For those of you who didn't notice, They've Got Mail has been updated; but I did it at a bad time when everyone else was updating their fics, so it got sort of pushed to the bottom really fast.
Chapter Seven
5 November 1985, 3:10 a.m.
Hill Valley, California
"Ow…" Marty groaned, tentatively moving his limbs to check that nothing was broken. Nothing was, but the same could not be said for either the DeLorean or the tree it had rather violently crashed into. The car had swerved just in time such that only one side of it had actually come into contact with the tree – Marty's side – but a quick glance back revealed the smashed flux capacitor, the half-shattered windscreen and the time circuits which flashed random dates before switching off completely. Amazingly, though, the vehicle had still managed to stay in the air.
"Are you all right?" Doc asked, looking over at his friend.
"Yeah… I think so." The teen looked over once more at the totalled flux capacitor. "So I guess we're stuck here forever, and it's all my fault, right?"
"In a way, although I hope the 'forever' part won't come to pass. You should know better than to yell at me when I'm driving. And how could you not notice something so obvious as your jacket caught in the door? We could be home by now!"
"It was dark," Marty replied lamely, although his answer was true to a certain extent. After all, not much illumination was present in Hill Valley both at 8 p.m. in 2015 and 3 a.m. in 1985. Emmett, however, who was now busy running a damage check over the time machine, didn't see that as a valid explanation and said so.
Marty decided to just let it go. "So… what d'you think happened? Where… when… are we?" he asked, trying to change the subject.
"I don't know," came the honest reply. The scientist paused. "Did you see anything different between the two times you entered your room?"
The teen racked his memory. "I can't really remember. It was kinda dark," – Doc gave him a look – "but uh, I think so. The second time there was a clarinet in the room, and my family looked weird, like they did before I went back to 1955. I didn't really get a close look at them just now though, so I can't really be sure. But the clarinet was definitely there. I remember thinking it was strange 'cause I haven't had a clarinet for five years." Marty paused. "So what's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that we should tell the Hill Valley Town Council to do something quick about the lighting in this place. As for where we are…" Doc paused for a moment. "I have a feeling we've probably landed ourselves in some other dimension… alternate reality… parallel universe… whatever. That's what I was trying to check just now, though I had no idea what we had done to bring about such a situation. But now we do, and we can't do a thing about it because we're obviously not going any where save through normal space with a flux capacitor that looks like that." Doc motioned in the direction of the glass fragments. Marty gulped. "I think we already have quite a good idea of what will happen if you go into your house, so I doubt we should try that again."
"So… uh, what'd we do now?"
"Go over to my home for the night. It's the safest thing we can do – there's no one there at least, and we need someplace to stay while I fix the DeLorean. It's a miracle this thing can still fly."
"So you think you can fix it?"
"Most of it. I have the necessary tools and equipment in my house and it'll probably take less than a week. It's the flux capacitor that's the problem, though. I don't have a spare one, and all my plans for it are stuck back in the late nineteenth century. I'll probably have to start again from scratch… but we'll find a way."
The car flew through the [dark] night skies of Hill Valley and put down outside Doc's garage-turned-home. The two got out, opened the door, and flicked the lights on. Doc walked over to the next room.
It was then that Marty realised that he was in deep… *beep*.
"Great Scott!"
Somehow, the teen had a feeling that Doc wouldn't believe him if he claimed that he hadn't done a thing to the amp and it was perhaps only in this reality that such a thing had happened. Besides, it wouldn't be much good to deny anything since Doc would find out the truth sooner or later when they got back – whenever that was – so he might as well get it over and done with.
"What did you do to my amp?" Emmett continued, his face paling as he took in the rest of the room and its messier-than-usual state.
Marty felt slightly hurt that his friend had concluded so quickly that the amplifier owed its horrible demise to him, although the scientist had good reason to think so. Marty was the only one who actually used the amp regularly; he and the rest of The Pinheads when they came over to practise.
"I sort of… ah, set the controls to override and when I plugged in my guitar the amp kinda blew up…"
"I thought I warned you not to do just that!"
"Well, yeah… but I only got your call after the thing exploded, see, and by then it was a bit too late."
Doc shook his head and decided to just let the matter rest. After all, the amp would be much more missed by Marty than him, considering the scientist didn't find much of a use for it. Besides, the prospect of not being able to use the amplifier again anytime soon would probably be enough of a punishment for the teen; not to mention what the other member's of Marty's band would do to him once they discovered that the best (and largest) amplifier the four of them had access to would not be available for quite a while, if ever.
The two travellers turned in for the night, although, just as Marty had predicted, he was unable to fall asleep... although it probably had something to do with how he had been doing just that less than an hour ago. The 17-year-old groaned, turning over on the couch to look out the window at the dark world outside. Everything was still, save an occasional movement as some small animal or insect made its way through the night, and in the silence, Marty's mind began to wander back over the past week or so. It had been an eventful time, and even that was an understatement to describe the things he had gone through then, especially during that weekend.
In that one weekend alone, he had visited four different time periods inclusive of his own, doing things that everyone else only dreamt about. And after that… after that he had thought that his life would be finally getting back to normal, or as normal as it could be living with a family that was drastically different from when he last left them; not to mention strange memories of a life he had never gone through which were slowly but surely appearing and gradually replacing his original. It was weird, but he'd get used to it.
After Marty watched the first DeLorean be destroyed and Doc and his family had arrived and left as quickly as they'd come, he couldn't deny the sense of disappointment he'd felt as he saw the train disappear through time with his friend. He could not know then if Doc would ever come back to see him; anything could have happened when the train arrived at its destination some place else, some time else… he could have never got to see the scientist again…
And then he finally did, and look where they were now.
Marty sighed and shut his eyes; but sleep still would not come no matter how hard he tried. In his mind, the boy tried counting sheep to pass the time and hopefully help him doze off somehow. He envisioned a large field full of green grass with sheep scattered all around under the big blue sky. A wooden gate stood inexplicably right smack in the middle of the field, and one by one the sheep went up to it and jumped over, baaing as they did so.
1…2…3…4…5…6…
Marty decided that whoever thought counting sheep would help a person drop off was seriously nuts, for it didn't help one bit.
17…18…19…20…21…23-oops, 22…
He persisted a while longer before finally giving up around 50 or so. The unfortunate sheep which just so happened to be crossing at that time met with a gruesome fate as it caught a leg in the fence and hung there, baaing desperately until it fell off. Marty sent it to an imaginary sheep hospital to recuperate; but the next one wasn't so lucky. It died and he barbecued it to eat.
The teen sighed. This wasn't helping at all... sitting up, he looked across the room at Doc, fast asleep on his bed. Marty slid off the couch and picked his way through to the door, deciding that a short walk outside in the cool night air would be of more use than counting imaginary accident-prone sheep in helping him to just sleep. He wasn't even asking for much… all he wanted to do was sleep.
The soft chirps of crickets greeted the boy as he let himself quietly out of the garage-house, softly closing the door behind him. Outside, everything looked so quiet and peaceful; sure, it was dark too, but that was of a minor concern to Marty then. The darkness served only to add to the calm aura that surrounded the area, and to give the place a slightly mysterious, exciting feel to it.
The whole of Hill Valley was deep in slumber; only Marty was awake. The world was his for now… Marty made his way slowly to the other side of the garage, his footsteps making soft crunching sounds as he moved through the gravel. From what he could see, the other side was slightly more illuminated; the lighting department of the Hill Valley Town Council probably wasn't as slack as he had thought.
Marty turned the corner… and then stopped dead in his tracks.
Right before him was another DeLorean time machine.
At first Marty thought his eyes were deceiving him; it was dark, after all, but upon moving nearer that was proved to be wrong. Closer inspection of the vehicle revealed it to be not the new DeLorean, but rather the original one; although for one it wasn't crushed, and secondly it seemed in much better shape than when Marty last remembered seeing it intact. So perhaps Doc had been right about the parallel universe thing… and somehow, in this world, something had happened which had prevented the DeLorean from being destroyed, which meant…
Heart thumping, Marty pressed his face against one of the DeLorean's windows to see inside; and in the dim light he managed to make out the interior of the car, the time circuits… and the flux capacitor.
They could go home now.
And yet that particular realisation came to the teen along with a strange feeling of fear. He was nowhere near home; whether in time or space… who knew if they could even get back? And if the DeLorean had not been destroyed, what did that mean? For all Marty knew, its owner could suddenly appear and freak out upon discovering a certain two too-familiar visitors fast asleep in his house.
Suddenly the darkness seemed darker than ever, as if in it lurked strange, mysterious things of the foreign universe that at any moment might lunge out and grab him from behind. Marty shivered, and thought it was time he should be getting back. Leaving the DeLorean, he ran back into the safety of the garage, locked the door and lay back down on the couch.
About half an hour later he finally fell asleep, somehow… and he slept through the rest of the [dark] night into the morning; not stirring when the sun came up and shone its light through the windows; unaware as somebody unlocked the door from outside and stepped in.
TO BE CONTINUED… you know what to do. REVIEW! ^_^
HyperCaz: Luke Skywalker appearing on the sidewalk? Good idea… *contemplates inserting him into the fic* =D
B2tC: Okay, I will! ^_^ Thanks for reviewing!
Stoko: Your reviews are getting shorter by the chapter… but who cares, a review is a review is a review, so… uh, thanks for reviewing!
Nixiy: Yup, random is good. Random is very good. Sleep is good too… *falls asleep*