Tuesday, December 24, 1912
8:53 A.M.
Emily woke up not knowing quite where she was at first. Opening her eyes, she saw a dark-colored material of sorts stretched out above her, near ceiling level, and she frowned intently, wading through a still sleep-muddled brain for an answer to her surroundings. Disorientation nagged at her strongly and lasted until she rolled onto her side and took a look at the rest of the room she lay in before it came back to her.
"We're at Gramma and Grandpa's," she whispered, smiling as she snuggled under the warm blankets piled on the four poster canopy bed. The bed was one of the neatest things about the room she'd gotten. Emily had always wanted to sleep in a four poster canopy bed, like princesses of olden days got to do, but hadn't yet had the chance in her ten years. The rooms that her brothers had been given didn't have such a feature and she'd almost expected to have to fight for the room -- especially since it was bigger, too -- but they let her have her way for once without any struggle.
After a few minutes of savoring her surroundings, Emily slipped out of the temptingly warm bed, shivering as her feet touched the bare wood floor. She headed to the window that faced the front of the house and drew back a corner of the curtain for a look outside at the damage Nature had wrought in the night. Her eyes narrowed immediately against the too-white light that slipped into the room, but once they had adjusted and she got a look outside she gasped, half in delight, half in amazement. The snow had finally stopped falling, though the sky was slate gray, and left behind at least a foot, to Emily's eyes. Enough that she couldn't see the tracks left by the car that they had come in the night before The vehicle was still parked there and looked like a little white mound. Emily grinned at the sight, her heart skipping higher in happiness at the realization that today, in this time, it was also Christmas Eve. Snow on Christmas happened about every other year, give or take, at home, but seldom was it this deep.
"Excellent!" she murmured with her smile still in place as she turned and headed for the door. Jules' and Verne's doors were still closed and she assumed that they were still sleeping in bed, the lazybones that they were. Emily didn't understand the logic behind sleeping in until ten or eleven, as they were apt to do. As far as she was concerned weekends -- which were about the only time she could sleep in to when she wanted, excluding vacations -- weren't to be wasted in bed like that. If she didn't get up until eight, that was unusual -- though, as Emily passed a hanging clock in the hallway, she saw it was almost nine. Well, the day before had been a long and stressful one. Guilt nagged her as she remembered poor Marty and the fact he was cooped up in a hospital, now, probably hurting and not happy... very different from how she was feeling.
We should bring him a gift, she thought as she took the closest set of stairs down, following the delicious scents of breakfast. She had seen at least two staircases in the house so far, which boggled her mind. Why would people need more than one set of stairs to use? It wasn't like they were escalators or whatever.... As she padded down the stairs to the first floor, she stumbled on the hem of the loaned nightgown, which hung several sizes too large on her slender, petite form. After a few frightening moments of falling down a few steps, she caught herself on the bannister and loosed a sigh of relief. The air nearly stuck in her throat, however, at the sudden appearance of a short, stout woman with curly red hair, at the bottom of the stairs. She stared at Emily for a moment without a word, and Emily didn't try to provoke an immediate conversation; she always found herself shy around strangers at first, and the experience was compounded now being a visitor in a strange home.
"You must be the little girl," the woman said after a moment of study. "Mrs. Von Braun told me about you and your brothers. I'm Beth Harrington, the Von Brauns' cook."
Emily hesitated a moment before speaking herself, slightly annoyed at being called "little." "I'm Emily," she said, not sure about using her last name and equally unsure of the wisdom in pulling something out of the air without consulting anyone else. The cook, Beth, didn't ask.
"Well, then, Emily, I hope you're hungry. I'm almost done preparing breakfast for you and your brothers."
"Where's...." Emily caught herself before she could say "Gramma." "...Where's Mrs. Von Braun?"
"She and the doctor are at the hospital. Duty calls. But she told me that she would return on her lunch hour to bring you in to visit your brother. Most of the town's snowed in from the storm, but the doctor and his wife keep a sleigh handy for just these occasions. Wouldn't do for the doctor to be unable to see his patients, now, would it?"
Emily shook her head, still sufficiently intimidated by the woman to find her tongue not as willing to provide commentary. The cook smiled, the expression softening the lines in her round face. "Are you hungry, Miss Emily?"
The girl shrugged and nodded at the same time. "What kind of foods are you making?" she asked.
"The bacon's frying up, and there's pancakes, eggs, and some orange juice, fresh squeezed."
"Really? Cool!"
The cook looked at the girl, oddly. "No, everything is cooked quite well, I assure you."
Emily felt her cheeks redden at her accidental slip. "Well, good," she said, continuing down the stairs. She was stopped once more by the cook, who gave her an almost stern glance.
"You aren't planning on dining in those clothes, are you? It's terribly improper, child. There should be enough time for you to dress properly before I'm finished with the preparations."
Emily frowned. "I don't have anything else but the clothes I wore yesterday," she said. "Mrs. Von Braun said she'd try and get me some more things."
"Well, so long as your dress is still clean, I wouldn't fret. And while you're up there, you might want to rouse your brothers and get them on their way. I don't think they'll enjoy a cold breakfast."
There were probably tasks that Emily hated more, but right then nothing came to mind more than waking up Jules and Verne. Neither were really morning people and usually had harsh words for anyone who dared disturb their slumber before ten, unless it was a matter of life or death. It was with a heavy heart that the girl went back up the stairs and banged on the doors of the rooms her brothers were in until they made noise from the other side. Then she dared to stick her head inside, told them that they had to get up now or else would tick off the cook downstairs, and ducked out before one of the flung pillows from their beds could strike her in the head.
By the time Emily got dressed and ready for the day, breakfast was ready. Jules and Verne slinked down almost halfway through it, both dressed but looking rather grumpy and sullen. The good food didn't appear to dent their moods, nor did the coffee. The meal was conducted almost entirely in silence, and once it was done, the kids headed off in different directions. Emily explored the first floor of the mansion, curious about these people she was related to and this building that her own father would someday inherit and later destroy. She wound up in the living room at the back of the house, where a Christmas tree and stack of gifts sat near the large windows that overlooked the back yard. Emily poked around them for a while, eyeing the books on the shelves and the few framed photographs displayed in the room before settling on the couch to ponder the possibility of going outside herself to try her hand at sledding or building something.
Verne wandered in about half an hour later. "What are you doing?" he asked, heading over to the unlit fireplace across from the windows.
"Thinking," she said. Emily glanced over her shoulder to see her brother kneeling on the hearth and fiddling with the rack of fireplace tools. "Do you think I could go outside and play in the snow?"
"Not unless you have better clothes to do that," Verne said. He looked up from the fireplace. "Hey, our coats are still in that restaurant, aren't they?"
"I guess so," Emily said, having forgotten about that. "Bummer." She watched as her brother took a few logs from a pile near the fireplace and started to stack them inside it. "Is that okay with Gramma and Grandpa?"
Verne glanced at her, annoyed. "Will you stop calling them that here?" he said. "It's asking for trouble."
"Well, they're not around...."
"Yeah, but they have hired help who is." Verne set the last log in the fireplace, then started looking around for matches. Emily, who thought her brother was being unduly paranoid, changed the subject.
"How long are we going to be staying here?" she asked.
Verne's annoyance didn't disappear; instead, it seemed to grow worse. "I dunno. Ask Jules."
"Ask me what?"
Emily turned her head towards the new voice. Jules was heading into the room, a thick book tucked under one arm. "How long we're going to be here," she said. "Not that I wanna leave right now... today's Christmas Eve here, y'know, and it would be fun to spend Christmas here, and have it twice. But I'm just curious."
"Whenever Marty can handle the trip," Jules said. He turned his eyes to Verne who, having located a box of matches, was now trying to light the fire. "I hope someone gave you permission to do that."
"As much as they gave you permission to borrow books," Verne said without looking up.
Jules frowned. "This is a medical textbook, for your information," he said. "I wanted to review the contemporary techniques they have in surgery, and Miss Harrington directed me to the books that belong to Doctor Von Braun. It's not a family photo album or some rare novel."
Emily turned away from the window, the snow temporarily forgotten. "There's photo albums here?" she asked, excited.
"I saw some in the study. I -- Emily, where are you going?"
Emily had jumped from the couch and was heading towards the hallway. "To look at the albums," she said.
"You can't do that," Jules said immediately. "Those are personal artifacts that we have no right snooping into."
Emily didn't believe that for a second, pausing in the doorway to answer. "We do, too. They're our family."
"That doesn't matter right now. It--"
Whatever he was going to say was never finished. Miss Harrington suddenly appeared behind Emily. "Ah, good, you're all together," she said. "Mrs. Von Braun just telephoned to say that she was on her way home to take you back to the hospital to visit your brother. He's asking for you, apparently. She should be here shortly, so I would suggest that you prepare yourself now for the journey."
Emily's disappointment at not seeing the albums was pacified only by the idea of seeing Marty. Unfortunately, when Sarah arrived a half-hour later to pick them up, she was somewhat aghast to discover that none of them had their coats. The night before she had been distracted enough to not make a note of it, but now....
"You children will catch your death out in simply those clothes," she said firmly. "Do you mean to tell me that you've been out in that weather without overcoats and hats since yesterday afternoon?"
"Since we left the restaurant to take Marty to the doctor," Verne admitted for the three of them. "They're probably still there, so we could just pick 'em up on the way over or something."
Sarah clicked her tongue in mild scolding. "I'm a fine nurse to not have noticed last night," she said, half to herself. "Well, it's too late now. I believe Robert might have something that will fit you young men, though your sister might be swimming in one of my coats."
Emily didn't mind, especially since the coat her grandmother found for her had soft fur trimmed around the collar and cuffs, likewise the hat. Granted, the hem for the coat did go a few inches past her shoes, dragging a bit on the floor, and the hat had a tendency to flop down over her eyes, but it felt divinely elegant. Much cooler than the clothes that her dad had picked out for her for this trip.
It got better. Rather than lead them out to the old antique car, Sarah took them to the hospital in an honest-to-goodness horse-drawn sleigh -- just like something out of one of those Christmas songs. Emily was once more beside herself with excitement, forgetting every unpleasant thing in the last day during that drive, quite oblivious to the looks Sarah was giving her over her excitement, as well as to the irritation of her brothers over her unrestrained enthusiasm.
It wasn't until they arrived at the hospital that Emily's thoughts turned back to their recovering friend. "Is Marty feeling better today?" she asked as they headed up the steps to the main doors.
"He's sore, but he's in better shape than he was yesterday," Sarah said.
"Can he get out today, or at least come back to your home with us? It's Christmas Eve," she added, trying to explain why she was even asking as Sarah looked at her in surprise. "It would be really lame to spend Christmas in the hospital... away from your family... alone in a strange place."
Sarah's lips tightened together in a serious expression, but Emily thought she caught a trace of amusement in the eyes so much like her own. "He had emergency surgery just yesterday," she said. "It wouldn't be wise to take him from the hospital for another few days, soonest. Infection is a danger."
Emily knew that Jules and Verne were glaring at her from behind, but she didn't care. She'd figured all this out last night, before she'd fallen asleep. "But you and Gra-- Doctor Von Braun are just as good as the hospital," she said seriously. "He's a doctor an' you're a nurse, so you could keep an eye on him and know if anything was going wrong. Jules is studying to be a doctor, too, and he could help with that. He's always dying to do that sort of stuff at home, whenever anyone's sick," she added, not fibbing. Whenever anyone in their family displayed so much as a sniffle her oldest brother would hound them to let him examine them, "for the experience," and venture a free diagnosis. Never mind that most of those diagnoses were simple colds or the occasional flu, ones that wouldn't give him much of a chance to refer them to a practicing doctor or to use his own skills.
Of course, Marty had given Jules a big chance to do just that, and he'd fainted twice during the surgery. Emily wondered if that meant anything -- like maybe he was in the wrong line of work after all.
Sarah, meanwhile, sighed at the ten-year-old's question. "What you're asking simply isn't done," she said. "Your brother will be far safer here with 'round the clock care than he will at any private home."
Emily glanced back at Jules, who was frowning sternly at her. "He can have 'round the clock care there," she said. "Jules could use the practice since he's in medical school, anyway. It would be like extra credit for him."
Sarah stopped at the elevator, pushing the button for the car. "If you feel so strongly about it, ask the doctor yourself," she said. "It's up to him to make the ultimate call. But I would advise against it for the sake of your brother's health."
Emily felt a little stung by her grandmother's slightly frosty tone but kept her head up and her goal focused. "I will, then," she said stubbornly.
Sarah accompanied them to the third floor where Marty's room was, then left them to return to her own nursing tasks. As they approached the door to their friend's room, Emily felt a little nervous, but she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was the idea of asking the doctor for another favor -- or the idea that Marty might not even want to leave, yet, and if he wanted to stay there was really no way around that.
Jules opened the door quietly and led them inside. Marty had the room to himself and wasn't doing anything Emily could see, aside from staring out the window. She supposed it was a real bummer to be bedridden before TVs were invented; all the more reason to get him out of the hospital soon. He didn't look as good as she had hoped -- he was still pale and looked tired -- but he smiled at their arrival, brightening.
"I thought you guys had ditched me," he said as they filed around his bed. "You could've left a note...."
"We told someone to tell you where we were," Emily said, concerned. "Didn't anyone do that?"
"Yeah, eventually." Marty looked at Jules, distracted as the young man scanned his chart at the end of the bed. "Hey, isn't that personal information?"
"I'm just making sure they're treating you correctly," Jules said, glancing up for a moment. "How are you feeling this morning?"
"Sore and a little out of it, still. The drugs they have now aren't so great, if you ask me."
"Are you still getting sick to your stomach?" Emily asked. At the somewhat puzzled look the musician gave her, she clarified a bit. "You threw up on Jules last night."
"Yeah," Verne confirmed for him, with a little chuckle. "I guess it was your way of getting back at him since he fainted twice in the operating room."
Marty blinked at this news. "I don't remember getting sick then," he said, sounding a little embarrassed as he looked back to the dark-haired young man. "Sorry, Jules."
Jules shrugged, his eyes still on the chart. "It was a side effect from the anesthetic," he said. "Unpreventable, now."
Marty continued to look at him. "You fainted in the OR?" he asked. "I thought you'd seen surgeries before...."
Emily could tell the question bugged her oldest brother. He frowned, lowering the chart to give Marty his full attention. "I have," he said. "I suspect a low blood sugar level from skipping dinner caused those problems, not being grossed out."
Marty frowned a little. "Since when are you diabetic?"
"He's not," Verne said before Jules could respond himself. "He probably just saw too much blood and hit the deck. Dad's said he's had that problem before and so did Granddad, apparently. Unless he lied to Jules about that last night."
Jules turned his dark eyes to his brother, irritated. "I wouldn't have made it this far in medicine if blood and guts bothered me," he said stiffly. "Why don't you mind your own business, Verne? You don't know anything about the human body except how to manipulate it in order to play pretend."
"At least I'm not getting some inflated ego about what I want to do someday," Verne retorted. Emily half expected Jules to return with a smart remark of his own -- her brothers were pros at fighting with one another -- but Jules ignored the blond instead to address Marty again.
"The last nurse recorded your body temperature at 99.2 degrees," he said. "That's not out of the realm of normalcy, but it could be an early sign of infection. How do you feel?"
Marty shrugged. "It's really sore where they cut the appendix out. I have a headache 'cause I'm on an all liquid diet, now. I'm tired from the nurses waking me up to poke me every hour or so last night. And I can't remember the last time I've been this bored." He lowered his voice a little. "When do you think we can leave this place?"
"If the doctor says it's okay, you can come back with us tonight," Emily said, broaching the subject she was most concerned with, currently.
"So we can leave tonight?" Marty grimaced a little. "I'm not sure if I'm up for a long hike in the snow yet...."
"Not wise," Jules said. "You don't want to pull out your stitches doing that."
Marty paled at the very idea, pulling the blankets up close to his chin. "No thanks," he said.
Emily felt a little annoyed at Jules' interrupting her. "We know you can't go home yet," she said. "But wouldn't you rather hang out with us at Gramma and Grandpa's house than here in the hospital?"
The girl was relieved when Marty didn't immediately frown at her suggestion. Rather, he looked intrigued. "That would definitely beat this place," he said. "Is that what they're going to do?"
"Depends if the doctor okays it," Jules said, glancing at his little sister with a frown. "But maybe it would be better if he didn't. Emily's getting us too involved with the Von Brauns."
"I dunno, Jules. I think they're being a great help," Verne said. "And since Marty's the one really going through hell here, maybe we should let him decide whether or not he wants to ask...."
Jules turned one quick, furious glance at his brother, who was watching him with a utterly straight face. The twenty-one-year-old looked to the patient. "Fine, if you want to do that, I won't stop you," he said. "But I think it would be best for Verne and I both to head out to the machine today and get the antibiotics for you. Just to make sure there isn't any infection. Those were the complications with surgeries, now."
"Why me?" Verne asked, crossing his arms. "I'm not volunteering to go out in that." A tilt of his head indicated the white world beyond the window glass.
"I'm not stupid enough to go alone and Emmy's too young," Jules said flatly. "If you insist on not going, however, I'm sure you'll have both a fun day hanging out here, as well as having Dad chew you out once we get back home."
Emily felt a little worried at the mention of that. Her father had given her a rather serious talk before they had left and she had made solemn promises on the matters of staying out of trouble and out of history books. But she also knew that he hadn't anticipated what would happen with Marty, or else there wasn't a chance in a million years he would've allowed the musician to go.
Once more, Emily expected Verne to argue with Jules about him ordering him to do something. Once more, she was surprised. "All right," Verne agreed easily, glancing at his sister. "Guess you'll have to keep Marty entertained today by yourself."
"What do you want me to tell your grandparents when they ask where you've gone?" Marty asked. "Somehow I don't think a coffee break is gonna be the best excuse...."
"Just tell them that we went into town," Jules said. "Leave it at that. It's not a total fib, as I think it would be smart to rent some horses for the journey, and we should probably pick up the winter gear we left at the restaurant yesterday."
"And you're sure it's safe out there now?" The musician looked worried. "Wasn't there a blizzard yesterday?"
"As you can see, that's passed; there're just snow flurries out there now," Jules said. He looked at his brother. "We'd better get going right now if we want to be back before dark."
Verne didn't say anything, rolling his eyes as he headed for the door. Jules stayed long enough to offer a few more last-minute instructions. "If you start feeling feverish, Marty, let someone know. And watch what you say, Em!"
Emily looked at Marty once they were alone, smiling brightly. "Wanna play a game?" she asked.
"Sure, but I don't know if they have any around here."
"They probably got a deck of cards or something at least," Emily said, heading for the door, now, to check and see. "Didja know of any games you really wanna play?"
Marty sighed. "Right now, I'd play just about anything."
* * *
After leaving the hospital, Jules and Verne headed towards downtown Hill Valley on foot. The hospital wasn't too far from it -- a mile or so -- but with drifts of show that came up close to hip level, it was slow going. For the most part, the young men walked in the street, dodging sleighs and horses when one came by. They didn't speak much on the walk, which suited Jules' mood fine. He hadn't lied to Verne back in the room; it was too dangerous to go out to the train alone, and right now, his brother was the only one suitable to join him. Otherwise Jules would've much preferred to make the trip alone and avoid the smartass remarks that his brother was so partial to.
Once in town, a stop at the restaurant allowed them to pick up all their things they had forgotten from the day before. The overcoats, hats, scarfs, and gloves for all four in their party, as well as the bag of patent medicine that had been Marty's reason for coming along in the first place, were still there. That was one thing about past times that Jules sort of liked -- the fact that the crime rate was so low and, in towns like Hill Valley, people watched out for one another. Of course, that same trait was against their favor as time travelers since, being strangers, they would be more likely to be remembered and observed than the normal locals.
After the gear had been gathered -- and some of it donned -- the brothers went to the same place they had the day before to rent horses again. Mr. Statler wasn't too surprised to see them -- apparently the trains had shut down from the storm late the day before, so they weren't the only people staying in Hill Valley longer than they had wanted -- but it took a bit of negotiation on Verne's part to get them some horses. Statler was apparently uneasy with the state of the weather and the strain it would put on his animals. There were times, Jules hated to admit, when his brother's ability to professionally BS came in handy. By the time Verne finished his act, Statler reluctantly agreed to rent them the horses -- but only if they made sure to return them by dark. Since Jules had that very intention, it wasn't much of a problem.
Verne couldn't resist gloating over his success at getting the animals, though, once they had left town. "Y'know, people really knock acting, but it can pretty much get you most anything you want if you're really good at it," he said.
"It still boils down to knowing how to manipulate people," Jules said, not wanting to give his brother the satisfaction of his agreement to the matter. "I find that rather shady and dishonest, personally."
Verne snorted as he kicked his horse to speed up a bit more. "I don't see your so-called ethics preventing you from riding a horse," he said. "If you're gonna be that high and mighty about it, why don't you take this trip on foot?"
"I'm not fool enough to risk hypothermia or Marty's health over this," Jules responded primly.
Verne rolled his eyes. "Too bad you can't seem to do more about that," he said.
"What?"
"Marty's health."
"What are you talking about? I've done as much as I possibly could for him here!"
"Yeah, passing out twice in the middle of his surgery was really being there for him...."
Jules felt his blood flood his cheeks. "That wasn't my fault," he said tightly. "Anyway, if it wasn't for me, he might not be alive right now. I was the one that knew he wasn't suffering from food poisoning or a stomach bug. If I hadn't been along then he might've been misdiagnosed or ignored until it was too late."
"Maybe not," Verne said. "Emmy and I aren't stupid, and neither's Marty. You always flatter yourself way too much, Jules. You think if you're not around the end of the world's gonna come, or people are gonna fumble and drop the ball. That's complete crap."
Jules pressed his lips together tightly. "Not really," he said. "I'm the only one who's responsible for things. You and Emily are too young and immature and don't take things seriously enough. Neither does Marty, to a degree, even if he might be older. When Mom and Dad aren't around, I'm the one who keeps things together."
The med student sincerely believed every word he had uttered, and also believed that he wasn't bragging; he was merely stating fact and truth. This was a fault of Jules' sometimes, being blind to the perspective of others as to how they saw him. Verne's exclamation, then, of "Bullshit!" caught him completely off-guard as the blond drew his horse to a sudden, jarring stop. "Ever since I can remember, Jules, you've always thought you were the only one who was worth anything of Mom and Dad's kids! You had to get the best grades, be the most responsible, make everyone think you were some perfect child and could do anything you put your mind to it. Christ! I spent half my life thinking there was something wrong with me 'cause I could never measure up to you, the overachieving brother who got all the praise from Mom and Dad and the straight A's in anything. In fact, the only thing that gave me hope was that you couldn't succeed in everything -- you've always had crappy people skills, and I had more friends than you could ever hope to have. I think that matters a hell of a lot more than a 4.0 GPA or any scholarship."
Verne stopped speaking, only because he had run out of air. His face was flushed with color and his eyes were narrowed in a hot glare. Jules just blinked at him a moment, his own horse stopped, completely flabbergasted by this sudden attack. Confusion reigned supreme only a moment; then his own temper kicked in.
"At least I wasn't afraid to push myself, Verne. Your worst problem is that you're lazy. The only time you take anything remotely serious is if you can somehow sandwich it into one of your own interests. Acting is the most shallow, fake profession I can think of. You just get to play pretend all day, like a little kid! At least Mom and Dad have one child they can be proud of and who won't still be living with them when they're thirty 'cause they can't get a real job where they make more than minimum wage!"
Verne gave him a very strange look, a cross between a smirk, a grimace, and a glare. "At least I can do what I like and do it well -- without hitting the deck in the moment of need!" While Jules sputtered over this, the blond continued. "You think you're so awesome, Jules, have fun doing your little errand -- alone. I'm outta here!"
And before Jules could say a word, his younger brother turned the horse around and kicked him to a gallop, heading back to town. Jules watched him go for a minute, surprised, then spurred his own horse forward, in the direction of the train. It was just as well his brother fled, then; if he had to look at him one more minute or listen to another one of his whiny complaints or wisecracks, Jules was quite sure he would've lost it completely and resorted to petty physical violence. He took a deep breath of the cold air and let it out, trying to calm down. His hands remained clenched around the reigns, however, and he realized he was shaking from the exchange.
"I should just take the train and go home now," he half muttered as he kicked his mount to a more rapid speed. The idea was incredibly tempting, but it wasn't really fair to Emily or Marty. And his father would never let him near another machine again if he did that. Still, the more he thought about it, the angrier he got at his younger brother. By the time he reached the train -- undisturbed, if the snow piled up against the sides was any indication -- and retrieved the entire first aid kit, just in case something else happened, Jules was seeing more red than white around him.
He never even thought to look at the TIPS monitor in the time machine before he left.
Tuesday, December 24, 1912
6:58 P.M.
When Verne had arrived back at the hospital just half an hour after leaving it, Marty sensed that there was trouble of some kind, in spite of the medications percolating through his blood and his own distracting physical discomforts. The blond didn't say a word in explanation of his unexpected arrival, beyond wanting to let "Jules handle things himself," then threw himself into the game of Hearts that Emily and Marty were playing. It wasn't until a few hours later that Jules put in a brief appearance, with a bottle of medication for Marty. He stayed long enough to watch him take a couple of the antibiotic capsules -- his temperature had climbed half a degree, a fact that had alarmed the young med student -- before leaving the room. During the moments he was in there, Verne had avoided saying a word, studying the cards in his hand with an unusual bit of interest, and the tension seemed to ratchet up a few dozen notches. Marty wondered if there was something going on, but he didn't ask, then.
Nor did he get around to asking later, as Dr. Von Braun had finally given his approval to moving the recuperating musician to his home for the holidays. Because walking was still rather difficult and the incision was still incredibly sensitive, Sarah gave him a shot that was supposed to make him more comfortable in the transition. Like a lot of the so-called painkillers of this time, it wound up making him simply feel really, really sleepy. Still, it did its job; he was able to move without too much agony. A couple of the nurses helped him bundle up in a coat and some blankets -- over the hated hospital gown -- and bring him outside in a wheel chair, sans IV. The cold on his exposed skin was a bit of a shock, as was his form of transportation to the future Brown mansion -- an honest-to-God horse-drawn sleigh. Apparently, the snow that had come the day before had packed a huge wallop and made the roads impassable any other way. The trip to the private home of the doctor and nurse was uneventful, though, and once he had been helped inside, he was brought to a first floor study where a Murphy bed had apparently been set up, along with some warm flannel pajamas on loan from Robert. Sarah encouraged him to change, carefully, have some of the water set next to the bed, and take a nap before she left him. Marty did the first two, feeling better once he was in some form of real clothes again but still wishing he might get a shower or a real meal, but he was distracted from sleep by some books in plain view with the word "Album" in silver script.
Having been bored beyond belief since he had wakened that morning, out of the last of the anesthesia fog, Marty was more than willing for any distraction. He shuffled his way over to the shelf with the help of the desk and a few of the chairs in the medium-sized room and slid out one of the volumes. Once he eased himself down, carefully, into the chair at the desk, he opened the book on the cleared off desktop and found himself looking at some very old family photographs. Most of them seemed to begin in the late 1800's and involved stiff looking poses, not candids. One of the first was a family portrait with three small children, two of whom, Marty noticed with surprise, looked identical and were probably twins, and they helped to hold up a smaller child in a dress with a number of lacy trimmings. The adults seated behind the children looked vaguely familiar to the musician and he puzzled over it for a couple minutes before noting the inscription under the photograph: Theodore Von Braun & Family: wife Anna, sons Robert, Stephen, and Oliver. July 1883.
It was Doc's father's family.
"Wow," he said softly, to himself. "I never knew the Doc had twins in his family."
Marty carefully turned the pages of the album, seeing more posed photographs of the children in the family as they aged, as well as some buildings and the like that were homes of the Von Braun family. It gave him something of a start to realize that the twins in the family were apparently Robert and Stephen -- not Stephen and Oliver, as had been his first thought. The boys were often posed together, sometimes with their younger brother. Then, once the photos began to slip into the early part of the Twentieth Century, Marty started to see a curious thing -- tears down the middle of the photographs that, presumably, held the twins (if the captions were any indication), leaving just Robert in the picture. After that, there were no more photographs of Stephen, period.
Did he die or something? Marty wondered, flipping back once he had reached the end of the album -- which had contained wedding portraits of Sarah and Robert -- and reexaming the pictures. He didn't feel terribly guilty in prying. Although he was a guest in this house, and these people were pretty much strangers to him, he was best friends with their someday son, and a lot of the stuff he could see now would no doubt be lost in the fire that would eventually destroy the mansion.
Nevertheless he jumped when a voice asked from nearby, "So, you're interested in photography, are you?"
Marty's reflexes were slower than he would've liked. All he could do was look up and blink, dumbfounded by the sight of Robert standing in the doorway, watching him with a rather suspicious expression on his face. He stammered, his mind blanking out any kind of good explanation. "I, ah, I was just... I saw this and I thought...."
Robert smiled faintly, the expression not reaching his eyes. They looked almost angry. "You should be in bed. If Sarah knew you were sitting up and walking around now, she would have my head for allowing you out of the hospital so soon."
Marty shut the album, drawing his hands away from it quickly, almost as if it were too hot to touch. "It's a little boring just lying there," he admitted. "I'm sorry, I was... looking for something to read and just took this out for a glance. Photography's an interesting art form." The musician was pleased at the lie that spilled out. Robert's face relaxed a little, though he still looked too stern for Marty's comfort.
"Recuperation can be trying," he said. "If you're up to it, I suppose you can come out to the parlor now. The others are done with their supper and your brother has promised to recite A Visit From Saint Nicholas, as is the apparent tradition in your family, according to your sister."
"Sure, I guess," Marty said, rather dubiously. He had to have the doctor help him out of the study and down the hallway to the couch, and it was slow going. By the time he was able to sit down, again, he felt drained and a little dizzy. Sarah fetched him a blanket and a glass of water before leaving the room with her husband for a few moments while Emily plopped down next to him, jostling the cushions enough in her excitement to make Marty wish maybe he had opted to say in the study and go to bed early, after all.
"Verne is so good at doing this!" she enthused to him with a grin. "He's been telling me this story since I can remember every Christmas Eve, an' he's fantastic!"
Jules, seated in an armchair near the fire with a fat book on his lap, snorted softly without looking up. "What else did you expect him to do when you'd harass him to do it all day? It was the only thing he could do to shut you up."
Emily blinked, stung by her oldest brother's words. Verne, standing near the fire and studying one of the paintings set above it, turned around to look at his sister. "Don't listen to him, Em," he said. "Jules is just jealous he can't captivate an audience of any kind... unless he's getting picked on by 'em."
The brothers avoided looking at one another and, once more, Marty felt an odd sort of tension in the room. Emily frowned in spite of the assurance from Verne, looking a little confused. She glanced at Marty, her blue eyes peering into him hard, as if he knew something she didn't. He shook his head once and closed his eyes, leaning his head against the back of the couch. The deprivation from food that Sarah was forcing on him was giving him a almost constantly pounding headache now.
"Tell Verne at least I can do something useful with my talents, aside from trying to gain approval and like from strangers," Jules said smartly. Marty opened his eyes in time to see Verne flash a rather dangerous smile, aimed away from his brother.
"Emmy, tell Jules that at least I have that kind of approval from people... and I've been on dates before."
"Most successful ventures, too, wouldn't you say, Emmy?" Jules calmly turned a page in his book, his eyes still cast down on them. "I particularly enjoyed the hoops Verne's last girlfriend, Vanessa, made him jump through. I don't let myself be whipped by the opposite sex."
"Emmy, tell Jules that's because he's never even been looked at by a girl in any way other than a brainiac geek boy that they pity."
This was getting to be too much. Poor Emily looked between her brothers with increasing confusion and distress on her face. "Why don't you just tell each other that and not use your sister as a go between," Marty suggested, his discomforts and fatigue sharpening his voice more than he had intended. "Or, better yet, just drop it. It's Christmas Eve, for Godsakes."
Verne shut his mouth and looked back to the painting above the fireplace. Jules looked up at the musician with a faint frown. "You shouldn't be up now, Marty. The sooner you recuperate, the quicker we can go home."
"I'm not 'up' anywhere, Jules, I'm simply not lying comatose in a bed," Marty said, cranky now. Who knew where the conversation would have turned if Sarah and Robert hadn't come back in the room, the former with a tray of steaming mugs and cookies. Perhaps their voices had been audible outside the living room; perhaps they could feel the tension. At any rate, they both hesitated a moment on the threshold before continuing forward, and both looked a little concerned.
"Is anything wrong?" Sarah asked politely as she set the tray of treats down on a small coffee table.
"It's just cabin fever," Emily said for all of them, covering up nicely, though Marty had to wonder if that phrase had even been coined, yet. She turned her attention fully to the food set before them, changing the subject. "What's in the mugs? Tea?"
"Hot cocoa," Sarah said. "Though your brother may have just a mild ginger tea, if he wishes." She glanced at Marty. "And the cookies are right out."
Big surprise, Marty thought, trying not to feel too weak as the smell of the baked goods hit his nostrils. "When can I eat things that don't come in a cup?" he asked.
"When your doctor says you may," Sarah said. "Perhaps tomorrow we can start you on some broth."
That seemed like a long way off to Marty, who's poor empty stomach growled pitifully as Emily lifted a few cookies from the plate and leaned back into the couch to dunk them in the mug of cocoa she took. She was oblivious to his pain. Marty watched her eat for a moment before deciding it would be good to turn his eyes elsewhere. The room he was in, actually, provided a good distraction. As Marty lifted his eyes up, he realized he recognized things pretty well. The Doc he met in 1955 and had stayed with for about a week-and-a-half, all told, used the room they were in for pretty much the same purposes as his parents had -- a more casual living room -- but it was much, much neater and more formal now than it would be later, with different styles of furniture and decoration about the room. It was also festively decorated for the holidays with a large Christmas tree, and boughs of evergreen draped across the mantle over the fireplace. Oddly enough, the general arrangement of the tables, couches, and chairs in the room was in roughly the same order as it would be in more than forty years, giving Marty a funny sensation of deja vu.
"Can you tell the story now, Verne?" Emily asked when everyone had taken a bit of the snack and were settled in the chairs and couches nearby. She shot a look over to Jules, who still had the book out. "And you keep quiet during it."
Jules sniffed at his younger sister's demand, slouching deeper in the armchair and holding his book up before his face. Verne ignored the unspoken snub, glancing around at the others in the room before responding. "Sure," he said then, with a subtle change in stance and expression, began to recite with a hushed sort of tone to his voice. "'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring -- not even a mouse....'"
The young man recited the entire passage from memory alone, and Marty had to admit it wasn't a bad show. Verne pitched his voice differently according to the parts, using hand gestures and facial expressions to hammer the points home. He really was good at his craft. When he concluded, Emily clapped, Sarah and Robert joining in, and Verne took a dramatic bow, a grin on his face.
"I don't think I've heard a recitation like that before," Sarah said, her words complimentary. "You're studying theater in school?"
Verne nodded, flushed from the praise of his grandmother. "I'd like to act professionally, too, but so far I've just gotten a couple plays at high school -- and last year I got to be Don Quixote in the spring performance at college."
"His height had more to do with that than talent," Jules said.
Verne ignored his brother. "Making it in Hollywood would be the ultimate dream," he continued, "but the odds are almost impossible, and I sort of like Hi-- where I grew up."
"Hollywood?" Robert said, puzzled. "What's special about that place?"
There was a second of silence as all four of the time travelers tried to think of an innocent explanation. Verne was the first to open his mouth. "It's near Los Angeles, a real up and coming place with the motion picture industry... so I've heard from friends there."
The Von Brauns seemed to buy that. Marty almost smiled, but his physical discomforts were really starting to get to him. Between the hunger pains, and the exhaustion that came about from the ordeals he'd been through in the last day, he decided it was time for him to bow out and call it a night. "Nice work, Verne," he said, sitting up slowly and passing the borrowed blanket over to Emily. "I think I'm going to skip any encores, though, and go to bed."
"No, Marty," Emily immediately protested, grabbing his arm. "We were gonna light the candles on the tree and sing carols."
"Maybe you were," Jules muttered, his voice so low that the musician hardly caught it. Emily apparently did not, or at least she didn't react to it. Her attention was fully focused on Marty.
"It's Christmas Eve," she said, looking at him with huge, pleading eyes.
"No matter," Sarah said crisply, stepping over to his side and removing Emily's hand from his arm. "You wished for him to be here for the holiday, and he is. But he should be in bed, now, and not up and about. Would you like me to help you to your room?"
The last question had been directed to Marty. He shook his head, taking a cautious step away from the couch. "No, thanks, I'll just take it slow."
Although he did, moving still hurt the side. It took him almost five minutes of shuffling and holding onto the wall before he made it to his room. Once in bed -- one considerably more comfortable than the one at the hospital -- it didn't take him too long to fall asleep.
It didn't last.
He didn't know if there had been a knock, but he couldn't escape the light that was shining in his face and the sound of his name being called incessantly a short time later. Marty cracked his eyes open -- and immediately threw an arm over them to block out the glow from the table next to the bed. He caught a quick glimpse of Jules standing over him.
"What is it?" he muttered.
"You need to take another dose of the antibiotics," Jules said, rattling the little plastic bottle of pills. "Sorry I couldn't catch you before you went to bed, but I suppose it's my fault for completely forgetting about this."
"Great.... Can you turn off the light?"
There was a pause. "I suppose."
The light clicked off a second later. Marty lowered his arm and blinked a few times, light from the hallway sliding through the partially opened doorway and providing enough illumination for him. Jules was holding out the bottle and a glass of water. "Take two of the pills," he said as Marty pushed himself up with a bit of a grimace. "You're going to need to take two twice a day for about a week, I think."
"You think?" Marty asked as he accepted the bottle, first, to crack it open for the medication before also taking the water. "You don't know?"
"I can double check." Jules watched him as he swallowed the pills, then passed the water and bottle back before settling down and trying to get comfortable again. "Can I take a quick look at your scar?"
The question inexplicably annoyed him. "What? Why?"
"To make sure the healing procedure is going the way it should. I'm a med student, Marty. This is a learning experience for me. It won't take long, I promise."
Marty wasn't in the best mood to be poked and prodded. "No," he said flatly, pulling the blankets up to his chin and rolling onto his left side, away from Jules.
"Come on, Marty.... What if some of the stitches pulled out, or there's discharge indicative of an infection? Better safe than sorry...."
"Jules, I'm trying to sleep. I'm tired. Do you know how many times people poked me last night at the hospital? Just leave me alone...."
"Marty, I'm not asking you, I'm telling you -- let me look at the scar."
There was a commanding tone in Jules' voice that Marty didn't like. He rolled onto his back to look at the young man, still standing at his bedside and looking distinctly annoyed. "You're telling me?" he echoed. "Nice patient rapport, Jules."
The med student had the smarts to look embarrassed. He lowered his voice and spoke more calmly. "I understand you're feeling rather used right now -- like some object of medical fascination -- but it would ease my mind a little to make sure everything's healing well. We didn't get you out of the hospital to have you die from something stupid."
That was a good point, but the musician was still feeling like he was some little pet experiment of Jules'. He sighed, thought a moment, then looked back at the waiting wannabe doctor. "You can check on one condition," he said.
"What would that be? That I leave you alone after this?"
"No, although that would be nice.... What the hell is going on between you and Verne?"
Jules studied Marty a moment, his face half in shadow. "We have a difference of opinion," he said stiffly. "I'm going to need to turn on the light to look at things."
Marty winced at the brightness a moment later, looking away from the lamp, but not bothering to cover his eyes this time. "A difference of opinion, huh? What else is new?"
Jules frowned as he sat down on the edge of the bed, flicked the blankets back, and brushed aside Marty's shirt to access the scar. "Verne thinks that I have all sorts of problems because I'm not content to wander aimlessly through life as he's doing," he said as he peeled back the bandage to check out the stitches. "Acting is one notch above being a professional slacker. I still can't believe he got Mom and Dad to let him take a year off school to 'figure out the rest of his life' -- and then decided to major in theater."
"So, you think anyone who decides to professionally pursue a creative art is being a slacker?" There was a bit of sarcasm in Marty's question, but Jules didn't seem to be hear it, nor was he aware that he was unintentionally insulting the musician.
"You don't choose things like that to major in during college," Jules said, putting more and more of his foot in his mouth. "If you have a true talent, why would you need an education in that very area? Education is to give you skills that you can apply to having a productive job in real society, not pretend to be other people and live in a fantasy world."
"Of course," Marty said dryly. "That's exactly what it's -- ouch, watch it! -- for."
"Sorry. Verne has no right to insult my wanting to better my life and the lives of others just because he's too lazy to apply the same hard work to his own life. It's ridiculous." As Jules got more worked up he also forgot to be gentle with his examination. Marty gritted his teeth as the med student poked once more a shade too hard before, thankfully, replacing the bandages.
"Well, sorry I can't help you with that... but you might want to leave your sister out of it."
The med student blinked as he stood. "Who said Emily was involved?"
Marty rolled his eyes as he tugged his shirt back down and reached for the blankets. "You and Verne using her as a go-between tonight wasn't leaving her out of things. That's immature and mean."
Jules blinked again. "Fine," he said, turning the lamp off. "Things look good, so you can go back to sleep, now."
"Great."
Jules left in a bit of a hurry, but Marty didn't pay it any mind. He settled back down in the bed and was almost asleep again when a soft tapping startled him back to earth. He opened his eyes and blinked once, just as the door cracked open and a head peeked in.
"Marty?"
It was Verne. "Are you still awake?" he went on in a not-so-quiet whisper.
The musician pulled the blankets over his head, as if that could grant him the talent of invisibility. "No," he said.
Verne ignored the response. "I guess you got Jules' side of the story," he said, stepping into the room and shutting the door but, thankfully, leaving the lights off. "He looked pretty damned smug when he left the room."
"Verne, I don't think you need to tell me anything..." Marty began with a little groan, still hiding.
"Hey, I'm not gonna let Jules brainwash you. He's being an egomaniac jerk right now. I mean, I guess I shouldn't be surprised because he's always been like that, but saying that I'm wasting my life and taking on this God-like attitude--"
"Verne, you don't have to say anything to me about this."
Verne ignored the hint. "Look at how he's been treating everyone -- even you -- this whole trip. Just because Dad let him drive the time machine, he thinks he gets to order us all around. I'm sick of that attitude, since I know Mom and Dad don't really expect him to do that sort of thing. Jules may think he's smart, but if he can't even keep it together watching you have surgery then I think he might definitely be in the wrong profession. A control freak who can't even control his own body."
Marty sighed from under the blankets. "Why don't you guys just agree to disagree and drop it?" he suggested plaintively. "And better yet, leave me and Emmy out of it."
There was a pause. "Since when are you both in it?"
The musician popped his head out, mostly out of the desire to breathe fresh air. "I saw how you guys were making Emmy be your go-between earlier. She's just a kid, Verne. She doesn't need to be caught in the middle of this -- and, frankly, neither do I. If you guys are the mature adults you claim to be, work this out on your own."
Verne sniffed. "So you listen to Jules and not me?"
"Look, I asked Jules what was going on, and now I'm kind of sorry I did. Just, please, leave me out of this mess, okay? I've already got enough problems right now."
"Fine, you'll hear nothing more from me," Verne said. "But don't let Jules make you feel like you gotta choose sides."
"I'm not involving myself in this," Marty said again, for good measure. "Good night, Verne."
It was a rather brusque dismissal. "Good night, Marty," Verne said, opening the door. "Merry Christmas."
Marty sighed again as the door closed behind the young man. "Yeah, right," he muttered, reaching for the other pillow and pulling it down over his head, hoping if anyone else dared to disturb him, they'd take the hint and leave him alone. Some silent night with no creatures stirring, he thought.
Wednesday, December 25, 1912
8:18 A.M.
Christmas morning of 1912 dawned clear and cold, but there was no doubt it was a white one, with the snow still piled on the ground from the storm two days before. Although Emily didn't really believe in Santa anymore, and knew that, probably, there would be no gifts under the tree for her on this particular holiday, she nevertheless woke earlier with butterflies in her stomach, straining to get out. After trying to resist the urge for perhaps fifteen minutes, she finally gave in and got out of bed, padding down the silent hall to the downstairs. She expected that she would be the first one up, but her grandmother had risen before her and was in the kitchen with a newspaper and cup of tea, already dressed for the day.
"Merry Christmas," she said with a smile, looking up at Emily's entrance.
"Merry Christmas," Emily replied sweetly, with a smile of her own. "Thanks for letting us stay here," she added politely. "It's way better than in the hospital or some lame hotel room."
Sarah looked a little puzzled at the words but didn't ask. "I'm just sorry you can't be with the rest of your family on the holiday," she said instead. "Perhaps we can send a cable to them later today."
Emily's eyes widened a bit at that, knowing quite well that such an act was impossible. "Maybe," she settled on. "But don't worry about it. I think Jules got a message to 'em after Marty's operation to let them know we'd be here for a couple days."
"All right...." Sarah closed the newspaper and looked at a clock suspended above the stove. "Beth has the day off, but she prepared some things so no one would have to try my cooking. Do you like cinnamon buns?"
"Definitely!"
While Sarah rose to get the baked goods, Emily took a seat at the kitchen table and looked over the front page of the newspaper, curiously. It was more print than graphics, unlike the newspapers she was used to seeing. "Do they have comics in the paper?" she asked, noticing how slender this issue was.
Sarah glanced over as she set the plate of buns on the table. "I don't believe so," she said, sounding a bit baffled by the query. "Would you like a glass of milk with your food?"
"Yes, thank you."
The nurse fetched a stack of plates and filled a glass from a glass milk bottle with a foil cap, which Emily found rather nifty. She was more used to the plastic jugs or the cardboard cartons. She made a face when she took a sip of the milk, however; it was much thicker than she was used to. They must use whole milk, not skim, she thought to herself. The buns, however, were delicious.
"How long have you and Doctor Von Braun been married?" she asked after a few minutes of silence, curious about the lives of her grandparents. She really knew very little about them, beyond that they had died long before she was born, in 1948, and that her father didn't seem to want to talk about them. Her mother's information about her own parents and family was far more interesting and detailed.
Sarah looked up at her question, studying her a moment before responding. "We married in May of 1909," she said. "The doctor came out here the winter of 1908 from Connecticut. I was already working as a nurse, not long out of school, for the current doctor. When he retired that spring and Robert took over his practice, I joined him. We got along quite well, both professionally and personally, I suppose."
"Was it love at first sight?" Emily asked eagerly, raised with such fairy tale ideals by the story of her parents' courtship.
Sarah blushed a little, casting her eyes down to the tabletop. "Oh, I don't know. That's a bit personal, Emily."
The girl was a little stung by that, but only a little; she kept having to remind herself that her grandparents thought they were all strangers. "Okay," she said. "Did you move here from Connecticut, too?"
"No, I was born and raised in Hill Valley. My parents settled here in the mid-1870's while still newlyweds. My brother, Abraham, and I were both born several years later. You'll meet him today -- I invited him for dinner tonight."
Emily smiled at the idea of meeting more relatives. Her great-uncle, she realized, and she had heard about him before. Daddy had mentioned to her once or twice about visiting his uncle's ranch and the dreams he had of being a cowboy as a kid. But something struck her as sort of funny. If Gramma grew up in Hill Valley, had she met her future son during the years he had lived in the past, long before he had ever been born? The fourth grader made a mental note to ask her father later, when they got home.
"Are you gonna keep working after you and the doctor have kids?" she asked. "Or are you going to stay home and raise them?"
Sarah arched her eyebrows at the question, but Emily was oblivious to the potential rudeness of it, as well as the at-the-time unconventional notion of mothers working outside the home. "We're not going to be having children," she said slowly, suddenly looking preoccupied.
Although Emily knew better, she couldn't help her curiosity. "Don't you like them?"
"Very much so. But one cannot have everything they want in life. I have a wonderful husband, a job in a profession I enjoy immensely, and a beautiful house. I'm very fortunate already."
"So what makes you think you won't have kids? You never know...."
Sarah cleared her throat delicately. "Dear, those are very personal questions. Children shouldn't ask such things of adults, particularly adults they don't even know."
Emily got the hint, blushing a little at the reprimand. "I'm sorry," she said, backing off. She took a sip of the too-thick milk, trying to think of something she wanted to know that also wouldn't seem unusually nosy. "Why'd you get into nursing?" she finally settled on.
"I wanted to help people and medicine was an area that always interested me," Sarah said simply. "I certainly couldn't be a doctor...."
"Why not? Did it cost too much? Jules is having to pay for 'least half of his med school with scholarships an' stuff," she added. "It's really expensive."
Sarah nodded once. "There was that," she admitted. "And I couldn't leave my family to go back East for the years I would need to for a medical education. My father was in ill health, then, and I didn't want to be so far away." She focused a rather intense gaze on Emily. "You're quite curious, aren't you?"
Emily wasn't sure if that was a reprimand or not. "Well, my mom's told me that before," she admitted. "But that was more like I was 'too smart for my own good' an' I know that was more lecture than compliment."
Sarah smiled faintly. "Well, if you're asking me questions, then I suppose I can return the favor. You said you were coming through this area because you have family in San Francisco. Where is it you live, then?"
Emily blinked, her mind blanking out. "Um.... East of here," she said. "A few towns over... near Lake Tahoe."
"Ah. And your parents live in that area?"
The ten-year-old suddenly wished she might've held her tongue earlier. Where were Jules or Verne or Marty when she really needed them? She hoped she wasn't contradicting anything they'd already said. "They live in San Francisco," she said. "See, Jules was coming back from school, and Marty and his wife live near Tahoe, so he -- Jules -- was gonna stop there and see 'em, and Verne and I went to meet them all there, then we were gonna come back to see Daddy and Mom for Christmas. Verne and I live in San Francisco, usually."
"But what of your brother's wife? She stayed behind?"
Emily started to sweat. "Yeah, because she's gonna have twins and her doctor didn't want her to travel," she said, exaggerating the truth. "And she didn't want Marty to miss out, so she made him go." She looked at her grandmother with wide eyes, feigning innocence, and decided it was a good time to change the subject, like, now. "Do you think I could go out and play in the snow a little?"
Sarah blinked at the subject shift. "I don't see the harm in that, provided you take care to bundle up against the cold. You might want to wait until later, however."
"Why? Are you supposed to wait half an hour before going outside to play after eating? I've never heard that one before...."
"Well... no... but you don't want to ruin your clothes in the damp. I might be able to find something more appropriate for you to use a little later. Also, you don't want to miss the exchanging of gifts, soon."
It was Emily's turn to be confused, now. "What do you mean? Did my brothers actually go to the store and get stuff so we could have a Christmas?" It seemed a little farfetched to her, especially since Jules'd had so many problems with her getting a simple china doll from the store the day they had arrived.
"I'm not sure about that, but Robert and I found some small surprises for you all. Nothing terribly extravagant, really, but no one should be without at least a little something on Christmas."
Emily stared at her grandmother for a moment, then broke into a dazzling grin. "Wow, thanks!" she said enthusiastically. "But y'know it's just enough that you're letting us stay here for a few days. And you helped save Marty," she added, almost as an afterthought.
"I'm glad we had the means," Sarah said. She looked over at a clock posted above the stove. "I imagine the others will be up soon, and then we can all open gifts."
Emily thought that was a fat chance, considering her brothers, but she didn't offer this insight to her grandmother. She finished her breakfast up, then wandered into the living room with the Christmas tree. The night before there had been about a dozen packages under the tree; there was about the same amount now, but she saw a few new ones, beautifully wrapped in tissue-like paper and shiny bows but without any name tags on them. None of them were terribly large and she wondered what lay in them, especially since the Von Brauns scarcely knew them.
She didn't have to wait as long as she had anticipated. Around nine Robert came down, dressed, and went to look in on Marty. Twenty minutes later, a pale and rather shaky Marty appeared in the living room doorway, clutching a blanket around his shoulders. Emily felt alarmed at his appearance, watching him carefully as he sat down in the chair closest to the fire that Sarah had started.
"Are you okay?" she asked softly, once the doctor and his wife -- who had helped in him -- were safely out of earshot. "You look like you're gonna faint or somethin'...."
Marty shrugged, closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead. "I'm dying of starvation," he half moaned. "The only thing I want to do is eat...."
"Maybe they'll let you today," Emily said optimistically. "It's Christmas, after all."
"That'd be nice, but I really doubt I'll get any turkey and stuffing like the rest of you. Although I'd be happy with a cup of soup, anything, now."
"How come they're not letting you eat? Are they afraid you'd just puke it all back up?"
Marty shrugged as he looked over at her. "I think it has something to do with making sure they didn't sew something shut they shouldn't've, and let my system get used to things like food and digestion again. They didn't let me drink anything, not even water, 'til I got the IV out. I haven't had any problems with that and the doctor said I should probably be able to eat something today. But it better be sooner or I'm really gonna pass out, I know it."
"I'm sorry," Emily said sympathetically, thinking of the yummy cinnamon bun she'd had for breakfast and making a silent vow to not mention any food before Marty 'til he could eat it again. "Did you know that we got gifts to open today?"
"Really? Well, that's nice you guys can have two Christmases and all that." Marty frowned as he glanced at the fire, lowering his voice. "Wonder how your dad's gonna take that, though, getting gifts from his parents?"
At that moment, Emily really didn't care. Her dad was far, far away; her grandparents were in the next room. And this was an opportunity she was not going to pass up, no matter what.
Jules and Verne were finally roused near ten, by Sarah, and both seemed in grim moods in spite of the holiday atmosphere. The idea of gifts didn't seem to cheer up either of them, so Emily took it upon herself to ignore them and their sourpuss faces. Once everyone was assembled and fed -- Emily's brothers with more of the rolls, and Marty, at long last, with a half cup of soup -- Sarah distributed the gifts. Emily was rather pleased to find that she got the biggest package of the four of them though, at first shake, she was confused. The package wasn't too heavy or noisy and the contents seemed mostly like clothing, if she was guessing correctly. Ripping the paper and opening the box, she found she hadn't erred; it was clothing, a new dress with some petticoats, woolen stockings, and a flannel nightgown of her size.
"I thought you might want to have a new dress while you're here, since you're without any changes of clothes," Sarah explained as Emily held up the garments and looked at them. "I wasn't quite sure what the styles for girls your age where, so I had the shopkeep help me in selecting something. I do hope it's suitable."
Emily supposed it was for the time. It wasn't as icky as the dress Daddy had made her wear -- it was a dark green color, with black piping on the cuffs and collars -- and she might be able to wear it at home, for things like church, maybe. But it also wasn't as fancy as those dresses she had admired in Titanic. The neckline was still high, and the fabric was heavy, not gauzy. "I like it," she said, and that wasn't entirely a lie; she liked having something her grandmother-to-be had picked out for her. "Thanks."
The young men all got books. Jules' gift was a thick medical dictionary that Robert had specifically selected, and Verne's was a collection of Shakespearean works. Oddly, Marty got a book on photography, prompting Verne to voice the question of, "Since when are you into that stuff?" and Marty to give him a hard look and ask the blond why he was being so ridiculous. Emily figured there was something she was missing so she let it go, for now, deciding to ask Marty herself when they didn't have an audience around them.
Once the gifts had been opened, she went up to her room and changed clothes, spending a bit of time looking at herself in the mirror. Emily had always thought she looked a lot like her mother, a consensus agreed upon by lot of other people, but now, looking hard at her face, she thought she could see bits of her paternal grandmother there as well. The eyes, definitely, were lifted out of Sarah's face. It made her both happy and sad. Happy that she had inherited something from her father's side of the family but sad that no one, beyond a handful of people, might even see that or know that.
Well, we're here now, she thought, running a hand over the sleeve of her new dress. And we'll have some souvenirs to bring back. That's way better than what I thought we'd get out of this trip when we left.
And there was still a dinner to look forward to, as well as meeting a great-uncle she never knew. The day was still going to be exciting.
* * *
In the middle of the afternoon, the sound of the telephone ringing broke through the relative quiet of the house. Emily had gone outside to make snowmen in the backyard and had cajoled Verne into coming with her. Jules was working his way through a stack of medical books and diagrams that Robert had agreed to loan him, brushing up on his studies of past medical knowledge. Marty was sprawled in the chair before the fire, flipping through his Christmas gift book without much thought or really noticing what was on the pages. He was distracted by a little homesickness at missing the holidays with Jen and their families -- even though he wasn't really missing them -- and by a gnawing irritation with Jules. The words that the med student had uttered the night before, about how pursuing any college major remotely related to creative arts was a waste of time and education, had festered in him in the hours since, echoing back to him repeatedly every time he had wakened in the night -- at least half a dozen times. Marty wasn't entirely sure if Jules had known he was insulting his patient as much as he was his brother, but even if he'd had flowing words of praise to heap on those courses of study, the musician doubted he'd feel much more charitable towards the young man. Frankly, Jules was was really turning into a nag.
A few minutes after the phone rang, there was a bustle of activity near the front door. Robert popped his head into the living room with an anxious face.
"There's been an accident in town," he said. "A automobile collided with a sleigh. Sarah and I have been summoned to the hospital."
Marty and Jules both glanced over. "I'm sorry," Jules said. "If you're concerned about leaving us, don't be. We'll be fine."
"I'm not worried over that so much as I am that we have to leave you on a holiday," the doctor admitted. "We'll do our best to make it home by supper."
"If you can't, I wouldn't worry about it," Jules said. "Good luck with the work today."
Once the Von Brauns left, quiet once more descended -- for a few minutes. It ended when Emily and Verne came in through the backdoor, laughing and tracking in prints of snow onto the rugs and hardwood floor. "You guys gotta see what we made!" Emily called as they came into the living room. She started unwrapping the scarf from her neck and head as she spoke. "It's really cool!"
Jules looked up from his work, took in the tracked in slush, and directed a frown at his sister. "You might've thought to wipe your feet at the door," he said. "I doubt the Von Brauns would appreciate the mess you're bringing in."
"Oh, I dunno," Verne said. "They do have a maid. Anyway, dear brother, who says you can tell us what we can and can't do here? Since when are you the owner of the house?"
Marty's quiet relief that the boys weren't using Emily as their translator anymore vaporized a moment later when he saw the deadly, narrow-eyed glare that Jules directed to his younger brother. "Well, as they are out of the house now, dear brother, maybe I am the one who needs to look out for them. We are guests in this home."
Verne rolled his eyes expressively. While Emily scurried to the front door to remove her boots and hang up her winter gear, the twenty-year-old stripped off his soggy hat, scarf, mittens, and coat, letting it drop to the floor as he walked slowly to the armchair across from Marty, next to the fireplace. He sat down, took off his boots, and dropped them on the hearth to dry amid little piles of rapidly melting snow and ice.
Jules' face grew red at this deliberate bit of rebellion. "Pick your stuff up!"
Verne leaned back in the chair with a sigh, reaching over to a silver dish of hard candies to take a handful. "Ummm, naw, that's okay," he said, then tossed a candy up and caught it in his mouth.
Marty dared to open his mouth, though he felt like some of this wasn't really much of his business. "Ah... Verne, it might be a good idea to get that off the floor before your grandparents get home."
Verne shot him an ungrateful look for his two cents, clearly telling the musician to butt out. Jules, naturally, took this to mean Marty was on his side and in return gave him a rather satisfied, tight-lipped smile. Marty decided it was a good time to turn his attention back to the book in his hands.
"Thank you, Marty. See, little Vernie, I'm not picking on only you... as tempting as that might be. Emily is mature enough to listen to me."
Emily, who was coming into the room again as Jules spoke, looked at her oldest brother strangely. "No, I'm not," she said. "I just didn't wanna get Gramma and Grandpa upset with me when they got back 'cause I left a mess out."
Verne cracked a smile at his sister's words. "Face it, older brother, any authority you have in this world is in your own head. You don't even have things together enough to keep yourself conscious in an operating room." He tossed another candy up and caught it in his mouth, then looked up to grin.
Jules slammed the notes in his hands down on the table and stood, his hands balling up. "That was a one time fluke," he said through clenched teeth. "If I wasn't able to handle what happens in an OR then I wouldn't have made it this far through med school!"
"Maybe you can't and it's all a big lie to save Mom and Dad grief -- and yourself some face," Verne said, tossing another candy up in the air and into his mouth. "I'll bet you flunked out."
"I did not do anything of the sort!"
"I'll bet you completely bombed the patient compassion class," Verne went on, glancing at Marty. "Unless you save the crappy care for the people you know best."
Jules simmered at Verne's words as the blond tossed another candy up. "You're just jealous," he said. "Mom and Dad are proud of me and what I'm doing. I'm going to make meaningful and positive differences in the lives of people. I'm not going to waste my time and money learning how to play pretend."
"The world needs laughter," Verne quipped. "Not people who they can sue for malpractice... although, actually, that might be a good way to contribute to society...."
Jules' face grew even redder. "I hope you choke," he snapped.
Verne gave him a wide smirky grin, lazily tossing another candy into the air, higher than the ones before it, and making a show of catching it cleanly in his mouth. Then, he gave a quick little jerk, and let out a sound that sounded almost, but not quite, a cough.
Marty lowered his book, looking hard at the young man. Verne's eyes grew wide and he bolted up, his hands going towards his throat. For one moment the musician thought it was an act -- then Verne's eyes met his and Marty realized this was no joke. As talented as he was, there wasn't a way to fake the fear and panic that now glimmered in Verne's eyes.
The photography book fell from his hands, to the floor. "Verne's choking!" he said, snapping his head over to Jules. The med student snorted, skeptical.
"Right," he said. "He's just faking it."
Verne gave another strangled sort of sound as he attempted to either cough or suck in a breath, with no luck. His face started to turn red and he stood, his hands working at his throat helplessly. Marty stood, far too quickly; his side pinched in pain and he bent over a little, wincing. "Jules, he's not faking!"
Either something in Marty's tone cut through to Jules or the young man saw the seriousness of his brother's situation. At any rate, he looked over, blinked once as Verne staggered around, panicking and helpless, and his face suddenly went white. He took a step forward... but never quite made it, collapsing to the ground rather ungracefully, face first.
Marty looked back to Verne, desperate, now, as the young man's face deepened to a purple. He'd taken a first aid course just a few months ago with Jennifer and knew how to do the Heimlich maneuver to someone, but with his side the way it was.... A few seconds of indecision froze him to where he stood, then he took a step forward towards Verne, willing to risk immense pain and ripping out his stitches if it meant saving a life.
In all the sudden excitement, however, he had forgotten about Emily. The girl darted in from out of nowhere, wrapped her arms around Verne's middle from behind, and nearly lifted him off his feet as she squeezed his stomach, pushing in and up with one of her fists. It didn't work. Emily tried again, quickly, and with a little cough, the hard candy suddenly propelled itself out of Verne's throat, though his mouth, and a few feet away from where he was, landing on the carpet and bouncing once before it was still. Emily let go and stepped away from Verne, who staggered back and collapsed into the chair he'd been sitting in minutes earlier, gasping for air.
"You okay?" Emily asked, her cheeks pink from her efforts.
Verne nodded, his hands feeling around his throat. "Yeah," he wheezed. "Thanks. Where.... where'd you learn that?"
"School in October. We had an emergency health unit." Emily started to smile at him, but halfway through the expression morphed into something pained. Her face crumpled and she sobbed once, lowering her face to her hands. Before Marty could even attempt to comfort her, she turned and hurried out of the room, dodging her oldest brother, still on the floor. The musician looked back to Verne, who's face was fading in color to a more paler than usual shade.
"You sure you're okay?" he asked.
Verne nodded, taking a couple deep breaths and exhaling slowly. "A little shaky," he said softly, and indeed Marty saw that his hands were trembling.
"Just keep breathing and stay seated." Marty headed over to Jules' side, slowly, kneeling down on the rug with a few grimaces. He rolled the med student onto his back, a feat that took a little bit of effort; Jules was thoroughly out, a dead weight. Marty gently smacked his face a couple times and, when that got him zilcho response, hauled himself back to his feet with the aid of a chair that Jules had narrowly missed in his dive. He headed for the bathroom adjacent to the living room, the same one where Doc would someday slip and hit his head. Marty yanked one of the small hand towels off the rack and ran half of it under the tap, dampening it with cold water, then headed back for Jules. Verne watched him from the chair.
"You sure you wanna do that?" he asked. "He's so nice and quiet now...."
Marty shot him a look. "Can it, Verne," he suggested. "You're supposed to be recovering." He put the cold towel on Jules' face and shook him by the shoulder. "Jules? Hey, Jules, open your eyes and face the music."
A shudder ran through the length of Jules' body at the words as he stirred, brought about by the cold water more than anything else, Marty guessed. He opened his eyes a moment later, blinking quickly, then grimaced as he raised a hand up to his forehead. Marty removed the towel and saw the beginnings of a nasty bruise there from his fall.
"What happened?" Jules asked with a half groan.
"You passed out a couple minutes ago," Marty said. "Verne was choking on a candy and down you went."
Jules frowned for a moment -- then his eyes widened and he sat up, so fast that he nearly collided with Marty. Verne waved at him from the armchair.
"I'm fine now, no thanks to you," he said. "Emmy was kind enough to give me that Heimlich maneuver and save my life. You really gotta learn to control yourself with the passing out thing, Jules."
Marty wasn't entirely sure what happened next. One minute Jules was sitting up on the floor, looking at his brother; the next he was lunging for him. The musician experienced a moment of total confusion -- Is Jules going to get sick or something, is that why he's moving so fast? -- before Jules collided with Verne, knocking him out of the chair and onto the floor. The blond landed on his back, his head inches from the fireplace, his arms pinned quickly by Jules.
"Shut up, Verne!" he snarled.
Verne quickly knocked his brother's hands aside and shoved him back, hard. Jules stumbled, his heel catching on a wrinkle in the rug and taking him to the ground. Although he had been choking just minutes earlier, Verne had recovered quickly and threw himself down on his brother. "You shut up, Jules," he grunted, and the brothers were suddenly rolling around the floor, fighting, like boys -- but with a zest that Marty didn't think he'd seen in them even when they were little.
"Stop it!" he ordered as he stood. "You guys are acting like little kids!"
The didn't seem to hear him. Days -- perhaps weeks, even months or years -- of pent-up frustration and rage was finally venting itself. Marty had a glimpse of Jules belting Verne, hard, in the face; Verne returned the favor with a swift kick to Jules' shin, and a punch of his own. They slammed into furniture, oblivious, bumped into a table and sent a vase crashing to the floor. The Christmas tree toppled over and there was an ugly sound as dozens of glass ornaments shattered. Marty winced, horrified at the damage they were doing to the room, and to themselves. He didn't dare try to pry them apart; he'd probably just end up getting hurt himself.
"What are you doing?!"
Perhaps summoned by the noises, Emily's shrill voice split the air and she ran across the floor, her face horrified under streaks of tears. "Jules, Verne, what are you doing? Stop it! You're wreckin' the house!"
Verne didn't even look over at his sister, hauling Jules up against the wall and giving him a little throw into the wood. Jules' head bumped into a mirror, and spiderwebbed cracks snaked across the glass at the impact, distorting the images. "It's between me an' Jules, Emmy," he snapped, slugging his brother in the face and knocking the mirror off the wall with an ugly crash. In retaliation, Jules clamped a hand around his brother's neck, squeezing hard, his eyes narrowed into the darkest slits Marty had ever seen on his face, as if he intended to finish the job that Emily had interrupted minutes ago.
"Cut it out, Jules!" Marty ordered, finally going over and trying to grab the hand that was doing the deadly business. The med student was ungrateful for the intervention, his elbow whipping out and catching Marty smack in the nose. Pain exploded immediately, bringing tears to his eyes, and his hands went straight to the source of it as he bent over, groaning and cursing.
"Son of a bitch," he muttered, tentatively removing his hands for a moment to see if Jules had drawn blood. His fingertips remained unstained. Distracted as he was, Marty never saw Emily move over to her brothers, but suddenly there she was, smacking both of them, hard, with a pillow from the couch.
"Stop it!" she pleaded. "Leave yourselves alone!"
They ignored her. Another china knicknack, a figurine of a woman dancing, was knocked to the floor, landing on the hardwood and shattering. Marty grabbed Emily by the arm and pulled her away from her battling brothers, lest she suffer the same fate he did. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and frantic.
"They're gonna kill each other!" she moaned to him.
"I know," Marty said, removing his hands, tentatively, from his nose. "We gotta do something."
"What?"
Before he could even think of a suggestion, a voice bellowed loudly from nearby.
"What in the hell are you doin' to my sister's house?!"
A man was striding over from the hallway. He was still dressed in a winter coat and hat, his expression dark and menacing under the brim of his hat. He was solidly built, easily six foot, with a closely cropped brown beard. Emily stared openly at him, scared, and Marty had to wonder if he should be afraid, too. A moment later, however, the man dared to reach into the scuffling boys and get between them. Verne was taller than he was, but the stranger was more solidly built, and he backed off with little struggle. Jules looked as if he might still try something, lunging towards his brother in spite of the man between them, but the guy gave him a hard shake, looking like he wouldn't mind smacking both of them a few times.
"How dare you fight like animals inside this house! What do you mean by this behavior?"
Verne sniffed, wiping away the stream of blood that was trickling steadily from his nose, unnoticed. "He started it," he muttered.
The man glowered at the both of them, gripping Jules by the shoulder and Verne by the arm. He gave each a not-so-gentle shake. "I've seen cock fights that've been more dignified than what you were doing!" he said, still clearly angry.
Jules tried to wrench himself out of the grip of the stranger, unsuccessfully. "None of your business," he said, sullenly. Like his brother, he was also bleeding from the nose, as well as the mouth, and one of his eyes was already puffing up with the beginnings of what would be an ugly black eye.
"The hell it isn't! You're fightin' in my sister's house an' I don't recognize any of you from Jack! Give me one reason why I shouldn't get the sheriff right now!"
Marty did. "Ah, sir, your sister and her husband invited us into their home for the holiday," he said. The man looked at Marty, noticing him for the first time. "We got stuck in Hill Valley for a few days -- I had to get my appendix out -- and they thought we might enjoy staying together instead of me in the hospital and my brothers and sister in a hotel."
Emily piped up. "We'd never wreck someone's house," she said earnestly. "'Specially if we don't even live there. My brothers are just being jerks!" She looked over at them with a hot little glare.
The man looked a little embarrassed once he saw Emily there. "I see," he said. "What do you suggest we do with them, then?" The question was addressed to Emily, but the man glanced at Marty as he asked it.
"Send them to their rooms," Emily said promptly. "Let 'em cool down. It's what our parents would probably do."
"You don't have to send me to my room, I'm going there, anyway," Jules snapped, jerking free of the man's hold and heading for the stairs tucked in the corner of the room. Verne glanced down at the red straining his hand and grimaced a little. Marty could already see a few red welts on his face and suspected it would be really ugly tomorrow.
"I'm going to the bathroom," the blond said, making a beeline for the small lavatory. The door shut behind him at almost the same time as a distant door from upstairs slammed shut. Marty sighed, sitting down in the closest chair, feeling weak, now.
"Sorry about all this," he said to the local.
The man nodded, finally removing his hat. "A most unfortunate first meeting," he agreed. "Where are Sarah and Bob? Don't tell me they were called out today?"
"They're at the hospital," Marty explained. "There was some kind of accident."
The man shook his head and sighed. "The life of medicine," he said. "Who're you all?"
Emily rattled off their names, quickly. The man smiled at her, clearing taking a shine to the girl. "And just what was it your brothers were fighting about? It wasn't over a young lady, was it? Or a Christmas present?"
Emily giggled and Marty smiled, faintly. Now that things had calmed down, the guy -- what was his name? -- didn't look as threatening as he had at first sight. He had a rather jolly or cheerful demeanor that reminded the musician faintly of Doc, but beyond that he could see no real resemblance. If he was Sarah's brother, then he had to be Doc's uncle, and Marty knew he'd heard his friend talk about the guy, but he couldn't summon his name, yet.
"I dunno what's going on," Emily said to her great uncle. She looked at Marty. "Do you?"
"Not really," Marty said honestly. "Jules and Verne have been sniping at each other for a couple days now. Probably stress from everything that's gone on." None of that was really a lie.
"Ah." The man looked over the damage to the room with a slightly pained expression on his face. "I'm not quite sure how Sarah and Bob'll take this.... There's not really any way to hide what happened."
Marty had to concur, reluctantly. Several pictures on the wall had been knocked over, the frames cracked. There was the broken mirror, worth seven years' bad luck if the old superstition was to be believed. A vase had cracked into several large pieces. A figurine had completely shattered. Another vase, which had held some flowers, was tipped over, water staining a scarf draped over the tabletop. And then there was the ruined Christmas tree and ornaments. "They're old enough to know better than to do something like this in a house," Marty said. "They should tell 'em what happened when they get home and apologize."
The man nodded. "Abe Lathrop," he said sticking his hand out. Marty shook it after a moment. The man's grip was strong, the palm rough and calloused. The musician remembered then and there what Doc had said about this uncle, that he ran a ranch a couple of miles from the middle of Hill Valley where the future inventor had spent some time helping out as a boy and getting into the idea of following in that uncle's footsteps. Up close, now, Marty realized the guy wasn't that old -- maybe his age or a few years past that. The beard added a lot of age to his face. "If you'll excuse me now, I'm going to go back to the door and wipe my feet like I should've done when I came in. Sarah'll take off my head when she sees the mess I tracked in."
Emily watched him leave, then looked up at Marty with a smile and a little hop of excitement. "That's Daddy's uncle," she whispered. "How cool is that?"
"It's interesting, that's for sure," Marty agreed. He ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. "Too bad we couldn't've met him when your brothers weren't trying to kill each other!"
The bathroom door cracked open and Verne poked his head out. "Is that guy gone?" he whispered.
"For a few minutes," Marty said. He frowned at the young man, irritated. "What's the idea fighting like that in here?"
Verne sniffed, wiping away the slow trickle of blood that still dripped from his nose with a crumpled up piece of toilet paper. "You saw how Jules started it."
"After you provoked him," Marty said, not about to let Verne squirm out of responsibility. "It takes two to fight and--" He paused mid-speech, wincing. "God, I sound just like my dad -- or yours."
"He's been an asshole since we got here, Marty," Verne said. "If you think I was gonna just sit there and let him pound me, forget it. If he can't listen to criticism, then he can just go to hell."
Emily now frowned at her favorite brother. "Mom an' Daddy are gonna be way ticked when they hear what you guys did," she said. "You'd be grounded for a month!"
Verne rolled his eyes. "Yeah, like they can do that now.... I'm an adult."
"And adults behave as maturely as you both did," Marty said sarcastically. At the sound of Abe's footsteps heading back their way, he added, "If you don't wanna face your great-uncle again, I suggest you go to your room, now."
The blond glowered at Marty for a moment, then took his advice and hurried from the bathroom, up the back stairs. Emily sighed at his departure.
"What are we gonna do about them?" she asked. "I've never seen 'em fight like that before!"
Marty shrugged with a sigh of his own. "I dunno," he said. "Let nature take it's course, maybe, and hope they don't kill each other or break any more knicknacks in the process."
Wednesday, December 25, 1912
6:14 P.M.
The Von Brauns arrived home a few hours after they'd left, both looking worn out from their work of the day. Their feelings were matched by Marty and Emily, who had done what they could to clean up the damage wrought upon the living room by Jules and Verne, with a little help from Abraham Lathrop before he took to the kitchen in hopes of getting dinner on the table at a reasonable hour. Apparently, he was a good chef. Marty took the couple aside once they got home and explained to them what had happened while they were gone. Sarah frowned, looking rather perturbed, but Robert was more concerned about the boys' health than anything else. He went upstairs to check both of them over while Sarah investigated the damage. She shook her head after a few minutes in the living room.
"I cannot believe they would be so inconsiderate," she said, sounding angry. "After all we've done for all of you...."
Marty sighed at her very valid irritation. He was getting more than a little angry himself at the boys over the brawl, especially since they weren't telling their grandparents the news of the happy event in person as he had wanted. "Their -- I mean, our -- parents will punish them, I'm sure, when they find out about what they did," he said confidently.
Sarah looked over at the slightly crooked tree Emily had helped straighten and shook her head.
The girl took over the apologies. "Mom and Daddy'll really punish them good," she assured her grandmother. "Marty and I tried to stop 'em from going at each other's throats, but they were too into it. Marty even got smacked in the face by Jules when he tried to separate 'em."
"I'm very, very sorry," Marty added for good measure.
The nurse sighed, sitting down on the couch. "Thank you," she said after a moment. "I suppose it's not the fault of either of you. I just cannot believe how inconsiderate this was of them...."
Marty didn't quite know what to say about that, since he agreed with Sarah. "Sorry," he said again.
Sarah drew her lips together in a frown, her eyes drifting over to the flames in the fireplace. "This almost brings to mind what happened between Robert and his brother," she said, half to herself.
"What was that?" Emily asked eagerly -- but not as eagerly as Marty, who was suddenly listening. The torn pictures from the album popped into his mind from the day before. "Did they try to rip each other's heads off like Jules and Verne, too?"
Sarah sighed again. "I don't know all the details to it," she admitted. "I've only heard what I have from Robert, and I dare say he's biased."
"But what do you know?" Marty couldn't help asking. At the nurse's surprised expression, he added, a little reluctantly, "I saw some photographs from his family last night, in the study, and noticed a few of 'em were ripped in half. I never knew your husband had a twin brother."
Sarah blinked. "Why would you think he didn't?" she asked shrewdly. While Marty tried to come up with a good answer to that question, Emily jumped in.
"Gra-- Doctor Von Braun had a twin?" she asked. "Like, an identical twin?"
Sarah nodded slowly. "Yes," she said, lowering her voice a little. "His name was Stephen. I never met him, but I have seen photographs -- the same ones you saw," she added to Marty. "They were apparently very close as children."
"So what happened?" Emily asked. Marty was kind of glad she was there; it saved him the job of being nosy and asking the questions himself.
"There was an argument, a disagreement. Although they looked the same, Robert and his brother didn't have a terrible amount in common beyond that. Stephen was more of an artist and had little mind for sciences. They had a younger brother, Oliver, who had more in common with Robert. I have met him, at our wedding. I'm not sure if it was because of this argument, or simply something that might've happened anyway, that Robert came out here and left his home. At any rate, he and Stephen haven't spoken, or seen each other since. Robert pretends that he doesn't mind it, but I think he might. I think...."
Sarah's voice trailed off and she shook herself, remembering where she was and to whom she was speaking with. "Never mind," she said briskly, standing.
Emily glanced at Marty, frowning a little in disappointment at the story's interruption, then looked back to her grandmother. "You don't have to stop," she said.
"I do," Sarah said, heading out of the room. "It's getting late, and I need to see about dinner. Abe may believe he has it under control, but he lacks a woman's touch, and he's our guest tonight...."
Emily sighed a little at her departure. "No fair," she said softly, half to herself. "I wanted to know what happened."
"So did I," Marty admitted. He thought of those albums, again, and wondered what else was in that library that might shed some light on this apparent mystery, and long forgotten family rift. He'd have to check it out, later, after dinner, once their hosts were in bed. Definitely.
* * *
His face was throbbing in waves of pain, in different spots with different sorts of pulses and agonies, but Jules did his best to ignore it all. He sat on the edge of his bed, continuing to lean forward with his head almost between his legs as he held a towel to the back of his head. There was a cut there, one still keeping up a steady flow of blood, even several hours after the fight. Jules suspected he might've sliced his scalp open on a shard of glass when Verne had thrown him back into a mirror, and was starting to come to the disheartening realization that it might need stitches to close.
"Life's grand," he mumbled, the words coming out slightly slurred due to his split and swollen lip. He was starting to wish he could go out and take the time machine and stop their group from even leaving 1997, save them all the trip from hell this was turning out to be. Unfortunately, he knew that would just create a lot more problems than it would head off. His only consolation was that Verne was probably hurting just as much as he was now, the bastard. Just the memory of his brother made Jules' blood boil. How dare Verne mock him when he would've saved his life -- had in fact intended to walk across the room and put to use his first aid courses? Was it his fault that he'd passed out again? No! It had to be something, some chemical reaction. Maybe he was allergic to the time period and fainting in circumstances of extreme stress was a reaction to it. Or maybe he was sick, with a low grade fever, a mild case of the flu. Maybe--
Someone knocked at his door. Jules jumped in spite of himself, startled, nearly falling off the edge of the bed. "What?" he barked, covering up his surprise with a layer of annoyance. Not that he had to fake something like that.
"Excuse me for the interruption, Jules, It's Doctor Von Braun. May I come in?"
Jules sighed. "It's your house," he said.
The door opened slowly. The doctor looked in. "I just gave your brother an examination and -- maybe I should've started it here! What happened to your head?"
Jules shrugged without looking up. "Verne threw me back into a mirror," he said. "I think an edge of the glass gave me a scalp laceration. I've been applying pressure ever since I noticed it was bleeding, but it hasn't really done much."
The doctor turned on the beside lamp and gestured for Jules to come over and sit closer to the light. The med student obliged him and stood -- then staggered to the side a bit as a dark wave of dizziness hit him. Robert grabbed his arm to keep him from tipping over.
"Easy," he said. "It looks like you've lost more than a little blood, if that towel is any indication."
Jules decided to skip telling him that this was the second thing he'd had on the cut. The first, a damp washrag, hadn't done much. "I already know it's going to need stitches," he said as the doctor helped him sit back down.
"Well, you've come to the right person, then. Lean over and hold still while I take a look...."
Jules did as he asked. "How did things go this afternoon?" he asked after a moment of silence.
"Lost one, saved one," the doctor said, sounding preoccupied. He touched the cut, gently, provoking a hiss of breath between Jules' teeth. "I'm sorry," Robert said immediately. "This cut looks deep. Not very big, but it's definitely going to need stitches."
"Great. Does this mean I have to go to the hospital, then?"
"No, I can do it right here. Why don't you lie down, on your stomach, settle your chin down on a couple of pillows."
Not seeing the point in arguing, and knowing that his skills as a doctor were competent, Jules did as asked while his grandfather pulled up a chair to the bedside and reached for a black bag that he had apparently brought in with him. "You're not going to ask me about your brother?" Robert said as he assembled the supplies he needed on the small bedside table.
"Why should I?" Jules asked, mumbling between the pillow and his aching lip. "He's a jerk and he deserves whatever he got."
"That sounds more or less the same thing he said of you," Robert said. "I'm going to have to trim away some of your hair around the cut. I'll try to be gentle, but you might have a bit of a bald spot there until things grow back."
"Whatever." Jules was beyond petty things like one's appearance, so he believed.
"Aside from the same kind of bumps and bruises it looks like you sustained, Verne appears to be fine," Robert said without being provoked. "I couldn't find any problems brought about by his choking on the hard candy. But he told me that you fainted before the fight, when he was choking. Is that true?"
"It's not my fault," Jules said, wishing he didn't have to hold so still right now when he wanted to walk out of the room. "I'm thinking maybe I've got a mild case of the flu and a low grade fever that makes me pass out in situations of extreme stress."
The doctor was silent for a moment. "You know," he said, "I had a problem just like yours for a while."
Jules almost moved his head to look at his grandfather, reminded to keep still only from the sting of the antiseptic as Robert cleaned the wound. "How so?" he asked. "You had some kind of... condition like I'm suffering from, without any forewarning?"
"Not exactly. I simply couldn't treat close friends or family without fainting. Which sounds exactly what's happening with you."
Jules started to frown, stopping only when the move aggravated his sore lip. "I've treated friends and family before," he said. "Nothing like this has ever happened."
"Was it ever in surgery? In moments of true life or death?"
The med student hated to admit it. "No, not really. Just for a sprain or a scrape or a fever, maybe."
"I had no problems when it came to treating people for things like that. Hold still, now, I'm going to start working.... But when I was almost done with med school, my father collapsed at home, right before me, and I followed him to the floor before I could help. He died."
Jules blinked at the news he never knew. "I'm really sorry," he said, sincerely. "That had to be terrible...."
"It certainly wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't my fault, either. The autopsy showed that he'd had a massive coronary. Nothing I could have done would have saved him. I knew that and understood it, but some members of my family thought I failed him. That I failed them." There was a clear bitterness that seeped into the words. When he continued a moment later, the doctor's voice was more neutral. "Like you, I thought my reaction had been a one-time event. But a few months later, at school, one of my best friends cut his hand open and ran to me. There was a lot of blood. I took one look at it and fainted. I hit my head when I fell, so I was taken to the clinic with Dan, my friend, and it was there a doctor speculated that I might have problems helping people close to me. It's not a terribly uncommon problem, Jules. There's no need to be ashamed of it."
Jules sniffed softly, not liking the theory, though he was relieved that this meant he wasn't suddenly getting squeamish about medicine. There was a part of him that had seen himself as the family medic of sorts, the doctor his family would come to or perhaps bring along on trips whenever they traveled through time. But if he passed out any time they were in danger, he'd be worse than useless!
"Do you still have this problem?" he asked, a bit of scorn in his voice he couldn't quite conceal.
"Not really," Robert said softly.
"How did you get over it? Or did it go away on its own?"
There was a heavy silence for a few minutes as the doctor worked. "I came to a point where it was very much life or death situation and I couldn't afford the luxury of avoiding things."
"What happened?"
There was another silence from above. "Are you familiar with the condition of a tubal pregnancy?"
"Well, I know what one is, but I've never actually treated one. It's when a fertilized egg attaches itself in the fallopian tube of a woman, not in the uterus. If not treated with surgery in time, the growing embryo can rupture the tube and create hemorrhaging in the mother that will almost certainly kill her. What does that have to do with anything?" Before Robert could answer the question, realization suddenly dawned on Jules. He blurted his hunch out before he could think it through. "Did that happen to your wife?"
His guess couldn't have hit the mark more accurately. "Two years ago," the doctor said softly. "During a terrible ice storm. I was the only surgeon who could perform the emergency procedure -- I had done a few of them before, successfully -- before it was too late. It was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do in my life. I had to keep her face covered when I worked. I knew if I looked up and saw Sarah there, helpless, it would be all over for me -- and for her."
"That's all it took? Knowing you couldn't pass out or someone would die?" Jules sounded as incredulous as he felt.
"It took a supreme act of concentration and will," Robert said, a faint edge to his voice. "Unconsciousness is a luxury, as far as I'm concerned, a way that the body can protect itself against physical or emotional pain. By the time I had to treat Sarah, I knew I had this problem and was able to take steps to avoid what I dreaded the most. The events with my father and my friend happened without warning, when I didn't know that I would react as I did. Sarah's problem came about in a sudden way as well, but it evolved over a few hours, not in minutes or seconds, and I had studied up on techniques to keep myself calm and focused after I figured out why I was fainting. It was something of a necessity when I decided to settle here and be a doctor in a small town. The odds were good that I would have to treat someone I knew for something serious at some point in time. But I never suspected that one of my first patients would be my wife."
"So these techniques worked? Obviously your wife pulled through... or did you pass out mid-procedure and someone else finished?"
"That wouldn't've been possible. If I'd fainted, she would've died on the table. The hospital wasn't finished yet, and I was the only surgeon in Hill County at the time. I had to keep very focused on the task and not the person whom I was working on. It may sound strange, dehumanizing someone in that way, but it was the only was I was able to get through it then -- and since."
"That's not strange," Jules said. "Where I go to school, they kind of encourage that."
Dr. Von Braun half grunted. "I can't say that surprises me," he said. "Your brother did mention something I found valid, and seeing as I'm sharing so openly with you about my life, I suppose I might as well share this observation as well because it's a concern of mine. You are exhibiting a lot of egotism and cockiness that young doctors often possess."
While Jules could do nothing more than blink and work his mouth, silently, at this seemingly out-of-the-blue insult, Robert continued. "I don't necessarily agree with the idea of distancing oneself from the patient. While I believe that a certain degree of that is needed if you want to sleep at night -- or not faint during a procedure on someone close to you -- I know that it's more important to treat each person who comes to you as a person, a human being. Not as someone who is simply a 'condition.' It may be difficult in the area that you've chosen to focus on, as many doctors in large city hospital emergency rooms don't know a patient as a person because they only meet them when they come in with something dreadfully wrong. But if you want to be a good physician, it is something that you must learn."
Jules hated to admit that his grandfather had some valid points. He'd had a few instructors and doctors who had preached similar things, in fact. "All right," he said rather stiffly. "But I don't think you need to listen to Verne's complaints about me. He's biased -- and exaggerating."
"Perhaps," Dr. Von Braun agreed. "But I've been doing my share of observing you since I first met you, Jules. And some of his complaints are correct. I see in you what I've heard termed the 'God complex,' where being a doctor who has control over life goes to your head. But you are not God; you are simply a healer, a caregiver. You must keep your feet firmly on the ground and not look down on people who may not have the same gift you do. It doesn't make them any worse than you are."
"I don't do that," Jules said, wishing he didn't have to hold so still and stare at the headboard of his bed, rather than his grandfather's face.
There was a sigh from above. "Well, I've only known you for a day. But I've met many different physicians over the last ten years, and I see you heading in a direction that does not bode well. In fact, you almost remind me of me when I was younger and more naive. Do you believe in God, Jules?"
This was getting stranger and stranger. "Sure," he said. "My parents instilled some religion in us, and I went to church every Sunday as a child."
"Well, I suppose that's something. If you want to be a good doctor, you would do well to believe in God and communicate with Him on a regular basis. It is He Who is the true healer and doctor. You can only do so much at this end of things."
The med student felt a little weird hearing his father's father talk like that. In his mind he'd never thought of his grandfather being overly concerned with churchgoing matters. "I never thought you were very religious," he said honestly.
There was a half snort. "Why would you? You've only known me for a day." While Jules mentally chided himself for the slip, Robert went on. "I've seen patients recover who shouldn't have, based on their faith and the faith of their friends and family. Science can't explain everything."
Jules didn't know if he necessarily agreed with that, but didn't try to argue. "I don't want to get involved in any philosophical or religions discussions or debate with you over this," he said, "but what makes you think I'm going to be a terrible doctor? I didn't get into the profession for the money or the status. I wanted to help people and maybe make a difference."
"Noble reasons," Robert agreed. "So long as those reasons are genuinely unselfish."
"They are," Jules said, his tone leading no room for argument. "How much longer is this going to take?"
There was a pause. "You can move.... now."
Jules did so happily, sitting up. The room still rocked a little, but at least the warm trickle of blood down the back of his neck had stopped. He finally turned to face his grandfather, sitting at the bedside, still. The man studied him a moment, gravely.
"Looks like you'll have a black eye of your own tomorrow, too. And you might want to put something cold on your lip to cut doan the swelling."
"Thanks for the stitches," Jules said. "How long do you think they'll need to be in?"
"A week or so, I imagine." He paused. "I'm sorry if my criticism upset you. I have enjoyed your company, Jules, and I believe there's a lot of good in you. And yes, I know you only a little better than I might a stranger on the street." Robert stopped again, an odd expression darting across his face. "I suppose I'm telling you these things because there is something about your current situation that reminds me of something that happened between me and my own brother. I don't want you and Verne to have the same fate Stephen and I shared."
Before Jules could ask him anything about that -- which he found rather intriguing because so far as he knew, his father had mentioned only one uncle on his father's side, Uncle Oliver who lived in Wisconsin -- Dr. Von Braun looked at the clock set at the beside as he abruptly gathered up his tools. "I suspect Sarah will have supper on the table soon. Are you going to join us, or did you want to eat in your room tonight?"
Staying in his room sounded mighty appealing to the med student, but he also possessed enough of a stubborn streak to know that if he didn't come down, Verne might think he'd won or something ridiculous like that. "I'll come down," he said. "It's Christmas, after all."
Robert left him a few minutes later, after checking him over to make sure there were no other injuries that needed immediate treatment. Left alone, Jules had time to brood over what his grandfather had said. It made him feel better that there was apparently a way to be cured of the problem he had... but the criticism about his attitude and all that was humiliating.
He's probably been suckered in by Verne, maybe even Emily and Marty, Jules thought as he lay back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, trying to get rid of the feeling twisting his gut. He wasn't sure what it was... maybe, just maybe, a fear that his grandfather, a man that Jules felt he had more in common with than his own father in some ways, was right about him.
* * *
The Christmas dinner with Doc's parents and uncle was conducted with undercurrents of tension, as Jules and Verne both came down from their rooms to eat. Both were quiet, though -- uncharacteristic of Verne, and fairly unusual for Jules -- but Marty wasn't really complaining. A kind of awkward silence was much better than screaming and insults. Emily did her best to fill in the lack from her brothers and Marty -- who had to sustain himself on soup and some soft bread, rather than the turkey dinner the others were stuffing themselves sick on -- contributed when he could. But the stresses of the day were starting to get to him, with a dull, throbbing headache, and he soon took to simply watching and listening. Sarah's brother, Abe, was a great storyteller, and he took up most of the meal with some tales from his ranch. The musician could see why Doc had liked him so much growing up.
After dinner, Jules went up to his room with a lot of his medical notes and books while Verne headed into the living room to look though the book his grandparents had given him. Marty finally got his request for a bath granted by the doctor, but it wasn't as fun as he had hoped, since he had to avoid submerging the scar at all. Still, once he had cleaned up and changed into a fresh set of borrowed pajamas from Robert's closet, he felt better -- but opted to go to bed. Although he was tired, it wasn't his intention to go to sleep immediately; in fact, he went out of his way to avoid that, for now. Although he might be able to look through the books and papers in the study undisturbed now, there was always the chance someone could look in on him or interrupt him. And he didn't want to be caught by anyone -- not even Emily or the boys -- snooping around. It looked bad, especially being a trusted guest in someone's home.
He killed some time simply eyeballing the shelves and searching for things like more photo albums or maybe diaries or journals. When he found something promising, Marty would tug the book out an inch or so from the rest of the ones on the shelf, marking it in a subtle way to return to later. Once he'd done as much as he could of that, he finally climbed into the bed, mostly to ease the ache of his side, which was irritated from the amount of movement he'd put his body through that day. Still, it wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday, and it gave him hope that maybe in another day or so, they could finally go home.
By this time, it was almost ten, and Marty could still hear people up and about in the house. Fifteen minutes after he had laid down, he heard footsteps approaching his room and quickly closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, lest someone look in. His hunch was correct; a moment later he heard the door creak open and the steps as someone came in to look at him. They left after a minute, easing the door shut behind them, and Marty opened his eyes with a sigh, starting to feel impatient, now. He sat up after a few more minutes, keeping his eyes wide open in the dark to make sure he wouldn't accidentally doze off before he could do what he wanted.
The clocks told him it was eleven before the house finally grew quiet and he became fairly certain that everyone had gone to bed. He dared to slip out of bed fifteen minutes after that, then leave the room and walk as quietly as he could down the hall to confirm his belief. So far as he could tell, the first floor was shut down for the night. Marty returned to the study, shut the door, and turned on the lamp on the desk as he moved around at long last to pull the books he'd marked earlier and stack them on the desk. Finally, he sat down and, keeping his ears sensitive to the possibility of any footsteps or creaking floorboards, opened it up and began to search.
Having a wife who had come away from college with a degree in journalism, though Jennifer's was specifically geared to the broadcast field, Marty knew a little bit about how to conduct research. Especially from his trips with Doc when they landed in times or worlds changed from some niggly little thing done in the past. He moved through the books quickly, searching for mention of the name "Stephen," and when he found it, he would set the volume aside to come back to later.
Out of a dozen or so different albums and journals, Marty found five that held what he wanted, and worked through the handwritten passages slowly. He found a paper and pencil to jot down notes of interest as he went. He quickly forgot the time as the story unfolded before him.
It seemed that Robert and Stephen had, as Sarah mentioned earlier, been very close growing up. Although Robert's interests were always in science, and Stephen's more in the arts, they still shared a bond of being not only brothers but identical twins. Robert didn't seem to understand his brother's fascination with painting and drawing, and the feeling seemed mutual for Stephen when it came to biology and mathematics, but aside from what seemed to be good-natured ribbing about their opposite interests, there didn't seem to be any problems Marty could see.
Then, in the winter of 1906, when Robert was at home during a semester break from his school -- Harvard, Marty noted with a bit of surprise -- his father had died suddenly from a heart attack. The entry was reported matter-of-factly in his journal, with the notation about how he himself had been feeling a little ill that day and had fainted when the event had happened. It sounded almost exactly like what had happened to Jules during Marty's surgery and again with Verne's choking. Robert and his twin brother had been alone in their home when their father had died, and Stephen had immediately started bothering him about how he was wasting their family fortune in an education that was clearly doing nothing positive. If he couldn't help his own family, after all, what use was there in being a doctor?
Doc's father had had a lot of harsh words to say over the matter. The argument seemed to evolve over the weeks of that winter break, recorded in bold, angry script. Stephen is being immature and childish, believing that I had the power to save Pop, Robert wrote in late December, two weeks after their father, Theodore, had passed away. The medical examiner told us that nothing could have been done for him, that if I had remained awake I could have done nothing to save him or ease any agony. There is no grief in my soul over this. And yet Stephen says I failed him, I failed our mother and Ollie because I chanced to faint when Pop had his attack. The only one who is failing in anything is Stephen, who persists in drawing and painting and idling away his time, being a burden on Mom by living at our home. I've advised him that if it's fame he desires from his craft, he might as well just kill himself, for living artists are never appreciated. Neither, it appears, was my attempt at humor, for Stephen simply said that he wouldn't have to kill himself; he would need only to wait until he was ill and then call me to care for him. Surely I would finish the job that the Lord started. I almost struck him for that remark before I remembered that violence would solve nothing. I will not give him the satisfaction of showing him how angry he makes me now!
Things got worse as the days wore on. Robert and Stephen exchanged increasingly vicious insults, usually out of the way of their grieving mother. Their younger brother Oliver, however, was caught in the middle more than once, until he finally blew up and told them to both grow up and stop acting younger than he was. Finally, when a puppy that Robert had been watching for a classmate over the break shredded a painting that Stephen had been pouring his heart and soul into for weeks, tempers snapped. Stephen believed that his brother had purposely allowed the disobedient pet to do the damage. Robert's claims of innocence seemed genuine -- why would one lie to their journal, after all? -- but went completely ignored by Stephen. The brothers got into a violent fight that sounded almost exactly like the one Jules and Verne had involved themselves in. This one, however, occurred in Stephen's studio and caused a lot of damage to the young artist's work.
I'll admit now as I've cooled a bit that perhaps I should have left that alone, Robert recounted the day following the blow up. I do know how important Stephen's work is to him and shouldn't belittle him for it. But he's not showing me the respect I deserve, either, and so I took a delicious pleasure in ripping up his sketches and tossing a bottle of black paint on one of his works in progress. Those marks will last longer than the bruises and black eye I gave him in the heat of the moment. But I see no reason to apologize, particularly since he's still showing no signs of remorse with me. I'm glad I leave in a few days to go back to Cambridge for classes and can leave things behind.
Marty yawned