…and Marty raced out into the parking lot just in time to see it.
Lorraine Bates didn't know why this Biff germ had decided she was going to be his girl, but she'd wanted no part of it. He'd been a bully for a long time, and honestly, she'd thought he could use a good wig split. But this…so, maybe, she was a bit fast, but that didn't give him the right –
She remembered it being like she was watching someone else's body scrambling up, dance shoes scuttling aside across the pavement, and one leg swinging up hard between Biff's legs, but not hard enough. He howled and released George abruptly, sending him tumbling forwards, but then Biff was turning and now he was properly angry –
She internally screamed some words a nice girl shouldn't, but then as he came toward her, she thought fast, and suddenly remembered seeing Rocky Jones's fists flying into the villains. Well, how hard could –
Her punch's form was terrible, but Biff was thoroughly drunk and wasn't expecting it. He grunted in pain and stumbled back a step, and she swung her other fist into his belly, and she desperately swung and swung, speed and wild rage making up for lacking effectiveness. The blows sent him stumbling back, and he tried to set and square, suddenly afraid, and Lorraine would remember for the rest of her life the moment that she realized how good this felt, this power she had in her body. She let loose a wild scream, and as he lunged forward at her, something clicked and her arm went to its limit and beyond and a hammer blow crashed into his face. Biff Tannen went down and stayed down.
Lorraine stood there for a long moment, gasping for air. That felt good, too, like never before. She shook her arm, suddenly aware again of stinging knuckles and twinging forearm, and turned to see George McFly coming to a stop next to her, a lump of pavement falling from his hand.
"I…are you…are you O. K.?" he asked. "I…I'm sorry I didn't…in time…"
"I'm not hurt," she answered after a long moment, still catching her breath. She considered him for another long moment. He'd tried. He hadn't closed the door and walked away. And –
"And, well, you did, I mean, help…I mean to say, I could not have done that without – you." The confident finish to her sentence, without the silly indecision of good girls, turned out to feel good too…
"Shall we…should we go back inside, then?" he asked her, glancing at Biff sprawled on the ground.
Another long moment passed. She considered whether the police or Strickland should be told, but she really shouldn't have been in that car in the first place…right? Well, that question could wait, as she had the strangest feeling something much more important was due to begin. She smiled, reached out, took his hand…
…and Marty jumped out of Dr. Brown's car.
"You're late!" he shouted. "Do you have no concept of time?"
"Hey, come on, I had to change! I wasn't going back in that…zoot suit! Doc! My mother knocked out Biff, I've never seen her do something like that in my life!"
"Never?!" Doc shouted over the storm, concern flashing across his face.
"No – why, what's the matter?!"
Doc waved it aside – Marty needed to go back now to prevent further damage.
"Right! Let's set your destination time…"
…and Marty did a comically huge double take, staring at the living room.
It was nice, yes, that was the first thing he noticed. Properly matching furniture, potted plants, one of those hollow, oval, loop coffee tables he actually didn't know the proper name of. That alone was insane and bizarre and impossible. But then there was all the stuff on the walls: framed pictures with impossible scenes, framed newspapers with impossible headlines, and…and a big damn red, white, and blue poster with his mother's face on it, reading Elevate Equal Rights – Vote McFly!
He stared dumbly at the stuff on the walls, his siblings' voices distantly filtering into his brain.
"Well, if Julio calls me, tell him I've got a party meeting tonight."
"Linda, firstly, I'm not your answering service. Second, someone named Greg or Craig called you just a while ago."
"Well, which one was it, Greg or Craig?"
"I don't know, I can't keep up with all your boyfriends."
"Look, monogam –"
Marty finally opened his mouth and words burst out. "Hey!"
They looked up, Dave setting down Mother Jones.
"What the hell is this?!"
"Breakfast?" Linda answered.
"You sleep in your clothes again last night?" Dave asked casually.
"Uh…uh…yeah? What are you wearing, Dave?"
"Marty, I always wear a suit to the office. Are you feeling OK?"
"Uh…um…yeah." Marty was now slowly piecing it together in his head: time machine, time travel—so that wasn't a dream—
The back door rattled open, and Lorraine's voice came through. It took Marty a few seconds to recognize it: it was a powerful voice, a defiant voice, the voice of a woman who knew what was wrong and wouldn't let anyone stand in the way of her fixing it.
"George, you really need to give me more of a challenge for it to be useful practice."
"Look, jiu-jitsu is supposed to give the woman an advantage, right? With how much stronger you are already, you're basically cheating."
"Come on," she laughed, "you just need to lift more! It's easier for men to g—"
She came through the door. Marty saw her, lost his grip on the counter, and crumpled to the floor.
"Marty, are you hurt?" she asked.
"Did you, hit your head, or something?" George asked, coming through behind her. His…clothes…Marty didn't know the word…were badly rumpled and drenched with sweat, but his broad smile had only gone away when he saw his son on the floor. But Lorraine—
"You guys…you guys…" he babbled. "You look…Mom, you look so…strong!"
"Well, yes, thank you, Marty," she grinned, then reached out and smacked George's butt hard. Marty winced—yes, he'd just spent the last week trying to set them up, but still—ew!
"Ow!" George complained, but he was smiling again as he headed for the living room.
"Good morning, Marty!" she said, coming over and clapping him on the shoulder. With him still standing there trying to process the muscles that rippled up and down her legs and arms even through the loose fabric, she joined her other kids at the table, all Hallmark-cheerily greeting each other.
"Oh, Marty! I almost forgot," Linda said, snapping her fingers. "Jennifer Parker called."
"Oh, I like her, Marty, she's such a…badass…girl," his mother said, obviously hesitating to use that word but just as obviously enjoying doing so. "Tonight's the big date, right?"
Marty was staring at the framed newspapers, trying to piece things together.
MRS. MCFLY SQUEAKS OUT WIN; Democrats Gain 27th District, Robert Dornan's Political Ambitions Falter declared one headline. That was…he took a few steps closer. November 3, 1976.
"Marty? Marty, is something wrong?"
Marty's gaze had moved to the most central newspaper's headline: FLORIDA RATIFIES 27TH AMENDMENT; Equal Rights Now Supreme Law of the Land. Date, December 2, 1978.
"Marty!"
His mother's voice finally got through.
"Oh, sorry, I was just…uh, what?"
"Marty, I was asking you about the trip up to the lake with Jennifer, that you've been planning for two weeks…are you sure you're feeling well?"
"Uh…Mom, we talked about this, we're not…" He trailed off, realizing mid-sentence that that probably hadn't happened now either. "Er. Worried. We're not worried about anything. Going wrong!" he smiled as convincingly as possible. "So, the car's OK, and everything?"
"Well, you should know, Marty. Is something wrong with yours? I can lend you the other one if there is."
George frowned at that and headed back out the front door toward the garage.
"Don't tell me you're having second thoughts about the SR-5 now, Marty," Dave said, glancing up again from his magazine.
"Right, Marty, I was so proud of you when you turned down the truck. Your father said, `we don't have to worry about air pollution and global warming this one time', but you insisted. Anyway, what we got you fits two just fine," Lorraine smiled.
"Right, right, no, that's OK. That's more than OK, that's great. And you're great, and…"
George came back inside, shaking his head. "Marty, your car looks fine. You really should get to bed earlier, it's not good for your, you know, brain to stay up so late." He snapped his fingers. "Though speaking of the car, Lorraine, did you say you wanted to get it waxed?"
"Yep. Any ideas who we can call for that?"
"Biff Tannen, in fifteen years?" George grinned.
Lorraine laughed easily. "Yeah, sure. But. Seriously, though, you know how terrible mass incarceration is, but those are the people who need to be locked up, not folks with a few baggies of weed."
Marty looked back and forth between them, obviously nonplussed.
"Marty, don't you remember?" George said incredulously. "There was an article in the paper and everything—he raped some woman in the back of his auto shop. She went to the police, and then it turned out there…there were a couple others. Who'd been too scared to, well, come forward, before."
"Yeah, and the first woman told the paper she'd been inspired by Mom to be brave and report him, and Dad wouldn't shut up about that for weeks. How do you not remember this?" Linda asked.
"Oh, right, yeah, that, totally, I remember now…" Marty muttered. "Look, I should go, right, uh, meet Jennifer…" He sidled towards the front door.
"Well, at least he made you as awesome as you are, Congresswoman," George said to Lorraine, snuggling into her lap.
"That's right," she answered, wrapping her arms around him gently. "Though you're not supposed to call me that anymore."
"No, now you do something more useful…"
Marty was no longer hearing this as he hurried across to the garage door and pulled it open. A new, functional but still sleek-looking white car awaited him—it was the economy model Honda CR-X, though he couldn't identify it at first. Sure, it wasn't a big powerful truck, he thought, and there wasn't a back to lay sleeping bags in, but it was still his. And, it occurred to him, based on what Mom had said, he wouldn't be spending much on gas.
He was still examining the controls when Jennifer Parker's voice came from behind him.
"How about a ride, Marty?"
He turned, and there she was, the girl he'd risked everything to come home to. "Jennifer! Oh, are you a sight for sore e—"
He'd started toward her, but she moved faster, wrapping her arms around him and lifting him into the air without apparent effort, almost to the garage roof, her bulging upper arms pressing into his back.
"Whoa, wow, Jennifer!" he shouted, startled, wriggling. She set him down rapidly.
"Marty, are you OK? I thought you loved it when I did that! Is everything all right?"
"No! Yeah! It's fine, I just…" He hesitated for a long moment, and looked around: at his car, at the hazy blue sky, at the definite absence of Biff Tannen ruining people's lives. Maybe it would take some getting used to, but it was definitely better. "Oh yeah. Everything is great." She, not he, moved in for the kiss, but he was already coming to expect that. Their lips met seamlessly, and though he'd half expected something to interrupt them yet again, nothing did. They kissed for a long, perfect moment, before Jennifer broke it off, rubbing her chiseled side.
"You all right?"
"Yeah, just sore from last night. Their middle linebacker could hit. But I sure showed him—74 yards to pay dirt!"
"Yeah…yeah, that was amazing, Jennifer!"
She noticed his tone. "Don't tell me you were up getting popcorn or something!"
"Well, I…" He didn't know what he was going to say, but it didn't really matter. This was a great world, and the way things…used to have been (?)…already seemed like nothing but a nightmare's fading memory. He started back to the house to get his keys and the sleeping bags.
Note: Yes, one might expect one effect of the changes made to be causing Lorraine to have fewer children, or at different times. However, such a butterfly effect would also be expected in the movie as written – for example, given the random processes of sexual reproduction, virtually any change to a couple's life would probably lead to them producing very different kids. Canonically, there appears to be some kind of destiny or determinism to the universe which makes everything work out consistently when truly random processes work, and that's at work here as well.
Note for alt. history: I deliberately chose 1976 because Dornan is much more of a dick than Bell was in '74. [Lorraine defeats Dornan in 27th district in 1976 – see his biography for how that's a good thing (his predecessor was actually OK)]