Disclaimer: Mine, BTTF is not.

The author would firstly like to apologise for the extreme lameness of this chapter and swears to never again write anything immediately after reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, as it has certain strange side effects on fics. ::reads chapter:: I am so going to rewrite this one day...

For some reason, asterisks no longer show up on ff.net. Therefore all asterisks are now replaced by '::'. As in ::seriously needs to get a life::. Several other previously possible punctuation marks also do not show up, which could mean big trouble for They've Got Mail, which uses a lot of some of them... anyway. I'll worry about that later.

For this chapter, the actual Chapter Nine actually starts with the time-date stamp. Everything before it is actually part of the extended Chapter Eight, because after posting the latter I decided that it was too short and extended it. So in the version on my computer, that part is actually part of Chapter Eight. But you probably have no idea what I'm saying, so I'll stop here.

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE AND GO KABOOM
Chapter Nine

"Marty?"

The teen swallowed nervously. "I'm sorry Doc, really, if you don't want me to go I won't, but I didn't know you didn't want me to, I had to save you, so can someone please just tell me what the beep is going on here?"

The inventor blinked. The last thing he had been expecting was an apology of any sort, and he didn't even have any idea as to what it was for. "What do you..." Doc paused. "Get off the floor. I don't know what else might be on it."

Marty scrambled up, utter confusion still etched all over his face. "What's happening here?" he asked, the desperation evident in his voice.

The sound of conversation awakened his sleeping other self. Mumbling something about barbecued sheep, the latter got up, yawned, and stared blearily at the other two people in the room. "Uh... did I miss something?"

The local teen shrugged slightly, not taking his eyes off his counterpart. "Just what I wanted to know," he said vaguely. The two of them looked nervously at each other for roughly three seconds before turning to face Doc expectantly.

"Uh, Doc? What's going on here?" Marty asked.

Doc sighed. "Nothing's going on here. We just got a visitor this morning, that's all."

Local Marty opened his mouth in indignation. "Look, you're the visitors here, okay? Not me." He paused. "You're from the future, right?"

Doc and Marty looked at each other. "Ah... not exactly," the latter replied, stifling a yawn.

"What d'you mean, 'not exactly'?"

Doc and Marty looked at each other. "We're not from the future," the inventor finally said. "We're not from the past either. We're..." He hesitated, unsure as to how to continue. "We're from a different... reality altogether. At least, that what I think from what's been happening so far. The problem now is how we're going to get back from where we came from, considering how our DeLorean... crashed."

Marty looked guilty.

"Most of the damage seems rather minor," Doc continued, "but the main problem lies with the flux capacitor. It broke completely, and I doubt I'd be able to repair it. I can't remake it either without the plans, and I was hoping that we could find some help here..."

"There's another DeLorean here," Marty cut in suddenly, remembering. "I couldn't sleep last night, so I went out and I saw it. It's completely intact and everything; we can use it, right?"

"There's another DeLorean here?" Doc repeated. "The new one?"

Marty shook his head. "Nah. It's the old one. I think it wasn't destroyed here for some reason. But it's got a flux capacitor inside, maybe we can take it out and..."

Local Marty's face fell. They couldn't just take apart the DeLorean like that... they couldn't... he NEEDED it, for crying out loud! Everything had been going so fine that morning; why did they have to come and ruin it all? Doc could have been saved by now. Everything could have got back to normal by now. But instead he was stuck here helplessly, watching as two intruders from some other dimension talked about dismantling his last hope of doing anything.

His life sucked.

And what was more, the teen thought, panicking as his gaze settled on one of the many clocks and he mentally added 25 minutes to them... he was late for school.

He muttered a random swear word under his breath, loud enough to interrupt his counterpart.

"What?" the latter asked.

"I'M LATE FOR SCHOOL!"

"Oh."

"Uh... I... see you guys later." The local ran out the door, screeched to a stop, and executed two perfect U-turns as he ran back into grab his skateboard and exited again, a very dazed look on his face.

The two visitors were left staring after him in his wake. Marty blinked. "I guess some things never change, huh?"

Doc shook his head. "Let's just go have a look at that DeLorean."

4 November 1985
3:15 p.m.

It rained that afternoon. He had thought it would, judging from the overcast sky that had hung outside the classroom windows the whole day.

The local Marty had spent his last few hours in school on edge; unable to concentrate on anything but what he hoped was not currently going on at Doc's garage. What if the visitors took apart the DeLorean, or did anything to it...?

Part of him knew that his thoughts were irrational. The DeLorean didn't belong to them. They wouldn't just dismantle it if they wanted to - they would ask him first... right?

Marty had waited for what seemed ages for school to be over so he could go and check up on things himself and find out what exactly was going on... but now that school finally was over, it had to be raining. Heavily.

He could barely make out through the rain the vague shapes of hapless students running for the nearest shelter, carrying their books or files over their heads to keep off as much rain as possible. Several luckier ones jumped into taxis or their parents' waiting cars, and others had actually got umbrellas.

Marty wasn't one of them.

Heaving a sigh of resignation, the teen left the shelter of his school and walked out into the pouring rain. He descended the front steps of Hill Valley High, the sped off on his skateboard as he mentally calculated the most sheltered route home. He'd go there, get an umbrella, then skate over to Doc's garage and sort things out.

Blinking the rain away from his eyes, Marty tried to ignore the mental image of himself cruising along on his skateboard and holding an umbrella.

Lightning flashed.

1 Mississippi... 2 Mississippi... 3 Mississippi... 4 Mississippi... 5 Mississippi... 6 Mississippi... 7...

A clap of thunder sounded in the distance. Seven seconds. So that meant the lightning was... how far away? Marty didn't know, and he couldn't care less.

By the time he arrived home, Marty was almost completely drenched. Almost, for no one can know what being totally and completely drenched is if they haven't been in a kayak for ten and a half hours non-stop out in the open sea in a thunderstorm, with jellyfish in the water, where the only means of relieving yourself is jumping out of the kayak and spending ten minutes trying to get back in. In the rain. With jellyfish. That is being completely and utterly drenched, which the author has experienced before and bets you haven't.

Marty was far from that soaked. He was just as drenched as someone who had just skateboarded home from school in the rain. With no jellyfish.

After shaking off as much water from his shoes as he could, Marty entered his house and grabbed the nearest umbrella. He was about to step out again when his mother's voice halted him and Lorraine came into the room.

"Marty! Did you get caught in the ra..."

The teen dripped water in reply, trying not to look as guilty as he felt or give any indication of what he was about to do... but the umbrella he was holding was a bit of a giveaway.

"Uh..."

"Where do you think you're going?" Lorraine asked, right arm akimbo.

"Uh..."

"Well, whatever it is, you're not going anywhere in that weather."

"Uh..."

"It's not urgent, is it?"

"Uh..."

"Close that door."

Marty sighed and complied. So much for his plans...

He took a quick shower, changed into dry clothes, then plopped down on his bed and stared at the ceiling as the rain continued outside. He briefly wondered if his mother knew about the local Doc's murder the day before, but decided against asking. If he actually managed to change it, it would be easier if he'd never asked. Besides, knowing the kind of reputation Doc had in Hill Valley, whatever report there might have been would have probably been relocated to some small corner somewhere.

Somewhere on the other end of Marty's ceiling, a lizard lost its grip and fell. Why it fell, no one will ever know but the lizard. Just consider it yet another one of the many mysteries of life, the universe, and everything, the answer to all of which is forty-two.

At least there probably couldn't be much going on at Doc's garage now, Marty thought, not in this kind of weather anyway. The visitors were most probably inside watching television on that new plasma television set that Doc bought from the future a few days ago.

But he was stuck at home, helpless until the rain stopped.

His life really sucked.

Meanwhile, over at Doc's garage, the two visitors were busy watching television on the new plasma television set that the local inventor had bought from the future a few days ago. Marty, in particular, found it fascinating... whereas his friend expressed some concern over lightning striking the house and short-circuiting the television. After a while, though, Emmett too gave in to temptation and sat down next to Marty to watch as well.

"I wonder where the TV came from," Marty wondered aloud somewhere during a commercial break. "I didn't even know such sets existed."

"They do," Doc replied. "In the future, that is. I assume my counterpart must have bought it from there, considering that the DeLorean seems to have survived in this world."

"So where is he now, then?"

"He probably went away a while for work. I do that all the time."

"Oh."

The commercials ended and the two sat in silence, engrossed in the television programme.

All of a sudden, lightning struck.

The sky flashed.

The television set went blank.

A lizard fell off the ceiling.

TO BE CONTINUED... You know what to do. Click on that pretty blue button over there that says 'Submit Review'. ::waves hand:: You shall review...

Stoko: Thanks for reviewing!

Fallen Hawk: Yep, it's odd. And so is your review. It was really odd, and where's the fic?

HyperCaz: Thanks for your review! The 'ultimate universal whinger'? Uh, right. Angst is fun. =D

DarkPhoenixBC: IF YOU DIDN'T READ THIS FIC, THEN WHY DID YOU REVIEW? And oboes are better, so there. Hah. Yeah, I know I need to get a life. You're about the five hundred and fifty-fifth person who's told me that.

HoverboardKid: 'Mysterious'? 0.0 Okay...

Anonymous-cat: I dunno what's with all the Star Wars references either. Hmm. Strange are the ways of the Force... Thanks for your review!