Chapter 15

"He's getting away!" Marty's mid screamed as he saw the car towing his younger self start speeding up faster than the one he was behind. He looked over his shoulder, and pushed himself forward at the right time to grab onto a faster moving car as it drove past.

A sudden thought struck him: he had no idea how much time he had before the accident. The only plan he could formulate was to get as close as possible to his younger self, and either make him stop or attempt to prevent any accident as it occurred. "A hoverboard or a flying DeLorean would come in handy on a day like today," he mused as he pulled himself around to the side of the car.

He crouched low, keeping out of view of the driver. Carefully, he pulled himself around to the front right corner of the car. His younger self continued to grip onto the back of the car he had first grabbed, which was now the car directly in front, thanks to the single intervening car turning down a side street. Marty looked at the street ahead, seeing a fairly tight turn to the left, and a large bus parked on the right, beside a small man-made lake which featured as a popular picnic place in town. He gripped on tight to avoid being flung into the bus.

Unfortunately, but not entirely unexpectedly, the younger Marty failed to grip tightly enough and suddenly found himself detached from the car he had made use off. He managed to keep his balance, but was going much to fast to stop or even turn from his trajectory towards the side of the bus. His older self realised what was about to happen and sprang into action – literally. He pushed with all his might, sending himself parallel to the bus and hopefully into the path of his younger self.

There was a scraping sound as the two boards hit and realigned themselves. Both Martys were thrown outwards and grabbed hold of one another to avoid falling. The edge of the bus loomed closer for a second, and then vanished as the pair passed the front corner with inches to spare. However, the road was still curving and the skateboards continued in a straight line.

"Jump!" older Marty yelled as they approached the curb. Both boys flipped their boards into the air with synchronized motions, and landed on the grassy slope beside the lake. "Look out!" the teen warned, sending a boy scrambling out of their way with his fishing rod. The boards hit the water and slowed, sending their riders sprawling forward into the shallow, cold water with a giant splash.

Shivering in the strong wind, the pair grabbed their boards and waded to the shore. The younger Marty looked at the stranger who had saved him. "Thanks," he said quietly.

"No problem," Marty answered casually. "We gotta get dry now."

"Hey!" exclaimed the younger boy. "There's my parents' car!" He ran to the side of the road and waved his arms at them.

The older Marty suddenly remembered being picked up by his parents shortly after refusing to take Needles' dare. "I guess in the version of history I just prevented, they found me after I hit the bus," he considered.

The car pulled into a space on the other side of the road and its occupants crossed over. "Marty, what happened to you? You're all wet!" his mother exclaimed.

"I fell in the lake on my skateboard. I nearly hit that bus, but this weird guy saved me," the boy explained.

"Marty, that's no way to talk about people," his mother chided.

"We'd better get them out of this wind right away," her husband urged.

Marty shuddered. This guy was him… and his father… and his son. This was heavy, to say the least.

"Just as soon as Marty apologises," his mother (and innumerable other relations) answered.

"Uh, sorry for calling you weird, whoever you are," Marty said quickly.

"Now get in the car, both of you. Well take you home and get you dry. Do I know you from somewhere?" the eldest Marty asked.

"Know me? I don't know, I don't live here," Marty answered, avoiding looking in his eyes. Internally, he was troubled at seeing his older self with his mother, especially after he though he had prevented the start of the problem. Maybe Doc had been wrong after all. Maybe he was going to hit his head some other time. Maybe he was going to be erased soon. Maybe…

A voice, his own, snapped him out of his thoughts. "Never mind, you just look extremely familiar, like someone I knew when I was a kid," the man who didn't know he was Marty answered to the teen who was also Marty, but probably wouldn't be for much longer if the timeline hadn't been fixed.

"Really Calvin," Lorraine argued, "you don't remember anything about when you were a kid, not since my father hit you with the car twenty-five years ago. But he does seem familiar, in a strange sort of way."

There was a sudden, barely detectable tremor in the air, and a sort of bluish light passed through the area. Marty suddenly saw the figure of George McFly in front of him, where his memory-less older self had stood a moment before.

"What did you say, Lorraine? I missed that," George asked, as if he had been standing there the whole time.

"I said, there's something familiar about him, but I can't place it. What's your name, young man?" she inquired.

Marty quit staring at his real father. "Luke," he replied, having already thought of a good name. Then he shivered for good measure.

"Oh, you must be freezing!" Lorraine exclaimed. "Quick, into the car."

Marty, who was very much relieved to see his real father turn up (although he really wanted to ask Doc to explain the details to him again), looked at his younger self to see if he had noticed the sudden change of conversation. The boy happened to look up at the stranger at just that same moment, after hearing the name he gave. Their eyes met. The older Marty, who knew full well who he was really looking at, felt a bit odd and then tore his gaze away. The younger boy wasn't so lucky: a strange sense of recognition (or precognition) flashed through his mind, short-circuiting his brain and sending him straight to the ground in a daze.

His older self, fearful for his safety, reached out and caught him a moment before his head hit the ground. "It must be shock… from the accident," he covered. He lifted himself up and ran to the so familiar car, dripping water. His parents helped the pair into the back of the comparatively warm car, and hit the road for home.

Marty watched the street outside the window as the journey began, relieved to be able to look around him without rushing to get somewhere. His eyes hit something familiar: a cyclist pedalling by the side of the road from the other direction. He wound down his window. "Hey Needles, skateboards sure beat bikes!" he yelled as the car and bike passed one another.

Needles stared after the car, wondering what was going on. He shook his

"So Luke, where are you from?" Lorraine asked a few minutes into the trip home.

"San Francisco," he answered quickly.

"More importantly, how did Marty come to almost crash into that bus?" George asked with concern.

"Well, I'm not really sure, but it would have been nasty if I hadn't moved in the way. It's fortunate the lake was there too, despite the cold. It's sure a windy day, isn't it? Do you get much wind out here?"

"No, not like this. But Hill Valley occasionally has freak weather, like the thunderstorm back in '55. Have you heard about that?" George asked.

"Of course. The moment I set foot near the courthouse, I had people all over me explaining the history of the clock," Marty replied, inventing a story from his own experiences.

"Yes, we all tend to get overzealous about that clock," Lorraine agreed apologetically as the car entered Lyon Estates. "We're almost there. I'm afraid you'll have to settle for sitting in front of the fireplace, as we wouldn't have any dry clothes to fit you."

"Hey, don't worry about it. You're being too kind as it is."

"Nonsense, you probably saved our son's life back there," George argued.

"Fine, fine, good, good. I'll, uh, stay until I'm dry, but then I need to get going. I'm supposed to meet up with some friends shortly."

"Do you want to ring them and tell them you might be late?" Lorraine asked generously as Marty lifted himself out of the car and headed towards the front door.

"Nah, they won't be home, and they won't expect me for a while. It shouldn't take too long to dry. I just hope your car isn't too wet." He stepped inside, looking around and trying not to let the recognition show on his face. The furniture definitely showed that George was living the prosperous life Marty had been getting used to for the past few weeks. Marty had worried a little that he might have managed to mess things up again and dump himself back in the original reality where his father had been a total wimp, but he could see there was nothing to worry about.

"Don't worry about the car, it isn't about to catch cold," George joked, pulling his wrongly aged son out of his thoughts. "Put him here," he instructed, pointing towards the couch.

Marty set himself down, and then stood as close to the fire as he could, trying to dry off as fast as possible. He knew Doc wouldn't be happy to hear that he had interacted with his parents, and visited his house too. A though struck him: the radio! He waited until his mother had carried his younger self to his bedroom and his father had gone to look at the car, and pulled it out for inspection. Happily, it was built to be waterproof, so it was not at all damaged.

He pressed the talk button. "Doc, are you there?" He waited for a reply, but received none. "C'mon Doc, what's happening?" Still no reply. He sighed, and stuffed it back into his pocket, noticing the fabric of his jeans was just about dry. Turning around, he let his other side dry out. His mind drifted off as he wondered what was wrong with the radio. Maybe something had happened to Doc's radio, or to Doc. He hoped with all his heart that it wasn't the latter.

"He'll be okay now," Lorraine announced, slipping into the lounge room and interrupting his musing.

"Huh? Oh, great, that's great. Nice kid."

"Yes, although he can be trying at times. I remember when he nearly burnt the house down, a few years back."

"The house? You've gotta be exaggerating a little there."

"A little. Are you drying out?"

"Sure am," Marty answered. "I hope I'm not in the way of anything by being here."

"Nonsense. In fact, I really should ask you if you'd like anything hot to drink."

Marty considered the question for a moment. "No, but thanks for offering. This fire is hot enough. Actually, I'm pretty dry now and should really be going."

"You're leaving already?" asked George as he stepped back inside at that moment.

"Yeah, I need to meet up with some friends at a place in town. Thanks for letting me warm up. Nice place you have." Marty edged towards the door as he spread around these compliments.

George wouldn't let him go without asking one more question first. "Luke, did I meet your father some time?"

Marty grinned deviously as he moved out the door. "Lorraine's maiden name is Baines, right?"

George nodded.

"In that case, he's met you. It's good to see your brain is working at a safe temperature, so to speak. Bye." And with those mysterious words, he took off across the lawn and down the road.

George stared after him, dumbstruck. He shook his head. "Luke, huh? Weird," he muttered. This was not at all like what he had expected.

"What's wrong dear? What was that talk about your brain?" Lorraine asked, concerned.

"Nothing, just old business. An old… joke, I guess. Something to put in my novel."

"What?"

"Never mind. He's just a very strange young man, that's all."

"Hmm." Lorraine remembered that phrase from her youth. "Maybe… he could be related to… Calvin Klein."

"If he's human," George muttered, turning to walk to his study room.

"What did you say?" Lorraine asked, not catching the comment.

"Nothing, Lorraine. I'm just so glad we're together, aren't you?"

Lorraine smiled in agreement. "Yes, and we'll always be together. Nothing can ever change that."

"No one on this planet, or any other, can change it." And with that, he gave her a quick kiss and made his way into his study to write down some notes.

After a tiring jog through the outskirts of Hill Valley, Marty located the clearing where he had left the time train. Relieved, he saw it awaiting him where he expected it. He ran over to it and bounded up the stairs which were lowered as soon as he came close.

"Marty! Wherever have you been all this time?" Emmett demanded as soon as his friend sat down.

"Around. I ran into a few complications, but I think everything worked out in the end," Marty answered, trying to placate the inventor. "Say, what happened to the radio? I tried to call you, y'know."

Emmett gave a sheepish grin. "Sorry, that's my fault really. I took it into my head to look over the time circuits, to see how I would go about upgrading the system. In the process, I managed to find a circuit in which a large electric charge had built up, thanks to my comparatively primitive components. A large spark arced to the radio, destroying the inner circuitry. It's a good thing I had it in my hand, otherwise…"

"You might not be feeling so well," Marty completed.

"That sums it up nicely. Speaking of summing things up, take a look at this." He whipped a photograph out of his pocket. "It's the picture Catherine gave me of your parents' wedding. As you can see, George is in the picture, as he should be."

"Great Doc, great. I already knew it had all changed back though."

"Really? Did you run into your parents again? Remember the last time that happened."

"Calm down Doc. Last time I did that, they weren't my parents yet, and they were my age. There's no way I could mess anything up in this time period."

"There isn't? Then why did we come here in the first place, Future Boy?"

Marty winced at the name that Emmett occasionally used, particularly when he'd just said something stupid. "Point taken, I've managed to do a pretty good job of messing things up already. But it's all fixed now. Can we go home, or is there anything you need to do to put the time circuits back together?"

"No, it's all in one piece now, thankfully. I take it you convinced your younger self not to be so foolish on his skateboard."

"Uh, actually, I didn't."

"You didn't? Then how in the world did you manage to restore the timeline? It just isn't possible."

"Yeah, and it wasn't possible to talk myself out of it, either. I just wouldn't listen. So the only thing I could do was to save myself."

"Save yourself?" Emmett echoed again.

"Yeah, I skateboarded after myself and stopped myself from running into a bus. Barely. Then I – we – both of me – landed in the lake, that little one in the middle of town. Then my – our – parents showed up and took us home to dry. I stayed around long enough to warm up and got right out of there."

"Great Scott! You mean you went to your home, along with your younger self?"

"I didn't have much choice, Doc. Oh, and when they first showed up, my dad was still me – or Calvin, I guess. After about a minute, he suddenly changed into George, and no one noticed but me!"

"Well, that is out of the ordinary, but it makes sense."

"I figured it made sense, but I couldn't figure out how," Marty answered honestly.

"To put it simply, by preventing your younger self from hitting his head, you broke a chain of events that would have lead to yourself unfortunately being your father. This change was not instantaneous, since the you who was to travel back in time and lose his memory did not do that for another five years, and did it twenty-five years in the past. When the change did occur, no one would have noticed, since from their point of view, it had always been that way. Since you are not in your own time, the change could not affect you, since you are out of your proper place in the continuum. Does that make sense?"

"Enough," was Marty's short reply. "Can we get home before I get a headache from this whole business? The single thought of being married to my mother is enough to drive me crazy, you know. It would be nice to get back home and forget about time travel for a little while, you know, be normal for a change."

"That sounds like an excellent idea." Emmett clicked the hover systems online and took the train to the sky.

Marty watched the scenery blur below him as the train gained velocity. "It was weird how the adventures Catherine and Bess had in 1885 were so similar to mine," he commented. "It'll be a big relief when life gets back to normal.

"Indeed it will. Prepare for impending temporal displacement."

Marty held on tight, ready for the familiar sensations and extra turbulence that hit a moment later. But neither occupant was ready to discover that life would never truly be the same again.