When the proverbial smoke cleared -- the bright flashes of light, in this case -- and Doc took a look outside, he could tell instantaneously that they weren't yet home. The farmhouse where his family resided was visible in the distance, and it was both void of any light and looked as if it was abandoned or run down. It wasn't simply a trick of the light and gloom. A glance at the display told him that the machine was certain it was still November 12th in the year 1995. Damn.

He didn't immediately say anything to Marty, who was once more belted into the seat at the back and in such a position that the view allowed to Doc was impossible for the musician to catch. Marty had accused him of being too calm earlier, but now that this problem had duplicated itself in a different way, in a clearly different world than the last, the inventor was starting to worry. So far as he could tell, nothing was inherently wrong with the time machine. The diagnostic programs weren't picking up anything amiss. The time circuits appeared to be operating fine, as well as the flux capacitor. And now that they had pretty much ruled out a problem of a not-quite-latched door, Doc wasn't sure where to go next.

I'll just have to land, he thought, and give the machine an external look over. Maybe a branch got caught in one of the coils.

Marty could feel the machine descend. "Are we back?" he asked, sounding hopeful.

"Ah... no, not that I can tell," Doc admitted after a moment's hesitation. "My home appears to be abandoned."

Marty frowned at the news, but a moment later he was fumbling around for the belt release. "Maybe the TIPS can tell us why," he said. "We didn't check that last time."

"There's an idea," Doc said. He scooted aside to allow Marty to slip before the small screen that displayed the data.

"Which discs are in it?" Marty asked, and that's when Doc remembered, winced, and, finally, sighed.

"Ah... none of them."

"None of them?" Marty looked away from the screen for a second. "Did you put them on something else? Or can this tap into the Internet now if it's around?"

"No, to both of your questions," Doc said. "I simply didn't think to bring along any of the discs for a trip that could surely have no impact on the world. Not five minutes hovering invisible in the sky. They're still in the Aerovette, since that gets used more frequently."

Marty looked surprised, then irritated. "You mean we can't see if things changed?"

"Not from inside the cab -- we'd have to go out to a library or speak to people. It's fairly obvious things have already changed, though," he added as they touched down on the front lawn of his home. "Lawn" was too kind a word; it was an overgrown, weedy area. And it was more than obvious, this close, that the home hadn't been lived in for some time.

"Yeah, you got that right," Marty said, eyeing the house through the window and the rain still falling steadily outside. "Maybe we should just quit while we're ahead and leave."

"And where would we end up next?" Doc asked. "I don't want to go until I've got a good idea as to why the machine is malfunctioning." It was his turn to frown at the sight beyond the window glass. "Of all the days for it to pour...."

Marty sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "So what are we supposed to do here?" he asked. "We can't find out anything from in here, so do we need to go to a library? Do we really need to know anything about this world?"

Doc's first impulse was to say no, but on a second reflection he thought it might be a good idea. "I think so," he said. "It's always possible that we landed here for a reason, that all the places we've been have some common denominator that will give us an idea on what the problem is with the machine and how to fix it."

Marty looked confused by this. "But what if, like you said, it's some kinda thing like a door not closed all the way? I don't think my counterpart said anything about noticing any patterns when he had this problem. He just finally met a Doc that happened to notice what the deal was with the door."

"It could be that's the only thing going wrong," Doc agreed. "I won't know until I can take a look at the machine from the outside, and maybe do some more programming checks. But if it's not, then we might as well take notes about the places we land in."

The musician thought about that a moment, then sighed. "So, what, is it going to be my job to run around out there and see what kind of hell we've landed in while you just sit back and tinker in the cab?"

That would've been a logical distribution of assignments, the inventor had to admit, and there was a certain appeal to that. But there was a part of him that truly was fascinated by their predicament and he didn't want to let Marty see all the variations and oddities out there. Besides, it might be more time consuming if Marty did all the research alone than if Doc went with him, and having the musician's help on the train projects would definitely speed things along at that end as well.

"No," Doc said. "I'll go with you."

Marty looked taken aback by the response, as if he had planned for an argument or conflict over the matter. He blinked a couple of times. "Good," he said, sounding a bit uncertain.

Not wanting to walk into town through the deluge outside, Doc took the train back up and on an ariel tour of Hill Valley, wanting to get an idea as to what they might be walking into. From what he could see, the town looked pretty much as it should, and there was definite life around, with cars on the roads and the occasional brave soul outside, armed with an umbrella or rain slicker. Nothing to indicate The End of the World or anything of that nature. Thank God.

"Where should we go first?" Marty asked, looking down at the wet world below. "The library?"

Doc considered the suggestion, then shook his head. "It's not open this late on Sundays," he said. "Closes at three. And I suspect if we tried to take the machine back a few hours to access the archives, we might find ourselves somewhere entirely different."

"Yeah," Marty said. "Maybe we could break in...."

"I think we might want to avoid risking arrest if we don't know the governing laws here. For all we know, breaking into a library might be grounds for a lynching."

The musician visibly gulped. "Good point. So where do we go if we can't check out the library?"

The scientist thought a moment as they hovered above the town square, which looked more or less like the one at home at first casual glance. Though... Doc squinted at the clock, not believing his eyes for a moment. It could've been a trick of the light, but it appeared that the hands were frozen at 10:02, not 10:04!

What could that mean? he wondered, before answering it himself a moment later. Possibly nothing. It could simply be that in this world, the lightning bolt had arrived two minutes sooner than it had at home.

"We find a phone book," he said. "We could see where I'm living, first off. That might give us some inkling as to the deviations that came about here. We also might want to check your address, and maybe see if there's a public place where one could use the Internet. The laptop has an Ethernet card and a modem, so if I can find a place to plug in, I can pull up some information without us having to bother the library. Although in '95, things were just getting warmed up, in terms of online information access...."

"We could see if the gas station near your neighborhood is still there, on the corner of 173rd," Marty suggested. "That's sort of isolated, being a Mom and Pop place, and I don't think they're open on Sundays at all."

Marty's memory was accurate in this dimension. The business was indeed closed on Sundays and they were allowed plenty of room in which to land the train and emerge without anyone seeing them. Having not expected to leave the time machine until they were safely under cover, Doc had nothing on hand to protect them against the damp elements, and both men had to make a run for the covered porch of the gas station. It was a rather fruitless effort, and Doc had the feeling that before this was over, he'd be getting considerably more wet.

Well, maybe somewhere, November twelfth in 1995 is clear and sunny.

The phone booth sat on the corner of the intersection of 173rd and Elmdale Lane. Marty volunteered to make the sprint across the gas station's asphalt to check things out, and a few minutes later he trotted back with a couple of soggy pages from the phone book clutched in hand. "I'm in there and so are you," he said, slightly breathless, thrusting the papers towards Doc. "But we both live in different places, there's no Clara next to your name and... I'm married to someone else!"

This last bit of news came as a bit of a shock to the inventor. In the various alternate realities he had seen up close and personal -- few, admittedly -- Marty and Jennifer were one of those constant things. Sometimes they were married, sometimes they weren't, but the idea that his friend actually married someone else was... different. "Who?" Doc asked as he accepted the pages. "Anyone you know?"

Marty both shrugged and shook his head, scattering drops through the air. "Someone named Susan," he said. "The only Susan I really know is Jennifer's mom, and I think pigs would need to be flying before I got married to her.... I mean, she's old. There was a Susan in high school, but she was two grades behind me and I don't think our paths ever crossed. Kevin's sister was friends with her or something."

The scientist examined the pages his friend had given him, half listening to Marty's words. McFly, Martin & Susan, 4532 NW Barrington Ln, 806-7137. Then, on the other page: Brown, Emmett L. 1278 S. 1st Ave, 346-8597. Interesting.

"Those are on almost complete opposite sides of town," Doc said. "We'll try you first, I think, since that's closer than my counterpart's."

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Doc?" Marty asked as the inventor headed back to the train, his stride long and his head down. The musician had to almost jog to keep up. "Your other self might be used to bizarre things like this more than me."

"Perhaps, but your other self might be able to give us information about my other self that may be valuable," Doc said. "And, anyway, aren't you a bit curious to see who it was that you married over Jennifer?"

Marty's smile was both crooked and uneasy. "Yeah, sort of," he admitted. "But at the same time, I'm not sure if I want to know...."

Doc could see why. If he learned he had married someone other than Clara, it would've set him back a few paces to say the least. Maybe this was because in the sixty-five years he'd been alive before meeting his wife, he'd never really met anyone else that made him feel remotely the same way as she did. Although it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that he might've married one of the women he had dated in his youth, somewhere else.... "It's possible that in this world, Jennifer never existed and you found someone else to fall in love with," Doc said as they ducked back into the train's cab. "It doesn't mean that your relationship with Jennifer went sour, and you found companionship with another."

"Maybe," Marty said, his voice neutral.

It took Doc about twenty minutes to bring the train near the McFly house of this time, his navigational skills compounded by the foul weather, and the fact that he was a bit uncertain as to the location of Barrington Lane. It ended up being in the hills of a newer, nicer neighborhood, a far cry from the older section of town where Marty and Jennifer's home, built in 1889, was in their world. The home they landed before was pale yellow and contemporary in every way. A red Honda Del Sol was parked in the driveway, next to a black Toyota Supra that looked to be from the mid-80's line.

"Is that supposed to be my house?" Marty asked, squinting at the property through the window, across the street.

Doc looked at the numbers posted next to the home's door and double checked the address on the phone book page. "It should be," he said. "Forty-five thirty-two northwest Barrington Lane."

Marty frowned a little at the cars in the driveway. "Jen got one of those last year back home," he said, indicating the Del Sol. "But I've never owned a Supra. I gotta admit, though, I did think they were pretty cool...."

The inventor looked at the vehicles himself, catching a detail that Marty had apparently missed. Specifically, the license plate that read MARTY1. "It's your car," he said. "Look at the license plate."

The musician focused on that and made a face. "A vanity plate?" he said. "Cripes, I'm liking the me of this place less and less.... Anyone who uses their name on those things is usually a jerk."

"I would withhold judgment until you meet him," Doc warned. "He could be very much like you -- choice in car notwithstanding."

Any other delay would be procrastination at this point. They left the train, Doc quickly punching in a code to turn the invisible illusion to look like an extra long camper, lest anyone witness them leaving the vehicle (and to prevent anyone from accidentally walking or driving into the time machine). Although Marty had pled a reluctance to the matter, he beat the inventor to the porch, perhaps out of the desire to be out of the rain as soon as possible. Physical comfort seemed to only go so far, however; once Doc had pressed the doorbell, Marty started to bolt away. The inventor snapped a hand around his wrist before he could get more than a step away.

"Don't," he warned. "You're going to be the proof I need so that your other self won't slam the door in my face or commit me once he hears the story."

Marty sighed, casting a quick, longing glance at the camper disguise. "But Doc, this might be too much for the other me to swallow...."

"Well, I don't think we have time to go about this subtly," the scientist said, nevertheless sympathetic to Marty's counterpart. Depending how much time traveling Local Marty had done, this could go down easy and cause only the faintest of reactions, or make the poor kid pass out for the night. There really was no way to tell.

Further discussion was squashed as someone arrived at the door and opened it. A young woman in her mid-twenties stood on the threshold. She looked vaguely familiar to Doc, and he couldn't quite place her face for a moment until a clearly startled Marty said, "Jennifer?"

It was Jennifer -- but not the Jennifer that his Marty was married to. The woman looked like a twin of the Jennifer McFly that Marty's counterpart was married to in the reality that they had visited last year. For one wild moment, Doc wondered if they were back in that world -- but the version of himself there had lived on a Fairy Chasm Road, not off First Avenue. And even if that Emmett Brown had moved between 1995 and 2002 to that home, it didn't account for the clock being stopped at 10:02 P.M., the absence of Clara from the phonebook, and a multitude of other minute details.

The Jennifer frowned at the mention of the name, looking grossly puzzled -- no doubt because she recognized the visitors on her porch. "No...." she said slowly, clearly confused. "Marty, what are you doing out here? I thought you were in your office?"

Doc saved his friend the pain of answering that question. "We're not exactly who you might assume we are," he said. "Is Marty home? Can we speak with him a moment?"

Clearly spooked, her eyes locked on the other dimensional musician, the young woman who wasn't Jennifer nodded once. "I guess," she said. "I'll -- I'll see if he's where I left him."

She left in such a hurry, obvious in her haste to get away, that the door was left ajar a few inches. Doc waited until her footsteps had faded, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Marty was appalled. "Doc!" he hissed, looking like he was itching to bolt off again. "You can't do that!"

"Why not?" Doc asked, matching Marty's low tones. "Unless things have changed severely, you should know me here."

"Exactly," Marty muttered, following his friend inside with clear reluctance. "I might not know you now..."

A minute later, though, the Marty of this world came into the foyer to greet the odd guests, looking rather collected -- for a few seconds, anyway. "Hey, Doc, I wasn't expecting to see you toda-- Jesus Christ!"

The local musician stopped dead in his tracks upon catching sight of his other self. This Marty appeared identical to the one standing behind Doc -- even down to their attire. The inventor noticed with a trace of amusement that they had on the same jeans and a blue V-neck sweater worn over a long-sleeved white t-shirt. Had the Marty of this dimension been wearing shoes, the inventor would wager a bet they would be the same Nikes as his counterpart.

Local Marty's face went very pale and he had to lean against the wall to keep from falling. After a moment of swallowing hard and taking a breath or two, he regained his composure enough to say, "Maybe you'd better tell me what the hell's going on here."

"Certainly," Doc said. "Is there a place we could speak without interruption?"

"My office, I guess," Local Marty said. His eyes slipped over to regard his double once more and he shivered. "This has gotta be one hell of a story."

The visitors were led down the hall, upstairs, and to a large room at the back of the house. It appeared to be a spacious office, not unlike the studio that Marty had built in the basement of his home -- except this one lacked the same sorts of equipment. There was a fair bit of musical paraphernalia strewn about -- a few amps and guitars, framed posters from concerts and famous musicians and bands -- but nothing quite like the setup that the musician had in his home. Curious. Rather, the room contained a desk with both a desktop and laptop computer, another desk that looked to be one for writing or bills, if the papers stacked on it was any indication, and a rundown but comfortable-looking couch.

"What do you do?" Marty asked his counterpart immediately, noticing the changes in an instant. "Are you doing any performing or songwriting?"

Local Marty didn't look at the musician as he cleared off the couch, piled with books and papers, for the guests. "When I have time," he said. "Which is mostly in the summers."

"Why?" Marty asked.

The local musician glanced up at his counterpart quickly, a look of confusion plain on his face. "Because I'm not teaching at the high school then," he said.

"You teach at the high school?" Marty blurted out, and even Doc was surprised by this slight twist to things. His Marty had never been interested in that area, citing a lack of patience and interest in being an instructor. But, different worlds produced different personality traits sometimes. Variations to a theme. "Why?"

"Well, something has to pay the bills," Local Marty said matter-of-factly. "My music wasn't gonna do it alone... not anytime soon, anyway. And I sort of like it, especially now that Strickland's retired. I can help the kids out and try to make it interesting for them. There's a lot of students who have real talent with music, and I'm better than having someone like Mr. Furhman guide them. That guy thought rock music was a form of Satanism." He gave his other self a funny look as he sat down in the desk chair, gesturing for the visitors to take the couch across from it. "Why are you acting so weird about it? You know this stuff as well as I do...."

Doc cleared his throat as his Marty looked to him for the explanation. "This might clear things up a bit," he said. "You see, we're not quite who we appear to be...."

He outlined things as quickly as he could. When all was told, Local Marty sat back, studying the visitors through narrowed eyes. The inventor had to wonder for a moment if he was going to kick them out, but a moment later he leaned forward in the chair, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"So you guys are here from a place -- a reality -- completely different from this one? Not a past or future time?"

"Essentially," Doc said.

The teacher let out a low whistle. "Wow. Doc's gonna flip when he hears this.... He'll probably love it. There's not really that much excitement for him nowadays, except when he blows something up and someone calls 911," Local Marty added. "Last time that happened they tried to get him into a home saying he was becoming a danger to the community."

Marty frowned at this news, clearly taking offense to it even if it was happening to a counterpart of his friend. Doc, for his part, wasn't surprised. "At least he's still sane and alive," he half muttered, thinking of other possibilities out there. "And not married?"

Local Marty burst out laughing. "Not likely!" he said. "Although I guess he was kind of a ladies man, back in the day... that's how he came up with the idea for the time machine. He hit on a woman at this party at his place and she beaned him with a beer bottle. I almost busted gut when I saw that happen! Don't tell me you actually got hitched...."

"I did, actually," Doc said, holding up his hand with the wedding band.

The amusement -- along with some color -- drained right out of the teacher's face. "I'm sorry!" he said immediately, clearly horrified. "I mean -- I mean, that's great! Who is she?"

Marty answered the question. "Clara Clayton," he said. "She was a schoolteacher in 1885. Doc met her when he got stuck back there for a while and they really hit it off. They've got four kids now; the doc's a dad."

"You've got -- kids?" With the nod from the inventor, Local Marty nearly fell out of his chair. He seemed far more shocked by this news than he had upon first laying eyes on the pair from another dimension. "Oh my God.... I can't believe it!"

"My counterpart has none of these things, I take it," Doc said, wanting to get a better sense of this world.

"No way! After the near disaster of my trip to '55, and then the fiasco with me and Suzy and our kids in 2015--"

"Suzy?" Marty interrupted. "Is that the same person who's in the phone book next to your name?"

"Suzy? My wife? Yeah... why?"

Doc answered this question. "He married a young woman named Jennifer Parker," he said. "Now, tell me--"

"My wife's maiden name was Parker -- Susan Parker!" Local Marty said, shocked by this news. "Not Jennifer. There's no one in her family named Jennifer...."

"One of the many changes between this world and ours," Doc said. "Likely Suzy had parents with different taste in names than Jennifer -- and perhaps their birthdays, too, are different, if their appearances are any indication."

Local Marty looked confused by this, but the inventor didn't give him a chance to ask further questions. "You said that this world's Emmett Brown destroyed his time machine..." he prompted.

"Yeah," the teacher said, blinking at the change of topic. "After we got back from 2015. He thought it would be a good idea if we helped our kids out there, 'cause they were in some trouble, but when that had some problems, he took us home and decided to destroy the machine because it was becoming a pain in the ass, risk-wise. I guess he did some research in the future about stuff and paradoxes, and when things got dicey with helping the future kids, he decided to quit while he was ahead."

"I take it, then, that Biff Tannen didn't steal the machine and a sports almanac to give himself in the past," Doc said.

Local Marty stared at him in surprise. "Nooooo.... We didn't even see Biff the whole time we were there. Ever since I changed things in the past that one March, he's been as big a pushover as Dad used to be."

Doc's mind snagged onto a detail in the teacher's words. "March?" he said. "You weren't sent back to November fifth, 1955?"

"Nope," Local Marty confirmed. "March nineteenth, 1955 -- the day Doc came up with the idea for the... what was it... Temporal Field Capacitor. I couldn't get back home for a week, though."

The inventor's jaw fell a bit at these considerably deeper changes. "So I'm to assume that lightning didn't strike the clock tower until March twenty-seventh, 1955?"

"Yeah -- at 10:02 P.M. The clock is still stuck on that time in the town square if you're curious." He paused, studying the visitors. "You seem surprised. Is it different from where you're from?"

"Considerably," Doc said. "My conception of the flux capacitor -- not a 'Temporal Field Capacitor' -- came about on November fifth, 1955. As did Marty's arrival. His departure was a week later, on November twelfth, at 10:04 P.M. -- from a lightning bolt. Forty years ago today, in fact."

"Did you leave home at the same time?" Marty asked his counterpart. "On October twenty-sixth of '85?"

"No -- October fifth. Same year, though. Doc dragged me to the mall to show off the DeLorean." Local Marty closed his eyes a moment, thoughtful. "I can't remember what time it took Einstein through, but the only reason I got in it and went back was 'cause Libyans showed up." He opened his eyes and looked at his counterpart. "Did that happen to you, too?"

"Pretty much," Marty said. He rubbed his forehead and looked at the inventor, who was taking in all the information and trying to make sense of it. On first glance it didn't seem to mean much -- just a plethora of small and not-so-small deviations from what they thought of as normal. If anything, it simply hammered home to him the point that this was a drastically different world from the one they considered home, brought about by absolutely nothing they had done in the brief trip to the past.

But that told him nothing he didn't know already. Doc frowned, wondering if his counterpart could be of any help to them at all. Without a time machine -- and with perhaps an entirely different method to achieve temporal displacement, unless his other self had simply come up with a different name for the flux capacitor -- he had strong doubts that the Emmett Brown here could do more than hear their situation out, ask some questions, and shrug his shoulders.

Still, he supposed it wouldn't hurt to ask.

"Do you think that my counterpart would be upset if we went over there and spoke with him a bit?" Doc asked the local Marty.

The young man frowned and shrugged. "No, probably not. Like I said earlier, he'd probably like the excitement. I guess I'm kinda vague on why you guys are here.... Is there a reason you need our help?"

"We don't know why we're here," Marty told his counterpart with rolled eyes. "And Doc thought poking around to see what's gone on in each world might tell us. I'm not exactly sure how, though...." He slid his eyes over to Doc, prodding for the answer.

The scientist decided to be blunt and honest. "I thought it might be wise to get an idea as to what the worlds we're landing in are like -- because there could be some common denominator or feature to them that might provide an inking of the cause of the problem. It's better than turning a blind eye to them and focusing on the mechanics of our time machine, though I'm beginning to think that the problem lies somewhere in there. Everything has checked out fine, so far -- that's the trouble."

"Then my Doc could probably help you out," Local Marty said. "He's still pretty good with that kind of technical stuff. I can give him a call and tell him to meet us over here, if you want. Save you the trip across town, and he really just lives in a doublewide in the trailer park. I guess it's an improvement on the R.V. he used to live in, though."

Another change, and one that the scientist certainly didn't envy his counterpart for. He grimaced a little at the thought, wondering if his other self's finances had been worse off than his in this world. Still, if he had returned straight home from 2015 and dismantled the DeLorean, he very well might still be living in the garage on J.F.K. "That would be fine," he said.

Local Marty went off to take care of the task, although there was a phone in his office, leaving the visitors alone to access the situation. Marty exhaled deeply and leaned back in the couch, letting his head drop back to stare up at the ceiling for a moment. "This is pretty heavy," he surmised. "I can't believe I'm a teacher here.... And the other me didn't say anything about drag racing with Needles. Wouldn't that have happened if we came straight back home after the trip in the future?"

"Not necessarily," Doc said. "It could be that in this world, you never had such a personality flaw that allowed you to be goaded into doing things. Without that flaw -- and without running into Biff -- this Marty never heard about his life going downhill, never bought an almanac, and never had a fate where he broke his hand and gave up on life. It's interesting how much the world can change with just a few things different...."

"Yeah," Marty agreed, looking over at the inventor now. "But I don't really think I like that very much. I guess this place isn't necessarily bad -- it's just different. But if we found a place that's perfect, Doc, where our lives are way better.... That'd be frustrating as hell if you ask me." He changed the subject ever so slightly before Doc could think of an answer to that one. "How long are you planning on staying here?"

"It depends on how much help my other self can be to us," Doc said. "I don't think he will be, not without the experience that time travel provided me beyond that trip to 2015, but I suppose it can't hurt to see. Besides, I think if he heard Marty talk about our visit and we left without saying hello, he'd be a bit hurt."

Marty shrugged. "So we'll leave before the... effect catches up with us?"

The inventor winced a little at the reminder of their time limit, so to speak. "We'll have to," he said. "Without a working time machine in this dimension, we can't stay beyond that. There won't be a way to reset our systems, and if we used the train, we'll end up somewhere else -- unless the problem's been fixed and this really is some fluke. So there's your answer, I suppose -- we'll be here no more than a day."

It would turn out to be considerably less. After about fifteen minutes, Local Marty returned to tell him that the local Doc was on his way, very interested by the news that they were being visited by people from a parallel dimension. He showed up twenty minutes after that, breathless and all eyes.

There were changes that Doc noticed almost immediately in his counterpart -- he looked much older, in spite of the fact that the visiting scientist had about eleven years on him from the time spent in the past. No doubt this was due to an absence of regular visits to the future to take advantage of their rejuvenation techniques. The inventor supposed being a bachelor, without a wife and family to take care of him or to be taken care of, could also have taken a toll. And in some ways, his life had sounded a bit harsher to the visitor. Doc, after all, had never had to live in an R.V. or trailer park.

"This is incredible!" the local Emmett Brown said upon hearing the story from his other self. "Absolutely incredible! To think that alternate dimensions actually exist, that there are endless variations and versions of one's self out there...." He fixed a sharp, if wild-eyed, gaze on his counterpart. "And you're married? With kids?"

Doc nodded once, wishing that issue hadn't come up. He wasn't entirely sure why he felt that way, except that if the tables had been turned, he'd feel a bit of envy for the counterpart who had that life. Emmett smiled thinly, wistfully, at the confirmation, sighing. "Wish I could say the same. But knowing that somewhere out there a version of myself found that.... I suppose I can settle for that."

"Doc thought you might be able to help us with our problem," the musician said, casting a meaningful look at his friend.

"Maybe," Doc clarified, frowning faintly at Marty for his bluntness. "I don't suppose you have much experience beyond the mechanics of the DeLorean when it comes to time travel, do you?"

Emmett shook his head. "I gotta admit, there are times I regret dismantling the machine," he said. "Especially now, when I see what the results of additional years and experimentation could produce."

Doc had expected the answer; nevertheless, he was disappointed. "Then you'd probably have less of an idea of what to look for than I would," he muttered, half to himself. He paced the length of the living room, where they had relocated upon the local inventor's arrival. "What did your Temporal Field Capacitor look like?"

"Glowing tubes in the shape of a Y," Local Marty answered for his mentor.

"Well, at least that's the same," Doc muttered.

"Could I see your machine?" the local scientist asked eagerly. "I didn't see anything of the sort outside, unless you managed to convert that R.V. across the street into one.... Too much plastic in something like that, in my opinion, for it to work, and it would be quite challenging to get it up to eighty-eight...."

"I don't suppose that would be much of a problem," Doc said after a moment of thought. "And you're actually quite close in your guess; it is the R.V. outside. But that's simply a holographic disguise for the real thing."

"What's the real thing?" Emmett asked, but his foreign counterpart decided to leave that as a surprise. The pairs of Docs and Martys left the house, armed with umbrellas this time to guard against the continuing drone of rain. Doc only dropped the illusion a moment, lest one of Marty's neighbors drive by, but it was enough for the local inventor. His face lit up with a wide grin that didn't fade as he came into the cab for a look at things.

"A steam train!" he enthused. "Brilliant -- though I suppose you had little choice in the matter if you had to build a machine in the last century. You really lived there for ten years?"

"Eleven," Doc said. "Eleven years too long, in my opinion. Sometimes I wonder what might've happened if Clara had made it to the DeLorean when I sent Marty back in it, and she simply came to the future."

"If we don't fix this thing soon, you might find out," Marty said darkly, his mood clearly one of impatience. Doc shot him another look, but neither his counterpart nor the local inventor seemed to notice, too preoccupied with the surroundings in the cab. Emmett took a long, careful look around, then smiled sheepishly when he eventually looked up to the face of his other self.

"I'm afraid I wouldn't be of much help in diagnosing your problem," he admitted. "Some of the technology you've got installed is ahead of its time -- and out of my grasp."

"I thought as much," Doc said, sighing. "I suppose it was too much, hoping to nip this thing here and now."

"Does that mean we're gonna leave and just cross our fingers now?" Marty asked.

"We certainly can't stay here," the scientist said. He looked at the locals -- the Marty from this world, looking curiously at the analog display, and the scientist, who was more fascinated with the maze of pipes and wires at the front. "Thank you both for your help -- even though it wasn't exactly what we were looking for." He scratched his head, thinking. "But I suppose I'm not quite sure what that is, yet."

"You're not going to leave now, are you?" Emmett asked, looking up. "You just got here!"

"This may be true, but we're not really on a pleasure trip. Visiting alternate dimensions isn't as safe as visiting foreign times." Faced with looks of confusion from the locals, Doc explained, briefly, some of the side effects of such trips. Local Marty let out a low whistle and shook his head, clearly not envying them; Emmett simply looked disappointed.

"Well, that's disheartening to hear. I can understand why you're both eager to be on your way, then." He cast another look of longing at the front of the cab as he prepared to exit. "This almost makes me reconsider my decision ten years ago. I could rebuild the DeLorean again... I have all the parts, still, stored away."

The local Marty's mouth fell open a little with this surprise announcement. Doc smiled at his other self, understanding. "Just don't do it to simply go back to 1885 to save a schoolteacher from an untimely buckboard accident," he said, realizing even as the words were leaving his mouth that he was telling his other self more than he needed to know. "Never mind," he added quickly, before that could open up a new line of questions he really didn't want to answer. The possibility existed, of course, that in this reality, Clara never existed, or never met that fate on her own, or never came to Hill Valley in the first place. The possibilities, actually, were literally endless.

There was really no more to be said between the pairs. After handshakes were exchanged, and wishes of luck given to the visitors, Doc and Marty settled back in the machine. A flick of few switches and the R.V. illusion was replaced by invisibility. The scientist couldn't resist a grin at the dumbfounded looks from their counterparts outside at the transformation.

"So are we just taking off now?" Marty asked as the train rose up, standing near the back of the cab.

"I can't think of any reason to stay," Doc said. "I think we'd need the help of someone who can understand the basic mechanics of time travel and interdimensional travel -- and this version of myself lacks recent experience in one and any experience in the other. He never even saw the alternate reality created by Biff. I hesitate in dismantling anything in the machine without someone to help me put things back together. And, most importantly, a consultant to diagnose the problem."

Marty frowned. "Great," he said, turning his gaze to the gloomy world beyond the windows. "What are the odds of that happening?"

"Who knows? We've found other me's with those qualifications before; I suspect we will again. And who knows?" Doc added optimistically. "We may end up back home after this. Perhaps the fluke has run the course."

But even the inventor knew that was wishful thinking.