CHAPTER THREE
Sapphire and Steel
Saturday, November 5, 1955
6:27 AM
"Em? Em, you gotta wake up. Come on."
She incurred a few light taps to her cheek and came to, nauseous from pain. Swallowing a particularly vile lurch, her fingers grazed the tender lump above her right eye. The bright, morning sky was as harsh as the metallic scent of blood wafting from her shoulder. She turned her head in the direction of Marty, trying to see him through a squint as she held her breath. It was an effort to speak.
"Didn't you just give me a concussion three weeks ago?"
"Em, we're in trouble."
She rolled her head over to the window, blinking at the skewed landscape of an endless field halved by a dirt road, pristine Lyon Estates markers, and a billboard flanked by colorful pennants whipping in the wind.
"I wish that meant we were getting a speeding ticket instead of what you're about to tell me."
The hood of the car slammed, and Marty ducked back inside, throwing Doc's suitcase on the seat.
"What?"
"Guess how fast you were going."
It took a moment, but his face fell. Seized with panic, Marty looked over at the time circuits sharply, reading the date on the red display before they beeped out. The plutonium alarm went off.
"And," she added, "guess what we didn't bring."
Marty stared at Emma, quickly leaning in to start the car. The engine gave a few dying whirs despite his multiple attempts to resurrect it.
"You have got to be kidding me."
"Lead foot."
"Speaking of lead," – he nodded to her shoulder – "we need to get you to a hospital. After I move this thing out of the road."
Marty put the gear in neutral and turned the wheel before getting out to push the DeLorean in the direction of the billboard. Emma tried to look over her shoulder at the wound, but craning her neck back at such an angle required tensing a torn muscle, so she swung her head forward with a gasp, panting from the intensity of the raw burn.
Next, she clamped down on her lip, feeling her body start to shake as she reached around with her right arm to assess the damage. Taking a deep breath, she hung her head in the crook of her elbow, barely ghosting the surface of the warm, wet spot. She outlined the jagged shape of the bullet's entrance in the radiation suit and let out a few frightened sobs.
She lifted her head from her arm and brought it around to the front of her shoulder, gently flattening her palm against it. No warm, wet spot. No jagged exit hole.
There was a bullet in her. She had actually been shot.
When the car stopped moving, Marty eventually reappeared outside the driver's door, already half out of his radiation suit.
"There's a sign right up the road that says town is two miles from here," he said, balling up the suit and throwing it on the floor. He grabbed the suitcase from the seat, walking around the front of the car and opening her hatch. "Do you think you can walk that far?" he asked, kneeling on the ground and rummaging through Doc's suitcase.
"Yeah," she managed, pushing herself away from the back of the seat. "I was shot in the shoulder, not the leg."
Marty smiled. "Unzip your suit, smart ass."
Emma did so as she looked down at her father's things, too numb to process what she had seen as reality. Time travel and her dad gunned down all in one night? She was trying to breathe in a vacuum, and it was too much. Maybe if she said it to herself enough it would be more real. My dad was killed. He was shot by terrorists. Right now, those words only put a knot in her stomach. In time, when it properly sank in and the shock and adrenaline had worn off, the dam would break. She knew that. But right now, it was too fresh and too improbable to seem real.
Still, seeing Marty fold one of her dad's long, white socks into a thick square and shake out one of his button-downs made the knot in her stomach tighten uncomfortably.
"You're gonna have to help me get out of this thing," she said breathlessly, swinging her legs out of the car. Holding her left arm as still as possible, she stood with little difficulty. Marty laid the shirt and sock aside and stood up behind her, reaching around for the two halves of the suit at her neck.
"Do you want to do this one arm at a time?"
"I think it's loose enough that it'll slide right off."
Marty pulled back, and Emma's breath hitched as the material peeled away from the injury. She heard Marty make a repulsive noise in the back of his throat. Thankfully, he withheld his comments and eased the cuffs of the sleeves over her wrists. From there, the suit fell around her knees, and Emma stepped out of it.
"There." Marty collected her suit and pitched it into the DeLorean as she sat down on the doorjamb. "Can you turn your shoulder towards me?"
"Uh, yeah. Here."
She slid to one side and turned, giving him access to the wound. Lightheaded, she shut her eyes, grimacing at the sour taste snaking up her throat.
"Hurry up before I pass out."
Marty sat on the doorjamb next to her, moving her ponytail aside to get his first real look at it. His suspicions had been correct; it was far worse under the suit. The tiny navy and teal horizontal stripes of her shirt were indiscernible because of the opaque mass spreading through its threads. The dark, wet shine covered the entire upper part of her left sleeve and traveled over a good portion of her shoulder blade. Finding the blackest spot in her arm just below the socket, he put one hand on her back to steady them both as he pressed the sock over it. Emma whimpered.
"Sorry," he said, guiltily pressing harder. "Can you reach around and hold this?"
"Yeah."
"It might be easier to go under your arm," Marty said, and she redirected her hand. He took her fingers, guiding them up to the sock. "There. Keep that pressure on it."
Emma let her head touch the car as Marty tore the sleeve from the shirt. "I don't think going into a hospital like this is a good idea."
"You're in excruciating pain, bleeding out with a bullet lodged in your shoulder," Marty grunted, tugging at the sleeve aggressively. "Isn't this the kind of thing you go to a hospital for?"
"Not in 1955."
"What? People don't get shot in Mayberry?"
"Okay," Emma said as the sleeve ripped fully from the shirt, "how were you going to explain how I got shot?"
Marty faltered at her question, tossing the remainder of Doc's shirt back at the suitcase. 'Shot by Libyans,' 'drive-by,' and 'science experiment gone wrong' didn't exactly sound right to begin with, and now that he did think about it, there wasn't a good reason to go into a 1950s hospital with a gunshot wound unless they were criminals on the run. The medical field wasn't as advanced, they'd try to open some investigation…
"Well, what's your idea then?" he asked, flattening the sleeve and looping it under her arm. "You can't walk around like this."
"Just tie it off for now," she said, stiffening as he tightened a knot over the sock. "We have to make it into town first before we can do anything."
Marty stood up and took his orange vest off, followed by his denim jacket. When Emma was up, he motioned for her to turn around.
"Put this on." He started working the sleeve up her left arm. "It'll cover your shoulder so no one's freaking out when they see you."
After a good bit of patience, effort, and sharp inhales, Emma had Marty's jacket on. He reinstated his orange vest before piling their belongings into the DeLorean and throwing several large branches over it to hide its gleam in the sunlight from passing motorists. Emma waited by the road, hardening her mentality so that she could make the two-mile walk without having to resort to Marty carrying her. When he came around from behind the billboard, he stuck his hands in his pockets, and, side-by-side, they started up the road.
They wandered into Hill Valley, Marty slowly digesting everything around him. The cars, the clothes, the buildings and signs – everything was different, living against the backdrop of the life and times he came from. When they stopped under the movie theater marquee, Emma calmly looked around, assessing the situation with her lips pressed firmly together.
She expected this. She watched the experiment work once, and under the same conditions with the time circuits set to a different date and time, they were part of the second successful experiment. If anything, it was more successful; they had a dog travel over one minute, but she and Marty had just travelled over thirty years. So, from a scientific standpoint, it was incredible.
They just had the misfortune of… being interrupted… before the plutonium chamber was refilled.
"Come on," he said, leading her across the street.
Emma looked up for her bench, surprised to see how pristine everything before her really was. The town square was no longer a dead, gray void of metered parking and abundant litter for the court house officials; it was bright with perfect green grass, uniform hedges, and beautiful lush trees. A cannon and war memorial were at its center, an artist just off to the side with his easel and canvas. The courthouse looked not to have a chip or scuff on it anywhere, and when the clock gave a loud, resounding chime, she and Marty exchanged looks.
"I need to sit down," she said as he snatched a newspaper from a waste bin. She started to head for her bench – now as green and smooth as the square – when Marty grabbed her elbow, throwing away the newspaper and pointing towards the mint green corner café.
"You can sit down in there."
"Oh, good. I'm starving."
Marty kept Emma at his side as they crossed the street and slowly entered the aerobics-center-turned-café.
Café-turned-aerobics-center?
Irrelevant.
The large windows that usually harbored a view of women high-stepping in leotards were lined with teal green booths and a jukebox playing from the back wall. The shiny mint green of the exterior echoed throughout the café -the base of the large wrap-around counter, the stools, the walls. The floors looked like a blanket woven in Albuquerque, patterned with faded red and blue triangles and black lines on a tawny backdrop. The lights above the bar were akin to melting milk jugs – boxy, white wax that tapered to a point.
Backlit signs hung behind the bar advertising shakes, sundaes, and pie, and several large, wooden painted shapes of similar items were mounted on the walls. Small jars of candies, peanuts, and sprinkles for ice cream were on display next to the malt shakers. Clear and green glasses were aligned neatly on the shelves, all of the coffee cups with their handles facing the same direction. A man in a grey-blue jacket and a woman in a yellow dress sat at the front portion of the counter while a young man swept around them quietly.
Emma smiled at the woman behind the candy counter off to her right, eyes roaming over the vintage logos of the candy bars she passed every few days in the 7-11.
"Hey, kid, what'd you do? Jump ship? What's with the life preserver?"
She and Marty looked up at the man behind the counter, none other than who she presumed to be Lou himself. Marty was silent, clearly lost. Emma didn't blame him; there wasn't really a logical answer to the question.
"Breaking in new equipment for the Coast Guard," she said suddenly, patting Marty's 'life preserver' with a tight smile. He shot her a look. "Makes the family proud."
"Is that right? Thanks for serving," Lou said. "Can I get you something?"
Marty wet his lips. "I just want to use the phone."
Emma turned her head sharply. "Who do you know in 1955?" she whispered.
"Your dad."
Her eyes grew as she leaned away, and he nodded before glancing towards the counter.
"Go sit down and get something to eat. I'll be right out."
Swallowing the unexpected bitter taste in her mouth, she forced a smile and approached the counter as Marty headed over to the phone booth. Gingerly taking the stool next to the young man in the jacket, she smiled up at Lou, hoping to rid her mouth of the horrible sour fizzle.
"Cherry pie, please."
Lou gave her a look but headed down the bar. Emma smoothed her hands over the cool, white, glossy countertop in wait, smiling at the boy beside her when their eyes met briefly. He returned it, lowering his head again to his bowl of cereal and magazine. Lou returned with her pie and fork, setting a glass of milk in front of the boy.
"Would you like something to drink?"
"No, thank you."
As Emma picked up her fork and debated at which end of the slice she should start, the boy reached for his milk without looking up. He knocked it over.
A great milky flood flowed over the countertop, and the cup rolled off the back edge of the counter, smashing to the floor. Emma jumped from her stool just before the milk could run into her lap. She frowned as it claimed her slice of pie, the flaky crust now soggy from soaking up the milk. Lou was back in an instant, and the boy was shoving his things down to the opposite end of the bar.
"Oh. Oh, I'm so sorry," he said immediately, grabbing the towel Lou offered him. He fumbled around his bowl of cereal, clumsily spreading the towel over the mess. "I'm so sorry. I—Are you okay? Did I get any on you?"
Emma took a wad of napkins from the dispenser, pushing them into the stool with her good arm. She almost laughed. She had blood caked on her shirt under Marty's jacket, black smudges all over her white pants, and her hair was in a tussled ponytail.
"You couldn't have done much more damage if you did."
"Goldie! Help them clean this up!"
The young man with the broom came over, and, excusing himself, laid his broom against the counter and squeezed in to where Emma had been sitting, wiping down the counter with skilled speed. Emma stood off to the side, and the boy swiveled around on his stool, half-afraid to look her in the eye.
"I really am sorry about your pie. I should have been paying more attention," he murmured, fiddling with the edge of his jacket. "Can I get you another?"
Emma felt bad. This overly apologetic boy was making every effort to deliver the refreshing chivalry of the fifties, but his hunched shoulders, withered voice, and lack of eye contact took away from the charm of the experience. All the same, she smiled.
"It's okay. It's just a piece of pie."
"Em?"
Emma turned around as Marty came up to her and surveyed the scene. Goldie finished with the countertop and its edge, and Lou nodded to her, placing a fresh slice of pie at her stool and a new glass of milk in front of the boy.
"What happened?"
"Just a spill. Everything's alright now."
Marty glanced up at the young man in the jacket. Flustered, the boy at the counter took one look at him and swiveled back around, carefully moving his milk to the other side of his cereal, away from Emma and her piece of pie lest he knock it over again. He buried his face in his magazine as Emma returned to the counter. Marty sat beside her, trying to get another look at this boy with the Corn Flakes.
"Who is that?"
"That's –" Emma paused, touching the young man's arm. He jumped.
"What?"
"I'm sorry," Emma said. "What is your name?"
"Hey, McFly, what do you think you're doing?"
All at once, the three teenagers at the counter turned towards the door – one confused, one curious, and one wishing a wormhole would manifest out of the air around him and swallow him wholly out of his miserable existence.
A teenage Biff Tannen stood in the doorway of Lou's Cafe with his cronies. Emma exchanged a fiercely confused glance with Marty until she realized that Biff was bearing down on the poor kid next to her, and subsequently, who the poor kid next to her was. As Biff heckled him about his homework, she looked back at Marty wide-eyed with a small smile of intrigue, but Marty had tunnel vision. The realization didn't seem so much fascinating as it was unbelievable to him.
George McFly. She was sitting next to Marty's future father.
And nearly getting knocked in the face with the elbow of Hill Valley's biggest asshole.
She blinked indignantly and leaned back towards Marty to avoid it as Biff knocked George on the head and grabbed his face, his three cohorts guffawing around them. Before she was even aware of it, words were leaving her mouth.
"Hey, stop it!"
Biff halted, releasing George's shirt. All eyes were suddenly on her. A flash of fear crossed Emma's face as he turned to her. Biff Tannen had lost a beer gut and gained a lot of muscles, making him seem much taller than she remember him being in 1985. She tried to sit tall, her shoulder screaming.
Biff snarled at her. "What's it to you, sweet cheeks?"
"Please don't hit him anymore."
"You volunteering to take it for him?"
In that instant, Marty put his arm in front of Emma, redirecting Biff's glare to himself. "Don't touch her."
"Who are you supposed to be?" 3-D laughed. "Her boyfriend?"
A chorus of more guffaws came as another of them said, "Hey, if this guy's bothering you, sweetheart, we can fix that."
"I'm not her boyfriend," Marty said a little too quickly. Emma glanced at the floor, and his heart sank a little. It had become such a reflex around his band mates. And in the face of this brawny, bullying Biff Tannen, he swallowed, embarrassed at how soft-spoken his response was. "I'm her brother."
Biff pouted at Emma as their chortles continued. "I'm sorry to hear that you're related to such a dork. Do you have a matching life preserver?"
Marty beat Emma's sharp tongue by grabbing her wrist to silence her oncoming retort. She stewed angrily as Biff and his gang rounded George once more about Biff's homework and smacked him in the face. Biff caught Emma's wince out of the corner of his eye and winked. Finally, they left with the parting threat of never seeing George in the café again, jumping into the black convertible right outside the front window.
Emma sighed, trying to let go of the frustration pent up in her chest now that they were gone. She leaned next to Marty's head, whispering in a hiss and removing her hand from his abruptly.
"You're my brother?"
The busboy Goldie came up to George, trying to give him a pep talk. Marty overheard the gist of it, but with Emma staring him down, he just held out his hands, trying to keep his voice down.
"What did you want me to say?"
"You didn't have to say anything!"
"He was threatening you!"
"Not that! Of course you say something about that."
"Would you have rather been my cousin?"
Emma rolled her eyes. Marty made a face.
"What? What?"
Emma leaned away, putting an end to their frenzied whispering and taking a mildly aggressive stab at her new slice of pie. Marty shook his head, startled to see that the stool beyond her was now empty. He sat up, eyes darting about as Emma stuffed another thick slice of pie into her mouth.
"Where did he go?"
A bicycle bell came from outside. Marty leapt from his stool, watching his not-yet father ride up one side of the building and down the other. He grabbed Emma by the wrist, pulling her off the stool with cherry pie still in her mouth. He ran out the door with her, yelling after George. When Emma finally swallowed her pie, Marty had her by the wrist again.
"Come on!"
"Marty! What are we doing?"
"We're gonna lose him!"