I DON'T OWN BACK TO THE FUTURE OR ANYTHING AFFILIATED WITH IT. I ONLY OWN AUDREY BROWN. ANY LIKENESS TO ANY REAL PERSON IS ENTIRELY ACCIDENTAL.
Chapter 1
Audrey Alva Brown. That was her name. And yes, she was related to the same Brown you're thinking of. Doctor Emmett "Doc" Brown; that's her father and her hero.
Yeah, you could call that really cheesy, but it was the truth. Her father was her hero.
If you hadn't already guessed, both her parents had a hand in naming her. Her mother had picked out the name Audrey (because Audrey Hepburn was her favorite actress) and her father chose her middle name of Alva, after one of his heroes, Thomas Alva Edison.
Now, Audrey's mother had left her father shortly after she turned one, simply because she was of the opinion that Emmett wouldn't ever accomplish anything with his "crazy" inventions.
Granted, Audrey's father was a brilliant inventor, but he did have the unfortunate distinction of his inventions never actually working. But he never gave up and Audrey knew for a fact that he was working on something big.
You may ask, how did she know?
Well, it was simple, really. See, when Audrey was growing up, her father would disappear for days, maybe even weeks at a time (in those cases, she'd stay with a family friend that hadn't written her father off as a complete crackpot), and that usually meant that he was working on something important, possibly groundbreaking and probably dangerous.
And this time, he hadn't been seen for a couple days. That was normal for Emmett, and Audrey wasn't too worried because she was old enough to take care of herself, but something was a bit off. Her father was a secretive man by nature, but usually he'd feel it was okay to share his plan with her, and then they could both laugh about it together when Marty McFly, their mutual best friend, looked entirely too confused to be allowed.
This, however, wasn't the case. This time, Emmett had just avoided her every attempt to find out what he was up to.
And now she and Marty decided to take a detour to Emmett's laboratory( which was actually his garage/house) before school. She, normally, would have already been there, but she had been bunking over at the McFly residence because her father really didn't like her being home alone. She figured it was just him being over protective (of both her and his half-done inventions), so she went along with it.
"Do you know where he's been?" Marty asked her as they skateboarded their way to the front door of Doc's lab.
"Honestly, Marty, I've got no freaking idea. He hasn't told me anything," Audrey told him. They came to a stop in front of the door and, in unison, they stomped on the back of their skateboards to flip them up into their hands.
"Huh," Marty said. He opened the door to the lab and Audrey could hear the TV going. Her father had left it on again. "Hey Doc? Doc! Hello, anybody home?"
"Einstein!" Audrey called. Einstein was her father's dog, although he was just as attached to her as Doc. "Einstein, come here boy!"
The shaggy dog known as Einstein was nowhere to be seen, which meant that he was probably with her father, wherever he was.
"Oh, god. Aw, Jesus. That is disgusting."
Audrey turned around and saw Marty wrinkling his nose at the overflowing dog bowl. Doc must have left his machines on again.
Marty shrugged and continued walking through the laboratory, eventually making his way over to the massive CRM-114 amplifier that her father had in his lab (presumably originally for an experiment that didn't pan out, so Doc had given Marty permission to use it for his guitar). He had grabbed the key to start it up and began cranking the amp up.
"Uhm…Marty…I don't know if you should do that."
"Oh, come on, Audrey, what's the harm?"
"Well, it could be unstable. You know Dad hasn't actually worked out all the bugs yet."
"Oh, come on, Audrey. Stop worrying," Marty said jokingly. Audrey rolled her eyes and replied, "Well, one of us has got to."
Marty chose to ignore her and hooked up his guitar to the amplifier anyway. He turned all the dials up higher than they should have been and played a chord. This chord ended up sending him back into the set of shelves behind him and he sat up, slightly dazed once the dust had cleared, and looked at the now destroyed amp.
"Whoa…rock and roll," Marty said, removing his sunglasses. Audrey laughed, both at her friend's humor and the fact that he wasn't injured from his flying adventure.
And just then, the phone rang. Marty hopped up as Audrey picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Audrey, is that you?"
"Dad! Yeah it's me," Audrey replied as Marty came over to her. She moved the phone so that they both could hear was Doc was saying.
"Is Marty with you?"
"Yeah, I'm right here, Doc. Hey, Doc, where are you?"
Doc ignored Marty's question and said, "Thank god I found you two. Listen, can you meet me at Twin Pines Mall tonight at 1:15? I've made a major breakthrough, I'll need your assistance."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Marty said. "1:15 in the morning?"
"Yeah," Doc replied.
Honestly, Audrey couldn't care less about what time her father wanted them to meet him – she was just so relieved to hear his voice. Sometimes her father got really into his work and he sort of…forgot about the world around him.
"What's going on? Where have you been all week?" Marty asked.
"Working," her father replied. Audrey fought the urge to roll her eyes, but she lost. Sometimes her father's one word answers really got on her nerves. I mean, would it kill him to explain? she thought.
"Where's Einstein, Dad? Is he with you?" Audrey asked her.
"Yeah, he's right here," he answered. Audrey breathed a sigh of relief and Marty said, "You know, you left your equipment on all week ."
"My equipment…" Doc said, apparently trailing off in thought. "Oh, that reminds me, Marty, you better not hook up to the amplifier. There's a slight possibility of overload."
Audrey gave Marty a look and he waved her off, looking at the key to the amplifier in his hand.
"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind…"
"We'll be there, Dad," Audrey said, after stifling the laugh that had bubbled up in her.
"Good," Doc replied, sounding both relieved and happy that he could count on them. Of course, he shouldn't have had any thought otherwise. Ever since Marty had been "employed" as Doc's second lab assistant (Audrey being the first lab assistant), the three of them had been stuck to each other like glue. Most of the time, if someone couldn't find one of them, all they had to do was try and find Marty, Doc, or Audrey (depending on who they were looking for) and more likely than not, you'd find the person you were looking for.
In other words, it was extremely rare to see one of them without the other two.
"I'll see you both tonight. Don't forget now, 1;15 AM, Twin Pines Mall," Doc said. Audrey nodded to herself, memorizing the time and location.
"Right," Marty said.
At that very moment, both Audrey and Marty were nearly deafened by the unison sounding of every clock that Doc had in his laboratory.
He must have been conducting another experiment with them again, Audrey thought as she covered her ears as best she could with the phone receiver in one hand.
"Are those my clocks I hear?"
"Yeah," Marty said, scrunching up his face against the pain the noise was causing his ears. He looked at one of them and said, "It's 8:00."
"Perfect!" Doc replied. "My experiment worked. They're all exactly twenty-five minutes slow."
Audrey's brain screeched to a halt when she processed what her father had just said.
"What?"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute…" Marty said, trying to comprehend what Doc had told him. "Doc, are you telling me that it's 8:25?!"
"Precisely!" Doc replied.
"Damn it!" Audrey swore. She handed Marty the receiver and started running for the door, skateboard in hand.
"Damn!" Marty repeated. "I'm late for school!"
The two of them burst through the door and threw their skateboards on the ground and jumped on them.
"Marty, we're gonna have to skitch onto a car or something. We'll never make it time otherwise."
Marty nodded his agreement and the two of them grabbed onto the first truck they saw. Luckily, the truck was big enough that the driver most likely wouldn't be able to see the two of them. People usually didn't take too well to seeing two teenage skateboarders holding onto their vehicle.
No, it was better if they weren't seen. Audrey tried to concentrate on her balance while Marty kept looking at the female joggers and the women in the exercise classes that they passed. Audrey wasn't as a good a skateboarder as Marty, so she had to concentrate on her balance more than he did, but she was good enough that she didn't fall flat on her face anymore.
Her father had been a little against her learning to skateboard under Marty's tutelage, but he knew what it was like to be restricted from doing something that would have made him happy. Doc's father had been a Judge and he wanted his son to go into the legal profession as well. Doc's passion, however, as everyone knew well, was science.
It had been very hard for Doc, growing up, not being able to do something that made him happy, and he wasn't about to put his only daughter through the same experience.
So, he relented in the face of her begging (and a well-employed 'puppy' face) and let her injure herself time and time again as she learned how to skateboard.
Marty had been a very patient teacher and he never gave up on her. She had been a bit of a slow learner, which frustrated her, because she prided herself on being able to pick things up quickly – skateboarding just wasn't one of them.
But she eventually learned and now here she was, skitching on the back of a truck, trying to get to school on time. They had to switch from a truck to a Jeep, in order to continue the fastest way to school, and the Jeep driver noticed them. Marty just waved and luckily, the driver just rolled his eyes and let them continue skitching.
They finally reached the heavily grafitied Hill Valley High School and ran towards the doors when all of a sudden, Marty's girlfriend, Jennifer Parker showed up in the door, waving the two of them away.
"Hello, Jennifer," Marty said. Jennifer shook her head and said, "Don't go this way, guys. Marty, Strickland is looking for you. If you're caught it'll be four tardies in a row. And you know how Strickland feels about your father, Audrey; he'll be lecturing you two until 2015 if he catches you."
Marty nodded and pulled Audrey along to another door. Jennifer came along and let them in and Audrey shot her a grateful smile. She really liked Jen; she was great girl and she was perfect for Marty.
If you asked some other students, they'd tell you that Audrey was jealous of Jennifer and that she wanted to be with Marty, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Marty was like her brother and she only wanted him to be happy. She loved him, sure, but not like that.
Evidently, many of the teenaged (and some of the adult) Hill Valley residents were under the impression that a girl couldn't be friends with a guy without wanting to be with him, or vice versa. Generally, Audrey just ignored them – if all they wanted to do was gossip about her and Marty's supposed secret burning desire for one another, they weren't worth her time.
"Alright, c'mon, I think we're safe," Jennifer said. The three of them walked out from their hiding spot behind a wall branching off from the main hallway and they started walking down the hall. Marty put her arm around Jennifer's shoulders and said, "You know, this time it wasn't my fault. The Doc set all of his clocks twenty-five minutes slow."
"Why'd he do that?" Jennifer asked, looking between Marty and Audrey. Audrey shrugged and said, "Experiment."
"Yeah, you know how Doc is with his experiments…" Marty said.
"Doc?"
Audrey, Jennifer, and Marty stopped short when they heard Strickland's voice behind them. They reluctantly turned around and faced their very bald and very severe Vice Principal, Mr. Strickland, who now had Marty by the collar of his jacket.
"Am I to understand you're still hanging around with Doctor Emmett Brown and his slacker daughter, McFly?" Strickland said, casting a dark look Audrey's way, who fought the urge to roll her eyes.
"I'm not a slacker. I get straight A's, don't I? I show up, don't I? What more do you want from me?" Audrey said angrily.
Strickland ignored her and shoved a tardy slip her way and Audrey took it, grumbling every second. "Tardy slip for you, Brown, and you Miss Parker." He handed a slip to Jennifer as well and then turned to Marty.
"And one for you, McFly; I believe that makes four in a row," Strickland told him and he started walking the three of them down the hall. "Now, let me give you a nickel's worth of advice, young man. This so called Doctor Brown is dangerous –"
"Don't insult my father!" Audrey growled. Once again, Strickland ignored her.
"He's a real nutcase," Strickland said, trying to make himself heard over Audrey's increasing-in-volume growls. "You hand around with him you're gonna end up in big trouble."
Audrey was really having trouble controlling her anger at the moment. She knew that a lot of people in Hill Valley didn't think highly of her father, but that was only because he thought of things that challenged their reality and that made them uncomfortable, so they wrote him off as a nutcase, a quack, someone who would 'corrupt' their children. Luckily, the McFly's, although they warned Marty against him, didn't really do anything to stop their son from being around Audrey and her father.
Audrey suspected it was because they could see how happy spending time around Doc and Audrey made him.
"Oh yes, sir," Marty said, although there was a hint of sarcasm. Audrey and Jennifer tried not to laugh, but Strickland didn't appreciate as much as they did.
"You got a real attitude problem, McFly," Strickland told him, shoving his shoulder. "You're a slacker. You remind me of your father when he went here…he was a slacker, too."
Audrey could tell that Marty was starting to get peeved. He hated it when anyone said anything against his father, mainly because George didn't seem to have the conviction to defend himself against his tormentors (mainly Biff Tannen), so the duty fell to everyone else that cared about George.
"Can I go now, Mr. Strickland?" Marty asked, sounding like he was trying to restrain the anger that he was undoubtedly feeling.
"I noticed your band is on the roster for dance auditions after school today. Why even bother, McFly? You haven't got a chance; you're too much like your old man. No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley."
By the time Strickland was finished, he and Marty were practically nose to nose. Clearly Strickland had no concept of personal space.
Besides, what Strickland said, Audrey felt, was going about ten steps too far over the line. There was no need to insult Marty like that; he already had insecurities about being rejected, and Strickland really didn't need to point them out.
Marty looked Strickland dead in the eyes and said, "Yeah, well, history is gonna change."
Finally, Strickland decided to let them go on their way, and once he walked away Audrey said, "Don't listen to him, Marty. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Your band is great, you're great…"
"I don't know…maybe Strickland's right. I mean, he's right about my old man, isn't he? He's pathetic; I know it, everyone knows it."
"Just because your father doesn't have much confidence, doesn't mean you don't. You're not your father, Marty," Jennifer said. Marty nodded.
"Yeah, Jen, I know…"
"Come on," Audrey said. "We gotta get to history."
Unfortunately, despite the fact that Audrey wanted to concentrate, the entire day all she could think about was her father and what he was up to.
Okay, so here's the first chapter. I hope you guys like it.
I hope this doesn't put you off the story, but the updates will probably be pretty irregular. I've got another story I'm writing, so I'm going to try and balance between the two, but I can't promise anything.
Please leave a review, tell me what you liked/disliked. Oh, please no flames. They're rude and really unnecessary. If you didn't like something, just tell me, don't insult my writing. Thank you.
