Disclaimer: I do not own Back to the Future.
Author's Note: Another chapter, detailing what happens after Calvin wakes up and ending with another cliffhanger. Calvin is sure in a pickle here. If anyone noticed that I uploaded this exactly one week after the last chapter, that was intentional. I'm hoping to keep that up as a schedule but I can't give you any guarantees. If anyone has any questions, criticism, commentary or praise, please review!
Chapter Two
Saturday, December 14, 1985
04:00 PM PST
Hill Valley, California
It seemed like an eternity later when the clouds that had formed in Calvin's mind finally broke. His eyes were firmly snapped shut, and he felt unwell, although slightly better than he had that morning. He groaned, twitching his fingers and slightly moving his arms. Behind him, he became aware of the presence of two similar and very familiar voices arguing.
"…not entirely stable. We can't draw any conclusions just yet."
"That sounds likely, but we have been putting an hour into this. And what will we tell his parents?"
"The same thing we told Marty – that we're trying to wake him up, but that he hasn't responded to the drugs or prodding yet. I know they'll be hurt, but they need to understand that we're trying everything we can."
"We could take him into the future…"
"In his condition? Besides, where would we take him? I'd prefer to hold off travelling to the future unless it's absolutely necessary."
"I understand. I just wish he would wake up soon. Not only is he making all of us very worried, I can test my theories better when he's awake to confirm or deny them." A sigh. "Has there been any change?"
"It looks like he's stirring, but it's been looking like that on and off for five minutes now. We can't draw any conclusions from that."
Calvin, whose confused, clouded mind began to realize that the inventors were talking about him, tried to blink. After some effort, it worked, and he opened his eyes, taking in the room around him. Doc's lab, he concluded. He was on the couch the inventor had placed there, and several wires were attached to places on his arms, as if he were a hospitalized person. "Doc?" he asked, lifting his head somewhat.
"Calvin!" Doc's voice exclaimed. He and Chris rushed over. "Don't try to sit up!"
"Why not?" Calvin asked, confused. "Would it hurt the wiring?"
"No, but it might hurt you" Chris replied. "Your situation is far from stable yet, and if what we saw before you fainted is any indication, your body is highly fluid right now. If you so much as move your leg, you might end up disconnecting one of the bones inside it."
"What?" Calvin exclaimed. He thought hard, remembering the last moments before he had fainted. "Does this have anything to do with my arm flickering in and out of existence?"
The scientists looked at each other, and reluctantly nodded. "It certainly would appear to be so" Doc admitted. "Calvin, it's a long story and we're not entirely sure yet either, but from what we've seen, we concluded that you're in the process of fading from existence. Why it is going so incredibly slow and inconsistent we haven't concluded yet, nor why it's happening at all."
"Well, we presume it must have something to do with the fact that there's not supposed to be a second Marty in the world" Chris explained. "The only problem with that theory is that in that case, it should be affecting me and my family too, for if there should be only one Emmett Brown, one Marty McFly and one Jennifer Parker, we should be erasing too, and none of us is feeling ill yet. I asked the kids and Susan to call if at any time they aren't feeling well, but the phone has remained blissfully silent the entire time we have been here."
"So…?" Calvin said.
"So basically, we haven't got a clue what's going on" Doc admitted. "We tied you up to this equipment both to monitor your condition and to return you to consciousness, because we suspected that the fading process was hindering your body's capacity to wake up, and because that process might be accelerated if you are in a non-resistant state like sleeping. But now, we don't have a concrete idea of what to do besides research and speculation."
"Does that mean that if you don't find the solution, I'm going to fade away entirely?" Calvin asked. He certainly didn't like the sound of that, but it appeared to be the obvious option.
"Perhaps" Chris conceded. "But we're working together on this, hard, and we brought everything we've got into the lab. If there's a solution to this problem, we will give it our best efforts to find it. Don't worry, Calvin. We haven't let you down before and we're not going to start now." Doc nodded in full agreement.
"I guess so" Calvin said. "The idea of fading away still sounds scary, though – although I suppose I pulled through in '55 as well." A memory of the Docs' conversation when they didn't yet know he was alert came up to him. "Did you say you called my parents and told them about my, uh, situation?"
"That's right" Doc replied. "They weren't happy, as you will understand, but they could see the need for us to research you, as well as the fact that we can't exactly take you to a hospital. We can't reveal time travel to the hospital staff, not to mention the fact that they're not equipped to deal with somebody erasing from existence. I will call them now and inform them that you've woken up."
Calvin nodded, as Doc went off. "Are you going to keep me here for now, or can I go soon?" he asked. "I really want to survive, but I'm not looking forward to spending days in the lab tied up to your equipment…"
"We wouldn't inflict that on you" Chris assured him. "Just a few more tests, and unless your situation drastically worsens, I think we're done for the day after that. It shouldn't take more than an hour. We're currently speculating that you're being assaulted in waves of some sorts, meaning that after any given attack of the erasure process, you will eventually recover. We need to do a few more tests to make sure, though – as we said earlier, we can't even trust you to stand upright now."
Calvin nodded again. "I see" he muttered, feeling insecure. On one hand, he wanted to remain strong and confident that he would pull through, and Chris was right – his friends had never let him down before. On the other hand, the concept of erasure from existence was frightening, and even more so when no one had a clue why it was happening. That did remind him of a question, though. "Have you got any idea how long it will take before I fade out?"
"No" Chris admitted. "We don't know anything yet, although I suppose that now you're awake we could widen our range of possibilities for research. The most important thing right now is that you're kept stable."
The teen supposed he could grasp as much, even if he didn't like it. Just then, Doc put the telephone's horn back on the hook and walked over to them, sighing. "They were relieved Calvin woke up, but were naturally concerned as I couldn't tell them anything more. I told them you'll be home in time for dinner, so if we start right away, I am sure we can make that true."
"What will you be testing me on?" Calvin wondered.
"Mostly DNA" Chris replied. "After all, it represents the basics of your existence and we should be able to use future scanners to check if any body cells are disappearing or altering dramatically. From that, we should be able to draw some conclusions about the fading process – although, of course, this is a wholly new level of research. Furthermore, we need to ask you a few questions, test your reflexes, scan and feel the stability of your limbs – all in order to draw a picture of just how far the erasure process is going."
"You can do all that?" Calvin said, surprised. "I thought you just said you didn't want to go to the future for this – and it sounds like stuff that you can't or shouldn't do using ordinary 1980s technology. And neither of you are that kind of doctor, anyway, so you'd pretty much have to resort to easily operable advanced technology."
"We didn't want to take you to the future, that is right" Doc agreed. "There is a valid concern, after all – as we can't currently risk having you sit upright, having you be transported to the DeLorean, even for a brief journey to the future, would be dangerous, at least in the condition you're in now. We'll need to wait a few hours for that, if it turns out to be necessary, and I don't think a future hospital could help you any more than a present-day one can, not being specialized in erasure. But we can get technology from the future without any problems, and we already have a lot of equipment in stock. For the next day or two, I'm fairly certain we're covered. Of course, we still have to deal with the theoretical work."
"Why it's happening" Calvin said, nodding.
"Exactly" Doc said. "Chris and I have been doing some heavy thinking about that, even taking out old time travel theories I had sketched up before I got around to building the DeLorean. We need to know what is at the root of your problem in order to solve it, and we're not having much success with that yet. We do know that you are from another reality to Chris and his family, and that yours is much more similar to mine than his is. However, I would deem it highly unlikely that you would get erased and they wouldn't just for that. After all, they're all alternate timelines, created and erased within a single space-time continuum."
"Yeah, I remember Chris telling me that, back in the alternate '85," Calvin replied, turning to the other inventor as he thought hard. "You described three main timelines – the one I was from, the one I created with my meddling in 1955, and the one Biff made with the almanac. And you erased the other two as soon as you made the new one on the paper you'd sketched it all out on."
"That's correct" Chris agreed. "Although this isn't really the timeline you created in 1955, but a different one that is merely extremely similar, with the difference that in this timeline, Biff got the almanac, lost it in 1958, was given it back by you, and once more lost it later that night."
"Or is it?" Doc wondered. "The whole erasing timeline concept, I mean. What if, for some reason, your timeline wasn't erased and therefore you still exist? As if Biff's journey back to 1955 set off a switch track where the timeline's course shifted in a different way, but the previous timeline still existed?"
"That might have been possible," Chris argued, "but it is disproven by everything we have seen thus far. Why would Calvin's reality erase, and ours survive? And what is fundamentally different between your switch track theory and the concept of parallel timelines or dimensions, where one simply hops from universe to universe rather than creating any changes in his or her own past? And we know that to be untrue, not just from Calvin's example now, but also from his experience in 1955, at the dance!"
"Perhaps Calvin is erasing slowly because it is not really clear which of him, Marty or he, is the true version of Marty that belongs in this timeline" Doc speculated. "But admittedly that's just a wild guess and still doesn't solve your issue."
"Well, that's very interesting" Calvin interrupted, realizing Doc and Chris could go on forever if left alone like this. "Still, weren't you going to test me? I mean, you can still create and reject theories after I leave."
"That's true" Doc admitted. "We should really resume our work on what can be solved right now, rather than on what might not be, at least not for the time being."
Calvin nodded, and watched as the inventors went to work. It was a rather tense experience, being caught up in all this, and he wished he could just go home and relax in his bed. Perhaps listen to some music. He knew, however, that such thoughts were mere pipe dreams. Even if he got home soon, his parents' reaction would keep him from getting any sleep for a long time.
oooooooo
"Oh honey! How could this have happened to you!"
"That's exactly what Chris and Doc are trying to find out, Mom" Calvin quipped. The four of them were in the McFly living room, with Dave and Linda once more conveniently gotten out of the picture, because Dave was at work and Linda had been given chores to do on the upper floor. "They probably won't finish their research for another week, so I'm afraid I can't tell you yet what the problem is."
"You know that's not what your mother means, son" George McFly corrected him. "It was a rhetorical question, and I agree with Lorraine on it – this is an awful situation you're caught up in. Did you have any idea that something like this might happen?"
"I didn't, and if any of the others had, they've been keeping it a secret" Marty replied, as Calvin nodded. "I know Chris worried a lot about whether it would be safe for them to move to the good world exactly because he was terrified that they would all be erased from existence, but after moving back safely and seeing that nothing was happening, it didn't come up again." He shook his head. "I don't get it. How could this be happening now, a full month and a half after you guys moved in! I mean, I know the ripple effect moves slower with people than with objects, but this is getting ridiculous! Uh, no offense, Calvin."
"None taken" Calvin replied. "I don't get it either. No one does, and that's why Doc and Chris are looking so hard for the answer." He shivered. "I hope they find it soon. Even if I'm not in danger of total erasure right away, this half-half state is really freaking me out."
"Well, Mike has offered to help" Marty told him. "You know he's aspiring to be a scientist some day, and Chris thought this would be a great way for him to get some experience. He's not nearly as good at the job as either of the others are, of course, but an extra pair of hands helping out is always good."
"Yeah, I suppose" Calvin replied, though frowning at the thought of his friends kind of considering him to be something to experiment on – which he supposed he was. He shivered. "I really hope I won't die – but what else could be the options? Restoring the original timeline?"
"Although I admit most of it is me being selfish and not wanting our world to change, I really don't think you should do that" his father replied. "After all, wouldn't something like that create one of those paradoxes Doc and Chris are always talking about?"
"Most likely, yeah" Calvin admitted. "Plus, I really don't want to leave any of you. I've gotten so fond of my new family that going back to live in the old timeline isn't appealing to me. I'd lose my new parents, my twin brother, probably Doc as well as he died at Twin Pines Mall, and…" He frowned, abruptly changing the subject. "Do Jennifer and Ann know about all of this?"
Marty grinned. "You bet" he quipped. "Ann tried to stay with you throughout the period when you were knocked out – it's been a long time since I've seen her so riled up over anyone. Which reminds me, Calvin – you two aren't fooling anybody. Not anymore."
"What do you mean?" Calvin said, frowning.
"I've seen the way you two look at each other" Marty explained. "When you start paying attention – which I finally did a few days ago, admittedly after Jen pointed it out to me – it's so obvious. You have a crush on her, don't you?"
"No, I do not!" Calvin protested. When his twin just kept staring intensely at him, he flinched, just before George and Lorraine were about to say something. "All right, all right – maybe a little bit. But I don't want to. Sure, I like Ann, but I don't want to date someone who looks exactly like Jennifer precisely for that reason. I'll be expecting her to be Jennifer, and she won't be, as her character is different, and she'll be pressured to behave the way I subconsciously think she should behave, not the way she wants to. There are plenty of pretty girls out there, and not all of them look like Jennifer. If I start dating Ann right now, it would feel like I'd be with some Jennifer clone." He sighed. "And besides, she might not like that anyway."
"Perhaps not, perhaps she would" Marty said. "I did say 'the way you two looked at each other'. Ann at least likes you, and pays more attention to you than to me. Jennifer told me you came up more than me in their conversations about love and dating."
"Naturally" Calvin replied. "I'm available, you're not. And perhaps she's thinking the same thing – that we should be together because you two are together. After all, you seem to have the same thoughts. Don't try to deny it – remember what you said this morning about Mike and Claudia?"
"Boys, boys" Lorraine insisted. "Let's not quarrel, shall we? I don't know whether you and Ann should be together, Cal, and I really don't want to get involved in it. Not to mention that there are more important things going on right now."
"You're right, Mom" Calvin agreed. He sighed. "I hope that Doc and Chris find out what's going wrong soon. This whole situation is giving me the chills."
"Same for all of us, Cal" Marty said. "Of course, the only way to really accelerate the progress is to spend more time in the lab – but if I were in your situation, I wouldn't like being a 24/7 guinea pig, either. Not to mention that you would need to go to school."
"Oh man, I hadn't even thought of that yet" Calvin groaned. "What if I have another fainting spell coupled with some fading signs while in class? You're not in all of my classes, and it would look suspicious either way – plus, it would hinder my school work."
"We could call you in sick" Lorraine contemplated. "It is the last week before the holidays, after all – I don't think you will be learning anything really important in the upcoming school days. And even if you decide to go to school, your father and I can and will at any time cover for you." She hugged her son. "Don't worry about that, Calvin. Everything will turn out fine."
"I hope so" Calvin muttered. "It must sound silly, but I'd hate to get major setbacks on school because of this, even if I end up surviving." He smiled. "At least you actually care about that now. I think anything beats that indifferent attitude I got in the old timeline. Only you would occasionally get angry at me for bad grades, Mom – and that would be one heavy outburst."
Lorraine blushed. "Well, I have changed – and credit for that goes to you. I'd hope I wouldn't do something like that anymore, in the new timeline – and when you see me about to do it, you just have to point out to me what I'm doing and I know I'll be horrified enough to stop."
"What about me?" George asked, chuckling. "Don't I deserve any credit for granting you a better life, Lorrie? Admittedly, it was only with our sons'… no, that should be singular, our son's help that I became more confident, but I still ended up being the one to punch out Biff. I think…"
Just then, the doorbell rang. Lorraine and George exchanged confused glances. "Visitors?" the former wondered. "At this time of day? It's almost time for dinner! Speaking of which…" She rushed off to the kitchen, leaving her husband to walk over to the door and open it.
Calvin was about to head back to his room when he heard his father open the door and greet their visitors. "Jennifer!" he exclaimed. "Ann! Come to join us for dinner?"
As the teen looked back towards the doorway, he could see Jennifer and Ann standing there. "If you'd agree to that, Mr. McFly" Jennifer said. "Our intent was just to come over, though. Sorry for the odd time, but we heard from Doc and Chris that Calvin got back, and we wanted to check up on him and see how he was doing."
"That's right" Ann confirmed, smiling brightly as she walked over to Calvin and hugged the startled boy. "Are you all right, Cal?"
"I am," the teenager confirmed, "although Doc did tell me that my bones might end up dislocating if you hug me too fiercely." As Ann released him in horror, he gave her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. I don't feel anything out of the ordinary, so I believe that I've recovered enough since the afternoon to be able to stand a simple hug like this. It's quite a relief, actually – I've felt like I was an eggshell all day. At least that's over… for now."
"For now" Ann repeated, miserably. "I can't believe we're going to be caught up in this for several days – at least, until Doc and Chris find out what on earth is going on."
"I'm sure they will eventually, though" Calvin replied, trying to uplift his friend's spirit. "They are both great inventors, after all – they invented a time machine, for crying out loud. And because of that, they have future technology available whenever they need it. I'm sure they'll find out what is wrong, and fix it."
Marty eyed him suspiciously, and worriedly put a hand on his twin's shoulder. "Is it just me, Cal, or are you just saying that to stop us from worrying?"
Calvin's face fell. "Maybe a bit" he admitted. "I am confident, and I want to be confident, and Doc really is a great inventor. It's just that whenever I lose that confidence, there's just such a deep hole of depression I'll fall into." He shivered. "I really don't want to erase from existence. That was scary enough back in '55, and then I only lived through a small part of the process before it got reverted by Mom and Dad kissing, but it still frightened me."
"Yeah, same here" Marty admitted. "The loss of strength, of memory that envelops you, the whole being pulled into a black hole of what seems to be nothingness – it's so hard to describe that I'm glad I can at least share it with you, because nobody else could compare. Every once in a while, I still have nightmares of it. Fortunately – or perhaps unfortunately – that whole weekend was filled with enough madness to make me not think about it all the time."
"Oh, how lucky we are" Calvin deadpanned. "We at least have variations in nightmares, ranging from Doc being shot to Biff shooting at us to missing the lightning bolt to…"
"Enough" Jennifer interrupted. "It's not the time to be depressed now, Calvin – although I understand perfectly well you're inclined towards it. You need to keep a bright spirit, you just told us yourself. So, when does Doc think they'll have a solution?"
"Probably in a week" Calvin replied. "When I talked to him about it, he couldn't give me any precise estimate, but from his explanations and estimations I managed to decipher that it should take roughly a week, taking all things into account. And of course, that's what it took last time, when I got stranded in '55."
"Well, getting you out of that other world took Chris two months" George pointed out. Seeing the stricken look on his son's face, he hastily added: "I wouldn't think it would take that long this time around, though. He's got all sorts of future technology available now, and he can travel there whenever he likes with his time machine. And if he's working together with Doc and Mike, the project should go faster."
"Or slower, if they keep disagreeing on what to do" Calvin pointed out. "They were arguing when I woke up this afternoon."
"Perhaps they'll argue over trivialities" his father agreed. "But I'm sure they both understand the importance of this enough that they won't do it all the time, and will try to find a solution. Your life is at stake here, son, and I know that Doc and Chris owe theirs at least partially to you. They'll do everything in their power to find a solution."
"Yeah, probably" Calvin admitted. Then, frowning, he added: "If there is a solution to this mess."
"Don't say that" Ann rebutted him, firmly taking hold of his shoulders. "I get that this is a complex situation, and that neither of us understands why it's happening, but I am confident that they will find a way to solve it. They are going to move heaven and earth to fix your mess and they will succeed in it, Calvin Arthur McFly. Repeat that after me."
"They will succeed" Calvin repeated.
Ann frowned. "You don't sound very convinced."
Calvin sighed warily. "It is hard to be convinced about something this important" he said. "This is a matter of life and death – I'd prefer there to be no risk at all that things go wrong, and there is one. But I suppose I've been through that before, and I came out all right in the end, so…" He shrugged, and then smiled faintly. "You're right. I should be confident. They will succeed."
"That's right" Marty said, patting his brother's shoulder. "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything." Taking a sniff of the air, he added: "And now, let's stop talking about all this and head for the kitchen. I believe dinner's ready."
oooooooo
The rest of the week passed in a blur for Calvin, albeit a very confusing one. Every day, he went over to Doc Brown's lab, and he was tested on all sorts of things. The teen had wondered whether they would need a medical doctor after all to check the complex stuff like DNA, but Doc and Chris seemed to be handling the matter fine themselves. After the testing was finished, which took about three hours, he'd usually go home, and look back upon the scientists who were already busy chattering about what they'd just found.
After that first day, Doc and Chris never informed him again about just exactly what they were discovering. Although Calvin understood they didn't want to lift his spirits without reason or do the opposite, as the week went on he got increasingly annoyed by it. Furthermore, they were also researching things that didn't appear to have anything to do with the problem, involving mechanical future technology. In the back of the lab, he could see a device being constructed that reminded him somewhat of the sleep inducer. He wondered why they would need another such thing – he was cooperating willingly, after all. And if they just needed an ordinary sleep inducer, couldn't they get one of those things from the future?
The future ended up being a place he never got to go to, as Doc and Chris stuck to the present, except some occasional time trips of their own which Calvin could see at the DeLorean's Last Time Departed, all somewhere in the 2020s – although those could have been unrelated to the matter at hand. He himself remained in the present. Which was just as well as he did have some more erasure attacks, one of which didn't just make his arm transparent but his entire body, and made his hand vanish on top of that. Calvin was seriously freaked out by all of them, and they appeared to be getting worse. Fortunately, it only happened twice, and he seemed to be able to take them better as they went along, with the strange forms of pain he felt becoming normal. He remained out for much shorter periods of time, too – after the first he was unconscious for three hours, and when the second happened, despite its intensity, he came to after just one hour and twenty minutes.
Finally, as the week's end neared, Calvin got the feeling that they were nearing a solution to the problem. Doc and Chris still didn't tell him anything, and even Mike didn't allow his friend to pry whatever part of the solution he knew of loose, but he certainly got the strong feeling something was up. And thus it wasn't entirely unexpected when Chris told him at the end of Saturday's day of work and testing, that he should invite his entire family over the next evening, because there was something about which they needed to be informed…
