Disclaimer: If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything, except owning Back to the Future.

Author's Note: Hi, here I am again. Hope you all had a great November 12th today. I wish I had. But, well, it was about time for me to upload again, so this is the next chapter you'd been waiting for. It concerns a changing reality, and a particularly unhappy Doc Brown. From now on, this story is going to be mostly in Doc's POV, although Marty's POV will eventually reappear. Oh, and please read, review, and deliver constructive criticism.

Chapter Three

Sunday, June 5, 2016
06:15 PM PDT
Hill Valley, California

It was so close, and yet unreachable.

Biff Tannen felt utterly frustrated as he looked at the object he had been wishing to see for so long. An actual time machine was right in front of him, and yet he lacked the ability to get inside, for two reasons. One, he had clearly seen Doc Brown lock it, and he had no idea how to break into a steam train – he had been preparing to break the lock of a DeLorean, after all, and DeLoreans and steam trains were very different things. The second reason was that he simply had no idea how this machine worked.

One peek into the window had told him the inside mechanisms were a lot more complicated than the time machine parts of the DeLorean had been. Even assuming he managed to get the engine to work, he wasn't sure he would get out of Hill Valley alive. And even if he did, and he succeeded in getting to the past… it was all too much of a gamble. And though this was his one big chance at altering his life for the better, Biff knew it was too much of a risk to do it alone. He needed help.

Quite surprisingly, that help arrived just moments after the thought had slipped through his mind.

The two young boys he had seen with Brown earlier, presumably his sons, came walking off the parking lot and towards the train. They looked bored, and the younger one leaned against the brick wall that separated the car shop from the sidewalk.

"Couldn't Dad have given us the key of the train?" the younger boy whined. "There's a lot to see out here, but… it's strangely boring."

"Dad doesn't have a key" the older boy reminded him. "Remember? He's got those thumb locks installed on the train a few months ago. They can only be operated by Mom or him. Even if he had wanted to let us in, he couldn't."

As the younger boy whined in complaint against that, Biff smiled. That was good to hear. Although it confirmed what he already knew – that it would be nearly impossible for him to get access – it did tell him who did have access. He supposed the boys' mother was the woman he had seen earlier. It confirmed his suspicions of this group being a family. And Biff knew exactly how to exploit that.

He carefully sneaked around the train until he was just a few yards away from the boys. Then, after calculating his chances, he stepped forwards, grabbed the older boy's shoulder, and held it roughly.

"Hey, what do you think you're…" the boy started. When he looked at Biff's face, he gasped. "No… it can't be…"

"Buford?" the younger boy squeaked, shivering.

The older boy shook his head. "This is 2016, remember. That's gotta be Biff Tannen."

"Clever kid" Biff said, taking a knife out of his pocket and pressing it against his victim's throat. The boy yelped. "What's your name?"

"Um, Jules" the older boy said, staring at the knife.

"I'm Verne" the younger boy added, too terrified to move. "Emmett Brown and Clara Clayton are our parents."

"Nice to hear that" Biff said, smirking. "Now, Verne, why don't you go fetch your mother and ask her to come over here. Tell her you need her with something. And don't even think about running away, or I might be forced to use this knife on your brother. I can see you from out here, you know."

"You mean to say you won't use it if he won't run away?" Jules said. "In that case, your threat against me is a bit ineffective."

"We'll just see about that" Biff muttered, pressing the knife tighter. "You wouldn't want to risk things, would you?" Jules went silent, and Verne nodded reluctantly. He ran off towards the parking lot, looking over his shoulder every few seconds.

"Now" Biff muttered. "Looks like this rope might come in handy." He had picked up some rope from the car store after it turned out that he would be facing an entire family of Browns, and it had been likely to become necessary to tie them up. He could not control all three of them at the same time, after all – especially if crackpot Brown himself came to the rescue.

He turned to Jules, and tied him up. The boy didn't struggle, terrified of the knife. Probably hadn't been in any such situation before. Biff found himself wondering just where… no, when… they came from. Well, it didn't matter. What mattered was where he was going now.

Just as Biff had finished tying Jules up, the woman named Clara came around the corner with Verne. Clara gasped at what she saw. "Biff Tannen!" she exclaimed, stunned.

"Sorry, mom" Verne whispered, his eyes pointed at the ground. "He was gonna kill Jules… I had to lure you over."

"It's all right, Vernie" Clara replied. She shivered, but remained standing as firm as she could. "What do you want, Tannen?"

"First, I'd like to tie up your other son, too" Biff said, pulling some more of the rope around Verne, while holding the knife against his throat so that he wouldn't resist either. As he finished, he turned back to Clara. "Now, why don't you introduce me to that time machine your husband built?"

Clara nodded, understanding she didn't have a choice. She glared at him. "I wish Emmett was here to teach you a lesson" she whispered, angrily.

"He isn't, and I won't let you stall long enough until he comes back" Biff replied. "Move it!"

Reluctantly, Clara walked over to the train, and pressed her thumb against the plate. Biff smiled broadly as the doors opened. At last the event he had been waiting for for so long was taking place. He risked a brief look over his shoulder to ensure that Crackpot Brown was nowhere to be seen. Then, he goaded the boys and Clara into the train.

After a few minutes, he managed to tie the boys to their seats and get Clara to explain to him just how the controls worked. He then tied her up as well. She didn't struggle, but from the way she kept staring at him with that firm, hateful look on her face, he could see she didn't like it.

"You know, you've got spunk" Biff commented. "I kind of like you. Maybe I should leave you to one of my ancestors, once I've finished what I wanted to do."

Clara bristled. "Don't even think I'll go along with that" she hissed. "I may not be able to resist now, but if you think you can get me to court any Tannen then you're wrong!"

Biff shrugged, ignoring her. "Whatever you say" he muttered. "Now, let's get this thing back to the past."

After a few moments of struggling, he managed to use Clara's instructions to type in the destination time he had planned upon. Then, he carefully activated the flying circuits. Though he was used to flying a car, flying the train shook him thoroughly and he saw his captives grin at his peril.

"You just smile" he said. "It's not like you can stop me now anyway."

Within another minute, Biff managed to work out the controls of the train. The train accelerated through the sky, on its way to time travel.

oooooooo

Doc smiled, as he carefully flew the DeLorean back to the parking lot. The ride had been incredible. He'd remembered flying the old time machine, of course, but remembering something from long ago and actually experiencing it in the here and now were different matters all together. He didn't think he had had this much fun in weeks.

Cautiously, he steered the car to the ground, allowing his memories of flying the DeLorean – the time travelling one, that is – to take control. He managed a perfect landing, or at least he presumed so because he didn't hear or feel anything strange. With a sigh of relief, he exited the car.

"That was a long trip!" the mechanic said. "Suppose you really enjoyed the car, didn't you?"

"I did" Doc confessed. "How long was I gone?"

The mechanic checked his watch. "I believe about ten minutes" he said. "Could be a little less. Anyway, I'm glad you're happy."

Doc nodded, then frowned. "Where did Clara go?" he asked.

"Your wife?" the mechanic asked. Doc nodded. "Oh, she went off for some errand. One of your… kids called her out for it."

"I see" Doc said. He noticed the look on the mechanic's face – what the hell was he doing with kids that young? – but ignored it. "Well, see you."

"I hope not" the mechanic joked. "Have a nice day, sir."

"Same to you" Doc said, as he walked off the parking lot. He was glad Clara had managed to adjust enough to his visits to 2015 that she'd been able to set up this plan. Sure, it had been startling to hear it, but this plan meant that she was getting friendly with Marty, friendly enough to set up something like this, and he knew the kids already liked Marty (or at least, they liked the image of him they probably had after hearing all his stories about the teenager). Even though they were living in the past, that apparently didn't mean that they couldn't have friends in the future. It was almost as if it were – or would be – their second home.

As he was musing about that, Doc exited the parking lot and looked around for his wife. He didn't see her and the kids anywhere, and his confusion about this issue meant that it took a few seconds before another matter hit him. Hard.

The train was gone.

Doc staggered back, holding onto the wall for support. No! This couldn't be happening! He had to be seeing things! He had locked the train, and no one but Clara could get inside! Surely she wouldn't have left without him, would she? Of course, it could have been some part of her plan, but he'd thought all of that had been resolved now. What could have possessed her to leave? Especially when she knew he was due to return very soon, and would be freaked out about it!

As he continued to think about that, the inventor could suddenly hear a faint chugging sound. He immediately looked up. Sure enough, the train was there, accelerating through the sky. "CLARA!" he cried out and jumped – a foolish move, since he naturally could never reach it. And by the time he got back to the DeLorean, his only other possible mode of transportation, it might already be too late. The machine was rapidly heading up to eighty-eight.

Doc frowned, as the train continued to increase in speed. Why did he think Clara was behind the wheel at all? She would never leave him here. He knew that. Even if she had something else planned, she probably wouldn't even trust herself to fly the train. That left one option – if it was not Clara behind the wheel, and it wasn't Jules or Verne (naturally), and somehow he doubted she'd recruited Marty or Jennifer for it, then it had to be someone else. And there was no one else Clara knew in 2016, so no one she'd trust to fly the time machine.

That could only mean that the train was being flown by someone Clara didn't trust, and he didn't trust. The train had been stolen.

As that possibility shot through his head, other thoughts immediately came after it, like who could be the thief, whether he knew it was a time machine, and what he (or she, for all Doc knew) could be planning to do with it. But before he could really explore any of those thoughts, the train hit eighty-eight. Doc watched as his beloved time machine lit up and disappeared through time. Fire trails filled the darkening sky.

Wait. Darkening sky?

Doc looked around, and gasped. The sky was indeed dark, darker than it had been just a few seconds earlier. As he looked to the left, he could still detect some light, but from the right side, it looked like the world was… warping. Changing, in someway. And although he had never been in this situation before (well, except that one time in 2015) he knew exactly what it could be.

"Great Scott!" the seventy-five-year-old exclaimed. He staggered back and held onto the wall for support, closing his eyes. It was as though he felt the change hit inside him, with an odd feeling rippling through his brain. After a few moments, when all had passed, Doc dared to open his eyes again – and his jaw promptly dropped.

Gone was the well-maintained parking lot of the car shop, one of the many in Hill Valley. Though there were still a lot of cars around, they were in much worse condition than before. Ironically, the only one in relatively good condition was his old DeLorean, though it, too, looked slightly different – a few more dents, and the coloring had become somewhat darker – although that could be a mistake made through the darkness that enveloped it all. As Doc looked towards the car shop, he saw it was now a ruin. This place had gone out of business years ago, and apparently, the cars stored here were put here at random.

Almost not daring, Doc looked in the direction of the Courthouse Square, about half a mile away. Immediately, he saw that on the place the Courthouse had once narrowly tipped over the other houses in-between it and the car shop, something that could only be described as some sort of skyscraper towered. Doc couldn't tell what the rest of the square looked like, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Great Scott" he repeated, stunned. All this could not have been created in just a few seconds. Which left one, unfortunate, explanation – history had changed. And not necessarily for the better.