CHAPTER SIX
Stroke of Luck

Saturday, November 5, 1955
10:35 PM

Marty wasn't certain of Doc's level of medicinal expertise; he had married a nurse, yes, but not yet, and even then Marty couldn't accurately gauge the degree of knowledge Doc would have obtained from her. Doc was a surprising individual in many ways, but Marty doubted very much that he knew how to remove bullets from shoulders. At this point in time, however, it was what they had to work with.

Marty repositioned Emma in his arms and followed Doc up the driveway. He felt the wet warmth of blood seeping through the denim jacket to his shirt sleeve as he maneuvered sideways through the front door, all the while beating himself up for not making her go to the hospital that morning.

"Lie her on her stomach when we get upstairs," Doc said through the foyer. "I'll need you to cut away the fabric so I can access the wound."

"Right."

At the top of the stairs, Emmett entered the door to the right, urgently ushering Marty inside. He helped him lie Emma amidst the lavish crimson and brown pillows and elegantly embroidered comforter on the four-post bed, tossing some of the satin pillows to the floor. Marty went to the far side of the bed, nearest her injury, and turned on a bright lamp.

"That's good, that's good," Doc said, retrieving a pair of scissors from the bureau drawer and handing them to Marty. "Here. And keep this blanket handy in case she goes into shock. She may still lose more blood before I get the bullet out. I'll get some towels and alcohol."

Marty nodded as Doc went into the bathroom, his mind now scattered to the point that he looked at the scissors as if he had no idea what to do with them. After a moment of self-recollection, he sat them down to take his jacket off Emma, slightly nauseated at how large the stain beneath it had become. The sock and sleeve were completely saturated, and he cut them away first, dropping them on top of his jacket on the floor.

Holding his breath, Marty pinched the collar of her shirt and started cutting. The overpowering smell made him stop when Emmett returned. The scientist's eyes grew at the sight, but in seeing Marty's state, he did his best to keep the boy grounded.

"It's alright," he said, setting towels on the bed and a tray on the nightstand. "It's not as bad as it looks. Just cut."

Marty did so, cutting the length of her spine. When he finished, he handed the scissors to Doc.

"Easy does it," Doc said. "Don't pull too hard."

Marty cringed as he peeled the matted material from her sticky skin. Another strong, metallic waft hit them, and Marty coughed. When he had the sopping fabric off her back, Doc immediately pressed a cloth to the injury and inserted a needle next to it.

"What is that?" Marty asked.

Doc removed the syringe and rag. "Procaine. Numbing agent. Hold this pan."

Marty took the tiny, white metal bowl, watching on bated breath as Doc leaned over the crater in Emma's shoulder with a cloth damp with alcohol and a pair of surgical scissors. He swallowed uncomfortably as the thin, curved tip entered the bullet hole. More blood began to leak out.

"Is it supposed to be doing that?"

"Everything's fine," Doc assured, squinting down into the wound.

Suddenly, in seeing Doc calmly search for the fragment in Emma's shoulder, it dawned on Marty that this man was saving his daughter's life and didn't even know it. What was more; Emma had been injured as a result of something Doc didn't even know he had done yet. It was like some strange full-circle redemption or karma. He couldn't imagine how Doc would react to all this in 1985.

And then he realized… Doc wouldn't have a reaction to any of this in 1985.

A small weight dropped into the pan with a dense ping. Marty looked down at the blunt bullet fragment, little red dots on the white bowl from where it had danced around. He looked over at her shoulder as Doc wiped it clean with a wet washcloth.

"Where is this time machine I invented?"

"Uh, out by the Lyon Estates development," Marty said, patting the skin dry. "We came in at Peabody's farm before it stalled out."

"Stalled out? It's a car?"

"Yeah. What'd you think it was? A refrigerator?"

Emmett shook his head thoughtfully as he swabbed the area with iodine and layered it with gauze; whatever the shape this time-travelling vessel was, he still wouldn't believe it until he saw it.

Marty helped him secure the bandages with copious amounts of thick tape and replace everything to the tray on the nightstand. Doc then collected the bloodied rags and clothes, throwing them in a cold bath.

Marty examined Emma's face, half-hoping she would open her eyes so he knew she was really going to be okay. Her bare back rose and fell gently, however, and it was enough to pacify him for the time being.

Now he understood why she had given him third-degree earlier.

He picked up the spare blanket and threw it open above her. It billowed and fell in waves over her body, creating small hills and valleys between her and the pillows. He pulled the edge up over her shoulders, minding the bandages. Once the numbing stuff wore off, he couldn't imagine the kind of pain she'd be in.

"Well," Doc said, emerging from the bathroom, "let's go get it."

Marty pocketed one hand and motioned to his unconscious friend with the other. "What about Emma?"

"She'll be out for an hour or two, likely until the pain returns. We'll let her rest until we get back."

Marty reluctantly shut off the bedside lamp and allowed Doc to lead him away from the bed. At the door, they looked back. When Emma remained dormant, they slipped out of the doorway, allowing the door to shut quietly in their wake.

Emma felt herself choking back a few sobs when she muddled back into existence. Hot, throbbing pain pulsated into her back and arm, and a twinge shot up her neck from lying face down. The room was dark, save for the few threads of the lawn's lights peaking in from behind the heavy curtains. A clock ticked on somewhere behind her, and aside from that, silence pressed around her uncomfortably. Alone in this dark, unfamiliar place, it suddenly became a necessity to find Marty.

And that required sitting up.

Emma let some of the withheld sobs slip as she brought her right arm up from her side. The uninhibited limb slowly tucked itself under her ribs, the slight tensing of muscles on one side sending shards of pain into the other. A loud gasp escaped her, and she immediately let her muscles collapse. Lip quivering, she turned her face into the mattress and bit down on the blanket, muffling her cries.

Her pain had reached new heights, beyond that of initially assessing it at the DeLorean and waking up in Lorraine's bed. The adrenaline was wearing off, and the length of the day and intensity of its events were settling heavily on Emma's morale. Things were beginning to seem impossible, even that time not long ago when she firmly believed anything was possible.

Getting out of a bed is not going to stop you.

I can do this. I have to do this. No, I can't. Lord. Find Marty. Find Dad. Get home.

Get home, get home, get up and get home.

Get up.

Get up, get up.

Finally, summoning all of the physical strength she could against the pain, Emma gritted her teeth and shakily pushed her body upright. As her legs slid down the silky comforter to the floor, she mentally composed herself and caught her breath.

A smooth blanket fell from her bare back. The sensation widened her eyes, and she reached for the light, horrified to see the front half of her shirt still lying on the bed. Looking down at herself, Emma immediately clutched the velveteen throw to her chest. Her mind reeled for an explanation when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a large swath of white tape on top of her left shoulder.

Slowly looking back at the nightstand, Emma picked up the small white bowl on the medicine tray, her fingers curling around its lip when she saw the bullet in it.

It was no wonder her shoulder hurt as much as it did if they'd gone digging around in it for that thing.

Despite it all, her spirits lifted her cheeks with a smile.

Thanks, Dad.

Now clad in an oversized yellow button-down, Emma meandered into the sitting room in search of Marty when familiar shouting again came from the yard.

Doc whirled through the back door in hysterical upset. She stepped back as he hurtled toward her, watching as he tore a framed picture of Thomas Edison from the mantle, sat it on the end stand, and fell into the chair. He groaned into his hands with no acknowledgement of her presence whatsoever.

"One point twenty-one gigawatts," he kept muttering in various pitches. "One point twenty-one gigawatts! How could I have been so careless! One point twenty-one gigawatts?"

When he started addressing the photo, Emma sat on the edge of the couch, staring at him.

Not for the first time that evening, she found herself startled to think that this guy was her future father when Marty suddenly ran in.

"Doc, all we need is little plutonium."

Emmett huffed anxiously. "I'm sure that in 1985, plutonium is available in every corner drug store, but in 1955, it's a little hard to come by!"

He took the kid by the shoulders, giving him a shake to make sure the message reached him full and well: "Marty, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you're stuck here."

The room fell silent.

In truth, Emma supposed she'd been waiting to hear it all day; that kind of power was intimidating in 1985, but 1955, it was just plain monstrous, even to a scientist of her father's caliber. Hearing it didn't make it any easier to digest, however, and a new sense of illness came over her. She felt Marty sink into the couch next to her, incapacitated by the birth of such a reality.

Seeing this, Emmett sighed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

"Hey, 1955 isn't all that bad," he said quietly. "You should be happy you ended up in a year when you knew someone."

His attempt at sympathy and optimism seemed to fall on deaf ears, and it's no wonder, he scolded himself. They came to him for help, and he blew up their hopes without as much as a shred of tact.

Emmett wet his lips, talking to his hands.

"Perhaps you two can stay with me until you get on your feet. Then-"

"No, Doc, come on!" Marty leapt up, shaking himself out of his stupor. "I'm not going to settle down in 1955! I've got a life back in 1985! I've got a date!"

Emma sat taller at this, watching Marty tear the blue clock tower flyer from his back pocket and unfold it in a hurry, shoving Jennifer Parker's phone number under Doc's nose. Emma's skin prickled all the way up to her scalp as if acid were seeping into every one of her pores.

"Can't you just find a nice girl here?"

Emma glanced at Marty guiltily, eyes widening when he turned his head back towards her ever so slightly. When Marty didn't reply, Doc looked over at her.

"Do you have a young man back in 1985?"

Emma blinked, not sure what she had. Father gone, Marty and Jennifer...Now that she thought about it, even though she was thirty years away from home, she wasn't sure she wanted to return to what awaited her in 1985. She was pretty sure the only thing left for her would be Einstein.

"I have a dog," she ventured sheepishly.

"It's not about the girl, Doc," Marty interceded. "It's about the rest of my life, and Emma's, too." He sat on the coffee table directly in front of him, meeting his eye resolutely. "You've never let us down before. You always tell me that if I put my mind to it, I can do anything, and I know you can figure this out."

Doc shook his head, and Marty began pacing.

"It's going to take more than confidence to generate that kind of power, Marty. One point twenty-one gigawatts? The only power source capable of that is a bolt of lightning! Unfortunately, you never know when or where it's gonna strike!"

Emma's mind jumpstarted at the words, and, judging by Marty's face, they hadn't escaped him, either. She eyed the blue flyer with newfound hope as Marty extended it to Doc. Excitement kindled in her eyes as he read the flyer, and when the same flame maniacally ignited in his, the first thing she intended to do when she got back to 1985 was thank Jennifer Parker profusely for asking Marty out.

"It says here that a bolt of lightning is going to strike the clock tower at precisely 10:04 PM next Saturday night!"

She smiled as he began to fret about in the building frenzy of brainstorming, searching for and pulling words from the limitless space around him and formulating an idea.

"If we could somehow harness this lightning…channel it into the flux capacitor…it just might work. Next Saturday night, we're sending you back to the future!"

Marty jumped up. I'll take it.

"Alright! Saturday's good! We can spend a week in 1955! We'll hang out, you can show us around –"

Doc suddenly gripped Marty's shoulders. "Marty, that is completely out of the question. You must not leave this house. You must not see anybody or talk to anybody. Anything you do could have serious repercussions on future events! Do you understand?"

Emma stared at Marty, slowly standing as he half-heartedly complied with Doc's wishes. The scientist narrowed his eyes at Marty's aloof reply, and looking back at Emma's rigid approach, his fears were all but confirmed. He pointed at Marty, a knowing smile sending Marty's gaze to the floor.

"Marty, have you interacted with anybody else today besides me?"

Marty stepped out of Doc's grasp and made the confession. "Yeah, well, I might have, sorta…bumped into my parents."

"Great Scott!" Doc spat. "Let me see that photograph of your brother!"

Marty withdrew the picture from his pocket, and the three of them crowded around it at the ivory floor lamp.

"This proves my theory," Doc said, pressing his thumb to the photo. "Look at your brother!"

Emma's face hardened at what she saw. After the day she'd had, she'd imagine this was just one more thing she was going to have to accept as really and truly happening – Marty's brother's head was gone, and Marty said as much.

"It's like it's erased."

"Erased from existence," Doc murmured cryptically.

Emma felt her stomach plummet as she stared at the photograph. If "bumping into" your parents led to an erased existence, how had she not gone up in a puff of smoke for having intentionally sought out her father?

Doc now stabbed at the picture with his finger. "Where is she?"

"Linda?"

"No, her," Doc said, pointing to Emma. "She is your sister, isn't she?"

Emma glanced at Marty before raising her eyebrows at the floor. "That seems to be what we're telling everyone."

"We told my dad that when we ran into him, and we've just stuck to it since," Marty explained. "But she's not really my sister. Just a friend."

"Then you should be fine," he said to Emma, "unless you've also –"

Emma shook her head. "No, I've…I'm good. All's well."

Doc handed Marty his picture. "Still, I wish we had your photo just to be safe."

Marty paused as he opened his wallet. "Actually…"

Emma and Doc watched as he slowly exchanged one photo for another – Emma's senior picture.

She looked at him curiously, and he shrugged with a hint of a smile as Doc took the tiny headshot from him. She said nothing, just smiled when he took a deep breath and looked away.

"Everything seems to be in order," Doc announced, returning the other photo. "Marty, you are going to get to see plenty of 1955 just like you wanted."

He didn't like the tone of Doc's voice. "Yeah?"

"You are introducing your parents to each other first thing Monday morning in school unless you want to disappear from that photograph with your brother and sister," he said sternly. "Now, we'll see to the details tomorrow, but you need to understand the jeopardy you're in right now. We have less than a week to work with."

Marty nodded uneasily. "I got it, Doc."

"As for you," Emmett said, taking Emma by her good arm, "you'll need a lot of rest to recover. I'll fix up a guest room for you tomorrow, and in the meantime, you can sleep in my room."

That sounded like a terrible idea.

Emma shook her head quickly as Marty accepted the couch for the evening. The more time she spent around her father, the better the likelihood something would slip and tip him off about her true identity. Even if he was in the lab all day and she locked herself in a room, she could hear her dad's voice of reason opposing the situation if he were faced with it. And she wasn't ready to explain something to this guy that she was barely wrapping her own head around. She needed as long of a leash as she could get.

"I can't just stay here," she blurted out. "Marty's parents saw me and know me now."

"All the more reason not to interfere further," Emmett said.

"It's too late for that! But now I can help things along."

"And we could use all the help we can get," Marty added.

There was no way Emma was sitting this week out while he gallivanted around by himself. Knowing his luck, he'd further endanger his existence without someone with him in the field. If one could endanger their existence beyond erasing it, that is.

Emmett began to guide Emma towards the staircase. "I'm going to have an acquaintance of mine come look at your shoulder tonight before we make any decisions. If all goes accordingly, I'll consider it."

"You'll allow it."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."