Racing Through Time

Disclaimer: To all who haven't read my other stories, I do not own the Back to the Future trilogy in any way possible.

Author's Note: I am aware the start is similar to the end of the previous story, but that's BTTF tradition for you. And the end is different.

1: Chapter One

Emmett Lathrop Brown smiled, as he began to wake up. One major advantage of being a horse dealer was to be found in the fact that you never had to wake up early, unless you had an appointment. Today, Emmett didn't have one, so he could just lean back and relax. It had been a very hard night tonight after all. He had been out with his best friend, Marty McFly, to watch the first temporal experiment ever.

The sixty-five-year-old grinned. Of course Marty hadn't known that in fact, his friend had known of the teen's invention before he was even born, since 1955, for the older version of Marty had visited him then. It had been hard to keep quiet about everything in all these years of knowing Marty, but he had managed to develop a solid friendship with the teen, something which cheered him up through times of misery. He had also married, to a woman named Jennifer Clayton. They had never had any children, something which Emmett did regret to an extent, but at least they were healthy, and they loved each other.

As he thought of his wife, Emmett suddenly noticed that she wasn't there. The mattress next to him was empty, and the horse dealer could easily see the reason for that. The clock next to their bed, one which Marty had bought for them years ago, reported the time as being well after 10:30. He'd overslept – not surprisingly, considering the circumstances, but it was a clear reason for Jennifer to have left him here.

Emmett then got up, noticing that he had slept in his clothes again that night, and walked into the Brown family living room. Though he couldn't see Jennifer anywhere, a sandwich was on the dresser, including filling. The horse dealer took a bite out of it, and then looked over to the refrigerator, or more accurately, beyond it, to the clear morning sky. Emmett smiled, and after putting on his shoes, he went outside.

It was a cool autumn morning, but the wind wasn't blowing too fast and it was quite pleasant out. From the place he was standing, the sixty-five-year-old could see cars driving across the road, and his horses grazing on the fields around the mansion. Despite the fact that it was relatively close to the centre of Hill Valley, John F. Kennedy Drive never saw that much traffic, a fact which Emmett was glad about. He'd take the quiet and casual surroundings of his house over downtown Hill Valley any day, let alone the centre of a big city like Los Angeles or San Francisco.

"About time that you woke up, Emmett!" a voice then sounded from behind him. The horse dealer didn't need to look around to tell that it was his wife. Jennifer Clayton stood in the doorway of the house and smiled at him. "I've been up for three hours now, and you usually go off bed before me! Where have you been last night?"

"Off with Marty" Emmett replied, seeing no need to lie. "You know how many experiments that kid performs in a week. He wanted my assistance for this one."

"What was it?" Jennifer wanted to know.

Emmett winced. All right, maybe he should've come up with some other excuse. "Marty told me I shouldn't tell you yet" he replied. There was some truth in that – the teen had told him not to speak to anybody about it back in 1955 except for his parents, since they already knew, and the horse dealer had followed that order to the letter. Despite how hard it had been some times, he hadn't ever let anything slip, not even to Marty's younger self or Jennifer.

Jennifer frowned for a moment, and then she smiled. "Ah, it's a secret" she said mischievously. "That's all right, I won't ask any further. I guess I'll find out soon enough anyway. You guys can never keep something hidden for long."

"Well, I wouldn't be too sure on that" Emmett quipped, realizing just how wrong that statement was. After all, Marty had managed to keep his time machine hidden in the old timeline, and the horse dealer was sure that if he hadn't known about it, the teen would have fooled him this time around too. And of course he had managed to keep his knowledge about time travel hidden for almost thirty years now. If his wife knew that, she wouldn't say he was bad at keeping secrets anymore.

Jennifer, though, hadn't heard him. She was looking at the horses, specifically at a pair who were somewhat distanced from the rest. Turning to Emmett, she smirked. "You know, I never thought there could be any romance in horses before I met you."

"I never thought I could have any romance before I met you" Emmett pointed out, putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer to him. "I was forty-six when we met, after all. Before that, I hadn't had much in terms of girlfriends."

Jennifer smiled at him. "Then I suppose we should make up for it now, shouldn't we?" she said, somewhat teasingly.

Emmett smiled back. "We should" he agreed, gazing into her eyes and pulling her closer. He then closed his eyes, and moved over to kiss her.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Jennifer shrieked at the noise that came out of nowhere – Emmett, however, recognizing it for what it was, quickly pushed her out of the way. It was just in time, too, as after the final sonic boom, Marty's truck appeared, racing towards them and coming to a halt only after crashing into a tree, a few feet away from them. As the couple was still gawking at the truck, the door opened and Marty exited, running towards them.

"Emmett!" he called out excitedly. "I've returned, so you can now come… back… with…" He froze in his tracks and blinked. "All right, why is it so light?"

"Well, that's quite normal, considering it's already eleven in the morning" Emmett pointed out. "The sun is nearing the highest point, if I'm not incorrect."

"Eleven in the morning!" Marty exclaimed, horrified. "Great Scott! I messed up the AM/PM switch again! That's twice in one week!" He shook his head, beginning to panic. "Well, never mind that right now – we must leave, right away! I can't allow anybody to see us!" He took Emmett's arm and began to pull him along.

"Now wait a minute, Marty" Emmett protested. "Are you suggesting that I should go along with you right now?"

"Why, of course" Marty replied. "That's what we agreed, isn't it? It's been some time, but my memory isn't that bad. "I'm certain that's what we said. I did intend to pick you up at eleven P.M., but I don't see how the time difference should matter. You've got time to sleep now, haven't you?"

"Yeah, but what about Jennifer?" Emmett replied. "We can't just leave her here and go off! We were just in the middle of a conversation!"

"Bring her along then, if that's what you want" Marty muttered, suddenly letting Emmett's arm go and beginning to search through the garbage cans on the driveway. "I have no time for a discussion right now. Fuel, I need fuel, where's fuel…"

As Marty mentioned fuel, Emmett's eyes drifted over to the place where that fuel should go into, the garbage cans at the back. He was stunned to find that they were gone, and that as an apparent replacement, only a small can had been added. As the horse dealer looked closer, he could see that it read 'Mr. Fusion – garbage disposal machine'.

Marty then finished digging through the cans, and carried two Pepsi cans and the core of an apple over to the Mr. Fusion thing, dumping it in them. After having finished that, he turned back to Emmett. "Well, aren't you going to get into the car?" he insisted, clearly annoyed.

"Not if you won't tell us what this is all about!" Jennifer exclaimed, even more confused than Emmett, given that he had at least a clue what Marty was referring to.

"I'll do so soon enough, so if you'll just get into the car, okay?" Marty replied. Emmett then reluctantly stepped inside, followed by Jennifer. Marty closed the door behind them and got inside as well. As he drove the car off the driveway and into the street, Emmett tried to get a look at the time circuits, but he couldn't clearly distinguish anything.

"All right, Marty" Emmett tried once more. "What's going on, huh? Where are we going?"

"You'll see it soon enough, we just need to get out of here" Marty insisted. He then started typing in some information. Emmett tried once more to get a better look at the time circuits, but failed. Then, Marty moved his hands back to the wheel.

"Wait a minute" Emmett muttered, remembering something. "Marty, you'd better back up. We don't have enough roads to get up to 88."

In response, Marty turned to him and gave him a slightly frightening look. "Roads?" he replied, saying the word as if it was an insult. "Where we're going we don't need, (short pause), roads!"

oooooooo

Biff Tannen frowned to himself, as he was driving his new auto detailing truck through John F. Kennedy Drive. As usual, there was no one in the area who wanted his services. It was always a quiet day for the detailing business on Saturday, so it shouldn't have surprised him, but it did make him angry. He had to feed himself and that awful brat of a son he had in Cliff Tannen on Saturdays too! Why couldn't the people understand that and ask them to wax their car more often? The only one who regularly hired him was, of all people, George McFly – and Biff knew that he didn't want to go there this morning to ask if he was needed.

The forty-eight-year-old bully scowled, as he thought of George McFly. He knew that it wasn't very mature of him to think this way about McFly thirty years after the guy had punched him out, but he didn't care. So be it! He didn't want to like George McFly, he had to. And it was annoying. Seeing George hanging around Lorraine, hugging her, kissing her… that should have been his girl. George stole her from him that night. And it was all thanks to that punk, Clint Eastwood.

As Biff was pondering this, he noticed that he had arrived at the mansion of Emmett Brown, and smiled evilly. Yeah, maybe he'd ask Brown whether he wanted him to wax their car. And charge him a high price, just because the guy was too dumb to know what price he should pay. Sure, the guy hung around that freak, Marty McFly, but Marty wasn't there all the time. And if Brown would refuse his services, he could always do some damage to the property while he was there. Have a little fun. Smiling in advance, he stopped the car and exited before stopping suddenly as he noticed the McFly truck parked before his car. Not wanting the guy to notice him and perhaps foil his plans, Biff decided to stand there and wait a little while before McFly would go away.

As he was just wondering how long he was going to let this take, Biff saw something which he couldn't believe, something straight out of a movie. The truck lifted up into the sky, completely unsupported, and the wheels folded in. As Biff's jaw dropped, the car then accelerated through the sky and, after a few moments, it disappeared in a flash of light and a loud sonic boom.

For a moment, Biff just stood there, staring at the trails of fire in the sky where the car had just been. Then, he scowled. "What the hell is going on here" he muttered, darkly. He didn't know what this was all about, but he knew that he would find out.