My bio said that I wasn't going to be updating for a while, but I couldn't resist seeing all my fics slide slowly over to Page Two.

Therefore, this chapter is kind of short, but oh well… I don't even know if I've finished writing it. I think I have… sort of… dunno…

And if you want to know, I haven't even started on the thirteenth chapter of They've Got Mail.  I'm lazy, yes.

Chapter Eight

4th November 1985, 8:02 a.m.

The local Marty had made up his mind.  He'd do it.   After a quick goodbye to his parents, the teen left his house and skated his way to Doc's garage.  The DeLorean should still be there… all he had to do was get in and go back; how hard could it be?  And when he got there… Marty groaned.  He needed a plan.  He didn't have a plan.  But maybe it wouldn't matter, maybe when he arrived there he'd just know what to do, maybe it'll all work out somehow, maybe pigs could fly…

It was all his fault that everything had happened in the first place.  All his fault, and that of the stupid Almanac.  He'd found it so hard to smuggle it back from the future without Doc noticing anything, but the scientist had been getting more and more suspicious… and then yesterday, Marty started feeling guilty and thought that maybe he should just admit what he did and face the consequences.  After all, he couldn't hide forever… and Marty didn't dare to just throw it away for fear that it might end up in the wrong hands.  And there was no way he could burn it without people wondering what he was doing, especially not in the house where his parents still worried whenever they saw him with a box of matches, for they had by no means forgotten that little incident that had led to the horrible demise of the living room rug when he was eight.

Marty didn't know why, but something about the Almanac just kept nagging at his conscience.  It wasn't just the fact that the plain act of using information from the future for monetary gain was wrong, but the book also served as a constant reminder of his few trips through time – and time travel was something that Marty was very willing to forget.  Just one last time… and after that he was staying away from that machine as well as he could.

Yesterday evening, he'd finally given in.  He'd taken the Almanac and gone over to Doc's place.  The inventor had seen him and come out… just as a van appeared coming round the corner; and Marty had stared, helpless, as he saw his friend get shot to death for the second time that week as the Libyan terrorists in the van opened fire on Emmett and Einie before driving off.

Everything after that was a blur in Marty's memory.  Somehow, he'd managed to call the police and the ambulance; they'd come, but they were too late… Doc was gone.  But he could stop that; he could prevent everything from happening, just one last trip…

Marty arrived at his destination and headed towards the DeLorean he knew was parked there.  Finding it locked, he decided that the car keys were probably in the garage somewhere.  He walked over to it and unlocked the door, mentally preparing himself for a journey through the junk on the floor.

He turned, ready for the challenge of crossing the room… when he discovered that he was not alone.

Marty started.

And then he freaked out.

"Calm down, McFly," Marty muttered to himself, taking a nervous second look at the two visitors sleeping a little way from him.  There had to be a rational explanation for all this… They couldn't have come from the past, because he couldn't remember it; apart from the possibility that Doc had once grabbed him from his bed unknowingly and whisked him off through time to a trip he'd slept completely through – which was highly unlikely if not ridiculous – the most probable origin of the visitors was the future.

Was that even possible? Marty thought that the only way he could get a visit from his future self was if he himself had made that trip to meet his past self, and the visit would be a mere memory as compared to something he had physically gone through... which would mean that he was living in the past.  But then again, he vaguely recalled Doc mentioning something about what they saw in the future being the most likely outcome of the present circumstances, so if the most likely future was one where he'd make a trip back in time, then maybe…

Marty shook his head to clear his thoughts, feeling really confused.  Time travel migraine would be the death of him one day if he didn't manage to erase himself from existence first.

Right.  So they came from the future.  In other words, that probably meant that his rescue trip was… would be a success, but why on earth would he have been so stupid as to stay the night?

Marty sighed.  Whatever it was, the important thing now was for him to find the keys to the DeLorean so he could make the trip in the first place.  Marty had no idea where Doc hid them, or if he even hid them… all one needed to do was toss a tiny bunch of car keys into the mini-rubbish dump on the floor and it could be lost forever.

The teen tried to carefully pick his way through the junk, looking for bare patches of floor where he could safely place his next step, all the while searching for any glint of metal that might divulge to him the location of the keys. 

For about three minutes, Marty managed rather well… until his foot caught on something, sending the boy straight to the floor with a rather loud thump.

The noise instantly jolted Doc out of bed.  Marty's other self, however, simply murmured something about sheep, rolled over and was silent again.

Nervously, the local backed away on the floor as Doc approached him, knowing what he was in big trouble now.  He had no idea why; he just had a real bad feeling about this.  What if Doc tried to stop him from making the trip in the first place? He couldn't… Feeling totally perplexed, he looked up at his friend.

"Doc… what's going on here?" Marty asked weakly, not knowing what else to say.  Nothing made sense to him anymore.  He'd probably just created a paradox or something and the universe would blow up at any moment – the nearby galaxies at least – and it would all be his fault.  As usual.

TO BE CONTINUED…

HyperCaz: Yup, random is in. Random is in because I made it in… but I can't have Luke Skywalker appear on the sidewalk, because that would be TOO random. And this isn't a crossover. Thanks for reviewing!

Stoko: Actually, that chapter was one of the longest, but since the previous two were even longer it probably made it seem short. Thanks for your review!

Fallen Hawk: I've never flamed a story three times except yours. Wow. It's a record… yes, this story is odd. I agree. *waits for your fic to say its sick*