Disclaimer: I do not own BTTF. You knew that, right?

Chapter Six

4 November 1985

Hill Valley, California

From the moment the DeLorean arrived back in 1985 and he got out, Marty had the strange feeling that something was not right.  He didn't know what it was exactly, but he just knew something was wrong.  He could sense it…

The teen gave a soft laugh, trying to chase away his uneasiness.  "Sense it? What am I, a Jedi?"  he wondered, shaking his head in amusement after bidding Doc goodbye and walking through the side gate in the driveway.

Emmett was about to climb back into the time machine and drive off, when he saw something that stopped him in his tracks.

The trashcan had not been overturned.  It was still standing… and what was more, the area around it showed no signs of rubbish or anything else that might have indicated that it had been tipped over.

The scientist doubted that there had been enough time between the DeLorean's departure and arrival for some considerate neighbour who just so happed to be taking a stroll at three in the morning to see the upset trashcan, put it back in its proper position and clear up the junk around it.

Which meant that one of four things had happened.  Firstly, that he had entered the destination time wrongly into the time circuits and they had arrived back too early.  Secondly, that something they had done in the future had somehow altered the past, like in the Almanac incident.  Thirdly, that Marty had put the trashcan back properly and had not spilled enough of its contents for the latter to be visible.  And fourthly… something else had happened.

Doc started after Marty to warn him to be careful, just in case, but then decided against it.  The boy was now out of hearing, and he couldn't go nearer because it wasn't his house in the first place.  Emmett had no wish to get caught for trespassing or, worse, mistaken for a burglar.

So all he could do was wait, and hope that his young friend wasn't going to do anything stupid.

~8~8~8~

Marty walked around the outside of his house to his bedroom window, thankfully remembering that he had left it open.  It would've been much harder to enter his house by the normal way.

For some reason, the Star Wars theme song had started playing itself non-stop in the boy's head.  He sighed, trying to lose the tune, but it just stayed on.  John Williams was a really great composer, but at times like this…

Marty reached his window, opened it and climbed into his room without making a sound.  It was too easy.  If only his parents knew how burglar-friendly their home was… the 17-year-old grinned, closing the window and turning to his bed… only to stumble a few feet back in shock.

There was already someone sleeping on it.

Heart thumping away, Marty approached the bed slowly and peered down at the person lying fast asleep on his bed.

It was himself. 

The teen stared, not able to believe his eyes and not wanting to know what this meant.  "*Beep*," he muttered under his breath, his gaze still fixated on his sleeping other self.  Something must have gone wrong… something always went wrong whenever he deigned to enter that freaking time machine.

And so Marty did what any other human being would have done in his position: he turned on his heels and ran.  Which was a mistake, seeing that his room wasn't all that large.  Narrowly avoiding a painful collision with the wall through the execution of several acrobatic movements Marty never knew himself capable of, he dropped back out the window and dashed out towards the DeLorean, where Doc was waiting for him.

Emmett looked up as the teen breathlessly rushed towards him, and the expression on the former's face confirmed his suspicions that something had gone wrong.

"Doc… I… we must have come back at the wrong time… I went into my room and saw myself, Doc… I was still sleeping there, it really freaked me out, something must have…"

Marty's gaze had reached the trashcan, still standing properly by the gate, and he fell silent.

"Marty… you didn't put that back up earlier on, did you?"

The boy shook his head slowly.  "No… what's that supposed to mean?"

Doc was silent for a while before he replied.  "I'm not sure… I just hope our problem is an easy one.   Maybe I just got the time wrong, though I doubt it.  Get back in the DeLorean, and we'll try again and see what happens."

"You mean we can do that?"

"What?"

"I thought that every time we get back from a trip the car can't move for a while 'cause it's frozen or something."

"I fixed that.  This is a new one, remember?"

"Oh.  Yeah." Marty climbed back into the car, casting occasional glances at the trashcan and his house with its sleeping occupants.  He shut the door and watched as Doc added ten minutes into the destination time display.

The latter got ready to lift the car back into the air, when he appeared to change his mind.  Reaching over to the time circuits, Doc took away the ten minutes he had added and set the destination time to one minute earlier instead.

"Doc, what're you…"

"I'm checking to see if what I think happened, happened," he replied to a blank look from Marty, before sending the DeLorean into the air and flying a few metres away from where they had landed.

Then, the time machine hit 88 and was off again.

Everything was silent when they arrived and put down several streets away.  Marty soon understood what his friend was doing and slumped back into his seat, waiting for the minute to pass.

It came and went… and nothing happened, as it should rightly have.  They didn't see nor hear their slightly younger selves arrive back from 2015 in the DeLorean, which they would have had if everything were going fine.

But it was already quite clear by then that everything was not going fine.

Doc's face creased into a frown as he revved up the car and drove back to Marty's house.  The trashcan was still standing outside, upright as ever.  They both stared at it, speechless, then the teen finally spoke.  "What'd we do now?"

"You've got to go in," came the reply after a moment's hesitation.  "Wake yourself up and find out exactly where – or when – we are.  It's the only way.  I doubt we can do much else at this time of the morning, and I dare not risk another trip without some idea of what's going on."

Marty made a face.  "Why can't you do it?"

"It's not my house," Doc answered simply.  "I'll wait for you outside."

Marty sighed and got out.  When he wanted to talk to himself, Doc wouldn't let him, but when he didn't… The teen had a sneaking suspicion that the scientist had other reasons for making him do this.

For the second time that night, Marty climbed through his bedroom window and dropped down to the other side.

He glanced at the clock ticking softly away on the bedside table.  It read 3:15 in the morning, which wasn't really much help at that moment.  Just beside the table, however, was a clarinet case; and Marty wondered about it.  He'd got kicked out of band more than five years ago after Biff Tannen's son, Marc, ruined his instrument… well, 'ruined' was an understatement.  Marc had bent every key on the instrument out of shape and broken every single reed in the case before tossing the whole thing into the pond, and Marty would have followed it there had not Emmett Brown appeared just in time to save him.

The band major had been furious, unwilling to believe Marty's 'excuses' and kicking the boy out of the school band without any delay upon seeing the state his clarinet was in.  Only the section leader, Roy, the one who'd taught him to play the guitar, believed him and told him go tell the band major the truth.  But Marty hadn't dared.  He preferred to be out of the band to having to face the band major's rage again.  Roy called him a chicken and stopped the guitar lessons, saying that he didn't want to teach someone who didn't have the guts to stand up for himself. 

And it had hurt.  Marty didn't know how he could have survived those days without Doc, who had become his friend after saving him from Marc.  The Pinheads came into being when he was fifteen – after Doc bought him a guitar for his fourteenth birthday, the best present he'd ever received.  After that, his less-than-one-year-worth of band days were history… never thought about again more than necessary.

So what was the clarinet doing by the bedside table?

Marty decided to ignore it.  He had other things to do.  Taking a deep breath, he moved over to the bed.

"Hey… wake up," he whispered.

No response.

The teen tried again, a little louder, tentatively reaching out his hand to give his other self a gentle shake.

The latter stirred slightly.  "Mom, that you?"

Marty winced slightly at the voice.  "Ah… not really…"

Local Marty sleepily opened his eyes, found himself looking straight into those of his visiting counterpart and reacted on instinct.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!"

The rest of the McFly household were jolted rudely out of their sleep.  Lights started coming on all over the house, and by the time Marty got back on his feet after falling down in shock, footsteps were heard fast approaching the door.

There was no time for him to think.  Marty ran back across the room, accidentally knocked over the clarinet and hoisted himself out the window, ignoring his local counterpart hyperventilating away on the bed.

The door swung open just as he landed outside.  A quick glance back into the room revealed Lorraine, David and Linda bursting in, and Marty noticed with a slight shock that they looked as they had before he'd gone back to 1955 and changed history.

As Marty ran, he thought he saw Dave attempting to climb out the window after him, obviously mistaking him for a burglar.

"Go, Doc! Go!" Marty yelled breathlessly, hurling into the DeLorean and slamming the door shut as the vehicle lifted off into the air.

"What happened?"

"I don't know! They're after me!"

"Who?"

"My family… I think…" Marty turned to look back out the window.  Dave had got out and was staring open-mouthed at the flying car, soon followed by his sister.

The teen smiled slightly at their bewildered expression, when his gaze travelled down to the door… and to the sleeve of his jacket caught in it, preventing the door from closing all the way.

"Doc! It was the jacket!" Marty shouted.

"What?!"

"My jacket! It caught the door, so it couldn't close properly, maybe that's why…"

The scientist turned to see, hands still on the wheel, eyes widening as he saw what his friend was pointing at.  "Marty! How could you not notice something so…"

"DOC! Don't look here, look at the r… WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE!"

A bright blue flash of electricity filled the air in front of them, obscuring for a moment the large, way-too-close tree as the DeLorean hit eighty-eight and temporal displacement took place… and then all of a sudden the tree was there again, coming closer… and closer… and…

CRASH!

TO BE CONTINUED… *Cue theme song.  Cue oboist breaking reed.  Cue Alan Silvestri yelling at the poor oboist.  Cue poor oboist jabbing him with the broken reed.  Cue whole band stopping their playing to watch.  Cue Robert Zemeckis popping head into music room to see what's happening.  Cue piccolo flying at his head.  Cue miscellaneous cast members drinking coffee from Mr. Fusion.  Cue piccolo missing Robert Zemeckis' head and flying into someone's cup of coffee.  Cue rabid piccoloist demanding replacement instrument.  Cue Michael J. Fox wondering why his coffee tastes funny.  Cue random people yelling.  Cue Robert Zemeckis having a nervous breakdown.  Cue random crewmember demanding coffee break.  Cue Michael J. Fox throwing the cup of coffee-cum-piccolo at him.  Cue piccoloist yelling "I FOUND IT!" and bashing up that crewmember who refuses to release his cup of coffee.  Cue oboist coming to the rescue and killing him with the broken reed.  Cue piccolo player picking up her instrument, stroking it and going "My Preciousss…" Cue Peter Jackson coming in and suing the piccoloist.*

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Stoko: Okay, he did.  I extended Chapter 5.  Thanks for reviewing!

Nixiy: What am I on? I dunno… holidays? 0.0

HyperCaz: You got to see more of this now. Yup, I've updated TGM.

Scap: Hey, I like Bill and Ted! Marty doesn't, but I do. 'Really good plot'? That's funny, because I just got my storyline. Before this chapter, I didn't have one and was just writing blindly… No, I'm not from the UK, but if you get online one day same time as me we can play the 'Where do I live?' game on MSN. ^_^