"No Place Like Home" Chapters 9

Chapter Nine

Sunday, November 12, 1995
3:00 P.M.

Hill Valley was fully restored when the train arrived in another new dimension. That it wasn't home was obvious the moment Doc looked out the window and saw a large field where, in their world, there were rundown apartments and commercial property. A frown tugged at the corners of his mouth, but a moment later he realized where they were and he grunted in both surprise and satisfaction.

"Hill Valley is back," he told Marty, sitting on the bench. "And we're above my house now."

The musician -- who had been leaning back, resting his head against the round window on the back wall of the cab -- opened his eyes at the announcement and leaned forward, suddenly hopeful. "Are we home, then? Can you tell?"

"We're not," Doc said, slowing the train down to almost a dead stop. "We appear to be above my old family mansion -- which is no longer burned down and razed."

Marty frowned, the expression pained. "Are we back in that other world? The one where I grew up outside of my time?"

Doc took another look out the window. "I don't know," he said. "I can't say for sure, but I wouldn't think so. It looks like there's an enormous pasture in back of the home, now, and a stable. Those weren't around in my time, and I don't think that they were in that particular world, either."

Curiosity drew Marty out of his seat and to the window. As he looked, Doc scanned the area surrounding his former home in search of a place to land. It was quite possible that the home was no longer owned by another version of himself, but he also knew that if it hadn't been destroyed by fire, he would have more likely than not kept it. It would've been much cheaper than buying an entirely new home -- and there was the fact that the home was the final connection he had with his parents.

"We'll land there," Doc finally decided, pointing out the lawn between the home and the garage. He took the time machine down slowly, wincing a bit at the sounds he knew could be audible if anyone was outside. One of these days, he was going to have to see if he could muffle the noise or entirely disguise it.... But the windows he could see facing out in their direction remained empty of any faces as the machine settled down on the grass. Lights burned inside, though, so someone was obviously at home. A car -- one of those new gas guzzling SUVs -- was parked on the curved driveway before the home.

"Are we just gonna step out of the train?" Marty asked as the machine gradually quieted down, ticking and groaning as it cooled from the transit.

"There certainly isn't another way to go about it," Doc said patiently, finding the musician's question strange at this hour. But, then, they hadn't landed this close to people passing by before, either -- except during that first visit to the Marty who was a teacher. And then the machine had been holographically disguised as an RV. The inventor decided to keep it invisible, now, since any other illusion would only draw attention to the sight.

Marty seemed reluctant to leave the machine. He hung back as Doc popped open the door, leaning against the far wall. "Can we go somewhere else?" he asked, his voice strained.

"Where?" Doc asked. "You know we can't get home, yet...."

"I know." There was a faint layer of bitterness to the words. "But maybe we could just skip over some of these worlds. Why do we have to get out and look around when we can tell from the air that it's not home, Doc?"

Doc closed his eyes and took a breath before answering, a pain born of stress and exhaustion beginning to clamp a hold around the crown of his head. Marty's suggestion had occurred to the inventor far earlier, before the musician had even first broached the subject, but he had resisted the idea. Doing something like that would be akin to panicking, and perhaps it would create worse damage to the machine in the long run. Better that they examine all their options in each world, unless to stay would pose a danger to their lives in some way. Doc couldn't quite escape the certainty that with their poor luck, the moment they skipped over someplace without investigating things thoroughly, they would have missed the answer and a way home.

"This could be it, Marty," he told the musician, opening his eyes and managing a faint, wan smile. "We've got to see."

Marty looked like he wanted to debate the matter, but he simply tightened his lips together and shrugged. When Doc left the train's cab, he followed, though not without a bit of reluctance. The scientist headed for the driveway and arrived at the front door, making it look as if he had simply been passing by via the sidewalk -- not the side yard. He knocked on the door, and, as he waited, he heard Marty ask, very softly, "What if this isn't your home here?"

"Then we'll ask to see a phone book," Doc murmured back as footsteps headed their way. When the door was opened a moment later, the inventor started to open his mouth to voice that particular question. He didn't recognize the face before him immediately -- because he had never worn a beard as this world's version of himself apparently did, nor had he ever worn glasses. His hair was a bit longer, too, hanging down to his shoulders. The beard, wire-rimmed glasses, and the hair all combined to made him look older, a little more grizzled -- or perhaps that was due to more stress or a life without rejuvenations in the future. And yet there was a gleam in the dark eyes that Doc hadn't seen in the last version of himself, the one who felt that he had been the source of destruction to Marty's life.

"Can I help you?" the local Emmett Brown asked, his face not showing the faintest traces of recognition. Doc had expected a variety of reactions from meeting versions of himself face-to-face, without any forewarning, but this was one he hadn't even thought about.

Marty, quietly hanging back a couple of steps, perhaps decided that bluntness was the best course of action. "Don't you recognize us?" he asked.

Emmett leaned forward and squinted, adjusting the glasses on the bridge of his nose. "No, I can't say that I do," he admitted. "Should I?" Without allowing the visitors a chance to answer, he added, "Did you come about the puppies? There are still two that haven't been claimed, yet."

Puppies? "Ah, no, we didn't," the inventor said. "We came about... well, this may be a bit delicate. You are Emmett Brown, aren't you?"

"Of course," Emmett said. "I suppose I can invite you inside -- though please, excuse the mess. It's been one emergency after another all week, and I'm afraid I haven't been very good with housekeeping, especially with the maid out of town for the week."

Marty glanced at Doc with a raised eyebrow as they stepped across the threshold of the home. Unlike the mansion in that other reality, this one wasn't nearly as run down or cluttered. The inventor was surprised when he noticed a number of new furnishings within the home; in fact, most of the furniture he saw was new. He supposed that was only rational, since things did wear out over time. But the quality of what he did see was somewhat surprising; it wasn't cheap. And it had a distinctly old-fashioned, Western feeling to it; a Southwest theme of sorts, with a lot of cowboy and western paraphernalia about.

Equally surprising was that he didn't see any trace of any inventions around. In his own past history, he had tried to curtail most of his projects to the garage on the property, but things had inevitably been drawn into the home. This was true by 1955; this was more than true in by 1962, the year he had burned down the mansion in an experiment gone awry. Even now, with a family and a wife who tried hard to keep a neat house, things would find their way into the home.

But there was nothing Doc could see here that told him he was in the presence of a scientist or inventor. Absolutely nothing. Strange.

Doc spotted a dog -- a mutt, from what he could tell -- standing near the stairs. The dog regarded the strangers and whined deep in it's throat, taking a couple of steps back. Emmett looked at the animal in surprise. "What's wrong, Eastwood?" he asked.

"Eastwood?" Marty blurted, surprised. 'Is that your dog's name?" His mouth twitched into a faint, crooked smile.

"Yes," Emmett said, heading over to his pet. "After Clint Eastwood. What's wrong, boy?"

The local's full attention was on the dog, which was probably a good thing considering the smirk that crossed Marty's face. For his part, Doc was surprised. He'd habitually named all of his pets after famous scientists, never Hollywood actors. He frowned, puzzled and intrigued, as Eastwood backed away from his master. Though Emmett seemed to be completely oblivious to the identity of the visitors, the dog knew, and was not at all comfortable. He finally turned tail and hustled out of the wide hallway, up the stairs to the second floor.

"Well, that's odd," the local Emmett muttered, his hand stroking his furry chin. "Usually I have to hold him back from visitors...."

"It may not be so odd," Doc muttered, half to himself. When Emmett turned to look at him, his eyes narrowed in a silent question, he elaborated only a little. "It's a long story. Is there somewhere we might be able to talk?"

"Ah, I suppose so...." Emmett looked rather suspicious, but he didn't kick them out, instead leading them to the living room of the home, at the front of the mansion. It was furnished completely differently than Doc had last seen it, before the fire, with that same sort of Western style. Most of the furniture was constructed from wood and leather, though the couches were the new sorts made up of very soft, comfortable pillows for cushions. Doc almost regretted sitting down on that furniture. It was almost too comfortable, considering his body was now thinking it was early morning on November 13th....

Emmett took a seat in a leather armchair near the fireplace, turning it so that he could face the visitors on the couch. "What is it you wanted to discuss?" he asked.

Doc opened his mouth to begin, but found himself cut off by Marty, sitting on his left. "Are you a scientist here?" the musician asked.

Emmett smiled faintly. "Not quite," he said. "You aren't the first person to think that the doctor I am is scientific or medical. I think there is a certain science to veterinary medicine, though."

"Veterinary medicine?" Doc repeated, baffled. "You mean you're a vet?"

Emmett nodded slowly. "Semiretired, now, but yes. I spend most of my time breeding horses, currently. And who, may I ask, are you? You're not trying to sell me something, are you?"

The guess drew uncomfortably close to what Doc's first impression of Marty had been, when the teen had showed up on his doorstep in 1955. Doc glanced at the musician, who gave him a faint, tired smile, remembering the same thing the inventor was.

"No," Doc said softly, turning back to his counterpart. "We're not trying to sell you anything. You see... well." He paused, trying to think about how he should wade into this. For a moment he thought about standing and leaving right then, since it was almost a given that this version of him had never created a time machine. But there was the tantalizing possibility that this world might hold something else that could help them. Maybe a sophisticated computer diagnostics device, or software more sensitive to electrical fluctuations.... No, the inventor thought. They'd come this far. They might as well lay all the cards out on the table.

"Look at me," Doc finally said. "Who do you see?"

The vet turned his eyes on the visiting scientist, studying him a moment. "A man?" he said, the tone of his voice indicating it was more statement than guess.

"Well, yes... and no." Doc leaned forward, staring Emmett directly in the eyes. "I'm you. Well, another version of you from a parallel dimension. Are you familiar with the term?"

The dark eyes blinked once. "No," Emmett said, his voice taking on a bit of an edge. "I am not."

Doc recognized the disbelief in himself at once, being so familiar with certain reactions and expressions that crossed the temporal and dimensional barriers. "All right," he said. "Give me a few minutes to explain things to you...."

Emmett sat in a rather stony silence, his face grim and flat, as Doc once more ran through the entire story, from the beginning to the present. It took a bit longer to tell than the other times, since this world -- and this Emmett Brown -- was apparently quite different from the others Doc had thus far met face to face. He had to skip back to his long fascination with science and love of inventing, the events surrounding the conception of the flux capacitor, his friendship with Marty McFly, and the realization of his dream thirty years later with a time traveling DeLorean. Then he had to give a very condensed account of his being in the Nineteenth Century for eleven years, married with two kids, and constructing a second time machine to move them all out of the past.

It took close to an hour to get it all out. During the entire long, convoluted tale, Emmett sat quite still, his eyes locked in a stare that made Doc sweat a little. Finally, reaching what would do as an end with a dry throat, feeling almost completely spent from the energy it had taken to explain it all, the inventor leaned back in the couch and met the eyes of the vet, waiting for his reaction -- whatever it was.

"An interesting tale," Emmett finally said, when it was clear that the visitor was waiting for him to speak. "You should be a writer."

The tone was so cold that the scientist couldn't help but take a faint offense to it. "It's all true," he said softly. "Why would I make something like this up -- and visit you?"

"I don't know," Emmett said. "Perhaps in the hopes of cheating me out of some money?"

Doc leaned forward, irritated. "I don't want your money," he said. "It wouldn't be of any use to me. And how can you deny the proof sitting right here? You don't have a twin brother." He paused, reconsidering, then added, "Do you?"

"No," Emmett said flatly. "But I don't see how you can possibly sit here and say that we're the same person. I'll admit that there's something about you that looks a little... familiar, but your face is not mine."

Doc sighed to himself, realizing at once that the stubbornness that drove him hadn't changed at all in this counterpart. At least disbelief had gone quickly to belief in other worlds upon staring the undeniable truth in the face. "There are a few cosmetic differences," he admitted. "But if you cut your hair a little, shaved, and took off your glasses, I think you would find that we look remarkably similar."

Emmett's eyes narrowed once more, scrutinizing through the glasses. After a moment the hard edges to his face relaxed. Doc found himself breathing easier, thinking that he had finally gotten the breakthrough -- and then the vet said, his tone much softer, "You're delusional, but it's not surprising. It's clear you're suffering from extreme exhaustion. I may be a vet, but I'm not ignorant on human biology. I was a conventional med student for a couple of years before changing my course of study."

Doc felt offended, again, at the sympathy in his voice. He preferred the cold skepticism more. But there was truth behind the words, too. He was exhausted. A pity that it was so obvious, and more of a pity that it was putting his credibility on the line. "That has nothing to do with our situation; or, rather, it's not the cause of the story, though I'll admit that the recent events are the reason we haven't rested in a while. We simply need to get home, and I can see now that you won't be of any help to us." He stood, ready to leave and move on to the next world, whatever it held.

Emmett remained seated and looked up at him with mild reproach. "There's no need to storm out of here," he said. "I dare say that you need to rest, first. Driving anywhere will only lead to accidents. Besides," he added, "I don't think your friend -- Marty McFly, was it? -- is ready to go anywhere right now."

Doc glanced over at the musician, noticing only then that he had apparently reached the end of his stamina sometime during the course of the long story. Marty's face was half buried in one of the ultra soft couch pillows, his eyes closed and his body limp with sleep. The inventor had the wild urge to wake him and leave, regardless, if it meant he could escape the patronizing tone of Emmett.

"I suspect rest will help you," the vet said once more, calmly. "It's nothing to be ashamed about."

Doc grimaced, frustrated. "It's not exhaustion," he said. "If you would just come with me outside, I can prove that what I'm saying is the truth."

"By showing me your 'time machine'?" Emmett asked. At his counterpart's nod, the vet gave him a slight, patient smile, like one might offer an irrational child. "It's plain to see there's nothing out there." He indicated the windows on the north side of the home, which looked out towards the garage. The train, of course, couldn't be seen.

Doc regretted disguising the train, then. He would've liked to see his counterpart's reaction had he landed it on the front of the lawn, whistle blowing and with as much noise and thunder as possible. "It's under a holographic disguise," he said. "I don't believe in drawing more attention than necessary to something like a functional time machine... although this one isn't functioning very well right now. But if you'll come with me, I can assure you that you will not be disappointed."

Emmett pursed his lips together, clearly against the idea for reasons unbeknownst to the inventor. Doc felt a flash of irritation at his attitude. "What's happened to you?" he couldn't resist asking. "I would've expected any version of myself to be more open minded... especially when staring something in the face!"

Emmett immediately bristled. "Excuse me? You're talking about time travel. That exists only in the works of fiction, last I checked... and I never liked those stories."

The inventor had been trying to figure out how the local had evolved to this person sitting before him -- Veterinary medicine? Horse breeding? -- and the mention of Emmett's apparent reading preferences stopped him cold. "Didn't you ever read Jules Verne?" he asked.

Emmett's brow crinkled under the question. "Jules Verne? No. I never enjoyed fantasies like that. Louis L'Amore is a far better writer. Those are tales a man can relate to."

For a quick half second, Doc suddenly saw a multitude of reasons why this person before him was the most vastly changed of all he had so far met; but it was gone before he could fully grasp it. He was left with the nagging feeling of being close enough to touch the answer, but unable to see it. Exhaustion, he thought, annoyed. If I wasn't so damned tired....

"If you won't believe my words, then you'll have to believe your eyes," Doc said. "If we go outside and there is no train out there, I'll take your diagnosis of extreme exhaustion and let it go."

The vet stood at the offer, still clearly skeptical. "I suppose I can accept that," he said. "So long as you can."

Doc turned and headed for the front door, rolling his eyes once his back was to his counterpart. "Of course I can," he muttered under his breath.

It was getting dark outside, with sunset less than an hour off, now. Doc walked briskly towards the train, checking a couple of times to make sure that Emmett was following him. The vet moved slowly, either besieged by aches of age that did not plague the visiting, rejuvenated inventor, or else trying to demonstrate his reluctance and skepticism over the matter. The inventor couldn't resist a thin smile as he reached the side of the time machine, anticipating the enjoyment he was going to get at seeing Emmett eat his words.

"Watch," he said. He opened the door of the machine and went inside to access the HIS. Emmett's eyed widened minutely at seeing the door open out of thin air, revealing the inside of a cab that appeared to be hanging in midair. A moment later Doc flicked the proper switch and the illusion vanished with a flash of static.

"And if you don't believe your eyes, feel free to touch anything you need to for proof," the inventor added as he turned. "You can even enter the cab if you wa--"

The rest of his words faltered in his throat when he spotted Emmett, now crumpled on the grass. Doc scrambled down the steps, half expecting the worst, but he found a pulse without a problem. The vet had just gone down in a dead faint.

Some things, apparently, never changed.

* * *

The sound of a door slamming shut jerked Marty unintentionally back to awareness. He sat up with a start, dazed, blinking hard as he tried to figure out where he was. He didn't recognize the room instantly, but it came back to him after a minute. He and Doc were still bouncing through different dimensions. They'd found a version of the scientist who was a vet, and lived in the old Brown mansion. And at some point while Doc had tried to explain their complicated predicament to his counterpart, Marty had closed his aching eyes for a second and, from the look of things, fallen asleep.

Based on the way he felt, though -- completely unrefreshed and groggy -- it couldn't have been more than a nap. He frowned, his eyes searching out a clock. There was none around the room, but a look at his watch told him it was a little after 7:30 A.M. on November 13th. A little more than an hour had passed since they arrived in this world.

A sound from the hallway drew his attention. Marty got to his feet, yawning and stretching as he went, to check it out. He had gone no more than three steps towards the corridor before Doc came into view, bent under the weight of the local Emmett, hanging limply over one shoulder. The inventor blinked at the sight of the musician, clearly not expecting to see him.

"What's going on?" Marty asked. "Did something happen to your other self?"

"He fainted," Doc grunted as he continued down the hallway, heading for what appeared to be the study at the back of the house. "He wouldn't believe what I told him, so I took him out to the time machine to prove my words... and the shock was too much for him."

The musician shook his head as he trailed Doc into the study. "Typical," he muttered under his breath. "What are you gonna do with him? Wake him up now? Or were you planning on us just taking off now?"

Doc set his counterpart down on the couch and leaned back with a sigh. "The second, I think. It's fairly clear to me that this world isn't going to have the solution we need.... There's no need to stay longer."

Marty eyeballed the unconscious vet on the couch. "Do you think it's smart to go when he's out like that?"

"It might be better," Doc said. "It's clear to me that this version of myself is in some form of tremendous denial about... the possibilities of life, I suppose."

Marty yawned again, trying to cover it up. "Why?" he asked a moment later. "That seems sort of weird if you ask me. And why is he a vet?"

The inventor shrugged, turning to head back towards the front door. The musician followed. "We didn't get into that discussion. Although his tastes in literature seem to be different. He didn't seem to enjoy Jules Verne at al--"

Doc's words and steps stopped dead. Marty's reaction was a beat slower, since he was still muddled from his brief nap; he almost walked right into the scientist, putting on the breaks with less than six inches to spare. "What's wrong?" he asked, unable to see his friend's face.

"Nothing," Doc said, his tone slightly breathless with astonishment. "I think I just realized why this me is so different! He never read Jules Verne when he was eleven!"

"So?" Marty asked. He remembered Doc telling him once before that the book had been the key into turning him onto the wonder of science, but how could something like that create all the changes they'd seen here?

"So!" Doc turned around, his eyes wide, suddenly energetic. "Before I read his work, my interests were focused mostly on the childish idea of being a cowboy. This makes perfect sense, now! I could imagine that I might pursue a career in veterinary medicine, then.... A doctor to horses and other animals that were so important in the cowboy legends. It would explain why I got into horse breeding here, and why my taste in literature is the way it is, with westerns, and why the mansion never burned if I didn't do experiments.... It would explain so much!"

"Good," Marty said. "Then that means we can definitely leave now, right?"

The inventor didn't seem to hear him -- although he did turn back around and in the direction of the door again. "I just don't understand how I could be so narrow-minded as to not believe something when it was staring me right in the face...."

"Maybe he's too old to change, now," Marty said. "A lot of people get more anal when they're older, though I gotta admit I never thought you'd fall into that category. But look at how I was in some of these worlds."

"Yes." Doc left the house, still clearly preoccupied. He always seemed to walk as fast as his mind moved during these moments, and Marty had to hustle to catch up, using an energy he didn't really have. Fortunately, the train -- now visible -- wasn't too distant from the house.

"When are we gonna take a break?" Marty had to ask after they had boarded the time machine. "I'm starting to seriously drag...."

Doc shut the door with a clatter. "Soon," he said. "Once we find a place where we can safely lie low for a few hours, or when we find another me who can have a look at the machine... and actually understand what everything on it is supposed to do. There's got to be another out there who has that ability."

Marty snorted softly as he slumped down on the back bench. "There was -- in that very first place we visited. Man, if I'd known what was really going on then I never would've left...."

Doc winced as he activated the machine again. The train groaned aloud as it lifted into the air, perhaps as fatigued as the travelers were of their repetitive journey. "That's water under the bridge now," was his sensible reply. "We'll get a hit soon -- or make it home first. It's got to be inevitable."

Or impossible, Marty thought darkly.

They made the jump through time -- and dimensions -- without a problem. A roar upon entering the new place nearly startled Marty to an early grave. The sound was all around the machine, like the sound of waves breaking on a coastline. "What the hell is--"

"Rain!" Doc said, cutting the musician off. "It's raining again. And...." The inventor leaned forward, close to the glass, squinting his eyes. A smile spread across his face a moment later. "I can see my house. My real house!"

Chapter Ten

Sunday, November 12, 1995
3:00 P.M.

Marty got to his feet so quickly that he stumbled and nearly crashed face-first to the hard metal floor. Doc's unsteady driving didn't help matters, considering that his attention was now completely focused on the view outside.

"Are you sure?" he asked as he scrambled to the window. "This isn't some joke, is it?"

"Well," Doc said, suddenly more sober, "I suppose it could very well be a false alarm. But the weather matches up with what it was when we left, and things are certainly restored to the same degree that they should be, down there."

Marty turned his own eyes to the sight. The white paint of the old farmhouse and barn stood out starkly against the dark, wintry landscape outside. He couldn't help smiling as they got closer... but that expression faded as he was able to see more details. His heart sank and the disappointment was so great that it took every bit of his will to keep from crumpling to the floor.

"It's not home," he half-moaned. "If it was, my truck would be parked in front of the house... and nothing's there."

Doc's disappointed sigh could be heard even over the roar of the rain on the train's metal exterior. "Damn. I thought... well, we still may be able to salvage some help from this world."

Marty didn't answer him. He stepped away from the window and went back to the bench, sitting down and putting his face in his hands. He felt dangerously close to tears for a few minutes, the disappointment physically painful. Having been up almost twenty-four hours straight, under increasing amounts of stress, probably wasn't helping his coping skills, either. He was hardly aware of Doc landing the train until the inventor spoke again.

"Did you want to come with me to the door?"

The musician raised his head slowly and turned his eyes to the window. Doc had landed them in the backyard of his home -- or the home of whatever counterpart lived there. "I guess," he said in a voice completely devoid of any enthusiasm.

In spite of the exhaustion, disappointment, and a generally grim mood, Marty was aware enough of things to notice that -- for some odd reason -- Doc left the train completely visible. "Why the hell'd you do that?" he had to ask as they headed for the home's back door. "Everyone's gonna see that...."

"I know," Doc said. Something in his tone told Marty he was simply past caring. It made the musician feel worse, not better, since it seemed to tell him that he wasn't the only one feeling desperate and frustrated at this point. Doc was paranoid to the point of fanatical about keeping the time machines out of sight and reach of potential thieves; yet here he was letting it rest in plain sight of anyone who would look out the window.

And, apparently, someone had. The back door opened and a figure stepped out before they had even crossed half of the lawn. Marty recognized it as Emily after a second -- looking identical to when he had last seen her, down to her blue jeans and purple sweater. She was frowning, her eyes a little confused; the musician guessed that was better than freaking out completely.

"Why'd you bring the train out, Daddy?" she asked innocently.

A smile spread across Doc's face at the sight of the girl -- or maybe at the question. It took Marty a moment to get it, but he realized that this must mean that a train existed in this world. Maybe they were finally somewhere where someone could help them. He smiled faintly himself at the prospect -- even as Emily turned her eyes to him and her frown deepened.

"Why are you here?" she asked, without a trace of the usual politeness that she usually gave him. She sounded kind of bored. "I thought you weren't comin' 'til later tonight." She paused as Marty and Doc reached the bottom of the porch steps. "Didja bring Marty with you?"

Marty thought the question was directed at Doc for a second, but the seven-year-old was staring right at him. "I'm Marty," he said, wondering if Emily was trying to be funny. "Maybe not the Marty here, but--"

"I know you're Marty," Emily said, rolling her eyes. "I mean M.J. -- you know, your son, Marty Jr."

"My -- what?!"

Marty's knees inexplicably went weak with Emily's comment. Doc knelt down to look the girl in the eye while the musician leaned against one of the posts supporting the roof above the porch. "Emily, where is your father?" he asked.

Emily raised her arm and pointed right in the center of his chest. "There," she said, clearly humoring him. "Is something wrong, Daddy?"

Doc glanced at Marty for a moment. The musician was trying to keep breathing and stay on his feet while frantically trying to figure out why he was a father here and now. "Emmy, can you fetch your mother for me? I'd like to see her a moment."

The girl's lips puckered uncertainly. "Mommy's cleaning the downstairs bathroom. Are you sure you wanna bug her? She always scolds me when I ask her somethin' then...."

"Yes. Tell her it's important."

Emily gave him a skeptical look, but turned around and went back in the house. Doc sighed as the door closed behind her and looked again at the musician. "I'm sorry, Marty. I guess there are some substantial changes here... but at least this counterpart of mine apparently has a locomotive."

"And I'm... I have a son?" Marty asked, numb, still clinging to the post for support. "Jesus, Doc! How?"

"Well, if you don't know those things by this age..." Doc began lightly. Marty shot him a look, too rattled to be remotely amused.

"I'm not ready to be a father yet, Doc, and I don't think Jennifer's ready to do the mom thing now, either."

"Maybe here, you both were sooner," the inventor said simply, serious now. "Or else maybe--"

The back door opened and Clara peered out. Her sleeves were rolled back and her clothes -- a ragged set of overalls and an old t-shirt -- made it clear that she was in the middle of household chores. Her cheeks were flushed from the scrubbing that she had been doing, and a few curls hung down from the scarf that she had tied about her hair, to keep it out of the way. "What's wrong, Emmett?" she asked, as if the sight of him was the most common on earth. "Emily said that you wanted to see me immediately."

Doc nodded once, though now that he was facing his wife -- or the wife of his counterpart -- he looked a lot less confident. Marty decided to cut to the chase, sick to death now of the story he had heard too many times to count. "Doc and I aren't who you think we are," he said. "We had a problem with the time machine and it's been sending us to all these weird alternate realities. So we're from a different kind of world than this one. Where's your Doc -- ah, Emmett?"

Clara blinked twice as she stared at Marty. "Emmett? He's... in the lab, I believe." Her eyes flickered to her non-husband as he started to turn in that direction. "What's going on?"

Doc stopped and turned back to his wife. By the look on his face, Marty could see he was going to give her a less condensed version of their circumstances. Maybe they could save some time at this.... "You tell her, Doc," he told his friend. "I'll get the other you and give him the scoop."

Since Doc didn't say anything to stop him, Marty took that as permission. He headed off across the lawn, still feeling shaky from Emily's "news." The walk through the rain soaked him even more, but he hardly noticed, too tired and uncomfortable already to care about a little more water. As he knocked on the door to the lab, he wondered dimly why this world's Emmett hadn't been drawn outside by the sounds of the train landing so close. And what was this scientist working on out here...?

He had to pound on the door for a few minutes before it was finally opened by Emmett. He looked mildly surprised to see a dripping Marty standing at the door. "Marty," he said. "What are you doing here so early? I wasn't expecting you for another couple of hours...."

The musician didn't wait for an invitation to come in, stepping inside to get out of the foul weather. "Look," he said, running a hand through his hair to slick it back, out of his eyes, "I'm not this Marty, I'm a different one. Doc and I need your help. You've got a train time machine here, right?"

Emmett's mouth gaped open for a moment. "I... ah... of course," he said. "What are you talking about--"

Marty sighed, frustrated, wishing that he had some sort of note he could just hand to the counterparts, now. "My Doc and I are stuck with some sort of busted time machine -- which, if you look out the window, you can see on your lawn -- and it's sending us to all of these weird parallel worlds. We wanna get back home, but Doc can't figure out what's going wrong. So he thought maybe someone with some kinda understanding of the train could help us out... and you might be the first guy we've found with those qualifications. So: Do you have one of those in your basement, too?"

Marty jerked a thumb in the direction of the window, and the time machine beyond. Doc took a couple of steps towards the window, nearly tripping over some sort of gutted computer in the journey. The musician heard him draw in a deep gasp of astonishment. "Great Scott! Then this means...."

"We're in some serious shit if you can't help us," Marty finished. It was impossible to be tactful when one felt so miserable. "You've got your own one of those... right?"

"Yes, I do, in the cellar." The answer was muttered without a look at the visiting Marty. Emmett seemed captivated by the sight outside. "I don't believe this...."

"The other Doc's in the house, if you wanna meet him," Marty said. "He can give you the entire story if you want."

Emmett tore his eyes away from the window and looked at Marty hard -- almost as if he was seeing him for the first time. The musician guessed that was basically the case. "I can see it now," the local said after a moment, almost to himself. "There are a few differences.... Terribly subtle, but visible."

Marty assumed he was talking about his local counterpart, the young father, apparently. "Since when did I have a kid?" he had to ask as Emmett headed for the door.

"Since 1987," Emmett answered as he grabbed an umbrella from the coat rack behind the door.

Marty was so thoroughly dumbfounded by the answer that he couldn't move for a minute, trying to figure out if he had actually heard the local scientist right.

1987? Jesus! I was only eighteen or nineteen, then!

He might've remained standing in the lab had Emmett not gestured for him to come along and then physically grabbed his arm when he didn't immediately react. Marty allowed himself to be dragged back into the rain and to the old farmhouse, his mind able to do only the most basic of math to figure that his son was... about the same age as Emily!

I have an eight-year-old son and I'm only twenty-seven. Oh my God....

Doc was sitting at the kitchen table, talking to Clara as she bustled around the kitchen, preparing to serve some coffee from the look of it. He stopped in mid-sentence as Emmett and Marty came in, giving his counterpart a nod and a smile. "Hello. I'm sorry for dropping in on you like this...."

Emmett closed the door and dropped his saturated umbrella in an untidy heap on the floor. His eyes were locked on the visitor in a state of clear fascination and wonder. "It's... quite all right," was his almost distant answer. "I must say, I never thought that I'd meet another me that wasn't a past or future variation."

Marty wondered if that meant he'd never lived through the nasty Doc B experience -- or had his own time machine pay a visit to a completely foreign dimension the year before. He sat down at the kitchen table next to Doc, too tired to stand any longer than he had to.

"Yes, well, this experience, for us wasn't what you might call intentional." Doc studied his counterpart as Emmett followed Marty's example and sat down at the table. "You've got a train of your own?"

Emmett nodded, glancing up for a moment as Clara brought a couple of mugs of coffee to the table. Both inventors took them, which was fine by Marty. He wasn't interested in putting anything else into his body then. He resisted the powerful urge to set his head down on the kitchen table, compromising instead by putting his elbows on the tabletop and propping his chin up in his hands.

"It looks almost identical to yours, if it isn't, from what I could ascertain with a glance."

Doc whistled out a sigh of relief, his shoulders sagging forward. "Thank God," he half muttered. "Then you might be able to help us?" It was more of a question than a statement.

Emmett glanced at his wife for a moment, who stood at his side, her forehead puckered with an odd mixture of curiosity and concern. "Perhaps," he said. "Marty gave me only the barest of details as to what's happened. What is the full matter of it?"

Oh, God, here we go, Marty thought with a wince. He couldn't fight back a yawn as Doc started to explain things -- again! -- from the very beginning. It had become tedious by the third time he had to hear it, never mind the sixth or seventh or whatever it was now, and it didn't help that as things kept progressing, the required so-called "backstory" was extended longer and longer. His eyelids drooped, as did his head, as Doc's voice went on, until the sound was nothing more than a low, slightly uneven murmur.

And then someone was patting his arm and calling his name in a soft voice. Clara. He dragged his eyes open -- only then realizing that his head was now flat on the table, cheek against the wood. Funny; he had no memory of doing that. The face of the local scientist's wife was kind.

"Perhaps you might be more comfortable sleeping in a bed," she said gently.

Marty raised his head and raked the back of his hand across his eyes, noticing that both Docs or Emmetts or whatever had gone. He had missed something important. "Where's Doc?" he mumbled.

"Both Emmetts went out to look at your train. Then your Emmett has promised to try and rest while mine has a chance to give the visiting time machine a solid once over. He is clearly as exhausted as you are -- but anyone would be after the journey you both have had." Clara paused a moment while the news sunk in to Marty's numbed brain. "You can stay in the children's study. There's a futon in there I can pull out. It's also a bit more private, being on the first floor; Clayton shouldn't disturb you when he wakes from his nap."

Marty let Clara show him to it, though he pretty much knew where it was. The local woman unfolded the futon and had it properly set up in just a few moments. He had only one thought as he lay on top of the daybed, under a heavy quilt that Clara had made several years back -- Oh, man, I can't believe I'm actually lying on a bed, now.... -- before he was asleep once more, almost before she had left the room.

And, about an hour later, he was awake again. Marty thought, at first, it was some kind of noise that had wakened him, like the door closing in the vet Emmett's home. He cracked his eyes open and took a quick glance around. The shades were pulled down over the window, the glow from the outside murky and shadowy from dusk and rain. The computer, set up at a desk nearby, was still off. The room was quiet, though if he listened hard enough he could detect faint voices and noises from other parts of the house. Nothing loud enough that it should've stirred him.

Seeing that all was well, Marty yawned and closed his eyes again, rolling onto his stomach to face the wall, waiting for the fatigue still dogging him to drag him back under. But, for some inexplicable reason, he remained awake, his brain the one part of him that apparently had any energy left at all. His mind drifted, against his will, to the strange realities that he'd seen so far, the memories echoing in a loop. There was the jackass Marty who was the rock star in the weird world, and that strange, almost surreal, performance on stage; the depressed Doc and the Marty who never got home from '55; that frightening world where they were simply made up characters in some series of movies; the place where Marty and Jennifer had had a divorce.... The images would replay with a vivid intensity every time he closed his eyes.

Marty finally sat up after half an hour of such torture, annoyed.

What's wrong with me? he wondered, irritated. I shouldn't have this much trouble trying to forget this stuff when I'm so tired I ache....

A second later the idea hit him, and made his blood run cold.

Oh God -- what if that incompatibility shit is happening already?

Insomnia was supposed to be one of the first signs, Marty now remembered. He hadn't noticed it that first time last year because of the fight that he and Jennifer had been going through, which had made it difficult for him to sleep well at night even before that trip to a new dimension. Maybe he was already deteriorating now. Maybe this was the first smidge of a sign. They'd only been in this reality for a couple of hours, but they'd been bouncing around before that for at least twenty or twenty-one hours. Maybe going from different parallel reality to different parallel reality didn't actually do anything to reset the system.

Marty's heart started skipping a little with the first bit of real panic. He squirmed out of the confines of the quilt, and swung his legs over the side of the bed, standing and covering the distance to the door in two long strides. He turned the knob and pulled the door open a few inches, then hesitated before leaving the room -- not out of a change in feeling so much as a shift in the light, as his eyes were too used to the dark and shadows in the study.

As he stood there, squinting at the floor and waiting for his eyes to stop tearing up from the brightness, Marty became aware of low-pitched voices from somewhere near by. Familiar ones.

"...You can't start on me tonight about that, Jen. Not here and not now. Bad enough you had to go off in the car the whole way over here...."

"I'm not trying to 'start' on you about anything," came Jennifer's voice, cool and crisp. Marty recognized the tone immediately as one his wife picked up when she was angry and trying hard not to show it. It seemed she was feeling just that way towards the Marty of this world. "I'm just trying to point out to you that if you can't think about me, maybe you can think of our son."

"Why? So he can see me be even more miserable than I am now? If you're so eager to have more money, why don't you try and take something better than what you're doing now? Finish this college degree that you keep talking about doing...."

"Well, maybe if I didn't have to spend my days answering phones and filing, and the rest of the time taking care of our child, I might be able to finish that dream...."

Marty winced at the voices, finally able to raise his eyes from the hardwood floor. Peering around the doorjamb, he saw what could only be his local counterpart standing at the end of the hallway, where it joined up with the foyer, with the local Jennifer -- who, for once, seemed to physically resemble the Jennifer the visiting Marty was married to. Both adults, in fact, looked pretty much as Marty might've expected, though they also looked more tired and stressed than the musician was used to seeing when he looked at his own wife, or in the mirror. (Although, frankly, the local Marty looked positively refreshed when compared to the visitor's current state.) Jennifer's hair was cut a little differently -- not a stylish, layered bob as she wore back home, but a longer and plainer look. The clothes they wore didn't seem as new to Marty's casual glance, either. In just one quick look, and based on the snippet of conversation he had accidentally overheard, he gathered that money was tight for the young family.

Well, yeah, having a kid almost right out of high school might do that...

Marty had made no sound, but perhaps the movement of his head as he peered into the hall betrayed him; Jennifer -- wearing a scowl -- glanced over, looked back to her husband, then jerked her entire head around in a classic double take mode. "Oh my God," she said.

The local Marty's reaction, surprisingly, was a bit calmer when he looked over. "Doc told me about that before we left the apartment, remember?" he said, as if the visitor was deaf to their words. "Something about people from another world dropping by...." The local Marty took a few tentative steps in the direction of the visitor, then stopped, as if thinking better of the approach. "Hi," he said.

The musician cleared his dry throat. "Hi," he responded in almost the same tone of voice. "I'm sorry I'm... interrupting you guys. I just needed to find my Doc about something...."

Local Marty nodded once. "He's probably out in the lab; I haven't met him yet, anyway."

"Thanks...." The visitor ducked his head and hurried past the couple, eager to get away from the strange vibes between the two of them, feelings that seemed to swing between anger and frustration. Just a minute of hearing their conversation had brought back a multitude of bad memories from the time he had argued with his own wife the year before. Thank God they had finally been able to move past the problem.... He never realized before how truly nasty they must've sounded to others.

Those memories, naturally, reminded him of the more immediate, pressing problem, and he hurried through the main hallway in hopes of finding his friend.

Clara was in the kitchen, having changed into something more suitable for the dinner that was set for the evening. At the sound of Marty's entrance, she looked up from feeding Clayton in his high chair, surprise all over her face. "Up already?" she asked. She looked at him with an almost motherly concern. "You still look exhausted, Marty. Did something wake you? I warned the children against bothering you...."

"No one bugged me," Marty promised her. "I just need to tell Doc -- my Doc -- something important. He didn't tell you guys about some of the problems with our situation, did he?"

Clara frowned as the baby smacked his palms down on the high chair tray, eager for the spoon of mashed up goo that his mother had been providing to him. "That you couldn't get home? He mentioned that...."

Marty didn't bother trying to ask about the physical problems. He didn't feel like getting into a long discussion about it; frankly, he didn't think they should waste the time. "Where is he?"

"I think he's still in the lab with Emmett. If you insist on going out there, take one of the umbrellas with you. It's still raining."

The musician accepted the advice; his clothes were still a little damp from being out in the shower earlier. "Thanks," he said.

Their time machine was still sitting outside on the back lawn, near the barn, and looked like it was closed up tight at the moment; the cab was dark, at any rate. The lab, however, was fully illuminated. Marty was a little surprised to find the door open when he tried it, but he didn't complain at all. He didn't see anyone at all on the main floor in first glance -- though, for the first time, he noticed the other time machine in the lab. It wasn't an Aerovette; it was a DeLorean. That trip in 1991, which had totaled the Eighties sports car, must not have taken place, or else had very different results. He paused a moment, glancing at the car with a surprisingly wistful feeling, then heard faint noise coming from above, in the loft study, and headed up the stairs. As he went up the last five steps, he recognized the sounds to be voices -- specifically, his voice and Doc's.

"One-point-twenty-one jiggowatts?! One-point-twenty-one jiggowatt's...."

"What... what the hell is a jiggowatt?"

The musician made himself continue up the stairs, into the room, in spite of the cold feeling soaked into his blood from the overly familiar voices and dialogue. His Doc was sitting almost on the edge of his seat, in an armchair, his eyes locked on the small TV screen set up in one corner of the large space. On the screen, Marty saw what seemed to be himself and the inventor in the latter's home in 1955, reliving the moment where the teen had showed his friend the fateful flyer with Jennifer's phone number on it. Emmett was nearby on the couch, an equally rapt look on his face as he watched the TV. The musician realized, immediately, that this was one of the videotapes from that "fictional" alternate reality, the one where they were just movie characters. It didn't make him feel any better that the actors on screen could've been their identical twins -- and that the filmmakers had completely nailed the sets to look just like the real thing.

"Doc, why are you watching this?" Marty asked, interrupting his actor on screen, who was lamenting the possible fate of being stuck in '55 for good.

Both of the inventors' heads snapped around at the sound of the real Marty's voice. An almost guilty look crossed his friend's face, like he had been caught red handed doing something that he wasn't supposed to do. "I thought you were sleeping," he said.

"And I thought you were gonna try the same thing," Marty said flatly. He tried not to look at the TV screen, and yet his eyes were powerfully drawn to it. "Can you pause that or shut it off? I need to tell you something important."

His tone made it clear that it was a serious matter. Emmett was the one who reached for the remote on the seat next to him and stopped the video. The room filled with a blue glow from the TV screen. "What is it?" the visiting scientist asked, giving the musician his full attention.

Marty wasn't sure how to begin, especially with Emmett sitting right there, watching them, so he just blurted it out. "I think we should go right now -- I'm starting to fall apart."

Emmett blinked at the words. "Fall apart?" he echoed. "What do you mean by that?"

Doc frowned at his friend's solemn statement, a trace of irritation flashing in his eyes. Marty got the idea that he thought he was overreacting. "How so?" he asked patiently, ignoring his counterpart's question. "Are you feeling ill?"

Marty shifted uncomfortably under the pairs of almost-identical brown eyes trained on him. "I can't sleep," he said. "I mean, I caught an hour or so, but I just woke up on my own and no matter what I tried, I couldn't go back to sleep. And I'm still dead tired, Doc." When the inventor looked skeptical, he couldn't resist adding, "Remember last year when we were in that other reality, your other self said that insomnia was one of those early warning signs?"

Doc nodded once. "But we haven't been stopped long enough for any of those effects to accumulate, Marty--"

"But maybe all bets are off if we're going from one different reality to another! Maybe it only works when you're traveling through time in the same reality."

Doc frowned, thoughtful. Marty wasn't sure if this was a good or a bad sign. "We should go, Doc," he said again.

The scientist paused a moment, then said, "No." Before the words could really sink in to Marty, he hastened to explain. "If that's the case, then leaving won't do a bit of good."

"Yeah it will -- we'll get home sooner. And it doesn't look like you're doing much right now to fix the problem if you have time to watch those tapes." He cast a quick glance at the blank TV screen.

There was another quick expression of irritation that flickered across Doc's face at the musician's words. "We've barely arrived, Marty. Emmett had plans in place today before we dropped in, so it's enough that he's able to make the time to help us at all. If you are having the beginning of the... effect, and it's not helped by our jumps, then there's really nothing we can do about it. Yes, finding a solution to getting home would be about the only thing we can do, but... I don't think you should be panicking about this just yet."

"No?" Marty asked. Doc's cool and collected calmness was bothering him more than if the scientist had decided to completely freak out. "What am I supposed to do, then, while my body turns against me?"

Doc sighed, the sound one of exhaustion. Marty guessed he hadn't yet tried sleeping himself, not if he was engaged with those videotapes. "You're probably suffering from nothing more deadly than overstimulation," he said. "It's been an unusual day, and I can imagine that it's not very easy to relax. Try doing something that normally helps you sleep." While Marty rolled his eyes at the trite advice, the inventor added, "You certainly didn't seem to be having any problems in that department earlier."

The musician's face flushed a little at the reminder of those two rather accidental instances. "Well, those were practically the only times I got to sit down, and I've heard the story of how we got here way too much.... Anyway, right now, being at home would probably be the only thing to work."

The inventor shrugged. "That can't happen at the moment. Try watching TV, or reading something."

The suggestions didn't sit well with the fidgety musician, but before he could voice another complaint, Emmett finally spoke up. "What are the symptoms of this problem? You didn't really elaborate in the house...."

Doc sighed. "The situation is caused by a discrepancy between subatomic frequencies. Each reality seems to have it's own sort of pattern, and when one spends a prolonged period of time in a foreign world, they will start to notice a breakdown in their physical and mental health caused by disruptions of the body's electrochemical balance, beginning with neurological symptoms. As Marty pointed out, one of the very earliest symptoms can be insomnia -- difficulty falling or staying asleep. Chills can be part of it, feeling jittery.... Untreated, one will progress to petite mal seizures after approximately thirty hours, which can vary depending on the individual and their health. The seizures will grow worse and more frequent as time moves on if the condition isn't treated, and eventually would result in death. We never personally experienced anything beyond the very first of the seizures when we stayed in an alternate reality for a few weeks last year, but we bypassed those problems with brief time jumps."

"Is that the only way to treat it?" Emmett asked, obviously intrigued.

"It's the only thing that my counterpart in that other world had discovered, and it seemed to work all right. My Clara was in the early stages of her pregnancy with Clayton at the time, and neither her health nor the baby's was affected." Doc paused a moment, then looked up suddenly at Marty. "Sedatives," he said. "That's another approach. Exhaustion can speed up the body's sensitivity to the environment, but I remember that my counterpart said something once about how being drugged with sedatives can help slow it down."

Marty frowned, this pretty much being news to him. "Why didn't we use them then?"

"It wasn't necessary; there was a better way to escape the symptoms that didn't require impairing the mental ability or being out of commission for hours. Anyway, there was no way I would allow Clara to take anything, not in her delicate condition...."

"So sedatives can slow it down?" Emmett asked, standing. "Sleeping pills and that sort of thing?"

"Yes, I believe so. I don't know if alcohol would be the best course of action...."

"Since you hit the deck after one sip, it might be for you," Marty muttered, though the idea of getting loaded enough to pass out wasn't particularly a favorite of his. The few times he'd made that mistake, he always woke up with the worst hangover and some hideous story from the poor people who had to deal with him the night before.

"We can avoid that," Emmett said. "No need to make either of you feel miserable tomorrow. I think we have something that can work. Why don't you both come with me?"

"Me, too?" Doc said, sounding surprised. "Why me? I'm not having any trouble sleeping."

"Yeah, you are, Doc," Marty said as he followed the local down the stairs. "You haven't sat still long enough to even try. If you don't watch it, you're gonna get laid out with one of those attacks -- and what if it happens when you're steering the train, or trying to fix whatever it is that went wrong? And remember what happened last year, when you were driving me around town and had a seizure?"

The inventor didn't voice a response to that, which was answer enough for Marty.

Clara was still in the kitchen when they returned to the house, with not only the baby but Emily and a boy of about her same age that Marty didn't think anything of -- for about a minute. Emily glanced up as the three of them came in -- and her eyes widened a little at the sight of an apparent duplication of her father. "Daddy!" she said. "Why're there two of you?"

The musician wondered if she'd been briefed about the weird situation, as his counterpart had. The boy next to her -- a thin, wiry kid with wavy red-brown hair and intense blue eyes -- frowned as he noticed them.

"Weren't you just in the living room, Dad?" he asked, the question directed to Marty. The musician didn't get it for a moment, then remembered the son that his counterpart and Jennifer had already had. A Marty Junior, apparently. But this kid... he didn't look at all like the son he had met in the future! Not with hair that color and texture. And his face looked more like an odd cross of his and Jennifer's, not so much a reflection of McFly genes.

"Oh my God," he murmured as he stared at the kid. "No way...."

Emmett was eager to spirit them out of the kitchen. "Are the sedatives the doctor gave you last year still in our bathroom?" he asked Clara, who was laying out a tray of bite size snacks, fresh from the oven.

"Ah.... I think so," she said, gently swatting Emily's hand as the girl reached out to snatch a still-hot treat from the baking sheet. "But I never did use any of those pills... why do you ask?"

"Our guests are in need of some strong sleeping pills," the local inventor said. "I'll explain later." They escaped from the kitchen before Emily or the Marty Junior could have their questions answered. As they rounded the stairs next to the foyer, though, the front door opened with a gust of damp, wet air and that world's Verne Brown stepped in, bundled in a rain slicker and with a sour expression on his face.

"Oh my God, it's so crappy out," he moaned, shutting the door. "I passed two accidents on the way home from the mall and -- holy shit, Dad!"

The blond -- who looked more or less like the one Marty knew back home -- only noticed their unusual party when he had fully stepped inside and swept back the hood of his parka. His eyes bounced between his father, standing two steps up on the stairs, Doc, standing at the bottom, and Marty, standing next to the newel post. The musician could only wonder what the eighteen-year-old would've made of the situation had his counterpart had been standing right behind him. He could faintly hear the murmur of the local Marty's voice and Jennifer's from behind the closed French doors that led to the formal living room at the front of the house. Probably still arguing, unless for some odd reason they had come over to go off alone and have a private moment.

Verne, meanwhile, was staring at the pair on the stairs with a mixture of wonder and suspicion. "What happened, Dad?" he asked. "Did you have some kind of cloning accident out in the lab?"

"No, something a bit more complicated than that," Emmett said. "I'll explain it all later. You'd better go in the kitchen. The kids are circling your mother for snacks, and I think it'd be helpful to her if you could take Clayton upstairs and clean him up from dinner."

Verne remained standing just one step into the house, his eyes following the unusual trio as they went up the stairs. Marty glanced at him one more time, over his shoulder, and noticed the Doc-like squinted gaze he was giving them all. Once again, he had to wonder if this whole parallel counterpart business was new to this family.

When Emmett left them out in the hall while he checked the medicine cabinet in the master bathroom, Marty had a bit of a chance to ask. "What did I miss in the kitchen earlier? What's the deal with this world? Is it the same as ours, except for me being a father so soon?"

Doc sighed wearily and leaned against the wall, which was filled with a lot of the same photographs that Marty recognized from his friend's own upstairs hallway. "Well, to begin with, my counterpart -- for better or worse -- never lived through an experience like Doc B, and never had his time machine malfunction and send him to an alternate reality like we experienced last year. So his experience with dimensional counterparts is essentially nil."

"And the DeLorean is still around," Marty said.

The inventor nodded once. "Yes, it seems to be. That trip to the future in 1991 never took place -- though the reasons for that seem to be obvious. I only took you to 2030 because of your illness, so you wouldn't have it through your wedding. The Marty McFly here, however, married Jennifer Parker in 1987. In June, if I remember the words of Emmett."

"June," Marty murmured. "So I -- he -- was eighteen? Or nineteen?"

"Probably nineteen, since your birthday is so close to the beginning of the month. I guess Jennifer discovered she was pregnant that spring and Marty proposed almost immediately. They got married only three months later, as soon as it was possible to make the arrangements. Their son's eighth birthday was yesterday and I understand that tonight's dinner is partially to celebrate that."

The musician winced, imagining what that one change must've done to his life and Jennifer's. That would've been near the end of their freshman year in college. "How could they be that stupid?" he asked, keeping his voice low on the chance that the couple in question was within earshot below.

Doc shrugged. "Different worlds beget different choices," he said. "From the way Emmett spoke about it, I got the impression that the situation was accidental -- perhaps because a birth control method had failed, not due to outright negligence. Jennifer left school after her freshman year and has never really returned -- she works as a secretary in the courthouse downtown. Marty also left college so he could get a job to support his very young family. He's a manager of the music store at the mall, here. Apparently Marty Junior -- or M.J., as everyone calls him, now -- was almost raised in my counterpart's family with Emily; Clara would watch him while Jennifer and Marty worked. Which made for a rather amusing change." Doc smiled faintly. "Guess who Emily now wants to marry?"

Emily had had a crush on Marty from about the time she was a toddler, much to the musician's embarrassment. Now that she was a little older, she wasn't as vocal about it as she had been just a couple of years ago, but.... Suddenly, Marty realized why she had acted differently towards him here. Weird, he thought. That must be how she'd act if she just thought of me as a friend of her family's -- not some guy she wanted to marry. Doc's question wasn't too hard to puzzle out, though.

"My counterpart's son?"

The answer was confirmed with another nod and a rather bemused smile. "It's even more amusing that they will end up together, here," he added in a low voice. "At least according to the checks that Emmett's done in the future."

Marty made a face, trying to digest the far out idea. "Weird," he said. "That'd make us almost like blood relatives, then."

"Essentially."

"So is your counterpart's life pretty much the same as yours, then?"

Before Doc could answer, Emmett met up with them, a small prescription vial in one hand. "Found it," he reported. "A couple of capsules and I think both of you will sleep quite soundly tonight."

The local took them to the bathroom down the hall, shared by Emily and Verne, and provided them each with a paper cup of water to swallow the pills. Doc seemed rather reluctant to participate, but even he knew it was for his own good. Once the deed was done, for better or worse, Emmett took Doc downstairs to find him a place to crash while Marty lingered behind for a few minutes, first to simply slap some water on his tired face, and then to stare at himself in the mirror. He had seen so many slight variations of it in the last day that a part of him didn't buy that the one he was looking at now was his own.

Marty might've stood there all night -- or at least until the sedative kicked in -- if someone hadn't knocked on the door. He reached over and opened it, since there was really no reason for him to be in the bathroom any longer. The local Verne stood outside in the hallway. He jumped back when the door opened, clearly not expecting it.

"Dad sent me up here to see if you were okay," he said. "Are you?"

"I'm fine," Marty said, stepping into the hall. "Did he find a place to have Doc stay?"

Verne nodded. "Jules' room downstairs. He's definitely not using it right now. He's gonna be super pissed when he hears about you guys visiting and how he missed out!" The teenager sounded faintly gleeful at the idea, causing Marty to smile crookedly. The relationship between the two oldest Brown kids didn't seem to have deviated much from the one the musician was familiar with back home. "It doesn't sound like the other Dad is all that happy about getting rest, but our Dad promised him he'd get a closer look at his machine later tonight."

"Good -- hopefully he can help us get home." Marty passed the teenager and headed down the stairs. Verne trailed him eagerly.

"So how'd you guys show up here? Dad said you just sort of dropped in, that something went wrong with your time machine. Something about parallel realities. Are those places that are like here, but not?"

"Um... I guess," Marty said, wishing those questions were directed to Doc, instead. "You guys haven't seen anything like that before?"

"Nope -- until now. Dad doesn't let us to much time traveling. He goes out a couple times a month, I think. Jules thinks he goes into the future to make investments, so he and Mom don't have to work and we don't have to go on welfare, but I think that's kinda devious. I mean, he's told us before about the whole gambling thing when you -- I mean, the Marty we know -- bought the sports almanac to try and save your future. So why would he do some of the same stuff?"

Marty paused at the bottom of the stairs to look at the blond. Doc had gone and done just that for almost a decade... until that counterpart from the alternate world last year had chewed him out hard about it and rankled his conscience enough so that he decided to try to earn money the honest way. Tired as he was, it didn't take Marty much time at all to see why this version of Doc wasn't in that same place.

He never met that other Doc and saw that world, he realized. He never got to see a version of himself be a huge success with something he made, like fusion power. And he never got chewed out or forced to face the guilt from peeking at trends in the future to profit off 'em.

Verne clearly believed in his father's integrity and ability to somehow make an honest living, and somehow this Emmett was able to hide the rather unpretty fact of "borrowing" knowledge from the future from his kids -- though it sounded like Jules was catching on, and Clara probably knew on some level. She had in their world, after all.

Marty definitely didn't want to burst Verne's bubble; in fact, something nagged at him when he thought about what might happen if he told the teen. A quick shiver passed through his blood, and he was left with the vaguely troubling and frustrating feeling that he had almost realized something that was important. But it was gone, and the more he tried to think about it, the harder he found it, in fact, to think. The drugs were starting to kick in; it had been about fifteen minutes since he had ingested them, after all, and on a stomach only partially full from dinner in that place two realities back.

"I dunno, Verne," he muttered in response to the teen's rather rhetorical question. "I really shouldn't be on my feet right now, though, 'cause your dad--"

His words were cut off by the rather noisy arrival of this world's Marty. The local stepped out of the living room and shut the doors behind him with a clearly angry rattle. There was a dark scowl of both irritation and frustration on his face, but the expression faded when he looked up and saw the visitor and Verne standing near the foot of the stairs, a few feet away. "Jennifer," he said simply. "She's being completely unreasonable."

Verne rolled his eyes, something in his attitude telling Marty that this was something he had grown used to a long time ago. "What else is new?" he asked, the faint sarcasm in the statement apparently going unnoticed by the local Marty, who took the question at face value.

"She thinks I need to take this job that her uncle's offered me -- a management position in his office. Oh my God, what does she want, my suicide on her hands? I hate management, and the only reason I'm in it at the music store is for the pay. I want to be a musician, not some guy working in a cubical just to make money for some company. Bad enough that I don't enjoy my job already, but...." The local's voice -- filled with a bitterness that frankly stunned the visiting Marty -- trailed off when he saw that Verne wasn't the only audience to his tirade. "I guess you don't need to be told this stuff," he told the visitor. "You're probably living it, too."

"No," Marty said before he could stop himself. "I'm not. I...." He had to pause, yawning hugely. A faint lightness filled his head, even as his body felt like it was increasing in weight by the moment. Definitely, the pills were kicking in, and hard. "I really should go..."

He got only one step forward before this world's Marty stopped him, grabbing his arm. "What do you mean?" he asked, his eyes searching the visitor's face with a curious urgency. "Doc didn't tell me too much over the phone. Just that some versions of us or something from a different timeline showed up. You look like me... pretty much. But...." His eyes dropped to Marty's arm and the sleeve of his blue sweater. "Your clothes aren't cheap knockoffs or secondhand, are they?"

"No," Marty said, seeing no reason to lie, not when his counterpart could easily check the label sewn in the collar.

"Then what do you do? Do you manage the music store at the mall, too?"

The visitor didn't want to say, knowing with a deep certainty that his counterpart would simply be jealous and frustrated with the answer. Beyond that, he had a more pressing concern -- lying down before he fell down. He was starting to feel seriously dizzy and way too relaxed for someone still on their feet. He realized, for the first time with a sort of vague and detached concern, that Emmett hadn't simply given the visitors over-the-counter sleeping pills. These were prescription strength suckers that would probably put him out for the next twelve hours -- and perhaps regardless if he was lying in a dark room on a bed.

"No," he settled on, "it's something else. I really should go lie down, now--"

The local Marty didn't seem to hear him, or notice the glaze that was beginning to settle over his counterpart's eyes. "What?" he persisted. "I'm just curious, and it can't hurt anything, right?"

It was clear that the local wasn't about to let the visiting Marty go until he got some sort of answer. The musician had to lean against the newel post at the base of the stairs, needing some external support from something, now. "Jen and I don't have any kids, yet," he said, hoping that might be explanation enough for the local. "She--" he yawned again, the room tilting for a second at a weird angle "--she's an anchor for one of the news stations."

Local Marty blinked in surprise at this turn. "She's a newscaster? Jennifer? How'd that happen?"

"She went to college and got a... a degree in broadcast journalism." The visitor was starting to have some serious problems blinking; he didn't want to open his eyes again every time he closed them. Standing was starting to become more of a problem, too; if he wasn't so sure that sitting down would mean he wouldn't be getting up again, any time soon, he would've sunk down to one of the steps. The local seemed oblivious to the problems, but Verne -- standing nearby -- wasn't so blind.

"Are you okay?" he asked anxiously.

"I just need to lie down," Marty muttered. Before I fall down. "G'night you guys...." He let go of the post at the base of the stairs and took a couple of wobbly steps in the direction of the hallway, and the kids' study that had been dictated for his use. He had to stop and lean against the wall when he reached the hallway, feeling too heavy and lightheaded to continue on without some kind of break. The musician let his cheek fall against the smooth plaster and allowed his eyes to close for what he intended was just a second --

And that was the last thing he knew for a while.

Chapter Eleven

Monday, November 13, 1995
7:55 A.M.

As much as Doc hated to admit it, his recent counterparts and Marty had both been more than right. He had needed sleep -- badly. It wasn't so much staying up a full day that had done him in -- it was the emotional and physical stress of the whole situation. Those same stresses had made it virtually impossible for him to relax, but the medication had worked.

When he woke up, the clock on Jules' desk told him it was nearly eight, and he had been out some fourteen hours. He felt a little groggy from the medication, but otherwise much much better. He could think clearly again, finally, for the first time in what felt like days.

Once awake, Doc wasted little time in getting out of bed, not wanting to waste any more time. Someone had visited his room at some point in the night, leaving a change of clothes -- clearly borrowed from his counterpart's closet -- along with a note inviting him to have a shower and wash up. The inventor went to do just that. A shower made him feel even better, and by the time he left the bathroom he was feeling mighty optimistic about the future and their chances of getting home successfully.

Clara was already making the bed in Jules' room when Doc came out. The scientist stopped in the doorway. "You don't have to do that," he said. "I'm quite capable of handling that chore myself."

His counterpart's wife turned at the sound of his voice and smiled warmly. "Oh, don't be silly," she said. "You're our guest while you're here and it's no trouble. Did you sleep well? You look as if you're feeling much better."

"I did and I am. And thanks for the change of clothes -- that was very thoughtful."

"Oh, you're welcome. I can launder yours today, and have them ready for you to have when you leave. Marty just dropped off some things this morning for your friend, when he awakens." Clara waved a hand to a bag that was resting on the trunk at the foot of Jules' bed. "He was still sleeping, last I checked. I think Emmett might've given him too much last night."

"Too much of what? The sedatives? He gave us the same amount...."

Clara nodded, smoothing out the quilt that covered Jules' bed. "Yes, but Marty is a bit... smaller than you are," she said. "He gave us a little scare last night. Did you hear the commotion?"

Doc shook his head. "No, I can't say that I did. I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, as clich� as that might sound. What happened?"

"Well, from what I understand, your Marty didn't make it to bed straightaway. Verne and our Marty were speaking with him at the bottom of the stairs when the drug caught up with him. He gave both of them a turn when he collapsed in the hallway, especially since they couldn't wake him. Emmett heard him hit the floor -- actually, we all did; he knocked a few pictures from the wall and it made enough racket to wake the... well, it didn't wake you, so perhaps it wasn't quite that loud."

Doc felt himself pale with this report. "Was he all right?"

Clara nodded. "Emmett looked him over and it was obvious to him that Marty was simply so exhausted, the sedatives quite literally knocked him off his feet when they reached his system. Emmett had thought he was already in bed at that point, not still up and about."

The inventor nodded once, the explanation sounding perfectly logical to him. He probably would have done the same thing had he been on his feet when the drugs had given him their all. "But he is all right?" he asked again, just to be sure.

"Oh yes. Verne and Emmett carried him to the children's study down the hall and put him to bed. You can take him the clothes if you want to see for yourself."

Doc decided to do just that. As he headed for the room at the end of the hall with the bag, he couldn't help being a little amazed that the home was laid out in the same way his own was -- considering that the kids' study, as well as Clayton's room and Clara's sewing room upstairs, were all additions to the house, made in the months before Clayton's birth. It once more hammered home the idea that some things in life were inevitable or consistent -- even across dimensions.

The inventor cracked open the study door a few inches and peered inside before stepping in. The room was dim, with the blinds closed over the windows. The furniture that Doc could see -- like most of the other things he had seen around the house -- was virtually identical to the same things that were in his own home. These included a shelf of academic books and computer software, a desk with a computer, and a futon that could act as a couch most of the time, but also accommodate any overnight house guests if and when the need arose.

Currently, it was set up to accommodate Marty, sprawled on his stomach across most of the bed, half covered by one of Clara's quilts, and still under the influence of either the sedative or simple exhaustion. At any rate, he didn't so much as bat an eyelash at the soft sound of the hinges, his breathing remaining slow and deep. Doc lingered long enough to set the bag on the computer chair and ease his worries about Marty's health -- by all external appearances, he simply seemed to be sleeping soundly -- before quietly leaving. He was eager to track down his counterpart and see what, if any, progress had been made on the train's diagnosis.

Clara had moved to the kitchen and was already setting a plate down on the table for him when he came in, intending to just pass through to the backyard. "You can spare a moment to eat," she said, stopping him. "My Emmett's already out there looking over your time machine, so you shouldn't feel a need for haste."

"That would be just about impossible," Doc admitted. "We can't linger here too long, especially if this incompatibility condition can't be avoided or postponed when jumping between different worlds." He looked up at the local as he sat down before the food, frowning faintly. "Did Emmett tell you about why he decided to drug us last night?"

Clara nodded. "He explained everything to me -- as well as Marty, Jennifer, and Verne. The smaller children were a bit more baffled by seeing what they thought were twins of their fathers, but I suspect that the true explanations might be beyond their understanding, so we simply tried to answer their questions as basically as we could. Fortunately, today is a school day, so Emily shouldn't be around underfoot. Verne is old enough to be of some help, I think, and he has volunteered to be here this afternoon if you need him. He has a day off from the store."

Doc remembered the three week stay in the other world more than a year ago, how repairing the damaged train was such a tremendous undertaking that everyone older than ten had pitched in. A faint smile turned his lips as he picked up a fork. "Thanks," he said, extremely grateful. "I just hope after all this that we find something.... That's the problem right now -- not getting back home so much as it is just narrowing down what the problem is. I think we've moved beyond the obvious -- or it's simply so obvious that neither Marty or I have seen it."

"Then a fresh set of eyes may be just the thing you need," Clara said cheerfully.

Doc hoped so. He ate as quickly as he could, without being rude, and got outside about fifteen minutes later. Outside, the rain had stopped but the sky remained overcast and the temperature was cold, no higher than the upper thirties. The train was still out and visible, next to the barn, and the inventor headed for that first, noticing that the door was ajar. Inside, he saw that Emmett was crouched on the floor, peering up to examine the underside of some wires near the front of the cab with a powerful flashlight. He was so thoroughly engrossed with the task that he didn't look up or show the slightest reaction to Doc's presence until the newcomer cleared his throat softly.

"You're up," Emmett said after a moment, most of his attention still focused on the wires before him. "Did you sleep?"

"Quite well," Doc said. "I feel a hundred percent better. I didn't realize how tired I was until I woke up this morning."

A hint of a smile tugged at one corner of the local's mouth. "We seem to have that in common, too," he said.

Doc sat down on the edge of the floor, his legs hanging out of the cab, down the stairs, to better converse with his counterpart. "I don't suppose you found anything yet?" he asked, unable to keep the hope out of his voice.

Emmett switched the flashlight off and scooted back out until he could sit fully upright again. "Nope," he said. "I noticed a few differences, however. A lot of the wiring and circuitry seems to be newer than mine."

"Yes," Doc said, not surprised. "I replaced them recently; that was essentially the reason for taking the train out in the first place today -- ah, yesterday I suppose it would be, now. Like I told you earlier, my second time machine isn't a DeLorean anymore; instead, I've got a car that hasn't even been created yet that Marty and I converted to a time machine after we were stuck in the future. So since that machine was fully cutting edge and a bit ahead of the times, I decided to bring the train up to about the same point."

Emmett nodded once. A small frown puckered his brow. "I'm assuming that you've considered that these new circuits might be the cause of the problem?"

The visiting inventor nodded once. "Of course," he said, unoffended by the question. The problem, after all, could be painfully obvious, perhaps to the point of not even being considered. "But I'm afraid that taking it apart unless I have some proof would be dangerous. I ran many many checks on the computer--" He gestured to the laptop, sitting closed on the bench. "--but everything was in the green. It's a sophisticated, sensitive program that I created especially for time circuit diagnostic checks."

Emmett glanced over at the computer with some interest. "Really? I haven't gotten that far yet...."

"I only did fairly recently, and by using a computer that's a couple of years ahead of the times. The plans for the program spun out of that month in the future when we were converting the Aerovette into a time machine. Emily -- well, the Emily of that future -- was the one who recommended it, since I wanted to make sure we had a way of testing some of the circuits and connections out before installing them into the car."

"Can I see it?" Emmett asked.

Doc was only too happy to show the local, hoping that maybe Emmett's unfamiliar eyes would catch something that the visitor had overlooked. He was in the middle of demonstrating one of the checks when Marty finally joined them, fresh from a shower and in the clothes apparently borrowed from his counterpart. Rest had obviously done him as much good as it had Doc; the haunted and slightly panicked look in his eyes was gone, for now.

"Find anything?" were the first words out of his mouth.

"We're working on it," Doc said, glancing away from the computer screen for a moment. "Did you finally get enough sleep?"

Marty nodded, though with a faint, troubled frown. "It's almost more like I passed out," he said. "I can't actually remember going to bed...."

"That's because you didn't," Emmett said without looking up from the computer screen. "You pretty much did pass out, in the hallway outside of the room. It really rattled Verne and my Marty. They didn't know that you had ingested sedatives and that the reaction was actually to be expected, considering your already-present exhaustion. Verne and I moved you to bed and you stayed out the whole time."

The musician winced a little. "I guess that explains the bruises I found.... Sorry about that. I tried to get to bed, but I kept getting delayed."

"It's all right.... What does this mean?"

The question was directed to Doc. The visiting inventor leaned in for a look at the screen, his eyes going to where his counterpart's finger was aimed. "That's a normal reading," he said. "See here how everything's green? An unstable reading is coded in yellow, and one that's completely wrong is red."

Marty leaned into the cab a little as Emmett took another look at the screen. "Anything I can do to move things along?" he asked.

Doc shrugged, completely honest. "Maybe when we know what we're up against," he said. "Did you see anything else you had questions about?" he added to Emmett.

The local shook his head after a moment. "No," he said. "It's almost a pity that I don't have this sort of thing, too. It would be interesting to see if my program got the same results as yours."

"We could tap into your train and check," Doc said. Almost as soon as he spoke, though, he dismissed the idea. "No, that wouldn't work if your software and circuits are different.... It would automatically detect errors, unless I calibrated it differently...."

"And I don't have a way we could tap into the machine that easily," Emmett said, picking up the slender cord that ran from the laptop to the hardware. "I'd have to open up the casing and hardwire something in...."

Doc shook his head. "Don't bother," he said. "Let's check the train again, and see if the problem is something external. Do you have a ladder around?"

* * *

By late afternoon, it was clear that whatever the problem was with the train, it wasn't within the capabilities of this world's Emmett to solve. A thorough examination of the machine's exterior -- including the windows set in the roof of the cab -- yielded no signs of damage. Likewise, the wiring inside and outside the cab looked to be perfectly whole and undamaged. Doc's confusion quickly gave way to frustration, never mind the long night's sleep he'd had. After opening the hard casing over the circuits and wires, conducting a painstaking inventory with Marty's help, and finding everything looking whole and undamaged, he simply couldn't take it anymore.

"Damn!" he hissed, venting his frustration by tossing a screwdriver out the door, to the ground. There was a faint cry a moment later and Doc leaned out of the open door. The tool lay on the grass near the local Verne, who was crouched near one of the train's wheels, checking over the hydraulic system with his father. He gave the visiting inventor a faintly wounded look.

"Your aim is off," Verne said dryly. "Another inch to the left and you would've hit the mark."

Doc smiled weakly. "Sorry," he apologized sincerely. "I didn't intend to cause any damage.... I just can't understand what's wrong with this infernal machine!"

Marty gave a sign and looked away from the exposed coils. "Maybe it's some weird spontaneous malfunction," he said, falling back out of his crouch to sit down on the floor. "A ghost in the machine, or whatever it's called."

"Or it could just be a loose wire," Verne deadpanned from outside, having overheard the musician's words. His father looked away from the wheels to give him a sharp look as Doc sighed.

"If that's the case, then the odds of locating it are about the same as finding a needle in a haystack," he muttered pessimistically.

Emmett stood from the damp grass, where he had been kneeling. "I'm very sorry we can't be of more help," he said, quite apologetic. "I wish we'd had at least one experience like you seem to have had, with alternate realities...."

"No, you don't," Marty said bluntly. "Believe me. It's not half as fun when you're the one who's the outsider." He looked at Doc with a grimace. "Does this mean we're through here? That it's time to go? We've been here almost twenty-five hours, now...."

And no episodes, Doc thought. He couldn't speak for Marty, of course, but he didn't feel anything suspicious. Of course, before the night's sleep, he really wasn't aware of anything beyond the exhaustion. They had been out of their dimension for almost two solid days, though, and if their systems weren't being reset by traveling between worlds, then one of them should have had something happen by now. "We could stay longer if we used one of the local time machines to make a quick jump," he said, looking to his counterpart. "But would there be a reason to stay?"

"I don't know," Emmett said. "I can't think of much else we can do -- can you?"

Doc glanced over at Marty, who was staring at him for the answer. The visiting inventor shook his head after a long moment of consideration. "No, I really can't," he admitted reluctantly. "I think we've done everything we can do here, and since we haven't found anything inherently wrong...."

The musician exhaled loudly, looking angry. "Of course," Doc heard him mutter under his breath. He got to his feet and looked out of one of the windows, at the treeline behind the barn, clearly simmering. Whether or not he was angry at their general predicament, or the inventor's diagnosis of their situation, wasn't clear. Doc had a feeling it was probably the former; he, after all, was already feeling pretty much the same about that.

Emmett nodded his agreement, though not without a touch of reluctance. "It's probably the wisest move," he said. "You might wish to postpone your departure until after dinner, though. Might as well leave with a full stomach, since you don't know what you'll face next."

Doc looked at the exposed wires and circuits in the cab. "It might take us about that long to clean everything up and prepare for departure," he said. He started to replace the hard casing around the sensitive electronics, Marty joining in after a moment.

"Do you think it's possible at all that maybe things would work, now?" the musician asked. "Like maybe the problem was something like the casing wasn't all the way over the circuits?"

Doc's mouth twisted to one side as he considered the possibility. "Doubtful," he said. "But I suppose it's not impossible."

"I figured." Marty couldn't keep from scowling as he braced one of the panels with one hand and slipped the proper screw in the hole with the other. "We're never gonna get out of this mess."

What little optimism Marty might've gained from a night's rest was clearly long gone by now. "We've got to give it time," Doc said softly.

"Time!" The musician snorted softly. "That's the one thing we don't have a lot of, remember? We could be stuck forever until -- dammit! I hate these screws!"

A second after the exclamation came the metallic sound as said part clattered to the floor of the train. The musician reached out to find it with one hand while he held the casing with the other.

"We'll find home again," the inventor said, as much for himself as Marty. "We'll find someone who has everything we need if we keep trying."

"And what do we need? Someone to tell us what the hell is wrong with this stupid train? Or someone to fix it? Or both? Or what if we can only find one and not the other?"

Doc gave his panel a quick bang with the palm of his hand, settling it back into place. "As I've said before, discovering the problem will be half the solution," he said. "We need to find someone with experience in alternate dimensions, and possibly more sophisticated diagnostic technology."

"So what does that mean? Do you think the problem's electronic?"

The scientist massaged his forehead with the heel of one hand. "I don't know," he said honestly. "It shouldn't be, not if the computer isn't detecting it, but I can't rule it out. We've all but determined that whatever it is that's befallen the machine isn't due to what happened to provoke this sort of traveling the other times. No history has been altered. The flux capacitor is whole. We haven't been struck by lightning, and no doors or windows are ajar. Unless we're completely blind to it, it's something new that we haven't come across before."

"Well, that's just peachy," was Marty's rather bitter response.

* * *

Dinner with the local Browns wasn't too different from the family dinners that Doc was used to having in his own time. The largest difference was Emily's perpetual staring, particularly at the visiting inventor. Doc couldn't blame the girl; considering this family wasn't used to alternate realities or counterparts, he was rather surprised Emily was the only one swallowing the whole idea with any trouble. He had to wonder what this world's Jules would have made of the matter, but the boy was away at school, earning a PhD in physics at UCLA. Med school, apparently, was not a goal of this world's Jules, though Doc suspected the reasons for this were due more to that trip to the future in 1991 never taking place. It was a pity that he couldn't see the local Jules himself and ask about it, but it really wouldn't make much of a difference.

After the meal concluded, the visitors changed out of their borrowed clothes and into the freshly washed ones that they had arrived in. Clara gave them a bag of snack food, on the chance that they might be stuck in limbo for a while again. Doc appreciated the gesture but, by the look on Marty's face, the inventor could tell that his friend didn't share quite the same sentiment.

"It's like they know we're screwed," he said once they were in the cab, preparing for take off. "They're basically telling us how sure they are that we'll ever make it back."

"Marty...." Doc began, allowing his tone to communicate his belief on that matter, as the bulk of his attention was focused on bringing the train back up to full power.

"If they thought we'd get home anytime soon, why would they give us anything for our so-called trip?" was Marty's dark question.

"You're reading far too much into this. It's simply a kind, hospitable gesture. And, anyway, just because I bring along an emergency medical kit when we go on these trips doesn't mean I think we'll run into some life-threatening problem on every outing. It's the same sort of thing."

"Whatever." It was clear that Marty wasn't buying it. He stalked around the cab a couple of times, restless, while Doc finished his work up front. The scientist hesitated as he looked at the destination time, wondering if he wanted to change it from November 12, 1995 at 3 P.M., then let it be. If, by some miracle, they made it home next, he didn't want to frighten his family and Marty's by having them arrive a full day after their departure. November 12th was starting to haunt him, though. It was almost like that film that had come out a couple of years back, Groundhog Day, where the main character had to relive the same day over and over and over until--

"Are we staying or going?" Marty asked, cranky, when Doc made no move to leave. The sound of his voice broke the inventor's reverie and he glanced at the musician over his shoulder, a little irritated by his attitude.

"Going," he said shortly. "You'd better sit down or hold onto something. This could be a bumpy ride."

Marty rolled his eyes. "It can't get much bumpier than it has already."

Chapter Twelve

Sunday, November 12, 1995
3:16 P.M.

"Where the hell is Jefferson Street? I don't think I've ever heard of it...."

"I'm not familiar with it, myself. Let me see what the page says.... Oh! That would explain it.... It's in Elmdale, not Hill Valley."

Marty squinted at Doc, then looked back down at the phonebook squished between them. "Elmdale," he muttered aloud. "You live in Elmdale, here?"

Doc checked the heading at the top of the page again and nodded once. "Apparently so," he said. "And on 1521 southwest Jefferson Street. Interesting."

Marty ran his thumb down the side of the book's pages, frowning as he noticed something. "No," he said. "What's interesting is that Elmdale's section looks like it's bigger than Hill Valley, now. Check it out -- there are way more pages for them than us!"

As Doc took the book from his hands to have a closer look, the musician stepped out of the cramped, stuffy phone booth. Outside, he took a deep breath of the crisp, damp air, staring out at the sheets of rain coming down, his hands shoved in his pockets. Once again, they weren't back home. Doc's place on Elmdale Lane was once more an empty, abandoned building. It seemed to be a testament to the scientist's increasing frustration or desperation that he had opted to take the train directly to the closed gas station and the public telephone, rather than landing it somewhere else and having them hike out to it. Marty certainly wasn't complaining; his clothes were completely dry for the first time in what felt like days.

He wandered a few steps away from the phone where Doc was engaged with the book, staying under the covered area that protected the gas pumps and customers from the elements. Marty's mood since getting up that morning had been far from pleasant. Maybe it was the dreams he'd had the night before -- nightmares, really. That had been worse than the insomnia, in his opinion. And maybe he had slept solidly the night before, but maybe the same drugs that knocked him out had made it impossible for him to escape from the freaky dreams.

Marty couldn't really remember much about them, now, except the last one. He'd been strapped in the DeLorean again, returning from 1885 by being pushed by that train. The diesel had been gunning straight for him, he'd tried to get out.... and couldn't! The doors wouldn't open; the seatbelt wouldn't unbuckle. Everything that could possibly be wrong and go wrong did. Just when he was about to be run over, he had woken up, his heart thudding so loud in his ears that, for a few confused, bleary seconds, he'd thought it was the approach of a real train.

The day had sort of gone downhill from there. Things were bad enough without the memory of that dream dogging him, as well as the memory of Doc's confession that he had planned, on purpose, to have the diesel engine smash the first DeLorean. The more he thought about the dream, the more he thought about Doc's past action, and the more hurt, confused -- and even angry -- he became. The stress and uncertainty was only serving to make him more wound up.

And so he walked around a little outside the gas station, taking deep breaths of the late fall air, and trying to clear his mind enough so that the only thing he was aware of was the sound of the raindrops. It worked only marginally well.

Doc came out of the phone booth after a few minutes, clutching a couple of sheets torn from the book in one hand. "I've tracked down addresses for both of us," he announced. "Apparently we both live in Elmdale; it seems that that was the town that grew, not Hill Valley. Probably some small difference in the past that snowballed, like changing the county seat."

Marty headed over to his friend's side, curious in spite of everything. "Where do I live?" he asked. "Anywhere you recognize?"

Doc shook his head. "No -- but as I mentioned before, it's in Elmdale, too."

The musician took the phonebook pages from the inventor's hand and looked at the address of his local self. "2115 northwest Farmington Avenue," he muttered under his breath. "I dunno where that is, either. Did you find a map?"

Doc nodded as he headed back to the train, temporarily disguised as a big rig truck. "I got one from the back of the book," he said. "Do you suppose we should stop by my house, first?"

"Hell, yeah. I doubt any version of me would be able to help us out. We'd just be wasting our time -- and any curiosity I've got about what came of me in all of these worlds is long, long gone."

Doc turned to look at him as he was about to step back into the train. "Are you all right?" he asked, out of the blue. "You seem a little upset...."

"I'm fine," Marty said, though he was unable to keep the edge from his voice. "I just wanna get back home before I'm completely out of synch with the times."

The inventor swallowed that without further question. Since it was about half of the truth, Marty didn't feel bad for not telling him the real deal. It was neither the time nor the place for any sort of confrontation about a matter that Doc likely felt was settled. Anyway, maybe later, whenever he got to sleep again without any bad dreams, he'd feel better....

It took a bit of circling around in the air before Doc got a vague idea as to the location of his current counterpart's home. Marty hung back from the windows at first, then contributed to the search when several minutes passed with no luck. "Do you know what any of those streets are?" he asked.

"The four-lane highway below us is the main drag that runs right through the center of Hill Valley and Elmdale," Doc said. "Jefferson Street is located right off of it, past fifth avenue, if the map is accurate. And fifth avenue is supposed to be right next to a city park...."

The park was spotted a moment later. It wasn't much to look at, in Marty's opinion -- a set of swings, a slide, and a sandbox that looked like it was full of mud on a day like this. But it oriented their position, and a few minutes later Doc was hovering above Jefferson Street, frowning.

"I would wager that's my house," he said, tapping a finger against the glass as he indicated the ancient-looking, dilapidated three story Victorian mansion set back from the road. A couple of cheapie strip malls and fast foot places surrounded it, making the private home look even older and more out of place.

"It's almost like your old place on JFK," Marty commented. "Except this one isn't just a garage and it looks a lot older."

"I suppose so. Interesting." He didn't immediately start a descent, though, and after a minute Marty felt justified to ask.

"What's the hold up? Do you think that the address isn't right?"

"No," Doc said. "I've just got to wonder if anyone's even home. I don't see any lights on in the building...."

"They could have curtains or blinds on the windows.... And, anyway, it's the middle of the day! Maybe the other you has more money worries with electricity.... We won't know unless we check it out, right?"

The inventor grunted vaguely, though he did finally reach for the controls and begin a careful descent to the narrow, potholed driveway that ran alongside the home, to a separate garage at the back. Based on how old and run down it looked, Marty guessed that the garage had actually been used for storing carriages, back in the day; the home had to be at least a hundred years old. His own home with Jennifer had been built in 1889, and he had gotten pretty good at recognizing architecture from around that time, since Jennifer had wanted to maintain it as accurately as possible. The style of this place was similar to his own home -- except the latter was in far better repair and restoration.

Once the machine was on the ground, Doc switched it's invisible image to that of the RV that he had used in one of the first alternate worlds. "Why are you letting it be seen?" Marty wondered as they prepared to make a run from the cab to the porch of the old home.

"Better to have it be seen as something, so no one drives right into it," was Doc's logical response. "We are on a driveway, after all." He paused a moment, looking out through the open door at the rain. "Let's go surprise myself, now."

The two visitors ran the brief distance between the train and the covered porch. Marty was a half step behind Doc, as the scientist's stride was longer than his. Because he had his head down, both to keep the rain from blowing into his eyes and to see where his feet were going, he almost collided right into Doc on the porch. Catching himself just in time, the musician snapped his head up to see what it was that had caused his friend to stop so dead sudden.

The inventor's eyes were locked on a piece of bright fluorescent paper that was nailed to the front of the door. "No Trespassing" it read, with a lot of smaller, legalese print below it. After a moment of quiet study, Doc reached out and tried the knob. It didn't budge.

"Is this the right address?" Marty asked, looking around for a posted house number.

"I think so," Doc said. "But I suppose it's possible that this could be the wrong house." He let go of the knob and walked over to one of the windows, trying to peer in. Curtains were hugging the glass tightly, making it impossible to see anything inside.

"We should double check, then," Marty said, casting a distasteful eye to the dampness beyond the porch.

"Go ahead," Doc said, preoccupied with the concealed windows. "I think I spotted a mailbox at the end of the drive as we came down."

Marty made a face at the task but, wanting to get somewhere ASAP so they could move on to whatever was next, he gave in and ran out into the downpour. He paused long enough on the sidewalk to examine the rusting mailbox, then returned to the dry porch with his report.

"This should be the place," he said breathlessly. "1521's on the box, and so is 'E.L. Brown.'"

"Interesting, then," Doc said, his recent overuse of that particular word getting inexplicably on Marty's nerves. He turned abruptly away from the house. "Let's see what your other self has to say about this. If my counterpart moved recently enough that the change wasn't in the phonebook, he would probably know how to get in touch with him."

The musician wasn't overjoyed with the idea, not in the mood to see yet another miserable, bitter, or unsuccessful version of himself up close and personal. "If you really think we need to," he muttered. The inventor didn't seem to notice his lack of enthusiasm, already trotting back to the concealed train.

Marty had hoped that maybe his counterpart's house might be too hard to find from the air. Unfortunately, Doc seemed to be getting a feel for the arial navigation; it took only about ten minutes before he located Farmington Avenue and settled before a modest one story home, probably built in the 1970's. A red Camero z-28 was parked in the driveway, so someone was obviously home. The "McFly" on the mailbox left no doubt as to the identity of the owners. After reestablishing the RV image, Doc left the train, and Marty saw no reason or logic in remaining behind.

"Maybe it'd be better if he saw you first," he suggested softly as they went briskly up the walk to the front door, dodging raindrops. "You can ease into the news that you're not the Doc he knows."

"That sounds fine," the scientist agreed. "Why don't you stand next to the wall; he shouldn't see you there."

Marty did just that, leaning against the siding next to the doorknob. Unless his other self ducked outside, he'd remain out of sight. Doc knocked firmly, and a minute or two later a set of footsteps made its way to answer the door.

Because of the way Marty was standing, he didn't see quite what happened. All he knew was betrayed by the sounds: the door opened, there was a moment of silence where Doc said, "Hello, Marty," then came a bloodcurdling scream, followed by a thud that shook the ground. The musician's head was peering around the doorjamb before he could stop himself, and his eyes darted down to see the local version of himself lying on the floor of his home, out cold from what was probably a hell of a faint.

"Great," he muttered under his breath. He looked over at Doc, who was staring down at Local Marty with an odd, crooked frown. "I thought I was outta sight.... Maybe we should just cut our losses now and move on."

The inventor looked up at him after a moment. "I'd like some answers, first," he said, stepping inside the house uninvited. Marty hung back a moment, then followed. "Why don't you go into the bathroom and see if you can find smelling salts or ammonia?"

The musician opened his mouth to suggest to Doc that maybe he might be better off looking for those things himself, then closed it when he realized that if his other self happened to wake up before then, he might really freak out if he saw his very own face hovering above his own. "What if I run into someone?" he asked.

Doc glanced at him as he knelt down to take unconscious Marty's pulse. "There was no name paired with yours in the phone book," he said, "and he's not wearing a wedding band." The inventor held up the limp left hand of his counterpart to illustrate this point. "And I think if you were living with any roommates, they might have come running by now."

Marty blinked in surprise at the revelation. He hadn't even noticed that particular detail when he'd looked at his phone book page. "Oh," he said softly. He headed off on the appointed errand, then, making his way to the hallway that presumably led to the bedrooms and the bathrooms. In spite of the weirdness of the situation, Marty couldn't resist poking his head in the rooms as he went down the hall, suddenly curious about his other self's seeming bachelor life.

The first room he came to, a small bedroom, was filled with a lot of odds and ends -- boxes, what looked like some broken furniture, spare bedding, etc. The second was set up like an office, with a desk, computer, and a couple of pieces of music equipment. It was in a style Marty recognized well as his own so-called method of organization; messy on the surface, but with an actual rhyme and reason underneath.

The master bedroom, though, was what confirmed his counterpart's single status. As he went inside it, heading for the master bathroom, Marty couldn't help noticing the total absence of anything remotely feminine in the room. No jewelry. No articles of women's clothes. No color coordinated pillows or throws. The walls had some guitar and music ads tastefully framed and mounted, and the bed was hastily made at best. The room wouldn't look quite like this if he had Jennifer in his life -- or some other woman, perhaps.

Inside the slightly messy master bathroom, Marty searched through the medicine cabinet and the other cabinets without much luck. Tylenol, Tums, Pepto Bismol, mouthwash, toothpaste, razors, a few mysterious bottles of prescription drugs that were woefully expired and out of date.... But no smelling salts. Typical; he wasn't sure if he had any back at his own house.

Marty left the bathroom and headed towards the kitchen that he suspected was at the other end of the house; the layout of this place was fairly typical of most single-level homes that he had been in, including his parents' place at Lyon Estates. His path took him past Doc again, who was still kneeling next to the rightful owner of the dwelling.

"Any luck?" both men asked each other, simultaneously. They started to talk over one another, then both paused. Marty tried again.

"I can't find any smelling salts, but there might be some ammonia in the kitchen. Is he okay?" He indicated the still form on the floor.

"I think so," Doc said, though there was something on his face that made Marty wonder if he was being fibbed to. "I haven't had any luck in reviving him, though.... He didn't even react when I checked under his eyelids. You're quite stubborn when you're unconscious, no matter what dimension we're in."

The musician smiled humorlessly. "Work hard, crash hard," he quipped, then went on with his mission to the kitchen. The place needed a bit of housekeeping -- there were crumbs on the counter and dirty dishes stacked in the sink -- but Marty was so far impressed with his other self's housekeeping skills. He'd never had the chance to live alone; he'd moved out of his parents' house the same week he was married. He usually did a good job of cleaning up after himself before marriage by being nagged, and after out of a courtesy for Jennifer.

I wonder what happened so we didn't get married? he thought, rather wistfully, as he knelt down before the cabinets under the kitchen sink. It was habitually where he kept cleaning supplies, and his other self apparently had the same tendency; he was greeted with a small selection of cleaning chemicals and soaps. Marty looked through them quickly, finally spotting a small bottle of ammonia near the back. It was covered in a sticky layer of dust and looked like it hadn't ever been opened. He snagged it, stood up, and headed out of the kitchen.

Marty cut through the dining room on his way back to the foyer. He noticed a couple of newspapers piled neatly on a small desk near a window as he passed through the room, the one on top folded to a page in the middle, and curiosity caused him to pause a moment to check out the headlines. Maybe there'd be some clue there as to what this world was like. His eyes darted over the main headline on the page without any thought -- and he then froze. The bottle of ammonia slipped from his hands and crashed to the carpet, making a heavy thump but not breaking out of the plastic container.

"Marty?" Doc's voice rang out a second later. "Are you all right?"

Marty opened his mouth to answer, but his voice wouldn't quite come. His eyes were glued to the headline in both disbelief and horror. "Local scientist, Emmett Brown, found dead at age 70," it read. Under the headline was a small black and white photo of Doc, about twenty years out of date, probably taken when he worked for the university. Marty's gaze sought out the date at the top of the paper. Sunday, October 1, 1995.

"Jesus," the musician whispered, the word more like a prayer than a curse. He picked up the newspaper and, after a moment of hesitation, continued to the front door and the waiting Doc. The scientist was half on his feet, obviously worried. His expression softened only a little at the sight of Marty coming back.

"Did you drop something?" he asked.

"What?" Only then did he realize he hadn't picked up the ammonia again. "Uh, yeah.... Doc, I think I know why your house was locked up. Look at this."

Marty handed his friend the newspaper a little reluctantly, hoping that the Doc wasn't going to react with a fainting spell of his own. The inventor took it, saw the headline, and grimaced. But he didn't start screaming or shaking. He simply sighed once, deeply.

"I'm not entirely surprised," he muttered. "I wondered how long it would be before we found a world where I had died...."

Marty stepped over for a closer look at the paper, having avoided reading anything beyond the headline. "It says you're 70," he said. "Not 75."

It took Doc a minute to respond; his eyes were scanning the copy. "Indeed," he said eventually. "I was apparently born on June 20, 1925 in this world. A strange discrepancy, considering I look the same, if this photograph is any indication." He lapsed into silence again.

"Does it say how you died?" Marty asked, the morbid question out before he could stop it.

"According to this, it's under investigation, with an autopsy being performed," Doc said, lowering the article. "But I died at home, apparently. I...." His voice trailed off as his eyes touched on the local Marty. "We should leave."

The announcement was made so abruptly that the musician didn't understand it at first. "You mean leave the house? Now? Just like that? I thought you wanted to grill my other self about things...."

The look Doc gave him was tinged with sympathy. "Marty, how would you feel if you answered a knock at the door and saw what appeared to be your dead friend standing there?" he asked.

The musician understood in a flash after that. He winced, knowing then why his other self had screamed and fainted. "Right," he murmured. "That'd be... bad."

Doc knelt down and took hold of the local Marty under the arms. "Get his feet and help me move him to the couch," he said. "Hopefully when he wakes up, he'll think he just fell asleep and dreamed this whole incident."

The moving of his unconscious counterpart went fine, but while Marty was turning on the TV, and Doc was draping a blanket over the local Marty -- small touches to convince him when he woke that he had just dozed off for an unanticipated nap -- the twenty-seven-year-old abruptly opened his eyes. Doc's face was bent down right over his; there was nowhere to hide.

Local Marty blinked once, gasped, and drew back. Then he seemed to change his mind and sat up, clamping down one hand on the inventor's arm. The grip had to have been tight; the visiting Marty saw his friend wince a little.

"Doc!" the local cried. "Doc! Oh my God, you're real! You're not a ghost! You're not dead!"

Marty wondered how the inventor was going to handle this one. His own presence hadn't yet been detected and he stood still near the TV, remaining quiet. Doc gave the local a slight smile that bore a closer resemblance to a grimace.

"I'm not that Doc, Marty," he said gently. "I'm a version of Emmett Brown from another, different dimension. A different world, if you will."

The local Marty either didn't get it, or didn't want to believe it. "No, you're Doc," he insisted, still tightly clutching the inventor's arm, as if the visitor was a lifeline. "And you're alive! There's no other way, unless...." His brow crinkled. "Are you some past version of him? From before? You look younger than he did when I... the last time I saw him."

"From before what?" Doc asked, sitting down on the edge of the couch, finally.

"Before you destroyed the time machine," Local Marty answered. The visiting Marty flinched, the words giving him an instant flashback to both his nightmare and the reality of Doc's method of DeLorean destruction more than ten years back. "I didn't think it got used that much, but maybe you didn't tell me everything."

The visiting Marty could tell that Doc wanted a few more details on that matter, but it was not quite the time, yet, for questions. Not with Local Marty still