Author's Note: Hi, this is my first attempt at a story here so go easy. This was originally going to be based on my planned original character, but I switched it to Stan because it just seemed to be simpler and makes more sense when putting it up on this site. I hope I can please South Park and Family Guy fans that aren't fans of the other (and I will have references to each show along with nudges towards a certain movie series), but I'll warn in advance that this is mostly a South Park story just set in Quahog.

I am also looking to add a bit of reader interactivity into this story, so keep checking my profile for polls that will let you vote on things such as chapter titles and character names...

Saturday 19 January 2013, 12:00

"Hello?"

"Stewie, it's that kid you called for."

"Oh yes, thank you Brian. Come on in Stanley."

"Errr... you can just call me Stan. You said you had 'something exciting' to show me?"

"Yeeaah... just make yourself comfortable. I'll explain everything in a minute."

Stan Marsh walked into the bedroom of a toddler he was barely familiar with, and after slowly walking past his 'babyish' surroundings soon forced himself down into one of the ankle-high plastic seats in the corner. Looking around the room again, the 10-year-old mentally noted that it appeared normal for where he was apart from what looked like a glorified porta-potty in the opposite corner, a topic that he made sure to bring it up first when his oval-headed host emerged from it.

"Dude, what is that thing?"

Completely ignoring the question, Stewie replied as he took a seat opposite: "Yes i'm fine thank you, how are you?"

"What? Fine thanks, but I thought we were talking about-"

"We'll get to that soon. Did you make it over here okay?"

"Err, sure. It's only three hours from South Park to Quahog on that high-speed trainline so-"

"Great. So how have you been lately?"

Looking confused, Stan quickly asked: "Wait. Why did you invite me here? I've only seen you a couple of times before and barely know you!"

"Ahhh yes. But that doesn't mean that I don't know who you are, Stan Marsh."

"What?"

"I have my ways, but mainly mutual friends. Anyway, you wanted to know what this is?"

Pausing for a second, Stan simply replied: "Yeah... sure."

"Okay. That," the one-year-old described while pointing at the shining lights on top of the metal box, "is a time machine, invented by the one and only Stewie Griffin."

Bolting up from his seat, Stan said: "Oh... my... god. No way."

Stewie walked up to his device instructing his guest to come with him, saying: "Yes, quite something isn't she. Had quite the adventures in this thing, or at least the original."

"What do you mean?"

"Well I've been to all sorts of times and places, mainly with Brian. We've been to Italy in the renaissance, Poland in 1939, visited ourselves in 1999..."

Stan interrupted with surprise: "Brian? The talking dog that let me in?"

"The very same. But that stupid horny mutt broke it a while ago trying to impress a bunch of bar skanks, so right now I don't trust him to help me fine-tune this thing."

Quickly putting the pieces together, Stan questioned: "Hang on... is that why you invited me here?"

"Uh-huh. At first I was going to ask your friend James since he has been on a few trips in my time-travelling devices, but it became apparent that he was unable to make it today, and the people that I have let him travel with were all off in other countries or something. So... I turned to you, seeing as you are the only other one with experience of this machine. That is... if you want to stay."

"Hell yeah! This is so cool and I didn't waste three hours just to take a train back home again! Wait a minute... I don't have experience with this thing. What gives?"

"Actually... a while back, you and James came to me to use the time machine and stop something terrible happening to your friend Kyle. You succeeded, but that's a story for another day. Anyway, afterwards I didn't know how trustworthy you were at the time, so I went and erased your memories of the event. Don't think I won't do it again if you keep asking questions!"

The older boy saw that as enough of a threat to allow his new 'friend' to keep talking, while he listened to further explanation: "To answer what you are probably thinking, I've let your friend James in here a few times before, he's been with you of course, went with that South Park geographist Professor Jurgen to this very spot in the year 2000 to observe 'a short-lived independent nation', and he has been with his uncle back to their home country of England in 1863 in that Prius down there to stop your chubby buddy Eric from preventing the invention of soccer. Oh man, I memory wiped the hell out of that fat fuck when I found out he was sneaking up in my machine. 'This is Stewie's house!', I told him.'"

Seemingly unsurprised by the fact that Cartman once stole a time machine, Stan exclaimed while pointing out the window: "Hold on a minute Stewie. Are you telling me that you made a time machine... out of a Prius?"

"Sure did. Gave it a hover conversion and everything, and it only needed to get up to 88 kilometres per-hour to work. James called it the DePrius."

"Does it still work?"

"Nawww, when Brian found out what I'd done to his car he ordered me to take it down before I could even explain what it was. His loss. He hated the name as well. Anyway, let's get to work."

Ten minutes later Stan found himself taking off his coat, gloves, and hoodie that he had been wearing since early in the morning and getting ready to work.

Stewie walked into his room and looked at the layers on the coatrack inside his machine, remarking: "Jesus Christ Stan, back from Antarctica?"

Stan, now just in a navy blue 'Broncos' t-shirt and jeans for warmth inside, replied, "Dude, I live in South Park... in the middle of January. I'm not stupid."

Moving on, Stewie thought it would at least be polite to explain how his machine works in the simplest terms, as he described: "So you see Stan, this time machine is a very simple contraption when you get to know it, but the things that are most interesting about it are this control panel for better details, your 'basic keypad' for entering the date, and a date log to see your past journeys and what you changed. I'm currently working on making it better than my original, including giving it a range of modes that affect the user's level of potential influence on temporal events, fixing up a GPS system so it can travel through time and space like the last one, and of course I already fitted this nice coatrack, which by the way you can use, thanks for asking."

An excited Stan replied: "Stewie, that sounds interesting and all, and it would make the thing even more awesome that it is right now, but I don't have a clue how to do any of that mechanical stuff, and I only know a few people that can fit a GPS."

"You think I don't know that? Most of this reprogramming stuff I can do myself, I just needed someone to help out with the basics. I was in such a rush when I built this that I didn't screw some of the casing in right. Besides, I'm going to need a test dummy afterwards to make sure that my changes work properly."

Stan perked up even more excitedly: "You'll let me use it?"

"Only if you co-operate. Besides, I understand how it is, you're a 10-year-old boy. What kid in your shoes would not want to jump into that time machine right now?"

Stan muttered: "I can think of a couple..."

Unaware that Stan would be thinking the same answer regardless, Stewie continued while hanging a blue bag on the coatrack and entering buttons on his control panel, "Let me rephrase that. What person with a Y chromosome in their body, period, would have no interest in the concept of time travel? Stupid ones, that's what I thought. But I'm trying it first. I'm going to get first-hand video footage of the Nazi German side of the 1939 invasion of Poland that started World War II. Let's see [typing on keypad] 1 September 1939. I never actually got to see it from the other side, and I'm also doing it for my brother Chris and his history project, I really owe him one after what he did for me last week."

Flashback - In the Griffin kitchen, Stewie (in his high chair) and Chris are eating when Stewie tries to reach for his bottle on the main table. Lois walks by and says: "Chris give Stewie his bottle."

After receiving his bottle, Stewie exclaims: "Oh thank you Chris! I don't know how you just did that but I am so grateful you did! Look at you with your big long arms, saving the day like that. I... I owe you one man."

Recognising the awkward silence for half a minute, Stan asked: "What was all that about?"

Stewie replied: "Oh, don't worry about it, just a little something we like to do here in Quahog."

"Felt kinda wierd, but whatever dude."

An hour later, the pair were still working on the machine with Stan screwing in a metal slab that Stewie was holding, until the younger boy heard a voice from downstairs: "Stewie, I'm going out shopping! Do you want to come on a trip with mommy?!"

Turning upwards to Stan, Stewie remarked, "Alright, that's my bitch. I'll probably be gone for an hour so imma try and pick up some supplies for my machine. Then when I'm back, I'll look around in the gay-raj for that video camera I need. You can't do much else while I'm out, so just read some of this instruction manual I wrote and DO NOT under any circumstances let anyone use this machine. It isn't stable yet and could still create paradoxes!"

Stan agreed to his new friend's wishes and took a seat in the doorway of the machine, and after half an hour of reading felt like he covered as much of 'Stewie's Guide To Time Travel' as he could understand, but while flicking through the pages was interrupted by two voices arriving in Stewie's room.

The first was the dog he had met earlier, and while he was still confused about how it could talk, watched and listened as it slurred around with a martini in hand, rambling: "C-come on Peter, the water's fine."

The second was who Stan could only guess to be Stewie's father, who appeared to be equally if not more drunk, crying: "This...this...this...this...this was the best idea Brian. It's the weekend and-uh... I'm ready to party before that sun goes down!"

Pointing out the unfamiliar face (too closely for Stan's liking), Peter continued: "Who's is... whosiskidbrian? I LIKE YOUR HAT! All blue with a little cherry on top there I could just eat you up!"

Brian carried on the conversation, adding: "No Peter he-he's one of Stewie's friends... I think."

Despite knowing his efforts wouldn't amount to much, an irritated Stan butted in, saying while nosebridgepinching and pointing: "Look you guys, can you take this somewhere else? Stewie probably doesn't want you in here anyway and you're both wasted."

A suddenly 'concerned' Peter had a turn of emotions, announcing: "Stewie, my little baby. Wh-where is he? Out doing the-uh, the potty training? That's my big boy!"

"Peter, I-I-I think he went out with Lois... *burp* and Meg."

"No. No! He-he's just in the next room. Stewie's a little bit shy is all. This is where-this is where dads earn their stripes, well I'm gonna... I'm gonna show him that that potty isn't som'in to be 'fraid of!"

"Can you guys just shu-!", before he could finish yelling at the drunks, Stan felt a sharp elbow to his face, knocking his head backwards into a lever and then a big red button in the time machine before collapsing on its floor. He was followed in by Peter, who then stopped to squat and take up a familiar position.

Brian tried to point out his best friend's anti-social acts, saying: "Peter! wh-what are you doing with your pants down?"

"I'm trying to assert my authority here Brian! This potty needs to be *huughh*-broken in so that St-stewie can use it, just a shame that that jerk kid there won't get outofa way. SO GODDAM SELFISH... lemme flush!"

Exiting the 'chamber', Peter slammed the door shut with the door handle, triggering a blue light to burst from the metal contraption, though Peter and Brian paid little attention in their drunken state, leaving the room as the fat man exclaimed: "Come on Brian goo-good job... I-I'm gonna buy you some cheesy Doritos!"

Author's Note p2: Hope you enjoyed the first chapter, I am just seeing if I have a knack for this sort of thing. I have Chapter 2 planned (probably much shorter), but I'm not sure when I'll actually do it. Could be a day, could be a year.

Warning to Family Guy fans, though, as this is the point where the story becomes more about Stan. As I mentioned at the start, there will be a few references throughout, and Stewie will be involved again later in the story (he kind of has to seeing as it's his time machine ;) ). The original character references by Stewie are just references right now, and are just meant as a bit of background for why he would know Stan (same with the 'time travel stories').

Please leave some reviews if you like what you see or have comments, I am particularly interested in if I am getting Stan's character right, as I will be spending a lot of time writing him in the future chapters...

In the meantime, please review and take part in the poll to choose the title of Chapter 2. Your choices are 'Lifesaver and Lifesaver' & 'Where I'm From'...