Introduction: Right, this is my first ever BTTF fanfic, I am a poor writer, well I think I am, so if you just ignore the lack of writing skills and concentrate on the rip-roarin', plot twistin' action adventurin' storyline, all will be well!
Disclaimer: I don't own Back t' Future or any of the characters, etcetera…Crying shame though…
On with the show, guys! ;) Oh, and if you have any suggestions, feel free to shout them at me…or just tell me, whichever suits you…
Fine-Tuning the Future
Chapter 1
"Marty, can I just ask you something?" Jennifer said with a wide beam across her fair face.
Marty grinned back at her, for the moment, looking like something from a John Wayne movie scarcely shook him. He was already thinking up Jennifer's reply in his head; "Will you marry me?" was amongst the more radical.
"Could you tell me what has been going on the past day?" she asked, her smile replaced by a concerned expression, her thin brows meeting.
"Day for you, Jen, I don't even know what time it is! Come to think of it, I never did get a chance to check it, I was a little busy avoiding trains," Marty replied, remembering a few minutes earlier, as he tried to stumble out of the DeLorean, sitting right in the path of an oncoming train. He could still hear its dull, blaring horn ringing in his ears.
"Marty, what are you talking about? I mean, I see you wearing strange clothes and you're all over me like you have been away for so long you forgot what I looked like! Just, please, tell me what is up? And that train…I'd like to have that explained, I don't think that image is ever going to leave me…" Jennifer replied, her voice starting to sound a little breathy and desperate.
"Well, I can start by telling you, that was a time-travelling train, and before you start yammerin' on about "It isn't possible", it is, because you were there in the future with me just yesterday! Well, it was yesterday for me. I swear that every word is true. How can you not see that piece of paper there that "erased itself", you dreaming, Jen?" Marty said, laughing to himself.
Jennifer's mouth hung slightly agape, and her eyes were wide and wandering.
"Maybe I am, Marty…" she said finally.
"No, no, no, no, you're not, and you've got to believe me that it's true, 'cause it really did happen! You went to the future and you saw our kids, and you saw yourself as a forty seven year old! It sounds really stupid, even to me, but that's what happened! Hell, I went to the past. I went to nineteen fifty five and met my parents!" Marty said, his voice raising an octave higher than its usual pitch.
"Marty, are you OK?" Jennifer said, grasping his arm firmly, but gently.
"Ha, I'm fine, Jen, I've never been better!" Marty ran his hands through his hair, making it look like a gust of wind had just swept past him.
Jennifer grabbed him around the shoulders and looked at him sternly. He smiled stupidly at her and waved sheepishly.
"Are you drunk? Is that why you look like Clint Eastwood?" she said to him with a frown.
"That's so funny, 'cause that was my name in the ol' west! I went there too, to rescue Doc from being shot by Mad-Dog Tannen!" Marty replied. He then realised by surveying the look in Jennifer's eyes that he was raving on about something that she couldn't possibly comprehend.
He was going to miss talking about what happened in the future and the past now that Doc was gone.
"If you don't believe me, why did you ask?" Marty said, pulling away from her and making his way up the grass verge next to the track.
He stood at the top. From here, he could see the bits of metal sheeting, the wiring, the fabric from the seating of the old DeLorean. It was such a shame; he had grown to love that car, as it had been his getaway more than once. And his saviour, helping him sort out future and past problems that he would have otherwise been incapable of.
"I asked because I wanted to, and I wanted a straight answer too, Marty." Jennifer said blankly with a hint of frustration.
"You saw all that, you saw that train and you want a straight answer?" Marty laughed.
"There was something odd about that train, yeah…"
"Odd? Odd? Jennifer, you need to wake up and smell the DeLorean smokin' all over the tracks! Damn, you were there! You said so yourself!" Marty was almost yelling at her now.
"It had to be a dream, Marty, it was too weird to be real, it's Doc, he's been putting ideas into your head or something, why are you so mad? Is it because of that car? Do you think it's your fault it was wrecked? It didn't even belong to you! The Toyota is yours, and I thought I was too!" Jennifer raised her voice to counter his.
"Ideas? You think all that stuff I had to do to change my destiny was an idea? The DeLorean…was an accident. It was supposed to happen, and it was mine, Jen." Marty threw his hands in the air and stormed down the other side of the verge.
"The paper is proof! It's there in your hand, have you ever heard of that company? No? It's a company from the future!" Marty said frantically, his back was turned away from her and he shut his eyes so tight that they ached.
"You want the paper so much, Marty? Then have it!" Jennifer let the paper drop to the floor, and it disappeared entirely, swallowed up by the DeLorean debris.
"Jen, I didn't mean it like that…" he began, slowly turning around to face her. He met her face on, they were nose to nose, and Jennifer's eyes were shining with tears, they were collecting on her eyelashes.
"How did you mean it then, Clint? Any other girl would just accept that you've "travelled through time" and suddenly admire you like some sort of celebrity, wouldn't they? Are those the kind of girls you want hanging around?!" she shouted, though her voice occasionally fell silent halfway through a word.
"No, of course not, it's just that I thought you'd understand…" he started again.
No use, he was trying to cover up a mistake that had really got Jennifer riled.
"You thought I'd understand? Do you think I'm like some sort of sidekick that you can explain all of your fearsome plans to? Well, think again!" She shouted, driving a finger into his chest.
She raised her hand in the effort to slap him, but she let her arm drop.
"I'll see you at school tomorrow." She said with a dark glare and a husky voice that reminded Marty too much of his mother when she was angry.
Jennifer promptly pushed past him and shoved against his shoulder as she did so.
"Jennifer…" he began in what he hoped to be a compassionate tone, but he left his sentence hanging, knowing it would be no use and only land him in more trouble than he was.
"I hope I wasn't an accident, like that stupid car you seem to love so much!" she shouted at him, she didn't even turn to face him, she just continued on.
He was really wishing that he had never gone back in time. He had the adventures of a lifetime, but now he had no-one to spend his normal one with anymore.
"Pull yourself together McFly," he began, he watched her walking away, her arms clasped in a pained fashion across her stomach. Her auburn hair was glistening in the distance. She crossed the road, turned a corner, and no matter how hard Marty squinted, he couldn't see her figure anymore.
She had gone.
"Ok, McFly, it's fine, she didn't actually say she was breaking up with you," he said loudly, tugging at his poncho nervously.
"Damn, who am I kiddin'," he shouted after a while, his arms dropped to his sides and he bowed his head, sighing under his breathe.
He suddenly sat down on the verge, lying flat out, though the angle allowed him to still see the smoking remains of the beloved DeLorean.
There was no way he could travel back through time to fix this mess. He thought though, that he had created the kind of irreversible paradox that is hard to pull back together again. He'd sooner go back through time than hope Jennifer would allow him take back what he had said to her.
He stood up and looked mournfully down the tracks. There was no "ding, ding" of the warning, the barriers were still and there was no distant rumbling of wheels across metal.
Marty then took one step onto the sleepers. He stared down at his feet, and then moved his gaze to take in the scrap metal strewn all around him.
His eyes caught the site of the glowing flux capacitor. The thing was still rippling with light. Marty was someone who had lost a friend, and he finally knew that he hadn't just lost Doc; he'd lost the car of his dreams, and possibly the girl as well.
He bent down and touched the flux capacitor, and was slightly taken aback, it was still emitting heat.
He frowned at it, and then straightened up. He cried aloud and kicked it out of unintended anger. It hummed as it flew through the air, and then fell silent as it bounced from the track to the stones on the floor. It clattered and clanged to a stop, and finally went dead.
It was over then. The days that now seemed years ago. In reality, they were, but the memories were fresh in his mind, the good, the bad and the ugly.
With a forlorn glance at the wreckage, Marty turned away for what he hoped was the last time.
He couldn't even bring himself to pick up any of the pieces, of the DeLorean, and, more importantly, his relationship with Jennifer.
Grabbing the framed picture of himself and Doc standing beside the clock that was, back then, soon to be hoisted to its new home, and grave, on the courthouse, Marty began the long walk back home.
