Disclaimer: I don't own BTTF.

Author's Note: Well, here's another chapter (or two, if you didn't notice I'd uploaded Chapter Fourteen since apparently replacing a lengthy Author's Note with a chapter doesn't count as an update on this site). The visitors get settled into their new surroundings a little more, watch some movies, and uncover some secrets. I'm actually quite surprised that I - through Ann - managed to summarize practically all of EOAEW's plot in one paragraph there. There are three POV's in this chapter, namely Mike's, Doc's and Visiting Marty's, although of course I tried to give the other characters their fair share of attention as well. And yes, all of this does take place on one single day. Hope you still enjoy TTD now that it's slightly more... settled down, so to speak, given that there's no dimension hopping going on anymore, even if there's still exposition. Lots of exposition. Please review!

Chapter Fifteen

Sunday, April 3, 1988
8:30 A.M.
Hill Valley, California

For Michael Emmett Brown, the situation of living under one roof with a counterpart of his wasn't exactly new – in fact, he could almost say that it was normal by now. Yet, this situation was stranger than the one they ordinarily lived through. This new Marty McFly was a fish out of water, a guy who wouldn't settle in with them like the previous counterparts he had met would but who was eager to go back home. And whereas he might have been used to meeting and living with another version of himself, Mike could see from the looks his counterpart was giving him from the other side of the breakfast table that for Visiting Marty, this situation was anything but normal.

Thus Mike had taken it upon himself to enter conversation with his new counterpart, not in the least because he wanted to know more of this person who was the Marty he knew and yet was so different. And since Doc, Chris and Emmett were off to make more preparations for the repair work on the time machine that morning, Mike had all time to himself to show Visiting Marty around the house before they plopped back down on the couch in the living room.

"So," the visitor finally said after a moment of silence, "what's it like to live here?"

Mike blinked. That was the question he had intended to ask his counterpart. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Because you're from that world Biff made" Visiting Marty clarified. Ah, that made sense. "Doc and I never saw our other selves, or even found out anything but what we could read in the newspapers, but I could guess that your life must have been hell before you got out of there. I mean, boarding school in Switzerland, Dad dead when you were just five years old…" He stopped. "I'm not dragging up bad memories, am I?"

"Well, kind of" Mike replied. "Not those ones per se, though – boarding school was my one refuge from Biff, and I can barely remember my biological Dad. When I met George McFly in this dimension for the first time he felt like a stranger to me. It's more those other moments that sucked – when I still lived with Biff in Hill Valley, and whenever I would have to visit town and endure it all again – my Mom never standing up to him, what my brother and sister had turned into… and Biff's physical abuse. Especially that time I got kicked out of my original boarding school."

"He mentioned that to me while I was there" Visiting Marty said, grimacing. "I've always wondered what that was all about – I can't see myself deciding to get kicked out on purpose, especially because it would send me right back into Biff's clutches."

"No, it wasn't on purpose" Mike replied. He sighed deeply, remembering what had happened. "I caused a fire in an accident at boarding school back in September of 1984. The fire wasn't even that bad, but since everybody official thought I'd done it on purpose and I couldn't convince them otherwise – and they said that either way, the lack of discipline I'd shown was reason enough to punish me – I was sent back home to Hill Valley. Biff was enraged at me." He winced at the memories. "He had his goons beat me up regularly, abused me himself whenever he could – that moment was also the closest that Mom ever came to leaving him. Not counting when she actually did leave him over a year later, of course... anyway, I got sent back to a new boarding school in October, with explicit instructions not to make a mess of things again because though Biff was willing to grant me mercy once, he wouldn't spend money on 'that lazy butthead kid' again if I got kicked out for a second time. The way he acted, you'd think money was tight at the Pleasure Paradise." He snorted.

"Yeah, your world's Biff gave me that impression too" Visiting Marty agreed. "Mom even called him out on it, but from the way he was thinking, I could see that any cash spent on a McFly was wasted in his eyes."

"Right on the money – pun not intended" Mike said. "You never experienced any of that, did you?"

Visiting Marty shook his head. "Well, except for the night I spent in Hell Valley, of course. Biff came over occasionally in the old timeline, bugging my Dad and being a general jerk to everyone, but he never personally abused me. He had no personal quarrel with me, but I couldn't stand the bastard. I don't think he had reason to abuse me – life had turned out the way how he wanted it short for not having my mom, and even that had not happened in the same humiliating way it did in the new timeline – and in the world you came from – because of Dad punching him out. I don't want to claim I can look into Biff's mind, certainly not since I barely met that version of him, but I'd bet that's part of why he became so much more aggressive in your world."

"Yeah, that's what Calvin, Marty and I have been theorizing too" Mike said. "It's really fascinating material – that's one point where we're not really on the same wavelength, as I love discussing theories about alternate timelines and their nature with Dad and Doc, while Marty and Calvin avoid them when possible. I'd hoped you might be on my side in that one, but from what I've seen so far I'm not betting on it."

"You're right" Visiting Marty said, nodding. "I'm not great at all that theorizing stuff. Even when I was helping Doc out as an assistant back before he met Clara I only knew what I was doing half the time. Doc says I even helped him on some parts of the time machine, which I had no idea of at the time."

Mike chuckled. "Your past sound almost exactly like the way Marty and Calvin describe theirs" he replied. "I was hoping there might be some interesting differences, but so far I'm coming up with nothing."

Visiting Marty shrugged. "Well, it does sound like our lives only began to split in that October weekend, so if you want to find differences, you're going to have to look after that. Do Marty and Calvin still play the guitar in the Pinheads? Are they still dating… wait, they couldn't both date Jennifer, of course."

"Calvin's girlfriend is Ann Parker" Mike replied. "She is Calvin's twin sister from our world, and she is currently living under the guise of this world's Jennifer's twin."

"Right, of course, Ann" Visiting Marty mumbled. "I believe your, uh, your sister told me that last night… sorry, it's hard getting it all straight after fifty-two universes. Anyway, so of course their girlfriends have changed, at least in Calvins case, and I can imagine their relationship with Doc is a bit different too – what about their college choice? Is it music studies, like mine?"

"For Marty, yes" Mike said. "As for Calvin, he's been puzzling with what he wanted to do for a long time. What with Marty taking up what he perceived being as his old life, he felt like he had to find new interests. He's currently studying local history because he feels that he hasn't really found his calling yet, but the rest of us are pretty sure what he's eventually going to pick. You'll agree with us once you get to ask him about his book. He has been a bit down lately, but that's one subject on which he still enthusiastically tends to chat your ears off."

"His book?" Visiting Marty repeated. "Calvin is a writer?"

"Like I said, he's still an amateur and indecisive about what he wants to do with it, but yeah, he's been taking that ever more seriously for the past two years" Mike replied. "Mr. McFly inspired him to follow in his footsteps, and Calvin actually… what?"

"Nothing" Visiting Marty said, sniggering. "I'm sorry, it's just – a version of me in all honesty calling Dad 'Mr. McFly' still sounds really weird."

"Well, it has been over two years since I got adopted" Mike replied. "And this version of George McFly never conceived me, so…" He shrugged. "I can see why it's weird to you, but you'll get used to it. Anyway, Calvin started writing a book related to time travel shortly after we returned from the journey to 1885 during which we met Clara, and although he's not in his father's league yet, he certainly has some talent. All of us admire his work, even though we rarely say it to his face because if we do he won't shut up about it."

Visiting Marty grinned. "Now I'm really curious about that book" he said. "I'll have to read that before we leave. That's going to be one plus about this whole journey to hell."

"No, this is Hill Valley," Mike corrected him, "and I don't think it's that hellish. It felt more like heaven when I first got here, actually."

"I guess so" Visiting Marty sighed. "It's not you, or even anybody else I encountered here or on this whole trip. It's just that the journey itself has been going on and on, and when you spend all that time talking to yourself and to Doc and to another version of you and another version of Doc, you start missing home where you have your friends – friends that aren't you – and where you won't have to figure out all what is different from what you're familiar with, or worry whether or not this new world is going to be able to help you get home. That's no fun, especially considering that all the times we asked that question, the answer turned out negative."

Mike smiled sympathetically. "I can see where you're coming from" he said. "I guess I'm used to being friends with people who look like me by now, but from your point of view it would be a huge change. But don't worry. I know Dad, and from that I know that your world's version of him wouldn't have let you two stay the night if he hadn't got strong reasons to believe that there was something that could help in this dimension. And I'm fairly sure Dad and Do-Emmett will be able to help."

Visiting Marty was about to reply to that when Claudia came in and sat down next to Mike. "Our Marty just called" she said. "He said he and Calvin were going to come over right after church is out."

"It's Sunday today?" Visiting Marty muttered. "Man, time travel really makes you lose track of time. I barely know what month it is."

This time, both Mike and Claudia smiled sympathetically. "It's Sunday, April 3rd 1988" the former said. "8:43 AM. Today Emmett, Doc and Dad are going to make plans for what to do next to fix your time machine. It might have to wait until tomorrow that we're going to be able to get to work."

"So in the meantime, we're going to do what?" Visiting Marty wondered. "Sit here and talk? As interesting as this is, I'm sure it would get boring eventually."

"I was thinking more along the lines of showing you around town" Mike said. "Around the house is an option too, but from what I got from you it appears that the house itself mostly looks the same. We could drive around town and you could point out everything that's different."

"That reminds me," Claudia added, "Emmett asked me to invite Marty and Calvin's parents over for dinner tonight, along with Jennifer. He's probably counting on them wanting to meet our visitors. So that means you're going to see your parents, Marty."

"And Jennifer" Visiting Marty muttered. "A version of her that is not my girlfriend, which will undoubtedly serve to make me even more homesick." He smiled wryly. "All right, I guess I've been accentuating the negative a bit too much here, haven't I?"

"You're beginning to sound like Ann, yeah" Mike said chuckling. "And Ann could out-cynic pretty much everyone, so I'm afraid that's not a compliment. Although ironically she has been one of the biggest optimists when it came to Ca…"

"What?" Visiting Marty asked. "When it came to what?"

Mike glanced sideways at his sister, who made a swift 'shush' move with her hand. They both remembered the conversation they had had with Calvin yesterday, and how their friend had warned them expressly not to bring up the matter of his health among their visitors. And although Mike thought that was silly, he wasn't about to break the trust of one of his closest friends, and he certainly didn't want to be the first person out of them to do so.

"To Calvin" he finally said, winking to Claudia that he knew what he was doing. "He's her boyfriend, after all, and we all wondered whether that relationship was going to succeed or whether Calvin was going to subconsciously assume that Ann was another Jennifer, and that the relationship would break when that wouldn't turn out to be true. Ann always remained optimistic on that, and rightfully so, since they've been together for two years now."

Visiting Marty nodded, apparently buying the fib. "I guess so" he said. "That must have been weird. In one of the first dimensions we visited, that version of me got stuck in the '50s and ended up marrying Jennifer's aunt."

"A version of you married Aunt Mary?" Claudia said, frowning. Visiting Marty nodded "Really? Wow. That is strange."

Mike nodded in agreement. "It sounds like you've had a journey to remember."

Visiting Marty chuckled. "Yeah, I guess that with hindsight you can say that. Back then I was only disturbed at everything weird I saw – and that was before we found out that we were going to be stuck at doing this for days. But yeah, in retrospect, I wish I could have brought a camera. I thought I'd seen it all when Doc showed me he had invented a time machine, but this… this is something else entirely."

"Could you tell us something about your journey?" Mike asked. Anything to make sure Visiting Marty forgot his spur-of-the-moment mistake would be welcome, and he was kind of curious.

Visiting Marty pondered that. "Well, I guess it all started when Doc called me over last week… or yesterday… and showed me his latest invention, a bus that could travel through dimensions with the use of the DFSCUPCIF. He was enthusiastic about exploring other dimensions, I was a lot less eager. But either way, after some discussion about what we might find and how to best approach all this, we took off and landed in a dimension where the ravine was named Brown Ravine…"

And that was when the floodgates opened and Visiting Marty told them the entire story. It was a long one, and Mike even excused himself to get a notebook and a pen just a few minutes in to write every interesting part down, partly because he thought it was interesting, partly because Calvin might be able to use it for story ideas. As the tale progressed, he and Claudia got a better look at the character of this alternate version of their friend, and it soon became clear for them that they were in for an incredibly interesting week.

oooooooo

While Visiting Marty was actually enjoying telling his counterpart and Claudia everything that had happened, Doc was having a blast as well. Now that he was becoming ever more confident that however long it would take, the time machine would be fixed in this dimension, he could allow himself to relax and talk to his counterparts. It was intriguing just how much their minds ran in synch and he barely had to voice one idea or the others would get it. It even made him envy Chris and Emmett for having each other around all of the time. Of course he could share a lot with Marty and Clara as well, and over the years they had come to know each other so well that those two people could anticipate him most of the time too, but he had to admit to himself that they weren't his intellectual equals. Even Clara, though certainly a bright woman for her day, tended to get lost when his speeches went on too long, and Marty, though cleverer than he would admit to himself, regularly interrupted his monologues to ask him to please use English and not Scientific. It was a refreshing break from the usual not to need that here. In fact, being accustomed to everyone not getting what he was saying right away, he caught himself being inadvertently condescending to his counterparts twice.

After their investigation of the time machine, they had a clear list of what needed to be fetched from the future (and in some cases, from present-day supply stores) by the early afternoon. Emmett made several journeys to the future in the DeLorean – the presence of (two versions of) that original time machine still baffled the visiting inventor, since the one he had had was for the most part thrown into the junkyard, with the time travel parts reused in later machines when possible – and collected all they needed. Doc also told them about the Back to the Future DVDs, which stunned his hosts almost as much as they had stunned him. By around 2 PM, they were a long way gone towards fixing the time machine. Also, he had finally gotten a chance to take that shower, after confirming that no, Emmett and Chris did not like the way he smelled now.

In the meanwhile, Local Marty and Calvin had dropped by again, filling the house and confusing Doc, who had nothing against them but had a hard time distinguishing between them and Mike and his own Marty. They ate lunch together, and from what he heard, Visiting Marty had informed them of all their adventures over the past week. Since Doc had done much of that to Emmett and Chris during that morning, that mostly evened the knowledge out for everyone except for Clara and Susan (well, and the boys' extended families) but he supposed they would be filled in sooner or later.

When lunch was done Doc was just contemplating more details on the design of the Fusion reactor and how thorough a repair would have to be when Visiting Marty approached him. Or at least, he thought it was him, because to his embarrassment Emmett Brown could not identify his own universe's version of Marty McFly for certain. It didn't help that this Marty wasn't wearing the clothes he had worn throughout that week.

"Hi Marty" he finally said, figuring that would be okay no matter what… unless it was Calvin or Mike, but well, he would cross that bridge when he came to it. "How are you?"

Visiting Marty shrugged. "I guess I'm okay – though it's probably going to be a while yet until we get back home. At least this is more bearable than hopping and hopping without an end in sight." He sighed. "Mike asked if I wanted to go with him and Claudia this afternoon. He wants to show me around town."

Doc raised an eyebrow at the teen whom he now knew for sure was his best friend. "So? This is not another time period, Marty. You don't need to ask my permission."

"I figured as much, but there's something else" Visiting Marty said. "Sometime during our conversation, Mike got really sketchy about something concerning Ann and Calvin. I have the impression they're keeping something secret from us."

Doc considered that for a moment. "Well, I'm not the best at judging whether people are keeping a secret or not" he finally replied. "You know I don't get distracted from science easily – Clara says I have no ear for gossiping. But I doubt our hosts would keep something from us – not that they're not entitled to do so, but I can't see any reason. You might just have misunderstood something. Either that, or it's some minor yet embarrassing issue."

Visiting Marty pondered that. "I guess that could be true," he finally said, "but I don't think so. It really looked like there was something they were covering up, Doc. And why should they care if something small got out to us? We'll be gone soon anyway, won't we?"

"That's the plan" Doc agreed. "Maybe it was just force of habit. I don't blame you for being alert, Marty – you really can't trust everybody after all – but don't let it show too much. These counterparts of us took us in when they could have just as easily left us out on the streets with nothing to do but to hop on to a next dimension, and they're going to help us rebuild the time machine. We've got to cut them some slack at least."

"True" Visiting Marty said. "Maybe you are right, and I'm just being crazy. It might just be the stress and exhaustion getting to me. And that is weird in itself, considering how long I slept last night."

Doc chuckled. "I know the feeling" he replied. "Maybe I was too uptight about not sleeping throughout this journey, but I figured we might be able to relax better once we were at a place where we knew people could help us. I'd hate to lie awake for an hour, deadly tired but unable to sleep because of my constant worrying, and I would have hated for the same to happen to you – although from what I've seen, you didn't have that same problem. But you must have had some nightmares."

His friend thought hard. "Yeah, I may have had one when we got to sleep in that smart me-world, and when you sleep-induced me I got one as well." They both winced at the memory of that incident. "But I remember two nightmares from last night too, which I shouldn't have had if your theory were correct."

"I wouldn't call it a full-on theory yet, just idle speculation" Doc said, shrugging. "Maybe you just weren't relaxed enough. I can still see the worry from the last days in your face. It'll be fine, Marty. We should be back home in only a week or so. Have you taken a shower yet?"

"No – though I probably should have" Visiting Marty agreed. "You don't think the locals would mind, do you?"

"Would you, if they came to our reality?" The twenty-year-old shook his head. "Then there's your answer. Not to mention that Clara specifically requested me to take a shower this morning. You might want to go before you get the same thing from anybody."

"I do have that tour with Mike and Claudia scheduled" Visiting Marty said. "Speaking of which, they're probably wondering what's taking me so long. I'll probably take the shower afterwards. Thanks for your input."

"You're welcome" Doc replied as his friend walked off. He looked after him for a moment, then headed over to the living room and sat down.

He continued to think about the time machine repairs but nevertheless might have nodded off yet again – to be fair, he was mulling over the same thoughts over and over, and there weren't too many distractions besides the occasional cries from his counterparts' children – had Susan Clayton not come in.

His counterpart's wife looked at him and smiled. "Did they kick you out?"

"Kind of" Doc admitted. "Your husband and Emmett said they would be able to take care of the remainder of the preparation for the time machine repairs by themselves, and that it would be best to take it easy today before restarting tomorrow." He sniffed indignantly. "I had expected Clara to be uncomfortable with working on the time machine on Sunday, and I wouldn't have wanted it if it hadn't been necessary, but right now it is, and my own counterparts are preventing me from helping out. We can't afford to relax. It might be dangerous to my and Marty's health to spend so much time in this dimension. I know," he added as Susan began to scoff at that, "you and your family are fine despite not being natives here. But that doesn't need to mean anything. You're from a duplicate dimension, we're from an entirely different one – and possibly a much more distant one, considering how long we travelled through dimensions to get here."

"Possibly" Susan conceded. "Still, I think you should rest, Emmett, er, Doc. I can tell you're tired."

"I'm not that tired" Doc replied. His eyes twinkled with curiosity. "You know, it's really strange that you and Clara are so similar in that regard. She would have said the same thing."

"No wonder" Susan said, shrugging. "We are relatives, after all. And we are not really as similar as we appear to be."

Doc nodded. "I figured as much. It's really disorienting to look at you. On one hand, you're just like Clara, and you act like her too, but then you act differently and I find myself stunned despite myself. Your hair and eye color look wrong – no offense – and you're so, so modern." He shrugged in turn. "That shouldn't confuse me as much, but it does. I might have found it easier to deal with this if you were entirely different, but all those similarities with the occasional abrupt difference… that's really hard to cope with."

"So basically, you're uncomfortable with me?" Susan asked, sitting next to him on the couch.

"That's not what I meant" Doc assured her. "Or maybe it is. I don't even know anymore." He sighed. "Perhaps I really need to rest more. I'm too tired. I didn't mean to offend you, though."

"I know what you mean" Susan said. "Or at least, I think I do. When I first met Emmett – not Chris, Emmett – I kept expecting him to be like the person I knew, only he wasn't. And then I tried to assume he would be different, but that wasn't true either. I think the fact that we can't settle counterparts in one category or another is really the thing that upsets us the most about them. But eventually you get used it, and right now I'm very friendly to my husband's counterpart and expect him to be similar, yet different."

"This isn't the same situation, though" Doc argued. "You're not Clara's counterpart. And yet you are so similar…"

"I know" Susan replied. "The local Clara and I counted our differences a while after she came here from 1885. Do you want to hear the list?" She started ticking them off on her fingers. "She's sweet and kind-hearted, I tend to be rougher. She's an early riser, whereas I prefer to sleep in. She's fascinated by astronomy, while I have an odd interest in digging in and exploring under the surface of the earth."

"Archeology" Doc said.

"Not really" Susan said. "It's not just the possible historical artifacts I could find, but I just like exploring underground in itself. It started when, as a kid, I read Jules Verne's book Journey To The Center of the Earth. Chris and I went exploring in some deep caves for several times – occasionally taking advantage of the time machine when those caves wouldn't be available to the public or would have high prices in the present day."

Doc smiled. "That's not exactly proper use of time travel" he replied.

Susan shrugged. "If Chris was okay with it, I doubt anyone would complain" she said. "He can be obsessive about protecting the secret of time travel and preserving history at all costs… but occasionally, he would do such sweet things for me. Such as when he took me to Paris in Jules Verne's era on our honeymoon, and when we got back to America we even visited the future to buy me a new dress because the old one got wasted at the airport. Anyway, we were talking about Clara." She started ticking differences off again. "She's sterner with the kids, while I'm generally more laidback – although not nearly like Emmett and Chris are. I know you can't fool around when you want to survive, not in the world we came from, and that mentality just stuck with me. I guess that's more like one for the similarities book, then. I like driving a car, while Clara is still pondering whether or not to get her license. I love Chris and I was happy to take his name, but I try to maintain a sense of equality in our relationship, while Clara is content to let Emmett have the upper hand in theirs – although not nearly as much as you might expect from a Nineteenth Century woman, and since he doesn't always take her up on it either in practice our families tend to be similar on that. She does have stricter morals on various subjects, which often comes up when dealing with the children. Of course they don't have teenage kids yet…"

Doc shook his head. "With all due respect, it's hard for me to picture a version of Marty and Jennifer actually living with a version of me and my wife in a parent-child relationship. I do love Marty like a son, but it is incredibly strange to see how literal that has gotten in the case of your family."

Susan shrugged. "It's only natural" she said. "I was the oldest when I met up with Jennifer and Ann, so I assumed some kind of protective, parental role over them, especially as they had left their old home. Later I met Chris, who seemed to have the same thing going on with Mike and Calvin. In fact, I thought it was stranger that Calvin and Chris seemed to have no problem with letting go of that relationship when Calvin was adopted by the George and Lorraine from this reality. It was probably the best way out, though. They were willing to take on one child, and we weren't sure we could take on three. Also, Calvin had always been a bit of an outcast due to not being from our world. We were surprised when Ann left, too, but we didn't worry whether she would turn out okay. She's Ann, after all."

"I'll have to pay attention when I meet her" Doc remarked. "Emmett told me you and Clara had planned a special dinner for tonight during which George and Lorraine would come over, among others?"

"It was mostly Clara's idea, but yeah, that was the plan" Susan replied. She blinked. "You guys aren't used to them knowing about time travel, are you? If you never had the need to tell them…"

"As far as I know, the George McFly and Lorraine Baines-McFly in our dimension have no idea that I have a time machine" Doc said. "I guess Marty could have told them without me knowing, but somehow I doubt it. I don't think it ever occurred to either of us to tell them after the dust from that crazy weekend settled down. And Marty seemed to be adjusting fine to his new life. Then again, there were some months when I wasn't in this century, so Marty could have told them then, but then they would have kept that from me the whole time, and I highly doubt that happened."

"You spent several months out of this century?" Susan repeated.

"Yeah – that was when I was moving back into 1985 from the 1890s" Doc said, shrugging. "As I might have told you before, Clara and I lived there for a decade." He sighed. "It's really hard to keep track of whom I told something and what. I hope that'll change tonight. Chris told me that you own a DVD player from the future?"

"That's right" Susan said, confused. "It was a present for Mike's last birthday, and it's been something the entire family can enjoy. Do you have a tape, er, a DVD with your life story on it?"

"You could say that" Doc replied cryptically. "I could say more but I'd hate to spoil the surprise. If all this turns out the way I hope it will, I'm sure you'll all understand our reality more – even though the method by which you will do so might stun you."

Susan shrugged and stood up. "After living with Chris and Emmett for two and a half years, little surprises me anymore" she said. "I'm sorry for having to leave you, but I have to get back to the dishes. And don't you offer to help me, because I can handle them by myself just fine. Why don't you just sit here and relax, Emmett Brown."

With that she left the room, leaving Doc staring after her and wondering why he felt compelled to obey her requests just like he would have had it been his own Clara making them. It was all very strange, and he doubted that in the next days he and Marty would spend here, the situation would get much clearer.

oooooooo

Driving around town turned out to be slightly duller for Visiting Marty McFly than he had expected, especially because there was little he could see that had really changed. The Courthouse looked similar, the mall was the same, and even the ravine was identical, except for it now being named 'Wayne Ravine'. That prompted a long but interesting story from Mike and Claudia, and had kept him occupied while they eventually returned home.

After hanging out for a few more hours (and taking that shower) it finally became time for dinner, and like his friends had told him Visiting Marty saw various guests coming over, including three girls who looked like Jennifer and whom he had to stop himself from gawking at. It had been several days since he had last seen his girlfriend, and this suddenly alerted him to how much he missed her. Strangely though, the thing that attracted his attention the most was just how different and yet similar in appearance they were. The 'regular' Jennifer looked pretty much like the girl he knew at home, while Ann had momentarily dyed her hair and wore more striking clothes and Claudia's garbs seemed to be a little more conservative than Jennifer's.

Their behavior also struck him. Jennifer was more or less the same he remembered, while Ann was more sarcastic and cynical and Claudia tended to be mostly quiet. He even asked them about it at some point, which made Jennifer shrug in response. "Well, we're counterparts. That doesn't make us exactly alike, just similar. And Ann isn't even my counterpart." Visiting Marty still thought it was remarkable, though, because he hadn't seen anything similar with his own counterparts. Of course, that might still be in the future. He didn't know them that well yet, after all.

While seeing different Jennifers was remarkable, seeing his parents was even more so, especially because of the casual way they treated the presence of all those oddities around them. Marty looked at them for a few moments, then retreated towards the kitchen but never got there before George McFly noticed him and tapped on his shoulder.

"Hi… Dad?" Visiting Marty said awkwardly. "Um, happy belated birthday?" All right, that was just stupid.

George chuckled. "Thanks, son" he replied. "It's really strange to have four of you here now – as if three wasn't enough. I also heard that in your reality, Lorraine and I don't know your secret."

"It's hardly my secret per se" Visiting Marty replied. "It's Doc's too, and…" He sighed, unsure of what he was trying to say. "It's just awkward to sit down and realize that you know about time travel. And then I want to apologize for not telling you sooner, and then I realize that my other selves have probably already done that… only from what I heard they did tell you almost right away, so it would've never come up at all." A question popped into his brain. "Do Dave and Linda know?"

"No, they don't" George replied. "We considered telling them, but figured since they weren't needed to provide a plausible cover for Calvin or Ann, it wasn't necessary. They have lives of their own, after all, and knowing a secret as big as time travel would probably involve them a lot more in what is going on in here, and we knew they wouldn't need or want that."

"Yeah, I guess so" Visiting Marty replied. He turned to his mother, who had joined them and promptly hugged him. "Uh, mom?"

"I figured you might be in need of a hug after spending so much time away from home" Lorraine said teasingly. "I'm glad my counterpart doesn't know you're a time traveler, or she would have worried sick about you the way I still do these days whenever our Marty or Calvin goes off to the Brown residence. And she would've probably given you a bone-crushing hug like this right after you got back."

Visiting Marty nodded, seeing her point, and then walked along with them to the living room. Clara and Susan had set up a dinner table, complete with candles, and served various vegetables and sorts of meat. There were even French fries. Visiting Marty took a seat in-between Calvin and Local Marty, and fairly soon they all dug in.

It was, Visiting Marty soon figured, one of the most unusual dinners he had ever experienced. There were several conversations going on, mostly between Doc and their newest visitors who wanted to hear more about their recent adventures. For some reason, Doc went into detail on their recent journeys through dimensions, but left the real background story out other than vaguely saying that they had visited the Hell Valley world but hadn't stayed there long enough to meet anybody, and that they had gone back to 1885 on that very same journey as an accident and had met Clara Clayton there. Besides that, he only left vague hints that he would clarify more later.

Visiting Marty himself mostly remained out of the conversation, occasionally giving a short answer whenever someone asked him a direct question – often about whether he was feeling well, what his education and family was like in the other dimension and how they compared to that. Besides that, he kept quiet. He was still uncomfortable with the concept of meeting so much weirdness and in any case preferred to listen to the others. And there was enough to listen to. All together, he counted fourteen people there – Emmett and Clara, Chris and Susan, Mike, Claudia, his Mom and Dad, Calvin, Local Marty, Jennifer, Ann, Doc and finally himself. Short of Jennifer's parents, that was everybody who knew about time travel in this dimension, and all the different conversations dazzled him. They were reminiscing, making suggestions, and occasionally wondering what the end solution to all this was going to be. Visiting Marty wished he knew.

It took another few hours before the table was cleared up and they all sat down on the couches in the living room floor, with lots of chairs being moved around so that everybody could sit, and Doc announced that he had a surprise for everyone, in particular his hosts. Visiting Marty was left wondering what that might be – his friend hadn't mentioned anything about it before – and then was left wondering whether or not he should ask permission to go to the bathroom. He decided to go of his own accord, figuring that it would probably be okay.

He was about to enter the toilet when he found himself wondering what the upstairs bathroom was all about – after that whole incident last night, he still hadn't seen it after all. And it might be for the best to find out where it was now rather than to have to sneak around in the darkest hour of the night again if in desperate need to pee the next night. Thus, Visiting Marty headed up the stairs, turned on the light switch, and checked several doors. Given that he had gone right from the elevator last night (seen from where he was now standing, at least) he decided to head left this time.

The first room he came across was the computer room. Not exactly what he needed, so he went on. The second room was a smaller one, but judging from the toys and the small bed, it was clearly one of the children's. The next door was the last one and it was a long way from the end of the hallway, making it obvious that this wasn't the bathroom. Visiting Marty merely opened it to confirm his memories – right, this was Emmett and Clara's bedroom.

Next, he went to the other side of the hallway. The first room was Chris and Susan's, but as he walked back, he finally found what he was looking for in the next room – the bathroom, right next to where Doc was staying the night. Glad that at least that little issue was out of the way, he peed, washed his hands and exited again.

And bumped right into one of his counterparts.

They both yelped, more from shock than from anything else. "Calvin?" Visiting Marty exclaimed.

"Marty" Calvin said. "I thought I'd seen you go off, but I figured that if you had gone to the bathroom, you would have gone downstairs. So I thought it would be best if I went here instead…"

"Got it" Visiting Marty replied, smirking. "And here I thought it was convenient to try out this bathroom in advance. Figures." He frowned. "Are you okay? You look a little pale. I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"Nah, I'm fine" Calvin said, touching his head. He smiled. "Would you mind moving now so I can go too?"

"Right. Of course." Visiting Marty moved out of the way and watched as his counterpart entered the bathroom and shut the door behind him. He stared at it for a moment, then shrugged and headed back down the stairs.

Almost right after he re-entered the living room, Visiting Marty was clapped on the shoulder by Mike. "We were wondering where you were" the teenager said. "Where'd you go?"

"Just off to the bathroom" Visiting Marty replied. "I bumped into Calvin – literally – on the way there. We nearly toppled each other over, because we collided with each other and with the bathroom door."

He would have expected that news to provoke a grin, or at least a frown. What he hadn't counted on was everyone in his immediate vicinity going silent, and Ann's eyes almost bulging out of her head. "Calvin" she whispered before running out of the room towards the stairs.

Visiting Marty looked at Mike. "There's no way you could have thought Calvin and I were in a serious accident from what I just told you," he began, "so what the hell is going on here? Why did Ann just run up to him as if he had a heart attack or a car accident?"

Before Mike could answer, Doc's eye fell on his friend as well. "Marty!" he exclaimed. "All right, does that mean everybody's here again?"

"Clara's still in the kitchen fetching ice cream, and I think Calvin and Ann are upstairs" Local Marty reported.

"All right, then we'll just wait a little bit" Doc said mysteriously. "Why don't you all just sit down in advance. The surprise will be here in just a few minutes."

Visiting Marty frowned, but sat down nevertheless. Wondering what the surprise was would probably be more productive than trying to get an answer out of Mike or anybody around him – for now.

It took them up to ten more minutes before everybody was in the room, settled, and provided with ice cream. Doc and Emmett turned on the television and then activated some kind of strange, flatter VCR box. The word 'DVD' appeared on the screen, to murmurs of confusion around him. To Marty, however, the word sounded familiar, and his suspicions were confirmed immediately thereafter when he noticed Doc was struggling to hide from view a familiar box. He took out a CD and put it in the VCR-like thing, then sat back down. Visiting Marty just stared at him. This was it? Wasn't he going to prepare their counterparts for what was coming? Then again, they had little clue either at this point…

Just before a display menu could appear on screen, Doc indeed turned to his friends. "Everyone, until now, Marty and I haven't told you all of our adventures in detail" he said. "I figured that it was easier to do it this way – through a trilogy of movies from one of the realities we travelled through, a trilogy centered around our own adventures through time from a world where none of us are real."

That news hit the room like a bomb – or like one that left everybody shell-shocked, at least. Emmett, Clara and Chris remained calm, apparently already having heard the news, but Susan, Jennifer and Claudia had their eyes widen, Ann gaped, Local Marty and Calvin stared and Mike whispered "That's impossible…" It was his parents who really had the strongest reaction, though, both shouting "What?" at the same time.

Doc nodded. "I understand that news comes as a shock to you, but Marty and I did come across such a universe during our travels" – now some of them were looking at him, too – "and we fetched these DVDs. They're like futuristic video tapes, but that's beside the point. We also had a run-in with the actors that played us, but that's too long a story to tell right now. Anyway, I think – I haven't watched any of it yet, either – that these movies depict the adventures of the first DeLorean. I guess that would be the only DeLorean in your universe – or rather, DeLoreans, since there are two but they are the same car… anyway, I believe these movies are about what happened that October weekend in our universe. If we do come across anything that deviates, I'll let you know, but for now it might be interesting to just watch." He looked out at the room. "If you're willing to watch it, of course."

There was a series of incomprehensible murmurs, but eventually everyone nodded or said something like "yes", "okay" or "I guess". His alternate mother put it like this: "If we believed you on all of the other crazy stuff you told us, Dr. Brown, and that turned out to be true… well, I guess we should give you the benefit of the doubt here as well."

Doc smiled, and pressed the 'play' button, bringing life to a menu of sorts. Visiting Marty gasped in turn as he recognized himself, standing before a background of the 1955 town square. Before he'd had to much time to mull over that the screen changed to a dark one, and the words 'Steven Spielberg Presents' appeared, followed by 'A Robert Zemeckis Film'. The murmuring gradually grew quiet behind him, as everyone focused on the movie and the sound of ticking clocks. Visiting Marty took his ice cream bowl from the table and leaned back.

The first scene was of Doc's garage, exactly like he remembered it. It was so strange to see all of this on tape – DVD, he mentally corrected himself. He smirked at seeing Doc's elaborate contraption to feed Einstein, then froze as the TV discussed the possibility of terrorists being linked to the plutonium theft. As he looked up, he could see his friend grimace.

"They don't show you getting shot on here, do they?" Local Marty asked just a second before Visiting Marty could.

Doc shrugged uneasily. "I really don't know" he said. "Like I mentioned before, I didn't want to see any of the DVD before you did, so I don't know what the movie depicts and what not. It was a major event, though, and crucial to getting you back in time, which is what I presume the first movie is about, so I'm afraid the chance is big that yes, they will show it. But I would, of course, be wearing my bullet-proof vest."

"Not the first time around" Calvin murmured. Local and Visiting Marty nodded nervously.

"Hey Doc?"

The sound of their voice, coming from the TV this time, drew their attention away from the subject as they watched their three year younger counterpart come in. They winced as he turned up the amplifier, and Visiting Marty flinched in anticipation as the amp exploded. "Marty!" Lorraine exclaimed.

"I'm fine, Mom" Local Marty assured her. "Look, I'm already getting back up."

They all smiled at Movie Marty's 'rock and roll' comment, and watched with interest as Movie Doc called and filled him in on what to do. Clara gave all three of them – and even Mike as well, though of course all of this was new for him – a look at their use of swearing, but they just shrugged in response. It was three years ago, after all – they couldn't take back their words now.

The first big huh moment was a while later, when 'The Power of Love' kicked in while Movie Marty skateboarded out of Doc's garage. "How does that even make sense!" Calvin exclaimed.

"I don't know, and I don't care" Local Marty replied. "One of Huey Lewis' biggest hits being the soundtrack to my life? I could totally live with that."

The next huh moment came when they watched Movie Marty be late for school, get caught by Mr. Strickland, and get told that 'No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley'. "I knew Strickland had a low opinion of me, but that makes little sense" George muttered. "I'm an author, after all. I make much more than he does on a yearly basis…"

"This is the old timeline, Mr. McFly" Mike said. "It's not until after Marty goes back in time that you become an author. In this timeline, we'll probably see you as what Marty and Calvin described you as – a spineless office worker bullied by Biff."

"Mike!" Claudia hissed.

"That's okay, Claudia" George replied. "If I'm anything like what Marty and Calvin told about me, then I deserve that epithet completely. I just thought that he was talking about… me…." He shook his head. "Thinking fourth-dimensionally, right? I really have a hard time doing that."

"Not nearly as much as I do" Lorraine said. "I should probably know this stuff better by now, having lived with a science fiction fan for nearly three decades."

"Well, I'm afraid it's only going to get more complicated" Calvin said with a grin. "Of course, we've already told you a lot of this, so most of it is going to be a retelling of our stories in detail and with pictures so you can envision it better."

Lorraine wanted to reply, but was shushed as the events on screen took everyone's attention. They remained mostly quiet from then on, through the chat with Jennifer to the scene at the dinner, even if everyone who wasn't either Marty or Calvin gawked at the appearance of George and Lorraine. "I've been trying to imagine how bad I was for two years now and I see I fell way short" George commented.

After seeing that scene, the one with the DeLorean reveal was more of an anticlimax for all of them, although the dramatic music was quite epic. The arrival of the Libyans did shake everybody up, and both Susan and Clara threw themselves at their husband's chests at the moment the Libyans' guns went off. The following chase scene was intense, and Visiting Marty found himself entranced by the movie even though he had lived through the outcome and thus knew everything would turn out fine. He had to agree with Calvin, who said that this theme tune was a good idea for Doc's phone ring tone. "It's certainly better than the old fire alarm."

They went through the rest of the movie the same awkward way, watching intensely as event after event from their lives replayed itself. Then it got to the scene where Movie Marty encountered his teenage mother, and everything got extremely awkward, a sense which Ann heightened by saying "You know Cal, seeing this I don't think I could have blamed you if you had given in to a kiss or two." That line freaked out everyone in the room and all Marty's most of all, and made sure that they would remember this moment forever – and from what little he now knew of Ann Parker's personality, Visiting Marty was sure that was exactly what she'd been aiming for.

The rest of the movie eventually passed, with Marty's plan to change the future playing out and him eventually getting sent back to 1985. That, especially, was a scene they were all awestruck at (well, except for Clara and Susan, who were terrified at watching Movie Doc climb along the clock tower – Marty belatedly realized that this was the one major scene both of their husbands had lived through). They watched through seeing Movie Doc was alive and well, Movie Marty meeting up with his new family, and finally them leaving for the future which ended the movie on Huey Lewis' 'Back In Time'. "That makes sense, you know," Local Marty said, "given how much the lyrics could pertain to us as well."

After the soundtrack was over, the crowd unanimously decided that they would watch the second movie as well. Now that they had become used to the concept, the new movie didn't contain as many shocking moments (except for the fact that Jennifer suddenly looked completely different and Movie Marty didn't seem to notice at all), although both Lorraine and George got uneasy the moment the time travelers got to the alternate 1985. Actually everybody got uneasy at that scene, all except for Doc, who was nodding enthusiastically. "This is it! This is what happened in our dimension!"

The reveal that that movie ended with going back to 1955 was received with shock, as Visiting Marty found out that the locals had never known until that moment that Biff had received the book on November 12th 1955. They got a smile back on their faces when they saw the great trouble Movie Doc and Movie Marty had to go through to get the almanac back. "You know, all we had to do was snatch the book from him in his sleep" Chris said.

"I snatched the book from him in his sleep" Calvin corrected him. "Twice, and I put it back once as well. But yeah, that's still much less complicated from what you thought you needed to go through."

Doc shrugged, unperturbed. "We figured that it was too big of a risk to have Biff own the almanac for even one day" he said. "We knew what day he got the book, so we went there and retrieved it. From what I see in your reality, we could have taken that almanac any of the days and nights until March 26th 1958 and it wouldn't have made much of a difference, but we didn't know that in advance."

The discussion ended and they all reunited in watching the movie as it showed the events of that now extra-complicated November day, along with the many encounters between their counterparts. Doc off-handedly mentioned that this day had gotten even more complicated thanks to a third visit to 1955, and then refused to explain that because he wasn't sure if it would appear in the movies or not. The movie finally ended with the original Marty getting sent back to the future, the second Marty catching up with 1955 Doc and explaining what happened only to have him faint, and then a nice trailer for the third movie, which was apparently about their adventures in 1885.

Everybody was tired when that was over, and given that it was past 10 PM, the decision to save the third movie for another time was one the majority could support (although Ann and Chris argued against that for a long time). They had another glass of wine, and as one by one the visitors started leaving, Visiting Marty decided the time to dither was over. Right now, he wanted answers.

He caught up to Jennifer and Ann Parker easily, profiting from the fact that the latter was waiting around while her sister was still chatting with Local Marty to approach her. "Hi Ann."

"Oh hi, other Marty" Ann greeted him. "Weird night, huh?"

It was the perfect set-up for his question. "No kidding" Visiting Marty replied. "I don't think I've had a night like that in a long time." Now to lure her into fake security. "Meeting so many counterparts, watching those crazy movies…" And now to spring the trap. "…and your paranoia about Calvin's health when he at most bumped into a door."

Ann paled, although to her credit she didn't do anything more than that and remained composed. "Calvin is accident-prone" she said in a cool voice that might have fooled a more trusting person. "You won't believe what weird mishaps he gets into. I guess you caught me there – after two years of dating, I have become a little paranoid about his safety."

A fake confession, a calm demeanor – man, she was good. "Oh, I understand" Visiting Marty said comfortingly. "I'm clumsy myself. What does Calvin get himself into?"

"Oh, little things" Ann said shrugging. "Shortly before we started dating, he dislocated one of his limbs by tripping over the couch in Doc's basement. He was helping with a lab experiment, and tripped over one of the couch's legs and ended up hurting his shoulder on some hard tools Doc had lying around. Most persons would have been fine – Calvin ended up with his shoulder dislocated and his arm in a sling for weeks."

Throughout her story, there had been few hesitations and no slip-ups. It was impossible to tell that she was lying, and Marty almost considered giving up. Then he reconsidered. "I guess you guys must be used to that by now" he said.

Ann nodded. "We still worry, but yeah, we often joke around that Calvin will probably get into an accident… yet again. The accidents themselves are serious, but they're just so common so it's hard to take the fact that it keeps happening seriously. I guess that's really crappy friendship on our part…"

"I understand" Marty assured her. "It's nice to have some running gag you can smile about despite everything that happens – to all of you, and to Calvin in particular." It was the one mistake of clever liars with nerves of steel – they tend to forget that not everyone is as good as they are. "I'll ask Mike what he knows about that story."

"NO! Wait!"

Jackpot.

He turned back to Ann, who looked hesitant after her own outburst but was aware that she'd been caught in the act. "You… you shouldn't bother Mike with such trivial stuff" she tried. "He's got a busy day ahead of him, working on repairing the time machine. You know he is the one out of all your counterparts who is most skilled with time travel mechanics. You do want everything to get a fresh start tomorrow, don't you? A good start will work wonders in getting the project on the road as soon as possible."

"Yeah," Visiting Marty allowed, "but I doubt one quick question would disrupt Mike's schedule as much as you are sketching. And in any case, that's something he should decide and not you."

Ann glared at him. "You don't trust me."

"Exactly."

Ann stared at him for a while, then sighed and relaxed. "Why are you so insistent on finding out about this? Can't you just accept that this is none of your business and move on?"

"I would if you weren't being so secretive about it!" Visiting Marty exclaimed. "I may not have Doc's scientific curiosity, but you can't just dangle that carrot in front of someone's nose and then snatch it away again just as he's about to reach out to it. I want to know what this whole fuss with my counterpart is all about. And if there's something seriously wrong, I want to help you out."

"And that's exactly the problem" Ann muttered.

"Whoa, wait, what?" Visiting Marty stared at her. "How could me wanting to help you guys be the problem?"

In response, Ann gestured to the stairs. "Sit down." The confused twenty-year-old did so, and Ann sat down next to him. "I'll tell you, but you have to promise not to tell Doc any of this."

Visiting Marty frowned. "No."

"Seriously, Marty" Ann insisted. "Your Doc can't know about this. He might be even more insistent than you are, and it would create a huge psychological dilemma that neither of us need in this time of crisis. We need to fix your time machine, and that should be our number one priority. Our only priority."

"Normally I would agree with you," Visiting Marty said, "but not when you're asking me not to tell my best friend something important before I even find out what that something important is. Why don't you tell me, and then I'll decide for myself whether or not I'll agree to keep it from him."

Ann sighed and relented. "Curse your stubbornness. And that goes for all of your counterparts, too." She leaned back. "All right, I'll tell you. It's a really long story, so you'll be getting the extremely condensed version." Marty nodded. "Here goes: Chris, Susan, Mike, Claudia and I aren't really from another reality. We're from another dimension."

Visiting Marty blinked. "Wait, you mean like how we are from another dimension to you?" Ann nodded. "How does that even work?"

"That is, like I said, a long story" Ann said. "Suffice to say that we didn't know at the time that we were going to another dimension instead of 'just' another reality, and we only really found out when Calvin started to erase from existence." The visitor's eyes widened at that, but he motioned for Ann to go on. "He's the only duplicate who is actually from this dimension and thus affected by erasure just like everyone else here is. However, his erasure was slowed down extremely from the quick process you know because he had hopped through several dimensions thus delaying the ripple effect – don't ask – and so we could figure out a way to save him. We first tried to prolong his life by more time jumps, but then most of us got stranded in 1885 and met Clara there. We got out of there all right, and then Clara suggested the solution – since all he needed to survive was to be from another dimension to ours, we had Mike donate a kidney to Calvin so that it would give him some of that other-dimensional immunity to survive." She smiled. "So, how's that for a condensed explanation?"

"I'm not sure I entirely get it" Visiting Marty muttered. His head was almost exploding from all that strange information. Nevertheless, one aspect of the story still caught his attention, or better, one lack thereof. "But what has that got to do with everything that's going on now?"

"The kidney is running out" Ann explained. "It could always be only a makeshift solution that would hold for a few years. Now its effect is weakening and it looks like Calvin may be hit particularly hard by the ripple effect again pretty soon." The mood on her face was grim. "We've done what we could, but we couldn't think of a permanent solution. It might be only a few months before he's a goner."

Visiting Marty leaned back against the stairs, unsure how to cope with this distressing news about his counterpart. If he had known the secret the locals had been hiding from him was this depressing, he would never have asked for clarification. To think that, while he and Doc could be going home safely in just a week or two, back to their own dimension, Calvin would be forced to peter out here just because his DNA already had a match in this universe… wait. "Wait."

"What?" Ann asked.

Visiting Marty smiled. "Why don't we take Calvin along?" It was so simple and yet so brilliant that he could barely believe he had been the one to think about it – already he was looking for an obvious flaw in the plan, but he could find none. "He would be safe in our dimension, since it's not his home, and he would be able to live happily after."

Ann nodded. "I know. And that's exactly why he didn't want any of us to tell you, and I agreed."

Visiting Marty blinked. "What? Why the hell not! That would work, wouldn't it?"

"Oh yes – scientifically speaking, it would work like clockwork" Ann said. "We discussed that very scenario several times before, even before you arrived – we had the vague concept of just taking Calvin into a random dimension then. That was when Doc and Chris started working on the DFS… the DFS-cif…"

"DFSCUPCIF" Visiting Marty reminded her, having memorized the name by heart by now.

"On that thing, right" Ann continued. "However, there was one caveat – Calvin didn't want to leave all of us behind. Not his family, not his school, not his many interests… not me. And I definitely didn't want to leave him. I can't stand the thought of him leaving our reality forever. I suggested to Doc that I could go along with him, wherever he would have to go to, but then Mom and Dad and Jennifer piped up and said that they couldn't, wouldn't leave me behind. And so every new person whom was considered eligible for moving provoked lots more people who wouldn't leave him or her behind, and in the end it looks like half of Hill Valley would have to move for everybody to be truly happy. I doubt that's what you had in mind, and I also doubt half this town would fit into your Hill Valley."

Visiting Marty nodded, dazed. "But you wouldn't be leaving him forever" he said. "You can still visit him through inter-dimensional travel. Doc's got to be able to figure out something so we could return here or vice-versa."

Ann laughed miserably. "Yeah, right. Oh, I have no doubt they could make something like that, but us actually being able to use it whenever we want to would be a completely different matter. It's the same matter with Doc and Clara – leaving her in 1885 and regularly coming to visit would have been a crappy alternative too, and they knew it. Our time machines – and from the fact that you're here, yours too – break down far too often for us to be able to rely on them for something like that. For all I know, I could be waving Calvin goodbye, intending to visit him a month later, and due to temporal trouble I'd end up never seeing him again."

Visiting Marty contemplated that. She did have a point, all things considered. The time machine was a great invention, but often unreliable, and you didn't want to be caught inside it when it started acting up – or worse, you being caught on one side of a temporal barrier and a friend being caught on the other, with no way to reach one another. If Ann truly feared losing Calvin forever, and Calvin was terrified at the thought of not seeing his family again, even if staying behind would mean his eventual death anyway… "But what do you want us to do then?" he asked desperately. "Not being able to see your best friends, girlfriend and family would be a crappy life for sure, I agree with that, but when it comes to being dead… well, there are a lot of things which would be better than that!"

Ann sighed. "I don't know, Marty" she said, suddenly appearing a lot less tough. "I've been wrecking my brain for months now and I can't find a solution. Either there is none, it's extremely hard, or it's so obvious that it's been right in front of me the whole time and I'm a complete idiot." She smiled faintly at him. "Perhaps it's a good thing we had to tell you. You can help us think of an idea."

Visiting Marty blinked. "Sure" he said. Of course, he had even less of an idea on how to repair this mess than his female friend did. "Do you want me to tell Doc about this after all, then? Out of the two of us, he is the guy with the brains."

Ann pondered that. "Only if it's really necessary" she finally said. "I've got a feeling that if you tell Doc, he'll talk about it with Chris and Emmett, it will be out in the open, and those three will start to look for a scientific solution and they'll end up with the same one you proposed because they won't take my feelings on the matter seriously. They'll mean well, of course, and they will certainly look into it, but in the end I don't think they would fully understand. They have a scientific way of looking at things which is hard to derail."

Visiting Marty considered what she had just said. "But you did use that comparison with Doc and Clara in 1885" he pointed out. "You could tell that to him. To them."

Ann shrugged. "I could" she agreed. "But they might say the two can't be compared. I know Emmett and Chris, and they're both incredibly stubborn, especially in matters of the rules of time travel."

The visitor chuckled. "Tell me about it" he said. "All right, so I won't tell Doc right away." He stood up and walked to the living room door, but turned around before he opened it. By that point, the hallway had entirely cleared – they weren't sure who had picked up on their conversation, although from what Marty had seen he was confident that only Local Marty and Jennifer and possibly Claudia and Susan could have heard them – and Visiting Marty looked directly at Ann. "But if Calvin's situation worsens – if anything bad happens to him at all that makes it clear how much risk he is in – I'm going to tell Doc, because I won't have one of my counterparts dying on my watch. I hope you understand that."

"I certainly do" Ann replied softly. "That's all right, Marty. You" – she paused, trying to come up with the right words. "You are absolutely right. There's nothing that would kill me more than having to watch Calvin die. It's just…"

Visiting Marty frowned. "Just what, Ann?"

Ann shrugged, and delivered her final sentence with a sigh. "Nothing."

Visiting Marty curiously looked after her, but walked on regardless. He felt Ann's gaze on his back as he headed back to the living room. Just a few moments later, he heard the front door shut, making it clear that Ann Parker had headed home.