"This readout tells you where you're going, this one tells you where you are, this one tells you where you were."
PART III: Where You Were
PROLOGUE
Continuum
Saturday, November 12, 1955
10:04 PM
There's only one man who can help me.
And Marty was bounding across Hill Valley to him. His friend, his lifeline, his only hope.
Doc Brown was the apex of the space-time continuum, not the date, place, or time. It all revolved around this man.
The epiphany propelled Marty through the sheets of rain to the edge of the storm. His footfalls smacked the wet pavement at an impressive tempo, given how terribly his abdomen burned from Biff's kicks outside the high school gym. Part of him was still in survival mode from the tunnel; otherwise, he might have noticed the rhythm of his stride soften as the road transitioned into a dry stretch untouched by the cold deluge of precipitation.
Finally, the rear of the clock tower came into view as the lightning strike exploded on the lightning rod christening the roof's peak. Marty ducked and veered away from the deafening crack, nearly tripping himself into a parked car. But his balance prevailed after an exaggerated bout of flailing. He stumbled upright as the DeLorean vanished, the intense radiance of the time jump bleaching the upcoming intersection in impossibly white light.
Marty blinked the momentary blindness away, heart pounding and legs quivering. The twin fire trails flagged him down, and Doc's voice echoed off the surrounding buildings. It revived enough of Marty's stamina to get him around the corner at breakneck speed. Doc's name repeatedly rushed over his swollen lip soundless until he coordinated his erratic breaths with the words.
"Doc! Doc!"
Emmett removed his gloves at the door of the Packard, so preoccupied with what had just transpired that he didn't realize he was talking to someone.
"What?"
Marty ripped him around to face him – "Doc!"—and was greeted with a petrified howl. He fought to keep his future mentor upright as Doc stumbled backward, terror-stricken at Marty's presence.
"Okay, relax, Doc, it's me. It's me! It's Marty!"
"No, it can't be!" Doc crouched as he trembled in Marty's grasp, searching for the DeLorean. "I just sent you back to the future."
… Didn't he? Burnt cables bounced in the wind. Excess flaps of tarp rippled from the empty trailer, the leaves of the fallen tree limb rustled, and the face of the clock was blotched with black. He still smelled the DeLorean's exhaust and the residual current of the lightning on his skin. Yet here Marty stood.
He was losing his mind.
Maybe he was still in a coma on his bathroom floor after all.
"Yeah, no, I know," he heard Marty say. "You did send me back to the future, but I'm back."
Emmett's face fell as Marty's eyes bored into him; this reality was undisputable.
"I'm back from the future."
Emmett slowly found his legs again, rising out of Marty's hold.
Every watery light in the square surged and waned, then surged to the harsh brightness preceding critical overload. Suddenly, there was Marty around every corner, hidden in every window, standing in a line a mile long over his shoulder. Infinite paradoxes overlapped before his eyes, and the entirety of the space-time continuum unfolded faster than the speed of light around him. A glimmer of silver silk – a DeLorean – woven into every delicate thread.
Back from the future.
What have I done?
"Great Scott."
Emmett crumpled to the ground.
Marty groaned, immediately kneeling. He wasn't expecting a ticker-tape parade when he reunited with Young Doc Brown, but he didn't expect the man to pass out cold. A few shakes and taps on the face weren't enough to rouse him. Then, remembering Doc just had a lightning bolt course through him moments ago, Marty's stomach flipped, and he sighed at the steady albeit elevated thrum his fingertips found under Doc's jaw. If Doc died now, the space-time continuum would implode. It was that simple.
It all revolved around this man.
"Come on, Doc. Let's get you home."
Taking Doc under the arms from behind, Marty dragged the unconscious scientist around to the passenger side of the Packard and awkwardly heaved him inside. He slumped over sideways on the bench. Marty watched the rumpled line of his back gently rise and fall. He stuffed the ends of the coat under Doc's thigh so they wouldn't catch in the door. Hopefully, Doc would come to by the time they got back to the mansion.
Marty grimaced at the stab of searing pain above his navel from the exertion when he got behind the wheel. He laid his head back and breathed through it as thunder rumbled over the square. His body was going to shut down. Soon. But he still had some adrenaline to coast on.
Rain began to dot the windshield.
Marty slicked his hair back and turned the key Emma left hanging in the ignition.
The wipers couldn't keep up with the rain.
Marty made a short detour to the Lyon Estates billboard. He hit the brakes just short of the rope of pennants he left lying in the middle of the road and searched the lightning-streaked skies again for the time machine he knew would not be there.
He pulled over in front of the mangled bucket in which he had burned the almanac. It was now on its side; the ashen remains created a black swirl in the muddy runoff.
Marty grabbed the hoverboard, ensured not a scrap of the almanac survived, and brought Doc's bike out from behind the billboard, willing it to befriend a worthy kid that would give it a good home.
Emma's pink carnation was nowhere to be found.
Your friend in time,
"Doc" Emmett L. Brown
September 1, 1885
With a final flourish of his pen, Emmett blew on the page before he rose from the writing desk to let the ink dry. He opened the window facing the train station a little more, welcoming the intermittent breaths of warm wind to help expedite the process. The other pages of his letter lay flat on the private workbench behind him. He moved odds and ends onto the edges of the pages, so the breeze didn't upend them.
The ink was taking its sweet old time drying this morning as if tempting Emmett to change his mind about the arrangement of his words. There were no changes to be made; he kept his word to Emma yet penned a meaningful goodbye. Of course, they would prefer a hearty "see you soon", but that was not realistic. He'd put money on his younger counterpart advising Marty to go straight back to 1985.
The whistle blew on the refrigerator.
Emmett went down the stairs, passed the shop bench, and turned the valve in the lower-left corner of his pet project. When the pressure gauge dropped enough, he caught a murky ice cube in a tall beaker and quirked his lips to the side, examining it. They were getting less brown; Emma's filtration system caught more sediment and minerals each cycle. Applying a purification aspect would be the next step; then, he could work on getting multiple cubes to freeze simultaneously.
He sat the beaker down on the workbench, mind wandering through the logistics as his eyes vacantly roamed over the remnants of breakfast: empty glasses coated in milk, plates glazed in greasy trails of egg yolk, inedible curls of bacon fat piled to the side, dark crumbs speckling the knife laying in the butter dish. Emma's letter to Marty was still lying next to her plate.
Emmett did not draw attention to it during the meal in case she decided not to leave it. She hadn't expressly handed it to him, and so he sensed her hesitancy on whether to go through with it or not. It seemed she had a few things to say after all and now trusted him to deliver them.
It was sealed and addressed. A few pages thick. Holding it up to the light, Doc saw the faint lines of her journal pages overlapping each other and felt the edge where the sheets were gently torn from the binding.
"You haven't gone yet?"
Emmett started as Emma closed the barn door. She looked pointedly between him and her letter as she untied her hat.
"Mine is drying now." He put her letter in his breast pocket with a pat to reassure her of its safekeeping. "Are you off to the McFly's, then?"
"Our schoolhouse renovations are keeping animals out," Emma said, checking the ammunition in the Smith & Wesson hanging on the post by the stairs, "so I have the time if you don't mind."
"We could go together tomorrow," Doc said. He wasn't thrilled about sending her that far out of town on a wagon alone, not when she'd already encountered Tannen there and again in the shop last week.
Emma's mouth pressed into a hard line.
"I'm not leaving this shop tomorrow. Not unless it's to get into a time machine."
Emmett nodded. Fool am I.
"Take that with you, then."
While Marty's spirit desired comfort on a level only the familiarity of the lab offered, he drove up to the mansion's front door. The lab in 1955 only had armchairs and space heaters, and Emma's presence popped up from the back seat, insisting that, given this opportunity, he savor any time spent in the mansion on her behalf. His stomach growled in solidarity; the cold cuts in the lab's fridge wouldn't cut it tonight.
Marty didn't remember leaving the mansion with so many lights on before going to the dance. Then again, he had been preoccupied. He was trying to warn Doc about his future, mentally rehearsing being the worst date his mother ever had, and unsuccessfully ignoring what the feminine flounce of Emma's mint skirt did to him as she walked down the front stairs. It looked exactly as it did when he first laid eyes on it a week ago – lavish, warm, and safe.
He pulled up to the front door, slid Doc across the bench, heaved him onto his shoulder, grabbed the hoverboard, and hurried up the stairs in the downpour. The majestic stained-glass tree that embellished the main entrance bathed Marty's wet face in the soft glow of its crystalline greens and yellows. Beyond the intricate gate of the grand haven, Copernicus sat in wait, tilting his head and wagging his tail.
"Hey, Copernicus." Marty shut the door and dropped the hoverboard. "Hey, boy."
Copernicus whined inquisitively, following Marty and his unconscious master into the den.
"He's all right. He's all right," Marty groaned, bending over to lay Doc on the couch. Doc's arm flopped to the ground with a lifeless thud on the thick rug, making Marty wince.
"I hope he's all right."
Marty decided to wrestle the soaked overcoat off his friend, hoping that the jostling might wake him up. He picked up Doc's limp limb, pulled him upright, and knelt in front of the couch, letting Doc's weight fall forward onto his shoulder as he tugged each sleeve off. He made quick work of the rest of it; he tossed Doc's overcoat on the floor, put a floral throw pillow under his head, and blanketed him with the silver snakeskin robe Emma left on the back of the couch.
A soft snore came with the next roll of thunder.
And with that came a little peace of mind.
Marty patted him on the shoulder.
"You've earned it, Doc."
Once he got a fire going, shoes were laid on the hearth. He took a towel out of the bathroom, tussled his hair dry, and mopped some of the excess water from his clothes. Then, Marty hung his and Doc's coats on either side of the fireplace where they could air dry.
A torn piece of paper bearing his handwriting clung to Marty's hand when he took it out of Doc's coat pocket. He swallowed and carefully put it back; part of him didn't know how to function in this place without Doc's potential death looming overhead. Or nonexistence. There was still the need to get home to 1985, but they wouldn't need to beat the lightning to the clocktower, according to Doc's letter.
On his knees before the hearth, Marty carefully hung his socks and the soggy pages of Doc's letter across a shoestring he tied up in front of the fire. He scanned each page again before he did so. Cold churned in the pit of his stomach.
He probably should heed Doc's advice and go straight back to 1985.
Marty just wasn't sure that he could.
He reached for the expanding Western Union envelope on the armchair and took out the smaller letter inside. He ran his thumb over Emma's penmanship.
She would tell him what to do.
Copernicus suddenly barreled his head into Marty's underarm.
"Hey, buddy. Hey –"
Marty chuckled as the dog wriggled his head through, knocking him off-balance. Marty scratched behind his ear, and he tried not to worry about Einstein alone in that cold, damp, abandoned lab of 1985A. Einie was home in the real 1985 with the couch to himself and an automatic dog feeder.
"Ah," Marty realized, pocketing Emma's letter as he stood. "Dinner's late, huh, pal? C'mon, Copernicus," he said, leading the way to the kitchen. "I got it. C'mon, boy."
After devouring the leftover pasta, Marty wandered upstairs to the eastern wing.
He stared at the grandfather clock as it ticked solemnly between the two bedrooms doors, lightning flashing on the glass of the pendulum's door. Under the deep rumbles of thunder, Marty entered the room on the right – Doc's childhood bedroom he had stayed in the week before the lightning strike.
His suit from the dance was strewn about, the tie dangling on the doorknob. He had flammable hair tonic on his dresser with socks hanging out of the top drawer, and the bed was never made up. The floor-length mirror caught him at a strange angle, and he turned to Emma's door.
He slipped the tie from his doorknob and crossed the hall, wrapping it around the back of his hand as he passed the window and clock. He gave a wry smile and leaned into her doorframe, taking in her borrowed space: yellow, flowery, and warm, like the inside of a buttercup petal.
"Looks like I ended up here after the lightning strike," he said to the empty room. What a kick she would get out of that.
All her little makeups and shoulder dressing supplies were on the dresser, some haphazardly shut in her effort to hurry out to the dance or school. Her bed was made, the wardrobe door hadn't closed, and the light was left on at her desk.
He could still feel her presence in this room, as if she would walk around the corner and ask what he was doing in here. He wished she would. It didn't feel right, being in this place without her. It had been a peculiar comfort last week, knowing she was just a stone's throw away as he fell asleep. Even when they were at odds, the part of him that knew he couldn't stay mad forever was quietly sitting in the corner, waiting out his rage and grateful just to know she was there.
Marty pulled her letter out of his back pocket.
Emma's 'a' looked like an 'o', and the tail of the 'y' cut like a palette knife across a canvas. Marty tapped it off the doorknob on his way back to his room. It softened from its time in his damp pocket.
Marty sat on the edge of his bed. He shook the tie from around his wrist and broke the seal on the letter. Unlike Doc's, the pages were smaller and lined. He had come to know Emma's hurried hand well from her notes, reports, and assignments, but there was an ease to this script he'd never seen before. It made a piece of his heart wilt; this couldn't be over before it began again.
Dear Marty,
You already know I'm terrible at these types of letters because I made you write the last one. I can't do that now for obvious reasons.
A strained smile. He adjusted the page in the lamplight.
Dad's given you all the serious details in his letter, so I'll try to keep this informal.
It's not been easy here. I quickly became directionless and bitter. I was terrified to leave the barn for fear of creating a paradox. But after I recovered from scarlet fever –
Marty reread the paragraph from the beginning, eyes popping. "Scarlet fever?" Shit.
But after I recovered from scarlet fever, Dad got me out in the community. I'm glad he did. I needed it. I wasn't myself, but I'm doing better now.
I'm preparing the schoolhouse for the new teacher arriving next week. I'll be helping and filling in, too. I built them a little weather station. Dad thought the topic would be engaging for the first science lesson of the new school year. We are limited to putting our passion into the science of the times beyond closed doors, but the basics interest and encourage every budding scientist.
There are –
A fierce flash of lightning penetrated the heavy curtains of the room.
When the light receded, the room was left in total darkness. The violent thunder physically crashed into the walls and made him bring his shoulders to his ears.
Marty waited a beat. The lights stayed off.
He jerked the chain pull of the bedside lamp repeatedly to no avail and sighed.
"Damn it."
The thunder growled a warning. Marty put down the letter on the bed and felt his way to the bedroom door to try the light switch.
Nothing.
Copernicus whined from downstairs.
"It's all right, boy. I'm coming."
The lightning led him down the hall to the staircase. Copernicus paced at the bottom, happily weaving around Marty's legs when he let go of the banister. He was nearly knocked into the umbrella stand.
"Easy, Copernicus. Come on." He clicked his tongue and patted his leg. "Come on."
Marty followed the pulse of the firelight to the den. Good thing, too; he may have lived here for a week, but he wouldn't be confident navigating its floor plan in pitch black conditions. Hell, he got lost a few times in broad daylight. If only it were the lab. He could dance around every screw and sheet of graph paper in that place blindfolded.
Emma said it would give him an advantage in case of intruders.
Doc was still sound asleep, oblivious to the chaos of the waking world that awaited him. The letter wasn't dripping anymore. Copernicus curled up in front of the fireplace while the rain continued to lash at the windows. The darkness remained impervious, swallowing every bolt of lightning that besieged it. He let the purple-white strobes guide him to the hoverboard at the front door and back to the asylum provided by the fire.
Marty sat in the red armchair. He gave Copernicus another scratch and set down the hoverboard.
"Best idea you've had all night."
He propped his feet up on the hoverboard, cozied back into the plush cushions of the armchair, and folded his arms over himself. His gaze drifted into the fire as his mind drifted into slumber. Marty didn't expect sleep to snatch him so suddenly; his conscience ached with the dilemma set by Doc's letter.
But the pasta had been warm and rich.
The spiny chills coating his skin melted in the fire.
Doc and Emma survived.
And he had a way home.
His eyelids touched and opened.
Touched.
His ribs throbbed.
Emma's death ray dress glittered all the way to the street.
Aim for the heart, Ramón.