A/N: Hello out there! So, as the summary says, this is the combination of the Back To The Future characters with the rock opera "Broken Bride" by Ludo. The Traveller, of Ludo fame, is now our dear Marty, and other characters fall into place along the way. I don't own the characters, or the plot, technically. Huh. I guess I'm only responsible for mashing them together.

Enough of stuff from me. Let's get the story started!

I promised Doc that I'd never time travel again.

While huddled in a cave hiding from pterodactyls, I realized that I probably should have kept this promise.

My time machine (courtesy the rejected blueplans Doc left in the lab) was being inspected by a curious pterodactyl, as it tapped away at the windows. It was fascinated, I thought, by the mere presence of machinery in the heavy vegetation of whatever damned time period I had landed in. Or maybe it was just the flashing lights on the dashboard. I don't know. I hoped it wouldn't be able to get inside. I doubted it would be able to start the time-travel sequence, but any damage to the Delorean would most likely prevent me from ever being able to leave.

I waited in the damp cave, urging the pterodactyl to leave so I could get to my original destination. It was taking forever, and I felt my old teenaged impatience rising up as I watched it take its sweet time poking around. I started pacing in the small space of the cave, scuffing my sneakers against the dirt impatiently.

Before you start getting all judgy-judge, saying I'm getting what I deserved for time traveling to the Jurassic period, let me explain. I didn't mean to end up here.

Jennifer is dead.

Or, she will be.

May 28th, 1989. We enjoy a lovely morning together in bed, and then Jennifer leaves for work, never to return again. I am on my way out to meet up with the band, and I just catch the phone. "Your wife…head-on collision…" I can't hear them clearly, but as soon as I realize why they are using the past tense, I drop to my knees and the phone clatters to the kitchen floor.

The next days continue in a roar of static. I see the mangled wreckage of our car as I crunch across the glittery broken glass in the street. I call her parents, then my parents. The funeral happens, with people and tissues and words and closed casket.

I return home but can't go past the front door. Instead, I wander down to Doc's laboratory, needing something familiar. The gadgets line the shelves haphazardly where he left them, and the few salvageable scraps from the Delorean sit patiently on the desk where Jennifer and I had returned them years ago. I pick up the broken flux capacitor, and a small phoenix of hope leaps up in my chest. Hurriedly, I dig through the papers in Doc's desk until I find a blueprint he had left behind.

The hope blossoms.

I replace my suit jacket and tie with one of Doc's old lab coats, preparing for a long night.

I work through three years of long nights to rebuild the Delorean.

I had to change some things on the machine. Instead of activating the car by driving at 88 mph, it now uses a centrifuge that spins reaches 88 mph in a circular motion (and I thought I would never need to know calculus in real life), activated by tugging the emergency break up. The design is a lot rougher than the sleek machine Doc had built, with a lot of exposed wires and loose connections, but I only needed it to work once, to bring me back to 1989. I didn't plan on going back to my original future, empty without Jennifer, so time paradoxes be damned, I was going to save my wife.

As I looked out at the pterodactyl that had finally smashed through my window, I realized that I probably should have made sure the Delorean could work more than once. Or that it would actually send me to the correct destination. I watched anxiously, praying that I'd be able to see Jennifer again, and that my bones wouldn't become a museum display in the future.

A/N: Thanks for reading! The "Broken Bride" epic is broken into five parts, though I'll probably get the story completed in six chapters. My goal is to have the whole thing done by May 28th... mostly because I need goals to get stuff done. Reviews are delightful too... :)