer than thirty seconds. He knew that he was going to ruin a really, genuinely valuable suit and make Edna think Emmett was the scum of the earth.

…He didn’t realize how dramatic Trixie would be, though. Marty had to give credit where credit was due: Edna might’ve broken up just with the suit and Mental Alignment Meter fiasco, but Trixie was the one that really sold the whole thing.

“I had to.” Marty replied, trying to convey everything that had happened without spilling his guts. This was necessary. Cruel, but necessary. Just like taking Lorraine out to the dance, just like threatening George to date Lorraine, just like robbing a train, just like getting shot and making Doc think he was dead. It had to be, there wasn’t any other way.

“Had to?” Emmett yelled. Before this whole 1931 trip, Marty never thought Doc could really yell. He knew Doc could scream, certainly. He’d scared Doc more than once even before the DeLorean, and sometimes he can hear “1.21 gigawatts!” echoing in his nightmares. He’d heard Doc yell at Buford in the old west, but that was after seeing Marty nearly get hanged. He was rarely angry enough to yell at anyone.

Citizen Brown was angry, though. Citizen Brown was very, very angry. And so was Emmett, when he really got into the swing of things.

“Yes! I had to. Doc, you don’t understand—”

“You’re right! I don’t understand, and that’s entirely the problem!” Emmett stood up—the stupid light on his helmet was bright red and god, did Marty want to rip that thing off and fling it out to the streets. “You come in and out of my life and change it at every major moment. You cajole me into leaving law, you set me up to be the hero to get the girl of my dreams—”

“You’ve been dating her for barely a month, Emmett!”

“Then you show up on the day of the expo—no, the day I’m planning on proposing to her and finally, finally being the man my father wants me to be, and you go and ruin it! You—you had the cleaning solution, you were messing around in the lab with the Mental Alignment Meter—”

“That thing is bad news. Anything Edna had her hands all over turns out screwy, Emmett.”

“Including me?” Emmett screamed. Marty could see tears in the corners of Emmett’s eyes and felt his own start to burn as his chest went tight. He couldn’t tell if he was sad or upset or frustrated that Emmett still hadn’t snapped out of it. “Why? Why did you ruin my life?”

“I ruined your life?” The past days of stress finally cracked Marty’s barely-held together composure. Seeing two alternate ‘86s, nearly dying from mobsters, seeing his family get ruined and everything he knew stripped away… “You ruined mine! I came here because of you, and everything went screwy as a result! You wanna know why I ruined your life, Emmett? It only felt fair to return the favor!” 

“I barely know you!”

“Yeah, well maybe that’s a good thing!” Marty threw up his hands. “Maybe you’ll never know me! Maybe you’ll never realize just how badly Edna’s twisted you around to use you however she wanted! Maybe I’ll walk into the desert and just die out there, because it’s better than going back to world where my best friend is all wrong! I’ve lost everything, and it’s all cuz of you!”

Emmett shook his head and glared at Marty. “We’re not ‘friends’ Corleone, you… you…” Emmett gestured flusteredly. “You double-backer!”

Marty let out a manic laugh as he ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s double-crosser. By the way, if you’re gonna insult me, might as well use my real name.”

“Your real…?” Emmett’s eyes widen at the implication before his expression twists in rage.

“Yeah. It’s Marty.” Marty held out his hands. “I lied to you about everything, Emmett. Aren’t I the best?”

Chapter Text

Saturday
January 25th, 2:58 AM
1986

Marty’s been standing at the fridge for five minutes now. The door is wide open, cold air leaking out into the kitchen, the light bleeding out across the tiled floor. His hand is wrapped around the metal handle as he stares at the full shelves and feels his heart beat double-time in his chest.

He woke up from some half-remembered dream (not a nightmare, thank god, he’s sick to death of them) and was parched, so he went to get a drink. Dad said he’d been to the store, so they should’ve had some Tab in the fridge.

He found the Tab just fine. He also found a six-pack of Lite Beer.

No one in the family likes beer, not even… not even before. But in that 'before,' they had a pack because Biff liked Lite Beer, and George always offered a drink to his ‘boss’ whenever he visited. Ever since the DeLorean got smashed, Marty hasn’t seen a single can in the house.

And yet, here’s six of them, held together with their plastic ties, innocuously sitting in the middle of the shelf.

This shouldn’t be worrying. It shouldn’t. Marty is over-reacting, has to be. He could even be dreaming. Yeah, that's it, this is just a weird dream. When he next blinks, the beer will be gone.

Marty blinks.

The beers are still there.

Down the hall, the grandfather clock rings three times.

Marty’s hand tightens and loosens around the handle. They didn’t have a grandfather clock before —well, they did, but it didn’t work. The ringing should mean that everything’s fine, nothing’s changed.

God, he wishes he could call Doc. Jen wouldn’t be bad either, but he doesn’t want to wake her this late in the night. Doc never minded late-night calls, he always gave Marty is own fair share in return.

It hurts to think of Doc in the past tense. It hurts and god, Marty just wants it to stop hurting.

“Marty?”

Marty jumps and spins to see Linda wince as the refrigerator light shines directly on her. She rubs the sleep out of her eyes as she looks at him, her sleep shirt sloughing off her shoulder. Her pajamas are nice, not the hand-me-downs that Marty’s used to. Good.

“Hey,” he says, holding onto the handle like a lifeline. “What’re you doing up?”

“Got thirsty.” Linda enters the kitchen and grabs a glass from one of the cabinets. She goes to the sink to fill it up about halfway before downing the entire thing in one go. As she fills it up again, she asks, “Why’re you standing there all creepy looking? Did you get hot or something?”

“No, I, uh…” Marty wants to close the door, but can’t. The beers are still there, shining in the refrigerator light. “Just… wanted a soda.”

“Yeah?” Linda comes up beside him, going to grab a can of Tab before she spots the beers and stops. “Ugh, gross.”

“They’re not supposed to be there?”

“Uh… I don’t know about ‘supposed to,’ but I think Dave bought them for an office party or something tomorrow.” Linda grabs the Tab and holds it out for Marty. She raises a brow at him, as if to say ‘you really couldn’t grab a can by yourself?’ before asking, “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m fine,” Marty says, taking the can from Linda’s hand. He looks at the pack of Lite Beer and thinks office party, office party, not a Biff pleaser, an office party.

Marty closes the door.

Chapter Text

The casino shines with sparkling gold lights, all the glitz and glamor of Vegas brought into the heart of Hill Valley. His own face grins down on the passing buttheads, who give Biff and his security a wide berth. They know who he is, everyone knows who he is, and if they somehow didn’t they were gonna learn. After all, it’s his name spelled out in those shining lights.

Biff is the king of the little shithole that is Hill Valley. He has money, power, and the entire city council wrapped around his shoulders. It’s annoying, managing all these people and his various businesses, all while keeping up with his gambling winnings and keeping everyone else at arm’s length, but it’s worth it. George McFly took his title of king of Hill Valley High, now he rules over everyone, every thing.

There’s just one last thing Biff wants that George McFly still has and, with the police currently taking orders from him after his very generous contributions to their budget, it shouldn’t be that hard to arrange.

An ugly grin stretched across Biff’s face, mirroring the one on the casino’s sign. Biff may not have everything he’s ever wanted, ever needed, but it won’t be long until he does.

Chapter Text

Michael looks good in a suit. That’s the first thought that crosses Emmett’s mind when he spies his sort-of-friend in the town square two months after he vanished off the face of the earth, and he shakes it away just as quickly as it popped into his temporal lobe. Michael didn’t really deserve compliments after ditching him that quickly.

…Alright, Emmett’s being a little dramatic, just a bit. Even if Michael really wasn’t a patent officer, that evening spent together had bolstered Emmett’s bravery for inventing. Additionally, there’s only so many troubles someone’s friend could get into that would require a rocket-powered drill. With the timely disappearance of Carl Sagan the next day, Emmett could only assume they had gotten involved with the speakeasy business and crossed the Tannen mob somehow, so they had to get the hell outta dodge. If Michael hadn’t fled town entirely, he had been laying low since June to avoid suspicion. 

Emmett’s theory was proving only more and more accurate with each passing day without Michael showing up. Tonight all but confirmed it; not only is his friend back in town, but he somehow got his hands on a rather swanky looking suit. Dark gray, fit to form, and a matching fedora to boot! Michael had rather drab clothes on before—completely respectable clothes, mind, but nothing like what Emmett or his father would wear—so he had to have gotten the money for that somehow. Emmett doubted the DA would give him a lump sum to rat on Kid, but…

Well, Emmett doesn’t really think it matters. A nice suit is a nice suit, and it looks damn good on Michael.

He could definitely ditch the mustache, though. He doesn’t have the face for it and, for some reason, it looks more like two fuzzy caterpillars perched on his lip instead of his natural hair. If Emmett could weasel Michael away from whatever odd job he’d gotten wrangled in, maybe he could convince him to borrow Pop’s razor.

Chapter Text

Friday
October 25, 4:34 PM
1985

“Y’know, my parents told me something the other day.”

Marty looks over at Jennifer, the sun lighting his brown hair up like a halo, and she feels her heart skip a beat. “Yeah?”

“It’s… well, they told me that high school sweethearts aren’t built to last.” Jennifer says. “Mom read it in a newspaper article. Apparently only twenty percent continue into college, and even less get married afterwards.”

“Well, my parents stayed together.” Marty shrugs, absently running his finger along his guitar case. “They talk about it all the time: how dad laid Biff out in one punch, and he and mom got together at the dance, and they lived happily ever after.”

“I know.” It isn’t exactly a secret how Mr. and Mrs. McFly got together. Mr. Mcfly talks about it in interviews, and Mrs. McFly has brought it up a few times when Jennifer visited. “It just… made me think, is all.”

“Do your parents not want us together?”

“I don’t think it’s that,” And it isn’t, Jennifer is sure about that much. Her parents like the McFlys, a lot of the town does. And even though Marty wants to be a rockstar, he has good grades, a good family, and good looks. It's enough to sway most anyone's parents about the future, but Jennifer's are another story. “I think they’re just worried about me. They’ve been bugging me about college, too. They want me to look at all my options, I guess.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me about college.” Marty hangs his head back over the bench they’re sitting on. “Not a lot of local schools have good music programs… assuming I even want to go. Maybe I’ll just keep working for Doc. Build up some money while working on music with the Pinheads.”

“At least you have a vague idea of what you want to do,” Jennifer huffs. “I might go to HVC and get my gen-eds first, but I still don’t know what job would be a good fit for me, y’know?”

“Yeah, I getcha.” Marty throws his arm over her shoulders and pulls her close. “Hey, if that demo record is a success, you can take over my job with Doc! Someone’s gotta walk Einie while I’m off touring.”

“Oh, knock it off! I’ll do something better than dog walking!”

“Hey, I don’t only walk Einie. I help Doc with his experiments sometimes. Hell, later tonight, I’m going to film the big one.”

“‘The big one?’”

Marty nods. “It’s whatever Doc’s been working on for the past couple years. He hasn’t even told me everything about it. Sounds like it’s gonna be his big make or break.”

"Just like your demo." Jennifer smiles, but feels an odd pit of dread form in her gut. Doc Brown is a nice man, Jennifer’s met him a few times when she and Marty had a date and she went to his garage to meet up with her boyfriend. There’s no reason to feel apprehensive about whatever experiment Marty’s going to help out with.

So… why does she feel like her parent’s worries for her future are about to come true?

Chapter Text

Finneas cursed the entire Tannen family as he drove out to the sticks of Hill Valley. Damn brat had totalled the back of his truck, denting the metal and completely compromising the integrity of the cargo bed. He’d already lost about fifteen pounds of manure from the collision, and he didn’t feel the tiniest bit guilty that the fool boy’s car was going to smell like cow shit for the next month.

With another swear aimed towards the Tannens, Finneas turned down the dirt road leading to the Peabody Farm. Otis was an old friend of his, and Finneas always made sure to provide him with the finest manure. He hoped that some of the manure being potentially ruined from asphalt and Tannen nonsense wouldn’t ruin their business together. While he had other clients, Otis always requested a lot for his precious pine trees, and who was Finneas to deny him (and his money)?

It was a shock when Finneas turned onto Peabody Farm and saw only one pine standing. The second pine had been laid flat, splinters of wood and pine needles scattered across the lawn, the fence blown to smithereens. Finneas saw little Sherman Peabody playing with the scraps and leaned out the driver-side window. “Hey kiddo, what happened?”

Sherman looked up with a crazed smile and ran over to Finneas, holding up a comic book. “It was crazy uncle Finny! A alien crashed into the barn and Pop shot at it, but then it flew off in its saucer and hit the tree!”

“It’s an alien Sherman.” Finneas corrected before everything Sherman said processed. “Wait, what?”

“It’s true!” Sherman insisted and held up his comic book, pointing at the martian on the cover. Finneas vaguely recognized the comic from window shopping around town, a popular science fiction series that was all the rage with the kids, apparently. “Pop’s out in town tryin’ to find it, but it already morphed into a human form. It’ll probably start eating people’s brains soon!”

“Right…” Finneas muttered, carefully putting his truck in reverse before pulling out of the farm entirely. It sounded like, even without Tannen’s trouble-making, Finneas’ business with the Peabodys was going to be lessened in the future, if not ended entirely.

Aliens. Finneas shook his head. Maybe all those hours tending to his pines and sweating over the manure fumes were going to Otis’ head.

Chapter Text

It’s a miracle Marty’s room was identical to how it was before.

Well, almost identical. Marty didn’t notice at first that he was missing a few records and had gained a couple new ones in his collection. He had a new sound system—nothing fancy, but it was definitely nicer than the CD player he’d scavenged from the trash and repaired with Doc. A lot of his hand-me-downs from Dave were missing, replaced with shiny new shirts. A quick trip into Dave’s bedroom when he was out at work proved that the shirts had never been passed down. 

It took a bit for Marty to realize why: the McFlys had money. They weren’t rich, but they definitely weren’t poor or hurting for cash. Mom was a real estate agent instead of staying at home, Dad was a famous author who published short stories before his big novel, Dave worked in the office (somewhere--still needed to learn which office and what company) and Linda had a job at a boutique. Which… great! It was all great. Marty was relieved his family was doing well instead of trudging along.

But it made going out of his room a lot more intimidating.

Everything was vaguely laid out the same: Marty’s room was furthest down the hall, Dave’s was right across from his, Linda was a little closer to the entrance, along with the bathroom. Mom and Dad’s room was down on the opposite end of the house, the living room and kitchen were still in the center, and then there was the garage. The layout was right, thank god, but everything else?

The decor, the furniture, the rugs, the paintings, hell, even the lights… all of it was different. Fancy. Not right.

Marty suddenly found himself missing things. Absurd things. He missed the model boat that was hung on the wall, he’d always trace his fingers along the outside, catching the windows and counting them as he went. He missed the smell of his father’s hair oil, even though his dad’s hair looked miles better than it did before. He even found himself missing the gross cigarette smoke that lingered around his mother and anything she touched, even though it was definitely better that the smell was gone.

He missed Dave’s shirts. They were right there, across the hall, sitting unused in a dresser drawer, but they weren’t his. They never really were, anyways.

It felt odd leaving his room, like he’d accidentally sleepwalked into a stranger’s house. Marty found himself leaving through the window more often than not, those first weeks after… after everything. It was easier to dip out, skipping breakfast and waiting until lunch period to eat. He got the standard cafeteria food that was crappy and gross and really didn’t settle well on an empty stomach, but it was better than sitting at the table eating a fancy breakfast that mom made just for him.

Marty realized one morning as he was halfway out the window that even though he could face down Biff and Mad Dog and do all these crazy things, he really was a chicken at heart. He couldn’t even face his family over breakfast. He’d started avoiding dinner too, sneaking out to grab a bite from Burger King and eat at Doc’s garage. It was better than seeing the concerned looks his parents were sending him as he ate, and even Linda and Dave were starting to catch on and look worried. But Marty was fine. Everything was fine. Everything was better!

It was the house. The house was wrong, and so was everything in it. Marty was just going to have to deal with it being wrong until it was right.

“Dammit Doc,” Marty said as he finished his burger, staring out into the dark confines of the garage (the only thing that felt right anymore). “Where the hell are you?”

Chapter Text

Doc picked up Einie at some point. Marty knew because, thankfully, Doc left a letter in the garage saying as much, and Marty can’t imagine that any dog thief would leave him a letter addressed to him saying that somehow else stole the town cook’s dog. 

Marty was relieved, of course. Einstein was Doc’s friend for even longer than Marty, to the point where Marty can’t really imagine one without the other. Plus, Doc had kids now (the concept of which was absolutely mind boggling to Marty, and was another thought placed in the ‘don’t think too hard about it’ box to unpack later), and every kid wanted a dog.

Including Marty.

There was never a family pet for the McFlys, even though Marty had begged and pleaded to have a new puppy. Looking back, it made sense why his parents were so against it (well, Mom was, Dad was almost willing but folded every time). They barely had enough money for the five of them, so adding a pet into the mix would’ve been a recipe for disaster. Add in Biff’s attitude and Mom’s… problems, and a pet really wouldn’t have helped. If anything, whatever animal they would’ve been able to afford would be just as miserable as they were.

Marty knew that Einstein being with Doc was for the best, but there was a tiny part of him that wished that he could’ve taken Einstein home with him. His family had money now, enough to take care of Einstein comfortably until Doc came back. Mom and Dad would probably love him, Linda might hate him because dogs were messy and all of that, and Dave wouldn’t be around enough to form an opinion because of his job. Marty would take on all the work: walking, playing, feeding, bathing, even vet appointments when they came up. He’d do anything for Einstein, just like he’d do anything for Doc.

It wasn’t all altruism or nostalgic yearning, though. Every time Marty went to the garage to destress from the day (apparently he had good grades now, and those good grades came from the really good classes, so he couldn’t afford to slack off), he missed the sound of Doc tinkering with some contraption at his desk and Einstein running over to great him. He knew that, for whatever reason, Doc couldn’t come right back to 1985, but at the very least he hoped that Einstein would’ve stuck around to lessen the blow of the distance between now and whenever Doc was.

Chapter Text

Marty’s mad for about two minutes after realizing Biff stole his idea with the whole sports almanac. Frankly, he’s more upset about the DeLorean being stolen (somehow—wasn’t Doc supposed to stay with it the whole time?) and this new 1985 being so monstrously awful than being copied.

But then he remembers seeing Biff—the old Biff, from the old 2015—and the new Biff from 1985 that waxed cars and was kind of a wimp, and… Marty gets it. He hates that he gets it, but he does.

Barely a week ago Marty was terrified his future wasn’t going to be any better than Dave or Linda’s. He was going to be stuck in Hill Valley, working at a dead-end part-time job without a bit of hope that he’d break free of the ‘McFly curse.’ He’d become an accountant, just like his dad, and watch Needles live out his dreams with his parents’ money backing him up.

‘Money doesn’t buy happiness’ is a load of bull. Money may not be able to buy literal happiness, but it can buy a house, it buys food, it buys clothes, it buys safety. Marty didn’t have that safety, all he had were his own bootstraps. So, when he saw that almanac, he saw that potential future where he wasn’t hurting for cash and… well, he’d already seen time travel fix his family once, would it really be so bad if he guaranteed his own future was even more safe?

Time travel is dangerous. Marty knows that first hand from, y’know, nearly getting written out of existence. Biff probably didn’t know the dangers, but Marty knows that people are willing to do a lot of stupid things for even the slimmest possibility of being better off. Being an auto-detailer can’t have paid much, and his future grandson was a real chip off the old block. Hell, Marty is having second thoughts about having kids if his own son ends up being such a pushover.

He’s glad Doc talked him out of using the almanac. Doc understands just as well as Marty the stress of living on scraps. Living out of a garage with a dog isn’t exactly bank-worthy material, and Doc never had a consistent job as far as Marty knows. If anything, seeing hell on earth as they scavenge materials from this alternate garage with even less makes Doc’s stance even more understandable.

But Biff doesn’t have a Doc, and Old Biff had even less. All that he had was his company and a grandson that got thrown into jail (Marty wonders what the hell happened to Tiff, then thinks it’s probably for the best he doesn’t know) and a business that was probably losing profits to Texaco. Marty wanted the almanac to ensure his unwritten future had a back-up plan, Biff wanted the almanac to completely overwrite his shitty past.

So… Marty gets it. It’s the worst thing in the world to stare at the man who has single-handedly ruined his life and countless others and realize that he can understand. It doesn’t excuse any of it: the monopolizing of every little thing in Hill Valley, the murder of his father and the abuse of his mother, the commitment of Doc and the destruction of his family. 

Marty sees what he could have been if he didn’t have Doc to steer him right, and hates every little bit of it. To make up for it, he’d steal Biff’s idea in return: he’s going to go back and erase all of this, if only to settle the score.

Chapter Text

Marty was still processing everything in the wake of learning about his family’s… gift.  

He’d been dealing with odd urges and situations ever since he and Doc wrapped up their trip to 1931. Marty thought it was all some weird screwy-ness from time traveling and that it was just another thing he had to adjust to. So what if he growled at Needles? The guy was annoying. So what if he could hear a kid blowing a dog whistle while he was taking Einstein on their usual walk? That probably meant his hearing was damn near perfect. So what if he got a whole keg of beer for Leech on a dare because his voice dropped? Maybe that meant his puberty wasn’t done and he’d get another growth spurt, finally catch up with his dad and Dave.

In hindsight, denial was a hell of a drug.

First day of June, he was on a sort-of-date with Jennifer when, out of nowhere, he felt hot. Like really hot, borderline heat stroke hot, more than just the early hints of Hill Valley summer slamming into him all at once. He left early with some half-assed excuse about leaving the stove on and ran home, sweating like a pig the whole way and nearly passing out. The first thing he did was drink half a gallon of water straight out of the tap, and when that didn’t help he stumbled to the bathroom to take a cold shower.

He wasn’t expecting to take off his shirt and see that he was covered in a thick layer of hair.

He looked in the mirror as his body stretched and morphed and looked weird and different and even more hairy until it was like his reflection was someone completely different. Marty wasn’t ashamed to admit he screamed. The only thing that kept him from screaming more was the fact that the changes, as bad as they were, stopped. That and dad was a writer now and he worked at home, and he definitely heard that if the knocking on the bathroom door was any indication. Marty didn’t know what happened or what had possibly changed to cause this, but he was determined to not talk about it, not look at it, until he could get to Doc’s, get in the DeLorean, and fix it.

And then his dad, just as hairy and physically different as Marty, kicked the door in and off its hinges to see if he was alright, and things kept getting weirder.

As it turned out: the growling? The enhanced hearing? The weird territorial urges and deep voice? The extremely fast-growing hair? Not a result of time travel! At least, not according to his dad, because he said this had been a thing since at least his great-grandpa Seamus.

‘This’ being the McFlys had the tendency to turn into werewolves. 

“It’s hit you a bit earlier than for me and your grandpa,” George explained as he heated up a bowl of chicken noodle soup (“It helps with the muscle aches!” Dad had said as Marty’s fingers cramped, lengthened, grew claws, and then were back to normal in the span of a minute). “We were both eighteen and, well, it scared the living daylights outta me when I woke up looking like a fur rug!”

Eighteen, huh. Marty did some mental math—the week in 1955 and 1885, the days spent walking around alternate timelines trying to fix the messes he’d made—and realized that with all the jumping around, he probably was eighteen, just not on paper. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I was hoping it skipped a generation.” Dad ran a hand through his hair. “Dave and Linda never showed any symptoms. Plus, this wasn’t a guaranteed thing; your great-uncle Jim never changed once, so I thought, what if it happened again?”

“Yeah, well, that backfired.”

“It’s not wrong to hope your kids get spared from something like this, Marty. One day you’ll understand.”

Marty held back the urge to yell, I’d rather know and be relieved it never happened than have a bomb dropped on me in the last year of high school. Something bitter rose in his throat as he demanded, “Does—does anyone else know about this?”

“Your mother does. We’d only just started dating, and she was the first person I told. She was my rock when I started changing. Dave and Linda don’t know—and don’t worry, I’ll tell them for you when they get home. This is my responsibility to explain.”

The microwave dinged. George pulled the bowl of soup out and passed it to Marty and had the good grace to not comment on how Marty’s hands were shaking. Marty forced himself to take a few bites before asking, “What happens now?”

“The first month is the worst,” George explained, “Random changes, mood swings, headaches, general aches… your body is essentially trying to deal with two different versions of itself and is trying to meet in the middle. It all builds up to the full moon, which is in…” George glanced at the calendar on the wall, looking for the little circles for the moon phases. “A little under two weeks. That’s when you’ll go through a full change, turning into a wolf, and from there things get more manageable.”

“Manageable?” Marty repeated.

“This isn’t something that goes away, son.” George at least looked apologetic as he continued. “Like I said, the first month is the worst. The wolf part of you has just woken up and it’s… volatile, for lack of a better word. Once it gets full control, it settles.”

“And it gets full control on the full moon.”

“Exactly.” George smiled. It faded quickly, however. “And, uh, just for your safety and everyone else, you’re going to stay that night in the Delgado Mine—”

“What?”

“It’s to keep the wolf from going out and running loose on the town. I had to do it, your grandpa had to do it, it’s… sort of a rite of passage. One night in the mine, and you’re officially a McFly!”

Officially a McFly. Yeah, right. Marty shoved the soup away, yipping like a dog as some of it splashed onto his fingers and burned, and then went to listen to Duran Duran in his room. Maybe the rest of the world would make sense after a nap.

Chapter Text

Citizen Brown wipes his brow, sweat and oil staining his fingers as he tightens the final bolt on the DeLorean’s hubcap. He didn’t have a clue why the original tires had complex circuitry on them, nor how to repair them (an original invention of his alternate self, perhaps?), so he had to buy four replacements. They were the least important aspect of the car to focus on, so he’d saved it for last, asking for the wheels to be delivered to a secondary location for him to pick up, ere Edna realized that he was almost ready.

And now… the wheels are done. All the bolts have been appropriately tightened and can spin without issue. The axels are stable, tire pressure properly balanced, the engine fixed and all of the circuitry properly wired. He’s yet to attempt a successful jump into the past, but what better a maiden voyage than to do so in the streets of Hill Valley, dramatically and spectacularly spinning into the town square to pick up Martin—Marty—six months ago.

A pit of familiar guilt swirls in Citizen Brown’s gut. It’s been six months since he last stepped foot in Hill Valley. It’s been twenty-four weeks of doggedly evading Edna and her divorce lawyers, all while finding reputable vendors for replacement parts for a (poorly designed and relatively uncommon) car, not to mention the circuitry required for the time circuits. 

It’s been one hundred eighty days since Citizen Brown has last seen Marty McFly, and he has no clue what’s happened to the boy.

Communication across Hill Valley’s wall was nigh impossible and, considering Marty’s role in snapping Citizen Brown out of Edna’s manipulative grasp, he doubted he would be able to contact Marty easily even within the municipality. He doesn’t doubt that Edna has possibly gone forth with the Citizen Plus program, and that Marty, as well as the rest of the town, were all subjected to the procedure. Speaking from his brief, personal experience with it, he knows not many would resist it, and even fewer would manage to escape it. 

Citizen Brown’s time spent outside of his home has enlightened him to the world and only served to strengthen his resolve to undo Edna’s control over Hill Valley. However, as he stands here, in his tiny ‘garage’ within the Delgado Mine, staring at the repaired time machine, everything is as correct as he could possibly make it… Citizen Brown could only hesitate.

Is this worth pursuing? He’s been married to Edna for fifty-six years—no, fifty-seven, their ‘anniversary’ had passed and with it came Edna’s lawyers—and knows that something must have attracted him to her all those years ago. Specifically, something that wasn’t her total and complete control over him and the town. Was there any chance of convincing her to change for the better, now? To avoid all this trouble? Mankind could not change the past, so what gave Citizen Brown that right?

His fingers brush against the DeLorean’s keys, given to him by Marty all those months ago. His mind flashes to the boy of the future-past, the irregardless nature of the boy’s very being, the way he had pleaded with him—Doc, he remembers—and how the out-of-place boy had begged him to find a way to make it right.

Citizen Brown’s features harden. He opens the door of the DeLorean and puts the keys into the ignition. He turns the time circuits on, hearing the current rush to the flux capacitor. He enters the date in: August 25th, 1931, 8:00 A.M.

Citizen Brown puts the car in drive and heads for Hill Valley.

Chapter Text

Sunday
May 13, 9:34 PM
1973

Marty likes helping his mom. She can’t do a lot of things, like read him bedtime stories (which is fine, Linda reads really good!) or make dinners as tasty as Burger King does (Dave uses up all his fun money for them to share big whoppers), so Marty does a bunch of little things to help his mom. He turns down the TV whenever she gets a headache. He leaves a bucket by the couch whenever she falls asleep there. He makes sure not to complain when he has to eat mom’s dinner and it tastes mushy.

So when mom asks him to help with making a cake, Marty jumps at it. He always liked cakes, and if mom needs help with doing things, Marty can help!

He measures out the flour and dumps it in the bowl, and the sugar, and the vanilla and chocolate powder. He breaks the eggs (really careful, because mom has a headache and tapping eggs is a little too loud) in and mixes it with milk, even pouring in hot water from the sink all on his own! His mixes it all together on the floor, because the bowl’s a little too heavy for him to lift, but mommy smiles down at him and Marty knows he’s done good.

When everything is mixed, mom picks up the bowl and pours it into the pan. Some of it splatters on the counter and when she turns to put it in the oven, Marty swipes it with his finger and licks it.

It… doesn’t taste that good. Maybe it’s because it’s still goopy? Aw, who cares, it’ll taste super good when it’s done because he helped out, and every time Marty helps things get better. The cake is gonna be made, and then they’re going to go to Uncle Joey’s parole hearing (whatever that is), and then Uncle Joey is going to come home and they’re gonna eat the cake!

Marty’s missed Uncle Joey. He doesn’t remember Uncle Joey that well, but he knows that Uncle Joey was the best! He gave him that cool green army men collection, which was the best gift ever, and seeing him tomorrow was going to be awesome! He couldn’t wait to see his uncle again. Maybe he had more army figures he could give wherever he went…

Chapter Text

Lorraine knew that good feeling about George was completely, absolutely, one-hundred percent true when George nervously came up to her and showed her a draft for a short story.

They’d only been steady for about a month (thirty-three days exactly, but who was counting? Certainly not Lorraine) and she couldn’t be happier. Babs and Betty warned her about the honeymoon period and that things would feel more normal after a while, but nothing got dull with their relationship. If anything, everything got brighter. Biff and his weird little goons were leaving them both alone, her parents seemed to be happy about her new boyfriend, and they even parked for a bit after school. That kiss felt so, so much better than it had with Marty, so Lorraine knew that, even if the relationship didn’t keep going, it was still a good one that she’d treasure.

She noticed that George often had his nose stuck in a book. Not the books that are required for class, but all these weird ones, and sometimes a tiny notebook. She noticed that, just before she sits with him at lunch, he’d be frantically writing paragraphs upon paragraphs with his chicken-scratch writing that she was learning to decipher. He always hid it away when Lorraine was nearby, but she didn’t push. George was a sweetheart and could be confident when he wanted to be, he would tell her what all the books and writing was about one day, when he was ready.

When he came up to her after school holding a small collection of paper carefully stapled together, fingers constantly fidgeting around the edges until the pristine edges were crumpled, Lorraine knew he was ready. He smiled nervously and held it out to her, as though he was passing her his firstborn, and said, “Would you mind—I mean, you don’t have to, but—could you read this for me? It’s a first draft for a short story I was thinking about sending around and, well, a fresh pair of eyes could really help me a lot.”

Lorraine smiled so bright it would put the theater lights to shame. If George was willing to share something so intimate and private for himself to her, then the two of them were definitely more than steady. In fact, Lorraine would hedge her bets that they were going to last a lifetime.

Chapter Text

Tap-tap-tap... tap-tap-ta-CRACK

Marty winced when the lightbulb broke on the third hit with the hammer. He was trying to not be too loud, but somehow that tiny glass shattering felt like a gunshot. He looked towards the garage door, half-expecting Emmett’s dad to come charging downstairs to yell at them for being up at one in the morning breaking light bulbs of all things.

He waited a few seconds before the silence wins out and he let out a sign of relief. No angry German judge came running in to yell at Marty for breaking his bulbs, so Marty grabbed another to repeat the process. He didn’t know how many filaments Emmett needed, but they’d grabbed pretty much every single one in the house, and if there was one thing Marty was good at, it was breaking things.

Marty frowned, staring down at the bulb in his hand. What if this didn’t work? What if Marty’s interference was somehow going to make Emmett’s project work in a successful way, and he made some weird utopia? Time travel was a dangerous thing, and the end results were fickle as hell. Every move Marty made felt like guesswork, and this trip in particular, as much as it let him learn more things about his long-time friend, made Marty feel like a complete jerk at times.

“Is something wrong?” Emmett asked from his own desk, putting the already harvested filaments together for whatever experiment he was jury-rigging for the expo. They’d lit a few candles to make up for the lack of electric lights, the warm glow of the flame highlighting Emmett’s red hair and catching his tired gray eyes. “You’ve been staring at those shards for a while now.”

“Nothing’s wrong, Doc. Just… tired, I guess.” How long had it been since Marty had slept? Time spent knocked-out wasn’t exactly sleeping, so… probably too long. “Been a while since I got some time to rest.”

“It is rather late.” Emmett conceded, staring out the garage’s window as though he could divine the exact time by how dark it was outside. “Maybe we should stop for the night? We could try to rush the assembly in the morning. I wouldn’t want to push you too far because I have a crazy new idea.”

Marty considered it for only a moment. Even if his future wasn’t literally riding on Emmett’s showing at the expo, even though he’d need to sleep at some point, he missed this. He missed the late nights going into the wee hours of the morning spent tinkering with Emmett in a stuffy garage littered with miscellaneous scraps. He missed the eyestrain and upper shoulders from leaning over a desk for so long. He missed feeling the odd high of staying up too long, feeling the edges of his mind growing simultaneously dull and sharp. The only thing missing was Einstein’s sleepy huffs and stretches as he’d strut around the garage to find a new sleeping spot.

There had been a lot of gaps in his life since Doc went away, but he hadn’t realized all-nighters were one of them. Marty used to chastise Doc for them since it was usually the result of Doc not taking care of himself. He’d come into the garage and find him slumped over his desk, drooling on papers or whatever circuitry he’d been working on the evening prior. Sometimes Marty would wake him up, other times he’d drape a blanket over Doc and make sure at least a couple of the clocks weren’t about to go off and startle him awake. Now Marty wanted to bottle this feeling and never let go.

“You kidding me?” Marty joked, holding up the bottom of his recently smashed light bulb to shake it at Emmett. “We still got fifteen more of these bad boys to break, not to mention whatever you’re making over there. I’m not tapping out unless you are.”

Emmett gave him a 1.21 gigawatt bright grin and Marty couldn’t help but feel the same way. They were both young, dumb, and had a pot full of black coffee brewing on the side to fuel them. One all-nighter to pull off a scientific miracle wouldn’t kill them. Even if this somehow led to an ultra utopia or some other weird nightmare Hill Valley—knock on wood—Marty would hold onto this feeling tonight and keep it close to his chest for as long as it would take to fix everything again.

Chapter Text

Every time Marty goes to sleep in 1955, he’s either completely dead to the world or wakes up every couple hours seeing Doc laying there in the parking lot, bullet holes peppering his chest as blood pools beneath him. He keeps thinking about what he could’ve done differently; what if the gun had jammed when they shot at Doc instead of him; what if he hadn’t chatted so much and Doc had made that jump to the future long before the Libyans showed up. 

Marty wants to say something, but Doc is as busy and hard-headedly stubborn as he is in ‘85. In fact, he might be more busy: Marty’s on a deadline, and none of Doc’s experiments had a time limit put on them (except for that one month when Doc was interested in making the perfect dog food for Einie, there was a lot of waste clean up that Marty was responsible for, and a lot of pressure to use everything before it expired) so he must be working double-time to fix the DeLorean and make the lightning rod that would power everything. Add on Doc’s reluctance to know anything about the future except the bare minimum necessary, and Marty would have better luck convincing Biff to become a nun than warn Doc about what’s going to happen in thirty years.

It’s equal parts relieving and frustrating not getting any headway about this. Marty wants to talk about it as much as he doesn’t. There’s no easy way to tell someone ‘you’re gonna die,’ least of all Doc. Having to relive that moment is his literal nightmare every damn night, and talking just makes it more real, like it’s a cornerstone moment in Hill Valley’s history that can’t be disrupted without throwing everything out of whack.

But he’s in 1955. The future hasn’t been written yet. If anything, it’s proving day after day that it can be re written, if that photo of Marty and his siblings is any indication. If he could just tell Doc, then maybe…

Marty feels like a chicken, he really does. He could just blurt it out any time he’s in the garage and Doc is leaning over his workbench, but he doesn’t. The words get caught in his throat and he chokes. He wonders if that’s the time stream telling him “no way jose” and stealing his voice, or maybe it’s just his own cowardice.

He writes the letter with his hand trembling. The letters are too wonky the first time, so he tosses it in the cafe’s trash and writes a second one. Sometimes, the ‘easiest’ way to do something is the only way to do it.

Chapter Text

Even with time travel changing everything, the rug fire still happened and Marty was still the one to do it, so the family never trusted him near anything that involved fire. No candle-lighting, no fireplace-tending, no touching the stove or oven. Marty didn’t mind it, except for the last two, since Marty missed making his own low-effort meals. Not that he had to anymore, since mom apparently really liked cooking and could actually cook well, but still.

What did change along with everything else was the ‘annual lake cookout.’ Marty was blindsided when mom told him to pack a swimsuit for the lake, thinking he’d somehow forgotten another date with Jennifer and mom was reminding him. Then everyone was getting piled into the car, Marty squished between Dave and Linda, the trunk filled with food and snacks and a couple logs for a fire.

They apparently did this every year once school let out as a reward for the kids. Even though Dave and Linda had already graduated it was tradition and neither minded going out for a weekend.

It was weird. Marty could count the amount of family trips they’d taken on one hand. Now they had enough to fill up multiple albums, if Linda and Dave’s teasing was any indication.

They get to the lake and immediately get to work. Dad and Dave start setting up the grill for dinner, Mom and Linda get to work on the tent. Marty sat there by the fire pit in an odd state of shock, the lakewater glittering in the early-summer heat, watching something out of The Brady Bunch unfolding with his family.

With nothing to do, Marty grabbed the firewood from the trunk and put it in the pit. They were already wrapped in paper, but he grabbed some dry grass along the way. He put it all in the pit, making sure that the stones were dry and clear of any other kindling, brushed off his hands, and looked at his meager work.

Patting his jacket, Marty found the small matchbook from Biff’s detailing service he used all the way back to burn the Almanac. With a smile, Marty lit the match and gently lowered it to the kindling, gently blowing on the flame to get it going.

“Martin Seamus McFly!” Marty jumped as his mother shouted at him, and he spun around to see her standing by the tent, hands on her hips. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

“Uh…” Marty gestured lamely at the slow-growing campfire. “Prepping for s’mores?”

Chapter Text

“Well, kid…” Emmett stares at the project outline Marty sheepishly handed him, his prospects fading with every new word he reads. “I think you’re shit out of luck.”

Marty’s hopeful expression crashes and burns, his shoulders slump as he goes from sitting up in the chair to leaning back in defeat. “You’re sure?”

“Even if my knowledge of earth sciences wasn’t rudimentary at best,” Emmet turns the assignment sheet around and points at Marty’s specified topic and the teacher’s parameters. “I can’t exactly command the weather to change on a dime for you to perform an experiment on Hill Valley’s rainfall.”

Marty groans and hangs his head in defeat. While the response is somewhat dramatic, Emmett still hates seeing his young friend and protege like this. He wishes he could pull a miracle out of thin air, but there’s little either of them can do. Not only is Hill Valley in the heart of a drought, meaning there’s no storms available for Marty to collect any data, earth sciences are about as far as one in scientific fields could get from atomic physics.

Still, Emmett is curious, “Why did you select a weather experiment for your final? Studying rocks or performing soil tests would have been… simpler. We are in the heart of a desert, after all.”

“I was barely grasping anything we were talking about in class. I figured I’ve been dealing with weather all my life, how hard could it be to do one, tiny experiment?”

“Ah, such is the bane of many scientists… and struggling students. “Emmett looks over the required data points his teacher is asking for from the experiment, as well as the specific points that should be covered in an essay summation of the entire process. “How much is this worth?”

“Thirty percent of my final,” Marty laments. “And with how my grades are right now… I really can’t afford to turn in nothing.”

“I see…” Emmett licks his lips and slams the paper down on the table, making Marty jump. He runs around the tiny garage, whipping up a whirlwind as he grabs his notebook, the accumulated pile of this month’s newspapers, and his coat. The last thing he needs is his van key, but its location eludes him for the moment. “Well, I would say there’s no time like the present, but considering our limited time, we might have to fudge a few things.”

“Fudge a few things?” Marty confusedly repeats as he watches Emmett flit from table to table. With a victorious cry, Emmett holds up his key and makes for the front door, prompting Marty to rise from his chair. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Doc, where are you going?”

“The correction question is, where are we going?” Emmett juggles the newspapers into one arm, a few inner sections of pages falling to the ground mid-transfer as he opens the door. He hurries towards his van and takes the steps up two at a time, piling the newspapers into a somewhat-clean area behind the driver’s seat. “And we are going to the library to gather data on Hill Valley’s precipitation and collective rainfall over the past month to gather data for your experiment!”

“What?” Marty stands at the threshold of the front door and that just won’t do. Emmett closes the back door and runs to Marty’s side with a big grin. “Wait, I thought you said you couldn’t help?”

“Not with a legitimate experiment. There’s no way to change the weather to accurately record a day’s worth of rainfall when the forecast says no storms are coming in for the next week.” And Marty’s experiment was due that Monday. It was currently Friday evening, meaning they had two-and-a-half days to work with—not much, but Emmett has worked under much more severe time limits than that in the past. “However, you can easily gather the date from a prior date, or shift your focus to the lack of rainfall in Hill Valley and how we’re facing an unprecedented change in climate that can affect us into the twenty-first century!”

“So… what, we’re going to lie our way into getting me an okay grade?” Marty grins, exiting Emmett’s garage and walking at his side towards the van. “Thought you were above lying about scientific stuff.”

“Let me give you some sage advice from a time-worn scientist, kid.” Emmett slings an arm around Marty’s shoulder as they walk. “The first is: never wait until the last second! If you can somehow do something earlier, do it then. Or, at the very least, do it as soon as possible and not a moment later!”

“Uh, should I be listening to advice you rarely follow?” Marty questions as he starts up the steps, holding on to a safety bar that Emmett installed just for Marty—the front end was too cramped for an additional seat, but Marty didn’t mind standing.

“Advice is advice, regardless of how well the giver lives by it,” Emmett says as he plops down in the driver’s seat and buckles in. “Which is exactly where my second tip comes in: if you have to wait until the last minute, you better make that minute a good one. And if you can’t make it good through honest work… you fudge it as best you can.”

Chapter Text

About a year ago, Marty asked if Jen could keep his acoustic guitar at her place. He wasn’t afraid to admit he’d gotten spooked: Biff had constantly mocked and made swipes at Marty’s music and instruments multiple times, saying he didn’t deserve to have such nice things when his father could’ve spent that money on “better things.” His parents had talked about needing to make ends meet for the mortgage that month around him and, well… 

Marty didn’t think his parents would sell his stuff out of nowhere and with zero warning, but Marty had just gotten his electric guitar (which was his, he paid for it with his own allowance and pay from walking Einie) and neither of his parents really approved of him wanting to be a rockstar, so… if they wanted to make some quick money, selling a good-quality guitar would be a quick way of doing that.

Marty didn’t ask solely because he trusted Jen with all his heart, it was because Marty couldn’t think of anywhere safer to put it. Sure he could leave it at Doc’s, but how long until it got damaged accidentally? Marty loved Doc, but he wasn’t the most careful person even at the best of times. Doc practically lived by the motto of science being a messy process where mistakes were expected, if not accepted and eagerly awaited for. Doc would care about Marty’s guitar, but Marty wouldn’t even leave his camera at Doc’s, let alone a whole guitar. Jen’s place was a hell of a lot quieter, the only problem would be convincing her parents, but even then, Jen would do everything she could to keep his guitar safe.

Jennifer was flattered and brought it home with her the very next day after school. Thankfully, as much as her parents didn’t like Marty, they were willing to let Jen keep the guitar in her room. Now whenever Marty came over, Jen would come downstairs with his guitar, sit next to him on her porch swing, watch him tune up and listen to him play. Usually Marty played covers of rock songs, the harsher wailing of the chords softened from the lack of electricity humming through the strings. Jen would sing along if she knew the words, sometimes intentionally messing up so Marty would laugh. Other times Marty would improvise, test out original songs he wanted to have the Pinheads play, and she’d hum along with her own made-up melody. They lost hours like that, together, watching the world drift by

They’d sit there until the sun began to set, and Jen’s parents began bugging her to come indoors for dinner. Marty would pack up and skate home, the world feeling just a bit lighter as he remembered the warm feeling of Jennifer pressed against him, her voice humming in his ear as she kept his guitar safe from harm.

Chapter Text

Marty tried to pass off everything being a dream, but Jennifer knew better. Dreams didn’t feel that real, as terrifyingly realistic and dramatic all at once. Dreams didn’t leave her nose tingling with the aftermath of something chemical burning through them. Dreams didn’t explain how she went from Marty’s house to her porch swing. Once she saw Doctor Brown come into town on a steam-powered time-traveling train that could fly, that destroyed any credibility behind the “it was all a dream” theory.

But even if it hadn’t, Jennifer would’ve never said seeing herself in 2015 was a dream.

Jennifer loved Marty, she did, but sometimes she doubted the whole highschool sweethearts deal. Sure, the McFlys got out pretty swell, but maybe her and Marty would graduate and end up with the bad end of the stick. 

She’d never voiced that anxiety aloud, least of all to Marty, because things were good. Both their parents approved of the relationship (the McFlys more than the Parkers, but Jen’s parents have always been a little overprotective), they had plans for the future, they had hopes and dreams and yes, even part-time jobs, so they even had money.

And then… she saw the future laid out in front of them. She saw the Chapel o’ Love, she saw her kids, she saw Marty with his dead-end job and not a single scrap of the backbone she loved, she saw herself.

2015 wasn’t a bad dream, it was a nightmare.

Back in 1985, she saw Marty’s termination letter erase itself right before her eyes, turning into a blank slip with a company logo that didn’t exist yet printed in the top left corner. The paper still existed, and she checked it every weekend. Marty didn’t know she’d kept it, or even what the significance behind it was. She felt guilty about it, since Marty had since fessed up to what happened over the weekend with the DeLorean and Doc and all the time traveling, but she couldn’t bring herself to throw the paper away, let alone tell Marty what she’d seen. After all, if she did, that good feeling between her and Marty might vanish just as easily as the ink on the letter did.

There wasn’t a question in Jennifer’s mind, not really. Just a constant worry that she couldn’t quite put to words, despite feeling like she had to spit it out before it choked her. She still loved Marty, would give him free seconds or a stolen cookie at the diner whenever he dropped in, listened to him talk about his worries and anxieties after dealing with all that space-time stuff that flew over her head, but now…

Now she questioned herself a lot more. Was it really love? Or was it a case of neither of them knowing what they really wanted in life, so they were settling with the safe option? Was Jennifer Marty’s safety net? Was she his?

Jennifer traced a finger over the paper, mapping out where the big, blocky letters spelling YOU’RE FIRED used to be. She knew it was for the best that the letters stayed gone, and she knew that she should throw the paper away, but couldn’t bring herself to crumple it up and throw it all away. It was the most definitive proof that the future she’d visited was real, even if it was unwritten, for the time being. Hopefully when she got there it wouldn’t be a nightmare.

Chapter Text

Thursday
December 31st, 11:23 PM
1885

After the somewhat-failure of the train hijacking, hopefully heralding Marty to the safety of the future while Emmett stayed in the past, returning as the town blacksmith and declaring his best friend “dead” to the western town of Hill Valley… Emmett wasn’t sure what to do next.

It had been three months and a handful of weeks since Emmett had bid the future goodbye, pouring a shot of whiskey into the Shonash (soon-to-be Eastwood, if the sheriff’s word was to be believed, in honor of his ‘late’ friend) Ravine to bid the DeLorean and train adieu. Christmas had come and gone, Emmett providing Clara with a detailed star map from the future that he’d recreated from memory. Clara hadn’t provided a gift, but Emmett hadn’t expected one. She’d been subdued and oddly lethargic these past weeks, but refused to go to the doctor to try and obtain a remedy. Not that Emmett could blame her, he was still horrified by the medical practices of the 1800s, to the point where he looked back on his early childhood’s doctor visits with nostalgic appreciation.

Ah, there he goes again, thinking about the future. Despite his symbolic goodbye, despite how he’d locked the hoverboard away in a wooden crate, never to be seen again, despite burying himself in his blacksmithing work to make due and provide for himself and Clara, he couldn’t stop thinking about the future. Hell, he’d always thought about the future, but now the angle was different. Before he was thinking about the possibilities, the probability of things becoming better, the potential that was waiting to be unleashed in the present that could impact it. Now, however, Emmett knew the future and prayed it wouldn’t change, despite everything pointing to the contrary.

Emmett didn’t believe his presence alone would somehow alter the future so drastically that, say, the next few wars wouldn’t happen, or anything as dramatic. However, he wasn’t supposed to exist in 1885. Neither was Clara, as much as he loved her. They were both unknown variables—nay, liabilities in the time space continuum. Neither were meant to be here, and yet, here they were, waiting for the clock to strike midnight. Out with the old, in with the new.

Still Emmet’s thoughts continued to linger on the eclipsing question: what would happen next? What would their presence in 1885 do to Hill Valley? The Rejuvenation treatment in the even-further-away twenty-first century had extended his life expectancy by decades, guaranteeing he would live to one hundred. That was another forty years, assuming disease or some other factor of the current year didn’t kill him first. He’d live to see the first world war. He’d live to see his father move into Hill Valley. He’d live to see himself be born.

And what of Clara? Unlike Emmett, who could trace his personal and family history through Hill Valley’s lifeblood, Clara was meant to die months ago. Her impact on Emmett’s personal life was already profound, but what about the town? Would she somehow invent a revolutionary method of teaching that would catapult the United States into an educational golden age? Would she inspire a student so much that they would run for president in thirty-odd years, or a wannabe dictator that would overthrow the local government of Hill Valley before spreading to control California, then the entire west coast, and wouldn’t be satisfied until they formed the Western United States?

…ahem. Obviously, Emmett’s tendency to catastrophize hadn’t faded, even with the relative safety of the holidays. Still, the thoughts of what could happen even in the immediate future plagued him, night after night. He was certain Clara had noticed his sudden recalcitrant nature and how dark the bags under his eyes had become. Perhaps his unfortunate foul mood was why she was avoiding him-

“Emmett, dear?” Clara’s voice called from the bedroom, jerking Emmett out of his spiraling thoughts. “Could you come here for a moment? There’s… something I wanted to discuss with you.”

Emmett frowned but stood from his chair, sparing a parting glance out to the moonlit desert lands. The rudimentary clock Emmett had constructed was only a few minutes away from midnight. He was almost tempted to wait until the clock struck twelve so he could greet Clara with a cheerful, “Why, I haven’t seen you since last year!”

No, the longer Emmett delayed, the more upset Clara would become. Going down the hall, Emmett entered their shared bedroom with a warm smile and was greeted with one in return. Clara sat in her chair by the window, her telescope pointed at the stars and gleaming moon above. She was dressed in a simple chemise, her hair down and curling around her cheeks, her skin practically glowing in the candlelight.

Emmett would likely never stop thinking about the future, but for now, he could focus on the here and now and assuage whatever worries his soon-to-be wife had.

Chapter Text

Marty didn’t think there were words that could properly describe the pain of the universe erasing you from existence.

It was painful, obviously. Marty didn’t need big, fancy Doc-level words to explain that it hurt to have yourself being simultaneously pulled apart and somehow pressed into nothingness. Marty’d seen pictures of those medieval torture devices that pull people by their fingers and toes. Marty imagines that being tied to that thing would be more pleasant, because at least it wouldn’t feel like the air itself was pressing down on you, passing through you.

Marty couldn’t describe those brief seconds on the stage during the Enchantment Under the Sea dance. To be completely honest, he couldn’t remember it clearly. The only thing he could remember was the pain and looking down to see his hand was transparent, and then everything snapped back into place when his parents kissed on the dance floor. His heart raced whenever he was at a big dance now, unable to shake that anxiety that he’d suddenly start disappearing. Obviously he never wanted to experience it again.

Except it was happening again, his entire body flickering in and out of existence like a hologram or some shitty movie ghost, and each ripple brought a debilitating wave of pain. Marty bent at the waist and felt nausea slam into him like the time train going eighty-eight and gagged on nothing (because there was nothing—no food in his stomach, no organs in his body, no body to throw up with nothing nothing nothing — ) as he placed a hand on the DeLorean’s front trunk to stabilize himself.

He could still feel the metal, cool from spending the night hidden behind the billboard. Good, that had to be good. He vaguely recalled not being able to feel his fingers at all when playing Earth Angel, which was why he was screwing up the most basic chords ever put into a song. If he could feel the DeLorean under his hand, then that meant there was hope.

As Doc exclaimed in shock and began hypothesizing out loud as to why this was happening, Marty held back a delirious peel of giggles. He wondered if this was at all comparable to what Jen felt when she was on the rag, but he absolutely knew better than to voice that thought. If he had enough brain power to dedicate to off-color jokes, then that had to be another good sign that he wasn’t going to disappear in the next two seconds. Now all he needed was to exist for long enough to figure out what went wrong and fix it.

Chapter Text

Back in his Hill Valley, Marty was a wiz at the arcade. He’d go out with the band some weekends and played with the goal of getting his initials on every cabinet’s high score read-out. Sometimes he didn’t have a lot of money for tokens, so he went all-in with each attempt. Paul could get to the end of Donkey Kong without blinking, Bobby always beat him at the Space Invaders, and Lee was insane at Pac-Man. Marty saw him break the game by going for so long it just couldn’t handle it.

Marty’s game of choice? Wild Gunman.

He didn’t know why his reaction time was so insane, but it extended way beyond video games. He could turn on a dime and take off running in less than a second, and he knew how to recognize the sound of the garage door opening and race to his room in less than a minute. All that Wild Gunman did was actually time just how good Marty’s reflexes were.

When he saw the cabinet for Wild Gunman in Cafe 80s, he had to give it a go. He thought the kids would be impressed—look at this guy, taking out three cowboys in less than two seconds!—only for them to be annoyed that the game had to be played with their hands. Tough luck, Marty thought. They were young. They just couldn’t appreciate the pure skill that had been put on display.

Now, though, Marty was standing in 1885 (a different 80s from the futuristic cafe, but an 80s all the same) holding a very real, very heavy, insanely deadly gun, and the idea of playing Wild Gunman barely a day ago made his gut twist.

Marty had never held a real gun before. He’d seen them, sure. He’d watched The Godfather and Dirty Harry too many times to count. He’d even had a gun pointed at him by Biff in that alternate 1985. But holding one—a real, live gun—was different. He could feel the handle digging into his palm, hear the chamber spin as it was reloaded for him. The bang as he pulled the trigger and hit a distant target made him flinch, and the gun nearly flew out of his hands from the recoil.

Buford Tannen wanted a duel. Marty knew he had the reaction time to probably hit him dead on, if Wild Gunman was any indication. He even had the aim, if that bullseye at the hoedown wasn't beginner’s luck.

Maybe that last game in the cafe was a sign—predestination or something like that. Marty’d never been a religious guy, but it’s hard to see point A leading to point B and not think something greater was at play. He really hoped it wasn’t, because as shitty as Buford Tannen was, Marty dreaded being the one to pull that trigger.

Chapter Text

“Run this by me one more time, kid.”

Emmett barely restrains a hysterical peal of laughter hearing Marty—a younger, breathing Marty McFly—call him kid again. He’s not sure what expression crosses his face, but Marty huffs. “Look, I’m sorry. Maybe the future me is better at all this fourth dimension stuff, but I’m barely grasping you’re from the eighties , let alone the whole paradox thing.”

“No no no, I’m not frustrated, it’s just… this is normal for me, in a situation that feels extraordinarily ab normal.” Emmett runs a hand through his hair and looks around the surprisingly bare living room. Emmett is used to navigating mazes of the busted-up amps, dusty guitars, scratched-up vinyls, all while carefully side-stepping the aging sheet music littering the floor (how many times had he warned Marty that leaving so many stray pages was a slipping hazard, only for things to end the way they did?). Now the living room is sparse, furniture laid out so… so neatly. There’s a nice suede couch, a few arm chairs, a tiny TV, bookcases, a record player, all of it spaced out in a way that would make Emmett’s mom's home-interior instincts squeal with excitement. 

The Marty he knew would never have such a standard-looking living room. Granted, he lived in an old garage, and everyone in town knew that the old McFly Manor burned down in ‘62, but Emmett always imagined that if Marty had a house, it would be just as wild as Marty is— was.

(Emmet is resolutely not thinking about what happened. He’s currently preoccupied with worrying about what is about to happen, in regards to the paradox brewing, with him situated in the epicenter.)

Patting himself down, Emmett takes out his notebook and flips to a blank page. He grabs a pencil from the coffee table and sits next to Marty on the couch. “Alright, so, imagine…” Emmett draws a straight line across the page, “That this line represents the flow of time. I’m from the future year of 1985.” Emmett writes his year on the right side of the line, “We’re in 1955.” Again, the current year, this time on the left side, “And, between these two, I was born in 1968.” Finally, his birthday, written between the other two years.

“Simple enough so far.”

“Because of my invention, I traveled back through time from 1985 to now, 1955.” Emmett draws a large arch over the line to connect the two years. Marty nods along and Emmett, as much as he loves his friend (even this version who has only known Emmett for less than three hours), he’s relieved he doesn’t have to explain the very basics of time travel to him. Marty had never been a big sci-fi fan, but travel was his area of expertise, what with touring and all in the past (future?). “My parents were supposed to meet today at my grandmother’s boutique when my father fell through the display window. My mother tended to my father, which is how they got properly acquainted outside of simply attending high school, and that eventually turned into them dating, getting married, and having me in ‘68. However, because of Fleabag Needles—”

“‘Fleabag Needles?’ Isn’t that one of the high schoolers? What’s his name, Doug something?”

“Yes, Doug Needles. And as for why we call him that… well, everyone does.” Well, not everyone, just Marty and Emmett. Emmett because the man has been a constant thorn in Emmett and his mother’s lives since he was born, and Marty because Doug has filed countless noise complaints against him. 

1955 Marty seems to at least agree with his future self’s annoyance. “Can’t say it doesn’t fit him. Always hated having to tutor his ass at guitar, he couldn’t even do basic taps.”

“Regardless, because Needles crashed into me instead of my father—which is how he ‘fell’ through that window, apparently—that means my mother tended to me instead of my father.”

“Right, so your parents never met.”

“Which means they don’t fall in love, they don’t get married, and, most importantly in this conundrum, they don’t have me.” Emmett erases the date of his birth. “Now, here’s where the paradox comes in. If I’m never born, that means I never invent time traveling, which means I never go back in the past, which means I don’t interfere in my parents’ first meeting—”

“Which means none of this should be happening?” Marty throws out, gesturing between them.

“Precisely! My current existence here cannot be possible, so the universe is attempting to correct that aberration.” Emmett erases everything from 1955 onwards. He sees Marty’s eyes widen out of his periphery—good, he understands the gravitas. “However, it can’t do that and have the same series of events play out, so once I’m erased, it’s possible that my interference with my parents never occurs, therefore I will be born, and this will play out again.”

“So… the universe trying to, uh…” Marty winces and tries again, “Look, kid, I’m not going to call you an ‘aberration,’ but is that why you keep flickering?”

Emmett’s lip purse at the reminder of his looming non-existence. Marty was about to chase him off his property for being a ‘crazy stalker nerd’ before Emmett suddenly keeled over and went transparent. The rockstar ushered him into his house and did his best to help, but there’s nothing you can do when the time continuum has decided that you’re a walking talking paradox. Luckily it stopped, unluckily Emmett doesn’t know if that was a one-off or if he was going to fade in his sleep. “Yes. I imagine that the only reason I haven’t been completely erased yet is simply a delay in the time stream’s machinations. After all, I’m not born for another thirteen years.”

“How long do you think you have?”

Emmett shrugs. “A week? Perhaps less. All of this is theoretical, even with my recent experiences. Here’s what I can tell you for certain: unless I can get my parents together before whatever time I have is up, I will be nothing more than a faint memory.”

Marty’s eyes darken. The irony is not lost on Emmett that they’re discussing his eventual non-existence (he refuses to use the word death, not only because that’s not an entirely accurate use of the word, but because the word brings to mind his friend riddled with bullet holes, bleeding out on the pavement) when the whole reason this ordeal is happening was because Emmett was willing to create a paradox to prevent what happened. 

He thought he’d managed to input the coordinates in time, but it was all lost in the rush of escaping the Libyans, having to do crazy maneuvers through the parking lot just to ensure the Delorean wasn’t too damaged to make the jump. He only wanted thirty minutes—less, even—just to warn Marty but instead jumped thirty years. Even with his own fate laid out in front of him, his limited time before corrections are made, the wrinkles in time pressed out by the universe’s uncaring hand, Emmett wants to tell Marty what will happen more than anything. 

Perhaps fading is some form of universal karma. After all, if Emmett fades, is never born, Marty will never be in danger. This will be nothing more than a crazy week where a boy showed up on Marty’s doorstep and told him an unbelievable story. Maybe he’ll be mentioned in a song later down the line, or maybe the timestream will destroy anyone’s memories of him, just to err on the side of caution.

But that look in Marty’s eye tells Emmett a different story. It’s the same look Marty has whenever Emmett comes over with bruises from his bullies, or when Edna followed him all the way to Marty’s garage to call him a slacker, or when Biff Tannen came by to taunt the ‘failed musician’ about his own failures. “That’s not going to happen kid, not on my watch.”

I know, Emmett wants to say. Marty’s never let him down before. He’s practically been his father figure ever since… well, ever since his actual father passed. But instead Emmett holds his tongue, nods, and tells Marty where he hid the Delorean so they can retrieve it. As he sits in the passenger seat of Marty’s car, he silently vows, we’ll change each others’ fates together.

Chapter Text

It was rare that Dave got a day off. Not because his job was crappy and refused to give them proper breaks, but because Dave didn’t like taking them. He liked his work, which definitely got him some weird looks at the dinner table or by the water cooler, and rarely wanted to take time away unless it was absolutely necessary.

Well, a busted sprinkler pipe drenching the office was definitely a necessity. It happened on a completely different floor than the one Dave worked on, but the sudden appearance of Hill Valley’s fire brigade and everyone being ushered out so they could examine the building’s infrastructure and make sure none of the computers got fried. He’d probably have a few days off if the damage was severe enough, though considering Dave didn’t see anything wrong with his floor, he might be let back in by tomorrow.

Dave sighed, loosening his tie and placing his briefcase on the kitchen table. As much as he enjoyed his work, he wasn’t the biggest fan of suits and ties, especially since his car’s A/C was on the fritz. Even though it was the middle of spring and the sun had set on the drive home, Hill Valley was as oppressively hot as always. Mom and Dad had talked about spending the day out at the country club to play a few rounds of tennis and they’d talked about ordering pizza that night. Dave had beaten them home somehow, so maybe he’d change and then ask Marty and Linda what they wanted for toppings before calling in the order.

Reaching his room at the end of the hallway, Dave paused in front of his bedroom door when he saw light peaking through the open crack of Marty’s door. Marty’d been acting oddly ever since Doc Brown left town or whatever back in October and he was starting to get concerned. Sure, Doc Brown was a close family friend, and he was especially close with Marty, but Marty was acting like Doc had died. He rarely left his room for anything but school and band practice, and Dave had come home from late nights working only to see that he’d snuck out at some point. He rarely stayed for breakfast or dinner, and the only person he’d seen Marty talk to had been Jennifer. 

Dave knew he wasn’t alone with his worries. The entire family had noticed how much of a recluse his little brother had become, and they were seriously gearing up to have an intervention or something if his behavior got any worse. Dave caught mom smoking in the backyard a week ago because she was worried about Marty skipping meals and not eating, Dad had one hell of a writer’s block because he couldn’t think about anything other than Marty, and Dave and Linda…

Well, Dave couldn’t deny that some of his egregious overtime could definitely be attributed to his own concerns with Marty. Maybe that’s why he lingered at his door, carefully listening for any signs of life from his little brother’s room.

Tension bled from Dave’s shoulders when he heard Marty’s voice. “Remember…” He said, almost too quiet for Dave to hear, subdued and resigned all at once. There was a shuffling sound, like he was moving papers or flipping through a book. Then, “Don’t remember…”

Dave dared to move closer to Marty’s room, hearing more shuffling and another “Don’t remember.” He peeked through the door and saw Marty sitting at his desk and flipping through… their family photo album?

Marty flipped through a few more pages and yeah, Dave could make out the deep red earth of the Grand Canyon in some of the pictures. Their parents weren’t big on photography, but the few times they were they made a big deal out of preserving and organizing them into one big book for the decade. Dave had looked through the one for the 60s because that’s where all their baby pictures were, but wasn’t that interested in the even bigger 70s album. That one had a lot of family vacation and birthday photos, which weren’t that interesting for him (except for the few times he wanted to blackmail Linda or Marty). 

The trip to the Grand Canyon was kind of a big deal. Mom and dad considered the trip a bucket-list location and, of course, their kids were supposed to marvel at the amazing landmark. Problem was that Dave was ten, Linda was seven, and Marty was five. After the first day where they looked at the big hole in the ground they were all exhausted, so Mom and Dad went out hiking and Dave was supposed to watch Linda and Marty in the hotel while they were gone. They ended up ordering room service for lunch and watched some episodes of Star Trek that were airing, and they drove up the bill so high they all got grounded the moment they were back in Hill Valley.

It wasn’t the best family trip they went on—that honor went to Dave’s graduation trip when they went to Disneyland for the first time. Sure it was a kids amusement park, and Linda didn’t like half the rides they went on, but half the fun was seeing thirteen-year-old Marty trying to act like he didn’t care only to practically start jumping in place as they got on line for Thunder Mountain.

Those pictures wouldn’t be in the album Marty was flipping through, but Dave watched his little brother pull one of the photos out of its protective sleeve and hold it up. Dave recognized it immediately: the gaudy, brightly-colored bouncy castle could only mean it was Marty’s tenth birthday. Mom and Dad went all out and rented it for the backyard, and Marty tuckered himself out bouncing around it for almost the entire day.

Dave saw Marty flip the picture around and read the printed date on the back. Marty flipped the photo around a few times then put it down with a shake of his head. “Definitely don’t remember that. Jesus, a whole bouncy castle? Beats Linda’s burnt cookies, I guess.”

Dave blinked a few times. Sure, people obviously forgot things as they grew older, but Marty used to brag that he had the best tenth birthday ever. He’d invited the other guys that joined his band and Jennifer, and a couple other kids from his class that year, and all of them had a great time. And what was that comment about Linda making cookies? She hated baking, not to mention Marty got a normal birthday cake for dessert.

He silently watched as Marty continued through the photo album, remarking occasionally whenever he found a picture of something he did remember, like Grandma Sylvia’s birthday party, or Linda’s middle school graduation pictures. More concerningly, Marty commented a lot more on things he didn’t remember—other vacations and parties, mom and dad’s 20th anniversary party, he even seemed shocked when Doc Brown appeared in some of the pictures.

Dave quietly backed away from Marty’s door and snuck into his own bedroom, feeling out of breath as he stared blankly at his own closet. Sure, people forgot things as they grow up, and some of those pictures were nearly a decade old, but the amount that Marty had seemingly forgotten bordered on ridiculous. What could possibly explain Marty forgetting nearly every major event in their life? Dave was terrified of what Marty would say if he looked through the 80s album; would he have forgotten his birthday last year? Or Linda’s graduation? What about Dave and Disneyland?

Feeling something insurmountable building in his chest, Dave began mechanically taking off his suit and pulling out a t-shirt and loose jeans. This wasn’t something to bring up tonight, not when he’d been peeping on his own brother and the family was already stressing out over Marty. Maybe he’d bring it up tomorrow when Marty went to school, and then… then maybe they could finally help Marty.

Chapter Text

“What are you doing here?”

Marty nearly jumped a foot in the air as he entered Laura’s Luscious Looks. The boutique was in the same building with the same name in 1955, and he felt weirdly nostalgic as he spotted it walking around town. How the boutique had lasted thirty years, Marty wouldn’t know. He’d never shopped there, and Doc had probably stopped going after hemorrhaging his money on the DeLorean, but apparently it had some level of popularity to compete with the Twin— Lone Pine Mall.

None of that explained why Linda was currently sitting behind the counter, looking at Marty like he’d grown a second head.

“Uh…” Marty looked around the store, seeing a plethora of leather jackets, denim jeans, short-sleeved tees and even a rack of platformed shoes. “Window shopping?”

“Here?” Linda whisper-shouted, glancing towards the back. “No, no way you just wander in to the one store no one goes near with a ten foot pole. You need to leave.”

“What?” Marty looked around in confusion. Sure the boutique wasn’t as crazy-loaded as the one in ‘55, but there was definitely a few jackets that looked interesting, not to mention Marty could definitely afford to buy a couple new jeans after some of his were ruined from traveling to the past. “Why? I’m—I’m a paying customer, I’m allowed to stay.”

“I’m not about to have my dorky little brother get me fired. This is so not the store for you to be in. Go shop at… at Macy’s or something.”

“Ah come on, Macy’s is lame as hell—”

“I hope I didn’t just hear you telling our clientele to leave Linda.”

Linda froze like a deer in headlights as an older woman came out from the back. She had a stack of shirts in her arms that went as high as her chin, and Marty saw the woman peek over the top shirt to appraise him. Her hair was cut short, almost the same length as Marty’s, and she had cuffed jeans on and a pair of the platform shoes Marty saw on sale. “Hm, not our usual audience. What brings you to my shop, kid?”

It took Marty another few seconds to recognize her, especially with the new hairdo and the scratchier voice. “Laura?”

“Oh, you know me.” Laura put down the shirts, showing off her custom-made graphic tee. Marty held back as he read ‘Make Love, Not War’ with an interlocking female symbol beneath the two lines. “I hope it’s only good things, otherwise I’ll have to side with Linda and ask you to leave.”

“No, no, definitely only good things.” Marty scratched the back of his head as he came up with an excuse on the spot. “Doc told me he, uh, used to shop here a lot in the fifties. I wanted to check it out for myself.”

Laura’s face lit up at the mention of Doc. “Man, I haven’t heard a peep from Emmett since his old house burned down. A shame, really. Me and the girls missed him dropping by.”

“You talked to that kook?” Linda asked. 

Before Marty could defend Doc, Laura spoke up. “Emmett’s a sweetheart! Little crazy, sure, but who isn’t nowadays? When his house burned down we all offered to have him stay with us, or we would chip in money for getting him a new place to live. He turned us all down because he said he didn’t want to burden us, but we still pretty regularly dropped by to give him food or desserts when we had leftovers.”

Marty remembered some nights when he’d sneak out and visit Doc at night, he’d somehow have a tray full of home-made brownies, or a few cuts of lasagna in his mini-fridge in the garage. Marty just assumed he pulled some science wizardry to make them, or he somehow struck a crazy good deal with the grocery store. In retrospect, that was pretty stupid to assume, but knowing that Doc had some good ties in town made Marty feel a little better about the past years.

“Y’know, you remind me a lot of a kid Emmett brought here once.” Laura said, much to Marty’s mounting anxiety. “He was practically swimming in Emmett’s pants, and Emmett paid a small fortune to get him a bunch of clothes. Made my heart and my wallet grow three sizes that day.”

“Yeah, well, Doc’s always been a pretty generous guy,” Marty said, slowly backing out of the store. “I just wanted to see if this place was still open, so… I’ll leave you two to it! Have a good time… selling… stuff.”

Marty fled the store and skateboarded away, Linda and Laura watching him as he went. Linda sagged back in her chair and blew a raspberry, “Thank god, I thought he’d never leave.”

“You hate your little brother that much?”

“Oh he’s a pest, but I don’t hate him. I just don’t think I’m ready to explain all of…” Linda gestured around the shop. “This.”

“Hey, you know where I’ll be if things go sour.” Laura patted Linda’s shoulder and brought the new shirts out to the show table. Linda smiled faintly, fiddling with the ends of her hair as she leaned on the register counter while looking at the door, half-expecting Marty to come back in and demand an explanation, or something equally as stupid. Then again, with the way Marty dressed sometimes, maybe he’d be stopping by more often…

Chapter Text

Clara can’t help but compare Marty to her Emmett as she watches the young man dart around his living room. He spends one moment connecting the electric wire for a vinyl record player to the wall socket, then shooting into the kitchen to finish preparing tea for Clara and himself, and then running down the hall and into one of the connected rooms. She hides a chuckle behind her hand as she hears a commotion from one of the rooms, the sound so similar to Emmett accidentally pulling one of his blueprints too hard and accidentally toppling a stack of books in his laboratory.

Today is a rare opportunity for Clara: Emmett wanted to spend time with the boys on his own, Marty’s family was out for the day and his girlfriend was celebrating something with her family, so it was just the two of them for once. Clara had been slowly adjusting to the modern era, but found herself lacking at points—not on practical knowledge that she could learn from books and newspapers and Emmett’s anecdotes, but about what was important on a personal level. She knew none of the common things that would start conversations and ease social interactions with the others around her; the illusive and ever-changing knowledge of “pop culture.”

At a certain point, reclusivity or living ‘off the grid’ couldn’t explain her ignorance (as much as she and Emmett had hoped it would), and so, she turned to the other time traveler that had made an unimaginable impact.

“I don’t have a lot of albums from before the thirties,” Marty explains as he finally sits across from Clara, placing the cups of tea down as he sorts through the impressive stack of vinyls he’d collected from the house. “A lot of the stuff I own is more recent, from the last ten or twenty years at least. Mom and dad bought a lot of the older stuff we have, so… we can start from around the fifties and go on from there?”

“Any place to start would be great,” Clara replies. She takes a sip of the tea Marty prepared, the water almost scalding, but somehow grounding as she saw a physical stack of evidence for how many decades she’d flown by. “I know some of the more popular songs of the eighteen hundreds, obviously. Any gaps between then and the fifties could be ignored, but we could discover them together, perhaps finding our own records.”

“I think a lot of the thirties is swing music—uh, big bands, kind of fast-tempoed. Then the forties were probably big patriotic songs, I guess? Then the fifties… we can just listen to it on our own.” Marty picks apart some of the higher-up albums in the stack. “Man, mom and dad had a lot of stuff. What would be a good place to start?”

“You heard the music being played at the clocktower inauguration party. Perhaps start with something similar to that?” Clara suggests. She’s a fish out of water, here. Clara has never been a fan of music, but now it was such an intrinsic factor to everyday life that she had to have some partial knowledge. Her eyes had boggled at the radio and television, and she almost dreads having to learn what programs were important that were exclusive to that form of media.

“Alright… let’s start with this.” Marty pulls out a silver record protector. When he flips it over to read the back, Clara sees a sepia picture of a black woman with curly white hair smiling to the side. “Not the most influential stuff out there, but this will probably be a good introduction for ya. None of the songs are too crazy on here, so if you have questions, we can take it slow.”

“I’d like that.” Clara smiles and watches with rapt attention as Marty pulls the record out and places it on the player, ready to hear the music of the future unfurl before her.

Chapter Text

Jules was going to kill Verne once they were back in 1999.

“Why’d you have to freak Verne out so much this past week, huh?” Marty asked as he pulled Verne through the streets of Hill Valley. “‘It’s the end of the world, Verne!’ ‘All the computers are going to simultaneously explode at the stroke of midnight, Verne!’ ‘All the video game consoles are going to disintegrate, Verne!’”

“In all fairness, I didn’t think he would believe me about that last one.”

“And the other two weren’t just as unbelievable?” Marty ran a hand through his hair as he looked wildly around town square, not like that would somehow make Verne suddenly appear. It was probably close to midnight, now. If Verne hadn’t caused enough mayhem on his own, he’d probably found somewhere to hunker down for the night.

“Well you were supposed to babysit us. If anything, this is your fault for losing track of him.”

“And you lied to me about wanting to see The Pinheads perform their first show in Hill Valley. Want to explain that one to me?”

Jules winced at the hurt in Marty’s voice. To be fair, it wasn’t entirely a lie—Jules did want to see his brother-in-all-but-blood’s first performance, even though he wasn’t that fond of rock music nowadays. When Mom and Dad talked about going on their own time travel date, he and Verne had jumped at the opportunity of having their own trip with Marty. The fact that the year was 1990 didn’t even really register in Jules’ head, and he didn’t realize Verne had been freaking out about the Y2K bug until mid-way through the performance when they’d lost him and Marty found a letter shoved into his back pocket.

“Well, if everything works out tonight, maybe we can catch the end of your playlist?” Jules felt his usual confidence wither under the heat of Marty’s glare. “I truly wanted to see your band. I thought Verne did as well, considering how quickly he agreed. We always argue about trip dates.”

“I know you do, which is why I’m mad I didn’t pick up on how he was acting. Hindsight really is 20/20.” Marty looked around the townsquare again and perked up as he saw a figure slumped over on one of the public benches. He nearly pulled Jules’s arm from its socket as he ran towards the man, roughly shaking him. “Hey, hey Red? You still alive, buddy?”

The homeless man jerked awake with a garbled yell, swinging his arms around and wafting the odor of alcohol all around the bench. Marty jumped back in time, keeping Jules behind him as he waited out Red’s startle response. When Red finally got ahold of himself, he squinted up at Marty with confusion. “Who’re you?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Marty reached into his jacket pocket and took out two twenties. He handed one to Red, “There, that should be good for some food and drink. I’ll give you another one if you can tell me if you saw a little kid around here, about twelve years old, curly blond hair in a Van Halen shirt?”

Red squinted at the two of them, grumbling as he pocketed his first twenty before gesturing towards the courthouse. “Think I saw him a bit earlier tryin’ to get some of the lawyer folk to pay attention about a computer thing? He was rantin’ more than I do after drinkin’, I think the cops got called and they talked about evaluatin’ him at the Asylum.”

“Great, thanks.” Marty gave the other twenty to Red and started dragging Jules (he sensed there was a common theme for the rest of the night) out of the town square.  “Son of a bitch.”  

“Language,” Jules reflexively corrected.

“If there’s any time to swear, it’s now. Your parents are gonna kill me if your brother got admitted to the nuthouse after I lost him.”

“It can’t be that bad.” Jules dismissed. “Besides, what if Red was lying?”

“Red doesn’t lie, unless you’re asking how much he’s had to drink. Also, ignoring that your twelve year old brother is probably surrounded by a buncha murderous schizos, if there’s any paperwork saying Verne Newton Brown existed in 1990 when he was ‘born’ in 1993, that’s going to cause so many problems down the line Doc might strangle me.”

Jules hated when Marty was right. He picked up the pace to walk side-by-side with Marty. “So, what’s our plan for breaking Verne out of there?”

“See, this is why you're my favorite little brother.”

“Really?”

“For now.”

Chapter Text

When Emmett Brown signed up for the Science Exposition, he hadn’t paid that much attention to the date. After all, the specific day of the week hardly mattered when it came to providing the world with a behavioral scientific breakthrough. What mattered was that the science was sound and that the invention worked!

So, Emmett Lathrop Brown, a budding scientist with endless ideas and ambition with his loving girlfriend at his side, signed up for the Hill Valley Science Exposition to present the Mental Alignment Meter on the second day of the event. October 13th would soon become a red-letter day in history.

And right after signing up, Emmett Lathrop Brown, a budding senior with a strict father, checked the calendar and realized October 13th was a Tuesday, and he had no way to easily present the Mental Alignment Meter, let alone set it up the day prior… because he was supposed to be in school.

Emmett had a perfect attendance record—not necessarily because he loved going to school, but because his father would skin him alive if he missed a single day. The only time Emmett got to miss class was when he was laid up with Scarlet fever, and even then Pop was halfway convinced he should still try going until the school shut down because of how many students and staff had contracted the disease. 

And now… now Emmett would have to convince his father to not only give him one day off of school, but two days.

Emmett woke up painfully early on the twelfth, sneaking downstairs and grabbing a bucket from the closet and putting it under the tap. As he waited for the bucket to fill, Emmett carefully rooted through the cabinets until he found a bottle of red food dye. He dumped the entire bottle into the bucket, mixing thoroughly with his hand until his skin was dyed a suitable shade of red.

He hated lying to his Pop. He hated lying about his interest in science, he hated pretending he liked law, he hated that he was going so far as to trick his father into believing he’d somehow contracted scarlet fever again. But Emmett knew nothing short of this would convince Pop to let Emmett miss school, and so, he would be able to live with the guilt of it all.

It would all be worth it when Emmett succeeded at the expo. It would have to be.

Chapter Text

Damn, not even a megawatt that time.

Emmett put his tools down with a frustrated sigh, all but ripping his gloves off his hands and throwing them to some distant corner of the barn. He shoved his goggles off his face, letting them hang around his neck like the noose they are as he stormed out of the barn, needing to be as far away from the barn as possible before he did something foolish and damaged something important.

Not even close to a megawatt, and he needed a thousand more and change to get the salvaged time circuits to work.

A dark part of Emmett’s mind wondered if it would be better if he did damage something beyond repair. At the very least, he could give up on this foolish idea once and for all. The worst part was that this was hardly the first time Emmett had thought this. He knew it was for the best that he, Clara and the boys found a way to the future, as their presence in the current time period could have radical impacts on the time stream, but constructing a working vehicle with the necessary power to accomplish such a feat…

Emmett knew that generating a megawatt of electricity was borderline unheard of in 1885, especially in a town with as little industrialization as Hill Valley. The problem was, however wonderful it was to generate a historical amount of electricity, that historical amount was still leagues short of what he needed.

At least with the original time machine, Emmett was flying blind, improving his formulas as he went and eagerly awaiting innovations in technology that would pave the way to his success. Now he felt how sorely lacking he was with… everything. He’d long figured out the necessary structural changes he would need to make to the train for it to work, and the only major hurdle left was generating power.

A hurdle that he alone would have to surmount on his own, seeing as there wasn’t going to be any major leap in technology that would ease the process any time soon.

Emmett didn’t stop walking until the farm was a distant speck behind him. The sun was high above and beating the hell out of Emmett, but that was fine . Emmett could live with the heat, he couldn’t live with another thirty years of failure after failure until a miraculous success. 

Rubbing his face clean of sweat, Emmett flailed his arms around him and let out a long, loud bellow of frustration before collapsing back onto the desert sands. He felt like Verne when his youngest child was throwing a tantrum, but it felt warranted. He just… he wanted what was best for his family. He wanted them to see his Hill Valley—whether it was the 30s when he was a young teenager, or the 80s where he was a brilliant, old man. He wanted them to be safe and secure in a future he knew. He wanted them to meet one Martin Seamus McFly and know the boy that had inspired him to be true to himself. He wanted…

A sharp whistle came from behind him and Emmett jerked up, turning around to see a man with a cowboy hat standing behind him. His hat was tilted down and a bandana was wrapped around the lower half of his face, but his posture was relaxed, almost amused as he looked at Emmett. Still, one couldn’t be too careful: there was a chance this cowboy assumed Emmett was dead, laying on his back in the middle of the day like that, and came to pick at his corpse. 

Once Emmett was up on his feet, the man continued to defy expectations by holding out his waterskin. Emmett cautiously accepted it and twisted off the cap, relieved to not smell any alcohol within. There was no reason to turn down the kindness of strangers, especially when the young man in front of Emmett was still an unknown element, so Emmett took a quick swig. “Thank you for being concerned, young man. I was merely… laying here. I’m not about to die from the heat any time soon.”

“Well I definitely hope not.” Emmett nearly choked on his spit as he recognized the voice. The cowboy tilted up his hat to expose familiar, light blue eyes that crickled at the edges with delight. “You’ve still got a ways to go before you finish up that train.”

Emmett didn’t need to think or speak, he ran to Marty and hugged him, his fingers tightening in Marty’s poncho. How he hadn’t recognized Marty’s one outfit while staying in the old west, Emmett didn’t know, but he didn’t care. Marty was here.

Marty was here?

Emmett pulled away and looked around the desert. “How are you here? Another DeLorean, or…?”

“Probably for the best you don’t know all the details,” Marty chuckled nervously. “We were talking in the future and you mentioned how I showed up one day to give you a pep talk. Then we realized I hadn’t done that yet, so… here I am, closing the loop before it can cause problems.”

“Good on you and my future self for doing so, though I’m not sure what you could tell or show me right now that would make my predicaments lighter.” Emmett huffed, thinking about the infuriating cables sitting tangled on his work bench. “Or scaring the daylights out of me, thinking I was about to be robbed by a vagabond.”

“Sorry, but I couldn’t just come out and say ‘hi.’ Had to make sure it was you and not some other old timer out in the desert before revealing Clint Eastwood didn’t go hurtling off the ravine.” Marty joked as he returned the embrace. “Last thing you or Clara need is Buford coming to try and find me and threatening everyone.”

“Buford’s still jailed, last I checked, though Clara and I keep a rifle in the house just in case.” Emmett pulled back and bent at the knees to look Marty in the eye. He was clearly older than the last time Emmett saw him—he’d guess mid-twenties, if not a little later in life—but he was healthy and hale and… “Marty, your hands!”

“What? What about them?” Marty lifted both hands and Emmett’s heart soared. He laughed and hugged Marty again, lifting him in the air and spinning him around, much to the younger man’s surprise. 

When he’d gone thirty years to the future and saw what had happened to Marty’s life, he’d done his research. While he didn’t have access to any medical reports, he could find newspapers that detailed the car accident. Emmett didn’t have the stomach to read any further when the paper discussed Marty’s injuries in detail, but he’d seen the older version of his friend and how blocky his fingers had become, how they twitched with barely-repressed pain instead of Marty’s usual dexterity.

But Marty’s hands were unharmed, his fingers thin with callouses at the tips from playing guitar. The only conclusion Emmett could come to was that the accident had never occurred, or was perhaps much lesser in intensity. While Emmett had barely accepted that time travel could bring good things with his meeting Clara, seeing that Marty’s personal future had improved so drastically was the final confirmation he needed.

“Nothing! Nothing is wrong!” Emmett cheered, putting Marty back on the ground and grinning so brightly he would likely outshine those elusive 1.21 gigawatts. No matter what hardships Emmett would face, no matter how much blood, sweat and tears he would shed on his work, he was going to generate the power he needed to see Marty’s brighter future unfold with his own eyes. “You’ve given me exactly what I’ve needed!”

Chapter Text

The town had been slow to take down the promotional flyers for George McFly day, and Marty kept doing double-takes whenever he saw a poster with his father’s face on it. They were all kind of cartoon-y, like an Uncle Sam poster, but it was…

Well, it was weird no matter what. Marty was used to his family being the laughingstocks of Hill Valley, now his dad got an entire day in his honor. His mom was apparently one of the best realtors in the county and was gunning to travel around the whole state showing off houses. Dave worked in finances, Linda was going to college for an MBA so she could run her own clothing stores, and Marty’s dreams of becoming a rock star weren’t considered some far-off fantasy, but instead something obtainable. Something his family supported instead of deriding and telling him to keep his head down, stay in his lane, don’t face confrontations.

Marty could kind of wrap his head around everything individually. His siblings being successful and ambitious? Marty’s been dreaming about that for years ever since he heard his parents and Dave arguing about his dropping out of high school because “he wasn’t gonna make it.” His mom being healthy and happy? Marty’s been trying to hide her alcohol and lighter ever since he figured out where she hid everything. His dad being a famous writer? Once Marty learned his dad was a passionate writer back in the fifties, he could absolutely see it.

All of that combined, ultimately changing how everyone perceived them and, by extension, him? Weird.

Strickland smiled at him the next time he was late, patting him on the shoulder and telling him to keep an ear open for his alarm next time. Marty felt like he walked into an episode from the Twilight Zone.

Way, way too weird. Jesus, Doc couldn’t get back from his trip to the future fast enough. He needed someone to talk to about all the weird little things that had changed. Doc could probably write a dissertation or something about it and spin out a new theory in the next twenty-four hours.

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Maggie loved Seamus with all her heart. He was a determined, honest soul, hard working and dedicated to his family. She loved his bushy mustache, the way his eyes twinkled when telling a good joke, and she loved the way he’d kiss her ring goodnight.

There was only one thing about him she didn’t love: the way he slept.

Seamus could sleep damn-near anywhere at the drop of a hat. She once caught him sleeping on a pile of hay, spread out like a starfish, and he would've been out long into the night if she hadn’t woken him up.

Sylvia almost screamed the first time she found Artie twisted around like that. She’d assumed the worst: Kid or one of his weirdo goons had snuck in and popped Artie upside the head. She was frozen stiff standing in the den, terrified the moment she moved or touched him it would all become too real, that her Artie would be gone.

And then Artie snorted, the sound almost startling a scream out of her. She watched Artie twist himself up further and settle down like a baby. Slyvia breathed a sigh of relief. Thank Jesus, Mary and Joseph he’s alright!

There wasn’t a thing Lorraine would change about George. He was sweeter than sugar and as caring and attentive as an angel. His stories captivated her mind and heart, and he worked late nights at the office to make sure they’d have enough money for a house soon.

The sight Lorraine came home to was delightfully expected: George dead asleep at his desk, his face mushed against the typewriter keys, a line of drool running from the corner of his mouth. Lorraine pulled a blanket over his shoulders, left a cup of water next to him, and quietly bid goodnight.

Jennifer didn’t know what she expected the first time Marty slept over, but it wasn’t waking up next to the living embodiment of a pretzel.

For a moment, Jennifer was worried he couldn’t breathe with his nose scrunched up like that. Then he snorted and shoved his face further into the pillow and assumed this was normal.

With a mischievous grin, Jennifer grabbed her camera and snuck a quick picture. She waved the polaroid as the film developed and couldn’t wait to show Marty later. Hopefully he wouldn’t be too embarrassed, but it was his fault for sleeping like that!

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And tonight was supposed to be easy.

When Dave convinced his parents that they didn’t need to hire a babysitter for their date night, that Dave could watch his siblings just fine, he thought he could handle it. He and dad had gone to Blockbuster yesterday and got a movie, mom had gone to the supermarket to make a dinner big enough for leftovers and a few bags of microwave popcorn as a snack. 

They left right after school let out and Dave was the king of the house. Dave made sure Linda and Marty were doing their homework (whether they actually finished it, Dave didn’t care, they could deal with the consequences with their teachers), heated up leftovers for dinner, and then popped the VHS in for the grand finale.

And then everything went wrong.

Within ten minutes Linda was crying and hiding her face in Dave’s shoulder. Marty was leaning forward as he watched rabbits tear each other apart. Dave stared wide-eyed as the supposedly completely innocent movie turned into a bloodbath.

“This is gross,” Linda whimpered as she peaked out from Dave’s shoulder, only to immediately hide again as the carnage turned up.

“Awesome,” Marty whispered, and Dave was genuinely worried his little brother was going to turn into a serial killer in a few years.

“Not awesome, so not awesome. Can we turn it off?” To Dave’s surprise, Marty seemed to listen to Linda and went to the TV. Linda breathed a sigh of relief and let go of Dave only to nearly fly off the couch when, instead of hitting eject, Marty hit rewind. Dave had to grapple Linda to keep her from charging at Marty and hitting him. “You little turd! Turn it off!”

“Uh, Marty?” Dave asked. “What are you doing?”

“I wanna see the burrow scene again!”

“No!” Linda screamed, flailing so hard she nearly got out of Dave’s grip. “Turn that stupid thing off! I don’t want to see it!”

“Go to your room then, you weren’t watching!” Marty yelled back, hitting play on the VCR. Linda screamed again and managed to elbow Dave in the face. Dave let go of her and held his cheek as she ran over to the TV, frantically trying to smack the power button only for Marty to block her. “I want to keep watching!”

“This movie is gross and so are you!”

“Both of you quit it!” Dave bellowed, running over and pulling his siblings apart. His cheek felt red-hot and he knew he’d probably have a bruise when mom and dad came home. “Movie’s over. Linda, Marty, both of you go back to your room.”

“What? How is that fair?” Marty cried indignantly.

“It isn’t fair. You’re screaming like a buncha lunatics over a movie about rabbits. We’re done. Both of you go to your rooms and go to bed.” Dave insisted, Linda running back to her room and wiping the tears from her cheeks while Marty stomped away. Dave collapsed back on the couch, rubbing his face as the rabbits began tearing each other apart on the TV.

“I’m never having kids,” Dave swore to himself, and resolved to sneak out later to return the movie that night before Marty could torment Linda any further.

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“That was…” Marty started.

“A pretty average movie?” Jennifer tried to complete his sentence.

“I was going to say weirdly close to home.” Marty scratched the back of his head. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was fine, but I’m definitely going to look at Ronny differently the next time I’m on tour.”

Jennifer giggled. “You’ll look at your own bodyguard differently and not some of your fans?”

“I mean, I’ll look at them differently too, which kind of sucks.” Marty took Jennifer’s hand and pulled her close to his side for a cheek kiss. “I love you, and now I’m going to be worried about fans going after you to get to me.”

“Marty, I knew that was a worry ever since you started going on tours.” Jennifer rubbed her thumb over Marty’s knuckles. “And besides… I asked Clara and Doc for shooting lessons the last time you went out, just in case.”

“Learning how to shoot from the best in all of Hill Valley?” Marty let go of Jennifer’s hand to throw his arm around her shoulder. “Maybe I should hire you to be my bodyguard instead of Ronny.”

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Biff didn’t know where it came from. He was arguing with that little shit Marty, his least favorite of George’s kids, about the truck. Marty wasn’t even being that mean, he was just being his usual smug, cocky self that Biff despised, and the words just burst out of him. Some deep-seated hatred that burned in his heart and soul took control of his lips and spat without any thought, “I don’t have to listen to a damn thing you say, you duded-up, egg-suckin’, gutter trash!”

Biff had no clue what any of that meant. Well, it was obvious what the last two words meant (and they were definitely things he’d thought about the McFlys), but… egg-sucking? Duded-up? The hell was wrong with him?

None of that seemed to matter when Marty went pale and ran behind the truck, looking at Biff like he was going to shoot him or something. Biff couldn’t deny that he got a thrill out of seeing Marty so scared of him (he’s still got it!) but that feeling was quickly washed away with the worry of how George would react once Marty blabbed.

Dammit, why couldn’t he have kept his mouth shut? Now he’s going to worry until George gets back from whatever book signing gig he’s got going on…

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Spring break of 1986 was easily the most awkward week of Marty’s life. It easily trumped the week where mom went on a particularly bad bender after Dave dropped out of high school, the week of Linda’s first period, and the week when Biff stayed over because his house was being renovated. It trumped nearly every other painful, traumatic or awkward event Marty had to live through, not only because a lot of the past weeks no longer existed, but because none of those weeks had Marty being the star of his family intervention.

Marty knew he’d been acting differently, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He knew he didn’t remember stuff “properly” because of the new timeline stuff, but you couldn’t exactly re-remember seventeen years of memories in a few months. Besides, ninety percent of the time it was something Marty couldn’t even control: he practically dove for cover when the family car backfired a month ago, and dad looked completely freaked. Marty hadn’t been able to play that off completely, but he thought dad had dropped it.

The circle of chairs in the living room with Marty sitting in the center certainly told a different story.

He knew he’d been getting weird looks from his family the past months, but what could he tell them? “Hey guys, I nearly wrote me, Linda and Dave out of existence because I pushed dad out of the way of a car in 1955?” “I created an alternate timeline that got dad killed and mom hitched to Biff?” How about, “I spent a week in 1885 and nearly died in a duel against Biff’s great grandfather, and then hijacked a train and nearly fell into the ravine and died?” Yeah, no, that’s the swiftest way to get sent to crazy town in a straitjacket, but maybe that would’ve been preferable to dealing with this any longer than he had to.

“Did something happen?” Mom asked--the same mom that had taken off his pants and kissed the daylights out of him in a car--and Marty couldn’t say no but what could he say? It was obvious something happened. It was obvious whatever happened was bad. It was obvious that lying wasn’t going to get him out of this.

So Marty stayed silent, playing with some loose threads on his jeans, scrunched up and tense as a bow string as his parents and siblings interrogated-slash-comforted him. It was all empty words that floated over and around Marty’s head about how they cared, how they’d listen, if someone did something they’d do everything to protect him, to fix it, was it Needles? Jennifer? Paul or Bobby or Lee? Tiff Tannen? Someone else they didn’t know or forgot to mention?

Nothing came out of that intervention but tension and frustration on all sides. Marty wasn’t going to talk, not now, not ever. Even if his parents somehow (god forbid) found out that time travel was real, that Marty was that same kid from ‘55 that got them together, Marty wasn’t ever going to talk about what actually happened. He was taking his journey through time to the grave.

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Marty doesn’t think anything of the late-night phone call at first. It’s not uncommon that he gets late-night phone calls from Doc or one of his bandmates, and even his agent is known to forget about the time difference between Florida and California now and again. He doesn't check the caller ID and answers it reflexively, blurting out a distracted, “Hello?” as he watches the Cubs game on the TV.

“Hi, dad.” Marty immediately straightens up when he hears Marlene’s voice over the line. She’s supposed to be at the Murphy’s tonight for her first sleepover, an event that Marty has heard her talk about constantly ever since she got invited. He can hear some giggles in the background and even thinks he heard one of the other girls say ‘Marly,’ but it didn’t come through clear enough for him to make it out.

“Hi sweetheart, how are you?” For some reason, Marty can’t help but feel uneasy. A quick glance at the time shows it isn’t too late, but still, it’s a little odd to get a call when Marlene probably should’ve been painting her nails or gossiping about the hottest guys at school with the other girls.

“Yeah, everything is great here. The Murphys even have a bunch of snacks for us” Marty’s eyebrow raises at the random non sequitur, but before he can say anything Marlene continues, “It kinda sucks they don’t have tootsie rolls here, though. Those are my favorite.”

Marty feels his heart skip a beat. The McFly family doesn’t have many rules, but they did have a system if one of the kids really needed help. If either of their kids needed to be picked up but couldn’t ask outright for whatever reason, all they needed to do was say the words ‘tootsie roll’ and Marty or Jennifer would drop everything to get them, no questions asked. 

Neither Marlene or Junior had ever used it in the past, and his kids were pretty good about not abusing the rule’s power just to get out of something boring, so suddenly hearing it was jarring. Marty is up off his feet before he even realizes it, scrambling for his car keys and shoes as he jams the phone between his shoulder and ear and says, “Alright, sweetheart. I should be able to get there in about twenty minutes, alright? Start packing your bag, I’ll be there soon.”

“Yeah, glad you agree with me,” Marlene replies, the relief audible in her voice. “Tell Junior and mom I miss them too, alright?”

Junior and Jennifer are on the other side of town for a night out with the grandparents (thank god for that, he doesn’t want the rest of his family getting worried right now). It’s another odd point in Marlene’s dialogue, and Marty can even hear a few girls tittering on the other end of the line. If it weren’t for the codeword, Marty would honestly think he’s being set up for a prank, like he’s back in high school and the hottest girl he’s never talked to has suddenly called to ask him out.

“It’ll just be me, sweetheart. Don’t worry, I can get you home safe and sound. I’ll see you in a bit.” Marty hangs up the phone and runs to the garage, already mapping out all the various shortcuts and sideroads he can take to cut down on travel time. He’s getting his little girl home tonight, no matter what.

Thanks to some very shitty luck with traffic lights, it takes Marty twenty-two minutes to arrive at the Murphy’s house. He makes up for his late arrival by speed-walking up to the door, ringing the bell, and staring down Mrs. Murphy as she tries to deflect Marty’s attempts to get Marlene until she acquiesces and goes to get her.

Marlene, thankfully, is already packed and dashes out the door, holding Marty’s hands as the Murphys awkwardly wish them a good night. They’re both silent as they go to Marty’s car, Marlene dumping her overnight bag into the back as she buckles up in the front, staring resolutely out the front window as Marty gets the car started.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Marty asks as the engine revs to a start. “You don’t have to, of course, but if you want to…”

“Can we go home, please?” Marlene’s voice sounds strained, like she’s holding back tears, and Marty starts the car, focusing on the drive so that he doesn’t start crying with her.

They make it about halfway home before Marlene says anything else. “They weren’t… they were calling me something other than my name.”

“Something other than…?” Marty thinks back to the conversation on the phone, and how he thought they said ‘Marly’ oddly, and his blood starts to boil. “Did they…?”

Marlene nods and Marty pulls over before he can wreck the car. He grips the wheel with white knuckles as he imagines his daughter showing up at the house, excited for her first sleepover and being welcomed in, only to be ridiculed the moment one of them said Marty. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. That wasn’t okay and I’m going to give the Murphys hell at the next PTA--”

“No, please don’t.” Marlene sobs, wiping at her cheeks. “It’s all my fault. I thought they were nice. That the other girls finally saw me as…” Marlene gestures at her whole body before shaking her head and looking out the side window. Marty can see her cheeks are wet. “I’m so stupid.”

“No, you’re not.” Marty reaches over and pats Marlene on the shoulder. “I’ve known plenty of people who came off as nice only to turn around and treat me like shit, hun. I found them when I was younger than you, and I found plenty more the older I got. You’re not stupid for thinking other people are nice and want to be friends with you. More importantly, they crossed a line. That wasn’t teasing, kiddo, they wanted to hurt you.”

“I know! And I’m upset that I’m upset because that means they won!” Marlene cries, hiding her face in her hands as she starts to break down. “I-I’m a freak, a loser, and I’m gross for being invited to a girl’s sleepover--”

“Honey, Marlene, look at me.” Marty grabs Marlene by the shoulders. “Did they say all of that to you?”

“Of course they did!” 

Marlene pushes Marty away as her chest heaves with another sob. Marty sat there feeling useless, because his little girl was crying her heart out and Marty couldn’t do anything but pull her close and hug her. “I’m sorry baby, I’m so sorry. I’ll figure something out, I promise. But I want you to know that absolutely nothing they said was true.”

Marlene whines and presses her face into Marty’s shoulder. They spend the next half hour on the side of the road before Marty feels they’re composed enough to head home, quiet as the traffic lights burn red and green into the car.

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Marlene fidgeted in front of the mirror, pulling down her skirt and rolling up the sleeves of her blouse before rolling them back down, fluffing up her hair and double-checking her make-up. It was the first time she’d gone this far with… with everything. She’d bought the outfit and make-up the last time she went out to the Courthouse Mall and walked home with the bag held close to her chest like she’d smuggled a gun. 

She made it home without incident and immediately ran into the bathroom, taking a long, long shower and taking the time to meticulously style her hair into bouncy curls. Junior had knocked on the door like, five times, but Marlene told him to buzz off and that she was busy. Then Junior rebutted by reminding her that she was the one who wanted to talk to the whole family before dinner, and she was delaying Taco Tuesday by hiding out in the bathroom.

She couldn’t blame Junior for being mad; he didn’t know that Marlene was having three different panic attacks in the bathroom because she was about to come out.

Marlene shook her head, watching her reflection’s hair bounce wildly as she did a final check of her make-up. She didn’t want to look trashy, but there was only so much she could do considering this was her first time doing this and all she had for reference was a crappy holovid that she played on mute so her parents wouldn’t hear. 

Did Marlene need to go all out and dress fem to come out? No, but she looked nice. She could finally look at her reflection and feel like she was actually looking at herself. It gave her a tiny boost of confidence, and she’d need every bit she could get.

“Okay, take a deep breath,” Marlene reminded herself as she spoke to her reflection. “You wrote an entire script for this, you have a back-up plan if things somehow go wrong, and you have a back-up back-up plan for how to get out of Hill Valley if things go super wrong. Which they won’t, because your parents are cool and your brother is a dweeb but a good kid, and you can throw out those plans once this all goes well. It will go well.”

A knock on the door made Marlene jump, her mother’s voice coming muffled through the door. “Sweetheart, are you alright? You’ve been in there a while.”

“Y-Yeah, I’m fine! I’ll be down in a second, mom, promise.” Marlene didn’t dare to breathe until she heard the stairs creaking as her mother went back down. She took one last look at her reflection and made the final adjustments to her outfit. “It’s showtime girl, knock ‘em dead.”

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Unlike the 1800s, the deserts surrounding Hill Valley had been tamed to near-complete control. There were still the rolling sandy planes of the desert surrounding the town, but you’d have to drive a fair distance out before the carefully planted trees and shrubs turned were replaced by natural cacti. Marty had been on the road for about thirty minutes before Hill Valley was a distant speck behind him and the only sign of civilization was the paved freeway and the metal barrier framing the road. 

The absolute last thing Marty wanted to see right now was civilization. It wasn’t dusk yet, but it was definitely close. Not many people were out driving this late in the middle of January, especially since the Californian heat bled out the moment the sun dipped below the horizon. Marty still kept one eye on the road as he found a segment of the highway where the barrier had been broken and turned off, feeling the truck’s tires rumble as smooth asphalt turned into rough sand. 

The radio hummed with a mix of static and whatever rock station the antenna could pick up. Marty turned it off and let the truck’s roar fill the dead desert air. He kept driving until he couldn’t see the lights of the highway in any of the mirrors, then he killed the engine. He sat in the driver’s seat for a few minutes as the desert chill sunk into the truck’s main cabin, but even then he couldn’t handle the soft leather seat beneath him and the metal of the truck and the plastic that made up the steering wheel, so Marty opened the door and took off at a dead sprint, the sunset blinding him.

He was miles out from Hill Valley at this point, not that he’d recognize it if he went back. He’d left on a whim, just to drive, to feel something close to riding a horse and tasting sand on the wind and the smothering wool of his poncho. He could keep running, keep driving, stay out here in the cold desert and wake up to the heat of the sun burning his cheeks. Anything to feel closer to the last century, to the last thing he could associate with Doc and Clara and Seamus and Maggie.

Marty slowed from his sprint with a sobbing laugh. Here, in the middle of nowhere California, a sparkling new truck behind him and a town even further away, Marty felt like everything and nothing was in front of him. The future wasn’t written yet, Doc had told him. The road hadn’t been paved, the car hadn’t even been built. He could make his future whatever he wanted, which included running out into the wilderness just to feel closer to his friend, who hadn’t bothered to drop by in the past three months.

But right now in the present, where the future was unknown and the past was written, Marty stood in the desert and felt the wind brush through his hair. The setting sun lit the sands ablaze with reds and oranges, the few cactuses standing and casting lengthy shadows behind them. Marty wondered what his own shadow looked like, but didn’t dare to look back.

Instead he kept his gaze on the dying sun, the sky shifting to black and deep blues and a smattering of stars. Marty couldn’t help but compare it to the kaleidoscopic lightshow of the 1800s and how Marty could walk out in the dead of night without needing a flashlight because of how bright everything was around him. Even this far out light pollution had smothered the stars and dimmed the brilliant constellations. He could recognize a few of them from Doc’s old star maps: Cassopeia zig-zagged, the little dipper barely shone down, Sirius burned bright and brilliant in the sky.

For a brief moment, he could understand why Doc stayed behind. 

A chill swept through the air, goosebumps popping along Marty’s arms even through his jacket and vest. Marty looked behind and saw the distant, dark shape of the truck, cold and empty as it sat abandoned.

Maybe it was time to go ‘home.’

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It took a few weeks for the general hubbub about the train hijacking-and-subsequent-derailment to die down long enough for Emmett to ride out to the ravine and survey the debris without any prying eyes. Said weeks were filled with many moments of joy and grief—joy at his success sending Marty to the future and settling down with Clara, grief at never being able to see Marty again and if his future would change for the better. It didn’t help that the story around town was that Marty had attempted to stop the hijacking only to perish with the ‘wannabe thieves,’ so Emmett was bombarded by Hill Valley’s residents' condolences.

Emmett did his best to not be disquieted by it all. He knew that Marty wasn’t dead, and having such a convenient cover for why his apprentice had vanished with the train was extremely beneficial for him and Clara. Still, being the center of attention had never been Emmett’s strong suit, and the constant reminders of Marty’s permanent absence bored a hole in his heart. Seeing Maggie and Seamus around down filled him with guilt, Seamus in particular looking oddly guilty whenever he and Emmett locked eyes.

The moment it all sank in was when Marshal Strickland stopped by the smithy and informed him there was a petition to name the ravine after Marty. If it went through, it was to be known as the Eastwood Ravine (conveniently swapping out Clayton in the future).

Emmett rode out early in the morning on Archimedes to avoid the other searching and pitying gazes. He made it to the edge rather quickly, finding a safe spot to tether Archimedes before carefully venturing down the sheer slopes. Thankfully the rejuvenation treatment in 2015 made such a physical task at his age possible, and he made it to the bottom in record time. Emmett had the idle thought that, if his former physical education teachers could see him now, they’d faint from shock.

There wasn’t much left of the train, not that Emmett was surprised. There had been a dedicated effort by Marshal Strickland and the other deputies to search through the wreck to find the bodies of the bandits and Marty, only to turn up empty handed. If they hadn’t picked through most of the debris, the occasional stray cowboy looking to turn a profit or the Shonash Indians would’ve taken the rest for their own gains. Even so, Emmett looked through the shrubs and lifted the occasional large scrap metal looking for… something. Anything.

Hours later, Emmett climbed back up the ravine empty-handed, covered in dust and sand, and no more satisfied when he had climbed down. He wasn’t sure why he’d dedicated so much time to an effort that he knew would end with null results, but he had, and now he was tired and dying for an iced tea. Archimedes had wandered off slightly to nibble at some stray shrubs, and it took Emmett a bit to catch his breath and corral the horse into returning to town.

As he and Archimedes set off at a light trot, Emmett looked over his shoulder at the ravine. He’d hoped that seeing the remnants of the trainwreck would have brought him closure, would have stopped that odd twisting in his gut as he walked through town. Perhaps he had been looking for something… familiar. Another symbol of the future stuck in the past—not the far off twenty-first century hoverboard, but something closer to home.

Instead, Emmett returned to Hill Valley feeling more ungrounded than ever, wishing he could simply float off the ground and fly to somewhere better.

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Marty’s known Emmett for less than a day, but he’s pretty sure whatever Emmett is doing doesn’t fall within the realms of ‘normal behavior.’

Of course, not a single thing since last night has been normal. It’s not every day a time traveling teenager claiming to be your best friend (Marty didn’t do friends, not after the Pinheads broke up) starts to fade out of existence on your doorstep. It’s even less normal to welcome said kid into your house, hear him out on his crazy tale, watch a recorded video of said time travel machine do its first successful trip, and then promise to help the kid get everything he needed to build what he needed and somehow help him get his parents back together so he can, you know, exist. If Marty is known for anything, however, it’s being able to roll with the punches and adapt to a new normal.

That being said, Marty is painfully aware of how out-of-his-depth he is. He can help the kid with acquiring the parts he needs and fixing the car, not to mention buying the scrawny guy some appropriate clothes and guiding him around town. He can’t help the kid with the more complicated equations for calculating time travel, or play second wingman for Erhardt Brown and Sarah Lathrop, and it’s become clear that Emmett is working himself to the bone.

And Marty gets it. He remembers working late nights with the Pinheads to work on new songs together before things fell apart, how doggedly they’d practice songs until his fingers ached and he was half-deaf from listening to the same riffs over and over. The problem is Marty also knows how insanely unhealthy that is, and how it was that same dogged pursuit of making new songs was half the reason the band fell to bits. Emmett is young, full of passion and even more full of stress and anxiety.

When Emmett is still working late the night before the big school dance, even with everything constructed and prepared for with the fancy time machine and they can’t do anything else, Marty decides it’s time to intervene.

“Okay, kid.” Marty shoves himself between Emmett and the temporary workbench he’d set up, bodily blocking him from fiddling with the conductive pole. “It’s nine o’clock, you’re going to bed.”

“Psh, nine?” Emmett giggles, the sound barely within the bounds of what Marty would consider ‘sane.’ “Nine is early. I’ll make a cup of coffee and be fine.”

“Yeah, and I’d rather not have you pass out in the middle of the dance from exhaustion.” Or worse, collapse in the middle of the day from a caffeine overdose, but Marty isn’t going to say that aloud. 

Marty wonders if these arguments are a frequent thing in the future. How many nights did Emmett come over to work on some weird experiment, only for Marty to have to pull the plug and enforce a bedtime? He can’t imagine not worrying himself sick if he cares so much for this kid, and he’s only known Emmett for six days rather than the multiple years Emmett claimed.

“Marty, I promise you, I will be fine. I just need to tweak this one last thing—”

“Will the pole conduct the lightning bolt or not?” Marty asked, looking down at the extra-long hook.

“Well, yes, but—”

“Then there’s nothing more you can do.” Marty placed his hand on Marty’s shoulder. “We have all the materials for tying up the conductive wire and I know how to do it. The pole is fine and connects to the engine to power the time circuits. The car is… well the car is a car and I can’t fiddle as much with the engine as I would’ve wanted, but it’s as good as it’s gonna get. You have to know when to stop and breathe, kid, otherwise you’re going to work yourself into an early grave.”

Emmett flinches at that and Marty feels bad for only a second, but… it’s true. He still has tremors in his fingers from all the late-night practice sessions he’d forced on the other members of the Pinheads. He was probably at least slightly deaf from forcing himself to listen to their recordings over and over, trying to make everything as perfect as possible. Maybe if he hadn’t pushed as much, then…

Well, there’s no use dwelling on the past. He and the Pinheads were done, finito, over, and even the mystical time traveling car in his garage couldn’t change that. …Probably.

No, quit being greedy McFly: priority one is making sure the kid gets home.

Emmett shrugs off Marty’s hand with a weak protest, “But… there’s still more I could add—make sure that everything goes right this time.”

Marty sighs, knowing that there’s only one way to stop a perfectionist dead in their tracks. “Well, you’ll have plenty of time to worry about that while we watch The Honeymooners.”

“The wha-ah!” Emmett’s voice shifts into a yell as Marty ducked down, wrapped his arms around Emmett’s middle, and lifted him right off the chair. Emmett kicks wildly, his hands gripping the back of Marty’s shirt for dear life as Marty walks them into the den. “Marty! What are you doing?”

“Enforcing a break,” Marty grunts. For all Emmett looks like a walking, talking fishbone, the kid actually had a fair amount of weight that made it awkward to carry him over the shoulder. “God forbid someone actually takes care of you, kid.”

“I’m not a toddler!”

“Really? Could’ve fooled me.” Marty deposits Emmett on his couch and goes over to the TV, turning it on CBS just in time for the opening credits to end. “Now, you and I are gonna sit here and try to turn our brains off for the next half hour at least. If there’s actually something concerning you need to fix, then you can go back to work. Otherwise, we’re watching the new episode and that’s that, got it?”

Emmett pouts and crosses his arms. “You’ll need more than some outdated sitcom to keep me entertained.”

Marty knows that the show is outdated from Emmett’s perspective, but he’d been trying to give the show a chance since his dad had been needling him about how ‘great’ it was. Maybe he should’ve found something better but, well, there wasn’t much on this late when the channels were starting to wind down for the evening. “I also have crosswords and an old jigsaw puzzle set if you really need something to fiddle with.”

Emmett’s pout lessens in intensity. “Would you… be willing to do the puzzle with me?”

“Sure, not like I’m doing anything else this evening.” Marty says, going down the hall to the closet where he stored it. When he comes back Emmett is biting his lip and looking anxiously at the calendar. “Hey, enough of that now. We got a puzzle to solve.”

“Right…” Emmett watches Marty scatter the pieces across the table as The Honeymooners plays in the background. “Marty?”

“Yeah, kid?”

Emmett seems to hesitate on what he wants to say. It’s hardly the first time this has happened—Emmett hesitates on almost everything he tells Marty, limiting his knowledge of the future as much as possible, only letting things slip when he does some kind of cultural reference that Marty can’t grasp. Marty waits patiently as he sorts out his words. “I… don’t you want to watch the episode? Reruns of television programs likely won’t occur for at least a few years, and this episode is likely new.”

“Nah, it’s alright kid.” Marty isn’t that worried about missing the episode—quality aside, he’s got another thirty years to figure out if he cares about sitcoms enough to spend the evenings watching them. “Rather spend the night doing something more important.”

Chapter Text

“Ace!” Marty whoops in victory as he scores his first point across three matches.

George chuckles as he swipes the sweat off his brow. “That’s not what ‘ace’ means, kiddo.”

“It’s not?” Marty asks as he grabs another ball from the canister, saving George the walk of shame of collecting the one from the last round. “Then what the hell does it mean?”

“It’s when you score a point from just serving, nothing else.” It had been a good round, he’ll give Marty that, but it was probably because George is getting tired. He can’t play like he used to, unfortunately, and Marty was young and had energy to burn, especially since Marty’s shots were going so wide today.

George can’t help but think that Marty’s entire playstyle today is odd. It’s a somewhat underhanded trick to make your aging father run across the entire court to hit an in-coming shot, and Marty played above board in the past, knowing that his father had his limits and they played for fun, not for score. Sure, Marty isn’t the best at tennis, but that was because he didn’t actively practice, not like his skateboarding and guitar playing. 

But even if Marty has decided to play dirty today… that didn’t explain why he wouldn’t remember basic tennis terminology. Sure, they didn’t go over everything or use all the terms, but Marty would know what an ace is.

George shakes his head, dispelling some of the odd thoughts ruminating in his head. Maybe Marty is simply distracted—his senior year of high school is fast approaching, not to mention college applications and touring campuses. It’s reasonable that tennis isn’t the highest priority in his son’s mind.

Still… George takes in how Marty is holding his racket in an awkward, unpracticed grip, and how he keeps pulling at the polo like it’s choking him. He keeps looking at the court’s surrounding fence like a rat in a cage, desperate to get out as soon as possible. Now that he thinks about it, George had noticed how tense Marty was in the passenger seat on the ride here, and how he played during those first rounds, exuding confidence but completely unable to execute even a basic serve.

George takes a deep breath. It’s another odd thing on top of all the other many, many odd things Marty has said and done since Doc Brown left town. Thinking about it now isn’t going to help Marty, least of all himself.

Marty throws the tennis ball above his head and successfully serves it into George’s court. All George has to do is return it, and the game can continue.

Chapter Text

For all her soon-to-be husband’s many, many virtues, being a medical doctor was not one of them.

Pregnancy had taken its toll on her. She had spent the first months awash with morning sickness, hating her usual favorites and craving the most obscure foodstuffs that were simply not available in Hill Valley. It was mentally and physically draining, and she was certain the doctor despised coming to her home because of Emmett’s nigh-ceaseless mother henning.

Oh, but she couldn’t blame Emmett. This was their first child (Emmett had told her with ease there were no children of his own waiting for him in the future) and Clara knew that, even without her body’s constant betrayals, that they’d both be just as fretful. There was only the one town doctor, and though Emmett had theoretical knowledge of how pregnancy and labor worked, if something went wrong either during or after, there wasn’t much either could do.

In this way, the McFlys were saints. Maggie had started making a little quilt (“Just let me know what name you decide on, and I’ll sew on a few letter patches for the babe when it’s out!”) and Seamus stopped by almost daily to offer them any advice or food to help tide them over. Thankfully Emmett’s blacksmithing and Clara’s teaching efforts had netted them enough of a safety net if Clara ended up bedridden, though they certainly weren’t hoping for that to happen.

Tonight was possibly one of the worst. Clara had a constant nausea that was keeping her awake, and her mind was awhirl with worries. What if the baby didn’t make it? What if the baby did make it and got sick and passed? Was that a condemnation of Clara as a mother? Was it God taking his due for Emmett saving her life and altering the time stream so she would live?

Emmett didn’t know about the litany of thoughts that ran through her head, but he did his best to assuage her worries whenever possible. He’d already started work on the time train, though at the moment it was simply conceptualized schematics. He hadn’t purchased or started building a train, let alone gathering and constructing the necessary materials for time travel.

Nights like tonight, Emmett told her stories of the future. He told her how medicine had advanced, and that there were widespread methods of preventing diseases from ever taking hold of someone’s body. “There are these things called vaccines,” he said, holding her hand and tracing over her belly, which had just started to show, “one tiny prick with a needle, a few days of feeling sore and achy, and you never have to worry about catching the illness ever again!”

“Truly?”

“Yes! Multiple diseases have been completely eradicated, if not on the brink of it. Polio cases are unheard of, flu seasons are far easier to manage, scarlet fever and diphtheria are rarer than diamonds. If I’m quite honest, the thing I look forward to the most is seeing the medical world finally catch up.”

Tears in her eyes, Clara spoke hushedly, “Can you promise me, Emmett, one of the first things we’ll do in the future is get our child these vaccines?”

Emmett beamed and swept her up in a passionate kiss, whispering against her lips, “Of course, my love, of course.”

Chapter Text

Whenever pop was well and truly angry, he had this certain face. His nose would scrunch up and make his mustache look larger than life, the effect further hastened as his skin would flush so red the commies across the Pacific would be jealous. His hands, clenched into fists, would tremble at his sides as his shoulders rose up to his ears. Sometimes his glasses would hit the light in just the right way to block his eyes entirely, which did nothing to hide how screwed Emmett was whenever that expression was directed at him.

Emmett had only seen that expression twice: once when he burned the rug with one of his first science experiments (sort-of, he wanted to see if he could light one of pop’s cigars with just a magnifying glass and the sun from the window in order to test his knowledge on optics) and when he failed to hand that subpoena off to Arthur McFly. That expression haunted Emmett’s worst nightmares, and he kept his science experiments under wraps to avoid ever seeing it again.

Well, Emmett was certainly seeing it again, and it was somehow even worse than the last times. Probably because pop just finished paying bail.

“I cannot believe you, Emmett!”

“I said I was sorry!”

“Sorry doesn’t even begin to cover it!” Pop turned on his heel once he and Emmett had reached the bottom of the stairs leading out of the Police Precinct. “A two hundred dollar bail, not to mention the even more expensive list of damages I will have to pay off, because you don’t have a job! Can you even begin to comprehend how much damage you’ve inflicted upon us?”

“It was an accident! The hover mechanism wasn’t properly calibrated or charged to its full capacity, and the wheel could’ve been more fine-tuned, but it was still an accident and proved that—”

“That your experiment showed reckless endangerment to human life and was far too dangerous for anyone to perform, least of all my son!” Pop pushed as much animosity into the word ‘experiment’ before shouting at the top of his lungs. A few people in the town square stopped to gawk at them and Emmett felt his own irritation rising. Sure, stick around for the free entertainment of his family’s life drama, no one has anything better to do. “What were you thinking? You could’ve gotten seriously hurt even if there wasn’t a glass house to fly into.”

“I didn’t fly, I hovered,” Emmett scoffed. “Quit pretending you would have cared if I’d gotten hurt. You don’t care about me, you care about your reputation and how much money it’ll cost to cover up how much of a disgrace I am.”

“A cost in the thousands of dollars! We might be better off than most with this economy, but we are not Midas! We will be lucky if we can pay off that debt within either of our lifetimes!”

“Once my patent goes through-”

“Patent?” Pop whispered, horrified in the same way someone would be if you said whiskey. “Emmett, how long have you been working on this?”

“The car? A few months, now. But science?” Emmett laughed despondently. “Did you really not notice how much I love science? How miserable I was with law? Seeing Doctor Frankenstein bring his creation to life proved to me that science is my calling, not—not serving as your right-hand man delivering subpoenas or shoving my nose into a dusty law book!”

“Gott in Himmel Emmett, do you hear yourself?” Pop grabbed him and shook him, as though that would help. “Hovering cars? Bringing the dead back to life? Risking your life over the slimmest possibility of doing something that any other man could? Come back to reason, my boy. Law is safe, law can protect you, law will do you far greater than any science could.”

Emmett felt the weight of his father’s hands resting on his shoulders. He took a deep breath and steeled himself for what he was about to say. “You’re right, father. Law has protected me. And it will continue to protect me.”

Father’s expression shifted from desperate happiness to confusion. “Emmett?”

“And the law will protect me because I am eighteen, and no longer a minor that you need to shelter and control.” Emmett pushed off his father’s hands. “Thank you for paying my bail, father. I’ll pack my bags tonight and be out of your hair by tomorrow morning. Don’t worry about paying for damages, I’ll figure something out and pay my debt on my own.”

“Emmett, what are you—” Not waiting for his father to finish, Emmett walked past him towards their home, moving at a controlled yet hurried pace that was just short of him running. “Emmett! Emmett, get back here right this instant! This conversation is not over!”

“You’re right about that,” Emmett said under his breath. If father attempted to talk to him later, Emmett would simply ignore him. He didn’t have many belongings to call his own, but he had enough to fit into a bag and knew enough safe spots around town for him to stay. It would be sad to part with his ramshackle lab in the garage, but it was a necessary parting.

Emmett would be fine. He’d have to be.

One month after their explosive argument, Emmett had made a name for himself in the local Hooverville by setting up his new ramshackle tent out of his sewn-together shirts and pants and figuring out a way to more efficiently burn garbage to cook and keep them all warm.

Two months after their explosive argument, Emmett was delivered a letter saying his debt to the Glass House company had been paid in full, and his debt was null and void.

That was the last time Emmett and his father exchanged any form of communication. Emmett wouldn’t hear about Judge Erhardt Gustav Brown until he had to handle his affairs after his and his wife’s passing in 1950. Revisiting his home, Emmett found an old newspaper from 1931 with the headline, “YOUTH JAILED AFTER DISASTROUS EXPO SHOWING.”

Emmett burned the paper and wore his failure with pride.