Disclaimer: I don't own Back to the Future.

Uh, sorry for the rather short and noncomittal chapter, but a reviewer begged me to continue and I realised that I hadn't updated in nearly a year... (which actually isn't so bad considering that I have other fics which I really haven't updated in over a year... or two...)

IN ANOTHER'S SHOES: Chapter Three

That Sunday morning saw Verne fast asleep on Marty's bed as the early sunlight filtered through the windows. All was quiet, all was peaceful... until the silence in the room was rudely interrupted by a loud banging on the door.

"MARTY! Get up! We don't wanna be late for brunch!"

Verne bolted up in shock and fell off the bed. He lay there for a while, too tired to get onto his feet, and trying to remember where exactly he was. He stared incomprehensibly for a moment at his arm on the floor in front of him, which looked rather different from what he remembered and had Marty's watch strapped on its wrist.

Marty...

Then the memory avalanche hit him, and a weird thrill burst through his mind. It hadn't been a dream, after all... Slowly, Verne stood up, grasping onto the bedstand for support. He was actually here, in the McFly's house, in Marty's bedroom... he could look through all of Marty's private things and he'd never kn...

They're my private things too, a small hurt voice sounded in his head, and suddenly Verne had a remarkable mental flash by of the private things in question - love letters to and from Jennifer, diary entries in a long-untouched diary, stuff Marty had snicked from Dave and Linda, the photo of him and Doc in 1885, prized items from various places - and all these along with the steel-strong indignance that he didn't want anyone touching them, especially not some little kid like Verne.

Verne was filled with the uncomfortable feeling of simultaneously being two people who didn't particularly like each other. He stood there awkwardly for a moment, and then with a slight twinge of guilt pushed aside the remaining thoughts of his own and tried to fully immerse himself in Marty's mind, filling his head with the teen's memories and sense of self and forcefully ignoring his own. He was Marty McFly now, after all.

It sent a strange chill down his spine.

The now-seventeen-year-old left the bedroom and went to join the rest of the family. Linda passed him on his way down the hallway and gave him a cursory glance.

"Do you always have to sleep in your clothes?" she asked.

Verne silently marvelled at how much shorter Linda seemed now. When he'd first met her, she'd seemed so tall...

"Marty?" she asked cautiously. "What're you looking at?"

Verne blinked. "Huh? Oh, uh... nothing... yeah... Ah... yeah." Forcing a smile, he walked off, mentally whacking himself on the head.

X X X

Emmett Brown felt a little worried about his youngest son. Verne hadn't been himself the night before; he'd been too quiet, too prone to staring blankly at nothing... and then there had been that whole fainting spell to add to it. And now, Emmett saw that same look on the boy's face again as he sat on the bed. That distant, puzzled, not-quite-there look.

"Verne?" he asked softly.

Slowly, Marty looked up and stared at him

"Are you sure you're feeling all right?"

Marty stared, then blinked, and something seemed to clear briefly. "Huh?"

"Do you think you need to see a doctor?"

"Huh?" Marty asked again. "Oh... No, I... I'm fine..."

Clara came over and sat down next to him. Moments later, Marty dimly felt her cool hand against his forehead. His mind was a mess of thoughts; he wasn't sure which were his and which were not, and he was tired from trying to sort them out. He didn't know who he was, and the jumbled memories weren't helping. All he really knew for sure was that he could trust the two adults - his parents? His friends? - who were currently with him.

A seventeen-year-old mind was never meant to be forced into a seven-year-old brain.

"I think you've got a fever," Clara informed him, removing her hand and putting an arm around his small body.

Fever... the words floated painfully around Marty's mind. Come to think of it, he did feel rather sick... maybe that was why he felt so weird...

Emmett looked at him with concern. "I suppose I'll have to call up the McFlys, then, and tell them we might not be able to go for..."

"NO!" Marty yelled suddenly, and the effort made his head start throbbing. "No... I... I'll be fine, we can still go..." He wasn't too sure why, but something told him that he had to go for that dinner... there would be answers there, he had to go...

"Are you sure?" Clara asked.

Marty nodded. "Yeah... Yeah, I'll be fine... I promise..."

Clara gave a resigned sigh. "Well then, in tha tcase you should at least have a good rest, and we'll see how you are this evening."

He had technically just woken up, but rest still sounded good. Closing his eyes, Marty lay back down on the cool pillow and grabbed hold of the blanket for comfort, feeling its softness between his fingers.

His head hurt too much... he had to think less... Marty tried to consciously shut down parts of his mind, leaving nothing but what he absolutely needed to function. The pain subsided a little. He concentrated on his breathing, closing off the rest of his thoughts and filling himself with the rhythm of his breaths: in... out... in... out...

Eventually he slipped back into a thankfully dreamless sleep.

X X X

Verne was having a pretty good time. Everything seemed different now: things looked smaller, the world less scary, children who would have been his elders were now mere kids... And, best of all, he was now truly a part of the future world which he had for so long dreamed about. He was now a member of the world of 1985, no longer just a visitor who would never be able to fully be a part of it. He was no longer the offspring of the unconventional marriage of two people separated by a hundred yeras; now, the McFlys saw him as one of their own and had no reason to doubt otherwise.

He was in an act where the script was figuratively in his hand atnd his character's entire background literally in his mind.

And it was fun.

He looked forward to dinner that evening.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Uh, I'll write more... soon... I hope...