Disclaimer: I do not own BTTF. This might come as a great surprise to you, so maybe you should sit down now. Do remember to read the chapter, though.

Author's Note: New chapter. This is a quite interesting world, but not as much as the one before this one or the one after it. It could be seen as an interlude of some sorts, but it's not really that. Anyway, I hope you'll have fun reading it. And don't forget to review, of course!

Chapter Ten

Saturday, April 2, 1988

12:51 P.M.

Hill Valley, California

Doc didn't really want to admit it, but to be honest, he was getting tired of the dimensions that they were going through as well. As he lowered the time machine in the latest universe, he was therefore tempted to just get a quick look at what his other self was like, decide he was not the solution to the problem, and leave. He wasn't really in the mood to allow his counterpart – whatever the guy was like – to do a longer and more thorough inspection of the bus, as the wish to go home rose within him every single moment, and he couldn't help but feel miserable every time he heard the news that he could not go home, and that this world wouldn't be able to help him and that he had to go to the next world and try whether he was lucky in there. While the inventor had managed to keep his mood optimistic until now, he had to admit that this was slowly but surely changing to a rather pessimistic feeling that they would not get home, or at least not too soon. However he was resisting it, that realisation grew stronger with the hour and he would not be able to stand up to it for much longer.

Trying to at least keep Marty a little bit happy, the scientist didn't mention any of that to his best friend, also not in the new universe which they had just landed in. Instead, Doc simply moved the time machine around in the air, and flew it over to the place of the garage at JFK Drive. Marty kept equally silent, which made Doc realise that his friend must have spotted something, a fact that he didn't like. However, he didn't say anything, and the result was that neither of them had spoken a word since the dimensional transit, a statement that was still in place at the moment that they arrived at the place where the garage should be, and where Doc instead recognised the mansion having arisen once again, standing there as proud as it had been in the world where Marty was the inventor and Emmett was the unknowing assistant. The seventy-eight-year-old looked down to the mansion, and began to wonder what it's sudden reappearance could mean.

Apparently, Marty was thinking the same thing, as he was the one to speak up first. Without giving any explanation about what he was basing that upon – one more sign that Marty was also becoming more pessimistic with the second, the teen stared down at the mansion, and simply said: "Doc, do you think we could've travelled back to the world where I was a teenaged genius scientist and you were the owner of a horse ranch?"

Doc shook his head. "Unlikely" he said. "You can see that there are no horses around the mansion as there were in that version of the universe, and there's no sign that indicates that my local self owns a ranch. If this world is related to that world and has a smart you and a less intelligent version of me, it's a slightly different version, like a copy of a document which is wrinkled all through and has even got a few cracks in is much cleaner and therefore differs from the original one, even though it's essentially the same. However, since we have never seen something like that occur before in all of our dimensional journeys so far, our most likely guess is that this world is an entirely different world all together, which happens to have a different reason for the fact that in the temporal sequence that is the main timeline in this world, the mansion still stands."

Marty blinked a few times at that, not really grasping it, but then nodded. "I suppose" he said, obviously not really understanding it all thorough but getting the gist of it anyway. "Are you going to fly up and check what's different here, or are you going to keep the bus hanging here in the sky?"

"I might as well do that" Doc said, thoughtfully. "The first option, I mean." He landed the time bus in front of the mansion and exited, Marty following. After locking the doors of a bus – a procedure which he had gotten used to by now and therefore was handled rather swiftly – he and Marty walked up the path to this alternate, surviving version of the old Brown mansion.

As they arrived at the porch, Marty looked at Doc. "You want to knock this time?" he asked. "I mean, I did it last time. If you want to keep this whole thing equal, it should be your turn."

"Fair enough" Doc admitted. As Marty took a step back into the shadows – probably just in case he would be the one to show up, or so that he could catch the local inventor if he fainted – Doc walked up to the door and knocked, waiting for a response.

That wait didn't take all too long. Within seconds, the door was opened to reveal one more version of Dr. Emmett Brown. Somehow, Doc figured that he looked familiar – like one of the versions of himself that he had seen before. The thought didn't last long, though, as he had more important matters to deal with. Emmett's eyes went wide and his face pale, his hands almost breaking the doorknob they were holding. Just as Doc thought that his other self was going to faint, Emmett recovered. "Great Scott" he whispered, then calmer: "I wasn't expecting you today. You should know from our previous experience that coming up to another version of yourself without him knowing you're coming is a bad idea." Doc was barely given time to think about the 'previous experience' as his local self continued. "But you are here now anyway, and I can't stop you now, unless I want you to time travel which would merely complicate this. Are you from the future or from the past, and what do you require my help with or, if you don't need help, what do you want to do here?"

Doc frowned, not having expected his other self to take the fact that he was there so easy, especially not after his initial reaction. But he wasn't one to complain, and therefore, he looked up to Emmett and spoke. "I'm from neither future or past," he said, "and the matter that I do, in fact, require your help with, might be a little unusual, even for you. Do you mind if Marty, who's standing right here, and I come in?"

Bewildered, Emmett looked to the side and was obviously wondering how he could've missed the teen standing there. Focusing on the matter at hand, though, he looked at his other self again and said: "I'd be happy to allow you to come in, but I'd like a small explanation first. You said that you weren't from the future or from the past. How's that possible, and what do you want my help with?"

"It's probably a very complicated story to you," Doc said, "which is why I'm going to keep it short. The idea is that Marty and I were planning to test a new invention of mine today, a time machine which allows you to travel through dimensions as well as through time. I take it you know what dimensions are – and not just the fourth dimension, but the actual different universes?"

"Yes, I do know that" Emmett said. "I never expected to meet someone from one of them, though… but go on."

"Thank you" Doc said. "Anyway, we tried to test it, but that went wrong. After hopping through two dimensions, we wanted to return home, but got a problem with the Fusion device on the bus – yes, a bus, it's a new time machine for this special occasion – and ended up travelling through a lot more universes than we planned to do. While it's 12:55 PM on April second to you, it's 12:55 PM on April fourth to us, meaning we're two days out of synch. We just had a nice long rest in the world where our problem was solved – or at least, the source of the problem was found, the whole thing was not solved – and then we had to go on dimension-hopping as the locals still couldn't help us."

"Interesting" Emmett said, after waiting a few seconds to think it all over. "I must say, it sounds a rather unbelievable tale, and if I hadn't invented a time machine, I would've never believed it. Now that I have, though…" He paused for a moment. "You can come in" he finally settled on. "I'll go first, though – Marty's other self is over at my house today, and I'm not sure if Marty – either of them – would like to go through the shock of seeing an other self without any preparation, like I did."

"I'm kind of used to it by now" Marty said, shrugging. "But if you wanna do that for your Marty – go ahead. I don't mind."

Emmett smirked. "Glad you don't." They walked off, through the hall-way and into the living room of the big mansion. As agreed, Marty and Doc waited at the door, and after a short explanation to the local version of Marty, Emmett called out that they could come in, and they did. Doc immediately noticed that everything in the mansion looked still the same as it had in his own world. Barely noticing Local Marty sitting there on the bench in front of the television, staring with amazement at his other self, the inventor looked around in nostalgia. This really did give him a strong feeling of… of a home-coming. As if he was coming back to his rightful place. He smiled a bit, realising that this place was even closer to home than the mansion he had owned in the world of Smart Marty. The portraits of scientists and other things related to his job were around here while they hadn't been in the world of his less intelligent self. Shaking his head at his own nostalgic feelings, which were probably increased by the fact that he hadn't seen his real home, or at least the version in which he lived, for two days now, he looked around and saw that Visiting Marty had been guided to a place to sit by Emmett. Seeing no harm in it, Doc decided to sit down as well to complete the circle of four time travellers at one table and wait for the conversation to start.

He didn't have to wait long for that. Emmett immediately began to speak, eyeing his counterpart and Marty's counterpart with obvious interest. "This is certainly very fascinating" he admitted, looking at them. "Where do you come from? Well, from Hill Valley, I suppose, but have you noticed anything fundamentally different just yet in our world? If you really are from another dimension, then I suppose that your world is very much different from ours."

"It is" Doc agreed. "The most obvious difference that I've noticed so far is the fact that the mansion still stands."

He had expected a frown at that, or an astonished look, but instead, he got a look of understanding. "Ah, yes" Emmett said. "I suppose that unintended time travel change was never made in your world then. That's probably only natural in another universe – the chance that the mansion would survive was actually rather small, as in fact, it was very much a coincidence."

"What do you mean?" Doc said. "You mean you – or Marty – changed history? You somehow made the mansion survive?"

"That's correct" Emmett said. "Well, it was actually my younger self who did that. I'm not sure why it happened, but my best guess from a combination from my old and new memories is that he was just trying to be safe after everything that had happened. I suppose that after time travelling, I had become over-paranoid."

"Wait a second" Visiting Marty said, astonished. "Are you telling me that your younger self time travelled? He actually used the time machine? Your younger self from before the mansion burnt down?"

"Yes, he did" Emmett said. "I should probably not speak too early, but I think that this is where we see the key change. I suppose that, judging from your reaction, my younger self never used the time machine in 1955?"

"Um… no" Visiting Marty said. "What happened, then?"

"It's a complicated story" Emmett said. "I suppose it all started when Marty, preparing for the dance, noticed an old man walking across the street. He initially didn't pay too much attention, but as the man passed him, he got a closer look and recognised him. The man looked just like Biff Tannen – as the Biff Tannen Marty knew in the future, not the Biff from 1955 but the one from 1985 and even beyond. Marty then decided to use the nearby phone to call me whether Biff had any relatives back in the 1950s. I told him no, that the last male relative should've died in 1947. Both of us found that rather suspicious and since it was not even 6 PM yet, so not yet time to go to the dance, we both agreed that Marty should check it out. He did, and about a quarter later, Marty called me again – he'd seen the man talk to Biff, who was complaining about that 'book with future sports events you gave me'. I immediately put two and two together and realised that this man was Biff, or someone who was related to Biff, from the future."

"Great Scott!" Doc exclaimed. "I can't believe that we actually could've had the chance to stop the almanac problem right in 1955…"

"Well, we could, and we did" Emmett said, deciding not to ask what the 'almanac problem' could be. "I abandoned my work at the Square and took my Packard over to Mason Drive. Marty walked up to Biff and obviously annoyed him, so Biff chased after him and I slammed him on the head with a stone, while I was standing behind a corner. Not really a fair way to go, but a needed one. We got the almanac, checked that it was indeed a book from the future, and chased after older Biff, having gotten some information from a helpful old lady who'd seen him getting a ride from Gertrude Tannen. We followed Biff in our car and knocked him out just before he reached something that looked an awful lot like my DeLorean. I brought it to the Square and waited there for Marty to return from his work at the dance... he actually came earlier than intended, at 9:38, probably anxious to test out the time machine. We then went inside…"

Emmett Brown gasped, as he looked at the time machine that Old Biff Tannen – whom he now was sure it was – had brought back here. It was his, he was certain of that. Stunned, he switched the time circuits on. Apparently, the Last Time Departed read October 21st, 2015. He wondered whether this was simply the time that Biff had left at, or whether he really came from another time. Whatever the case, he had to return the time machine.

"Whoa" Marty commented, looking around as he sat down in the passenger's seat. "This is one heavy version of the time machine."

"It probably won't weigh anymore than the original one" Emmett said, somewhat confused. Even though Marty had explained to him that 'heavy' was a future expression, he still didn't really understand it. Instead, he focused on the machine in front of him, still looking astonished at everything. "Take a look at these buttons, though… up, down… do you think this machine can actually fly?"

"I don't know" Marty said, shrugging. "You should test it if you want to find that out. What are we going to do with the machine, anyway? Keep it around as a souvenir?"

Emmett shook his head, firmly. "And leaving Biff trapped years before he was born?" he said, smirking. "Come on. I'm not going to run the risk that he can still change anything. We have to take the time machine and Biff back to where they belong – which most likely means travelling to October 21st, 2015… at 7:25 P.M." He tapped in the date on the keypad.

Marty frowned. "Are you sure?" he asked. "I mean, we still have to get that whole plan through tonight. My return to the future isn't even safe until that is secured."

Emmett thought about that for a moment. "There's nothing to worry about" he said. "We'll simply come back a minute after we left. We can still proceed on schedule then. And the fuel is not something that we should be worried about – I checked this Fusion thing on top, and it apparently fuels the device. And the plutonium screen on here tells me that it's filled – or at least filled enough for two trips. We can safely depart."

Marty shrugged. "All right" he said. "Then it's okay with me." He smiled slightly. "You know, I can kind of see what's behind this for you. I always wanted to see the future too."

"That's not the main reason, but yes, I'm curious" Emmett said. "Well – if this time machine is indeed mine, we'll probably face our older selves as well. Are you feeling up to that?"

Marty shrugged once again. "If you are, I am."

Emmett smiled, pressing the 'UP' button and feeling a slight shock as the time machine lifted off the ground. He resisted another 'Great Scott' and instead smiled at Marty. "Then let's go!"

With that, he pushed down the accelerator, and the DeLorean shot through the streets. Within seconds, it hit eighty-eight miles per hour, and vanished into the future.

"Fascinating" Doc cut in. "So, you actually travelled to 2015? You saw the future as a thirty-five-year-old?"

"Yes, I did" Emmett confirmed. "It was quite a shock, I assure you. I'd known the basics about my future for a while now, but seeing it for real – and even beyond – was quite stunning. Some of the times, I had to pinch myself to make sure that I wasn't dreaming. Then again, it was very unbelievable. Flying cars, hoverboards, the beginning stages of fusion power and rejuvenation jobs… we arrived at Hilldale at 7:45, after having checked the phone book in order to find out where Marty's future self lived – we decided that trying to find a ninety-five-year-old me was not the right course of action. Anyway, when we flew in, we found something very interesting…"

"Well, here it is" Emmett said, as he flew the car (which he had gotten used to flying by now) into the streets of Hilldale. "Hilldale."

"I still can't believe I live in Hilldale" Marty said, shaking his head. "It's considered the place to live in 1985, you know. Well, you probably don't know, but it is just new, and everyone wants to live there. And I do. I wonder what my future's like."

"No man should know too much about their own destiny, Marty" Emmett warned. "I've told you that dozens of times before."

Marty looked like he wanted to say something to doubt that, but he didn't get around to it, as instead, he let out a gasp. "Doc!" he exclaimed. "Doc! Look at that!"

Emmett looked, to see what his friend had already seen – themselves, standing down there in futuristic clothing and gasping just as much at them as they were. Regaining control of the vehicle, Emmett landed the DeLorean – right on a sign with 'No Landing', but he could care less – and stared at the people outside. Opening the gull-wing door, he took a direct look at his other self… and immediately regretted it. Within seconds, he started to feel faint and he felt like he was going to collapse, which he was able to prevent by looking the other way just in time. "Well, that's something that I shouldn't do again" he muttered, stunned.

"Great Scott!" his older self exclaimed. "Who – why – what are you doing here?"

"We're the two of you, if you hadn't figured that out yet" Emmett replied. "From 1955. I take it you're from 1985?"

"That's correct" Emmett '85 responded. "But to get back to my question, why are you here? You do know that it could be potentially dangerous to spend time in the future and interfere with one's older self, don't you?"

"I do" Emmett '55 said. "I wouldn't have gone, if not for this." He pointed at the car. "Apparently, Biff Tannen got a sports almanac of some sorts and went back in time with it to give it to his 1955 self, right on November twelfth. Marty realised who he was, and together we managed to take the almanac and knock out Biff – he's in the back."

"Amazing" Emmett '85 muttered. "Don't you agree, Marty?"

"Yeah, you're definitely right" Marty '85 said, still stunned at seeing his other self. "I can't believe that this happened. I mean, the whole mess with the sports almanac was supposed to be over, and…"

He didn't finish his line, as Marty '55 let out a gasp. "Jennifer!" he exclaimed, pointing at an unconscious figure lying behind their older selves – Emmett supposed that this had to be Marty's girlfriend from the future. "Why is she unconscious? What did you do to her?"

"It's a complicated story" Emmett '85 said. "Something that you shouldn't know. I suppose a 'thank you' would be on it's place here, but after that, it's right back to 1955. Time travel is dangerous." He took the almanac from his younger self. "Which is exactly why I'm intending to burn the almanac this time."

"Aw, Doc…" Marty '85 complained.

"No, Marty" Emmett '85 said, firmly. "I believe you've seen enough evidence of the fact that having such a book fall in the wrong hands – well, not that yours are the wrong hands, but just imagine what Biff could've done with this. I don't think you'd like to have the burden of having done just a fraction of that, do you?"

"No" Marty '85 admitted. "You're probably right. I still think that I wouldn't be as bad as Biff, though."

"Well, we'll probably never find out about that" Emmett '55 said. "Come on – let's go back in time. My other self is right. Time travel does cause a lot of problems."

Emmett '85 thought about that for a moment. "That's right" he said. "Which is why I'd like to ask you something."

"Go ahead" Emmett '55 said, wondering what his older self could mean.

"If you are from November twelfth, 1955, then Marty has probably been complaining to you about something that happens in the future all week" Emmett '85 said.

"That's correct" his younger self replied. He was wondering what the older inventor could have to say about this, as the older man continued: "And I'd like to ask you whether you would simply drop your stubborn feelings, and listen to him. Marty is a good kid, and this time he's completely right in his warning. And if you won't allow him to tell you, I'll tell you, because my Marty has eventually managed to warn me too and I'm still very grateful for that today."

Emmett '55 was stunned. "You mean, I have to allow him to tell me about my destiny?" he squeaked, from astonishment nearly making the mistake of looking into his other self's eyes again. "But I can't do that! If I change time so we don't meet, then we could have a time paradox on our hands!"

"A what?" Marty '55 said, confused.

"Complicated story, I'm not entirely sure whether I understand it myself" Marty '85 said. "It's one of those things that could destroy the whole universe."

"Destroy the whole universe?" Marty '55 said, stunned. "Doc, why haven't you ever told me about that yet?"

"Wasn't erasure bad enough of an idea?" Emmett '55 responded. "I didn't want to make you too worried…" He sighed. "But yes, it would be possible in this situation."

"Yes, it would - if you refuse" Emmett '85 said, firmly. "It would be a possibility if you refuse to listen to Marty now. Allowing Marty to tell you would only help the universe, not the other way around as you've been thinking."

Emmett '55 was about to give another reaction, when he realised something. His other self was dead serious about this, he could hear that. And he wouldn't lie to himself, would he? No, that was something that he'd never do. Not to himself, and not to anyone else if he could help it. Then why would he do it now?

Did he really have to allow Marty to go ahead?

Finally, Emmett '55 sighed. "Go ahead" he finally whispered. "Tell me. I guess that it's unavoidable now." He sighed again. "But it'll better be good."

Once again, Doc interrupted Emmett's tale. "So, you actually were told about you getting shot in 2015? You didn't have an entire discussion with Marty about that at the clock tower?"

"That's right" Emmett agreed. "I returned home with Marty, we waved after our other selves who dropped us off before going back home to 1985, and then I conducted my experiment to send Marty home. I had to suppress the urge to ask whether my other self could just take Marty home so I could keep the younger version of the DeLorean in 1985, to experiment with it, but I figured that it would be too dangerous. So, I eventually let it go, and I didn't really miss it very often. Somehow, this whole thing indirectly caused me to not burn down my mansion, and I continued to live there. Marty and I often played hide and seek in the mansion when he was young, so we had a lot of fun with that. Then, 1985 rolled around, I went to 2015, found Marty in trouble – or, as I now know, pretending to be in trouble – and I put two and two together from my memories and figured that this was the event I had to pick up Marty for. I went back in time, my memories were completely erased of the 1955 experience and that caused for confusing situations with Marty. Finally it did go all right as Marty didn't really dare to voice his thoughts that he'd lived through this before until we'd dropped off my other self in 1955. We went home, found to our joint shock that the mansion still stood, only for Jennifer to wake up and wonder what we were surprised about. We eventually decided to tell her the truth, and, after everything we'd gone through, I figured that it would be best if I was to destroy the time machine. However, there was one more thing from my time travels that required attention. After some hesitation I finally decided to go ahead at that point, and try to drop a subtle warning about the race Marty was going to end up in that afternoon, by first dropping hints about the stupidity his chicken problem. I didn't manage to convince him entirely, and then I took a more drastic measure."

"What was that?" Visiting Marty asked, curiously.

"I told Jennifer" Emmett said. "She was stunned, but thanked me for telling her and as the race rolled around…"

"Wait a second" Local Marty said. "That's my tale to tell." He smirked, and looked at the visitors. "You see, it went like this…"

Marty felt annoyed, as Needles and his gang arrived next to him at the traffic lights at Hilldale. He figured that there was no one more annoying than Douglas Needles. Not only did Needles annoy him, he also played the same music Marty liked to listen to from his stereo's. The teenager tried to calm down, as Needles made some comments about him and his truck. "Let's see what she can do" Needles suggested. "Next green light."

"Don't do it, Marty" Jennifer urged.

"Relax, I wasn't going to do that" Marty said. "I'm not the type to race. Especially not in my new truck."

Needles frowned. "What's the matter" he said. "You chicken?"

Marty tensed, as the gang laughed. He couldn't believe they had the disrespect to call him that horrible word. "Nobody calls me chicken!" he exclaimed, furious. Those annoying, those, those…

"Marty, don't…" Jennifer pleaded. Marty felt disgusted at that. "Stay in your own seat" he told her. He couldn't believe his own girlfriend was actually suggesting he'd turn down a dare like that. Did she want him to be humiliated for the rest of his life? He turned on the engine, waiting for the green light to show up.

As it did, both trucks shot forwards. Jennifer looked panicky for a second, then seemed to calm down as, in the blur of the moment, she got an idea. Marty, who was focused on the road and on Needles next to him, didn't notice and was helpless as Jennifer suddenly pushed him to the side, moved her foot over to where his was, kicked it off the gas and hit the brakes.

Marty's mood went from normal to astonishment, then anger, then frustration, then confusion and relief within just two seconds as it all occurred. The truck slowed down, and Marty was just about to shout in anger at Jennifer – he was now losing the race, after all – as a Rolls Royce appeared in front of them, just narrowly avoiding them and Needles. The Rolls Royce slowed to a halt and the truck did the same. Marty had the presence of mind to back off and drive away. He knew that there was nothing the Rolls Royce driver could press charges on him for, but he wasn't about to face an angry driver. He drove the car into Hilldale, avoiding all other traffic on their way, and parked it there.

He then looked at Jennifer in astonishment. "Thanks" he whispered. "But… how on earth did you know about that?"

"Doc told me" Jennifer said, smiling. "He told me that you were going to break your hand and had to give up your guitar career after this incident. I just didn't want that to happen to you." She patted him on the back. "I'm glad that I could prevent it."

"Me too" Marty said, still shaking a bit. "This is heavy… I don't think I'm ever going to listen to someone calling me a chicken again!"

"And I didn't" Local Marty finished, back in 1988. "I never let anyone persuade me into something because of that again. That near-miss was bad enough for me."

"I can understand that" Visiting Marty muttered. "This is quite the story."

"I know" Local Marty agreed. "Well, and ever since then, nothing big did happen. I graduated from High School, helped Doc with projects from time to time, but nothing really important happened."

"Marty!" Emmett said, sounding a slight bit disappointed. "Are you sure? You know what happened to me on New Year's Day of 1987…"

As the alarm bells in Doc's head began to ring, the cause of those bells opened the door and entered the living room. "Emmett?" Susan Clayton-Brown asked, walking over to her husband. "I was wondering when we – Great Scott!"

"Great Scott?" Emmett repeated, amused.

"I suppose you're rubbing off on me" Susan admitted, looking around. "What's going on here? Why is there another you and another Marty? I thought you weren't supposed to finish the time machine for another three months?"

"We're from another dimension" Doc said. "And if you are unfamiliar with the term, then it would suffice for now to say that, while it will probably be very surprising to you, in our world, you are not my wife."

Susan's eyes went wide. "Are you serious?"

"He's telling the truth" Visiting Marty said, looking at her slightly intrigued. "I, for one, have never seen you before – we've only seen one universe in which you were around so far, and I didn't get to see you then… but I think I'm recognising you from Doc's description. I suppose you are Susan Clayton?"

"Susan Brown" Susan corrected. "But yes, Clayton is indeed my maiden name. But how… different dimensions?" She looked at her husband. "Emmett has told me something about it, but I wasn't expecting to meet someone from one of them…"

"That's the same here" Emmett replied. "I was expecting to have a normal day, no day that would include meeting people from another world. But now that we did…" He looked over at Doc and Marty, obviously a bit stunned. "You really don't know Susan? You're not married to her?"

"That is correct" Doc said. "My wife is Susan's great-great-grandaunt, Clara Clayton – yes, the one that died in the ravine. I saved her life in our world, took her back to 1985 after getting stuck in the past for a few years and, including the time we spent in the 1880s, we've been happily married for over thirteen years now."

"You married my great-grandaunt?" Susan whispered, stunned.

"You took Clara back to 1985?" Emmett added.

"You spent years in the past?" Local Marty finished, as stunned as the other two had been.

"Yes to all of them" Doc agreed. "I did spend years in the past, married Susan's great-grandaunt and took Clara back to 1985. It was a quite confusing situation, though – Clara and I were trapped in 1985 after some incident with the time machine going to 1985 and being destroyed in a crash at the railroad tracks near Eastwood Ravine."

"Weird" Susan said, shaking her head. "The idea that you're from another world is already odd, but the thought that things like that are so different… Emmett destroyed the time machine in 1985 by hand. Well, not the car itself, but the parts belonging to it. Eventually, he got the idea that he should rebuild it in early March 1986. He's been working on it for two years now, and with Marty's help and mine, I'm confident that he'll finish it." She smiled at her husband, and kissed him.

Doc shook his head. "You may look similar to my Clara, but this will always remain an odd sight, I guess" he said. "I can't really see myself kissing you – no offence, of course, but I was always and am still loyal to Clara. After all we've been through, I have a hard time seeing myself with someone else, even if it's a very close relative."

"Yeah, I suppose I understand" Visiting Marty said, shocking his friend as Doc wasn't expecting Marty to speak up about this. "Remember the world where I was smart? The Clara Parker girl I married there did look exactly like Jennifer, but she made me feel a bit uncomfortable around her. And that was just the only universe… you've seen what, three versions of you married to other women? Julia, Susan and that Jennifer Clayton girl in the smart me world?"

"Smart me world?" Local Marty repeated.

"It's the oddest world you'd ever imagine" his counterpart said. "Apparently, I'm a genius. My other self was smarter than his Doc, even smarter than my Doc. He managed to figure out what was wrong with the time machine, and if he had been in possession of a working time machine, I bet he would've fixed it, too. I couldn't believe how smart he was, but it was true. He was a nice guy, just when he went to talk about scientific stuff, my head had the urge of falling off my shoulders as I couldn't understand a quarter of it."

Local Marty's eyes widened. "You're kidding" he muttered. "There's no way that could be true!"

"Marty is giving a bit of a one-sided explanation, but yes, it's true" Doc said. "It was rather odd for me as well, as I wasn't really expecting to see a Marty who was a genius and could build time machines either. But apparently, there is someone like that out there, and we've had the pleasure of meeting him. And I was glad it happened, since he did help me quite a bit."

Emmett shook his head. "I just can't see that" he muttered. "Marty smart? Well, he's a pretty smart kid, but never anything close to what you just described. Marty as a scientist pretty much belongs to fantasy land in my opinion, and even though I know that you're probably telling the truth and that you wouldn't lie, I can't resist the thought that it sounds very, very odd."

"It is very odd" Doc agreed. "To us at least." He smiled. "But then again, a lot of the universes are odd – including yours. It sounded strange to us that if we had simply done what your and Marty's younger self did, we would've never seen Hell Valley and would've safely returned home without much trouble in the Old West and all that."

"Hell Valley?" Emmett repeated.

Doc nodded. "It's what we call the world Biff made when, in our dimension, he did succeed in changing history" he said. "It was, in short, hell. Biff had married Marty's mother, shot Marty's father, committed me, gotten Nixon re-elected up until 1985 and had the Vietnam War still raging. Gambling was legalized. The Courthouse had been turned into a casino hotel which Biff ran. Dave and Linda were…"

"Enough" Local Marty whispered, pale. "I can't believe that Biff would actually do that. I mean, it does sound a lot like him to be evil like that, but…" He shook his head. "To actually murder my Dad? Marry my Mom?" He looked up. "I am almost hesitant to ask, but what did he do to me?"

"He shipped me off to an overseas boarding school in Switzerland" Visiting Marty said, sighing. "When I first saw him in that world, he was mad at me for not being there." He winced at the memory. "I couldn't believe what I saw back then. Shouting insults about me and complaints to Mom… the weirdest thing was that she still insisted that I should respect Biff. Respect! I felt like throwing up at the mere word!"

"I take it Mom didn't know that Biff was the one to shoot Dad, then" Local Marty muttered, not really able to imagine how twisted Lorraine's mind would have to be in that case.

"No, she didn't" Visiting Marty said. "She hadn't gone quite that insane… even though she had become an alcoholic, like she was in the original timeline."

Local Marty shivered. "I'm glad that we didn't see that, then" he said. "How did you manage to fix that world, by the way? Like we did in '55?"

"Much the same, yeah" Visiting Marty said. "There were some differences, though. The whole thing took a lot longer. And we started interfering with history earlier in the day – I was actually there to watch Old Biff give the almanac to his younger self. The difference with you was that we had to be careful around Old Biff, as us being there depended on him returning the DeLorean to the future. You had no such issues, and could fix the mess in a few minutes while we took hours for it and just barely succeeded, too." His unhappy face then changed into a faint grin. "After making Biff – Young Biff, I mean – crash into a manure truck."

Local Marty burst into laughter. "Really?" he chuckled. "Again?"

"That's right" Visiting Marty said. "It wasn't really on purpose, though – as I escaped from Biff with help of the hoverboard and the DeLorean, Biff was so astonished when staring at me that he didn't notice the manure truck until he crashed it into it. I couldn't help but laugh when I heard him shout in frustration. 'Manure! I hate manure!'"

Local Marty smirked. "I can imagine that would've been hilarious to watch" he said. "Especially after what you probably went through…"

"That's right" Visiting Marty said. "But anyway…" He looked at Emmett. "Are you going to try to fix the machine? Not to attempt to push you into anything, but I would like to see whether you could get us home."

"For once, I agree with you" Doc said. "I'd hate to bother you too much, but the sooner we can leave, the better it really is for us. We wouldn't want to spend years travelling through dimensions, after all. So, if you don't mind…"

"Oh, no, I don't" Emmett said. "I can see what you are going through. Don't you worry – I'll have a look at your time machine right away. Where is it?"

"In front of the house" Doc said. "It's the bus there. I created this bus specifically for the dimensional device, but I am considering making a dimension-travel device for the other vehicles as well. That might be interesting, to have that ability in all of the time machines." He looked at Emmett. "Our other time machines are a DeLorean – a new one – and a train, by the way."

"A train?" Emmett said, eyes opening wide.

"Yes, a train" Doc confirmed. "How else did you think Clara and I got out of the Nineteenth Century? You know they didn't have cars back then. I had to build the time machine into an old steam train. I think the end result came out rather well." He reached into his wallet and took out a photograph of the train, handing it to his counterpart. "Take a look."

Emmett looked intrigued. "This.. this is fascinating" he finally muttered.

"Thank you" Doc said, blushing a little. "It was hard work for sure, but eventually, it wasn't really too hard to pull it off. If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything, I always say – and after all, Clara did help me a lot. She wasn't really too knowledgeable on the technical part of the time machine, but she could help me by handing me tools or actually working on the machine itself… but sometimes she also did other things that indirectly helped me, such as helping customers who wanted to purchase something and didn't need me to work on it. Clara really was a great help with that." He took out another photograph and handed it to Susan. "This is her. My beloved wife." He smiled in nostalgia.

Susan looked at it and gasped. "Golly!" she exclaimed. "She does look a lot like me!"

A curious Emmett switched photographs with his wife, and had a look at his other self's spouse as well. "You're right" he said, stunned. "If not for the hair colour, I would've said that it was you. And the eye colour, of course. It's blue with you, but brown with your great-great-grandaunt."

"I guess that's something that I inherited from my father" Susan said, smiling. "Dad had blue eyes. It ran in the family, and it was probably the only thing of his that I inherited, since other than that, I looked exactly like my mother."

"That's the same with me, I suppose" Visiting Marty said. "Or more accurately, my son. I still can't grasp how much he was the spitting imagine of me, back in 2015. Only his eyes were brown like Jennifer's and mine blue. And there was the fact that he was a complete wimp – but that doesn't have anything to do with the outside, which is what we're discussing now, and that's supposed to be avoided now anyway." He looked up at Doc, as if he was accusing the older scientist of something. "Isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, it is" Doc confirmed. "The Marty Junior that you would run into when time travelling now is an entirely different person from the teenager that you saw when you first travelled to the future. I won't tell you much specifics, but let's just say that if you were to go thirty years into the future from our present, you would see a kid who is about as self-confident and happy in life as you are."

Visiting Marty smiled at that. "That sounds good" he said. "What about the Junior of this future, um, Emmett?"

"I honestly don't know" Emmett admitted. "I haven't time travelled to the future ever since that one original trip, and that was when Marty still had his chicken problem. Since he no longer has it now, I'm not quite sure how his future will turn out. I'm hoping it will be as good as yours, but I could never really know that for sure until I finish the time machine. In the meantime, I'll be doing my best to help Marty by achieving his dreams." He gave his friend a pat on the back.

"And I hope that your future looks good too, Doc" Local Marty said. "I have to admit that I was a little uncomfortable with Susan at first, as I'd been used to seeing you as a bachelor for so long, but I got over that, eventually, and now I'm hoping that everything turns out as fine as it can."

"Thanks, Marty" Emmett responded, smiling. "But, anyway, there's the matter of your time machine to attend to, isn't it?" He shook his head. "I suppose I forgot that for a moment. "Sorry, I'll go over right away and check what I can do right away."

"It's okay" Doc said, as Emmett stood up and walked outside. "I suppose that I was putting a bit too much pressure on you when I asked whether you could give the time machine a look right now, but I really do have the urge to get home as soon as possible. I'm not quite sure how long I'd be able to stand hopping through universes anymore."

"I see" Emmett said. "I'll see what I can do, then. What exactly was the issue again?"

"There was something acting up in the DFSCUPCIF" Doc said, as the two inventors walked outside. "I'm sure you've never heard of it, but it's the term for the alternate flux capacitor that I installed in the train time machine. It is supposed to send us through dimensions as we tap in a code on the keypad, but now it's sending us to random dimensions no matter how often we tap in the code to our home universe. The problem is apparently the Fusion reactor – which I should really fill right away for our trip to our home universe – which has overloaded causing the problem. The thing is that no one who is in possession of a time machine can fix it so far and you don't have possession of a time machine." He sighed. "That would, theoretically, immediately reduce our chances of you being able to help us to close to zero."

"Well, don't give up on me right away" Emmett said, smirking a bit. "You never know what I could.. well, at least try to do for you." He walked up to the time bus. "So… this is your time machine? I wish I had mine finished already, we could compare them a bit. Granted, my DeLorean isn't the same as a time travelling bus, but you get the point."

"I do" Doc said, nodding. "Yeah, it's indeed too bad we can't see if anything matches up." He took out his key. "Just a moment."

"There's no hole" Emmett pointed out.

Doc pressed his thumb to the plate and held the key in front of it, smiling as the familiar hole formed and Emmett's jaw dropped. "There is one now."

"Great Scott!" Emmett exclaimed. "This is amazing! I suppose the technology is from the future?"

"Late twenty-thirties, yes" Doc confirmed. "I thought it could come in handy. I bought it in 2043, actually, so when I went to the store, this was an old model already."

Emmett smirked. "How times can change, huh?"

"Definitely" Doc smirked back. "So, you can go in now."

Emmett did so, and looked around with awe and with even more fascination than he had when looking at the bus' exterior. "This is fascinating" he admitted. "I don't have a flux capacitor like this one, but it looks like an intriguing concept. Once I get finished with the normal DeLorean, I should consider building one of them."

"I don't think that sounds like a good idea" Local Marty said. "You noticed what's happening to our other selves because of it."

"True, true" Emmett admitted. "It's still fascinating, though. To think that something like this could actually become a reality in the far future." He smirked at Susan. "I suppose seeing this is erasing any doubts you could have about me really having invented a working time machine, isn't it?"

"I never had any doubts" Susan corrected him. "Well, at the very beginning, of course, but not after you showed me all of your files and your already finished works and the dismantled DeLorean. There was the fact that Marty confirmed your story to the tiniest detail, and of course that film that Marty and you made. That was probably the big one, as it was the actual proof of this. You couldn't afford that kind of photographic fakery, and I doubt that it would be real easy to do or get to be done anyway for a regular person. And that added to the rest of the proof..."

"Yeah, that was probably used as a convincing trick in the previous universe where we saw you too" Doc said. "That's kind of funny, actually… in all of the universes we've seen you, so far – well, there's only been two until now, but still – you end up being married to some version of me who does not or does not yet possess a working time machine, while he did have one around once."

"And there's the fact that both worlds are partly almanac based" Visiting Marty pointed out. "Remember? This world has the divergence in you and me from the '50s stopping Biff's rise with the almanac, and the other world had me keeping the almanac."

"There's actually a world like that?" Local Marty exclaimed, stunned.

"Yeah, there is" Visiting Marty confirmed. "It wasn't the greatest world I'd ever seen, though. My other self had still had that chicken problem, and the Rolls Royce accident. His relationship with Doc was strained and if he hadn't had the almanac, his future had been miserable. With his bad temper and not being friends with Doc, though, I'm not quite sure what his future will be like, and whether it will really end up good for him in the long term."

"I suppose so" Local Marty said. "I'm certain that I wouldn't end up becoming as bad as Biff, though."

"Yeah, that's a point that I agree with you on" Visiting Marty said. "I would never become anyway close to how bad Biff was. I couldn't even murder someone if I wanted to, let alone shoot so many people without caring for it like Biff did. So, I'm sure…"

"Let us go back to the time machine, okay?" Doc gently urged. "I can understand that you're feeling quite uncomfortable around the idea of you becoming as bad as Biff, but we really do have something else to do now."

"You're probably right, Doc" Visiting Marty admitted. He looked at Emmett and said: "Well, um, alternate Doc, what are you going to do now?"

* * * *

Once again, that question was one that kept the inventors and the Marty's busy for quite some time. Emmett inspected the time machine as thorough as he could, trying to find a way in his head to figure out how to get the DFSCUPCIF to work on a way that would hopefully return the time travellers to their home dimension. He tried everything that he could come up with, and got all the tools and comparison material from the DeLorean. It took him a whole hour and a half, but eventually it was about 2:50 PM and still nothing had changed. Emmett, Susan and Local Marty stopped their work and their thoughts and exited the bus, pessimistic.

"You did a good job" Doc said, trying to cheer his other self up. "It wasn't your fault that you didn't have the necessary materials to do the job that I was looking for."

"I suppose so" Emmett said, sighing. "It's too bad, though, that I wasn't able to help you. I was really hoping that it would go all right this time." He sighed again. "What are you going to do now?"

"What else?" Doc said, half-chuckling. "Dimension travel again to see what we encounter next. I don't have much else to do anyway."

"I suppose so" Emmett agreed. "Good luck, then."

"Thank you."

Emmett and Local Marty waved at their other selves, as Doc stepped back inside the train and walked over to the keypad. "Let's see… April second, 1988, 12:52 P.M…"

"You really are getting used to this whole resetting thing, aren't you?" Visiting Marty said. "I mean, didn't you have that temporal thingy which you set up to give the normal time and the time lapse and all?"

"Oh yes, the Temporal Natural Flow Monitor" Doc confirmed, looking at the object in question. "Let's see if it still works… Temporal Natural Flow Monitor on. Display current time lapse." He studied the screen for a few moments, then went back to the time circuits."

"And?" Marty couldn't help but ask.

"It did work all right" Doc confirmed. "According to the monitor, 2 days, 3 hours and 44 minutes have passed since we first went off, which is proven correct when looking at my watch and if I am not incorrect…" The scientist looked over to Marty's arm. "…and at yours" he finished. "I suppose that the TNFM works as it should."

"Making it the only one of the inventions around here that does" Marty said, somewhat depressed.

"That's not true" Doc pointed out. "The hover conversion still works, and we can still travel through time and dimensions – which we're about to do now." Having said that, he turned the hover switch to 'on' and calmly looked out of the window as the bus lifted up again. "Well… are you ready?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" Marty quipped. "Just make this be so that it'll be a quick locating procedure… I'm not really in the mood to spend minutes searching for your other self."

"Well, you know that does not lie within my capabilities" Doc responded, taking a moment to look over at his other self and his Marty, who were still waving down below. "But I'll try to make it be as quick as possible, yes." He looked over at the time circuits. "Destination Time: April 2, 1988, 12:55 P.M., PF #50."

"Why do you keep that dimension code?" Marty asked, leaning back in his seat. "I mean, you know it's not going to make us end up home. Why not try something different for a change?"

"Why should I?" Doc argued. "I mean, there is no clear reason that it will change anything. We could have a similar chance of ending up in a world where we'd like to end up in as in the previous worlds. And it's better to at least have a chance that we'll end up home than none at all."

Marty sighed. "Go ahead, then" he allowed. "I'm not really planning to discuss this with you in great detail. I just thought that it would be a nice idea. I suppose that I was wrong." He shrugged. "Doesn't bother me, though. Just go ahead and travel to the next universe – I'm getting kind of tired of this."

Doc glanced at his friend. "Tired? Now?" he said. "Marty, we've been travelling for just five hours since we departed from the world where we rested. You can't be exhausted already."

"I'm not, I just mean… I'm not really liking going through this whole process" Marty clarified. "I'd like to just visit a world where they greet us with a smile and say that yes, they can help us home."

"Well, I'm sure that a world like that will undoubtedly appear some time in the near future" Doc said. "All we need to have is patience, after all."

"I don't have patience."

"Well, that's not my fault" Doc replied. "But, anyway… are you ready to go?"

"As I already said, yes" Marty said. "I just hope that we'll find something different this time… a world that can actually help us for a change."

"Believe me," Doc agreed, as he accelerated the time bus through the sky, "I think I couldn't ever agree more with you on that than I do now."

And moments after that, the time bus broke through the time barrier, and vanished into a new dimension.