Thanks for all your wonderful feedback, you guys! This story is made purely out of love and respect for these movies, so you're going to get nothing but my best. If you haven't read it yet, there is a two-part prequel to all this called Red Letter Date you should definitely check out! I love hearing from you and value your readership beyond what I can possibly say. Thanks for taking the time to read! I hope you continue to enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it!
CHAPTER EIGHT
A Day in the Life
Sunday, November 6, 1955
9:32 PM
Marty came around the corner from the staircase, ready to head to bed and call it a night. He slowed, however, when he saw Doc standing before the grandfather clock at the end of the hall with his back to him. Having seen him lost in reveries a few times, he knew to approach carefully as not to startle him.
"What's going on, Doc? Everything okay?"
Doc watched the golden pendulum swing, his voice quite somber. "She's grieving for her father. Apparently, he passed recently. Though," – he turned to Marty – "I'd imagine you knew that."
Marty made himself nod. "Yeah. Yeah, it's really…been difficult."
"I hope I didn't do anything to-"
"No," Marty said quickly. "You didn't. She's just…"
He looked over his shoulder at Emma's bedroom door, light still lining the bottom edge of it. Doc turned from the clock and stood behind Marty, glancing between his strained face and the door.
"Maybe you should talk to her," he suggested quietly. "Did you know her father at all?"
Marty swallowed. "Yeah. Pretty well."
"Then perhaps a reassuring word will help her rest easier."
"Didn't you just drug her?"
"She's got six minutes til the stuff really hits her."
"Alright."
Doc clapped him on both his shoulders, giving them a squeeze as the boy sighed. "I'll be in my lab."
"Right, Doc."
As Emmett walked away, Marty watched him round the corner and pinched his eyebrows together. He replayed the conversation in his mind several times. To Doc, this hesitant, withdrawn Emma was not all he had known her to be; Marty was still surprised by how well she seemed to be getting on, considering. But it didn't take knowing someone to know when they were acting differently. And, in a way, Doc now technically knew why she was acting differently – father dead, crater in her shoulder, being thirty years out of her element.
But that didn't include him knowing that every word, every glance, and every room they shared drove her to safeguard the darkest source of her pain.
Their pain.
"Em?"
Marty knocked twice before easing the door open. Emma stared ahead, glassy-eyed.
"He expressed condolences to me for his own death."
"You told him what happens to him?"
She shook her head, looking up at him hazily. "No. It was just strange, him saying it and not realizing that it was about him."
Marty blinked, the expression on his face slowly shifting.
"Don't you think we should tell him?"
"Tell him what?"
"That he gets…shot."
Emma huffed. "What if it doesn't work like that? What if time is a matter of predestination? Then, no matter what we said or he did, he had to be killed in that moment."
"It doesn't have to happen," Marty snorted. "My entire family is being erased from existence because I interfered with my parents meeting. If there was a grand scheme at hand, was my role in it to be born just to see to it that I wasn't?"
Emma squinted at him, and he rolled his eyes.
Just like her dad.
"You're the scientist of the two of us," he said, motioning between them. "You're the daughter of the smartest man I know. Isn't human error still an error where predestination is concerned? Because I messed up big time, and if I don't fix it by Saturday night, nothing is going to magically get them together. Years down the line? Maybe. But then what if they'd decide not to have kids? Or they'd have kids, but they wouldn't be me, Dave, or Linda?"
He sat down where Doc had been minutes before, pleading with her. "All I'm saying is, let's not give up hope just yet."
Emma studied him, the wheels in her head considering his theory in accordance to what her not-yet-father had said. While that guy's attitude and naivety sometimes made her want to jettison him across a room, her actual father had only performed a time jump, not elaborated on a theory on whether or not history could be altered by their actions in another point in time.
Of course, why couldn't they? What did make it so different? Marty was right; people were still people no matter what year it was, and their actions and reactions were just as history-altering as the time machine itself.
She quirked her lips to the side. "But then say my dad was shot here in 1955. Mortally wounded. Does he die? Or can't he, because he's destined to be shot in 1985?"
Marty produced a hard scorn. "Do you want to find a gun and test your theory?"
"No," she said dismissively, running her hands down the pages of the book absentmindedly. "If I were wrong, we couldn't get home."
"Exactly."
Her eyebrows knit together. "And he'd never invent the flux capacitor that sent us here to shoot him, especially me, as I am his daughter. And if you don't exist by Saturday, that's a really big problem. Technically, it would be impossible for us to even be here. Like, incredibly impossible."
Marty stared at her big eyes. They waited patiently for him to acknowledge and add to her running theory. Instead, he clicked his tongue and stood up. It had been six minutes. The morphine had finally taken her.
"Good talk," he said, nodding once as he pocketed him hands. "We'll revisit this saving-your-dad thing later."
Her eyes got bigger still. "What if our being here and telling him about the flux capacitor actually influenced him to make it?" she asked passionately.
"He already hit his head by the time we showed up!"
"Okay, he gets the vision, but say he doesn't pursue it unless we had shown up to inspire him to work on it all those years," she said. "Then we're just stuck in some infinite time loop where our present circumstances are dictated by things we haven't even done yet, or things we didn't know we were going to do ten years into our biological future, but thirty years into time's past –"
"See you in the morning, Em."
Emma stopped speaking abruptly when the door was shut and began sliding around on the wall. Her train of thought leaked away, and she looked back down at the book. The words and symbols and parentheses continued to tilt to and fro; the morphine was pulling her under in a pleasant blur, away from the sickening vertigo of this horrible, distorted reality.
Blinking, Emma closed the book and turned off the bedside lamp. She wriggled down into bed on her right side, resting her head in the warmth of the pillow she'd had behind her back. Soon, her breathing evened out, and she wrapped her fingers around the spine of her father's book, tucking a corner of it under her chin as she welcomed a dreamless sleep.
School. How was a horrific emergency like accidental time travel and possible nonexistence not reason enough to have the week off from school? Couldn't they just sleep in a little bit longer? Did they have to wake up even earlier than usual to wrestle themselves into the fashions of fifties high school?
Apparently so.
Emma's shoulder was quite limiting when it came to a basic morning routine: doing her hair, zipping her dress, putting on her sweater. When it came to whether she should ask her not-yet-father or Marty for help in zipping up her orange and white polka dot dress, she put more thought into it than even she deemed necessary. Who do you want to see your bra strap for the rest of the week, Emma? That was the real question. They both knew she was temporarily handicapped and would be mature about it, but still – this guy that didn't know she trusted him because he's her dad or her friend that she came here with that she happened to be getting stupid in the head about more and more often.
Well, they had both cut her shirt and bra off her two days ago anyway, so a lot of help that was.
Doc ultimately served as their mother hen for the morning, moving between their two bedrooms several times to help them become one of the natives. Dumping flammable tonic in Marty's hair, zipping up Emma's dress in her doorway, restyling Marty's hair, crowning Emma with a bright white headband, holding her white cardigan as she tried to slip it on with as little discomfort as possible. By the time he had them fed and out the door, he was asking the good lord above to spare him the joy of having twins someday.
Emmett parked across the street from the high school, and the three of them entered the building bustling with a multitude of students. They wove their way to a stairwell entrance flanked by two trophy cases where Doc bent over between Emma and Marty and asked, "Which one's your pop?"
Not that we was entirely hard to point out, Marty did so. And as they observed George McFly, bandy-legged and frustrated from unsuccessfully avoiding multiple kicks to his ankles and calves, Emma felt Marty's embarrassment color her own cheeks. In her few encounters with Mr. McFly, she could understand why Marty didn't linger on any talk of his dad. But seeing books slapped out of his hands and Strickland reprimanding him made her feel awful.
Doc said what they'd all thought at some point in the last thirty seconds: "What did your mother ever see in that kid?"
"I don't know, Doc. I guess she felt sorry for him because her dad hit him with the car." A pause. Emma watched him reach for the back of his head slowly. "…He hit me with the car."
"That's the Florence Nightingale Effect," Emmett said. "It happens in hospitals, when nurses fall in love with their patients."
Emma smiled at the brown and tan tiles. Oh, Dad. I hope you hear yourself.
"She's at her locker now," Doc said, peering around the corner to the next hallway. Lorraine was down a-ways, past the pep rally poster exchanging some books while two other girls beamed at her seemingly endless chatter. Doc gave them both a pat on the back to get a move on, and Emma's mouth and eyes jumped opened as Marty swooped in on George.
She glared expectantly at her father, rigid. "Ow."
"Ah." Emmett lowered his hand apologetically. "Should I take you home?"
"No way."
Emmett frowned. "I still think you should be resting."
"But I'm not. I'm helping. And you said yourse-"
Suddenly, George McFly was standing right in front of her and her not-yet-father. Tightlipped and juggling his books, George summoned up a timid smile. "Hi."
Emma blinked, smiling through her discomfort. "Hi."
"You look… very nice today."
Doc raised an eyebrow. Emma's polite smile grew cautiously. "Well, thank you. That's very nice of you…"
"George!" Marty backtracked a few feet to where his dad had slipped out of his grasp. He made a face at Doc and Emma's stiff postures until Doc's eyes bore into Marty's sharply, darting from him to Emma and back again.
Marty cleared his throat. He swung his arm around George's shoulder again, patting him on the chest. "There's someone further down the hall I'd like you to meet."
George shrunk a little. "Oh."
"I've already met you, besides," Emma said. "I'm Marty's sister, Emma. From the café."
If possible, George deflated more, recalling the circumstances of their first meeting. "Yeah."
"Come on, George. This way, buddy."
As Marty steered him down the hall, George looked back. "Have a good day, Emma."
She swallowed. "You, too."
Once Marty successfully got George down to Lorraine's locker, Emma chanced a glance up at her father. His face was grave as they made eye contact.
"He was just saying hi," Emma said dismissively, trying to convince herself of the same. "The poor kid almost spilt milk all over me when he met me."
Doc's expression didn't change. "You should have stayed home."
And Emma wasn't really sure she could argue against that now.
She stayed quiet as they watched Lorraine make dreamy eyes at Marty rather than George, her friends grinning ear-to-ear during the whole affair. George slunked off without as much as an acknowledgement that he was there, ducking into the nearest classroom when the bell rang. Her friends dragging her in their direction, Emma and Doc froze as she ran right by them gushing, "Isn't he a dreamboat?"
Well, shit.
Emma ran the tip of her tongue along her teeth. "That's not good."
"Damn it," Doc muttered. "Damn it, damn it, damn it…"
Emma followed him toward Marty slowly, rubbing her fingernails in thought. Marty ceased his pacing when they reached him. He looked frantic.
"Doc, she didn't even look at him."
"This is a lot more serious than I thought," Doc said, leading them down the hall. "Apparently your mother is amorously infatuated with you instead of your father."
Marty stopped. He glared at Emma, and her lips disappeared inside her mouth.
"Whoa, wait a minute, Doc. Are you trying to tell me that my mother…has got the hots for me?"
"At the risk of sounding crude, precisely. And what's worse! Your father speaking to Emma!"
"He was just saying hi!"
"Yes, practically tripping over himself to do so."
Marty's groaned. He couldn't exactly write Doc's theory off. Not when he remembered his mother pinching his knee under the dinner table or how George had look so put out when he realized Emma was not the person he was being introduced to. He looked up at Emma when she fell into step with him. He felt winded.
"Promise me you're as disturbed as I am right now."
"I cannot coherently explain how disturbed I am."
Emmett passed between them to get them back on task, speaking fervently. "The only way we're going to get those two to successfully mate is if they are alone together," he pressed. "So you've got to get your father and mother to interact… in some sort of…social…"
"What do you mean? Like a date?" Marty supplied.
"Right!"
"Well, what kind of date? I don't know what kids do in the fifties."
Emma shrugged. "Same as any other kids, wouldn't you think? Movies, milkshakes."
Doc rounded Marty. "They're your parents, Marty! You must know them. What are their common interests?" he mused. "What do they like to do together?"
"…Nothing."
Emma tossed her head to the side in reluctant agreement as Doc walked up to a nearby poster. Marty has rarely mentioned his parents collectively when he did. 'My dad this' or 'my mother that,' but never 'they did this or that.' To be honest, though, Emma wasn't even sure Marty knew what his parents liked to do, let alone do together.
"Look! There's a rhythmic ceremonial ritual coming up!"
Marty's outburst took Emma by surprise. "Of course! The Enchantment Under the Sea Dance! They're supposed to go to this! That's where they kiss for the first time!"
"Really?"
"My mom has told that story more times than I can count," Marty told Emma. "I'm surprised you've never heard it as much as she recites it. You'd think it was the only thing that had happened to her in her entire life."
"All right, kid." Doc tugged at Marty's jacket emphatically. "You stick to your father like glue and make sure he takes her to the dance!"
Things in cafeteria could have gone better. Perhaps it was just the way the universe hated them right now. But Marty managed to have Emma slip away with him when Doc went to the restroom despite her growing protests to the idea. She could tell George liked Lorraine. That wasn't a question. He had been such a gentleman to her in the café on Saturday morning, and it was a shame he wasn't confident enough to build on that kind of potential.
Their approach was strong; keep the energy high while telling George all these things never overhead Lorraine say and skirting around his increasingly open reception towards Emma. Then, when Marty had decided to defend the honor of his mother in a fist fight with Biff Tannen, Emma was restraining his drawn-back arm when Strickland showed up, glaring at Biff when he called her "sweet cheeks" again. With that, George had escaped, as quickly has the whole thing had ended.
Marty planned to cover the most likely exit George would take at the end of the day to corner him. By then, he agreed it should be a father-future son talk and that Emma was best just meet him back at the mansion. Happy she wouldn't have to assume an air of polite ignorance for the rest of the day, Emma blended in with a couple of textbooks at the last bell and sought out the nearest exit.
"Hey! Wait!"
Emma stopped at the bottom of the stairwell, moving off to the side as students swarmed around her. She looked up as Lorraine came trotting down that stairs towards her. Emma looked towards the door longingly, blinking as Lorraine appeared right in front of her. Her shoulder puckered uncomfortably as she held her schoolbooks tighter.
"You're Calvin's sister, right? Ella?"
"Emma."
"Emma," Lorraine smiled politely. "Um, is your brother seeing anyone?"
Emma felt her mouth hang open slightly, levelly staring at this girl. Speaking over the shudder in her chest, Emma feigned a regretful grimace.
"He actually has a date with a girl next week, and he's really excited about it."
Lorraine's face fell. "He does?"
"Yeah."
"But she's not his girlfriend, right?"
"…Right…"
"Great!"
Emma's stare grew incredulous at Lorraine's spectacular recovery. Lorraine seemed to pay no-never-mind, however, shrugging her dainty shoulders with a bright smile.
"So, listen, tomorrow after school, me and my friends are going to Lou's for malts and would love for you to join us."
"I don't know. I have a lot of homework."
"Come on! You'll love it. Babs and Betty are really nice."
Emma glanced at the door again, simultaneously wishing Marty would intervene and be miles away. Ultimately, she could probably name drop George McFly until her subliminal message got through, and any time Marty brought George around, she could help shift Lorraine's attention in George's direction. Perhaps she could turn this undesired invitation into some kind of opportunity to set things in motion. Lord knows they've only been going backwards.
While it still went against her instincts, Emma made herself nod.
"All right."
"Oh, perfect," Lorraine cooed. "We'll save you a seat at lunch tomorrow."
"…Sure."
Emma entered the lab, swiftly moving around the DeLorean to where Marty was rummaging through her father's suitcase from 1985. She came to a halt at the sight, unprepared for the small flip her stomach did.
"What are you doing?"
Marty looked up, his hands slowing at the sharp hollowness of her gaze. He swallowed, motioning to the suitcase.
"I was just looking for something."
Emma nodded, mentally shaking off her momentary stupor. "It's fine, I'm sorry. Go ahead."
At that, Marty turned back to the suitcase, continuing his careful search. Emma clasped her hands in front of her and let out a sigh.
"Marty, your mother invited me to tell her everything about you after school tomorrow."
Marty shut his eyes and made a face. "Are you serious?"
"I see it," she said, folding her hands behind her back, "as a chance to tell her what a loser you are and build George up."
Marty huffed out a laugh at her 'innocent' smile, untangling the hair dryer cord from Doc's clothes. "Hey, that's not bad."
"Thought you'd like that."
"Build him up a lot. It'll be a good preamble to him asking her out tomorrow."
Emma pinched her eyebrows together at the certainty of his tone. "What are you doing?"
"Giving him a violent shove while you give my mom a gentle nudge."
"Wh-?"
"Trust me; the first thing he's going to do tomorrow is hunt down Lorraine."
"Are you giving him a makeover?"
Marty smiled as he posed with the hair dryer and winked.
"I was thinking more along the lines of melting his brain."
. Please Review .
