JUNE
Time Will Tell

Thursday, October 25, 1984
2:39 PM

Marty shut his locker, glaring at Mick and Steve.

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Come on, man," Mick goaded. "Why not?"

"Yeah, don't tell us you're scared."

"Hey, Em," – Marty picked up her bookbag, laid it on his skateboard, and sat down next to her on her afterschool bench – "Steve's brother's getting us all in to see Terminator tonight. You wanna come?"

His lab partner raised an expectant eyebrow at her bookbag on the ground. He slid the skateboard under the bench with the toe of his shoe, and to his surprise, she didn't banish him to reinstate its place beside her. She started scrawling in her notebook again.

"Am I invited?"

"I'm inviting you."

"Why are you inviting me?"

"To the cyborg-assassin-from-the-future movie? Why wouldn't I?"

"Because Steve's said maybe four things to me since the beginning of the school year," Emma pointed out, pulling her sleeves up to her elbows.

"So?"

"Why would he want me there?"

"I want you there," Marty said. Her eyes snapped up, and he nudged her arm. "You're cool if I say so. So, come hang out."

Emma looked away and swallowed.

"It's Thursday," she said as she tucked her hair behind her ear. "The Terminator doesn't come out until tomorrow."

Marty held up a finger with a triumphant grin.

"Steve's brother is the assistant manager at the theater. He has to spend tonight splicing the reels together, then he has to watch the movie to make sure it's all good. He usually does a midnight preview like this when he's the one putting them together."

Emma huffed out a laugh as a leaf floated down into her open Spanish book. "Midnight?"

"Alright, look."

Marty shifted toward her and pulled an orange candy bar out of his coat pocket.

"I am prepared to bribe you," – he shook the package at her – "with Reese's peanut butter cups."

This hastened Emma's decision making, but he pulled them back when she reached for them.

"No," he chided, returning them to his coat when she scoffed. "This is a movie snack. You can have these if we can pick you up at 11:15 at Burger King."

Emma shook her head, rolling her eyes as a reluctant grin blossomed. Marty boasted his success with a smirk. He stood from the bench and gave Emma her bookbag before kicking his skateboard up into his hand. Emma waved the leaf off her Spanish book and started packing up.

"I can get my own peanut butter cups, you know," she said as he walked backwards toward the street.

"Yeah, you could," Marty allowed airily, "but you want these ones."

Marty dropped his skateboard and disappeared on the back of a Cutlass with a wink.

Emma's mouth fell open.

Andy had several fast-food relics strewn on the floor of his backseat, so Emma and Marty stood outside the theater scraping smashed fries out of the grooves of their shoes before going in. The lobby was dark except for emergency lighting and backlit concession signs.

They loitered in front of the largest auditorium's doors with Steve, Andy, Mick, and Tammy, Steve's almost-girlfriend. Another five people strolled in the main entrance a few moments later – employees of a sister Cinemark in Haysville. They started passing out beers and newly expired concession candy pulled from rotation.

Emma followed Marty into the back row, juggling a box of Lemonheads and a warm Pepsi in one arm as she navigated the tight aisle. She stepped on a few forgotten popcorn kernels, breaking up the litany of sticky smacks each time she lifted the bottom of her shoe from the cement. When Marty felt they were dead center, they took their seats.

"Is this alright?"

"We can sit with the others, if you want," she said, nodding to the rest of the group eight rows up.

"Nah." He dumped his armload of candy in the empty seat to his left. "They aren't really here to watch the movie," he divulged with a flash of his eyebrows.

Emma spent the next fifty minutes wondering if she was really there to watch the movie, too. Marty winked at her earlier; she would fight anyone that said he hadn't been flirting with her. They were sitting in the back row, for God's sake. The five couples staggered in front of them were not watching the movie. Two of them weren't even trying to be quiet about it.

Marty set his drink on the floor and leaned into her armrest.

Her heart pounded.

The one time I don't get Junior Mints –

"Em."

Marty tapped her on the arm with the promised Reese's cups. Veiling her sigh of relief as a chuckle, she accepted them with a tight smile. Then, their eyes flicked over to the breathy moan Andy had elicited from a Haysville girl. Marty froze, looking at Emma out of the corner of his eye. His throat went dry.

He was such an idiot.

Such an idiot.

Where was this debilitating shame when the guys half-convinced him after school that she might be game for casually blowing off a little steam? She'd never go for it. He knew that. And he didn't want her to. Emma wasn't like that. He wasn't even sure if he was like that; his conscience was suddenly overwhelmed by the regret that would consume him at the end of the night.

As disappointed as he was in himself, Marty knew he'd be doubly disappointed if he went for it and she didn't object. Though the imagery was provocative, it was dissonant. It bothered him that Emma might carry on afterward as if nothing ever happened, even though that was the point.

He couldn't do it. Not without doing it right.

Making out in a movie theater "as friends" was not doing it right.

He'd catch hell from the guys tomorrow for not "sealing the deal", but there was no deal to seal, so he technically wasn't chickening out.

Emma just deserved better than that. She deserved to be kissed, not manhandled by some idiot ready to ruin their friendship for a little action.

God, he groaned inwardly. It would be a week before his guilt would let him look her in the eye again.

Andy's date buried a squeal into his shoulder. Marty cringed. His ears were hot.

Emma started to giggle.

Marty stared at her. Her cheeks were ballooning as she stifled a snort behind her hand. After another wanton gasp echoed through the auditorium, Emma hunched over in her seat and shook with silent laughter. Marty began to smile as the oppressive expectations bogging him down grew meaningless and evaporated into the recycled air above them. He was soon left with a stitch in his side from biting back his own amusement and, taking in the girl next to him, a lopsided grin.

He was such an idiot.

Emma sank down into her creaky chair and put her feet up on the seat in front of her.

"Would someone just give her the Oscar already?"

Marty laughed. He shimmied down into his seat until they were shoulder-to-shoulder again and held out his hand.

She gave him a Reese's cup.

Maybe he was too chicken to make a move on her, and maybe she was too chicken to take his hand.

But neither was shy about whipping Lemonheads across the theater at Andy for the rest of the movie.

June 12, 1885

I woke up craving Lemonheads this morning and smiled. The reminder of a vivid memory came with perfect timing: today is Marty's birthday.

Sort of. He was born on June 12, but he won't be born for another eighty-three years. So, technically I'm observing his eventual existence? I listened to two songs on the Walkman this morning to celebrate. I may even try to bake a cake when I get back today. Crazier things have happened.

Dad is going to close the shop to work on the DeLorean, and he's arranged for me to go shooting with Zeke for the day – on a horse! I've been shooting at stationary targets all this time, but I never thought to practice shooting while I was moving. Or while me and the target were moving. Zeke's done this kind of thing for years, so I'm excited to learn what I can from him.

I'll soon be starring in my very own spaghetti western at this rate!

Marty will have his band, and I'll have my silly movies.

We'll be a regular old celebrity couple.

Doc sat in the front seat of the DeLorean, staring at the digital speedometer above the steering wheel. To its right, the golden arc of the tiny Bulova alarm clock bending in the soft darkness. He had pulled it from his coat pocket and set on the dash over thirty years ago, a momentary reprieve from the harsh gusts of the incoming storm.

"When this alarm goes off, you hit the gas!"

In his other pocket, a letter.

Please take whatever precautions are necessary to prevent this terrible disaster.

The horses whinnied as Emma came into the shop. Emmett shut his eyes.

There was no preventing this.

The passenger-side gull wing hissed open. Emma propped her rifle up against the side of the DeLorean before falling into the seat with a boisterous "phew!", letting her hands drop soundly on her lap.

"Look, I know you're good without the fancy scope, but you should see Zeke shoot stuff from a moving horse," she gushed, wiping the grime from her face on her bandana. "It was awesome. I'm going to be sore for a week, and I probably have a black eye, but" – she made two fists and spoke with conviction – "I officially aspire to be an unsuspecting badass with a menacing stoicism that exudes danger beneath my magnetic indifference."

When she got little more than a half-smile from her father, Emma tilted her head, confused. He had arranged this day-long outing with Zeke to get her out of the shop. She got to practice her marksmanship while he worked on the DeLorean, and she hoped her positive review might cheer him up. But he was too preoccupied for her enthusiasm. Too quiet.

Emma sat back in her seat, studying his face. It was evident his mouth was heavy with words he did not want to say. His jaw was tight, his eyes were murky with exhaustion. Every shadowed crease in his face bore the weight of the world, and she slowly began to realize that he hadn't touched the DeLorean all day.

He had sought solitude to rehearse how to tell her the inevitable.

Emma consciously relaxed her body and started counting to control her breathing as her eyes drifted to the Mr. Fusion switch. She was determined to stay calm; she wasn't going to cry, and she wasn't going to yell.

She practiced this too much to fall apart now.

Emma laid her hand on his, bracing herself.

"Dad?"

Their eyes locked.

She began to nod but couldn't get her voice above a whisper.

"Just say it. It's okay."

Doc turned his hand over. He entwined their fingers as he held her gaze.

"We knew, Emma," he murmured in the low light, taking care to enunciate each word thoroughly. "We knew that this was the most likely outcome."

"Yeah."

"I cannot repair the DeLorean with the resources available to me here," he continued. "The technology is not capable of replicating the functions of the time circuits control microchip, not even in my hands. I've been trying to find a way around it for months, but it simply cannot be done."

Emma was nodding vigorously now, expressionless. Her emotional detachment was an understandable strategy in the face of this news, but Doc squeezed her hand to ground her in his eyes again.

"Do you understand what I am telling you?"

"That we're not going home," Emma replied readily.

She looked away and let go of Doc's hand, swinging her legs out of the car.

"You did everything you could, Dad. I know that." She flashed a dour grin to precipitate her getaway to the loft. "Thank you for telling me. I'm going to bed now."

Emmett immediately got out of the DeLorean and met her at the rear of the time machine. He pulled her back towards the driver's door where the lamp on the workbench caught her face properly. The remnants of a day spent on a hot, windy prairie left dirt smudged along her jawline and up into her hair. There was a slight bruise below her eye. She was remarkably composed, and while he was grateful for it, it concerned him to know she had retreated that far into herself so quickly.

"I haven't done everything just yet," he imparted, breaking the blankness that glazed her eyes. "We may not be able to get back to 1985, but maybe we can still help Marty."

"How?" Emma asked. "Not to be pessimist, but it's not a given that I'll live to be 87-year-old Emma, hobbling through a thunderstorm to get to Marty in 1955. We can't rely on uncertainties." Her shoulders fell, but her eyes were still focused on the puzzle. "What, in Marty's situation, is a certainty?"

"Me," Emmett said with a hint of a smile. He had been waiting for that question. "The me of 1955."

Emma's face began to brighten, but her father had conditioned her to play devil's advocate over the years to be sure all possibilities were considered.

"The you that, at that point in time, is dangling from a clocktower?"

"Precisely!"

"Doesn't that create a paradox?"

"We were struck by lightning at Lyon Estates at 9:44 PM," Emmett said.

Emma narrowed her eyes. "Marty and I were changing at the mansion. We weren't at the clocktower yet."

"No, but even if Marty takes off for the clocktower immediately after we vanished, he wouldn't get there for almost twenty minutes – until after my younger self sent you and Marty back to the future. It might be a nasty surprise for me, but as it was before: stranded in 1955, I would be his only hope to get back to 1985."

"How does he get back if the time machine is gone already?"

Emmet laid his hand on the defunct DeLorean solemnly.

"With this."

Emma stared at his hand, trying to keep her heart from rising in her throat. They had tried to find a solution for almost six months now. If she hadn't taken command of her volatile emotions on the matter, she'd insist they work on it for another six months. But that was foolish; if they hadn't repaired it by now, it wasn't capable of being repaired.

But it could be – in 1955.

She didn't want to give up yet, but perhaps it was their best bet to trust this to her not-yet father. She put all her eggs in that basket before and turned out alright.

"How do we preserve a car for seventy years?"

"Bury it," Doc said. "That way, if something should happen to us prematurely, Marty will be able to find it for the younger me to fix. I'll have to leave instructions detailing how to rebuild the time circuits using 1955 technologies, but the desired outcome can be achieved with the modifications."

"Bury it… in the mine," Emma agreed, tracing the cables mounted to the side of the car.

Emmett nodded, adamant in encouraging her train of thought. "It was just in the paper this morning that Delgado is bust. There's a hundred places down there we could put it."

She eyed her translucent reflection in the driver-side window. It was time to put her hope in the numbers. Her voice steadied as the particulars mentally branched out before her.

"How do we tell him where to find it?" she asked.

Emmett smirked. "I can personally attest to the success of letters travelling alongside time."

Hope was budding in her chest, but she wouldn't pay heed to it yet. They could tell Marty everything in a letter – the coordinates for the buried DeLorean, how to fix it –

Where to find us.

"If you and Marty fix the time circuits," she said, seeing her father's frown sink in anticipation of what she was about to ask, "can't he come back for us before he goes to 1985?"

"In theory, yes. But in practice, Emma…" He sighed and eventually found her eyes again. "We are asking for a lot to go right just to get him home. If he were to come here, and the time machine failed again in some way, we'll have doomed us all."

Emma swallowed thickly. "But… we don't belong here, Dad. I know it may feel like it after six months, but I'll tell you now like Marty told you thirty years ago: I've got a life in 1985. I've got a date. I've got someone I really care about –"

"And you would look him in the eye and ask him to risk it?"

"Well…" – she shook her head with a stuttery sigh – "no."

"No," Emmett repeated quietly. "This is not something we will expect of him."

"I just… I hope he'd care enough to make that decision on his own."

Emmett took her by the shoulders. "Then let's let Marty make that decision. And if he decides not to come back for us," – he squeezed Emma's shoulders when they shook with a sob – "it's not because he doesn't care about us. It is our responsibility to give him all the information we have and let him choose."

Emma pushed her hair back from her face as she sniffed. She glanced over at the DeLorean again and back up at her father. He made it plain that they were stuck here before telling her this so she wouldn't cling to the frail thread of hope it offered. They could live out their days knowing that Marty would be alright. She would have to be content with that.

But she wanted to see him again.

Emma would endure the Spanish flu, two world wars, and the Great Depression just to make it back to that lightning storm one last time. A small smile twisted the corner of her mouth at the thought of him staring at the sky in search of the DeLorean, turning at her wisecrack shouted over the thunder, and coming face-to-face with a little old lady in a downpour. If she was certain the interaction wouldn't create a paradox or give him a heart attack, she would do it.

Emma wet her lips, sighing as she approached the parchment layered on the shop bench. He was already drawing up the plans.

"We'll give him all the options?"

"Yes."

"Unbiased?"

"Of course. But we cannot wait forever for something that may or may not happen," Emmett insisted gently, leaning over the rough drafts of his schematic next to her. "If Marty chooses to come back for us, I'll indicate a specific date to be set on the time circuits. After that, we will move on, Emma. We must."

"You're right." She couldn't live with the disappointment of expecting him every day only for him not to show up. "How long do you think it will take? He can't come back before we do it, right?"

"No, he can't," Emmett confirmed. "Working around all of our other obligations, I anticipate a few months. Once I've revised the time circuits schematic and the DeLorean is buried, I'll post a letter to Western Union to be delivered to Marty."

A smile flickered across Emma's lips. "You've really thought this through."

"I wanted to have something promising to tell you after…" He waved his hand at the DeLorean, referencing the earlier half of the conversation.

"Well, that was never going to be fun for either of us," Emma said, drawing to his side as a draft blew through the main shop. She wrapped an arm around his waist and sighed, trying on a crooked grin to dilute the dreariness hampering their spirits.

"Looks like you're stuck with me, old timer."

"I can live with that."

"Next order of business," Mayor Thomas announced over the crowded sanctuary, "is the hiring of a new schoolteacher."

The room hummed as the subject was broached. A few canes thumped into the floor. From the first seat in the last row, Emma leaned into the lukewarm breeze travelling down the main aisle from the open doors, sighing as it hit the beads of sweat on the back of her neck. A handkerchief appeared on her shoulder, and she smiled back at her father in thanks before dabbing herself dry.

"We have invited several prospects to apply for the position," Mayor Thomas continued, "and word-of-mouth has yielded its own crop of candidates. Interviews will be held over the coming weeks, after which a decision will be made so that preparations can be made at the schoolhouse and teacherage."

"May we submit names for consideration?" one congregate asked.

"Your recommendations are most welcome," the mayor said.

Several names were called out in unison. Mayor Thomas had each name repeated individually with their whereabouts; several were from neighboring towns, and two were from neighboring states.

In the thick of the throng, Zeke stood.

"Mr. Ward," the mayor said as the room quieted. "We would certainly be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter."

"I think you're wastin' your time with a bunch of out-of-towners," he said civilly. "All the money, time, and effort would be better expended elsewhere. We already have someone right here in Hill Valley more than qualified to fill the position – Miss Emma Brown."

Emma's heart choked as the old pews heralded the attention of every eye in the room. Several expressed their immediate approval as her father prodded her in the back to stand, doing so himself. She folded her hands in front of her the way Mrs. Ward did when she transitioned from one subject to another and presented a modest smile to mask her surprise. One of these faces was the father of little Amos, and no doubt he was curious to know why his son sang her praises.

"Mary held Mr. Brown and his daughter in the highest esteem for their devotion to the importance of education," Zeke said. "As Emmett has become a reliable pillar in our community, it only stands to reason that so, too, could his daughter. She's every bit as clever and capable as the man who raised her. Why, you ask any one of those students, they'll tell you that she is their teacher."

Emma's smile widened as her cheeks colored. What had Mrs. Ward written in those letters?

Mayor Thomas cleared his throat. "Miss Brown."

"Yes, sir?"

"How old are you, my dear?"

"I am seventeen."

The mayor nodded, stepping forward as he spoke. "That's quite young."

Emma did not expect that her back-up plan would be thrown into motion a week after accepting her fate, but she was being publicly interviewed on the spot by the mayor for a teaching position. For that reason, she knew her candidacy was not being seriously deliberated. A lick of irritation shifted her into a taller stance to defend herself.

"It is, but I have an exceptional grasp on the coursework," Emma said. "More importantly, I possess the skills necessary to help each student understand the material, and that is no simple task when each one has a unique way of digesting a lesson and applying it."

"So, you're confident in your abilities to command a classroom?"

"I wouldn't say I'm confident," she relented before looking the mayor in the eye. "I'm certain."

Emma watched Mayor Thomas's eyes lift just above her head, exchanging a look with her father as the floor rumbled with the earnest stamps of the townspeople's feet. She hoped he had a smug twinkle of pride in his eye rather than an apologetic dip in his brow.

"I'm certain, too," Zeke said. "Mary was certain. It would besmirch her memory to exclude Miss Brown's talents based on her age."

Another round of murmurs.

Mayor Thomas inclined his head toward Zeke as he took his seat again.

"Your input has great value in this discussion," the mayor acknowledged. "However, to be fair to those who have already applied, I cannot deem Miss Brown the new schoolteacher here and now."

Zeke nodded his understanding.

"You realize, Miss Brown, that some seventeen-year-olds are still in school themselves," Mayor Thomas said to her, "so it might be difficult for some parents to accept that someone with such limited experience in life is teaching their children."

Emma sighed. "Yes, sir."

"That said, I would like to offer you a role in the schoolhouse as an underteacher should you not win the main position. It is clear you come as highly recommended as an educator as your father does a smith."

Emma wet her lips. Underteacher. An assistant teacher.

She could make that work if it came to it.

"I accept on the condition that I am fairly considered for the schoolteacher position first."

Mayor Thomas smiled.

"As you should be."