A/N: Last updated June 25. Rewrote some parts, fixed some minor grammatical errors and hopefully got rid of those darned comma splices I'm so prone to. Technically my first story, but not the first installment in my Back to the Future series; N0T1ME. This is actually what I consider Part II of the series. Part I will detail how Emma came to be stuck in 1986 in the first place. As per my original note, I love this game more than almost anything, and fourth-wall breaking is one of my favorite things about adventure games, but it just...I don't know...doesn't feel right for Marty. He's no Guybrush Threepwood and it makes me feel bad that he's all alone, so I gave him a friend to bounce his sass off of! Also, rewrote a tiny bit of this to include Jennifer because in the whole Game vs. comic series battle, the game is better detail-wise, but the Citizen Brown comic says Jennifer gave Marty the clothes he wears to 1931 and that's just too sweet to not to include here.


"Come on, give him another couple of weeks to come back and get this all sorted out, please!" a teenage girl cried, trying to pull a first edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein away from the tall and well-dressed figure of George McFly.

"I'm sorry, Emma, but the bank has already put this off as long as they possibly could. It would be very unlikely for Dr. Brown to return now, and even if he did, there's just no feasible way for him to pay off all of his debts in a timely manner. Now, let go of the book, please." She released her grip on the book, and slumped off, defeated and upset.

She plopped down on the bed in the corner to become engrossed in an episode of the Cosmos with Carl Sagan on the TV. She petted a black and white puppy curled up beside her and sighed before stating, "Marty's not going to be happy about this."

Almost as though on cue, Marty burst in through the side door of the garage. "Dad! Are we too late to stop the..." Marty paused for a moment as he stopped short just inside the door, "Sale?"

His father nodded and waved a finger as he approached Marty, "Better late than never. You wouldn't BELIEVE how much rare stuff there is around here!"

Marty clenched his jaw as he walked forward, pointing a finger at his father. "That's Doc's stuff! The bank has no right to—"

"Now, son, I know you're upset. But your friend's been gone for months, and the city really seems hellbent on using his land for that new parking garage, and—hey, is that a first edition Jules Verne?"

Marty sighed as his father strayed away to examine another box of first edition novels and other rare out-of-prints, "It's just not fair. But at least things can't get any worse." He heard someone drop a coin into the old jukebox in the corner. It started playing Huey Lewis & The News' 1985 hit 'Back In Time' and he saw that it was Biff Tannen who had turned the jukebox on. He was wearing Doc's old mind-reading helmet, but had clearly decided to re-purpose it as a beer helmet, an idea that Marty wasn't thrilled with.

"Hi, Marty!" Biff said, setting the mind-reading helmet back where he found it and turning off the jukebox before walking up to Marty. "Come to see if the old crackpot left any buried treasure?"

The word 'crackpot' set Marty on edge. He hated it when people disrespected Doc. He was a little eccentric, and Marty was no stranger to his unusual habits and his reclusive nature, but he knew, as did Jennifer and Emma, that Doc was a cool guy. The rest of the town, unfortunately, had never been able to really move past the suspicious circumstances of the Brown mansion's demise, and then came the rumors when they connected the scientist who had worked on the Manhattan Project to the weird weather experiment that had damaged their clock tower and then to the mansion's destruction. Doc's reputation was all but demolished in Hill Valley.

Using all of his self-discipline in an attempt not to chew out Biff right there, though he really wanted to, Marty replied calmly, "Nah. I guess I'm just...remembering." He knelt down by Einstein's bowl. "I miss Einstein..." He said to himself. He stood up again and glanced at Emma, who was absorbed in her TV program.

Emma Brown was a time traveler, just like him. She was Doc's 17-going-on-18 year old granddaughter, from the year 2016. Like Doc, she had a penchant for science. Unlike Doc, her interest in science was dealt more in theoretical practices than in the hands-on applied sciences that came with being an inventor. To Marty's delight, she shared many of his interests in music, cars, movies, and video games. Emma became trapped in 1986 in March, just after Marty had come so dangerously close to giving up hope that his friend would ever return, and they'd quickly become good friends, able to bond over time travel shenanigans and their similar tastes in entertainment.

"Hey, Emma."

"Oh, hey Marty."

"Whatcha watchin'?" He gave the dog on the bed a quick ruffle behind the ears, causing him to stir slightly, then settle right back into his deep slumber.

"The Cosmos: Journeys Through Space and Time. Kind of wishing Carl Sagan wouldn't talk so much about time travel, considering how little he knows about it since he hasn't done it..."

Marty turned to watch part of the show, and sure enough he caught the last part of Carl Sagan's monologue, "...does nature contrive it, so that even with a time machine you can't intervene...to prevent your own conception, for example..." He looked over at his father, who was busy taking inventory on what had been sold so far, and cracked a smile as he remembered how he had almost prevented himself and his siblings from being born, all because he had intervened with his parents' first meeting.

"...Yeah... So, listen. I want to keep an eye out for anything important that Doc might've left behind that he wouldn't want to leave the lab."

Emma nodded, "So like, every single thing in here that's been marked for sale?" She spread her arms out, gesturing to the surroundings of the lab.

"Yeah, but...this is ah-a really specific thing that I'm looking for, Em."

"Okay. Could you be more specific?"

"It's Doc's notebook with all of his research concerning the time machine and the flux capacitor. I haven't seen it since the night Doc and I...I mean—"

"I think I know the one you're talking about, but I haven't seen it since before I went back in time. And even then, it was locked up tight in the Insti—Eh, never mind. I'm sure it's around here somewhere. Let's see if we can find it."

"First I gotta do something real quick." Marty said, then headed over to talk to his father. "Hey Dad, who's running this sale, anyway?"

"Oh, that'd be me, son!"

"You? Why?" Marty shook his head in disbelief.

"Well, once it became apparent that the bank was going through with the sale, I volunteered to oversee the event to insure that Doc's stuff would be treated with a modicum of respect. Isn't that right, Biff?"

"You got it, Mr. McFly!" Biff replied from the other part of the garage.

"What's Biff doing here? He wasn't a friend of Doc's!"

"It's a public sale, Marty. Everyone's allowed..." George's face shifted from a relaxed, but tired expression to a look that hinted at slight defeat, shaking his head. "Even Biff."

Marty was not about to give up defending his friend's honor just because it didn't seem like he'd be returning to 1986 anytime soon. He spat back at his father, "I'm telling you, this sale is a joke! Doc's only been gone for a few months, and I happen to know—"

"Yes, you've told us. He's not dead. He's on a trip. Let's say you're right. Have you considered that this trip may not have been...entirely voluntary?" his dad replied in annoyance, then changed his tone back to one that felt a little like fatherly condescension. "I hate to say it, but Doc's run up some pretty sizable debts around here. Maybe he's just hiding from his creditors."

Marty tensed up again and fired back, "You got Doc wrong! Sure, maybe he's not so good with money...that's just 'cause his mind's always on bigger things. But he's still a straight-up guy. He'd never run away from his problems!"

George McFly nodded, "Well, you know him better than I do, son. But the bank IS within its rights to sell off his stuff. Perhaps you should find some things to remember him by...before Biff grabs them all."

"I'll keep looking around. Thanks, Dad."

They stopped to talk to Biff, to Marty's chagrin, but Emma wanted to be polite, and thought maybe they could somehow persuade him to leave the room while they searched it.

"Hey, Biff..."

"Hi, Marty!"

"What are you doing here?" It was a hollow question, and Marty really didn't care about the answer, but he was humoring Em.

"Well, I was as bummed as anyone to hear the old nutcase had kicked it..."

"He's not—" Dead. Or a nutcase. Marty thought, but Biff cut him off before he could finish the sentence.

"But I'm not above picking through the remains! You know what they say, 'don't look a gift horse in the butt'!"

"It's mouth, Biff." Emma replied.

"Don't look a gift mouth in the butt? What are you on?"

She sighed, rolling her eyes, "Nothing."

Marty tried once more, unsuccessfully, to convince Biff that Doc was alive. "Doc's not dead, you know. He's still around."

"Oh really? Do you SEE him around here?"

"Never mind."

"What's this?" Emma asked, studying the model of Hill Valley that was sitting on the ping pong table in the back room.

"Doc built this model of downtown Hill Valley way back in 1955. The clock tower in the courthouse even works." he paused for a moment, looking behind the courthouse, and seeing that the back layer of cardboard is starting to peel apart. "What the—Is that Doc's notebook in there?"

Before he could get any closer, Biff suddenly grabbed the cardboard courthouse away from them. "Hey, that looks just like the courthouse! You have to hand it to the old coot, he was good with his hands."

"Biff, can I see that a minute?"

"This'll look great in my fish tank! Give the ol' carp something new to nibble on."

Emma cut in to try and help Marty. "Mind if we see that model courthouse for just a second?"

"I have to get something out of it," Marty added.

"Like what, a 'not guilty' verdict?"

The teens looked at each other with pained expressions in response to this, which Biff misinterpreted as confusion.

"That was a joke."

"Oh. Ha. But seriously, can I have it?"

"Nah, I think I'll hold onto it," Biff taunted.

Marty glared at him. "Give it here, Biff!" he tried to grab the model, but Biff jerked it away, causing the roof to pop open and reveal the notebook.

"Well, well, lookit what we got here! Looks like PLANS for something... What's a 'flux catheter'?"

"it's none of your business! Doc asked me to—"

"Brown's wormfood, kid. But this looks like it might be worth something. Ha!"

They walked back into the other part of the garage, by Marty's father. "Oh, great." Emma groaned.

"We've gotta get that notebook back from Biff!"

"I don't suppose he'll give it up if we ask him to?"

"Em, this is Biff we're talking about."

"Right."

"Hey Dad? Why's my guitar got a price tag on it?"

George almost immediately regretted setting the box on the counter. "Sorry, son. Must've been an overzealous clerk. Just pick it up, I'll iron things out with the bank."

"Let's make some noise..." he turned up all the dials on the amplifier controls, but rather than crank them all the way up, he only put them at about halfway, about to play when Biff walked in from the other room, laughing. "Here's an oldie, but a goodie-"

"-Ha ha ha! Hey, look. It's Chuck Butthead!" Biff yanked the guitar away from him. "I'll show ya how it's done." Evidently the last straw for Marty, he turned up the dials to full blast as Biff readied the guitar pick. "Now watch me blow the lid off this joint!"

"Whatever you say..." Marty replied.

The light glinted off the guitar pick as Biff held it in the air momentarily. When he brought it down to strike a dissonant power chord, Emma and Marty covered their ears and flinched as the power of the massive amplifier launched Biff clear across the room and into a shelving complex stocked with paint cans, blueprints, and other assorted papers. Emma's puppy was startled awake from his nap by the noise and let out a high-pitched whine. Emma turned her attention to comforting the dog while Marty retrieved the notebook from the model courthouse. He opened it up to the page with the flux capacitor sketch on it, and glanced at Doc's 'to-do list' for October 26th, 1985.

"Aw, Doc... Where are you?" He heard the explosive crackling and boom of a time machine exiting temporal displacement from outside, his eyes widened in an unusual mix of complete bewilderment and a sudden glimmer of hope. He ran outside, Emma and her dog following along right behind him.


He hesitated once he got out to the parking lot. Looking at the newly appeared car in disbelief, he slowly approached the driver's side of the DeLorean.

"Doc...?" He reached out to touch the time machine, but jumped back when the cooling vents released a white cloud of vapor into the air. He tried to reach out again, recoiling once his hand touched the door handle. He looked to his hands, the burning sensation of the ice tickling his fingertips with numbness.

Emma winced as he recoiled, "What—what, is it hot?"

Marty shook his head, "It's cold. Damn cold." Talk about déjà vu... he thought. He lifted the door handle with his foot and opened the door, revealing Einstein the dog sitting in the driver's seat. "Einstein! Where'd you come from, boy? Didn't you bring Doc with you?"

Emma opened the passenger side door as Marty sat down in the driver's seat. "So this is the DeLorean?" she asked, joining him in the car.

"I guess so, yeah. It sure LOOKS like the DeLorean, at least."

"What's this?" She held up a tape recorder that read 'Marty!' on it in big bold letters, handing it to him.

Marty pressed the playback button. "Marty!"

"Gah!" He yelped, dropping the tape recorder.

"Marty, if you're hearing this recording, then the DeLorean's automatic retrieval feature is a resounding success!"

"'Automatic retrieval'...?"

"In case of my failure to return to the DeLorean within an allotted amount of time, I've programmed the time machine to jump to these four-dimensional coordinates without me. As you may know, time travel is an inherently risky activity, and despite my elaborate precautions there's always the possibility I could land in trouble sometime. And that sometime is now! Or then! Or maybe later!"

Marty face lit up in alarm. "He's in trouble!"

Emma noticed a shoe on the floor of the passenger's side and picked it up, looking it over as they continued to listen to the recording.

"Marty, you've come to my rescue in the past. Or, was it the future? Anyway, I'm counting on you to do it again. Please take the DeLorean back—or forward—to whenever it is I'm stuck in time. When you get there I'm sure you'll figure out what to do."

"That's it?! Aren't you going to tell me when that is?"

"Just go to the date marked under the 'Last Time Departed' header on the time circuit read outs. Good luck!"

"Right, right. Last time departed, last time departed..." He quickly turned the time circuits on, but to his dismay, the last time departed header appeared to be glitching. "Aw geez, c'mon...c'cmon...c'mon...crap! Oh great, how am I supposed to find him now?"

"Maybe this can tell us something."

"Where'd you find that?"

"On the floor. It's a women's shoe."

"Huh. Weird. I guess it might be Clara's."

"Or it might be a clue. Let's see what Einie and Dee make of it, just to be sure."

"What do you know about this shoe, Einie?" Marty held out the shoe for Einstein to smell.

"You want a whiff, Dee?" The younger dog barked, sniffed the shoe, then quickly took off with Einie toward the town square.

"Great Scott! I think they're on to something!" Marty exclaimed.


"Okay, NOW we're getting somewhere."

"How's this supposed to lead us to Doc, guys?" Emma said to the dogs.

"Who goes there?!" An elderly woman holding a megaphone shouted at the kids from inside her apartment. Einie and Dee started barking angrily until Marty and Emma managed to quiet them down. "Just as I suspected; hooligans!"

"We're not hooligans, ma'am. We're uh, teenagers!"

"I wasn't born yesterday, young man. Aren't you the miscreant who skateboards through the town square every morning between eight and eight-thirty, in a decidedly unpunctual manner?"

"Um, yeah?"

"All skateboarders are hooligans. It's a fact. Look it up. And YOU!"

Emma pointed to herself, confused. "Me?"

"Yes! You're the hooligan who lets that mangy mutt of yours run loose in the city. Leash laws exist for a reason, young lady!"

"Hey!" she indignantly exclaims, "Dee never strays more than five feet away from me at any time, on or off leash! I trained him!"

"With those "treats" you're so fond of, I expect? Try actually training your animal, ungrateful yuppie!"

Marty thought back to what the button had said. "'E. Strickland'... You wouldn't happen to be related to Vice Principal Strickland, would you ma'am?"

"Not that it's any of your BUSINESS, but I'm his sister, Edna. Oh, and you're one of those McFly slackers, aren't you?!"

"Yes! What's old man Strick—I mean, what else has your brother been saying about me?"

"Nothing that I couldn't have deduced for myself, slacker!"

"Can you let us in? We've got something to show you!"

"What is it? Let me see."

Marty held up the shoe that had led him and Emma there in the first place.

"A shoe? Now, what would I want with a—Huh?" Edna gasped. "Stay there!" She disappeared from the window and reappeared holding the shoe's match. The same style and color, but it had approximately fifty years more wear than its time-traveling counterpart, and it didn't fool Edna that there was something peculiar about at least one of those dogs and the almost brand-new shoe that made her wonder. And she wasn't about to let those hooligans run off with her shoe. She wandered away from the window again and went down to open the big iron gate so they could enter the apartment. Einstein started barking again, and Dee followed the older dog's lead. Edna made it back to her window once more, bellowing out of her megaphone. "Leave those CREATURES outside."

"Sorry, Einstein." Marty said. Einstein gave the boy an almost disapproving look as he walked up the stairs, and turned to lie down.

Emma patted her dog reassuringly, "Be good, Dee. Stay, boys." She wasn't sure they were really listening to her, but they were sitting quietly, and she decided that was good enough.


"Took ya long enough!"

"Um, there's a lot of stairs..."

"To return the shoe, I mean. I lost it AGES ago. You can put it down next to the other one..." Marty complied, dropping the new shoe next to the old one. "There, so neat and orderly. I suppose you two'll be wanting some sort of reward now."

"What? No, I—"

"All I've got is tea and candy... I'm sorry I called you hooligans. I try not to jump to conclusions, but after all, nine out of ten people in this city ARE hooligans. It's a fact. Look it up." The old woman walked into the kitchen and put a tea kettle on the stove. Marty noticed that she had forgotten to actually turn the stove on, and tried to call attention to this when she cut him off.

"Uh—"

"Have a seat, children." Edna said. Marty and Emma looked around, but it seemed every seat in the small apartment was occupied by piles of newspapers. Judging by the food and water bowls, Edna had cats, which made sitting on the floor seem like a bad idea to the two dog-loving teens. They insisted that they were fine with standing, stating that they wouldn't be staying too long and only wanted to ask the old woman a few questions. "Hey! You kids, put out those cigarettes!" Edna shouted out her window to two twenty-something year old men who were casually chatting across the street.

"What's with all the newspapers?" asked Emma.

"This is my personal archive. I've got every issue of the Hill Valley Telegraph ever published!"

"Get out. Every single issue?" Marty said.

"From 1871 to the present! If it happened in Hill Valley, you can find it in my stacks!"

Emma pondered for a moment. "Why do you need all these newspapers?"

"Isn't that the library's job?" added Marty.

"Libraries? Feh! Have you seen the smut they keep in their magazine racks?"

"Mind if we look through these newspapers?"

"Don't touch those. My newspapers are in pristine condition and meticulously organized. I'm not about to let some street punks get jam all over them."

"Jam?" Emma turned to Marty, who examined his hands as if expecting them to be covered in jam at that moment. He shrugged in response to her.

"Did I imagine it or did she forget to turn on the burner in the kitchen?"

Marty nods, recalling that she had indeed set everything up, but had forgotten to turn the stove top on. "Miss Strickland, about your tea... You forgot to to turn on the-"

"YOU!" Marty turned around to face Edna, but saw that she was yelling out her window again. "It's spelled with a 'U', you illiterate vandal!" He shook his head in disbelief.

Trying to deal with Edna's senile mind in a way that would enable the teens to get what they needed was exhausting to say the least, but they finally learned that the video rental shop was built on the grounds of the old speakeasy in 1932, a year after the speakeasy arson had taken place. After that, Marty had tried messing with Edna's old radiator to make it a slightly more comfortable temperature. It started whistling, which Edna had mistaken for the kettle boiling over. Seizing their chance with the crotchety old woman out of the room, Marty and Emma started searching through the stack of newspapers until they found the stack dated 1931.

"Let's see...'Ground Broken on Site of Former Speakeasy,' 'Singer Vanishes,' 'Soup Kitchen Exposed,' 'Hill Valley Expo Delights Crowd'... Here we go, 'Speakeasy Arsonist Slain'...'Legal procedure gave way to old-fashioned vengeance last night when a mob descended on the Hill Valley Police Station. The suspect in the speakeasy arson case, a drifter known as Carl Sagan, was pulled from his'...Carl Sagan?"

"Wait a minute, the astrophysicist from the Cosmos?" Asked Emma, "My apologies for saying he didn't know anything about time travel, I guess."

Marty turned the newspaper over and examined the mugshot of the arsonist, both his and Emma's suspicions confirmed. "It's Doc! Killed by a mob..? Oh, what's the date?"

"June 14th, 1931." Emma read under the dateline on the paper.

"Jeez... I gotta rescue him!" Marty turned to bolt, but was slowed by the newspaper wall.

Foreseeing nothing good coming from Marty inadvertently loosening the tightly wedged newspaper stack, Emma let out a nervous squeak of "Marty, wait—!" in an attempt to stop him from passing so close to the structurally compromised wall of stacked newspapers, but the slightest brush of movement against the stack proved to be just enough to send it toppling over, to Edna's disdain.

"My newspapers!"

"Sorry, Miss Strickland! Here, let us—"

"No! You've gotten my history out of order! Oh, do you know how long it'll take to fix what you've done? Aaagh, get out, get out, get out!" Marty and Emma wasted no time fleeing from the enraged old woman, who was shouting for police assistance with her megaphone. "Help! Police! I'm being attacked by hooligans!"


When they arrived back at Doc's garage, they decided to use the Burger King's bathroom to change into some more 1931-appropriate clothing they had picked up from Jennifer's house on their way back from Edna's apartment. Marty had invited Jennifer to come along, but she'd refused, stating that there was no way she was ever getting back in the DeLorean, or anywhere near it. She offered help in her own way, however. She loaned Marty an old outfit of her father's; a simple white shirt and brown pants with a brown vest thrown over to make the whole ensemble seem a little more exciting. For Emma, she let her borrow a dress that had belonged to her mother. It was green with a matching bonnet and shoes, and was well-worn in places but not exceptionally noticeable up close.

"You're not thinking of going alone, are you?" Asked Emma, her arms crossed over her chest as she leaned against the DeLorean.

"Well, that was the plan. But I'm probably not going to be able to convince you not to come, am I?"

"I don't think so. The Brown/Clayton stubbornness and determination streak is strong with me."

"There's not gonna be a lot of room in the car once we find Doc. I'm taking Einie with me."

"Make a second trip if you have to. That, or I'll squish myself behind the seat when we rescue Doc. Or hide in the trunk, as long as you drive carefully."

"All right...Hey, I meant to ask earlier—Do you still want to go home? I mean, since we have a working time machine."

Emma nodded, "I do, but it can wait until after we rescue Doc."

"Marty!" George McFly beckoned as he came around the side of the garage. "Where've you been, son? And what are you doing in that getup?"

"Um... Didn't you hear? Em and I got the leads in the school play! We're doing..."

"Grapes of Wrath?"

"Right!"

"Oh, Steinbeck! Who are you playing?"

"Um, ah..."

"Never mind, it's better I don't know. I'm sure you know what you're doing, right?"

"I hope so..." Marty sighed.

"Hey, sometimes you've gotta go out on a limb for the ones you love, right? I wish MY dad had understood that. You won't stay away too long?"

He grins, "You'll barely even notice I'm gone."

"Ready to go, Einstein? How about you, Dee?" The dogs barked in agreement as they hopped inside the DeLorean, settling down as Emma slid into the passengers seat.

"Okay, time circuits, on...flux capacitor...uh, fluxy... All right. Okay, If Doc's going to be killed on June 14th, I'll just show up the day before, and get him out!"

"The day before?" Emma inquired.

Marty nodded, "It should be all the time I need to find Doc and get him out of there. The longer we stay in the past, the more time there is for something to go wrong," he explained. "Hope you know what you're doing, Doc..."

Luckily, it was dark by the time they had reached the main highway, and with virtually no traffic on the road that night, it was the ideal place for achieving temporal displacement. Marty looked extra determined as he told Emma to turn the time circuits on and then shifted gears and accelerated the car to 88 miles per hour. They were instantly transported to 1931, but unfortunately were caught in the midst of a high speed mob shootout between who they would soon come to know as Irving Kid Tannen's goons, and the Hill Valley police. With no options to get out of the way, Marty was forced to decelerate with the cop behind him bumping the car's rear end and gesturing to pull over so he could catch the gangsters, who were fast disappearing into the inky night. The cooling vents activated, billowing white vapor at the police officer and causing him to temporarily lose control of his car. He spun out on the side of the road as the DeLorean disappeared into the waning hours of very early morning.

Marty checked the time as they pulled behind a billboard advertising a Car of the Future. Poetic irony, Emma thought, considering they really did have the car of the future. The time was 4:00 AM on June 13th, 1931, and the two teenagers were off on their mission to rescue Doc, starting two miles outside of Hill Valley.


A/N: Thanks for reading! Please fave and follow if you do like this story, and above all else, review!