Author's Note: Next chapter. It's a two-in-one deal, but that's because there is less to tell about the dimensions in here.

Disclaimer: See previous chapter.

Chapter Seven

Saturday, April 2, 1988

12:44 P.M.

Hill Valley, California

Doc sighed as they went through the familiar sensation of dimensional as well as time travelling. Even the news of the sky at night turning to bright daylight didn't surprise him anymore. "Figures" he muttered to himself, too soft for Marty to hear. "I wonder if I'm going to dream about time travelling, too, when I'll ever get to sleep."

Getting a bit curious about where he'd ended up, the inventor risked a peek out of the window, and found a pretty disappointing sight. Like in the second dimension they had visited unwillingly, the house below seemed unsettled, as it was before May of 1986. He sighed. Once again, they were not at the place they identified as home – and once again, none of the systems inside the time machine registered anything as being abnormal. The inventor felt really sick of all of this. Why wasn't that stupid system registering the fact that this was not where they were supposed to be?

"We're not home, are we?" Marty asked, not needing the answer to know they weren't. "What the heck is going wrong with that stupid thing, Doc?"

"I don't know, Marty" the inventor admitted. "Once we do find that out, though, it'll be a lot easier to find out what to do to fix it, and return home to our reality."

"Thank you for the information" Marty quipped.

Doc shot him a look. "No sarcasm now, please" he said. "I'm trying to think of what to do next."

"Let's just go back to your house and get this done with" Marty suggested. "The garage, I mean. We can check out if it's empty there. If it is, it might mean that you do not live there or here, and then we should look up things in the phone book." He smiled at Doc's surprised look. "Such a bad memory, Doc? You told me that right in the first reality we visited."

"Yeah… I suppose I did forget, in all the excitement" Doc muttered. "All right, the garage it is." He started to slowly move the flying vehicle over to the garage, wondering what they would find this time.

Marty had similar questions. "Hey, Doc" he said. "What if we encounter a reality in which you are going to be dead, this time? Or I am? We couldn't get that much help, then, could we?"

There was no point in denying what was obviously the truth. "No…" the scientist muttered, keeping his eyes onto the readouts. "But there wouldn't be that much chance of that happening, would there? I usually keep myself safe, and you do, too."

"I'm not sure of that" the teenager said. "I mean, yeah, we do try our best to keep ourselves all right, and you do have a time machine, but maybe here, we don't have a time machine, or we never got to be friends. If I was killed in that car accident with Needles, and you weren't friends with me, you couldn't stop that accident because you didn't know about it, and I'd remain dead."

"That is a possibility" the inventor allowed. "But it's a small one, and we shouldn't let that small factor contribute in what we are going to do. Even if either of us has died here, it's not us, it's simply another version of us from another reality. We shouldn't even wipe a tear about it, as it's not something that happened in our reality, but in another one."

"Yeah, I suppose" the teen nodded. "I would feel like a jerk, though, if I'd do that."

"You wouldn't be" Doc assured him. "It's not you, after all – you don't really need to feel sorry for the other you or the other me 'cause you never knew the person that died. You can feel sympathy, though. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that we shouldn't treat it like it was a major deal concerning us."

"Right" Marty said, nodding, then looking out of the window. "Are we there, already?" he asked, somewhat hopeful.

Doc smiled. "Almost" he promised, taking the time machine down to John F. Kennedy Drive and flying it down the road up towards his other house, which, indeed, appeared to be lived in. He smiled at that part of good luck, and then turned to his friend. "I think it's your turn to approach Emmett again" he said. "We've each had our turns, and I do think that it's nice to be confronted by someone you know as a friend, instead of someone you know because you see the face of that person in the mirror every day."

Marty smirked. "I see your point" he said, nodding. The time machine then landed, and both visitors got out. After locking it carefully, Marty once again approached Local Doc's home, with Doc running up to the side of the garage to hide there and wait for his other self to open the door, wondering if this him would be able to fix the time machine… if he even knew about time travel, in the first place. There was, of course, the possibility that Emmett had never invented a time machine, however Doc thought that chance was, however possible, pretty small. He could not imagine himself as something else but an inventor, and he also could not imagine himself as not pursuing the vision he had on November fifth, 1955.

Marty, in the meantime, felt himself almost being relaxed when he rang the bell at Other Doc's home. "Guess that's what frequently dimension travelling does to you" he said, chuckling, then stepping back to wait for Local Doc – Emmett – to arrive.

Within a few moments, the door was opened, and an Emmett that looked a few years too old for himself looked at Marty… and then asked: "Who are you?"

The teen frowned, and gasped, feeling more surprised than he'd done if Emmett had carried a gun and had tried to shoot him. "Doc?" he asked, not really sure. "It's me, Marty."

Emmett still looked at him without any recognition. "I am a Doctor Brown, yes" he said, appearing somewhat puzzled. "You still haven't answered my question, though – I was wondering, just who are you? I don't know a Marty… never known anyone in all of my life. What's your surname?"

"McFly" Marty said, baffled. In all of the weirdest universes, he'd never thought he'd see this happen – a present-day Doc that didn't know who he was. "Martin Seamus McFly. You know that… we first met in 1975!" As Doc's look appeared blank, he added: "October twenty-sixth, 1975?"

"The day doesn't ring a bell" Emmett said. "If you're here to sell me something or play a practical joke on me, I'm not interested." He near-closed the door, Marty keeping his foot in the doorway, like his other self from the previous world had done when meeting up with Young Emmett in 1955, who also didn't believe him. This really was beginning to get similar to that situation.

"Listen, Doc" he said, nearly begging. "Do you really not know me? No meeting on October twenty-sixth, 1985? Did you even ever come up with the idea for the flux capacitor?"

The scientist gasped, focusing entirely on the last words. "How do you know about that?" he asked, confused. "I never told anyone about that secret! Have you been spying on me all along?"

While Marty was still thinking what to say, rescue came from an unexpected corner. Suddenly, someone stepped forwards – someone Emmett knew very well.

"No" Doc said. "He heard about the time machine from me."

The look of himself made Emmett not even able to bring himself to utter the words his previous selves had said, when facing someone who looked just like themselves, namely the suggestion that 'you're me'. Emmett, however, did not say this. He just stared at his counterpart for a few seconds, then started muttering his favourite catchphrase, 'Great Scott', but he didn't finish it, and instead fell down, the ground rushing up to meet him.

Emmett had fainted.

Marty sighed, as he looked at his unconscious friend. "Now this" he complained, to his Doc. "What else is going to happen to us? First all these dimension hopping things, and now, there's a you who's fainted!"

Doc chuckled, albeit slightly. "Yeah, I think I know how you feel" he said. "It's okay, though. Emmett – my other self – should be just fine in a few hours' time. It's just that we're not very sure if this reality's version of me can actually help us. If we knew he couldn't, we could leave right away."

Marty did not agree with him. "Don't we already know?" he asked. "I mean, he doesn't even know me here! Not that I'm so important, but the other you's we've encountered at least knew who I am!"

"Yeah, but that doesn't necessarily decrease the possibility of him being able to help us" Doc said. "For all we know, he's very intelligent, more than I am, and even though he has never met you, he can still help us."

"Yeah, I guess so" Marty muttered. "So what do you plan to do with him? Take him in, and empty a bottle of water above his face?"

The inventor smirked. "Yes to the former, no to the latter" he said. "Nothing quite that radical. I actually think we should just take him in. Then, we can see if he wakes up. We don't want to surprise him too much."

Marty smirked sarcastically. "I think we've already done that" he muttered, looking at the unconscious state his friend's other self was in. "He can't be scared more than he was just a few moments ago, when he saw you. But, anyway," he quickly added as he saw a frown that revealed an insulted feeling appearing on the inventor's face, "that wasn't your fault – you couldn't have known he would faint, and neither could I. But the fact he did faint, is for me reason enough to go."

"Why?" the visiting inventor asked.

"Since none of the other versions of you fainted, Doc" Marty insisted. "Which means that this one has less experience with time travel, and he also didn't know me, so he's really different. I don't really expect him to be able to fix the time machine."

The inventor nodded. "Yeah, but I do think we should stay, if even for a while." He looked at his watch, which read the time as nearly nine A.M. on Sunday. "It should be almost one P.M. now – if he hasn't woken up by two-thirty, we'll leave. I'll go search through the journals in his study, and you can stay in the main room." He looked at his other self. "But why don't we help him get in first? We don't want to leave him on the porch and draw attention to ourselves, and besides, that shouldn't be a very nice place to wake up, I assume."

The teen smiled. "Yeah, I can understand that." He reached out to grab Emmett's arms, and Doc did the same thing with his counterpart's feet. They then lifted him, and Marty let out a faint scream as the inventor was lifted off the porch. "Man, you're heavy!"

Doc, who seemed to be handling his part of the weight well, stared at Marty with some amusement. "I believe you've gone through this before" he said. "You carried my younger self from the street in front of the Courthouse to my Packard, after all, and from there you carried him up the doorsteps to my mansion? You should have some experience with carrying me."

Marty nodded, pushing back another groan. "Yeah, but it has been almost two-and-a-half years since that, and adding the time travel we've done since then, it might be pushing three" he said. "I – can you at least make sure the doors are open? I don't want to keep holding you while you try to open the doorway with your elbows while keeping a loosened grip on your other self."

The inventor nodded, understanding, and headed off to do just that, after setting Emmett down. Marty just had enough time to push some air into his hands, which had turned red from the weight, and just finished that when his friend returned.

"Everything appears to be as I remember it" Doc said. "It shouldn't be too long of a walk to get there… are you okay?" That question was indeed directed to the musician, who appeared to be very tired.

Marty, however, shook his concerns off. "I can handle this for a while yet" he said, getting all the confidence he had together. "I'm okay. Let's just get this over with." Doc nodded, and they lifted up Emmett again.

Within a minute or two that seemed like an hour, Doc and Marty finally managed to set Emmett down on the couch, in a bit of a weird way, having Emmett's head fall half off, hovering above the ground, while his legs were on the vertical part of the couch. His stomach, though, was in the centre of the couch. It sure was a weird sight, but Marty was glad to finally have his friend on a solid place. He sighed, now feeling extremely tired. It seemed like everything that had happened in the past hours finally was coming down to hit him, and for a moment, he felt like he was going to collapse like Emmett, making the need for Doc to once more carry someone to a place he could properly rest on.

But luckily, he did not, or at least, not at that moment. He somehow managed to force himself to turn around and face his friend, who was staring at Emmett, face set on 'busy' mood. "All right" Doc then said, to Marty, focusing on the teenager again. "Do you have anything in mind to do?"

"Besides sleeping?" Marty asked, yawning. "Nope – nothing. You happen to have something for me, Doc?"

The visitor smiled. "I just might" he said, mysteriously. He then walked off, leaving Marty confused for a few moments but not for too long, as he soon returned with the local version of the saxophone he'd had in his garage ever since the early fifties.

"You've played the instrument in music class before, or so I remember, and I doubt your skills in this have decreased much" he said. "You should be able to play it just fine, and distract yourself with playing a few of your favourite songs. In the meantime, I can do my end of the visit – find out what exactly has all happened to the me of this dimension. If I can somehow find information in my journals that tells me about my counterpart's interdimensional encounters, then we can get out of here sooner." He glanced over to Emmett, who was still unconscious. "Not that I really do want to leave, now. I know how I would feel if I'd wake up on the couch and have no idea how I got there, except for some weird memory of seeing another him that he'd no doubt write off as a weird dream. He might even convince himself he really is crazy, considering that he's seen another him."

Marty nodded, briefly, and accepted the saxophone as Emmett headed off. After a few moments of uneasiness, he briefly looked it over, put the upper end to his mouth, and started playing one of his favourites, 'Johnny B. Goode'. It didn't really come out as well as it did on guitar, mostly because of the fact that he couldn't sing the song while playing, but soon, Marty did find himself enjoying the experience. He smiled while playing, and as he finished, he soon went into another oldie – Earth Angel, the other song he'd played on that fateful night, and then 'Back In Time', the song Huey Lewis and the News had released when 'Teens In Time' hit the theatres in July of 1985.

As he happily played, he really found himself enjoying the sensation. Maybe this dimension wasn't too bad after all. He glanced at Emmett, who was still sound asleep, and continued playing. Even if they weren't going to get home today, he'd at least get something pleasant out of this world.

oooooooo

Doctor Emmett Brown sighed, as he sat down to the worktable in his other self's lab. He'd just found the journals his other self owned, and was about to go through them, pushing aside the feelings that told him that this was not really allowed. After all, these journals were from another him, so he should have the ability to look inside of them, shouldn't he? Just because the incidents inside hadn't happened to him didn't mean he was not allowed to have a look at them.

Maybe, though, the feelings were more of another side – that the truth inside was too horrific for him to take. After all, Clara and the boys were nowhere to be seen – but they hadn't been there in the second reality they visited either, and the family still lived in the house Doc lived in, and while, in the fourth reality, the house had been empty, Emmett was still married to Clara and the boys. Why would two wrongs that each turned out fine before be so terrible?

Doc sighed, and opened the journals, not really wanting to face his thoughts. He skipped a few pages, and finally ended up at something interesting, in November of 1955. There was no mention of Marty's visit at all, while the flux capacitor still was conceived on the fifth. And as the inventor skipped more pages, wondering if the visit had come later, there still was no mention. Finally, he finished the book, but there was no Marty McFly anywhere. Curious, he took the second book, the one about the 1960s.

As the visitor worked himself through this book, he still didn't find any reference to his teenaged friend. He finished the entire book at around one-thirty-five P.M., and was astonished to not find any reference to Marty, while 1968 should've passed already. Strange, Doc thought. It's almost like he was never…

Suddenly, the visitor gasped. If this was true… He made his way out of the room, passed an unconscious Emmett and Marty playing the saxophone, who frowned at him. Doc stopped at the end of the main room, getting his jacket back on again as he turned to his confused friend.

"I have to check something, Marty" he told his friend. "I'll be back before two. There's just some theory I've come up with after reading in the book, and I want to make sure if I'm not imagining things. Trust me, I'll be back sooner than you think… and no, I will not time travel to do that."

Marty smirked. "Yeah, right" he muttered. "See you, Doc."

The inventor nodded, as he headed outside and got into the time bus. Carefully not to disturb the locals, he switched on the flying circuits control switch, and let the bus rise up. He then flew over to Hill Valley library.

However Doc had not quite felt like he should do this, he really wanted his suspicions to be denied or proved right. The indecisively feelings he had made that even more confusing, but he wanted to know, since if he did, he knew exactly why his counterpart had not known who Marty McFly was.

The inventor sighed as he flew the time machine down the street up to the library, and tried to ignore his growing exhaustion. He got out of the car, and headed up into the building. After looking around a bit, he found it looking similar to the building he remembered from home, and walked up to the newspaper section, to be specific, the sections '1965-1970'.

Having a specific newspaper in mind, Doc soon got to the newspaper for Monday, June 10th, 1968. He smiled, satisfied, and started reading the 'Births' section. Soon, he skimmed through it, and knew exactly what he needed to know. Marty was not in there.

"He was never born" Doc whispered. "Amazing." He wondered if this was simply a case of George and Lorraine never meeting, or never getting more than two kids? Well, there was a simple way to find out. He flipped through the pages backwards, and soon ended up by the '1966' newspapers, and found what he was looking for in the April-May-June section, on Monday, April 4th, again, in the births section.

Last Saturday, on April second 1966, George Douglas McFly and Lorraine Baines gave birth to Linda Lorraine McFly, who was named after her mother. George works at a local company, and Lorraine at a beer factory. This child is the second child of the couple, after David William, age 3, who was born on August tenth, 1962.

"Amazing" Doc whispered, again. He wondered what it meant that Marty was, indeed, not born, but Linda was, and Dave was, too. Was there something that had happened with George and Lorraine in particular around the time of Marty's conception? Doc decided to move forwards to July-August-September, 1967, to see if he could find something that would help him make his decision, there.

The newspapers were, surprisingly enough, not showing any information concerning the McFly family that would've effected them in a way as to not have kids at all. The inventor frowned. "I wonder what's happening" he muttered. "That information should be there – what can have happened that would've caused Marty not to be conceived? Well, if it's not in the newspapers, it must be only known to their family – which I'm not going to confront, if they never saw me as the friend of their youngest. Luckily we did not head there first, but went to my counterpart's house this time."

The inventor then chuckled, as he realized he was talking to himself. "Well, I don't think there's any more for me to do here, now" he told himself, as he packed his stuff. "I'd better go get Marty, and leave this dimension. And see if my counterpart has woken up, in the meantime – although I doubt he could tell me more than I've already concluded from these papers."

As the inventor got in the bus and flew it up again, he found himself being drawn to the time on his watch: nine-fifty-five A.M. It was almost eleven hours ago since he'd last eaten anything in that reality in which he'd encountered the fix him that could not fix the time machine. He could barely imagine how long it had been since he and Marty had first started dimension hopping. Whatever it was, it was certainly a long time. He now realized that, however he tried to deny it, his body wanted nothing more than have some rest. It was becoming closer to thirty hours now, the time he'd been awake, and he really hoped that in the next reality, they could have the ability to lie down and sleep as peaceful as Emmett did on the couch, or at least, he had done when Doc had left to go to the library.

Which, or so Doc found out, as he got in, was still the same. He'd barely had the chance, though, to comment on anything, when he found that fact change in front of his eyes. Emmett started breathing louder, and he made soft sounds. Doc immediately rushed to his bed, then moved away again. "Marty, you go over there" he said, to the startled musician.

"Why?" the teen protested. "He doesn't even know me! You'd better be there to face him with reality right away."

Doc considered that, and figured that, this time, Marty was actually right. He nodded, and headed over to his unconscious counterpart, who was definitely stirring now.

The local inventor let out a groan. "Who's… who's there?" he managed to mutter.

Doc couldn't let this golden opportunity pass. "You" he quipped, smiling.

That did the trick easily. Emmett's eyes widened, and he stared at his other self. "You're… you're… you're… what are you doing here?" he finally settled on.

"I'm you from another universe" Doc said, calmly. "I came here in a time machine that you and I both invented, if I read your journal good enough. I was hoping that you might possibly be able to help me fix my time machine, which has malfunctioned and ended up making us hop through all these alternate worlds. We originally intended to visit just two – that went drastically wrong, as yours is already the seventh reality we visit."

Emmett stared at Doc with obvious fascination, then finally asked: "We? You mean, you took another person along on your time travels?"

Doc nodded. "Martin Seamus 'Marty' McFly – my very best friend, the person that is standing next to me right now." The teen extended his hand and shook Emmett's for a moment, then stepping back again, as Doc added: "You don't know him?"

Emmett shook his head. "No" he said. "The McFly's I know – George and Lorraine, right? – only have one son and one daughter, Dave and Linda. They tried to have more, I heard, but never got to it." He sighed, sadly. "Well, considering that he was a wimp and she an alcoholic, any other kid would have to bear the same circumstances as the other kids had. Maybe it was just as well."

Marty looked shocked at Emmett's revelation – Doc looked just as if he had been confirmed in what he'd thought all along. "Yeah, I kind of figured you didn't know him" he said. "I looked Marty up in the library – there was no birth announcement. Apparently, the major change in this reality is that Marty was never born."

Marty shivered, memories of that first week back to the past coming to mind, and all the trouble he then had. "You mean, like in '55?" he asked. "But even if my other self failed and faded away at the dance, shouldn't your other self know him from that week?"

Doc smiled, slightly, and shook his head. "He should," the older man said, "but you're forgetting something. Emmett here never got a visit from you, since if that week ran like normal and you got erased, none of your siblings would've been born, not just you. Dave and Linda do exist here, and from what I've read in that journal, everything went like normal. I even went to check for a time travel change that would've been big enough to make the newspapers in August and September, 1967, since in either of the months you should've been conceived, but nothing ever happened. That is something I should've known from the start, though – if Emmett here had known you from a brief visit around that time, then he would've reacted differently at the door. Even if it had been over twenty years. I still recognized you with ease when I first met you in 1975, which was also twenty years since I last saw you, and you were just seven then. There's barely an age difference between your eventual self-erasing version and you."

To his own surprise, Marty understood most of what Doc was saying. "So, if I didn't exist as a visitor to 1955 and 1967, and Emmett here has never seen me before, does that mean that there was some natural reason that erased me from existing? Something that wasn't time travel related?"

Emmett nodded before his counterpart could. "Apparently so" he said. "I never knew you, so it seems like in this dimension, you were never born, for some reason or another." He looked straight at Marty, a smile forming on his mouth. "So, you met the other me in 1975?"

Marty nodded. "Yeah, on October twenty-sixth" he said. "I was challenged into a skateboard race with a classmate, and I refused, and then, I was locked in a car. Doc came up to me and freed me, and we became good friends soon afterwards."

Emmett smiled. "That sounds interesting" he said. "I wish that had happened to me. I never got a friend around that time – I had to live through my time building a time machine all alone." He sighed. "It was okay, but sometimes, I wished that I had a friend to share things with, which my other self apparently had." He looked at Doc. "Do you know how lucky you are?"

"Yes, I certainly do" Doc said, nodding. "I met Marty in 1955, spent a week with him, then he vanished in a time machine for twenty years until I finally met the younger version of himself through the natural course of time. Those twenty years were the hardest two decades I've ever experienced, and maybe the years between '75 and '85 were even harder, knowing Marty was going to be a good friend of mine but that I should not really push the friendship that was starting since if I did, it might never exist."

"Sounds like you had a hard time, then" Marty said, sympathetically. "I don't know if I could've survived a thing like that."

Emmett sighed. "I can only wish to have something like that happen to me" he said. "During all those more than thirty years before I fixed the time machine..."

"More than thirty years?" Doc asked, surprised. "Not thirty exactly?"

Emmett shook his head. "More than thirty it was, as it took me up until March eleventh 1986 until I finished the machine, and up until June fifth 'till I could properly test it. I travelled to 2016 with it, got myself a rejuvenation overhaul, and decided I would spend the rest of my years travelling through time. That was especially necessary, once I found out what happened to me in the original version of history."

"What was that, then?" Marty asked, curiously.

Emmett provided the answer almost immediately. "On June ninth, 1986, I had been shot to death by the Libyan terrorists that provided me the plutonium. I was buried in a cheap grave – I visited it in the future – and there was nothing anymore heard from me again. The world in 2016 looked terrible – there was a huge amount of poisonous gasses in the air, and a Nuclear World War was on the verge of breaking out. That was when I decided that I couldn't let this happen. I headed back to the past to get my stuff and moved to a year and a half later, making sure to leave evidence behind where the police could catch the Libyans on. I arrived on December ninth last year, and started working on my new project – fusion power, clean energy to make sure the future would be changed." He looked at Doc, smiling. "On January twentieth, I finally had the courage to go ahead and check, and everything had changed. I was still alive, and living in a mansion, the world had clean energy, and there were flying cars around. I visited my older self, and he told me that he was leading a happy life, improving the world's status. I then decided that I would do everything to live as long as I could, so that I could improve the world as much as possible. So, that's what I've been doing the past months, working on fusion power, and time travelling through my favourite era's." He looked at Doc. "Though, if you are actually married, judging from your wedding ring, I suppose that there could've been a happier life for me. Maybe I should try to meet this person you've apparently met… what's her name?"

"Clara" Doc said, softly. "Clara Clayton. But I would not advise you to meet her. If you go meet her now, or at least in 1885, you'll never know if the feeling you are experiencing is real love or hope that it is real love because another version of you loved her. You should've met her due natural ways."

Emmett was not about to let his hope for love slide away. "I suppose" he said. "What if I go meet her about one year from now? That's still some time away."

Doc considered that for a moment. "That might work, but I still think it does contain a huge risk factor" he said. "But then again – you're not me, I can't control what you do. What you want to do is up to you. I'm just warning you for potential unwished results." He looked at Emmett. "Do you understand?"

The local nodded. "Oh, I certainly do" he said. "I'm a scientist, you know, and a scientist should be scientific about things like this."

"Exactly" Doc said, nodding. "Now, do you or do you not want to have a look at the time machine? Since if you don't, Marty and I are perhaps better off leaving this reality. We've been hopping for some time now, and you are a possibility to fix the time machine, so…" He shrugged. "I'd say yes, but I can't speak for you."

Emmett looked at Doc. "No, thank you" he said. "I haven't time travelled all that much, yet, and my current time machine has, while it's still intact, broken it's fuel line on a trip to 1888 last week. I had to push it up with a steam train in order to get home… and also, I had to put some once-in-a-time replacement for the broken time circuits case display. It's better this way… if you had any sense of what's right, you'd better leave, since I can't help you, unfortunately."

Doc nodded, and Marty did, too. "You're right" the first of the two said. "We shall go now, then. Marty, come on – we want to leave as soon as possible."

The teenager groaned at having to jump through dimensions again, but he simply followed Doc to the time bus. As they were about to enter, they had noticed Emmett coming outside and gazing at the time bus.

"It's quite amazing" he admitted, looking at it with fascination. "Maybe I should have created a time machine out of something like this, too. If I ever do end up getting a family, or a friend like you have, it's much easier to get around in."

Doc nodded. "That's a good possibility" he said. "But if I were you, I'd take care of getting that family first, and then worry about having a time machine big enough to get them all inside."

Emmett smiled. "You have a point" he admitted. "Well, anyway – for your sakes, I hope this is farewell."

Doc chuckled. "Yeah, I think we both agree on that" he said, getting in and joining Marty. "Have a nice day."

Emmett then waved to him, as Doc lifted up the time bus, and started accelerating over the street, headed in the direction of the Square, this time around. "Marty, brace yourself" he said. "We're dimension travelling again, and who knows what we might expect."

"What's the destination this time, Doc?" Marty asked, noticing they had just hit seventy and were accelerating rapidly.

"April second, 1988, at twelve-forty-five P.M." he said. "Which is about three hours ahead of our usual time minus one day."

"Twenty-one hours in the past, you mean" Marty muttered, faintly annoyed. "Let's get through with this, then. I can't wait to be home, and I hope that this dimension will finally be it."

"I'm hoping that as much as you do" Doc said, as they hit eighty-eight miles per hour, and got instantaneously transported to the new reality. "But we shouldn't get our hopes up too much… Great Scott!"

Marty looked at the inventor, who had gasped, and then stared out of the window, realizing that he would've done just the same. Everything looked different. The buildings looked run-down but in state of repair, and there seemed to be more nuclear waste around. It did look like it was repairing itself from whatever disaster had struck, though, and it was doing that rapidly.

"Where are we, Doc?" he asked, curiously. "The buildings look like this is Biff's world again… but shouldn't everything be in an even worse condition, then? Things look actually pretty good here, compared to that world."

Doc turned to his friend. "I think I have to disagree with that first statement" he said. "For all we know, something might've happened to cause this reality to clean up in the years afterwards. We never saw the Tannen-controlled version of Hill Valley past October twenty-seventh, after all, and for all we know, Biff might've been shot in a gang war, which was raging around that time, and his son, Cliff, might not have been that bad."

Marty looked at Doc in a manner that made clear that he was highly doubting that. "I wouldn't be so sure of that" he said. "I know Cliff, he's bullied Dave around in High School, and he's an asshole. If anything, he'd happily leave town in the state it was in, as long as he had power. No, if Cliff was in power here, everything would've still been the same as in the Hell Valley we saw, even if it was only because he was too lazy to sign the order to have it be repaired."

Doc smiled slightly. "Yeah, that might be true" he said. "Well, we're almost at the Courthouse Square now – I suppose you might get the answer to the question if what you assume is right in just a few moments."

Marty looked at him, frowning. "You mean, we aren't leaving right away?" he asked. "Don't you see the evidence, Doc? This has to be Hell Valley! We couldn't survive in here, with Biff hating me and you being supposed to be committed and all…" He sighed. "I don't want another repeat of what originally happened on the early night hours of Saturday, October 26th, 1985, Doc."

The scientist knew exactly what his friend was talking about, and shuddered at the memory. "Ah, yes, indeed" he said. "Neither would I want to go through the experience of Monday, September 7th, 1885 again. Don't worry, Marty… I'll do my best to make sure that either of us are safe. I just don't want to take the risk that this is a restored Hell Valley in which technology has been making jumps after Biff being defeated. We can't be sure enough, after all, to just go ahead and leave."

Marty growled, not entirely sharing that statement. "Just get on with this, Doc" he muttered. "I just wanna go home."

Doc nodded, understanding. "I know, Marty" he said, sympathetically. "I do want that, too. But first of all, we have to find a version of me who is able to help us, who also has technology to do that. It would be nice if we could find some of the latter, in here."

Marty sighed. "All right, then" he said. "Let's face things here."

At that point, the time machine flew into the Square, and found it surprisingly quiet for the Hell Valley they remembered. The sex shops that had been around years before were closed down, and on the former place of the 'War Zone' building a new Café was rising, with 'Lorraine's Café' on top of it. Marty and Doc both felt shocked at the rejuvenations the town square had gone through, but that didn't give half the impact the new version of the Courthouse gave.

At his first look, Marty didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved. The Pleasure Paradise was still there, yes, and some nuclear smoke was hanging around it. But it looked like it had gotten a clean-up job, and the 'Biff's' on top of it was completely gone. As the two time travellers looked down at the place where 'Biff's Pleasure Paradise' had once been, they now saw it had been replaced by a 'Lorraine Baines' Hotel' sign, with in the middle of it the face of Marty's Mom, who, surprisingly enough, looked more like she was in her twenties than in her forties. Money could do that, apparently.

"Fascinating" Doc muttered. "This looks like it's an amazing reality, don't you think, Marty?"

The teenager faintly nodded, but Doc ignored his friend's lack of enthusiasm. "Fascinating" he whispered. "I wonder how this change came to be?" He pondered that for a moment, then started accelerating again. "Well, seeing as the library was on the verge of being emptied in 1985, I suppose there's only one way to find out."

Marty looked at Doc, in an odd way. "Doc, what are you doing?"

"Hang on!"

That was the simple warning the inventor gave, as the time bus landed with a thud on the roof of the former Pleasure Paradise. Marty was breathing faster than usual, not from the bumpy landing but from the fact that he knew where they were, and didn't like it at all. "Doc, I wanna go" he insisted. "Now."

"We can't, not unless I'm sure this reality offers nothing to help us" Doc said, apparently intruiged at everything. "And we could perhaps gather some information from the people inside."

Marty did not like that thought. "Doc, this is Hell Valley!" he exclaimed, frustrated. "And even if Biff is gone somehow, that still doesn't mean things are safe and all right here! I want to leave, Doc, and I want it now!"

Doc sighed. "Marty, you have to reconsider our options" he said. "If this reality is rapidly improving, maybe there are already hints for technology that is even ahead of our times. We should try to find that out. You do want to get home, do you?"

"Yeah, but right now, I'd rather leave" Marty said. "I wanna go, Doc. Can't you just take the bus up in the sky and leave this world?"

Doc shook his head. "Sorry, no. Aren't you the slightest bit of interested in this world?"

That was enough to make Marty mad. "Interested?" he shouted. "This is horror! I want to get out of here, and if you won't do that, I'll get myself out." He then walked over to Doc, pushed his friend none-too-softly aside, and turned on the flying circuits.

Doc frowned. "Marty, what are you doing?" he asked.

"Leaving" the teen said. "Computer, turn on time circuits." The time machine did so. "Input Destination: April second, 1988, at high noon." He turned to Doc, accelerating with a smile. "See? I told you I was leaving now…"

Doc smiled back at him, something that confused Marty – was something up? Before he could speculate more on that, though, Doc suddenly showed a sleep-inducer, and held it in front of Marty's face.

"Hey, you ain't sleep-indu" Marty called out, but then, Doc activated the device. "…cing me" the teen finished, and then, he dropped down onto the horn, which made a loud sound, and then, everything was quiet again, and Marty was sound asleep.

Doc let out a faint smile, unable to resist himself from doing so, then looked at the sleep-inducer. "Four-hour-setting" he muttered. "That's good… means I've got time until a few minutes to five before Marty here wakes up." He stared at his friend, then gently removed the younger man from the horn, which went off another time as he did so, and put Marty back onto his seat. The teen remained limp as he did so, just snoring quietly.

Doc then took another good look at his friend, to make sure he was out of it, and then, he easily moved the time bus back to where it was before. Even the landing didn't wake up Marty, which was only logical after so much time of exhaustion. Doc then headed out, and locked the bus, to make sure no one would steal it and kidnap Marty. After taking care of that, he walked over the roof and headed inside through the small entrance that was still on top of the hotel.

The new version of the Paradise looked pretty much like Doc remembered… or at least, until he really entered the hallway. Everything looked well decorated, and there was clear evidence that the person that ruled this place was not a Tannen, judging from the style in the wallpaper. Doc whistled in fascination as he looked around, and then continued walking until he found the elevator.

Figuring that on the twenty-seventh floor, he could possibly run into the alternate versions of Marty's relatives, Doc tapped in his destination, that being the first floor, and relaxed as the thing shot down through the entire building.

While Marty had, Doc hadn't gotten a clear view from the Pleasure Paradise except for the outside, and was pretty impressed by what he saw. Judging from Marty's initial disgust at the building, it had been a lot worse two-and-a-half years earlier. Today, however, over thirty-two years after the timeline had been skewed off into the 'A' line, everything didn't look too bad.

Arriving at the ground floor, Doc headed straight for the receptionist. She was a young woman who looked to be about twenty, and had a charming smile. "Hi" she said. "Welcome to Lorraine Baines' Hotel." Doc wondered why Lorraine used her maiden name here. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

The scientist nodded, keeping himself as calm as one could possibly be in a Biff-ruled world. "Do you happen to have a library around here, or something like that?" he asked. "I'm a historicist, and I arrived just today from Washington. I want to do some research on Hill Valley history. You do have a fascinating town here."

The woman frowned. "It wasn't all too well up until two years ago" she said. "Biff Tannen, the former husband of Miss Baines, used to bully every male and harass every woman in town, and he shot quite the few people, too. He built nuclear waste dumps, and it was all thanks to him that President Nixon still ruled." She smiled. "Luckily, those days are over now. Ever since miss Baines shot Tannen on New Year's Day of '86, the town has been improving. It has been just little over two years, but Hill Valley is looking way different from how it was back then."

Doc nodded, having noticed that as well. "Yeah, I saw that" he said. "Now, do you or do you not have a library around here?"

The woman did not seem to be upset or in any way affected by his rudeness, and pointed at the elevator. "Yeah, it's on the third floor" she said. "Just go left as you exit, and then it's the fourth door on your right. Miss Baines has set up a pretty large library ever since her husband died, so that his terrors should never be forgotten, and that Hill Valley would never become the state it was in the early '80s, again."

Doc nodded, understanding – he'd feel the exact same way, if he was a citizen of this terrifying world. "Well," he said, smiling, "then I'll go now. Have a nice day, miss."

The young woman nodded, and Doc then walked away, thoughtfully. He wondered just how the world in here was like, but he didn't want to find out by facing reality. Instead, he would go for the stacks of newspapers that were obviously in the library on the third floor.

It took some time for Doc to follow the receptionist's instructions to the letter, and by the time he entered the library, he could see on a clock that it was about one-thirty P.M. already, which meant that it was ten-thirty A.M. to the inventor's biological clock. It had been almost twenty-three hours since he'd called Marty to come over and test the new machine, and over twenty-two since they made their first dimension hop. Amazing.

Figuring that there was no time for amazement right now, the inventor headed over to the nearest book case, and grabbed a few newspapers from it to check the date… March 16, 1982. He had to find something more recent. Not discouraged immediately, he moved on, and a few feet further, he pulled out another paper. January 7, 1983. Still not good.

This time, the scientist moved about two yards before grabbing another paper, which, ironically enough, read October 26, 1985… a copy of the newspaper Marty had held when confronted by Strickland. "Almost" Doc whispered to himself, and skipped a few more newspapers, finally arriving on the date he was looking for.

Huge was his surprise when nothing appeared there. Confused, Doc checked the date, and started to search through the papers afterwards, wondering if the receptionist had been lying about Biff's death. But no, she hadn't. In the newspaper that belonged to Thursday, January 9th, the news was finally revealed in a big way. Somewhat astonished at why it took so long, Doc read the paper.

BIFF TANNEN MURDERED

Local Toxic Waste Owner Shot To Death

Thursday, January 9th – Yesterday evening, Lorraine Baines-McFly-Tannen, widow of the murderer, finally revealed the truth to the news that many people have been suspecting for so long: Biff Howard Tannen, owner of three-quarters of the businesses in Hill Valley, Grass Valley, Sacramento and other surrounding areas of the town, has been shot to death by his wife, Lorraine, and the body has been dumped in Clayton Ravine. Almost twenty-eight years after Biff first started getting rich in March of 1958, he is no longer with us, and Hill Valley can go onto the path to restoration.

The town looks very happy, now. In fact, things haven't been like this anymore since the 1960s, and everyone is expressing their joy about the fact that Biff Tannen is dead. The police has volunteered to clean up the town, which is now under control of miss Lorraine Tannen, who has said that she'll keep her maiden name from now on, as her current name reminds her too much of her horrible husband.

Everyone is now looking forward to the future. Everything will certainly turn out to be better, now, or at least better than things were before Biff got shot.

Doc smiled, as he finished reading the newspaper. However he wasn't the type to kill, he had to admit that reading about Biff's death was somewhat satisfying, knowing what kind of things Biff-A had done. If he had been in Lorraine-A's position, he probably would've done the same thing.

Sighing, the inventor looked at the roof, and wondered just what all had happened after Biff had been killed. Surely Lorraine had to have cleaned up the town, as the newspaper evidenced. Curious what exactly had happened, Doc looked through more of the newspapers, and found out interesting things.

In 1986, Lorraine Baines had indeed made an effort to 'clean up the town'. A lot of buildings had been removed, and, with some help from Biff's money, they had set up a large hospital on the outskirts of town, in which nuclear waste victims could be helped to cure. Also, Lorraine had given some of the money to her kids. Cliff had been framed for the murders that his father had committed during the '80s, and also for the mysterious disappearance of Doc and Marty's other selves, on the evening before Biff had been shot. Doc frowned at that, especially when reading something about a DeLorean being involved, as well as two identical twin girls, labelled as 'the Parker twins'. Something weird was going on here, fourth-dimensionally speaking. Doc figured that his other self hadn't vanished – he'd simply time travelled and thereby no longer lived on in Hell Valley.

Skipping some more pages brought more interesting news for Doc. Lorraine was currently, or so the newspapers said, conducting a search for 'Calvin Klein', to help her rule Hill Valley the right way. The newspapers boldly stated that Lorraine was in love with Calvin again, and wanted him to be found no matter what it cost. The visiting inventor gulped for a moment – even with the thirty-year-difference taken into consideration, his Marty was in danger here. If Lorraine had cured herself from the breast enlargements and caused herself to look like she was in her twenties again, she could easily gain a crush on Marty, who, to her knowledge, couldn't be her son, who after all had vanished two years ago.

"Amazing" the inventor whispered, again, as he stared at the newspapers. He now knew what had led to this world turning out like it did, now, over the past two years, but now, his attention was drawn to the history of his other self, and of Biff's other self. What all had happened between 1958, the day of Biff's first win, and 1985? He hadn't really given himself time to explore that history on their first visit, but now, with Marty being unconscious and, due the fact that this was dimensional travel, no erasure fears, Doc found himself having that time. Interested, he walked over to the '1950s' stack of newspapers, and pulled out the paper he'd found on his last visit to this world – the one from March 27th, 1958.

Doc felt disgusted as he stared at their antagonist for so long, grinning broadly and holding a cheque which said he had won one million dollars. Taxes, or so the newspaper said, would take about two hundred ninety-seven thousand dollars off it, but that still made a fortune of more than seven hundred thousand dollars for Biff to win, and Doc kind of figured that this wasn't the end of it, yet.

And it wasn't. Doc skimmed through the Biff-related articles in the years afterwards, finally finding another thing in January of the next year, which said Biff 'won again'. At the one year-anniversary of the day he had his first huge win, Biff was reported as being the 'luckiest man on earth'. Doc growled in anger at that – it hadn't been luck, and he knew it. Calming himself, he read on, leaving the peaceful 1950s and going further with the '60s.

Changes in here came again. Biff married, almost two years before he did in the original timeline, and to a different woman, too: Marilyn Monroe, on December 27th 1961. It had been just two months when he divorced her again, getting to keep almost everything due not having to worry about money problems, which his wife didn't, either, but still, Biff knew for a fact that he'd never get poor again.

Doc found the changes start later. In August 1962, his counterpart's mansion burned down right on schedule, so there wasn't anything off with that yet. The next year, though, Biff started to slowly but surely invest his money in businesses, starting with a pub in the Square, where he met his second wife. Cliff Tannen was born in 1964, and BiffCo in 1967. In '68, Biff divorced his current wife, and in 1969, finally, Doctor Emmett Brown got suspicious. There was a mention of Doc-A joining a 'Rebellious Evil Group To Oppose This Wonderful Rule' led by George McFly and himself, in 1970. There was also a mention of George McFly asking president Nixon for help in '71, and in 1972, there was a failed break-out in Biff's Palace. In '73, though, it had finally happened, and Doc faced the other paper he had stumbled upon on his visit to that horrible world. The paper that reported George-A McFly being shot to death, which they now knew had happened by Biff Tannen's hand.

Things had gone from bad to worse afterwards. After long begging, Biff had finally managed to get Lorraine to marry him in October that year, and Doc-A nor Marty-A had been able to do a thing about it. Biff had treated his kids horribly afterwards, and, in 1974, Doc-A mentioned that 'Biff might have something to do with the Watergate scandal not having as much consequences as I expected it to' which Doc, being from a world in which that scandal had gone on to have major consequences, knew for sure.

Marty and his siblings had left California for boarding schools all across the world on the twenty-first of August, and Doc had been sad to say his would-be friend farewell. As the visiting scientist read on, he found to his surprise a mention on the 'McFly Murder Case Reopened' in February 1975. For a moment, he wondered if the truth had been revealed about Biff being a suspect after all, but how wrong he was. Biff was actually a witness, and revealed to know that Doc-A had, in fact, murdered George.

No evidence had been found against Doc-A, and the grumpy local inventor had been released again a few weeks afterwards. The local had apparently continued his work on the time machine, as far as Visiting Doc could see, but in May 1975, another murder had happened which was again linked to Emmett, and this time Lester, George McFly's childhood friend, was the victim. Wallet Guy had been found shot to death in the parking lot of the Lone Pine Mall, and Biff claimed to have seen Emmett around Lester in the days before his death. No doubt, Doc thought, that Biff was actually the murderer – most likely, Lester 'knew too much' about his friend's unfortunate end and therefore had to be put away for good.

Gambling had been legalized in this reality in 1979, and almost immediately Biff had announced the Courthouse would soon be built into 'Biff's Pleasure Paradise'. As the fateful 1980s started, there was a mention of a robbery at Emmett's garage in April of 1980. Considering how upset the local had been, Doc suspected that Biff had hired some men to do the job, and they had smashed Emmett's works on the time machine.

In early October of 1981, Emmett had finally done what Doc had subconsciously urged his counterpart to do while reading the papers: start another huge protest against BiffCo Industries, trying to push new life into the long disbanded Non-BiffCo Group. But Biff '81 was even more powerful than his early '70s counterpart, and Emmett had eventually given up in late December. In the meantime, though, he hadn't been able to prevent a terrible disaster from striking. On November 29th, 1981, the day Doc remembered as having the first black mayor, Goldie Wilson, be elected, the latter was shot to death, putting an end to his hopes of being mayor, and trying to stop Biff's empire. Biff himself had been elected as mayor of the town not long afterwards, and in an official ceremony in January, 1982, he'd been put into office for no less than ten years.

In July of that year, the Pleasure Paradise was finally ready in all it's ugliness. Lorraine and Biff had moved in, and the matchbooks Marty had taken along from the Paradise on their trip to this world had started being made. In the months afterwards, as Doc was nearing that fateful month, May of '83, he found nothing to provide evidence for Emmett being committed, and he felt very confused about it, until he stumbled across the newspaper for March twenty-sixth, 1983, less than two months before Emmett's commitment.

The local had, on that date, apparently been led to jail again, for the same case as he had eight years earlier. This time, he hadn't been let free until mid-April, and had tried to leave Hill Valley… but it was far too late now.

On May tenth, Emmett was arrested again, for a robbery at the Pleasure Paradise that was obviously fake. There had been sanity hearings, and less than two weeks later, Emmett was dragged off on the twenty-second to the mental asylum. The next day, the all familiar paper was published, reading: 'EMMETT BROWN COMMITTED – Local Crackpot Inventor Declared Legally Insane'. Doc felt horrified, but he knew he couldn't do a thing against it. He would have to bear reading this, and he felt happy knowing this event had never happened to him.

In the months afterwards, the news about the inventor decreased. Just two weeks after his commitment, Emmett had tried an escape on Marty's birthday, but failed. Another try on November twelfth had the same results. As 1984 started and passed on, Doc found nothing about his poor counterpart's fate, who had obviously been locked up. Also, 1985 passed normally, including the twenty-sixth… up until Halloween's day.

The day after that, November first, 1985, reported Emmett escaping from the mental asylum with help of some young boys, one of which was obviously Marty McFly… Doc wondered if his friend had still showed up at Courthouse Square at 1:24 AM on October 26. Anyway, Emmett had escaped, and the next two months included brief mentions of the Tannen gang searching for him. Finally, on January first, he found a news report about them almost being caught, and their 'mysterious disappearance'. Doc wondered what had happened, but he didn't know, and he couldn't travel back to the last day in 1985 and check things out. He wondered why his other self hadn't succeeded in fixing this mess, as Hell Valley was apparently still all right, however it had been taken over by Lorraine, now.

The inventor frowned, then shrugged it off. There had to be some reason why his other self hadn't changed history – maybe he was afraid of fading away, or something like that. Doc knew he would be, and this other version of himself couldn't be too different, if his Marty still liked hanging around him. Wondering what just had happened, Doc looked at the clock again. Two fifty-five P.M.

"Great Scott" the inventor whispered, realizing what this meant. "It's supposed to be almost noon." Around this time twenty-four hours ago, he'd taken off the tarp that hid the bus from view and showed it to Marty. He'd been up on his legs for twenty-eight hours, now, and he knew that he was going to get unconscious soon naturally if he didn't do anything. And of all the worlds he'd seen so far, this was one world where he didn't want to pass out, since this world's him was supposed to be committed, here, and he didn't want to wake up in the mental asylum, and leave Marty totally unaware of his whereabouts.

Sighing, the now seventy-eight-year-old walked through the doorway that lead back to the hallway, trying to ignore his exhaustion. There was no time for that right now, or he'd be way too tired to make his way back to the roof. Hurrying a little, he arrived at the elevator, and as it opened, he tapped in the coordinates of the twenty-seventh floor, having a hard time ignoring the chair in the corner.

The even harder time was about a minute later, when he actually had to go up the stairs to reach the roof. He managed it, however he felt like he could hit the ground every second, and his normal weight felt more like a thousand pounds than his actual weight, which was much lower than that. Finally, he reached the roof, after pausing every new step he was on. He opened the door, and happily let the oxygen, however mixed with some pollution, stream towards him.

That was when it happened.

Suddenly, the inventor heard footsteps on the stairs, and what was an obvious 'hmm' as the person inside saw the door standing open. Not wanting anyone from inside to discover the bus, and wonder how it came there, Doc turned around, more concerned about Marty's safety than about his own. With any luck, he'd be able to explain to whoever was there that he'd gone off for a walk on the roof and was an ordinary visitor to the hotel, hoping that the other person did not know his identity.

The instant he entered the building again, he stopped short in his tracks and gasped at the person who was there, who did know him, after all. He'd never expected this to happen, but now, he was faced with Lorraine Baines, widow McFly, widow Tannen, of the Biff-horrific world.

This Lorraine looked, however Marty had described her as 'big', actually younger than her normal nineteen-eighties counterpart, even younger than the version of her portrayed on the sign on the hotel. If he didn't know any better, Doc would've thought he was facing a Lorraine from the late fifties, early sixties at most. The breast enlargements were gone, reduced by as many restorations that money could buy, and Lorraine looked like she had done on her wedding day in 1961, the only difference now that she was wearing an expensive-looking dress, and wore a lot of jewellery. Doc wondered what had happened in this reality to make this kind of rejuvenation possible. Well, with money, he figured, almost anything could be made true.

Lorraine looked at Doc, then gasped softly. "Doctor Brown?" she called out. "Didn't you vanish years ago? You took the Marty's with you and never came back? And which one of them are you?"

The inventor immediately grasped the greater implications of what Lorraine was saying. First of all, she talked about Marty in plural sense, and second, she said something about there being two of him. He wondered if somehow, the local Doc of this world and the other Emmett, from the regular timeline, had gotten together somehow, which would explain the plural. Doc wondered if he was ever going to encounter a world in which these two versions of Marty and himself settled down somewhere, perhaps in the 'good' reality.

But for now, that wasn't important. The inventor whistled, nervously, then stared at Lorraine. "Well," he started, "you see, I was just coming here to visit. Marty – the first one – and I, local Doctor Brown, came here to look at what you made of the world here, now Biff is gone forever."

Lorraine smiled, and nodded. "Ah, I understand" she said. "Shall I show you around the hotel? I tried to get it as nice as possible, although some things still haven't been repaired from what it originally was." She then blushed. "I suppose you kind of understand I wanted to go to your nephew for help? I wasn't sure what became of him, and you know, with both George and Biff being dead and all…"

Doc did understand the implications of what Lorraine was saying, and wondered if he should tell Marty once he'd get back to the bus that Lorraine's crush on him (or at least, on a forty-nine-year-old version of him) was back in full force. If there was one thing certain in this horrifying world, it was that Marty would not like that. He smiled faintly, then looked at Lorraine. "Yeah, I understand" he said. "I don't know where Calvin is, though. I haven't seen him anymore for a long time."

Lorraine looked disappointed at that news, but she at least seemed to accept it. "Well, maybe he'll show up, when he finds out that I'm looking for him" she said. "I was thinking, you know, maybe Cal and I could give our relationship another chance… it has been over thirty-two years after all, and now all of my brothers are dead, maybe kissing him will not feel like kissing my brother, anymore."

Doc was not feeling up to this kind of talk about a relationship that would never come true anyway. "Well, I'm going up to the roof again" he said. "Taking another breath of fresh, lesser polluted air. I liked it there, a lot." He smiled at a confused Lorraine, then headed up the stairs again.

As the inventor entered the roof, double-checking that Lorraine or anyone else wasn't there this time, he chuckled at himself. For a second, he felt like Biff Tannen from this horrifying world would show up and kill him and Marty, while he knew for a fact from those paper articles that Biff Tannen was long gone. He figured that if Marty was awake right now, he'd be checking his back every microsecond. The inventor let out a slight chuckle, and shook his head. No, things were better as it was now, with Marty being back in the bus.

As the scientist entered the time bus after getting past the locks, he found Marty snoring softly, and back in the same position he'd been in when Doc had left him. Doc smiled, slightly, and then decided to wake his friend up again. It was time to go, after all. He hadn't been able to find much about the technology in this world in the library, but from the knowledge he'd gained about Hell Valley's past, he was about 99.999 percent sure that there wasn't anything any better than there was at home. He smiled, faintly, and gave his friend a gentle shake. "Marty" he whispered. "Wake up."

The teen let out a soft groan, then rolled over to his side. "I'm sleepin'" he muttered. "I don't wanna wake up."

"Marty, we're going to leave this reality."

Marty rolled back again, pushing his head into the soft chair as the nearest replacement for a pillow. "You can do that without me" he muttered. "Let me sleep."

Doc sighed, realizing just why Marty was as tired as he was. The sleep-inducer had been on the 'four hour-setting' when he knocked his friend out with it: it had been little over two, now. Marty was still set to be unconscious for the next two hours, so it was only logical if he felt exhausted, even though he, in fact, had spent five hours asleep of the past twenty-four hours of travelling through dimensions, while the inventor hadn't. Doc did, at this moment, actually feel fine, having recovered from his previous exhaustion attack. He sighed, looking at Marty and focusing at the task at hand. "Marty" he tried, one more time. "We're going to leave. Can you please at least open your eyes for that hop so you won't be too surprised once we'll make the actual transition."

That seemed to do the trick. Marty, finally realizing that his friend wasn't going to go away any time soon, opened his eyes, and stared at Doc first, and then at the time circuits. "When are we going?" he asked, appearing sincerely interested. Most likely, he wanted something simple to focus on, that wouldn't be too difficult to grasp in his current state of half-awake mind, but still would provide the trick of keeping him awake.

Doc provided him with the needed information by tapping it in, by the keypad this time for a change, then repeating it for his friend. "Saturday, April 2, 1988, at 12:06 P.M." he prompted. "Exactly three hours into this reality's past, and twenty-four into ours. In other words, it's the time we left to go to the ravine in our reality."

Marty gasped, softly. "You mean we've been at this for just almost a day? It feels like it's been forever since I got over to your house, wondering what kind of experiment you were going to drag me in this time."

Doc couldn't resist a soft chuckle. "That's only natural" he assured his friend. "You've been up and running for nineteen hours of that time – you should be feeling exhausted, and that might make you feel like it's been so long. Normally, we aren't awake all day, and not so many things happen as in the past day."

Marty sighed. "I suppose" he muttered, staring at the half-bright sky, hoping that it would wake him up. Even after two years, there still was a polluted background in the air, which hit it hard again where they were. "You said we're going to leave now, didn't you Doc?"

The inventor nodded. "Yes, I did" he said. "Hang on." Turning to the controls, he added: "Activate flying circuits." As the time machine went up in the air, he then sat down, and hit the gas.

The bus chugged through the sky, moving faster as it was accelerating, although not too fast, being stopped from doing that due to the wind. Eventually, they arrived back in the close proximity of the building Emmett used to live in, the garage, which was now abandoned, and finally, the time machine hit eighty-eight miles per hour. Doc and Marty held on as the machine vanished from what was now Lorraine Baines' world with triple sonic booms and bright, intense flashes of light, and made the transition to the other dimension, leaving Hell Valley behind forever.