Marty shut the book in shock. He had to get the diary to Doc Brown's, he knew that for sure. This book just had so much information in it. Such an invaluable resource into understanding Carl - himself.

It was so weird to Marty to see where he was the same, and to see where he was different. The main takeaways:

Carl didn't like his family very much. Or rather he did. He was just scared of turning out like his brother, Rich. Who he really didn't like so much.

Carl very much had a crush of some kind on Jennifer, but was too afraid to act on it.

Carl and April were not actually twins. They were Irish twins.

Holy shit teen angst. Marty had a fair bit himself. But Carl probably had it in spades because he didn't know how good he actually had it. Or maybe it was because he didn't have the Doc.

Marty remembered more than a few people named in this diary. And that helped a lot when it came to establishing relationships with these people.

He was quite well acquainted with Michael Parkinson, the school journalist. He'd sat down with an interview with him about the Pinheads. That was about the time of the horse meat thing. But in this timeline, there were no Pinheads - he'd erased all that. So…

Marty recoiled in horror at the realisation. 'Holy shit!' he exclaimed.

There was still horse meat in the burgers in his own native timeline, they just didn't know it yet.

Marty, however, was not familiar with the Keaton siblings. He knew Needles had many targets for his bullying. Marty himself was among them. But he didn't pay attention to most people in his classes. Hell, he barely went out socialising with his own band - he really had to change that when things got back to normal, by the way.

He had to go. He had to talk with Doc.

For the first time in a few days, his adrenaline was flowing and it wasn't accompanied by trembling hands, buckling knees, chest pains, and a feeling of impending death. It was just straight up he had to leave.

So, that's what he did. He opened the window, and crept away.

Emmett was in his lab, sleeping on the sofa in his clothes having not intended to have fallen asleep. He was awoken by a loud banging on his door, so he hurried to open it.

'Marty?'

Marty started frantically waving a book in Emmett's face. 'Doc, I found his diary, I found Carl's diary. You have to read it, Doc, you have to see what he's written -'

Emmett brought his hand to his head. 'Marty. You need to calm down, please.' He then put his hand on Marty's shoulder. 'Would you like a glass of water or a can of Pepsi or something?'

'Uh… water. Please,' said Marty.

Emmett nodded. 'Take a seat,' he said.

Marty looked around Emmett's lab. He'd seen it yesterday or earlier today or whatever time it was, but he was still freaked out by how similar it all looked to the lab he left behind in the original 1985. Then, he sat down on the sofa, dropping the diary next to him.

Emmett put a glass of water down on the coffee table opposite Marty and sat down himself. 'What is it you wanted to show me?'

Marty nodded. He picked up the glass and necked the water. Then he picked up the diary and handed it to Emmett. 'It's in here, Doc. It's all in here.'

'What is?'

'The answer to the question; Who is Carl Davis?,' said Marty.

Emmett took the diary and flicked through it. 'Oh my. He seems like a very dissatisfied young man.'

'Yeah, I don't get it, Doc, I thought I was supposed to be happier with my "real" family, but he's just as miserable as I was with my old family - the McFlys,' said Marty.

'Teenagers are often miserable, regardless of circumstances,' said Emmett, still looking through the diary. 'It's that frustration of no longer being a child, but also not being treated like an adult and feeling like your opinions hold no weight because of your age.'

Marty scoffed. 'You can say that again, Doc.'

'Your opinions are important to me,' said Emmett. 'Clearly, I was an important person to you in the previous timeline, just as you were important to me. The least I can do is get to know you.'

'Well-well, the thing is, I know some of the people that have been mentioned here. I mean, specifically, I know Mike.'

'Mike?'

'Michael Parkinson. He's a journalist on the school paper. He wants to be an investigative reporter or something and he's taking it seriously so he'll have a good college application.'

Emmett nodded. 'Michael,' he said. 'Perhaps you could talk to him at school tomorrow.'

'Uh. I don't know about that, Doc. According to the diary, his sister's pregnant.' Marty paused. 'Wait, that happened in my timeline too. She had the baby and named him Brandon.'

'The diary does suggest you should get to know Michael,' Emmet said.

'Yeah, Carl, not Marty,' Marty said. He ran a hand through his hair.

'It could be a chance to get to know more about Carl.' Emmett set the diary down on his coffee table.

Marty shrugged. 'Doesn't seem Carl knew him. He keeps referring to him as "Michael Parkinson" - full name, not regular name. Like he's some kind of celebrity.'

'Well, there is a celebrity of that name,' Emmett said. 'A British talk show host.'

Marty raised his head, unsure how to react. 'No shit. What, like Johnny Carson? Wait, how do you know that?'

'I've done some travel for science conferences,' Emmett said. 'But that's beside the point, Marty, we must get back to this.' He tapped the diary.

Marty grimaced, clearly wanting to avoid the conversation.

'Is there anything different about Carl's school life to yours, besides the obvious?'

'Um.' Marty tried to remember. 'Oh! Oh yeah! They're serving horse meat in the cafeteria!'

Emmett looked visibly disturbed. 'Well then.'

Marty shrugged, not knowing what to say. 'It's something to talk to Mike about at least.'

Emmett nodded. 'Yes. It's always good to have a connection with those you perhaps, aren't quite so familiar with. And by having a connection over this horse meat thing…'

Marty sighed. 'Yeah.'

'Listen, Marty, it's quite late. Your family may notice that you're gone.'

'I don't care, I -'

'You will care if you get punished greater than you already are,' Emmett said. 'You need to go home. Come and see me again tomorrow if you need to.'

Marty nodded. 'Okay. Yeah. Okay, Doc. I'll swing by after school.'

Marty headed back home to his not-family. And his not-sister, April, was up waiting for him as he climbed back into the window.

'Where did you just go?' she asked.

'Nowhere,' Marty replied.

'You went somewhere,' April argued. 'You're behaving really out of character, Carl, and it's more than just you getting bullied by Needles. It's scaring me.'

'There's a lot of things that are scaring me too,' Marty said, knowing that he couldn't tell her the truth or be viewed as crazy. And crazy people weren't exactly treated very kindly.

'Is that it? Do you just have anxiety?' April asked.

'I don't…' Marty shrugged. 'You know, maybe.' Not quite a lie as this entire situation he was stuck in was most definitely giving him anxiety.

'So, where did you go?'

'I… went for a walk around the block,' Marty lied. 'Had to clear my head. Urgently.'

'If Mom and Dad find out you ran away from home again, they will ground you forever. No more Bruce Springsteen concerts.'

Marty had no desire to go to a Bruce Springsteen concert anyway, but he had to pretend he did. 'Yeah. That would… suck.'

'Are you stressing out over school? Is that why you're sneaking out at night?'

'Oh yeah, school is definitely stressing me out,' Marty said truthfully. It was indeed stressing him out. He hadn't studied the same things Carl had studied. He had no idea about advanced mathematics and had even less of an idea about being a mathlete.

'Maybe you should talk to Mom and Dad,' April suggested.

'Maybe I should,' Marty agreed, missing his own mother and father as opposed to his biological mother and father. He hated these people.

No, he didn't hate them. They were nice people. But they just weren't his family. Rich was a mean bastard. He wasn't Dave who, at best, lightheartedly teased him. And April was no match for the snark of Linda's. The younger sister… what was her name? She was. But it still wasn't the same because she wasn't Linda.

'Carl. You want to get into a good college,' April said.

'Honestly, I don't know what I want right now,' Marty said. Not quite a lie, not quite the truth either. He knew he wanted to restore the timeline, but whether that was even possible or not…

'I know I want you to be more like my brother again,' April said. 'You're acting like a complete stranger.'

'Maybe I am a complete stranger.' Marty didn't look at April. He'd turned to look at the Bruce Springsteen ticket stubs. 'I don't even know who I am anymore.' He ripped the tickets off the cork board and put them in the trash.

'You're having a midlife crisis? But a teenage version?'

'Yeah. Sure. Let's go with that.'

'I've got this to look forward to?'

'No. My situation is… specific to me,' Marty said. He turned around to face April. 'Why do you call me your twin?'

'Because we're Irish twins. I was born on May 16th. You were born on June 12th. We're Irish twins.' April paused. 'Oh I get it. Now you're college bound you don't want to associate with your sister anymore. Too cool for that.'

Marty snorted, holding back a laugh. 'Carl Davis is anything but cool.'

'You're cool to me,' April said.

Marty sighed. 'Alright. It's late. I'm tired.'

'Okay. Well, if you need anyone to talk to, to just - about anything. I'm here,' April said as she walked out of Carl's room, leaving Marty in there alone.

The next day at school, Marty tried not to rock the boat. It was hard enough trying to keep up with Carl's advanced classes as it was.

Then came lunch.

Marty grabbed his lunch and looked over at April and her friends. The boy touching her hand - that must be Shaun. Definitely a boyfriend by the way she's blushing. But this wasn't the time to be thinking about April or Shaun or their friends. This was a time to try and get more information about Carl. And he had to talk to Mike about it.

Marty scanned the cafeteria, and there, sitting alone at the back table, was Mike. Taking down notes as he examined the food.

Marty put his tray on the table and sat down.

Mike looked up at him. 'Hello, Mathlete.'

'How do you know -'

'I know everyone,' Mike said. 'And before you ask, no, I won't cover the Mathlete match this week.'

'Oh, I'm not - not going either,' Marty said. 'I'm being punished.'

Mike raised an eyebrow. 'Really? Always got the impression you were more of a Dudley Do-Right.'

'Well, I ran away from home last weekend,' Marty said. Carl did. He's playing Carl. He's not really Carl. Is he?

'You know, I'd heard about that, I just didn't know it was you,' Mike flicked a few pages on his reporter's notepad. 'Maybe we could talk about that. I could write an item about it. "When Good Kids Crack: The Pressures Of Maintaining High Standard Academics".'

Marty grimaced slightly. 'Or maybe not.'

'I'll work on the title.'

'How do you know it's the academics?'

'Kind of obvious,' Mike says. 'You're a Mathlete in all these advanced classes. And you're the only kid here without a social life.'

Marty looked at Mike in shock.

Mike continued; 'Yeah, I've seen you with girlfriends, but never for very long. And you don't have friends - your closest friend is your sister. And she has a lot of friends.'

Marty looks over at April. 'Yeah. She does.'

'It's weird. I've never seen someone put so much effort into school. Even the nerds read comic books!'

'You don't know me!' Marty says defensively. He regrets the words after he blurts them out.

'I did!' Mike said. 'I did. But now, you just don't let anyone close to you. You used to, but over the course of high school, you just… you closed off. And I don't know why. I miss hanging out with my buddy.'

'You mean me?' Marty asked, stupidly.

'Don't you remember?' Mike asked. 'Back in middle school, we were going to grow up and be journalists together. Partners. Exposing wrongdoing. Just like our heroes; Woodward and Bernstein.'

Marty nodded. He knew Woodward and Bernstein - they were the Washington Post journalists who, with their source, Deep Throat, exposed President Nixon's actions in the Watergate Hotel. Which led to the scandal dubbed "Watergate".

'And then you just stopped talking to me. Until now,' Mike said.

Carl and Mike used to be friends? That was a revelation to Marty. He hadn't known this even as Marty McFly in the old timeline.

'Now I'm talking to you again and -'

'Not unless we do the item we're not. And we're billing it as Carl Davis and Michael Parkinson - your names both come first alphabetically, I'm not letting you make love to your ego.'

'I wasn't thinking that,' Marty said.

'So, tell me, Carl…' Mike tapped his pen on his reporter's notepad. 'Why did you snap?'

'I… I…' Marty had no idea what to say. 'I'm not Carl.'

'Are you mentally ill or just having an identity crisis?'

'Uh - the second one. Definitely.'

Mike nodded. 'Uh-huh. Yeah. That sounds about right. You've got no hobbies. No interests. No friends. Of course you'd be like "oh I wonder who I am"? And ever since you ended up in that body cast -

'Body cast?!' Marty exclaimed. That was news to him!

Mike kept taking 'yeah, since then, your parents have been way overprotective of you and not allowing you to try new things. Just telling you to stick with academics. Academics can only get you so far, you gotta have social connections too, if you wanna -'

'Can we circle back to "body cast"?' Marty asked.

'Yeah, when you broke your leg falling off a bike. They put you in like a body cast or something because you broke your leg here.' Mike patted at his thigh.

'The-that's the femur,' Marty supplied.

'Yeah, I knew you'd know that.' Mike nodded. 'You were laid up for like six weeks - and of course I'm there every day.'

'Yeah, you were,' Marty agreed absently.

'But your parents - even I could tell at age six that they were freaked out by it. And when you tried skateboarding and sprained your wrist, well, they banned you doing anything that could be considered dangerous.'

'So no skateboards, no bikes -'

'Nothing. You were boring. Boring as hell.'

'Yeah, I've got the feeling nobody likes me,' Marty said. 'And it's because C-uh I broke my leg?'

Mike shrugged. 'I dunno. Your parents are weird, man. I mean your dad's an excellent chef. He can make omelettes for me any day. But they're a little overbearing. I don't know how you live with them.'

'Neither would I,' Marty said. He didn't know how he was going to live with these people. He already got the sense that they'd be overprotective, but he wasn't sure since he grew up with parents that didn't really care so much about him. He wasn't sure whether it was that, or having parents that finally cared about him. So, having his suspicions confirmed that they were just extremely overbearing was something else.

'Is that why you snapped?' Mike asked.

'Wuh?' Marty asked, being torn from his thoughts.

'Your parents. Is that why you snapped?' Mike asked. 'Or have you just cracked?'

'I haven't cracked.'

Mike hummed skeptically. 'You keep on at your place, you're gonna be as cracked as Dr Brown.'

'Dr Brown?'

'The Hill Valley Nutcase.'

'I know who he is,' Marty said.

'Maybe you wouldn't be adangerous nutcase like he is, but a harmless one. Like Red yelling about Commies in the courtyard before the cops take him away.'

'Uh…'

'How do you feel about communists?'

'Well -

'Like they're fluoridating our supply of drinking water, polluting the precious bodily fluids of Americans to breed a communist nation?'

'Isn't that Dr Strangelove?' Marty asked.

'Yeah, but people actually believed it. And they believed the same thing about vaccines.'

'I don't really think about communists, to be honest,' Marty said. Which was true. He was more involved in his own life and issues to give a crap about communists or whatever in Russia. Or wherever communists were.

'You get a pass for now.' Mike turned back to his notebook.

'What are you, uh - what's in there?' Marty asked.

'Nothing that concerns you,' Mike said.

'I mean, if you're asking my view on communists and about my parents and stuff, I feel like it does concern me…?'

'Yeah, it doesn't.' Mike looked up at Marty. 'Why did you stop with journalism? Your parents deem it to be too dangerous or something?'

'I don't know,' Marty answered. He didn't even know Carl had ever been interested in journalism until now.

Mike stood up and flicked his notebook closed. 'It's been really nice talking to you again, Carl.'

'Yeah. I'm glad you kept with journalism,' Marty said.

'So am I,' Mike said. 'I know it's my calling. And I still feel like it's your calling too.'

'Maybe it is. But not right now,' Marty said. He knew music was his calling. But journalism was probably Carl's calling. And right now, he had to pretend to be Carl.

'Suits you a lot better than being a Mathlete,' Mike said. He picked up his pen and walked away.

Almost at that moment, the school bell rang.

Marty turned around. Mike had a view of the clock in the cafeteria. Of course he'd known the bell was about to ring.

True to his promise, Marty did indeed swing by Doc's after school. Though he wasn't aware he was being tailed.

'Doc! I'm here. We gotta make this quick because Carl's grounded.'

'Marty,' Emmett greeted. 'Did you talk to Michael Parkinson?'

'Yeah. And Carl referring to Mike in his diary makes no sense because I learned that he used to be best buddies with Mike.'

'Do you know what changed?' Emmett asked.

'No. Just that one day, Carl stopped talking to Mike and I guess it hurt him,' Marty said. 'Also that Carl broke his leg and that's why his parents want him not to do any extracurricular activities.'

'I read the diary in full. It does rather seem that your - or Carl's - parents are perhaps… a tad overprotective -'

'Yeah, no shit. He's not allowed to do anything alone, it seems. Mom and Dad always have an eye on him like Big Brother.'

'At least you know they care.'

'This is beyond caring. This is insane.'

'What were your parents like in the other timeline?' Emmett asked.

'They were, well, they were kinda self absorbed. Dad was always letting himself get pushed around by Biff Tannen. Mom was… she wouldn't admit it, but she was a hundred percent an alcoholic. And neither of them liked that I had an ambition.'

'Perhaps that's another part of your problem, Marty.'

'What is, Doc?'

'In both timelines, you have parents who disapprove of your hobbies and discourage them,' Emmett explained. 'Only one set let you have more freedom than the other, who are -'

'Overbearing,' Marty finished.

'You aren't used to it.'

'Yeah. Maybe not,' Marty agreed. 'You know what else I learned from Mike? Carl has no hobbies. He thinks that's why Carl snapped that night.'

'Carl must have hobbies,' Emmett said. 'That is to say, yes he does. He's a diarist.'

'A what?' Marty asked.

'A diarist, Marty. Someone who keeps a diary.' Emmett held up Carl's diary.

Marty pulled a face. He wasn't sure how else to even react to that. It's a pretty lame hobby though, isn't it?'

'But it gave us valuable information about Carl. So perhaps it's not as lame as you claim it to be.'

Marty shrugged in concession. Docwas right about that. 'Yeah.' A pause. 'Doc, I just want this to be over. I want to go back to 1955 to get back to my time -'

'We can't do that, Marty,' Emmett said. 'Not the way you're suggesting.'

'I don't want to wait. I just want to be done.'

'Be patient, Marty. I need to fix up the DeLorean too.'

Marty groaned. He'd forgotten about that - the customisations he and Doc - wholly Doc - had made to it in the 1950s. 'Yeah.'

'I need to make it so it can take plutonium again. And not lightning bolts.'

'Right, Doc. I forgot.'

'Why don't you go home?' Emmett suggested. 'You did say Carl was grounded after all.'

Marty nodded. 'Yeah. Yeah. And curfew'd.'

'There you go,' Emmett said. 'Come back tomorrow.'

'I don't wanna come back tomorrow, though,' Marty said. 'I feel I can be myself here. Not acting like Carl -'

'I know. You told me before,' Emmett said. 'And I really do sympathise.'

'I Just wish you understood.' Marty made his way over to the front door, Emmett following behind to see him off.

'So do I, Marty,' Emmett said as he opened the front door to let Marty out. 'But we can try to correct this, we can't do anything more than that.'

Marty nodded. 'Yeah. Yeah. You're right. I just wish it was over already and I could get back to being Marty McFly instead of Carl Davis. I don't even know who he is and I have to be him! It's not fair.'

'I'll tell you what's not fair - keeping secrets.'

Marty paled and his eyes widened. 'April?!'

It was April.

'You are hanging out with the town nutjob!' April said in an accusatory tone. 'That's secret one. And who the hell is "Marty McFly"? Is he secret two?'