Chapter Text
Marty McFly had been in a daze. His mother’s words rang in his head over and over: “Your father is in the same place he’s been for the last 12 years, Oak Park Cemetery.”
It couldn’t be true.
It couldn’t.
He refused to believe it.
Which is why he searched the penthouse for a flashlight and made his way to the cemetery. He had to see the grave himself.
Unlike earlier, where Marty took in the new Hill Valley, watching as gangs of bikers rode about and as flames engulfed police cars, Marty ignored the chaos around him, dead set on reaching the cemetery as quickly as possible.
Marty stumbled into the graveyard. The cemetery clearly had seen better days, the grass looked like it hadn’t seen a lawnmower in years, trees and bushes were overgrown and draped over headstones. Oil refineries filled the sky with smoke, obscuring the moon.
Marty made sure to check every tombstone. He pushed tree branches out of the way, double checked every one that had the name George on it. It can’t be real. She was lying. He tried to convince himself.
And yet, there it was. Engraved in stone.
In loving memory
George Douglas McFly
April 1st, 1939 – March 15th, 1973
Marty sank to his knees at the sight of it. “No…” He swiped a stray branch away from the tombstone. “This can’t be happening!” He read the date on the tombstone out loud to himself, as if he needed to hear the words spoken as confirmation. “March 15th, 1973 -No! Oh god, please no! This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening!”
“Calvin?”
Marty turned. That voice… But it can’t be… He was literally sitting in front of his grave.
And yet, there he was.
George McFly stood over Marty. He was somewhat transparent and emitted a pale blue light.
Marty yelped and scrambled closer to the tombstone, his back leaning against it. “Dad!”
“I think you mean Daddy-o -right?”
Marty screamed. “Oh my God! You’re a ghost!”
George looked down at himself. “I am.” Marty couldn’t tell if he meant it as a statement or a question.
Marty’s hands flew to his head and held his temples. “What the hell is going on,” he said, mostly to himself. In the past week he had experience time travel in both directions, multiple alternate realities, going on a date with his own mother, and now seeing a ghost. “None of this is right!”
“I’ll say,” George agreed. He looked Marty over, frowning. “How do you look the exact same as you did in 1955?”
“How are you a ghost?” Marty shouted, ignoring the question.
George shrugged. “I don’t know either, Calvin. The last thing I remember is bleeding out in an alley, looking up at the stars, and then all of a sudden, I was here, watching someone cry over a grave. I assume that’s my grave?”
Marty nodded sullenly. “Yeah.”
“Well, would you mind showing my corpse a little more respect, and get off it?” George asked kindly. “I would help you up but- ah-” He swiped a hand at a different tombstone. It went straight through. “Ghost rules.”
Marty stood up and stepped away from the grave. He teetered slightly as he stood.
George studied his tombstone for a moment. As he did, Marty got a better look at his father.
He didn’t look the same as he did in the other 1985s, nor did he look like his younger self in 1955, but a mix of both the present and the past. Which wasn’t really shocking, if Marty thought about it. He had a few wrinkles under his eyes and around his mouth, but that was about it. His hair wasn’t greasy like it was in 1955, his bangs swept to the side of his face. He wore a white suit, not the one he was in for the dance, but still too formal for it to be regular everyday attire.
“What year is it?” George asked suddenly.
Marty was snapped out of his train of thought. “Huh?”
“How long has it been since 1973?” George was looking at him once more.
“Uh, it’s 1985. Twelve years after you died.”
George blinked in disbelief. “I see,” he said quietly. “And yet, you haven’t changed at all in those thirty years.” He frowned at Marty, eyes narrowing.
Marty gave a small chuckle. “Yeah, pretty strange, right?”
“Something isn’t right here, Calvin,” George said. “And I think you know what. I believe that me existing as a ghost has something to do with your immortality.”
“I’m not immortal Da- George.”
“Then what are you?”
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” Marty said.
George raised his eyebrows. “Try me,” he said. “I’m the ghost of a science fiction writer who encountered an alien when he was a teenager.” He paused. “Wait- were you Darth Vader? Are you an alien?”
“No. I mean, I was, but I’m not.”
“What?”
Marty cringed. How on earth was he going to explain this? Should he tell his dad the truth? Would that destroy the space-time continuum? It’s probably already wrecked. He thought miserably. Besides, where’s the harm in telling a ghost the truth? He hoped Doc would see it that way too.
Marty sighed. Please don't kill me for what I'm about to say, Doc. “Alright. Um Da- George,” he said awkwardly. “So, uh, the reason I haven’t changed since 1955 is because,” he paused, “I’m a time-traveller.”
He waited for his father to have a major reaction. But instead, he just nodded, indicating for him to continue.
“And… my name isn’t Calvin Klein.”
That statement provoked George. “Wait- then-” His eyes widened. “Oh my god,” he said. “Marty?” he asked hesitantly.
“Yeah dad, it’s me, how did you not realize that?”
“I haven’t seen you in twelve years! You were five when I died, Marty.”
“How did you guess so easily?” Marty said.
"Who else would it be? You keep calling me dad, you're certainly not Linda, and you don't have Dave's curly hair. And now that I see you as my son and not my old high school classmate, you look like an older version of yourself."
"Still can't believe it took you this long to figure it out."
George ignored the statement, looking deep in thought.
“Wait- if you-” His eyes widened. “My God Marty! You were going to- Lorraine-” He looked horrified.
“Yeah, yeah, I know Dad. I’m as disgusted by it too, but I had to fix the timeline! I messed it up by getting hit by Grandpa’s car. You were the one who was supposed to be hit by it. Not me.”
“And you decided to remedy that by going on a date with your own mother?”
“I didn’t have a choice, Dad!” Marty insisted. “It was either let mom kiss me or cease to exist!”
George stared at Marty. “Oh my God,” he said once more.
“Is it out of your system yet?”
“Martin McFly, this will never get out of my system,” George retorted. Marty flinched; he wasn’t used to his father responding to his teenaged quips. At most, he would laugh awkwardly like it was some joke only he got.
“Well, I gotta go.” I need to find Doc and try to fix this mess. Marty took a step towards the cemetery gate.
“Uh, no you don’t,” George said. He moved in front of Marty, as if his ghostly self would be able to block him from leaving. “I can tell there’s still more to this story.”
“Dad,” Marty couldn’t help but whine a little. “There isn’t enough time to tell you everything that happened.”
“You’re a time-traveller, aren’t you?” George responded dryly. “I’m sure you can make time.”
Marty sighed again. If only this were his old father. He would’ve been able to easily wiggle out of his questions and find Doc. But alas, his actions had consequences.
“Alright, alright,” he said.
At first, Marty only meant to tell his father about his adventure to 1955. How Doc had presented his time-machine to Marty, how he had to escape a bunch of terrorists after Doc got shot, how he accidentally ended up in 1955 and was taken in by his mother’s family for the evening.
But then, he couldn’t stop himself as he told his father about his return to 1985, with everything different, and how Doc brought him and Jennifer to 2015 to help their kids, and how he returned to a completely different looking Hill Valley now.
“I don’t know how the heck this all happened,” Marty said. “I mean, we were in the future, how on earth would that change the past? It doesn’t make any sense. And now instead of living in a timeline where you have a spine and Mom’s happy, I’m in a nightmare Hill Valley that feels like a zombie apocalypse, where Mom’s married to Biff and where you’re-” He broke off for a moment. “And where you’re dead.”
It was actually a little therapeutic, rambling about his time-travelling tales to someone who wasn’t Doc. He and his father never really bonded over anything in the previous timeline, Marty wondered if it would had been different in the better one.
George had gone quiet, processing all the information Marty had given him. He had been a silent listener, only nodding at certain points.
Finally, he spoke. “Seems like you’ve been through quite a lot in a little amount of time, Marty.”
Marty let out a shaky laugh. “Yeah, I guess. And now I have no idea what to do next.”
George tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Do you think you could fix the timeline again?”
Marty shrugged. “I have no clue what changed it in the first place!”
“But if you did know, then could you change it?”
“Probably, it would depend on what changed, though.”
“Then we find out what happened, and then fix it,” George said.
“But that requires a time machine, Dad. I have no clue where Doc went, or where the DeLorean is.” Doc mentioned having some lose ties he needed to figure out before destroying the time machine. But wouldn’t that matter? Wouldn’t he have time travelled to right after he dropped Marty and Jennifer off? Time travel is so confusing. He thought to himself. Even a week of time travelling, it still hurt his brain.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. In the meantime, I say we head to the library and start going through newspapers.”
Marty nodded. “Alright.” He paused. “Maybe I should go on my own? It’d be a little strange seeing a ghost walking the streets.”
“I don’t want my son wandering alone in the streets,” George said firmly. “Hill Valley after dark was dangerous back when I was alive, and I assume it’s only gotten worse.”
“Fine. Are you able to leave the cemetery? Or is that another ghost rule?”
George shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
Marty went first, walking under the broken old gate. He watched as his father followed more slowly.
His father crossed the threshold. He looked at his hands, as if expecting to see them disappear. But they remained somewhat corporeal.
“Okay, let’s go,” George said.