Chapter 4

Friday, September 6th

8: 10 P. M.

Marty bumped into Doc outside his temporary room. "Oh, hey. How're you feeling?"

"Better than I have. The serum seems to be suppressing my cough. How are you?"

"Okay. I played some foosball with Bobby, Marie, and Kitty." Marty smiled. "Kitty kept reaching through the glass and putting the ball on our side."

Doc laughed. "Not exactly what I would call using your powers in a responsible manner!"

"Yeah, and we lost anyway!" Marty turned sober suddenly. "Doc – have you ever used--"

Doc knew what the kid wanted to ask. "I've hurt people unintentionally, but those are few and far between." His body gave a little shake, remembering the woman who had touched him during his seizure. "Intentionally, I've misused my power twice. Once against my father, like I told you. The other was against Buford Tannen."

Marty snorted, a disgusted look on his face. "What did that asshole do?"

"He – he made a number of disparaging remarks about Clara – and you. This was still when I thought--" Doc paused for a moment, stemming the flood of emotion. "– that my carelessness with the time had – you know. I completely lost my head. It was a stormy night, and, in my anger, I was able to summon a lightning bolt to strike him down. I was sick for days afterward."

Marty's eyes were huge. "Did you kill him?"

Doc nodded, closing his eyes against the memory. "Yes, I did. I didn't affect the space-time continuum that much, though. Turns out he was supposed to die shortly after we had left. He died a day later than normal."

"That's not so bad." Marty reached out and gave Doc's arm a quick squeeze. "He deserved it, really."

"Still no reason to kill someone. It takes too great a toll on you." He sighed. "I might have hurt more people today, if J--"

Doc's eyes snapped open wide. "J. C.! Great Scott, I completely forgot about her!"

"J. C.? That girl who was with Professor Xavier?"

"Short blond hair, about your height?" Marty nodded. "That's her! Marty, she probably saved my life by bringing me here! I never even thanked her."

"Doc, she can't be that hard to find," Marty said, wanting to calm him. "She wanted to enroll here. If we ask around, somebody's bound to have seen her."

Doc took a deep breath. "You're right. We have to go through this logically. First step – locate some students who know the mansion."

"I bet Marie and Bobby would know. Bobby told me he practically memorized the map of this place after getting lost three times. They might still be downstairs."

"No need to ask them," a gruff voice spoke up. Doc and Marty turned to see Logan at the end of the hall. He smirked at them. "I know every kid in this school – including the new girl."

"Well, any idea where she is?"

"Down in the girl's wing, obviously. With Kitty and Tracey." He stretched a crick out of his neck.

Marty frowned at him. "Weren't you one of--"

Logan snorted, cutting him off. "Yeah, I was. And if you're looking for an apology, forget it. We did what we needed to. You don't act, you don't survive."

Marty looked a little put out. "Trust me buddy, I know about surviving."

"Really." Logan seemed amused. "Somebody like you, on the fast track."

Doc decided to put a halt to this before Marty either knew too much about his future or got angry. "Give us some directions, and we'll be on our way."

"It's down the hall, turn right, down another hall, turn left, first door on the right." He smirked again at Marty. "Think you can handle that?"

Logan suddenly jumped. Marty noticed Doc's eyes flash with a bit of electricity. "There's disadvantages to a metal skeleton, huh?" Marty tried not to laugh.

Logan went stiff, his claws extending with a "snickt." Whatever laughter there had been in Marty's throat now died. "How the hell did you know?"

"The same way I gave you that little shock. I can 'see' electricity – feel it. Something in your body was affecting the pulses given off by your nerves, and it wasn't your mutation. Due to the lightning-fast conduction it offered, I assumed it was metal."

The claws went away. "Nobody told me."

Very quietly, Marty asked, "Is that your mutation?"

"No. I've got this healing ability that makes it near-impossible to hurt me. Some asshole named Stryker decided to give me claws."

"Why?" Now the teen understood Logan's attitude toward him. Having a metal skeleton put in you – that was really surviving.

"Don't remember. But you don't want to get on the wrong end of them."

"You don't want to get on my bad side either. We've been through a lot more than you might think." With that, Doc and Marty started walking.

Once they were out of earshot, Marty looked at Doc. "Did you hurt him?"

"Not really. Just a little jolt to get him to stop belittling you. It was annoying me. Be careful around him. He's inherently unstable."

"You're not telepathic too?"

"This relates to the metal skeleton. Whatever that Stryker fellow did to implant it, he irreparably damaged the nerves. He was able to heal back the damage, but it forever affected his brain."

"Creepy. At least he's on our side."

"Let's hope it stays that way." They located the room. Doc knocked gently. "Hello?"

No reply. Marty cracked the door open and looked around. He yelped and pulled his head back, eyes wide. "What is it?" Doc asked.

"Doc, you're not going to believe this, but – it was a desert."

"Come now!"

"I'm serious! Look for yourself!"

Doc opened the door. It was a desert – Southwestern if he knew his geography. The kind you might find in one of the "Wile E. Coyote/Roadrunner" cartoons. Instead of being astonished, though, Doc laughed. "It's okay, Marty. It's just an illusion."

Marty cautiously looked inside. "But – heck, it looks real. How the hell can you tell it's fake?"

"Once again, my power. My brain produces more electrical current than normal people's. As a result, it's darn near impossible to use mental powers on me, i.e. illusions or telepathy. If I consciously quiet the current, then I can be fooled, but all other times no. I see what you see, but it's distorted – I can get a sense of the room as well. One of the girls must be projecting it."

"Well, it's not Tracey or Kitty. That leaves your J. C."

Doc concentrated, looking beyond the fuzzy image of the desert to the room. He spotted a blond head on the third bed down, one with familiar short hair. Very quietly, he went up and tapped her shoulder. "J. C.?"

J. C. came awake, causing the illusion to fade. Marty looked visibly relieved. "Who's there?" she mumbled, turning over.

"It's me. Dr. Brown."

J. C. smiled up at him. "Oh, hi. Haven't seen you since this afternoon. How are you?"

"Fine now. I just wanted to say thank you for helping me the way you did."

"Yeah, me too," Marty smiled. "I'm Marty, Doc's best friend. It meant a lot to me and his family."

J. C. blushed, looking at the blanket as she pulled herself to a sitting position. "Well, it's not like I could just leave you there, Dr. Brown. Until things get better, us mutants have to stick together."

Her eyes suddenly flicked worriedly toward Marty. "I know what he is, and I don't give a shit. In fact, I think it's pretty cool," he added, grinning. "Show her what you can do, Doc."

Doc made the lights flicker for a few seconds. J. C. relaxed. "That's really cool. People can be so dumb about others." A look of pain passed briefly across her face. "I was headed to this place anyway guys. I wanted to learn how to use my power. Or, more accurately, how to stop using it."

Marty looked puzzled. "What do you mean? Looks like it was working fine."

J. C. groaned. "That's my problem! I'm an illusionist. For some reason, my power gets stronger if I'm unconscious. If I'm awake, I can only make a small group of people see the illusion. When I'm sleeping, though. . . ." She waved her hand to encompass the room. "Anybody can get tricked."

Doc frowned thoughtfully. "That is odd. What did the teachers here have to say about it?"

"Professor X told me it was just a fluke due to my mutant gene. He put me in here because I'm sort of protected if Tracey starts screaming. Illusion myself, so to speak."

Marty pulled up a chair. "What's J. C. stand for?"

"I recall you telling me your name was Josephine," Doc said.

"Yeah. Josephine Caroline Jones. But all my friends call me J. C. My mom and dad, they called me Josie."

"Do they know, if you don't mind me asking?"

J. C. looked back down at the sheets. "About me being a mutant? Yes. They do. My dad – no, Richard Jones, I won't call him Dad anymore. Richard is – a member of the Purifiers." Doc and Marty exchanged shocked looks. "He was the first to find out what I could do – walked in on me while I was crashing after school one day. When he found out--" J. C. tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but couldn't. "He – he called me – 'mutant hell spawn.' His own daughter." Tears began to run down her cheeks. "He told me there was no way I could be his daughter, that Mom had to have – tainted herself to have me. Mom denied it, of course. Shrieked that she wouldn't give birth to a monster. I tried to explain things to them, but they didn't listen. Richard smashed up a lot of my stuff, then threw me out of the house at gunpoint."

Marty noticeably stiffened. After seeing Doc threatened with guns, and being threatened himself, in at least three different times, he now hated guns. Seeing someone get shot was liable to make him very ill. "Bastard," he muttered. "I'm sorry, J. C. I shouldn't have asked."

J. C. wiped her eyes. "No, it's okay. I needed to tell someone. Get it out of my system. But – damn. I never thought – my own parents--" Her breath started to falter. "Never mind. I made it here. That's the important thing. I made it here. Now I'm with people who'll like me – I hope."

Doc patted her back in a comforting manner. "Well, I'll be here for you, J. C. I owe you."

"Same here. We're your friends," Marty added.

J. C. smiled. "Thanks a lot, Marty, Dr. Brown."

"Call me Doc. All my friends do."

"Okay then – Doc." She giggled, her red eyes still smiling.

"Nice to have met ya, J. C.," Marty said, shaking her hand. "You need anything, you ask us."

"Thanks. I appreciate it." She settled herself back down. "I'll see you in the morning?"

"You bet." The boys tiptoed out, allowing J. C. to re-establish her illusion.

Once they were out of earshot, Marty nudged Doc teasingly. "Hey, Doc, she likes you."

"I expect she would. I showed her kindness. Before I knew her name, I gave her five dollars."

"You know what I mean. She's got a crush on you."

"Nonsense!"

"It's true! I saw the way she was looking at you. She thinks you're cute."

"No she doesn't."

"Yes she does! She was looking at you the way Clara does sometimes. She really thinks you're – hot, I don't know."

Doc flushed. "I wonder how she came to that opinion. No, she must have the crush on you. All the other girls do, according to what I saw down there."

"That's because I'm apparently famous." Doc gave him a stern look. "Relax, Doc, Marie asked me for an autograph. That's how I know. I haven't been asking around. And it's not like I can tell them I'm their age."

"True. I'm glad you haven't been seeking out information."

"Well, actually, I do have one question. From Jennifer. We still have two kids?"

"To the best of my recollection. You may have more, but I know you have two."

"Thanks. Jennifer was curious – you know, when she ended up in our future house. We already promised ourselves that we're not naming our son Marty Jr."

"Ah. What about your daughter?"

Marty shrugged. "We'll see when it happens. Personally, I like the name Marlene."

"That's all that matters, Marty. The future is ever-changing."

"Especially when we're in it," Marty grinned.

Saturday, September 7th, 2002

Graymalkin Lane, Westchester County, New York

8: 20 A. M.

After a wonderfully refreshing sleep, the time trippers headed down to breakfast with the rest of the students. J. C. was already up, chatting amiably with Kitty. She waved them over. "Have the pancakes; that's what everyone else has been telling me," she advised them.

"You meet any of the other teachers yet?" Kitty asked her.

"Scott, and Ororo, and Kurt." A slight flush came to her face as she said Kurt's name. "He's kinda cute."

"I know," Kitty sighed. "I keep wondering what color his eyes are."

"Not Scott, Kurt."

"Kurt???" Kitty looked baffled. "No offense against him, he's very nice, but – J. C., he's blue and has a tail."

"So? I've seen the way Ororo looks at him already. She thinks he's hot too."

"I'll give you that. Everybody in the school knows those two like each other."

Doc and Marty sat down, having grabbed their food. "Who are you talking about?" Marty asked through a hash brown.

"Kurt Wagner," Kitty said. "J. C., is it the accent? German's not the sexiest I've ever heard, but--"

"I dunno. Maybe I just like older men." She suddenly blushed and looked at her pancakes.

"Told ya," Marty whispered to Doc, who blushed too. Kitty tried to hide her giggles.

"I really should look at the train today," Doc said quickly as Clara, Jennifer, and the boys came over. "I have to see what damage's been done to it. Hopefully some of it can wait until we're safely back home again." He sighed. "Part of me wishes I'd brought the DeLorean remote along. I could send the rest of you home and stay here by myself."

"I'd prefer to be lost with you," Clara said, kissing his cheek.

"Same here," Jennifer agreed. "I don't like being away from familiar surroundings. You know that, when I got lost the first time when you guys were trying out the DeLorean."

"Jennifer, I've apologized for that. The hover-conversion systems were brand-new, and I was inexperienced. Could I do it over again, you would have stayed safely with us."

"I know, Doc, I forgave you."

"What happened?" J. C. and Kitty asked, curious.

"A big mess with me being mistaken for someone else," Jennifer summarized. Doc grinned at her proudly. She learns fast. I couldn't have put it better myself.

Hank, Jean, and another man wandered over. Marty recognized his ruby-lensed glasses. "You must be Scott." The man nodded. "Can I ask what the hell you were using to attack us? It looked like a death ray."

Jean giggled while Scott blushed. "Actually, I was only using my eyes. They emit powerful optic beams. Without theses glasses or my visor, I could punch holes in mountains."

The Brown family abruptly realized how lucky they'd been. "I pity the mountain that gets in your way."

Scott smiled, just a little. "I never would have done what I did if I'd known you were the guys who saved Jean."

"He probably would have kissed you then," Kitty teased.

"Katherine. . . ."

"What exactly do those optic beams do?" Doc asked. "It could be important information for when I see the train."

"Can I see it?" J. C. asked eagerly. "I missed the spectacle yesterday 'cause I was downstairs with you. I was helping Dr. McCoy."

"Regular little nurse," Hank said. "She said you looked cute asleep."

"DOCTOR MCCOY!!" There was that blush again! J. C. buried her face in her hands. "You shouldn't have told him that."

"Why not? Even I think that," Marty said, giving Doc a shit-eating grin. Doc purposefully ignored him.

"Great Scott, when are people going to stop talking about my sex appeal?" he muttered under his breath. "I suppose you could see the train, J. C. Just don't touch anything unless I tell you it's okay."

"Can I see it too?" Hank inquired. "My speciality is medicine, but I'm pretty good with mechanical things as well."

Doc hesitated a moment. Despite his gratefulness toward Hank, he was reluctant to let him near the train. Being his biggest fan meant he almost certainly knew something about his time-travel theories. What if he guessed the true purpose of the flux capacitor? Could Hank be trusted to keep his mouth shut?

But Hank would be a helpful addition, he thought. Being my biggest fan also means he'll have a bit of experience with the way I build things. God knows I would like a fellow scientist to help. Clara and Marty are wonderful companions, but they don't exactly think the way I do. Decisions, decisions. . . . "I could certainly use your expertise," he hedged. "But the same applies to you. I don't want anyone to get hurt."

"Great!" Hank began wolfing down his eggs. "I'll be ready to go in just a minute."

"Do you want me to come along as well?" Scott asked. "To help with the damage I caused?"

"Great Scott, does everyone want to see this?"

"I think so," Jean said with a grin. "It's not every day a flying train arrives here."

"Well, not everyone can go."

"I can stay behind with Jules and Verne," Jennifer offered. "Tell anybody who's interested what I know. That technical stuff always confuses me, and I don't enjoy it like Marty does." Marty rolled his eyes.

"That's fine with me, if the boys are willing," Doc said, glancing at his kids.

"We want to play with Artie," Jules said, his brother nodding along. "His tongue is really cool."

"His tongue?"

"It's blue and forked and can pick up stuff."

Clara, Jennifer, and Kitty looked put out. "He's always doing gross stuff like that. I guess you gotta be a boy."

"Really? A prehensile tongue?" J. C. asked, looking quite interested.

"Okay, maybe not."

"If you can tell me what your optic beams do, you can come along," Doc decided for Scott.

Saturday, September 7th

8:27 A. M.

To Doc's surprise, the train looked all right, except for a huge notch in the smokestack and a hole blasted through the side. The flux capacitor was undamaged, and the train still looked structurally sound. Wondering what exactly was wrong, he reached out with his power, trying to bring everything on-line.

He groaned. At lot of the vital wires and machinery that allowed the train to function had been damaged or outright destroyed. The hover conversion was slightly damaged, but the train could still fly. "I take it you hit the underbelly first. Damn, damn. . . ."

"Is it really that bad?" Marty said, glad Jennifer wasn't here to see this.

"Oh, yes, it's bad. Scott did a very good job. The hover system is all right, but a lot of the internal circuitry was affected. In fact, a good part of it is gone. I'll have to make extensive repairs before we can even think about leaving. The feed lines are gone, the display circuitry is heavily damaged -- and I'm just going to have to have the trip log screen replaced."

Clara grimaced. Getting the darn thing installed had been horribly expensive. "I hope we can afford it."

"It's a necessary investment, Clara." Doc walked around the train. "As for structural damage, we'll have to replace the window and repair the hole. The gouge on the smokestack I don't care about."

"I'll help with that. What do you need to cover it with?" Scott asked, going pink again.

"Anything that effectively seals out the outside atmosphere. It would be dangerous to travel without shielding from these effects."

"I can attest to that, having walked through five rainy days to get here," J. C. agreed.

Hank looked at the smokestack. "Are you sure you don't want to do anything about that gouge? What if it collapses and crushes your --"

Hank's eyes went as big as dinner plates as he saw the flux capacitor. "Is that what I think it is?" he squeaked.

"What do you mean? Looks like those energy capacitors you built into the Blackbird," Scott said dismissively.

Doc nodded rapidly. "I use it to get bursts of speed if necessary." Please, please let him pick up on the hint. I can't tell the entire school that we're time travelers. The less people who know, the better.

"What the heck is an energy capacitor?" J. C. asked.

"It's a conduit for storing energy for long temporal periods and then releasing it in a short one," Doc said, too worried about Hank's reaction to realize she probably wouldn't understand.

"What the heck was that?"

"It's the way he talks sometimes," Marty soothed her. "He explained it to me once -- a capacitor thing is supposed to take up the energy you feed it, store it for a while, then let it all out at once. Doc uses it to speed up the train."

"Ooh. Yeah, you'd understand, wouldn't you? You guys won an award a while back."

Marty blinked a few times. "Huh? Oh, oh yeah." Us?? Wait a minute, people seem to think I'm a musician. Why would I win an award with Doc?

Hank went to the left and right, studying the flux capacitor. "Scott, I copied the energy capacitor design from Dr. Brown's flux capacitor. It was part of his discussion on ways to circumvent the time barrier. And this looks exactly how he described it." He looked at Doc with pleading eyes. "Please tell me it's true. Please tell me it's a time machine."

"And I'm from the Old West," Clara said, trying not to laugh as she said it.

"And I'm really 19," Marty added.

"And I'm an internationally-recognized scientist," Doc laughed. "In my wildest--"

"IT IS TRUE!!"

Doc jumped, startled. Hank was grinning wildly. "I knew you could do it! I just knew you could! What year are you from?"

"Hank, I was being sarcastic," Doc snapped.

"And that was your downfall. You are an internationally-recognized scientist. You--"

Doc put his face in his hands, shaking his head. "Don't tell me, don't tell me. I can't know too much about my own future. Damn, damn DAMN!"

"Face it, Doc, one of us was going to slip up sometime," Marty sighed, trying to comfort his best friend. "Hell, I almost did just now."

"Sorry," J. C. blushed. "So you guys are time travelers?"

"And I'm really from the Old West," Clara admitted. "Emmett doesn't like to tell people about it."

"Why not? This is one heck of an achievement for the Doc!"

"It may be, but it's extremely dangerous! On Marty's first-ever time trip, he nearly erased himself from existence by preventing his parents from meeting. And the whole reason I met Clara back in the Old West was because somebody stole my original time machine!"

"And turned our home town into someplace slightly worse than the black hole of Calcutta," Marty elaborated. "Not to mention I had to watch my best friend nearly die at least three times."

Hank looked noticeably abashed. "I'm -- I'm sorry. I just thought it was incredible. Genius."

"Once you've had a few bad experiences with this thing, it doesn't seem the same way."

"So why keep it?" J. C. asked.

"Well, it's not all bad. Doc got a family, and I got a better version of my family. Before I went back in time, George McFly was a spineless, sniveling wimp who wouldn't have published a story if his life depended on it."

"Well, thank you for going back," Scott said. His brow wrinkled. "Jean -- she knows too."

"Knows? I took her back to 1987 with me for a few days to help her recover. That's also how she found out about me being a mutant."

"This is incredible. What are you doing here, though?"

Doc looked him in the eyes. "Shouldn't it be obvious? I was looking for a cure for my Legacy. I was terrified I was going to die. And after gaining a wife and children after 60-odd years, I wasn't about to give up and accept my fate."

"I'm glad you didn't. It would be a shame to live in a world without you."

"Hank's got a worse crush on you then J. C. does," Scott cracked, making both of them blush.

"This is the same guy who cried with Wolverine," Hank retorted.

"Oh my God, that's true?!" J. C. said, laughing.

"I thought I'd lost my girlfriend!" Scott snapped.

As the scene threatened to deteriorate into chaos, Doc suddenly coughed hard. All went silent, eyes fixed on the scientist. Clara and Marty went noticeably white.

Doc shook his head reassuringly. "I'm fine, I'm fine. I needed to clear my throat. I promise you. I doubt Hank's serum could have worn off that quickly."

Everyone relaxed. "I suppose that's our kick in the pants," Hank said. "Once we're done here, I'll take you to the lab and tell you all I know."