Biff Tannen pulled his truck into a parking space inconveniently located a good distance from the front door to his apartment building. It had been a long and tiring day and all he wanted to do was grab a beer and pass out early. Only to wake up before dawn tomorrow morning, Biff thought grimly. Things had been gradually tilting on a sharp decline ever since his wife left him nearly a year ago. But there was no need to unearth those memories. Biff pulled himself out of his truck, carrying the case of auto detailing equipment with him. He wasn't getting too far with refurbishing cars for a living. It was enough for him to scrounge by on, but Biff was seriously beginning to doubt if his wife had been wrong about trying to make it as an independent businessman. He was just about ready to give up and get a real job, something he'd despise doing.

Biff made the walk to the front door of his apartment and slowly climbed the stairs to his room on the seventh floor. The puce hallway carpet was stained and grimy and the slate colored walls were cracked and in terrible need of being repainted. As he made his way to his door, he fumbled in his pocket for his key. He found it and unlocked the door and stepped inside. Cartons, wrappers and TV dinner boxes littered the floor of his cramped apartment, the floor carpet the same color (and griminess) as the hallway matting. There was a small pea-colored love seat on one wall and opposite it a desk with a small black and white television set, complete with a standard poor man's coat hanger antenna. A mini-refrigerator sat just next to the sofa, completing the living room of his studio apartment. Other than that, there was a kitchen, a bedroom and a much too small bathroom.

A young woman, about nineteen, with short brown hair and a puckered face, dotted with many brown freckles, sat in the love seat. In her lap she held a small girl with thin blond hair and bounced her up and down on her knees.

"Daddy's home," Biff smirked as he moved across the room.

The babysitter looked up at Biff as he entered and she stood, setting the girl on the floor. "'Bout time," she remarked. She chewed a large wad of pink bubble gum as she spoke, the glob of stickiness apparent behind her lips as she chomped down on it open-mouthed. "You know I don't work this late, Tannen."

"Couldn't help it, whelp," Biff dug into the pocket of his green Adidas sweat suit and pulled out his wallet. He selected a few bills and shoved them toward the girl. "Same time tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," she snatched the bills away. "But I'm not working past nine again."

"Sure," Biff nodded as the girl grabbed her purse from the coffee table and hurried out of the room, closing the door behind her. "Hey, Agnes, baby," Biff kneeled next to his six-year old daughter and extended his arms. "How you doin', baby?"

The little blond grimaced at Biff and stood still where she was on the floor, sucking on her forefinger. Biff sighed and stood, wincing from the pain in his back. "Don't you say hi to daddy?"

Agnes looked around, wide-eyed, as if searching. "Where's daddy?"

That bitch has already got her trained like a mutt, Biff fumed to himself. "I'm your daddy, sweet-heart," Biff told her. "Not that butt-head your mommy's sleeping with."

Agnes didn't seem to be listening, or she didn't understand. Either way, she continued to search the apartment expectantly. Annoyed, Biff bent down and heaved the girl up in his arms. "Ready for bed, Agnie?"

The little girl nodded, still sucking her finger as her eyes wandered the room. "When do I go back home?"

Biff sighed with frustration as he took her to the bedroom and laid her in the small bed he had bought just for her weekly weekend visits. "This is your home too," he said to her, but the little girl didn't seem to understand. She simply sat up in bed and stared up at Biff.

"Can I see mommy and daddy tomorrow?" she asked.

Biff grimaced. "Not tomorrow," he said. "All right, Agnie? Weekends you stay with daddy. Now go to bed. Daddy'll see you in the morning," As the small girl turned onto her side and closed her eyes, Biff left the room. He closed the door behind him and returned to the living room and collapsed on the love seat, exhausted. It was all too much now. Everything that had happened to him over the past few years just kept piling up and it had more than begun to take its toll.

Biff reached down and pulled out a beer from his mini-refrigerator. When had this become his life? He remembered back to a few years ago when he thought he was happy. When he was married and just starting his auto detailing business. Even then, though, he wasn't happy. He had an inner-rage that had built up inside of him since he was a child. As he grew up, it had never left him. Not long after he got married he began exploding at his wife and would spout obscenities at her over the most ridiculous things. It was no wonder she left him, though Biff would never admit as much to himself. He had always felt bitter and cheated, ever since his parents had died when he was nine. That would probably never change.

Biff settled back in his seat and took a long swig from his beer can. He just wanted to make his aches go away and forget about everything. Sometimes it was the only way he could continue on, by drinking himself into a stupor. That seemed to ease the pain of the wounds of reality, at least for some time. Sometimes it was all he could look forward to.

Biff closed his eyes and leaned his head back. He kept hoping things would get better. But they never did and he sincerely doubted they ever would. He had gotten a rotten deal from the start. And no matter how badly he wished to change that, he knew that he never could.

 Doc Brown lay in bed, his neck turned and staring unblinking at the digital clock on the stand across from him. The time flashed to 10:00 PM. He craned his neck now to look at his wife lying by his side. She lay on her back, her eyes shut, dozing. Now he made his move. He gently slid the sheet and blanket covering him off and pushed them aside. Slowly he climbed out of the bed, moving one leg off the edge at a time and standing up straight, the springs of the mattress squeaking as his weight was removed. Doc winced at the noise which sounded a thousand times louder to his culpable ears.

Doc looked around the master bedroom. It had been almost two weeks since he and Clara and the boys had moved out of his old garage and into the Victorian house set upon a secluded hill on Mill Road. It wasn't cheap, especially considering Doc's budget, but he had decided that he needed to get his family a home at all costs. The garage was just no place to raise children. Unfortunately, his funds of 1985 weren't quite large enough to satisfy his needs. It was then he used the time machine again for the first time since he and his family had moved to 1985.

He had promised himself it would only be one quick trip. He'd travel to the future to borrow some money from Marty Senior, who was glad to do it, and that would be that. But then it seemed to snowball. He wanted to move his family right away, but finding a suitable house ready for them to move into immediately was a bit of challenge. So Doc traveled ever reluctantly a few months into the past to purchase the Victorian home he had located shortly after he had returned from the future.

Then, after some sticky questions began to arise from Hill Valley residence about the sudden appearance of his family, Doc again returned the future where he could forge birth certificates for the boys and Clara, as well as a marriage license and adoption records. The phony documents wouldn't be noticed as fraudulent as the technology, which wasn't quite legal in that time period, used to produce them wouldn't exist for quite a good many years.

Now the time travel bug had bitten him again. This time Doc had convinced himself that it was necessary that he close a bank account he had set up on his first trip 2015 and erase all information on himself he had irresponsibly registered in order to get the future modifications to the DeLorean time machine. At first he pushed it aside as trivial. But the more he thought about it, the more convinced he had become that the job must be completed.

The worst of his dilemma, and Doc felt awfully remorseful about it, was that he had decided not to tell his wife, Clara, about his time trips. On his first excursion to the future, he had persuaded himself that it was not important to tell her as it would only upset her. She already despised time travel enough from her previous experiences. And he really hadn't planned on going on any more trips. But as the problems in the present began to pile up, Doc found himself taking the time train out more and more, each time telling himself it would be his last trip and it was not necessary to confide to his wife.

Hopefully, this truly would be his last journey through time. Though he hated to admit it to himself, he was having trouble giving it up. He realized the dangers and recognized the need to get rid of the time machine for good. But it was his greatest inventions and he doubted he'd be able to top it. Perhaps subconsciously (and a little consciously, too) he was intentionally putting it off. It had to be done, though ... eventually.

Doc found his clothes from earlier that day piled in a heap on the floor in a corner of the room. He slipped on the tan pants and button-up hawaiian shirt and skulked out of the room. The old house creaked and groaned as all old houses did. The boys, Verne more than Jules, had been somewhat discomforted by the strange noises the first few nights. Looking down from the upstairs hall at the spacious living room below, Doc even felt goosebumps. It didn't feel like home, not yet. Most of the rooms were bare and gave the whole place a haunted house vibe, especially when crawling around in the darkest of night.

Doc moved down the stairway, the steps creaking under his weight, seemingly echoing through the empty house. Doc made sure to bring his keys to the house and the DeLorean, which at present was the family's only mode of transportation, aside from his old step-van, and left his home, locking the door behind him. Again he had gotten out without being noticed by any of his family. He had almost wanted to be caught, so he could tell someone what he was doing! He knew how unhealthy it was to keep such secrets bottled up. But he wouldn't keep it secret for much longer. He was beginning to grow ever more confident with each passing day that he would no longer need the time train. And he was really running out of excuses to hop through time.

Emmett went around to the attached garage outside and climbed into the 1982 DeLorean he had brought back with him, thanks to a generous donation from Marty's future self, from the year 2020. He wouldn't be long. He'd drive to the forest, take the train to the future, hide it in the Eastwood Ravine, close the bank account, and be done in a few hours. Maybe then, if it seemed all the time traveling jobs were settled, he'd begin to take the time machine apart that very weekend. He had to stop living in the future and relying on time travel. He had to live in the present.

Doc put the car into gear and rolled out of the garage. Noting that the dark street was empty, Doc flipped on the hover circuits and the car lifted into the dull night's sky, disappearing from view. Yes, living in the present was the only thing to do. Sooner or later he'd have to push his pipe dream aside and focus on more important matters, like his family. That was what was really important. Nothing else meant more to him.

 After he was sure Agnes was asleep, Biff decided to go for a walk. It's not like he'd be able to sleep, not in his mood. He contemplated stopping at a bar and drowning his worries there, but he knew he'd have to get up early that morning and head over to the McFlys' first thing to begin work on the family's four automobiles, as he did every month or so. And he'd get hell from George McFly if he was late again. He really wanted to knock his lights out! In the past, he would have done just that. But McFly wasn't like that, not anymore. He had stood up to Biff, and from that day on he had gotten a certain amount of respect and no one pushed him around after that. Besides, he needed the butt-head's business.

And he didn't want to be out too long anyway. Despite his callous demeanor, Biff really cared about that little girl and worried about leaving her alone. He wanted her to grow up right and have the life he really couldn't give her. Though, he told himself, his presence in her life could only hinder her chances of breaking the Tannen curse.

Biff, instead, decided to sulk in a more healthy fashion. On the off-chance that he wasn't up to getting plastered, Biff found himself going to the Eastwood Ravine. He'd sit in his truck, near the edge of the ravine, and think for a long time, hours on end. Sometimes, if the night's stars twinkled just so brightly in the sky, he forgot about all his worries and began to see how fortunate his life was, compared to some horrible alternatives. He wouldn't stay long, he assured himself. Just until he got too tired or didn't feel so damned depressed.

So Biff took his truck and drove up to the ravine. There he parked and rolled down the windows to let the frigid night's breeze in. There weren't many stars that night, which just made Biff even more depressed. He hadn't been to the canyon for months and of all the nights, he had to have chosen one of the grimmest.

After a long while, and feeling no better or tired, the old also-ran started the engine and decided to head home to his dreary home and life.

Just then, though, a distance down the ravine, Biff saw a resplendent flash of light, accompanied by a loud, thundering boom. Two more of each followed in unison and a moment later, from the ravine, Biff saw some sort of large spaceship float out of the canyon and fly toward town. Shocked as he was, curiosity immediately grabbed hold of him. Quickly, he put his truck into reverse, pulled out, and followed in the direction the vehicle had traveled, making sure to keep the obscure thing in his windshield at all times. More than a few times he was certain he had lost it. Then he saw its exterior glisten against the moon's light and continued his chase.

It wasn't long before the vessel had flown straight past the town square and slowed to a stop on the outskirts of Hill Valley. There it descended from the sky and slowly disappeared behind the tall standing tree's foliage of the Oakdale Woods forest. By this time, Biff was sure he wasn't imagining things, as his mind had oft-deluded him after he'd had a few too many drinks. Deciding it was best to keep quiet, Biff cut the engine at the edge of the forest and cautiously made his way through the brush on foot, searching for the unidentified flying object.

Then he saw it, quite larger than he had anticipated, sitting in a large clearing in the forest. Even more shocking, it was a train! A flying train! Biff stayed put where he was, hidden in the coppice as the doors to the train swung open and a figure emerged.
It took Biff a moment to recognize the man, and when he did, his mouth dropped lower than it had already. It was Doc Brown, the local nutcase scientist he sometimes saw hanging out with George McFly's kid, rambling to himself as he pushed his thumb against a button on the wall of the locomotive and the doors snapped shut. Now things were really starting to become odd. Biff strained his ears and listened very carefully through the chirps of crickets and the howl of the wind to Doc's muttering.

"That's it," Doc said, almost too inaudible to understand, though Biff could just make it out if he listened closely. "No more time travel, I suppose. I've got better things to worry about." Then Doc stopped and glanced over his shoulder directly in Biff's direction. For a moment, Biff panicked and almost sprinted away from the scene. But then the Doc turned away and looked up at the sky, oblivious to the auto detailer's presence. "Yes," Doc continued to himself. "It's time I took care of my family."

Then the scientist went around to the back to the train and climbed into the boxcar attached. From it, a DeLorean floated out, then landed on the ground. Doc emerged again to close the box car shut, then returned to the DeLorean, still murmuring to himself. Then the sportscar lifted into the sky and disappeared from the forest.

Once the car was out of sight, Biff stepped out of the brush and approached the train. He surveyed the thing very slowly and carefully. It flew! And the car Doc Brown had, it flew too! But how was that possible? Now that he recalled, Biff remembered seeing such a flying car less than two months ago just outside the McFly's driveway. And McFly's kid was always hanging around that crackpot scientist.

Biff's mind processed all the new information at a mile a minute. And had Brown said something about time travel? Biff took a look at the train again. If that really was what the locomotive was ... Biff grinned to himself and scuttled up to the doors of the train. How did they open? There was no handle. Then he saw the plate Doc Brown had pushed his thumb against to make the doors close. He, too, brushed his finger against the plate, but it did not glow green as it had under Doc's thumb. Instead, it glowed red and the doors remained shut.

Frowning to himself, Biff attempted a few more times to get the doors open to no avail. Then he stepped back, taking a look at the time machine again. And now he was sure that was what it was! With that machine he could fix everything about his past! With that machine he was like a God! He could provide for his daughter and be happy! And damn it, did he want to be happy! But he couldn't get into the train, not without Doc Brown. There had to be some way ...

Biff took another step back. Yes, there was a way. If he kept an eye on Doc Brown, maybe there was. Taking one last look at the strange locomotive, Biff quickly shuffled out of the forest and climbed back into his truck. He had, by now, forgotten all about his misery. There was too much to do than to worry about that! And it wouldn't be long before it didn't even exist! He'd make it happen, somehow!

Biff started the engine and began the drive home. Tomorrow was a new day. And his luck and life were about to change.

"Emmett," Clara shook Doc softly. He murmured, refusing to open his eyes. "Emmett ..."

Doc turned onto his back and stared up at his wife, now fully dressed in a green modern 1985 dress and frowning down at him through the sunlight that peered through the bedroom window. "Yes?" the scientist asked groggily. Since he had returned home that night he hadn't slept much. He couldn't help but worry about whether everything was settled in 1985 and if he needed the time machine to perform any last minute tasks.

"Marty's here to see you," she said. "Should I tell him to come back later?"

"What time is it?" Doc rubbed his forehead.

"Nearly noon," Clara frowned. "You haven't been sleeping well lately. Are you all right, Emmett?"

Doc jolted up in bed and quickly climbed out without answering his wife's question. "Tell Marty I'll be right down."

Clara watched him for a moment as he pulled out a pair of jeans and a colorful shirt from the bedroom closet. Something was bothering him. And it was something he didn't want to tell Clara about. That bothered her, the fact that he would keep something from her. But she pushed it out of her mind, as she had for the last month. She was hoping the problem would simply disappear as soon as they got settled in 1985.

As she stepped through the doorway and headed to the stairs, she realized that she too was a bit jittery over the events of the last month. And there was still so much to do! They had to get the kids into school, Emmett had been prodding her to perhaps get a teaching job in 1985, plus they needed a new motor carriage, more furniture for the house, and, well it just seemed like they'd never get everything accomplished.

Clara turned the corner and entered the living room. Marty sat in a love seat which was set a few feet away from the fireplace. A fire was blazing, heating the chilly room, crackling behind the thin screen. Marty was bent over, rubbing his raw hands together just inches away from the flames, attempting to rub the wintery chill out of his body. He looked up at Clara expectantly as he heard her enter the room, the floorboards creaking with her every step.

"Emmett will be down in a minute, Marty," Clara nodded to the teenager, then continued past him, toward the door which led to the kitchen.

Marty stood and began strolling around the room. There wasn't much to look at (the room was terribly unfurnished). The love seat and a table with Doc's old television set were the only items in the bare room. Doc wasn't wealthy anymore, and Marty hadn't expected his friend to get a place for his new family as quickly as he had. He still wasn't sure where he had gotten the money from, but from the looks of things, he was getting pretty low on the green stuff.

Doc stumbled down the stairs a moment later. "Marty!" the scientist smiled enthusiastically. "How are you?"

"Fine, Doc," Marty returned his grin. "I've got the stuff in my truck that you called me about last night." Then, noticing the scientist's fatigued appearance, the teenager added: "Everything okay?"

"Yes, fine," Doc passed Marty and collapsed in the love seat, holding his head in his hands.

"Are you sure?" Marty approached the scientist and sat on the arm of the love seat. "You're not looking too hot."

Doc looked up at Marty, a bit of surprise on his face. "I suppose not," he finally murmured. "You know, Marty, these last few weeks have been awfully ... strenuous."

Doc stood with much effort and began pacing, his hands clasped behind his back. "But I think things are finally getting on track." He turned to face Marty now, a serious expression masking his face. "I think I'll begin dismantling the locomotive today."

"That's pretty heavy duty, Doc," Marty said. "I mean, are you sure you're ready to get rid of it ... for good?

Doc tossed his hands up in the air and again began pacing. "Of course! We've already seen what damage a time machine can wreak on the space and time continuum! I've already caused more vicissitudes to the timeline than I care to be responsible for! No, Marty, I'm afraid the time has come."

"Whatever you have to, Doc," Marty shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "I just don't want you to do something you'll regret."

"Believe me," Doc turned his back to Marty and looked out the nearest window, toward the woodland beyond: "I won't."

"Are you gonna take the time machine out for one last spin?" Marty asked. Doc spun around, his eyes bulging with shock at the question. "I mean, just to get it out of your system."

"I've had my fill," Doc said simply. "To be quite honest, I haven't been as candid with Clara about using the time machine as I had promised."

"What do you mean?"

Doc paused for a long moment, contemplating whether he should tell his friend the truth. Finally, he breathed out and plunged forward: "I've been commuting between the present and the future for the past month," the scientist said quickly. Before Marty could absorb this bit of information, Doc plowed ahead: "But I wasn't doing it for pleasure or to get in my last kicks. I needed to go to the future to get things set up for my family! They couldn't live in that godforsaken garage any longer! I had to find us a proper home and I didn't have the finances to do it, and I could think of no other way to go about it!"

"Hey, Doc, don't worry about it," Marty put his hand on Doc's shoulder. "You don't have to sweat over it with me. I just think you'd better worry about Clara."

Doc looked around the room, his heart skipping a beat as he checked to make sure his significant other hadn't entered unannounced. "Don't worry," Doc breathed a sigh of relief as he realized it was just him and Marty. "After we get everything settled here in 1985 I'll tell her about everything. She won't be pleased, but I'm sure she'll accept the news with a little more approval if the time machine's in a junk heap at the time."

"Well, you're the doc, Doc," Marty answered. "I'm sure everything'll work out. You want me to get the stuff?"

"I'll help," Doc nodded, then followed Marty to the front door, making certain to grab his peacoat from the coat rack.

The cold wind blew harsh, so Marty and the scientist hastened to the truck where four different boxes sat. Doc went to the DeLorean which was parked just in front of Marty's Toyota 4x4 and pulled open the front trunk. "Let's put the boxes in here for now."

"What for?" Marty scooped up a box and carried it over to the DeLorean.

As Doc passed him to grab his own box, the scientist called back to him: "I want to get rid of this junk personally."

Marty joined Doc back at the trunk to grab another box after having loaded the first into the DeLorean. "You're not going to keep it?"

"No," Doc said, heaving a box up into his arms, and carried it over to the sportscar.

Doc and Marty dumped the boxes into the DeLorean's trunk and Marty went back for the fourth box, carried it over, and dropped it in. "That all of it?" Doc asked.

"Besides the big stuff," Marty replied, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. "I left that at the train tracks. So what're you going to do with all of it?"

Doc bent into the DeLorean's trunk and pulled open the flaps of the first box and sifted through the loose piece of mechanics. "It's too dangerous to keep lying around. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I want to get rid of it as soon as possible." Doc paused as he found the object he was searching for. From the box he lifted out the flux capacitor. The plastic covering was shattered and the inside's electronics were jumbled. It no longer had the familiar "Y" shape, two of the wires having been stripped out of position. Doc stared at the device for a long moment, smiling to himself through recollection. "You don't know how long it took me to get the correct model for this."

"Couldn't have been more than thirty years," Marty quipped. "You sure you want to get rid of the train?"

Doc continued staring at the wrecked flux capacitor. "Of course I don't want to. But I have to, Marty. For everyone's safety. I can't be selfish." Doc now dropped the flux capacitor in the box and stood straight, suddenly very determined. "Just because it's what I want, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do."

Marty sighed. "All right, Doc. You want any help? I've got some tools in my garage."

Doc looked at Marty for a long moment. "I think I have enough tools ... Although ..." Again, Doc trailed off, thinking to himself. "With the tools I have, it'll take months to finish with the train! But if I got some technology from the future ..."

"But I thought you said you were done ..." Marty said uncertainly.

"I was," Doc answered immediately. "But the longer it takes me to disassemble the time machine, the more time I have to falter. I'd rather be done with it in a matter of days." Now Doc began pacing, murmuring to himself. "I'll go to the future, pick up the necessary instruments to dismantle the train, and perhaps a few more for my own personal use, then return here and begin disassembling it at once! And the future might be the best place to drop off this junk," Doc gestured to the boxes of salvaged electronics.

"So that'll be the last time trip?" Marty asked.

"Yes, it will be," Doc said decidedly, shutting the DeLorean's trunk. "There's no sense in delaying the inevitable any longer, Marty. Tonight I'll make the final voyage."

Doc suddenly about-faced and began to return to the front door. "Hey, Doc!" Marty called after him. The scientist spun around to meet his friend's gaze. "Uh, do you think ... You know, I could go with you? To the future."

"Why?" Doc asked simply.

Marty shrugged. "I guess just to get my last kicks in. I mean, I've been involved with this time travel shit from the beginning. Literally." Marty smiled, remembering back to the day that he was accidently propelled to 1955, and the first day that Doc realized time travel.

"I guess you have been," Doc said, as if only realizing this for the first time. "If you come, though, you have to stay with the train. If your son or your future self spots you it could get delicate."

"Hey, no problem," Marty grinned, then held up two fingers pressed side by side. "Scout's honor."

"All right," Doc agreed. "Meet me at the Oakdale Forest tonight at 10:00."

"Okay. See you tonight," Marty nodded, then watched as the scientist disappeared inside. Even the teenager didn't quite understand why he wanted to go. He just did. He knew the Doc was right about the dangers of time travel, but it was still an amazing experience. Having delivered the scrap parts that he had collected of the old time machine a couple months ago, Marty pulled the flaps of his jean jacket in close to his form to protect him from the howling and frigid wind and returned to his truck. He was going to practice with his band that evening, but now Marty decided he should cancel that meeting, just to be sure he got to the forest on time. He didn't want Doc leaving him behind, especially considering it was going to be the last time trip ever.

Marty climbed into his truck and his eyes shifted to his rear-view mirror. Funny. There was a lone car parked at the foot of the hill, on the side of the road. A truck, actually, that looked awfully familiar to Marty, though he hardly paid it any attention. Instead, he looked away from the mirror, started the truck, and pulled out of Doc's driveway.

He had a big night ahead and he had better things to worry about.

 He couldn't wait much longer. Biff glanced down to his the truck's clock radio, noting that it was after 9:30 at night. If Doc Brown left his house to use the time machine that night, he didn't want to miss him. That would be his only chance. But he wasn't even sure when Doc would use the time machine again. He'd wait another hour, Biff decided. Then he'd go home and try again the next night.

A few minutes passed and, much to Biff's delight, as he sat tapping his finger against his truck's dashboard, he saw Doc Brown creep out of the white walls and gray roof Victorian house, which sat on the hill above, and hustle over to his garage to the right. He hadn't known that Doc had moved from that old piece of trash garage he used to live in until earlier that day when he had tracked the scientist down. Which, if the gossip around town was accurate, Biff couldn't understand how he had scrounged up enough money for such a ritzy place. He had his suspicions, though. People didn't create time travel and keep it an esoteric concoction for reasons of self-abnegation. Not only that, but apparently he had gotten married and adopted two children. Biff knew it was bad when Emmett Brown's life started to look better than his.

From the garage a moment later, the DeLorean sportscar pulled out and rolled down the hill until it reached the street where Biff had parked his truck. Doc didn't notice the truck, thank goodness, as he accelerated the car down the road. Biff pulled out a second later to follow the car, opting to keep his lights off in order to remain hidden in the bleakness. It wasn't long before the DeLorean lifted into the air, as Biff had seen it do the other night, and disappear into the sky. He could just make out the vehicle's form in the darkness, if he looked carefully, but he didn't bother. He knew where Doc Brown was going. There was no doubt in his mind.

 There was no doubt about it: Marty was late. Doc paced back and forth along the side of the time machine, glancing at the wristwatch on his left wrist every now and then, then switching to glimpse the one on his right. It was almost 10:15. What could be keeping that kid? Doc knew he should have called Marty before he left, considering his habitual lateness. If he didn't show up soon, though, Doc would have to leave without him. If he waited too long, he feared that his wife might notice his absence, and he didn't want to have to fabricate an alibi. He had deceived Clara more than enough already and he didn't wish to take it any further by forcing himself to lie directly to her face. He wasn't even sure that he could, if it came to that.

Deciding to wait a few minutes longer, Doc made a few last minute checks of the train. He slid open the compartment connected to the thrusters on the back of the train and took a look inside. There was plenty of room, should he need it, to carry all the instruments from the future back to the present. Then he pulled his head out of the compartment and glanced at his watch one more time. It was past time to go. He had told Marty to meet him at 10:00 and it didn't appear that he was going to show up. Doc went to the left side of the time train and pushed his thumb against the identification plate and the doors to the train swung open. Doc climbed inside the locomotive and went to the main panel to set the destination time.

Now was Biff's chance. He had been waiting anxiously for the past twenty minutes for Doc Brown to open the train's doors. Now the opportunity had arisen. He felt for the .38 revolver he had stuffed in his sweatsuit's pants pocket. He would probably need it to get Doc Brown out of the time machine. He didn't want to shoot him, but he was ready to do whatever it might take.

Biff took a deep breath to steady his nerves. It was now or never. He pushed open the driver's side door of his truck and began to step out. He wanted to do this slowly, so he didn't falter. He made his way quietly through the brush, broken leaves crunching under his boots, until the clearing was only feet away. He stopped and stood erect, looking into the train's doorway. It was time. He took a deep breath one more time and moved forward.

"Yo, Doc!" Biff took a startled step back as Marty McFly's voice carried through the still forest. What the hell was he doing here?

Doc Brown emerged from the train, his eyes wide as he glanced in the direction of the voice. Then Marty appeared in the clearing a few yards away carrying the pink hoverboard from the future with him. Doc climbed down the train's stairs and hustled over to the teen's location, Marty meeting him half-way as he was jogging toward the train.

"You're late," Doc said curtly.

"I got lost in the forest," Marty vindicated his tardiness. "I couldn't find the clearing."

"All right," Doc accepted the excuse. "What's that for?" he gestured toward the hoverboard.

"I thought I might do some hoverboarding to keep me busy at the ravine," Marty answered.

Doc couldn't see the harm in that. "Okay. Get in the train and we'll get ready to go."

Marty nodded and rushed toward the locomotive and climbed in. Meanwhile, Doc collected some forest scraps for the Mr. Fusion and then returned to the train to load them in, closing the doors behind him. Marty took a seat in the back and buckled his seat belt. "Remember," Doc looked over his shoulder at the teenager, "you have to stay with the train. I shouldn't be gone more than an hour. Got it?"

"No problem," Marty nodded in agreement.

Doc turned around to face the main panel again. A sudden pain grasped his chest. This would be his last trip to a foreign time. He tried to turn his lips up, but his muscles were stiff and would not allow him to stop frowning. Today was the end of time travel and the beginning of something else. The beginning of his life. He didn't know what was going to happen. He couldn't be sure and he didn't want to know. That was the great thing about life.

You never knew what the future held.

Doc settled into the conductor's seat and pulled on the hover lever. The train lifted into the sky and ascended out of the forest. Doc glanced at the two screens before him at the obscure winter night surrounding the locomotive. Suddenly the frown vanished and Doc found himself smiling.

Yes, today was the beginning of his life. His real life. And that was something to look forward to.

Then, he accelerated the train forward.

Doc landed the locomotive in the Eastwood Ravine and he and Marty took the DeLorean to level ground. It was still dark, the sun yet to rise, and Marty could hardly recognize that they were now in a different time period. Doc landed the DeLorean on the edge of the ravine and turned to Marty. "All right. This is where you get out."

Marty obeyed, pushing open the gull wing door and stepping out of the car. He tossed the hoverboard to the ground and it floated a few inches above it. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets, the weather not much warmer, though it was a bit, than it was back home. "You sure you won't need any help?" Marty raised his eyebrows at the scientist hopefully.

"I'll be fine," Doc insisted. "Stay here," he said sternly. "Remember what happened last time?"

Marty nodded without speaking. He would hate to get thrown into that orphanage again, though now it never existed, so he guessed he really didn't have to worry about that. He still wouldn't mind seeing the future Hill Valley one last time, though. Marty turned to perhaps voice a protest, but the harsh expression on the scientist's face made Marty snap his mouth shut again.

"I'll only be gone for an hour or so," Doc assured him, them leaned over to pull Marty's door closed. "Don't go anywhere," Doc stressed again, then pulled the door shut. A moment later, the DeLorean floated into the air and ascended toward Hill Valley.

Marty kicked his feet against the gravel, a few pebbles bouncing away from him. He looked over toward Hill Valley, the town hardly visible from where he stood. He could have seen just as much if he had stayed in his own time. Now the teenager was beginning to wonder just why he had wanted to come along. If anything, at least he could say he had been one of the last people to travel through time, including chronologically, if Doc hadn't traveled further ahead through time than the present destination.

Marty continued to look out toward the beckoning town. He was really getting tempted to try to hike into Hill Valley and glimpse the future one last time, but then he realized how long that would take. By the time he got into town, Doc would most likely be on his way back and he'd hear hell from the scientist about how irresponsible he'd been acting.

Behind him, Marty heard a faint noise, like the sound of two pieces of metal grating together. He glanced over his shoulder to see what had induced the sound and, finding nothing out of the ordinary, turned to look at the town again, uninterested in the noise. He took a look at his watch which indicated that it was 10:30 at night at his present. He'd have to reset it again when they got back. He had forgotten the last few times, which had gotten him in hot water with his girlfriend and at school for being late for a few dates and homeroom, sequentially.

Marty balanced his foot on the hoverboard, moving the board back and forth above the ground. He wasn't in the mood to skate around the ravine now, the early morning a bit too chilly for his tastes. Then came that noise again, interrupting the teenager's thoughts, followed by a slow chugging. This time Marty took a longer look in that direction. What the hell was that? It sounded as if it was coming from the ravine. Marty's eyes narrowed into slits and he took a few steps toward the edge of the canyon. The chug-chugging grew quicker in succession. Marty broke into a jog and, just as he reached the edge of the ravine, he heard a train whistle blow and echo off the canyon's walls.

Marty's eyes went wide as he stared into the ravine and saw the time machine accelerating through the gorge. But that was impossible! "Hey!" Marty waved his hands at the train, not knowing what else to do. It didn't stop. Instantly the train was surrounded with blue light and disappeared like a flash of lightning, two fire trails continuing in its tracks. The trails faded and the ravine grew ominously silent, bar the chirping of crickets which whispered through the early morning.

Marty continued to stare into the ravine, horrified, mouth agape, not quite believing what he had just seen. "What the hell?" the teenager murmured under his breath. How could the train have been stolen? He and Doc were the only ones who were in the ravine for crying out loud! At least he hadn't seen anyone else. But someone had stolen the time machine! And that meant that they were trapped in the future! Marty looked back toward the town of Hill Valley. Without any way to contact Doc, he'd just have to wait for him to return. Even then, Marty wasn't sure there was anything they could do.

Without the time machine, they were stranded in the future.

 As soon as Biff heard the DeLorean leave the ravine he climbed out of the storage space built into the locomotive's back thrusters where he had hidden himself after Doc Brown had disappeared into the train with McFly's kid. As he climbed out, he just saw the DeLorean ascend over the ravine's edge. It didn't appear that Doc Brown or McFly had noticed him. Now was his chance. To his delight, Biff saw that Doc had carelessly left both the boxcar's door and the locomotive's gullwing doors opened. Yes, this was his chance. Biff quickly hobbled over to the train's doorway and climbed in.

It was dark inside, too dark for him to see much, let alone figure out how the train worked. He had seen the scientist collect some twigs and leaves, but he wasn't sure for what reason. Surveying the shadowed panel for a moment, Biff reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his Auto Detailing matchbooks. He struck a match and took a long look at the panel.

After a few moments, he found the switch which activated the time circuits. Then he found the LED display which allowed him to enter the specific date he wished to travel to. Quickly, he punched in the date. By that time, the match had burnt out and Biff struck a new one to once again cast him light.

There were labels all over the main panel. One said "DRIVE TO 88." Another, under a lid labeled "MR. FUSION," said "FILL WITH REFUSE BEFORE TEMPORAL DISPLACEMENT." From this, Biff easily deduced how to work the train. The hover lever, too, was marked and, after filling the "MR. FUSION" with scraps of foliage and branches, he started the train. There was a switch on the main panel which activated the locomotive's doors. Biff flicked the switch and the doors drew in and snapped shut. Then he pushed forward on the lever marked "ACCELERATE".

The train moved forward and Biff watched through a screen labeled "FRONT VIEW" as the steam engine advanced through the ravine. So pleased was he with himself over discovering the secret of the time machine, Biff took a seat in the conductor's chair and leaned back, folding his arms over his chest and smiling smugly to himself. Then, as if just deciding, he reached up and pulled on the train's whistle chord, as if to shout out his success to the world.

As the train began to reach 88, which Biff assumed from the labels was the speed needed to acquire "temporal displacement", the auto detailer sat up in his seat and braced himself, grinning from ear to ear. When he was finished, everything would be different. He would finally have the life he always wanted! And there was no one who could stop him.

 It hadn't taken Doc long to find the instruments he needed. He purchased a couple boxes full of equipment using some ancient cash, compared to the current year's standards. He loaded the boxes into the DeLorean's trunk, fitting them snugly inside between the boxes of totaled time machine parts, and was done as quickly as he had hoped to be, and without drawing much of any attention to himself. It seemed he'd even beat the one hour time frame he'd estimated. Though, he was sure to take his time on the drive home. What was the point in rushing his late trip through time?

But soon Doc was out of Hill Valley and there wasn't much to observe, short of what could be seen in the present. When he returned to the ravine, he noticed Marty pacing back and forth, his head lowered in careful consideration. When the teen heard the car's engine above for the first time, he immediately took his eyes off the ground and waved for Doc to lower the DeLorean.

Doc brought the car down next to Marty and the teen didn't hesitate to pull open the passenger's door and poke his head inside. He looked panic, his complexion pallid and a frown chiselled into his face.

"Marty, what's wrong?" Doc asked, looking the teenager over.

"The train!" Marty spit back. "It's gone!"

"Gone?" Doc looked almost amused at the words. "What do you mean?"

"Someone stole it!" the teenager got straight to the point. There was no reason to sugar coat it.

"Stole it?" Doc again repeated Marty's statement. "That's impossible!"

Before Marty could respond, the scientist stepped out of the car to have a look for himself. If Marty thought he was playing a rather amusing practical joke, Doc wasn't laughing. Taking a long look into the chasm below, Doc's frown became as long as Marty's. The ravine was empty! "Great Scott! It's gone!"

"I told you," Marty said. "Someone stole it! I saw it disappear."

"You mean someone used it for temporal displacement?" Doc asked. Marty nodded soberly. "Who?"

"How the hell should I know?" Marty cried. "Doc, what're we gonna do? We're trapped here!"

"That's the least of our worries," Doc shook his head with frustration.

"What are you talking about, Doc?" Marty begged. Being stranded in the future was a huge deal!

"I'm more worried about what the surreptitious larcenist will do with the time machine," Doc replied, his mind already mulling over the dreadful possibilities. "Obviously, whoever stole the time machine knew enough about it to take it out of this time period. The amount of damage one person could wreak on the time continuum is unfathomable! You remember how old Biff completely altered Hill Valley and the world!"

Doc was right. "But who could've stolen the train?" Marty asked breathlessly. "I mean, no one else even knew about it, right? And I was here the whole time. It wasn't even five minutes after you left before it took off."

Doc racked his brain. Marty surely would have noticed a vehicle fly into the ravine. And the chances were low that someone was actually waiting in the canyon for their arrival. Nobody could predict the exact time or day that Doc had selected to arrive. But then how else could the train have been stolen, unless it activated itself and flew off?

"Well, there's nothing we can do sitting here in the future," Doc broke his mental contemplation. "I have a feeling that whoever stole the time train isn't going to return it to us. And in order to track down the miscreant and reverse whatever damage he may have already done, we'll need a mode of traveling through time."

"You mean another time machine?" Marty asked.

"Precisely." Now Doc began to pace again, considering his options carefully. "I suppose," the scientist finally spoke, "the only thing to do is to build another time machine. I managed to complete construction of the locomotive within a year, after I had figured out everything in my notes. But that was a large scale project using nineteenth century equipment. If I work with less, I should be able to get it done much faster."

"How much faster?" Marty demanded. "Doc, how long are we going to be stuck here?"

Doc turned away from Marty to survey the DeLorean. "I think we could use the DeLorean again," he said, patting the hood of the car.
"That'd save us the time of locating another vehicle." Then he turned to look at Marty. "If I can locate all the proper materials I'll need quickly, I might be able to finish within the month. I'll have to redraw my plans and make certain everything is in order ..."

"A month?!" Marty cried, aghast. "Doc, we can't stay here a month! Where are we gonna stay? What about my family? And Jen? What about Clara and the kids?"

"Don't worry," Doc said. "For us it'll be a month, but to them it will be only a few hours. We'll come back just after we left."

"Isn't there any way you can get it done faster? I mean, with future technology and all ..."

"It's a simple matter of getting all of the right parts and then rebuilding everything from the surface. But it takes time, Marty. I'll have to work around the clock to get it done within the thirty day allotment. It's not going to be a simple jigsaw puzzle. I'll have to rebuild everything from the conductors to the flux capacitor. Believe it or not, the time machine has an immense amount of delicate circuitry."

"I know, Doc," Marty sighed. "But there's gotta be a better way! Do you really want to spend a month in the future?"

"Of course not," Doc frowned. "If anything, the sooner we get out of here the faster we can discover who stole the time machine. Our reality could have already skewed around us. I'd be tempted to do some research to see if there are any differences here in the future, but it looks like I'll have my hands full with the new time machine. And I think we might notice more obvious changes in the present, since we're accustomed to it more than the future."

Now Doc turned around, walked up to the DeLorean, and pulled open the driver's side door. "Get in, Marty. We should begin at once."

"Where we going?" Marty asked as he picked up the hoverboard, tossed it into the car, and himself climbed into the DeLorean.

"We'll need to go somewhere where I can work in seclusion," Doc answered. "I'm going to try the place I just bought. It's possible that Clara and I no longer live there in the future, and hopefully no one else will either."

Doc clicked on the hover circuits and the car lifted off of the ground and pulled into the sky. Doc's house was just outside of Hill Valley, east of the town. As Doc drifted through the skyway above, the traffic fairly light, he took the opportunity to survey the town just below. Nothing seemed unusual or different. If someone had used the time machine to alter time, it wasn't anything noticeable, at least not in the future, and nothing like the alternate hell Biff had created with the Grey's Sports Almanac.

"This is my old street," Doc announced to himself. "Riverside Drive ... John F. Kennedy Drive," he quickly amended. "They tore down the garage last week. I practically grew up in that place. That's where I used to conduct all of my experiments as a boy. I laid out my plans to excavate my backyard in order to reach the center of the earth there! It was an utter failure, of course, but it was that failure that led me to science. I was determined to succeed, somehow, someway, by integrating science and fiction: by proving that all science-fiction could become science-fact, if someone simply opened their eyes and tried hard enough. After all, when From the Earth to the Moon first came out, it was considered a work of fiction. If that could become a reality, the possibilities could be endless!"

Marty simply smirked, lips slightly parted, at his friend in response. Sometimes he'd break into remembrance over things past and blurt out a long-winded tale about the early days. Marty didn't like to pry into his friend's past too much, but he always enjoyed hearing a new tidbit on how Doc became the person he was.

"Great Scott!"

Before Marty could ask Doc what the matter was, the scientist veered the car to the left and pulled out of the skyway without warning, eliciting a volley of horn blowing from the cars behind him as he made what was considered an illegal turn.

"What're you doing?" Marty asked as he was thrust toward the scientist.

"Look," Doc pointed out the windshield as the car descended.

Marty obeyed, taking a long look out the window. A little ways before him stood a futurized Burger King with a new, curvy logo. Funny how the fast food chain had stayed in business so long. But just before that stood a lone and dilapidated building. Doc's garage. "It's your old place," Marty said, staring down at the street below. "I don't get it."

"My garage was torn down last week," Doc reminded the teenager. "So why is it still standing here in the future? That doesn't make sense."

"Well, maybe you had it rebuilt or something," Marty offered.

"It looks like the same place," Doc shook his head. "Only much older. And for what purpose would it serve me to re-purchase the land just to rebuild my old garage? Surely by this time some other building had taken up residence there. It would cost me a small fortune to buy the place out, all just to rebuild my old home?"

Marty shrugged as Doc landed the DeLorean on the garage's driveway. The scientist stepped out and, pulling open the front gate, the wire mesh rusted and auburn, hustled to the garage's side door. He found it locked, but easily located the key he usually stored under the welcome mat and entered, Marty just behind.

There was no light. The room was stuffy and filled with cobwebs and dust, piled with even more junk than it had been in 1985, a good amount of future technology crowding the room. A lap top rested on a table, unopened, a bulky computer terminal sat against the back wall, and a few electronic tools littered the floor and Doc's bed, which seemed to have a new mattress, but the headboards were the ones he had had in 1985.

"This is your place all right," Marty said aloud.

That puzzled Doc even more. It was evident that, for whatever reason, his garage still existed in 2021 and his future self still held residence there. That definitely represented some sort of time shift. Whoever had stolen the time machine had also succeeded in causing Doc never to have moved out of his garage in the present. "This isn't right," the scientist murmured.

Doc looked around the room for a long moment, silent. Marty finally spoke: "What are we going to do, Doc?"

Doc weighed the options in his head. "As long as my future self doesn't show up, this could be the perfect backdrop for developing the new time machine. But there's no guaranty of that. I wish there was some way to determine for certain ..."

Doc cut himself off and spun around, walking hurriedly to the table at the opposite side of the room. He pulled open a thin shelf secured underneath the table and, inside, amongst faded and yellowed papers, sat a black book. Marty rushed to the scientist's side and peered over his shoulder curiously as Doc opened the book and flipped through the pages. "What's that?"

"My journal," Doc explained shortly. "Or rather, my future self's journal. Maybe reading this, we can find out what happened and why the garage is still standing. We may also be able to determine when my future self will be making an appearance."

Marty nodded as Doc skimmed through the pages. At least that was a start. But the teenager still didn't like the idea of being trapped in the future for a whole month. "Aha!" Doc cried, pushing his finger under a line of script in the journal. Then he read: "'Friday, February 29, 2021 - This weekend I'll begin my anticipated excursion to 2121 - one hundred years into the future! I've already delivered the news to Marty and asked him to watch over the garage in my absence. I plan to be gone for a month or so doing research to better enhance some of my experiments. To keep my biological clock on track, I'll return later next month. I'm sure I won't be missed.' At least," Doc looked up from the journal, a slight frown etched on his face, "we don't have to worry about running into my other self."

"Yeah," Marty nodded slightly.

Doc placed the journal down gently onto the table and turned away. "All right. We'll begin immediately." Doc took a few long steps forward and gestured wildly as he spoke. "I'll need to write the plans first. My future self should have the necessary materials for that. Graph paper, rulers, pens, pencils, a calculator," Doc reviewed all of the items in his mind, ticking them off on his fingers. "Let's see what I've got."

Doc began searching his future self's laboratory, Marty watching stupidly the entire time. The teenager shoved his hands in his pockets and stood where he was, teetering up and down on his heels and toes, not sure how to make himself useful. Doc crouched under one of his tables to look around and found a box filled with papers. Erratically, the scientist sprang to his feet, pulling the box up with him, and bumping his head on the bottom of the table. Marty jumped at the bang of scull on wood, but Doc hardly noticed the discomfort.

"Look at this!" Doc called to Marty, dropping the box loudly on the tabletop, causing dust smoke to lift and spread through the air.

Marty hurried over to the scientist's position and watched as Doc opened the box and pulled out sheets and sheets of crumpled and rolled-up papers. "My notes from the original DeLorean! I tossed them a few days after we made the move from my garage when I was cleaning the place out! This'll save me hours of work!"

"That's great, Doc," Marty patted him on the shoulder. "Any way you can trim that down to a month?"

"I'm afraid not," Doc said, pulling the papers our of the box and dumping them onto the table. "At least now all I have to do it find the necessary materials and reconstruct the time machine." Doc looked around the lab. "My other self should have a bunch of the necessary mechanics needed to rebuild the DeLorean. And I have some tools in the trunk I just purchased to take apart the train. Marty," Doc looked to the teenager, "grab me those two boxes that are in the DeLorean."

"Okay," Marty nodded and jogged outside to the sportscar. He popped open the trunk and propped it open. There were six boxes, not two as Doc had said. Marty reached for one of the boxes and pulled the flap open to see what was inside. He grinned to himself at his personal discovery.

"Doc!" Marty cried as he banged through the door, carrying one of the boxes inside.

"What is it?" Doc didn't look back as he laid the plans for the DeLorean out in front of him, separating them into an order he felt was fit. "Did you find the equipment?"

"Even better," Marty said, pulling something from the box. He moved to Doc's side and held the object in front of the scientist's eyes. "Will this make the time machine's construction go any faster?"

Doc took a hold of the broken flux capacitor, his face full with surprise. "Of course!" The scientist spun around to look at the box sitting on the floor. "I have almost everything I need right here, almost completely built. It's only a matter of reassembling it and rewiring it into the DeLorean! Marty, go get those other boxes! It'll take me more than a day, but it won't take me a month either!"

Marty was happy to oblige, carrying the remaining boxes, including the ones filled with the futuristic technology Doc had purchased earlier that day, into the garage. "How long will it take?" Marty asked after his chore was completed.

"I'd say a week," Doc decided, already hunched over the table, a diagram before his face, and delicately reassembling the flux capacitor.

Marty was still a little disappointed, but he supposed he should be lucky to have Doc get it finished that quickly. "Anything I can do?" the teenager asked.

"Get the parts of the time machine and try to separate them somehow," Doc ordered. "Quickly now, quickly." The scientist returned to the flux capacitor, his pulse already accelerating. When he got in one of these frantic moods his mind worked faster than his body would allow him to.

Marty obeyed, sifting through the time machine junk heap and separating it the best he could, which happened to be by size. Meanwhile, Doc worked feverishly on the flux capacitor. Reassembling it brought back old memories of when he first constructed the thing way back when. The first model had come to fruition in 1962 when he had tried to wire his refrigerator into a time machine. He'd had little success with that model, but he felt that experiment had led him in the right direction with the DeLorean model more than twenty years later.

Now he was rebuilding the flux capacitor again. The last time he had constructed the device was in the past in the late 1800's. Appropriate how he had now covered all periods of time, past, present and future, while developing the critical time traveling device.

Doc grinned to himself as he reattached the wires. Creating had always brought a sense of relaxation and a feeling of success and meaning to his existence. It was too bad that after they rectified the new mess they were in he would have to take the time machine apart again. But Doc didn't concentrate on that.

Instead, he continued to work, hardly pausing to take a breath. And he felt much more content than he had felt in days.

Marty leaned back against the headboard of future Doc's bed, his head resting against a flimsy and lumpy pillow. He flipped through the channels on the wide-screen television that hung on the wall opposite the bed by calling out the corresponding numbers. Some of the channels, unbelievably, were the same number as they had been in 1985. The future shows had kept Marty entertained for a while, but soon the teenager grew restless.

Marty suddenly jolted up in Doc's bed and looked over to the scientist, who still hunched over the desk, now reassembling another piece of the time machine. He had already set the flux capacitor and a few other small items to the side, ready to be installed into the DeLorean when the time came. Marty glanced at one of the many clocks lining the garage. It was nearly five o' clock in the evening now.
"Hey, Doc! I'm getting kind of hungry over here."

Doc paused to look up at Marty, then turned to look at a clock. "Time flies," the scientist noted. He really didn't feel all too hungry, mostly because he hadn't allowed himself to feel much of anything in regards to human necessity for the last few hours. "I suppose I should take a short break anyway," Doc said, standing erect and cracking his aching back. "I'll find us something to eat," the scientist said and moved to the garage's side door.

"Hold it, Doc," Marty called, swinging his legs off the bed and hurrying after him. "You're not gonna leave me cooped up here, are you?"

"Marty, I told you it's too dangerous!" Doc replied emphatically. "Should the police spot you we could get into a worse jam than the last time we visited the future."

"Yeah, but, Doc, I'm going stir crazy! I've got cabin fever, you know?" Marty protested. "There's nothing to do! I can't even play my guitar or call Jen or anything! Besides," Marty held up his thumb and grinned, "my future self can treat."

Doc considered Marty's suggestion for a moment. "No," the scientist decided, "it's still too risky. Your future self is well known in Hill Valley in this future reality. Someone could easily question whether you were the real Marty McFly and inform the police."

Doc turned around to leave again, but Marty grabbed his shoulders and spun him around. "Come on, Doc! I'm serious! I'm going nuts! Can't you get me that old-age disguise you had? You know, when you brought me to the future the first time?"

Doc again was thoughtful. Then a smile spread across his face. "All right."

 The sticky film around his face was hardly comfortable. And it didn't smell too good either. Marty pinched the material, some sort of future plastic that actually felt like skin! When the process was done at the Rejuvenation Clinic, which also specialized in making old and young aged masks, and Marty was shown a mirror, he was shocked at how much he looked like his older self. Apparently, ninety-nine percent of the time the droids at the center got the likeness dead on. If not, the clinic offered a full refund.

But Marty looked exactly thirty-six years older! And with a black long-rimmed hat on his head to cover his brown, thick hair, a long trench coat and black leather gloves to cover the fact that Marty's hands and skin were so youthful, Marty was the spitting image of his future self. After the stop at the clinic, Doc took them to a nice restaurant a few miles out of town. But, the scientist promised that for the rest of the trip they'd be eating at the Burger King next door to save time.

As they stepped through the automatic doors, Marty continued to pinch the skin-mask between his fingers, pulling on it. He was sweating beneath the mask, and it was practically suffocating him. Doc slapped Marty's hand away from his face. "Stop picking," the scientist ordered. "You'll ruin the mask!"

"I'm dying in here, Doc," Marty whined.

"When we get back to the garage you can take it off," Doc assured him. "Just as long as you keep the mask intact, it should be reusable."

Marty nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets in an attempt to avoid the urge to pick at the mask some more. They got into line and waited as the customers were seated, much faster than in any high-class restaurant in the present. Apparently the food got done much faster, allowing patrons to move in and out with more efficiency.

As they stepped up to the front of the line, a short, middle-aged waitress with curly brown hair met them. She pulled two menus from a podium nearby and smiled at Doc and Marty. "Two?"

"Yes," Doc answered for them.

"Hey, do I know you from somewhere?" the waitress smiled at Marty, waving her hand holding the menus from side to side. "Aren't you Marty McFly?"

Marty shrugged, hardly embarrassed by the recognition. "You got me."

"Wow!" the girl said. "It's great to see you!"

"Thanks, thank you," Marty half-bowed. "You want an autograph or something?"

Doc poked Marty in his ribs. "We're supposed to be keeping a low profile," he said under his breath.

"I know, Doc," Marty replied, "but can I help it if an adoring fan throws herself at me?" Then he turned to the waitress: "So, what, who should I make it out to?"

"I see you've still got a sense of humor," the waitress smiled. "You do remember me, don't you, Marty? It's Shelly! I was in your science class senior year of high school! How are you doing?"

"Oh," Marty frowned. "How am I doing?" He looked at Doc, looking for an answer. When this scientist offered none, Marty turned his gaze back to the waitress. "Uh, you mean, you don't know?"

"No," the waitress shook her head. "Why, should I?"

"Well, I'm kind of a musician," Marty answered.

"Really? Do you have a record? You know, I always thought you were pretty good in high school, but then after that accident you quit your band. The year before, I remember rocking pretty hard to you guys at a few parties. I'm glad to hear you're finally getting somewhere with your music. You don't still live in Hilldale, do you?" her face soured at the mention of the rotten housing development.

"Hilldale?" Marty asked dumbly.

"You know, I shouldn't pry," the waitress moved forward, leading Marty and Doc to their booth. "But listen, if you ever get a record out, send me a copy. I'd love to hear it!"

"Yeah, sure," Marty said as he slid into the booth.

"What do you guys want to drink?" Shelly asked.

Doc ordered a water and Marty got a soda. Then Shelly disappeared to give them a chance to look over the menu. "I thought you said I was well-known," Marty leaned over the table and whispered to Doc after Shelly was gone.

"You are," Doc replied. "Well, you were. You became the hallmark of Hill Valley! You actually put this town on the map!"

"But that girl," Marty said. "She didn't say anything about that! And she knew me!"

Doc tapped his finger on the table. "Obviously there have been more changes than just my garage reappearing. She said something about an accident."

"You think she means that thing with the Roles Royce?" Marty asked. "I didn't get in that accident, Doc! I backed off."

"I know," Doc answered. "But you only backed off because of the lesson you learned in 1885 with Tannen's relative. Up to that point you still would have had the accident."

"So what are you saying? In the new timeline I never learned my lesson? How did that happen?"

At that time the waitress returned to take their orders. Quickly, Doc and Marty scanned their menus and ordered their meals. When Shelly left again, Doc answered: "I'm not sure. I'm not sure how any of this happened or what other changes may have occurred. It obviously carries back to at least 1985 and the date of your accident, but so far that's the earliest date I can pick out, so that's as good a place as any to start, once the DeLorean's rebuilt."

Marty could understand that. But he was still disappointed to know that he was not a rich rock star in this new reality. Doc had said that the decisions he made in the present reverberated into the future, but Marty had made the right decision! It didn't seem fair that, after doing the right thing, he still ended up with a bum rap. Now he was even more determined to get to the bottom of what had happened and who had stolen the time machine.

After they received and finished their meals (there was little conversation after that), Shelly arrived with a thump-scan for them to pay. Doc gestured to Marty and the teenager slipped off his glove and pushed his thumb to the plate.

Suddenly, a computer voice broke through the device: "Mister McFly, you have exceeded your current debit limit. Your credit rating is now downgraded to 'D.' A further downgrade will result in your account being turned over to our collection agency."

A few heads turned to look at Marty and suddenly he felt extremely embarrassed, his face flushing red. "Oh, that's okay, Marty," Shelly turned the device around and pushed her thumb to the plate. "I'll thumb this one, for old time's sake."

"Uh, thanks," Marty flipped the collar of his trench coat up to hide his face. Quickly, he hustled out of the restaurant, Doc following behind.

"And let me know when that album comes out, okay?" Shelly waved her hand back and forth as he exited. "I'm sure it'll be great!"

 "Jesus, Doc," Marty said, carefully peeling the plastic mask off of his face. "I've never been so embarrassed, you know?"

"You shouldn't worry about what other people think of you," Doc answered, again hunched over his table, hard at work on another piece to the time machine. "Their opinion shouldn't matter."

"Then whose does?" Marty finally stripped the sticky covering off and laid it face down on a table in the corner of the room.

"You still try too hard to get people's respect," Doc sighed. "You shouldn't care about what they think. They're nobody important. You'll never see those people again anyway. You should just worry about yourself and not care about what others think of you."

"What, you mean like you?" Marty asked, rubbing his viscid face. "I don't think I can do that, Doc. It's great that you don't care what people think of you, but I want to be popular! I want people to like my music!"

"What does it matter?" Doc asked, still not looking up. "You know your music's good and I know it's good, so why does it matter what they think?"

"It just does," Marty flopped down on Doc's bed. His eyes rolled to a clock and he noticed it was after nine o' clock that night. "You going to bed, Doc?"

"Nope," the scientist replied, still busying himself over some piece of equipment. "A few hours more, maybe. Is it okay if I leave a light on?"

"Sure," Marty said, rolling over in bed. "Don't work too hard, though, Doc."

Doc grunted a response and Marty turned onto his stomach and rested his eyes, falling asleep in half a moment.

 Doc worked later than he had wanted to. Finally, at around three o' clock that morning, the inventor sat aside another piece of finished equipment and decided it was time for a break. Instead of going to bed, however, Doc opened up his future self's journal and began skimming through it. He wanted to get some clues about how the timeline could have shifted and at exactly which point in the past had been the catalyst of the new altered reality. But the journal for that year didn't help much, aside from revealing the fact that Doc's future self, too, had two time machines: a train and a DeLorean.

However, there was little mention of his family. Doc wondered what had happened to them or where they were. If Doc still lived in his garage in the future, that almost decidedly meant that Clara and the boys weren't around. But how could that have happened? The journal gave him no answers. It was as if they never existed.

Finally, he closed the book up and absentmindedly slipped it into the pocket of his dark peacoat which hung over the edge of the table and went to bed. There was time enough to worry about that after the DeLorean was completed and they were no longer in a time they shouldn't be. He was sure he could figure it all out, eventually. For now, he just wanted to get out of the future as quickly as possible. Who knew what other surprises awaited them in the present.

 Doc worked diligently the next few days, only stopping to get some food from the local Burger King and charge it to his future self's account or pick up any extra equipment he needed from the nearby Radio Shack. Marty tagged along on most of the trips, but always protested wearing the old-age mask considering it was so unlikely that anyone would recognize him in this new reality. But Doc still insisted on it, as a precautionary measure.

Then, after downing a Whopper and a vanilla milk-shake, it was back to work, Marty meanwhile cruising the future television stations again. A day or two in, Doc had most of the equipment repaired. He then took the DeLorean out to buy any extra pieces of electronics he needed to replace the components that either Marty hadn't picked up or were too badly damaged to bother repairing.

After that, he moved the DeLorean into the garage to begin reconstructing the time machine. He began with the equipment in the back: the conductors, the vents, and the Mr. Fusion. That took a whole day to complete, with all the circuitry.

The next day, Doc worked around the rest of the DeLorean's exterior and some of the inside. By the weekend, Doc had begun with putting the LED display inside and connecting all the loose wires, which was very delicate work. The old graphs and charts his future self had kept helped with that. At the end of that week, Doc finished his job by connecting the repaired flux capacitor into place between the two seats. By this point the DeLorean looked just like its predecessor, albeit a few of the pieces had laser-sealed cracks.

"Wow, Doc," Marty circled the DeLorean as the scientist finished his fifth inspection of the vehicle. "It looks exactly same!"

"Not exactly the same," Doc said. "I replaced some of the conductors and of course the microchips and some of the burnt circuitry. Plus I didn't have time to paint everything and color code it, but those details are rather trivial."

"It looks good, Doc," Marty assured his friend. "So, are we ready to roll or what?"

Doc did a quick final inspection of the DeLorean. "I can't find anything that's at all out of place. I think we're ready for a test run."

"Test run?" Marty asked.

"Well, I'm not sending us back until I know this thing really works," Doc answered. "We could get trapped in a vortex of inter-temporal fields! I've hooked the car up to this remote control," Doc said, picking up the control he had purchased a few days earlier from the tabletop. "Open the garage doors, Marty, and I'll test it out."

"Right," Marty moved forward and pushed open each garage door one at a time. "Ready, Doc," the teenager announced when he was through.

After slipping on his peacoat, Doc stepped outside through the garage doorway and Marty followed. Doc pushed on the acceleration switch on the control and the DeLorean's headlights flicked on the engine revved. The car idled out of the garage and Doc braked it just before them. Then he went to a garbage can and found some refuse and loaded it into the Mr. Fusion. "All right," the scientist announced. "We're all set."

Doc pulled open the driver's door and leaned in to set the destination time. "It's 4:17 in the afternoon, so we'll send it ahead to 4:19 to give ourselves a good enough lead. My watch is in synchronization with the DeLorean's display, so we're all set."

Doc pulled his head out of the car and closed the door. "Ready, Marty?"

The teenager nodded. "Go for it, Doc."

The scientist flipped a switch on the control and the DeLorean's wheels folded in and the car ascended into the air. Like a model airplane, Doc piloted the car into the sky and away from them, then he spun it back in their direction and pushed hard on the acceleration. Just as it reached 88, a few yards away from them still, the DeLorean disappeared in the sky with a flash of blue light, fire trails left behind.

"Okay," Doc looked at his wristwatch. "4:18. We've got one minute left."

They waited in silence until Doc announced: "Ten seconds!"

A few more seconds elapsed and then, at the point where the DeLorean had disappeared, a cloud of smoke exploded and three staccato sonic booms filled the air. The DeLorean reappeared in a flash of light and sailed forward. Quickly, Doc brought the thing to a stop mid-air and returned it to the ground just outside the driveway. It's exterior was covered with ice, but that had been expected. The scientist moved to again inspect the time machine to see if anything had gone wrong or if something hadn't survived the trip. Finally, though, Doc was satisfied.

"Looks like it works, huh, Doc?" Marty grinned. "Great, let's get our asses out of here already."

"Right," Doc agreed and they climbed into the DeLorean time machine. "We left Sunday night so I'll take us back the next morning. I'm afraid you might be late for school."

"What else it new?" Marty shrugged. "Besides, I'm not going anywhere until we get all of this shit straightened out."

"Well, all right," Doc nodded. "I'll take us back at about dawn."

Doc set the destination time into the key pad. "Say goodbye to the future, Marty. The next time we see it, it'll be the present."

"Good riddance," Marty slumped down in his seat and folded his arms over his chest as the DeLorean floated into the sky and accelerated to 88 miles per hour.

The DeLorean reappeared in darkness, its exterior caked with steaming frost. Doc swung the steering wheel and the car about-faced and descended to the ground, swaying to the driveway outside Doc's garage, which was still standing, as expected, thirty-six years in the past. Doc cut the engine and stepped out of the car, taking a long, evaluating look at his property. His garage looked identical to the way it had a month ago, before it had been torn down. "Amazing," the scientist muttered under his breath.

"Deja vu, huh?" Marty said, climbing out of the car and coming to the scientist's side, having a landscape look around himself.

Doc nodded. "It brings back memories," he said, staring longingly at the structure. The scientist snapped out of his recollection and moved forward, ushering Marty to follow. "Never mind that now. Come on, let's see what we can find inside. We might be able to ferret out a clue."

Marty followed the scientist through the gate, the mesh-wire door squeaking on its hinges as they stepped through, and into the garage. Doc flipped on the lights and looked around. Everything was the same, just as he remembered it. His television set sat on one table, Einstein's automatic dog food dispenser on a counter, clocks everywhere, ticking away, and his old dog himself, sleeping soundly in his round, basket bed in a corner of the room, oblivious to his master's return. "Incredible!"

Marty took a look around, examining some of the gadgets the scientist had been working on as he strolled about the room. "It's like it was before," the teenager noted. "You know, before you made the time machine. You think you never created time travel now?"

"What?" Doc looked at Marty with wide, shocked eyes which tried to leap out of their sockets and hurtle themselves at Marty.

"Well, why else would you still live in your garage, unless you never met Clara in the past?" Marty replied coolly.

Doc considered the teenager's suggestion. "No, I don't think so. If the time machine doesn't exist, then I could have never taken us to the future and we'd have a time paradox! The fact that we're standing here right now, talking to each other, proves that I invented time travel."

"Right," Marty wasn't very convinced, most likely because he didn't understand all of the odd rules of time travel. "Whatever you say, Doc. So what do you think happened?"

"I don't know," Doc hustled to his work table and slid open the shelf under it, finding a black book similar to the one he had found in the future. "Maybe my journal will give us some hints."

"I thought you said it didn't tell you anything," Marty ambled to the scientist's side.

"That was in the future," Doc said, skimming through the book. "This is my journal from this year. We may be able to find out some more information if I go back a few weeks. Maybe even to the day I first invented time travel. I may have taken some notes."

Doc flipped back to the last week of October and found a heading under "October 27, 1985."

"Here," Doc pointed to the ledger. "In our reality, I never wrote anything on that Sunday."

"That's because you were stuck in the old west," Marty remembered. "You didn't have the chance to."

"Precisely. Listen to this." Now Doc read aloud from the journal: "'I've just returned from the future and it is everything I had dreamed of and more! After discovering some delicate problems with Marty's future, I decided to return to the present to collect Marty in order to prevent his future son from making a terrible mistake! It was the least I could do after the kid saved my life. Thankfully, we succeeded with my plan and afterward, I dropped Marty off and returned to the future to continue my exploration of this foreign time!

"'The technology is incredible! I've hover-converted the time machine should I choose to travel to a time period with hazardous roadways, or none for that matter. Indeed, after spending a week in the future, I grow tired of so much technology, some of which I've brought back and laid out in my lab. Perhaps I'll go to a time when things were much more simple. To travel to the old west had always a dream of mine, and I think I'll prepare for that journey right away and head out this weekend. Marty may wish to join me, if his trip to 1955 hasn't scared him straight with time travel and his hand's feeling better. I'll use the time to relax my nerves and think about just what I'm going to do next with my life.'" Doc closed the book, his finger holding the place where he had left off, pinched between the pages, and looked up thoughtfully.

"What's up, Doc?" Marty asked.

"Strange," the scientist muttered. "I never mentioned anything about Biff stealing the time machine."

Marty shrugged. "Beats the shit out of me. Keep reading. Go to the next weekend."

"Right," Doc returned to the book and skimmed to November 2, 1985. "Let's see: 'Today I will travel precisely one hundred years into the past, the old west! Marty has accepted my invitation to join me in the past, as he, too, would like to get away from the present and take a vacation from what he calls his "rotten luck". I'll hide the DeLorean in a cave far outside of town and we'll hike to Hill Valley. This should be a most exciting adventure!'"

"Wow," Marty said under his breath. "I don't remember anything like that, do you?"

"Not at all," Doc replied. Then he skimmed forward. There was no entry for that Sunday, but he found a passage for Monday. "'It was an exciting weekend, or rather year, to say the least! Upon arrival into the past, the time machine malfunctioned and Marty and I found ourselves trapped in the past! With no way of being able to repair the time machine, I set myself up as a blacksmith to begin work on a completely new time machine! It was a hell of a job, but with some of the DeLorean's futuristic parts, mixed with what little technology existed then, I was able to convert an old steam train into a time machine! Marty and I returned to the present, and I went on one last errand to pick up the DeLorean and return it to 1985.

"'This experience has taught me that time travel to the past is too dangerous a hobby to pursue. From now on, it will be the future and only the future! I will begin repairs to the DeLorean and will hide the time train in the Oakdale Forest where it should be safe.' Interesting," Doc said, closing the book.

"We spent a year in the past?" Marty cried. "I don't feel a year older."

"No, but that doesn't mean much. Doubtlessly, the same way you don't remember spending a year in the past, most likely you don't feel like you did," Doc answered.

"But what if we had been stuck there for thirty years! Would I be an old man right now?" Marty asked.

"It's hard to say," Doc shook his head. "It's best not to think about it."

Marty decided to take the scientist's advice and drop it at once. "Doc, how the hell did all this happen?"

"I'm still not sure," Doc said, placing the book back in its shelf. "But it's obvious that however the reality was shifted, it has caused my life and your future life to take a radical spin. You still got in that accident on Sunday because Biff never stole the time machine and I never met Clara or our children because when we went to the past I traveled precisely one hundred years back, to November 2, 1885."

"Are you sure?" Marty asked. "I mean, that "precisely" line doesn't have to mean the exact date to a tee."

"Yes, it does," Doc said assuredly. "Even though I don't remember writing it, it's still me who wrote it. And when I say precisely, I mean precisely. When I traveled to the future the first time, I went exactly thirty years into the future: the early morning of October 26, 2015."

"Right," Marty agreed slowly. "So, how're we going to fix this, Doc?"

"According to my journals, the train still exists in this present," Doc answered. "It's likely that my other self followed a very similar path that we did, traveling to 2021 late last night for some reason or another, and whoever stole the time machine did exactly that just as before. I have a feeling that, if we find the time train, we may find some answers."

"But we don't even know where to look!" Marty returned, agitated. "We don't even know when to look!"

"If the person who stole the time machine didn't come from the future, then there's only one other option: he had to have come from the present," Doc supplied. "If that's so, then perhaps, after he did his damage, he returned here and abandoned the train wherever he found it."

"You mean the ravine?" Marty asked.

"Precisely. Let's go." Doc moved forward and rushed back outside to the DeLorean. Marty followed and soon they were back in the sky, flying toward the Eastwood Ravine.

Once they were out of town and at the canyon, Doc circled the ravine, searching for the train to no avail. "It's not here, Doc," Marty said gloomily. "Now what?"

Doc exhaled with annoyance. "Maybe whoever stole the time machine doesn't hale from the present."

"What about the forest?" Marty asked. "I mean, we left the forest, so maybe whoever stole it left it there."

"It's worth a shot," Doc brought the DeLorean out of the ravine and soared toward the Oakdale Woods.

"There's the clearing," Doc pointed as the forest came into view. "See anything?"

Marty didn't reply at once. Doc brought the DeLorean down through the forest, the stand of oak trees thinning as the clearing began to come into view. "If someone brought the train back to 1985 and dropped it in this forest, this is where they'd leave it."

The trees cleared and the sportscar emerged into the forest glade. The sun had now moved into the sky, casting much needed rays of light into the clearing, over the trees, to aid the time travelers' search. And to their relief, the sunlight glittered off the side of black steel. The time machine waited for them in the forest.

"There it is," Marty grinned, proud to have been the one to suggest the forest. "What do you think we'll find?"

"The destination, at least, the thief took the train to," Doc answered as the DeLorean bumped to the ground. "That should be recorded in the 'Last Time Departed' display. If we're lucky, we might find some other clues as well."

Marty and Doc climbed out of the DeLorean and went around to the left side of the train. It looked the same as before, hover converted and futurized. Obviously his alternate self had brought the train to the future as well, just as Doc had. That made sense, considering they were the same person, body and mind, and Doc had been annoyed with the fact that the train had to remain on tracks to go anywhere from the start.

The doors to the train were set open and the scientist climbed in first, rushing to the main panel and flicking a switch which activated the LED display and the lights above. Marty scurried in next and watched the scientist as he examined the CRT display. "Here!" Doc smiled, pointing at the LED screen.

Marty peered over his shoulder at the 'Last Time Departed' display and read the date aloud: "April 13, 1946? What happened then?"

"Nothing that I know of," Doc answered. "Weird."

Doc stepped away from the controls and began pacing around the train's small cabin. "What now?" the teenager asked as he leaned back against the panel.

"We know the date, but it might be impossible to find whoever stole the time machine in the past without any facts," Doc explained. "He may not have stayed in Hill Valley. He could have taken the train almost anywhere! Without more information, I'd be reluctant to go back so hastily. We may only have one shot at this. We can't go back each time we fail and risk running into are doubles who floundered."

Marty turned away from Doc to stare at the main controls, hoping he might notice something Doc hadn't. Something lying on top of the control panel caught the teenager's eye and he picked it up and examined it. "You don't smoke, do you, Doc?"

"Of course not," Doc shook his head feverishly. "My father died of lung cancer. That was enough to scare me straight."

"Well, someone lit a match on this train," Marty answered evasively.

The scientist looked up at Marty with wondering eyes, but the intent expression on the teenager's face told him that Marty had found something. He held something up between his fingers for Doc to plainly see. Doc took a step toward Marty and plucked the object from his hand. He examined it. "A matchbook."

Doc turned it over and saw that there was lettering on the back. He held it up closer to his eyes and read the type aloud: "Tannen & Son Auto Detailing."

"Tannen & Son?" Marty asked. "Wait a minute, Doc. Biff doesn't have a son, not any that I know about anyway. Just a daughter, I think, from some previous marriage."

Doc continued to study the matchbook. Then he looked up and met Marty's gaze. "Obviously, then, this matchbook represents another shift in reality. And also tells us who stole the time machine."

"Biff!" Marty spoke for the scientist. "That son of a bitch! How'd he know about the time machine? I mean, I know he saw the DeLorean for half a second back in 1955, but how could he link you to it? You think he followed me to the forest?"

"I don't know," Doc said, turning the matchbook over in his hand repeatedly. "But now that we have a lead, we can find out the specific details as to what exactly Biff did in the past to cause this alternate reality to become just that: a reality."

"All right, Doc," Marty nodded. "I'll find out."

"I think I should be there, too," Doc said. "The last time Biff tried to kill you. Granted this alternate reality isn't as corrupt as the former, it's best to be prepared. There's no telling what that man's capable of."

"Yeah, all right, Doc. Just let me do the talking, okay? I've dealt with Biff before."

"All right," Doc accepted the teenager's proposal and handed the matchbook back to him. "Get in the DeLorean. Do you know where Tannen lives?"

"No," Marty said, slipping the matchbook into his pocket as they climbed down the train's steps and returned to the DeLorean.

"I've got a phone book back at my place," Doc said. "I want to stop there to pick something up, anyway."

 They found Biff's address in Doc's phone book, ironicly the same Victorian house Doc had lived in with his family before the reality deviation. Before they returned to the sportscar, though, Doc grabbed his Colt revolver from his dresser drawer inside the garage. It was over thirty years old and no longer functioning, but it might be used as an intimidation tool, should Biff choose not to reveal what he had done.

Then they returned to the DeLorean and scudded through the sky to Doc's hitherto new Victorian home. The DeLorean dipped from the sky and rolled into the driveway just outside the garage. Doc was out first and hustled to the porch and up to the front door and banged loudly on the wood, one hand in his pocket, clutching to the gun's handle should he need to draw it out quickly. Nobody answered. Doc pounded on the door again, but still no one came to the door.

"He's not here," Doc said downheartedly as Marty reached the zealous scientist's side.

"Great," Marty turned his back to the scientist and shoved his hands in his pockets as he shuffled down the porch steps and back to the walk. "Now what?"

"I suppose we'll just have to wait here for Biff to return," Doc sighed.

Marty now felt Biff's matchbook in his pocket and pulled it out. For no particular reason, Marty held the small cardboard folder up to his face and read the text carefully. "Hey, Doc, check this out. There's an address on the matchbook."

Doc went to the teenager's side and snatched the matchbook from his hand. "This must be Biff's shop," the scientist said as he read the address. "Let's check there."

"Worth a shot," Marty agreed and Doc led them back to the DeLorean and into the early morning's sky.

 The inventor brought the DeLorean to a bumpy landing just outside the Auto Detailing address. The sign on the structure noted the place to be "Tannen & Son Auto Detailing," but it appeared they did much more business with cars than that. There were a few vehicles parked inside the mechanic's garage and a few workers in blue jump suits worked on one parked just outside, the trunk opened and examining the engine.

"I don't remember Biff having a place like this," Marty said.

"Nor should you," Doc replied as he brought the DeLorean to a stop on the side of Oak Street, just outside the building. "This place used to be owned by Western Auto Services in our reality, if memory serves correctly. I used to take my step-van for tune-ups here every once in a while."

"You think Biff's here?" Marty said, sitting up in his seat to look out Doc's window.

As if the person in question had heard his name, Biff stumbled out of the garage, walking backward and yelling back at some unseen person. "Yeah, all right, dad! I won't be gone long!" A pleasant smile was on his face, one Marty rarely saw Biff wear unless he was sucking up to his father and his family. He looked younger than any version of the Tannen he had seen in 1985, his skin smoother with far less wrinkles and his blond hair thick and full, no longer thinning. Other than that, though, he looked exactly like the Auto Detailing version Marty remembered. He wore a blue jumpsuit with a white horizontal stripe going across the chest, similar to the suits he had worn for his auto detailing job. Only now there was a round name tag with his name written on it and the words "Tannen & Son Auto Detailing" around the interior of the circle pinned to the right of his chest.

"There he is, Doc," Marty announced. "He's different."

Biff walked toward the street and glanced over his shoulder to shout something else. "I'm borrowing the car, dad!"

Then he hustled to the side of the street and climbed into a finely-polished 1946 black Ford convertible. It was the same one he had driven in 1955, Marty recalled. The engine started without a sputter and the car pulled out and onto the street. Doc immediately shifted the DeLorean into gear and turned around to follow behind Tannen.

"What're we going to do?" Marty whispered, despite the fact it was impossible for Biff to hear him.

"We'll trail Biff and see where he stops. I'd prefer to do this in seclusion where we won't be noticed," Doc said. "No need to bring unwanted attention to ourselves."

Doc stayed behind Biff's car by a few yards. After a few moments of driving, Biff took them out of the busy district his business had been located and down a lone road.

"Where the hell is he taking us?" Marty asked, looking around at the one-way street they had just pulled onto. The neighborhood wasn't very inviting. Graffiti covered the walls of every red-brick building, windows were shattered, and the street was broken up and badly needed to be repaved, inducing quite a bumpy ride. Marty recognized this area of the township: Little Cherry. Basically, it was the Harlem of Hill County.

Tannen turned his car onto another street, this one with a sign warning "DEAD END". Doc pulled onto the street without hesitation, though Marty was beginning to get a bit nervous. He kept quiet, though, and let Doc drive. Biff's Ford was now stopped a few feet away, dead in the middle of the road. Doc put on the brakes and watched as Tannen stepped out of his car and looked directly at the DeLorean, affliction on his face.

"I think he spotted us, Doc," Marty said.

"Stay here, Marty," Doc commanded, pushing open his gull-wing door.

"What are you talking about, Doc?" the teenager asked with surprise. "I'm not letting you face that ass-hole alone."

"He doesn't look happy too see us," Doc replied. "We don't know how safe it is yet. If something happens, I don't want you to get hurt."

Marty frowned and then opened his mouth to say something in retort, but Doc cut him off, stressing: "Stay here! I'll call you over when the coast is clear."

Then Doc pulled his head out of the car and closed his door. He walked slowly toward Biff, his hands in his coat pockets, ready to draw his gun.

"What do you want?" Biff asked, standing motionless in the street.

"You know what I want, Tannen," Doc replied, a sharp edge to his voice.

"Funny," Biff smiled jovially and began to saunter toward Doc, "I never expected to see you again. Too bad you had to show up."

"Too bad for you," Doc added, a hardly witty reply. "What did you do in the past?" Biff didn't answer. Perhaps a different approach was needed: "What did you do on April 13, 1946?"

Tannen's eyes narrowed into slits upon hearing this date. "You're not going to take it away from me, understand, Brown?" Biff barked furiously. "When I got back this morning my life was perfect! And you're not going to take that away from me!"

"What did you do?" Doc demanded again.

Now Biff reached into his sweat suit pocket. Doc took a step back, clenching his palm around the handle of his pistol through his pocket.

"You're not going to take it away," Biff pulled his hand from his pocket and revealed a .38 revolver. Cocking the handgun, he pointed the pistol straight at Doc's head.

Doc quickly pulled his hand from his pocket and aimed the Colt firearm at Biff in response. It was a very fatal game of chicken. "What're you going to do, Brown?" Biff smirked, laughing at the absurdity of it all. "Are you gonna shoot me? Ha ha ha ha," he drawled through a laugh. "Go ahead! Shoot!" Then Biff chortled again as Doc continued to stare at him through wide, wavering eyes. Biff raised his gun so it now pointed up at the sky. "Shoot!" he commanded. "I'll give you a free shot." Tannen pointed directly at his chest with his free hand, tapping his finger against it. "Right here, Brown."

Doc's finger brushed the trigger of his gun nervously. He couldn't let Tannen know that he was bluffing. If he thought that Doc would back off, Biff would shoot him down in cold blood!

"That's what I figured," Biff grinned and lowered the gun, aiming it straight at Doc's head. "That's what I figured."

He pulled the trigger.

Marty had watched the events from the DeLorean just as Doc had asked him. But when the guns came out, Marty delayed no longer. Stealthily, Marty slinked out of the DeLorean through the passenger's side door. Biff hadn't noticed him, too busy staring Doc down with his most menacing glare. Before he left the car behind, Marty erratically reached back into the vehicle and pulled out the pink hoverboard he had wedged behind his seat, having just remembered it was in the car. It might be useful.

Then he crawled on his hands and knees, holding the hoverboard upside down so it didn't defy gravity, down the sidewalk so he was just opposite Biff and Doc. The only thing even slightly hiding him from view was a red fire hydrant directly parallel with Tannen. Marty ducked behind it and watched, trying to decide what he could do. If he ran out there Biff would simply fire upon him with no deliberation (there was no doubt in Marty's mind about that). He had to figure out some way to get that gun out of Biff's hand.

But then, as Marty pondered over his next move, the situation grew drastic. Biff had raised his gun into the air, but now he pointed it again at Doc. He had seen that sadistic, murderous look in the Tannen's eyes before. With time running out, Marty grabbed the hoverboard and, with desperation, swung it at the fire hydrant's nozzle. The hose cap was rended off and left dangling by the connecting chain. A rush of water erupted from the fireplug and projected into Biff's side with force.

Tannen was lifted off his feet for a brief moment as the water struck and he toppled backward. He was rolled head over heels and collapsed on his stomach, his revolver bouncing out of his hand and clanging to the ground a few feet away.

Doc stood motionless where he was, still holding his gun out straight, horrified. The water had forced Biff to mis-aim the pistol and the shot was fired into the air. Doc looked in the direction that the water had exploded from, and was still surging from, and saw Marty slowly stand, holding the hoverboard in hand.

The scientist gave the teenager a disapproving glance for having disobeyed his orders, then quickly snapped out of his paralysis and rushed toward Biff, realizing that there was still work to be done. Tannen opened his eyes, dazed. He looked around and spotted his gun. Scrambling across the pavement, he desperately lunged for it, but Doc's hand reached down and grabbed it first. Lifting it off the ground, Doc aimed the pistol directly at Biff, his expression stone, and cocked the gun. Tannen looked up at him, aversion lining every one of his features.

"Now," Doc said slowly and succinctly as Marty came to the scientist's side. "Tell us: What. Did. You. Do."

 Biff wouldn't talk. And the interrogation had been much too public for Doc's liking. The last thing he needed was the police showing up (though their reputation in this area was hardly esteemed). After a few minutes of demanding an answer from Biff to no avail, Doc forced Tannen at gunpoint into the DeLorean time machine. Marty climbed in after him and did as Doc had suggested and held Biff's wrists together behind his back with a strong grip. Doc climbed into the driver's seat and handed the gun to Marty. The teenager accepted it and trained the barrel of the firearm at Biff's temple as a warning to sit quietly and behave himself for the duration of the ride.

Then Doc took a final look around the still abandoned dead-end street and turned the DeLorean's hover circuits on. The sports car floated into the air and disappeared into the clouds, leaving Biff's well-conserved Ford, much to the Tannen's chagrin, abandoned in the middle of the squalid streets of Little Cherry. Tannen had demanded more than once to know where Doc Brown was taking him, but he got as much a response from Doc as he had given the scientist in turn minutes before.

Soon, Doc lowered the DeLorean into his former driveway, now owned by Biff Tannen in this alternate reality. Doc climbed out of the car and Marty stepped out, pulling Biff out of the car forcefully. Tannen complied reluctantly, but Marty was sure he would have put up a more formidable fight had the teenager not been holding a gun to his head, his finger gently pressuring the trigger. One false move from Biff and it would be lights out.

Doc hurried up to his front door and dug in his pocket for the key. He found it and shoved it into the key-hole. But it didn't go in. Doc tried again, jamming it in the slot. No, it didn't fit. Odd. "Open the door," Doc turned to look at Biff. "Where's the key?"

Biff turned his view away from Doc, staring down the opposite street, obviously unwilling to cooperate. Doc wasn't discouraged. He dug through Tannen's pockets without permission until he found the key to his house, then unlocked the door. "Marty, give me the gun," the scientist said as they entered. "I'll watch Tannen."

"You sure, Doc?" Marty said as he forced Biff through the threshold.

Doc nodded and Marty hesitantly passed the gun from his right to left hand and exchanged it over to Doc, being very careful to keep the barrel pointed at Biff the entire time. Doc directed the pistol toward Tannen's chest and warned: "If I have to, I'll shoot. Don't think I won't." Then, with his eyes still focused on Biff, Doc said to Marty: "Go into the cellar and see if you can't find some twine."

Marty nodded an okay and rushed toward the basement door adjacent to the living room. When the teenager disappeared into another room, Tannen finally turned his gaze toward Doc, a wicked, crooked smile on his face. "You know, Brown, you're a piece of work."

"Shut up, Tannen," Doc sneered. He was in no mood to listen to the bastard's mind games.

"No!" Biff barked back. "Listen to me! You think that you can do whatever the hell you want? And make your life as glamorous as you want and screw everyone else over! That's how you got your family, huh Brown? And this house! By screwing around with time! Isn't it?"

Doc didn't reply.

"It is," Biff said firmly. "You made your life great! Well, why can't I have that? Why can't I have that life! Why is it that you get a great life and I'm left kissing ass and waxing cars!" Spritz of saliva escaped from Biff's mouth, splashing Doc in the face, Tannen's face burning red with anger.

Again, Doc didn't answer. He wanted Marty to return so he could tie the lunatic up, get the information they needed and return the timeline back to the way it belonged!

"You don't get it," Biff said gloomily, his complexion returning to normal. "You don't know what my life was like."

"Don't bother with the sob story, Tannen," Doc replied evenly. "You're not going anywhere until you tell us what you did in the past. So make it easy on yourself."

Biff moved his head forward so his brow touched the tip of the pistol, his eyes crossed to stare down the intrados of the barrel. Doc's finger pulled back ever so slightly on the trigger. Tannen backed off. "You don't know what it was like," he said softly.

Marty returned then, carrying a long line of rope. Doc moved his hand out, gesturing for the line. Marty handed it to him and Doc said: "Go get a chair from the dining room."

Marty obeyed and hustled across the dining room, found a seat and carried the wooden chair Doc had gestured toward over to the scientist's and Biff's location at the entranceway alcove. He sat it on the floor and Doc commanded to Biff: "Sit down."

Tannen hesitated, then slowly sat in the chair. "Put your hands behind the back of the chair."

As Biff did this, Doc began to wind the rope around his body with one hand, the other still aiming the gun. Marty helped him, getting the rope tight around Biff's chest and arms, then tying it firmly around his wrists and pinning his legs to the front legs of the chair.

"All right," Doc said when the task was complete. "Now are you ready to tell us?"

Biff continued to stare up at Doc with furor in his eyes, but didn't reply. "We can wait as long as you can," Doc said primly.

Marty stood by the scientist's side, he too glaring at Biff, waiting for a response. But Biff just continued to stare, smoldering with anger.

"He's not talking," Marty whispered into the scientist's ear. "He wasn't this stubborn in the other 1985."

"What?" Biff demanded, his eyes bouncing to Marty. "What did you say?"

"Nothing," Marty snapped back.

"You mean that this wasn't my life?" Biff demanded. "That I had a different life?"

"Yeah," Marty returned. "And you got what you deserved, too! Because you're a jerk! A rotten son of a bitch! You didn't deserve the life you had, anyway!"

"You took it away from me?" Biff cried with fury. "You took away my life! I had a life; a good life! And you took that away from me!"

"Yeah," Marty crossed his arms. "And we're gonna take this one away, too."

"Marty," Doc chided the teenager for disclosing so much information. He gave Marty a stern look and said: "Why don't you wait in the living room?"

Marty began to say something in response, but let it go. His emotions were about to bubble over and maybe it was time to cool off.

Being around Biff Tannen, especially the true version and not the kiss-ass he was when around Marty's father, made Marty's temper ten times worse. The teenager shuffled out of the alcove and Doc returned his attention to Tannen, slipping the gun into his waistband.

"Listen to me, Tannen," Doc said quietly. "If you tell us what you did now and we prevent it, then you'll never remember this life: This what could have been. So you won't remember a thing."

"And?" Biff demanded. "That still won't make my life any better! Face it, Brown! You're not getting shit out of my mouth. I'd rather die first then go back to that other life of hell!"

"We're going to find out the truth anyway," Doc said. "So make it easier on everyone and just tell us."

Biff didn't reply, his head now hung low and his eyes closed. "Tannen?" Doc asked. Biff remained silent. Doc sighed with frustration. There had to be some way to find out what Biff had done to alter time without having to get it directly from his mouth. The history books might show some sort of particular incident, but Doc still wasn't certain whether the country, state or just Hill Valley alone had been affected. Maybe it was time to do some research.

Doc returned to the living room and told Marty to keep an eye on Tannen and also to keep quiet about their past experiences with time travel and alternate timelines. "You'll just upset him and give him even more reason not to tell us what he did. I'm going to the library to do some research. I won't be gone long."

"All right, Doc," Marty nodded as Doc exited his old home. Marty stood in the doorway of the living room and stared across into the alcove at Biff who still had his head drooped.

For a slight moment the teenager felt sorry for him. He had, after all, taken away from Tannen a life that had been somewhat decent (at the expense of making Marty's father's life a living hell). But then he remembered what Biff was. What he was capable of. If he could, he'd knock his father off right here and now and in every alternate timeline there was! Because that was the kind of person he was. He didn't care about anyone else but himself.

Marty had now convinced himself that Biff deserved a lot worse than the life Marty had succeeded (accidently) in giving him after mucking around in 1955. He deserved much worse.

 Doc sighed with frustration. His eyes were heavy, his back ached and his brain felt like mush. All afternoon he had been glimpsing the Hill Valley Telegraph newspaper archives searching for some sort of clue. Naturally, he had begun a day or so prior to the date indicated on the time train's display: April 13, 1946, and worked his way forward from then. He read the entire periodicals thoroughly to a few days ahead of the date, finding nothing relating to Tannen nor anything that seemed obviously divergent of the original reality. From that point on, he took to scanning the articles for Tannen's name and, a while after that, to just scanning the headlines. Still, he turned up nothing.

He had now managed to get a couple months ahead of the date with still no more relevant information revealed. Doc leaned over one of the library's big oak desks, his hands holding his skull and massaging his cranium through strands of hair, and again reread the headlines on the front page of the June 17, 1946 paper. He wasn't paying attention any longer to what he was reading and had to continually force himself to focus. He wouldn't last much longer, Doc was certain of that much. There was just nothing that indicated a major change in the time continuum. Whatever Biff had done, Doc finally decided, it was insignificant enough to not be picked up by the town's press.

Doc closed up the large newspaper-bound book and returned to the check-out desk and handed it to the woman there, running his hand through his tangled hair.

"Is that all for today?" the woman smiled cheerily at Doc.

"That's all," Doc said, defeat in his voice. "Thank you."

Doc left the library and climbed down the cement steps toward the DeLorean he had parked a few yards away in a grove of trees. He hoped Marty was all right being alone with Tannen. Biff was now the only source they could turn to discover how the timeline had been altered. If he didn't comply, Doc and Marty may have to return to the past with the little (or no, as the case may be) information they had and hunt Biff's past self down.

Doc didn't want to let it come to that, though. They'd only have one shot to undo what Biff had done. He wanted to be as prepared as possible.

Nothing could be left to chance.

 Not long after Doc left, Marty decided it was his turn to grill Biff for information. He stepped into the alcove, pacing back and forth before Tannen. Biff's eyes remained pointed at the ground, obstinately refusing to look up at Marty.

Frustrated, Marty stopped pacing. He stood just before Tannen, legs spread wide apart, standing as tall and looking as intimidating as possible. "You might as well talk, Biff. It's already over. We have the date."

"You weren't supposed to come back," Biff muttered.

"I guess you were counting on that, huh?" Marty returned, agitated. "I guess you were just going to leave us stranded in the future, right?"

"You would have done the same," Biff still did not look up.

"You deserve it. But no, I wouldn't. Because not even a cruel-hearted bastard like you deserves that kind of treatment."

Biff's head snapped up. His face was red and his cheeks were wet, his eyes blood-shot. "You wouldn't?" Biff demanded, his voice cracking. "You wouldn't do that? You did it! You took away my life!"

Marty was taken aback by this reaction. Biff was actually crying. He was actually really upset about this. What was so great about this life? He lived in a bigger house, yeah, but why was Biff so dead-set against going back to the original timeline? Why was he willing to murder Doc to make certain it didn't happen. "What makes this life so great? Is it this big house? Or your car?"

"You don't get it!" Biff lamented. "It's not the house or the car, McFly. I don't care about those things! If you want them, you can have them!"

"Then what is it?" Marty demanded.

"I just want to be happy," Biff said quietly.

Marty still didn't get it. He opened his mouth to say something else, but Biff lowered his head again and murmured once more: "I just want to be happy," promptly ending the inquisition.

"Damn," Marty whispered to himself. Biff was really upset. Not that Marty care much about his feelings considering what he had done to his family in the past, but seeing him this way made the guy seem more human than the teenager had ever seen him. Marty didn't like to think of him this way. Biff just wanted to be happy. Marty turned away from the pathetic figure. He didn't deserve sympathy.

But Marty couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

 Biff hadn't spoken one word after that. When Doc returned a couple hours later, Biff was still sitting as he had, wrist and legs bound, his chin touching his chest and his eyes closed. Doc went to the living room where Marty sat, flipping through the channels on Biff's television set.

"Was everything all right while I was gone?" Doc asked when Marty looked up as the scientist entered the room.

"Fine," Marty nodded, swallowing hard. "Everything was fine."

"I suppose he believes that eventually we'll have to let him go," Doc said, glancing toward the alcove at the immobile Tannen.

"Did you find anything at the library?" Marty asked.

"Nothing," the scientist breathed a heavy and exasperated sigh. "Whatever he did, it certainly wasn't newsworthy."

"So what're we going to do?" Marty asked, he too now looking across the room at Biff. "You think he'll tell us what he did?"

"Doubtful," Doc answered honestly. "He seems very determined to have this reality stay the way it is. I wouldn't mind, except the fact that it has succeeded in erasing my family from the present and it seems your future has reverted to the life it once was before you learned to control your temper."

"We gotta fix this, Doc," Marty said with emphasis, remembering his horrible fate. "We have to make Biff talk. Somehow."

"But he won't," Doc said matter-of-factly. "He's never going to tell us the truth. But maybe we can get it out of him some other way ..."

Doc began pacing, the mad scientist expression Marty had seen appear on Doc's face a hundred times before when devising a complex plan once again masking his face. "How?" the teenager asked.

"We know that the event was insignificant enough to be ignored by the press. We also know that it was significant enough to alter the timeline. Therefore, we can determine that it was a matter of grave importance to Biff and something that changed his life forever, but unimportant to everyone else," Doc concluded.

"Okay," Marty said slowly, following the scientist so far.

"The incident Biff altered had a profound impact on his life," Doc decided aloud. "Otherwise he wouldn't feel the need to alter it. Changing this event also succeeded in giving Biff a happier life, at least from his perspective. We must therefore assume that whatever happened in the original timeline was a tragic instance for Biff." Doc did some quick math. "Biff would have been nine years old back then. Whatever happened, it may have been something that had mentally scarred him for life."

"Yeah," Marty nodded, still keeping up. "But how do we find out what it was?"

"Let's look around the house," Doc said, already walking up to an end table near the sofa. "Unfortunately, we don't know much about Biff's original life and can't compare it really to his new one. But try to remember anything you can about him and see if we can't find anything that doesn't fit in with it."

"All right," Marty said reluctantly. The most time he had spent with Biff was a week in 1955 and all he really learned from that encounter is that Biff was and always had been a jerk. He had only seen him now and then in 1985, whenever he had stopped over to pick up his father's reports, and in the new 1985, every couple of months when he refinished the family's cars.

But Marty searched the house diligently, looking for anything that seemed out of place. Doc knew even less about Tannen. He had really only seen him a few times in town, and he was sure Biff only knew Doc by reputation and gossip. But he was hoping something would click his brain into action and pull some seemingly insignificant fact to the surface.

A long and tedious search by both time travelers turned up nothing. Marty returned downstairs, having found nothing out of place in any of the rooms above. Doc examined the items in the living room for a third time, first taking an expansive look around the room at the walls, the furniture, the carpet: everything. Then he went around to each table and examined everything placed on top, giving the framed pictures the most regard. Nothing was conspicuous.

The scientist looked up at Marty as he plodded down the stairs into the living room, a discouraged expression on his face. "Find anything?"

"Nothing," Marty said.

Doc sighed heavily and waved his hand in the air, still holding a picture frame he had just picked up. "I haven't found anything either!" Doc walked away from the table, glancing back and forth to either side of the room. "I thought there'd be some sort of evidence ... Something to link us to the alteration in the timeline! Damn! I suppose we'll just have to go to the past and attempt to find Biff before the end of the day."

"Great," Marty rolled his eyes. It was a crap shoot.

Doc glared at Marty with an agitated expression, then quickly pardoned the teenager's sarcastic quip. They were both frustrated beyond belief at having found nothing. "Come on. Let's reload the DeLorean and see what we can do."

The scientist pushed the picture frame he had picked up into Marty's chest and left the living room, moving toward the front door. Marty fumbled with the frame for a moment, having nearly dropped it, then pulled it away from his form and glanced the picture before setting it down on the nearest table. It was a photograph of a teenaged Biff in a black cap and gown, an elderly man on his right side and a woman to his left. Marty returned the photo to the table Doc had gotten the picture from, placing it on the edge, and moved to catch up with Doc.

He stopped mid-stride and turned his neck slowly to look over his shoulder. Something about that picture bothered him. Not the photograph itself. But his mind was jabbing him in the ribs, trying to wake the teenager up. Was there something wrong with that picture? Marty turned around and took a long step toward the table. He glared down at the photo. What? What was wrong?

Marty picked the frame up in his hands and struggled to open it from the back so he could pull the glossy out.

"Marty!" Doc called from the alcove, standing with the front door half opened, allowing a wintery draft to breeze through the crack in the door. "Let's go!"

"Hold on a second," Marty murmured as he finally got the sheet out of the frame and held the picture close to his pupils. What? What was it? Marty turned the photograph around and saw that there was some sort of curlicue writing scribbled on the back. He read it aloud to himself, hoping it would collapse his memory block: "Howard, Elna and Biff at Biff's high school graduation: June, 1956." 1956? Why did something about that year seem so important? Why would a picture of Biff's graduation ring a bell in Marty's mind? Why would a picture of Biff and his parents in 1956 be so important?

Then he realized. "Holy shit!" Marty gasped as he finally unraveled the mystery. "Doc!" he called to his friend. "Come here!"

Doc hustled to his friend's side. "What? What is it?" the scientist asked.

"Take a look at this picture," Marty handed it to the scientist.

Doc examined it for a long moment. "What about it?" the scientist finally spoke, not seeing anything queer about the photo. He looked at the background at the school's football field where there was a crowd of blurred figures behind the three main figures at the forefront. There was nothing that indicated a shift in the timeline as far as Doc was concerned.

"That picture was taken in 1956, Doc," Marty said matter-of-factly.

Doc stared at the picture again. So? It was taken in 1956? That was the year Biff graduated from high school, considering he was a senior in 1955.

Marty elaborated. "Ever since I got back from 1955 my parents have been telling me to take it easy on Biff. 'He's had a rough life,' they'd say. 'Take it easy. Be nice to him. He may not be the greatest person, but you wouldn't have turned out so great if your parents had died when you were a kid!' Doc, that picture was taken in 1956! Remember when we went to 1955? Biff lived with his grandmother! That was because his parents died when he was a little kid! So how could they go to his graduation if they were dead?"

"Great Scott!" The connection was finally made in Doc's mind. "Then Biff must have prevented his parent's death in the past! In 1946!"

"But how come that changed everything?" Marty asked. "How come that changed our lives?"

"If Biff grew up with his parents," Doc began, "then chances are he didn't live with his grandmother who lived in Hill Valley. His parents may have lived in a different town, maybe even a different state!"

"Yeah, but he lives here now," Marty pointed out.

"Correct," Doc nodded. "But he didn't in 1955. That means that your father never stood up to him and gained his self-confidence. That's why the reality has shifted back to the one you remember!"

Marty still didn't get it. What did that have to do with his future? Even if his father was still a wimp, how did that change his destiny? "What about us, Doc?"
Doc took a sideways look at Marty, thinking. "Well ... Remember, according to my journal, Biff never stole the time machine."

"But why not?" Marty demanded. He supposed it didn't really matter why as long as they knew how, but he was still insanely curious.

"Biff stole the time machine originally in order to provide himself a more fulfilling and rich life," Doc started slowly. "And that's precisely why he stole it now: only this time around he had a different idea of how to do that - he obviously didn't have our influence with the sports almanac like his older version did. Rather than fix his life with monetary gains like his older, more bitter self did, Biff chose to fix it by providing himself with the family he had lost as a young boy. If he was now content with his life, then his older version wouldn't be as bitter as he was when we saw him and would have no reason to steal the time machine to alter history, because he was already satisfied with his lot! And if he never altered the present, we never went to 1955, I was never sent back to 1885 to meet Clara, you never came back to rescue me and thus did not learn your lesson about that whole 'chicken' mess. Make sense?"

"Kind of," Marty shrugged. "So you're saying that because Biff is happy, our lives got screwed up."

Doc frowned at Marty's assessment. "I suppose that's one way to look at it," the scientist said. "But now it's simply a matter of tracking Biff down in 1946 and stopping him from doing whatever he's about to do. Do you know how Biff's parents died?"

Marty ignored the strange feeling of guilt that had clamped around his stomach and closed his eyes tight and strained his mind. "I think it was a car crash," the teenager said after a long moment. "They were going on vacation or something."

"Then Biff must have prevented their trip," Doc concluded.

"That's why the matchbook said Tannen and son," Marty realized, pulling the matchbook from his jean pocket. "Not Biff and his son. Biff's father and son!"

"Precisely!" Doc smiled, grateful for having finally pieced the puzzle together. "Do you know where Biff's parents lived in 1946?"

Marty shook his head. "No clue."

"No matter," Doc decided. "If we can figure out which high school he graduated from we can find out where he lived. Marty, go get those picture books I set on the table in the dining room. I think there might be a picture of that school in there. I noticed it when I was thumbing through the pages."

"Okay," Marty left the living room and rushed past the alcove to the dining room. He bent over the long wood table and began flipping through the picture books. A few moments later he found another graduation picture, this one taken right in front of the Plain Ridge High School. Marty grinned to himself and pulled the picture from the clear sleeve that protected it.

"Got it, Doc!" Marty called as he waltzed back to the living room. He stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed Biff's figure, sitting bound to the wooden chair in the alcove, staring up at him with a long frown, rage pouring through his veins.

Marty didn't say a word. He stared back at the Tannen stupidly, waiting for something to happen. Doc broke the staring contest as he entered the room, taking Marty's arm and turning him away from Tannen. He grabbed the picture from the teenager's hand and studied it.

"Plain Ridge?" Doc read aloud. "That's about fifteen miles out of town. Once we get to the past, we can find a phone book and look up the Tannens' address." Now Doc held the picture of Biff and his parents up to his eyes and read the back again. "Howard and Elna Tannen. All right."

Doc handed the picture back to Marty and he stuffed it into his jean jacket pocket. "Let's go," Doc said, already rushing to the door.

Marty hesitated, trying desperately not to look Biff in the face. Biff still stared back at him, sneering. Marty could tell he was trying desperately to get free of the tight bindings that confined him, but it was an impossible task. Marty quickly walked past him.

"So that's how it's gonna be!" Tannen cried over his shoulder. "You're gonna take away my life! My life! For your own selfish needs! Selfish pricks!"

Marty continued walking, keeping his pace brisk. Biff leaned as far to the side of the chair as he could to look back at the teenager. "My life!" he cried again. "You took my life!" Then the seat suddenly tipped over and Biff and chair both tumbled to the floor. Biff yelped with pain as he fell on his side. Marty winced at the noise, but didn't look back. "You're going to take away my life!" Biff continued. "To give yourselves a better life! Sons of bitches!"

Biff was fighting back a sob. He was practically crying. It gave Marty a sinking feeling in his stomach. He knew Biff didn't deserve this life, but it didn't seem right. It didn't seem right to go back in time and make sure his parents died.

Marty quickly stepped outside and slammed the door shut behind him so he could no longer hear Biff's wails. Doc was already at the DeLorean, pulling open the driver's side door. "Are you all right?" Doc looked up at Marty.

The teenager blinked. His complexion was pale and he had beads of sweat bulging from his brow despite the nippy breeze of the winter afternoon. Marty shook his head. "It doesn't seem right. To go back and make sure two people die? Is it?"

"We're not going to kill them, Marty," Doc tried to mollify his friend's concerns. "We'll just make certain that history takes its original course. It's not right, no. But it wasn't right from the beginning. It wasn't fair from the beginning. But life's not fair."

"Then how come we get the good life?" Marty asked as he crossed in front of the DeLorean. "I know Biff's a rotten son of a bitch, but I just don't feel right about screwing him over like this. It's like, why can't everyone be happy?"

"Because that's not what life's like," Doc said simply. "Marty, we all have to write our own destiny. Just because his parents died, it doesn't give Biff a free ticket to a good life. Tannen has to make that life for himself. No matter what he's given, it's his job to do the best with it! We have to fix this, Marty. Unless you want to go home first and check on your family. I'm sure that they haven't fared well with the time shift either."

"No thanks," Marty said. "I know we have to do it, Doc. I just feel kind of rotten about it."

"There's no reason you shouldn't," the scientist replied. "You shouldn't feel good about causing anyone pain, even if it is Biff Tannen. But sometimes we don't have a choice in the way our lives end up. You blink and it's thirty years later and things didn't go the way you had planned." Doc settled into the front seat of the car and pulled the door shut.

Marty followed his example and climbed into the DeLorean. "And on the other hand," the teenager said, "if you have a time machine that can all be changed." He looked at Doc, almost accusingly.

"I didn't alter time on purpose, Marty," Doc vindicated himself. "And neither did you when you traveled back to 1955. Those were accidents. Happy accidents, maybe, but accidents nonetheless. We have to do this whether it feels right or not."

Marty didn't reply. Who were they to say that they deserved better lives than Biff? Maybe they did. Maybe they were better people than Biff Tannen and did deserve better, but why should Marty and Doc make that decision? That was too much responsibility for an aging scientist and a teenager with dreams of musical stardom.

"When this is all finished," Doc assured Marty as he flicked on the hover circuits and the DeLorean time machine ascended into the air, "I'm going to destroy this time machine and the train! I'm tired of bearing the weight of any man's destiny. It's time I let circumstance recapture the responsibility."

Marty remained silent. He didn't want to talk right now, not in the mood he was in. He just wanted to get the job done and return back to his life. Try to forget about this possible future that would never come into existence. And forget about Biff Tannen, the miserable bastard who had Marty to thank for his lousy lot in life and who Marty would soon have to thank for his blessed future.

The twilight of early morning shone through the DeLorean's windshield. The street below was empty, lucky for the time travelers. The sky was a bit clouded over and Doc used the overcast to hide the DeLorean the best he could as he zoomed across the town on the way to Plain Ridge. Doc was getting a sense of deja vu from this experience. It reminded him of the time Biff first altered the timeline. And again he and Marty had made plans for the teenager to do most of the work. Doc had found the two purple walkie-talkies from the future in his garage and gave one to Marty so they could keep in contact. He had also given him the Sleep Inducer so he could knock Biff out before he could prevent his parents from begining their arranged holiday.

Doc was certain he had calculated everything in advance. Within fifteen minutes the DeLorean had reached its destination: Plain Ridge. Doc circled the town for a few minutes until he found a wooded area behind a housing complex. He brought the DeLorean down there and he and Marty climbed out.

"All right," Doc said, looking out toward the town's horizon and the fuchsia sky, the sun just beginning its ascent. "There was a coffee shop in town a couple miles from here. Look up Howard Tannen and let me know what you find."

Marty slipped his walkie-talkie into his jean pocket and took a look back out at the town himself. "Okay," the teenager said after a moment's hesitation.

"Remember," Doc emphasized, "if we don't succeed today, both our present and future reality will remain corrupt for all time. Understand?"

Marty nodded slowly. "I know, Doc. I know."

Then the teenager began to stroll out of the woodland, breaking into a jog as he ran toward Plain Ridge's town square. Doc watched him disappear from sight, then turned to survey the DeLorean. He hoped he could trust Marty. He knew the kid was feeling low about having to do this to someone, having to make sure Biff Tannen's parents died, but it had to be done. It wasn't exactly a high mark on Doc's list of achievements either, but he couldn't live without Clara and the boys, not now that they were just becoming a family. And not for one person's happiness. Doc sighed expansively. It was a horrible way to think, but he couldn't help it.

He and Marty were going to get their lives back. And to do so they had to make certain Biff's life stayed on its normal course. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair, but it was their only option.

And sometimes there wasn't always a clear-cut right way.

 It was smaller than he remembered it. Biff Tannen took a look around at his old neighborhood. It seemed a lot bigger when he was a kid. He only had a few memories, it was so long ago, but all of them had been good, up until his parents' deaths. He couldn't help but smile to himself as he saw the old place again.

So this proved that Doc Brown's time machine really did work! He had landed the locomotive a few miles away from his childhood house and walked the distance to his old block. He knew this town like the back of his hand. He had explored many a places, alleys and streets, ditches and woodlands, as a child. He really had missed it. But he wouldn't for long, not when he was done. As he walked down the sidewalk, glancing around at the old domiciles on either side of the street, he saw a group of five children sprint across the pavement. One caught his eye in particular.

The boy wore a red and blue striped shirt and a maroon cowboy hat on his head, a plastic toy gun clenched in one hand. His jet black hair was shaved to a crew cut and his blue jeans were ripped and dirty. It was Biff Tannen at age nine, playing with his neighborhood friends.

"I got ya, I got ya!" little Biff cried, pulling the trigger on his toy gun, aiming at one of the kids, the gun snapping in response.

"No, ya missed!" the other child shouted, running away from little Biff.

Biff smiled. He remembered playing cowboys when he was a kid, but that all came to an end when his parents died. He didn't remember a single instance after moving in with his grandmother in Hill Valley when he played a game with other children. From then on, as far as he could remember, he had been alone. Even in high school, when he had taken up the reputation of the school bully, he didn't truly have friends. The only thing close to companionship he had had during his teenage years was his gang, his lackies. But after George McFly had unexpectedly pelted him early in his second senior year of high school his cronies had abandoned him. Within a few months they had lost all connections. Toward the end of the year he hardly even saw them in the school hallways and even then it merely amounted to a prim "hey," as if they only knew each other casually. Well, that was all about to change.

As Biff moved to step forward, he heard a cry from across the street: "Biffy! Come on, now! We have to get going and drop you off at grandma's!"

Biff stopped cold and his eyes snapped to the location of the voice. It came from the doorway of his childhood home, a fairly small house covered in chipping yellow paint. There was his mother, Elna Tannen, standing in the doorway wearing a beautiful pink dress, her hair pinned behind her. Her hair was auburn and her cheeks rosy. She was as beautiful as he ever remembered, though he never could recollect much. Elna waved toward her small son, again begging him to return home. "Mom ..." Biff choked through a whisper, staring at this apparition from the past.

"Okay, ma, I'm comin'!" little Biff cried, running away from the group of kids, waving his gun-hand as a farewell to his friends. "I gotta go, guys!"

The game continued without the child and, as he came to the doorway, Elna took the little boy's hand and led him back inside. "Let's get your suitcase packed for the week, Biff," Elna said as she led him inside, closing the front door behind.

Biff felt a great sweep of emotion course through his body. It had been so long since he'd seen his mother, he had nearly forgotten about her, forgotten what she looked like. He didn't want to loose that memory again. Biff reached into his pocket and felt the .38 revolver that was still stuffed inside. He had no intentions of shooting anyone, but he had to make sure his parents didn't get in that accident. And that meant preventing the excursion altogether. They were going to visit his mother's parents, if he remembered correctly, who lived across the country, and had decided to leave Biff at his grandmother's in Hill Valley so he didn't miss school those two weeks. They had planned to take a train out, but they never reached their destination.

He didn't remember much of the following day when the police had arrived at his grandmother's to inform him about the accident. Mostly he could only recollect the story they had told his grandmother, what they believed had happened. It had started raining a few minutes into their trip to the train station after they had dropped off Biff and the storm had become violent. From what the police gathered, his father had lost control of the car on a road over Black Bend Bluff. He had clipped an old gnarled tree on the left side and it had thrown both parents into the gorge, leaving the vehicle behind on firm ground. The car had barely sustained any damage, excluding the smashed in front-left side. He wouldn't believe the truth for the longest time. He kept expecting his parents to come back for him. But they never did.

But now he'd make certain they didn't go. That they didn't get in that car. That they'd be a family forever. Biff loped across the street, toward the back of his house. His parents were not going anywhere, not as long as Biff Tannen had his way.

Marty found the street address for Howard Tannen in a phone book in the cafe Doc had told him about. With a few questions directed toward the counterman as to how to find the address, Marty checked in with Doc and let him know that the neighborhood was only a few blocks away from where he currently was.

"Good," Doc had returned over the walkie-talkie. "This way we can keep the time machine hidden while we're in this time period. And the starter seems to be acting up. I had gotten the problem fixed with the old DeLorean when I was in the future, but it won't be such a simple task here with the limited resources I have. I can try to get the starter going again while you look for Biff. Let me know when you get to the Tannens' place."

After that, Marty signed off and headed for the address. He found the street relatively easily and, looking back and forth at the house numbers, began his search for Biff Tannen's old home. He jogged down the street, making his way past a group of young kids who were playing outside. He found the house number that matched the address given in the phone book and began scanning the area for Biff. He was nowhere to be seen. The teenager grabbed the walkie-talkie from his jean jacket pocket and called into it.

"Hey, Doc, you read me?"

"This is Doc," the scientist replied. "What's happening?"

"I'm at the address, Doc. But no Tannen in sight. I don't think he got here yet," Marty said, again surveying the surrounding neighborhood.

"It depends upon which hour he traveled to," Doc replied. "He didn't leave until the afternoon at about twelve o' clock, so he may not have arrived yet. Take a look at the house and make sure he hasn't shown up."

"Okay," Marty signed off once more and began to circle around the house.

He glanced through the windows to see if perhaps Biff had shown up and gone inside, but he couldn't see much through the glare. As he moved to the back of the house Marty saw Biff standing just before the back door, a pistol clenched in his hands. Immediately the teenager ducked away behind the opposite wall to stay out of sight. He cautiously peered around the corner and viewed Biff, who still stood before the back door, contemplating his next move. He looked exactly like the Biff from the new reality, with a fuller head of hair and the name tag from his and his father's business pinned to his suit. That, Marty mused, must be that ripple effect thing Doc's always talking about.

Marty pushed aside these ruminations and again contacted Doc for counsel. "Hey, Doc!" the teenager whispered into the walkie-talkie.
"Biff is here. He's at the back door and he's got a gun. What should I do?"

"Don't do anything," Doc's staticy reply came. "I doubt Biff will have any objections to shooting you if he feels his plan is being threatened."

"I can't just let him go ahead!" Marty objected.

"I've got the starter going again, though it's not completely repaired," Doc answered. "Give me the address and I'll be there as soon as I can. If Biff left at twelve, then that probably means we have until about that time to prevent the accident, give or take an hour or two. So we've still got some time."

"Not much," Marty muttered. "The address is 1322 Hunter Road."

"All right, Marty, I'll be there soon. Keep tabs on Biff and let me know what's happening. But whatever you do, don't let him know you're there!" Doc stressed.

"Okay," Marty said, releasing the "TALK" button and slipping the walkie-talkie back into his jean jacket pocket.

Again the teenager peered around the corner of the building and watched Biff.

"This is it," Tannen whispered to himself.

His eyebrows lowered and his face became twisted with a mix of hatred and determination. Biff raised his foot and swiftly kicked the back door open. The door swung back and slammed loudly into the wall and Biff stepped inside the building, gun drawn.

Marty ran to a window a few feet away and peered in, cupping his hands over his eyes so he could see better. Howard Tannen, a middle-aged man with blond hair and drooping facial skin, sat in an old easy chair, reading a newspaper. He looked up with startled eyes as Biff made his raucous entrance and aimed the point of his gun at him.

"Don't move!" Marty heard Biff yawp at his father.

Just then, Elna Tannen appeared in the kitchen doorway, drying her hands on a blue hand towel, mouth opened to ask what the commotion was. The gun shifted to her now, and Tannen cried again: "Don't move! Stay where you are and no one'll get hurt! Get against the wall! You too!" Biff pointed the gun at Howard and gestured with it toward the wall in question.

The man stood slowly, dropping the newspaper to the ground and moving back against the wall next to his wife. "You're not going anywhere today!" Biff asserted. "We're all going to stay right where we are and be one big happy family!"

 "Doc!" Marty called to the scientist again. "Tannen's in the house and he's got a gun pointed at his parents! He's not gonna let them leave!"

"Great Scott! This is getting more serious than I thought!" Doc returned. "Somehow we'll have to get Tannen out of the house and make certain he doesn't harm either of his parents!"

"Wait a minute, Doc," Marty said. "I thought they were supposed to die anyway. I mean, will it really change things that much if they get shot or if they're in a car crash?" Marty felt immediately guilty for even speaking such insensitive words. He was talking about peoples' lives for chrissakes!

"Conceivably not," Doc answered, oblivious to the emotional detachment imbodying the conversation. "But if Biff only shoots one of them, then his younger self can still live with the other. Or he might only wound his parents, allowing them to continue their lives. In both incidents they wouldn't get in that accident and that reality we saw will still exist! Have you seen Biff's younger self?"

"No," Marty said, again looking into the window. "Wait, hold on."

Just then, nine year old Biff Tannen entered into the living room, a knapsack slung over his shoulder. His little eyes went wide when he saw his older self standing in the middle of the living room, pointing a gun at his parents. The pistol whipped to little Biff's location.

"Up against the wall!" Biff commanded.

"Mama ..." little Biff whimpered, looking back to his mother and dropping his back pack to the floor.

"Come here, Biffy! Come here!" his mother ordered, waving him forward.

Biff swallowed hard, still aiming the gun at his younger self. "Go!" he commanded, and the little boy rushed to his mother's side. Elna pulled him away from the scene, smothering his face into the fabric of her dress.

"What do you want?" Howard Tannen begged.

"Just shut up and don't move!" Biff commanded. "Just don't move!"

Marty turned away from the window again and spoke into the walkie-talkie. "Doc, Biff just showed up. I mean the little kid Biff."

"Great Scott! Now the situation's even more volatile!" Doc's distressed voice came over the transponder.

"What do you mean?"

"If Biff shoots his younger self it would cause a time paradox!" Doc cried.

"A paradox? Perfect!" Marty said, running his hand through his hair. "What do we do?"

"Biff must have succeeded originally in not harming either of his parents or his younger self, otherwise we would have witnessed the end of space and time as we know it!" Doc said frenziedly. "That means we have to be very careful when we interfere with these events. If Biff feels threatened, he may end up shooting his younger self! And if that happens, little Biff can never grow up to become old Biff and he can't shoot himself!"

"Shit," Marty said under his breath. He didn't entirely understand the concept, but he knew it wasn't good. He turned to look through the window again. "So what do we do?" he asked again.

"I'll be there in a few moments," Doc answered. "Just keep me posted on what's going on. I'll think of something."

"I hope so." Marty signed off and turned back to the window.

Nothing seemed to be happening now. Biff stood in the middle of the floor, gun pointed toward his parents and younger self.

If Marty and Doc didn't do something soon, then Biff's parents wouldn't get in that accident. According to the old newspapers Doc had read, there had been a terrible storm that day and the scientist theorized that that may have been the spark for the accident. If they didn't get out on that road before the storm passed, then it would be impossible to rectify the changes Biff had made. He and Doc had to do something and it had to be done quickly.

Marty realized that, as the reality they had seen came closer and closer to becoming a permanent existence, he was beginning to feel less and less sorry for Biff. He couldn't let that version of 1985 remain, even if it did make Biff Tannen's life better. It ruined Doc's present and his future when they had successfully made the right decisions before. Marty had to stop him at all costs, and that meant making sure Biff's parents got in that car.

 Doc brought the DeLorean down onto Hunter Road not long after that. The neighborhood was empty that morning, thank goodness, the children who had been outside having run off to some other area to play. Doc pulled the sportscar under the outstretched branch of a tree, hoping that the shade would somehow hide it from view. He didn't like leaving the time machine out in public, especially in the past at a point in time when that make of vehicle hadn't been created yet, but he had few other options considering the circumstances.

Doc went around to the house that belonged to Howard Tannen and his family. Crouching by a window on the left side of the building was Marty, staring intently into the glass. Doc moved quietly up to his side and, stooping down next to him, whispered: "What's happening?"

Marty jumped and spun around, tripping himself up and falling on his back. "Jesus, Doc! You scared the shit out of me!" The teenager grumbled, getting back onto his knees. "Nothing," he answered the scientist's question. "Biff just keeps pointing the gun at his family, telling them not to move."

Doc glanced at his watch, which he had reset to coincide with the time of the year they were now in. It was after eight o' clock in the morning. "We can't wait much longer," Doc said, then glanced up at the heavens. Somber clouds were drifting their way through the sky. "The storm's amassing. If we don't get Biff out of the house soon, the Tannens may cancel their trip. I brought a memory depressor that we can use on them, but if we don't act fast it may be too late."

"All right, what do we do?" Marty asked.

"Biff won't listen to reason, so we'll have to use force," Doc explained. "I'll go around to the front," here Doc paused to draw the pistol they had gotten from Biff in 1985 from his pants, "and distract Biff. You're going to have to sneak up on him from the back and get his gun. Can you do that?"

Marty craned his neck to look through the window again. "I'll try."

"You must be extremely careful," Doc insisted. "You know that Biff is willing to shoot either of us if he has to."

"I know," Marty sighed. "All right, I'm ready."

"Good," Doc stood. Marty turned to go to the back door, but Doc stopped him by touching his arm. "Oh, and Marty. If something should happen, take the DeLorean and go back to the future without me. It may not be the greatest life, but it's better than none."

Marty looked at Doc for a long moment, considering his words. "Okay," he finally said, though the scientist wasn't sure he was being completely honest. He had a right to be distrustful. There was no way Marty was leaving without Doc. And if something should happen to him, then Marty was going to make sure Biff Tannen got what he deserved in the end.

"Wait for my signal," Doc told him, already heading for the front door. "There's no room for error!"

Marty circled to the back door which was still hanging open and peered in just enough so he could see Biff Tannen and the front door. These next few minutes were going determine the outcome of his life from here to eternity.

He took a deep breath and held it as Doc banged through the front door.

The doorjamb splintered as Doc slammed his foot against the door, kicking it open with force. Biff's eyes shot up to the doorway and immediately his gun was pointed at the scientist, who pointed his gun right back at Tannen, unflinching. Biff's parents had jumped at the noise, and now stared at Doc with wide, frightened and bewildered eyes.

"You!" Biff growled through clenched teeth.

"Put the gun down!" Doc commanded, taking a cautious step forward.

"No!" Biff spat back. "Go back, Brown!"

"It's too late," Doc retorted. "It's too late to change things now."

"No!" Biff cried again. "Get out of here!" He cocked his pistol for the first time. "Don't make me hurt you."

Marty slowly and quietly tiptoed into the house through the ajar back door, certain Doc would keep Tannen distracted while he surreptitiously slinked in. Biff's back was to him. The parents noticed the teenager's entrance, Elna's mouth dropping open and an undetectable gasp escaping her throat. Marty put a finger to his lips, imploring quiet. The Tannens obeyed the gesture, Elna biting her lower lip. Marty crept up behind Biff, a corner wall separating the two. The teenager pushed his back against the wall and looked over to Doc and raised his eyebrows to signify his readiness, waiting for the aforementioned signal.

Doc's expression changed. His eyes went wide, the scientist looking innocent with submission. "All right," he said, taking one hand off the gun and lifting both hands into the air. "You win."

"Drop it!" Tannen commanded, pointing his gun at Doc.

Doc obeyed. He tossed the gun over his shoulder, through the still opened front door. "Get on the wall!" Biff ordered, motioning with his gun for Doc to join his parents.

Doc crept up to the wall, his hands on his head, the gun now pointed in everyone's direction. "I'm going to get my life back, Brown! No matter what it takes!"

"Sometimes things happen for a reason," Doc said solemnly. "And we can't always change them. We can't always erase the past, no matter how badly we want to. I'm sorry, Biff."

"Shut up!" Biff said pertly. "Shut up and nobody has to get hurt."

"Why are you doing this?" Now little Biff peered up from his mother's dress and stared at his aged counterpart, tears bubbling over his eyelids.

"Hush now, Biffy!" Elna ordered, pushing the boy's face back into the folds of her dress. "Keep quiet!"

"No!" little Biff cried through clamped teeth, again looking up at his family's assailant. "Leave my family alone! Don't hurt them!"

"Shut up, kid!" Biff ordered, now aiming the gun at his mother's head. He swallowed hard again, becoming ever more nervous. He hated to put his family through this, but it was all for the best in the end. He had to go through with it. "Keep quiet or mommy gets it!"

"No!" Little Biff suddenly broke free from his mother's grasp, Elna Tannen unable to grasp his tiny arm and pull him back. He lunged at Biff. "Leave her alone!"

Biff lashed our reflexively at his younger self, hands clasped together around his pistol, and slammed his fists into little Biff's face. The butt of the gun had made the most contact, and it cracked against the boy's jaw with a sickening blow. Little Biff was thrust backward, falling onto his side and rolling onto his stomach, unmoving. His cheek was red and swollen from the blow.

"Biffy!" Elna rushed forward and crouched down next to her son.

Biff slowly lowered his gun, realizing what he had just done. He had just struck himself! He reached up and touched his own cheek where he had been struck as a child, suddenly very confused and ashamed. A frown etched into his face and he cried: "Get back against the wall! Get!" His voice wavered.

Doc decided now was the time take action. "Marty! Now!"

Hearing this command, Biff spun around and promptly received a belt to his nose care of Marty's fist. Biff stumbled backward, dazed, gun still in his hand. Marty lashed out again, swinging his balled fist into Tannen's cheek with a heavy strike. Biff was about-faced by the blow. Finally, Biff's grip on his pistol slackened and the gun dropped out of his hand. Biff was next, toppling to the floor in a heap, the floorboards groaning in protest as his legs buckled under him and his heavy form collapsed forward. Doc immediately rushed over to Marty's side, who was now wagging his throbbing hand in the air.

"Nicely done," Doc said, kneeling next to Biff and flipping him over onto his back. His eyes were glazed, half-opened, still conscious. "The Sleep Inducer," Doc ordered.

Marty reached into his pocket and dug out the device. He held it up to Biff's pupils and flicked the appropriate button. A blinding flash flared and Biff's eyes drooped closed and his head tilted backward, Tannen now in a state of relaxed comatose. Doc stood, pulling out the memory depressor, which was a contraption with a long metal rod sticking out of one end, from his pants pocket. He hurried over to Tannen's parents.

"Are you all right?" he asked them, surveying first Biff's father, then his mother from head to toe.

Elna nodded hesitantly, her face blanched. "Who the hell are you?" Howard Tannen demanded.

"FBI," Doc answered, fiddling with a few buttons on the memory depressor. "All right." He looked up at Howard. "Sir, I'm going to need you to hold still for a moment."

Doc gingerly placed the tip of the rod of the depressor into Howard's ear and touched a button. Before Howard could object, the device flashed and Biff's father became very still. His arms dropped to his sides and his eyes became wide and unwavering. Elna watched with a sense of dread. "What did you do?" she managed to inquire.

Doc didn't reply, instead slipping the depressor into her ear and flashing it on. She went numb as well. Doc turned to little Biff who still lay on the ground, knocked out by the heavy blow his older self had given him.

"Will he be all right?" Marty asked, now crouching next to older Biff.

"He'll live," Doc decided, hurrying to Marty side. "Let's get Tannen out of here."

Marty nodded. They hoisted Biff up by his shoulders and dragged him out the front door and across the street to where the DeLorean was parked, thankfully having remained undisturbed in the few minutes Doc had left it. Using his foot, Doc pulled open the driver's side door and he and Marty dumped Biff inside the car.

"Let's get the house back the way it was," Doc said, closing the gull wing door. "We don't want there to be any evidence that this ever happened. The memory depressor will make all the events from this morning groggy and Biff's parents should be convinced that it was nothing but a dream."

"Are you sure?" Marty asked skeptically.

"They most likely won't remember a thing," Doc assured. "But there's still the possibility that a few hazy images could slip into their subconscious. Come on."

The scientist ushered Marty forward and he and the teenager returned to the house to repair any damage done by the time traveling intruders. They closed the back door, set Biff's father back in his chair and left his mother where she stood. "They'll come out of the trance in a few minutes," Doc explained.

Then they carried little Biff into his room and laid him on his bed. They cleaned up anything that seemed disorderly or out of place in the living room and then left the house behind, relatively the same as it had been, besides the cracked wood frame of the front door, which wasn't too noticeable, Doc decided, and didn't prevent the door from being closed or locked. They returned to the DeLorean.

"So that's it?" Marty asked. "Are we done?"

"Not quite," Doc said, letting out a heavy sigh. "We still have to find the time train."

Marty let out a wearied sigh as well, having forgotten about the other time machine. "What about Biff?"

"He'll be out for a few hours more," Doc said. "I had the Sleep Inducer fully charged when you used it on him. Come on," Doc climbed into the DeLorean pushing Biff's figure aside. "Let's get out of here before we're noticed."

Marty rushed to the opposite side and climbed into the car, revolving Biff onto his side so the teenager could fit inside. Once everyone was settled inside, the DeLorean lifted into the sky and floated away.

 Howard Tannen awoke with a start. He rested comfortably in his easy chair, slumping down in the sagging cushion, his morning newspaper lying in his lap. His head was throbbing, as if he'd gotten liquored up the night before and was just now feeling the resulting hangover. He could barely remember where he was. He got a head rush, his vision becoming obscured. After a moment, his headache faded and his eyesight returned to normal. He scanned the room he was now in. His wife was standing in the middle of the living room, blinking curiously as well.

"Elna?" he asked her.

"What happened?" she asked.

Howard couldn't think of any way to respond. He hardly even remembered getting up that morning and getting dressed. He glanced at the side table next to his chair where their train tickets rested. This reminder caused Howard to sit up in his seat and check his watch. "It's almost 9:00!" he cried. "We're going to miss our train!"

"Oh!" Elna exclaimed, remembering this for the first time.

"Go get Biff ready," Howard said, standing up and slipping on his shoes. "Let's get going!"

"Biffy!" Elna called into her son. "Come on, hon! We have to get going!"

Little Biff slowly aroused from unconsciousness, but didn't open his eyes. His face was sore. What had happened? He remembered. He remembered being attacked. By who?

"Biffy!" he heard his mother call. "Come on, son! We have to get to grandma's!"

Biff shook away his thoughts and snapped his eyes opened. He sat up slowly in bed and looked up at his mother as she stepped into the doorway of his room. "Come on, Biff! We're going to be late."

Biff slid his legs off the side of his bed and stood. "Okay, ma, I'm coming." He put his hand to his sore jaw and rubbed it gently. He opened his mouth to ask his mother if something had happened, but then stopped. It was just a dream. It had to be, or his parents wouldn't be acting so cool right now.

Still, his jaw ached something awful.

Biff returned to the living room. "Ready?" his mother asked him as she moved to the back door to lock it.

"Yeah," Biff nodded.

"Let's go!" Howard cheered, leading his family forward, carrying their suitcases under his arms and in his hands.

He went to the front door and opened it. "What the hell is this?" Howard said, staring at the splintered door frame.
Elna came to his side and had a look herself. "I don't know," she said.

"Biffy, did you do this?" Howard demanded of his offspring.

"No," little Biff said honestly.

"Oh, it's not important, honey," Elna told her husband. "The door still locks. The house will be fine while we're gone. Besides, we don't have time."

Howard nodded once. "All right. We'll discuss this when we get back," he gave Biff a firm glare. Then he ushered his family out of the house and locked the front door behind him.

He carried their bags to his car, a 1946 Ford he had purchased as a Christmas present for the whole family last year. He really loved that car. He would have preferred to drive to his wife's parents' home, but Elna wouldn't think of it. The trip by car alone would be a week. Howard dumped the bags into the back seat and Biff climbed in through the passenger's side door and took his seat.

"We should put up the top," Elna suggested. "Looks like it might rain."

"I think we can beat it," Howard smiled devilishly. "Let's go."

Elna didn't object. She knew how to pick her battles and when it came to automobiles, her husband always won. Once everything was inside the car, Howard climbed in behind the steering wheel and Elna joined opposite him.

"Are we missing anything?" Howard asked.

Everyone ran a last minute check list through their minds. "Oh!" Biff suddenly cried. "I forgot my back pack!"

As Biff went to open his mother's door, Howard's hand reached out and stopped him. "Don't worry about that, Biff. Your grandmother can take you back here to pick it up if you need it. If we don't leave now, we'll never get to the train station on time!"

Biff reluctantly released the handle to his mother's door and sat back against his seat. "Okay," he sighed as his father started the car and accelerated down the street and away from their home.

After all, he didn't want his parents to miss their train.

 It took Doc a while to find where Biff had left the time train: in an open field some distance from his old neighborhood. "Figures he'd leave it out in the open like that," Doc mumbled to himself as he brought the DeLorean down next to the time machine. As they climbed out, the thunder storm that had most likely been a cause of Biff's parents' fatality was just begining to let up. As the harsh rain grew less in intensity, they dragged Biff to the time train and lowered him inside the cab. "Keep an eye on him," Doc told Marty as he went back around to the DeLorean.

Doc climbed inside the car and brought it into the boxcar coupled to the back of the train, enclosing it inside. He then returned to the train's cabin, slapping his hands together. "That's that," the scientist said as he went to the main panel.
Marty now had Biff resting against the back seat of the train, his head bent back and resting on the cushioned seat. "We ready to go now?"

Doc flipped on the train's time circuits and took a look at the control panel. "Everything seems to be in working order," Doc nodded. "Let's wait a few minutes. Looks like the storm's about to pass."

That made Marty remember something. He reached into his pocket and dug out Biff's matchbook. If they had stopped Biff from rescuing his parents, then that meant their reality should have been redressed. He read the back inscription. "TANNEN & SON AUTO DETAILING" was still printed on the back in bold black letters.

"The matchbook didn't change, Doc," Marty sighed with frustration. "It still says Tannen and son."

"Let me see it," Doc walked hurriedly to Marty's side and accepted the matchbook from the teenager. Scruitnizing it, the scientist said, mainly to himself: "This matchbook represents what our most likely future will be. This could mean that Biff's parents didn't get in that accident after all."

"You've got to be kidding me!" Marty griped. "After all that?"

"Still," Doc continued, "the future remains in flux. Remember, this matchbook comes from a reality where we never traveled to the past. As long as we're here, in 1946, there's still a chance for us to upset the flow of time. Therefore, the matchbook hasn't changed to reflect the new timeline."

"Why not?" Marty asked.

"Because there are still a number of things we could do to change the future," Doc replied. "If the the accident hasn't taken place yet, then it's still possible for us to prevent it from happening, as illogical as that may seem. Thus, the timeline hasn't changed to reflect a new reality."

"Then shouldn't the matchbook be blank?" Marty asked. He really wanted to try to understand all of this time traveling business, but it seemed even Doc was mostly speculating.

"Perhaps not," Doc answered. "The matchbook comes from an alternate reality. No matter what the reality, it will always have some form of script written on it. In other words, there will never exist a reality where the matchbook is blank. The reality it came from is the predominant reality until something happens to cause a change. Until that something happens, the matchbook should continue to reflect the original reality."

"But didn't we already stop Biff?" Marty threw out. "We stopped Biff, so shouldn't the matchbook have changed already?"

"No," Doc said simply. "That event could have many possible outcomes. There are many variables. It's possible that, if they left a few minutes later than in the original timeline, things won't happen in the same manner. But we won't know for certain until the accident does or doesn't happen. Until Biff's parents are assuredly passed, the timeline will not reflect a new reality. It's possible that the accident hasn't happened yet. If that's the case, then the matchbook won't change until that moment."

"But it could also mean that Biff's parents didn't get in the accident?" Marty asked.

"That's a possibility as well," Doc nodded. "But I presume the instant we return to 1985, we'll have our answer. The matchbook should change immediately to reflect the new reality, if indeed Biff's parents got in that accident."

"I hope so," Marty said.

Doc nodded once, he too hoping strongly that his theory was correct. He turned away from Marty and took another glance at the matchbook. It remained unchanged. It sounded like the storm was finally breaking. If his parents had indeed crashed as a result of the perilous storm, the old timeline should be erased and the new one should be reflected on the matchbook. But that wasn't happening. Doc lowered his head, realizing just what that meant. They had failed.

Disappointed, he turned to announce the bad news to Marty. He held the matchbook out to the teenager, the back still facing him. But then something changed. Doc brought the matchbook closer to his eyes and watched with astonishment as the words: "BIFF & SON AUTO DETAILING" faded and it their place the words: "BIFF'S AUTO DETAILING" appeared.

"Marty, look!" Doc pushed the matchbook toward the teenager.

"It changed!" Marty said ecstatically. Then he reached into his jean jacket pocket and pulled out the picture of Biff and his parents at graduation. It still showed Biff standing outside Plain Ridge High School, his parents on either side. Then, slowly his parents faded and the background transformed to that of Hill Valley High School. Biff was now alone in the picture! "It's back to normal!"

Doc smiled with relief. "Thank goodness. We've succeeded."

Marty was grinning from ear to ear. Then he glanced down at the unconscious Tannen. He was different. His hair had thinned out again and the name tag he had worn in the new reality had disappeared. He had returned to his former self. "What about Biff?" Marty asked, rolling up the photo and slipping it into Biff's sweat suit pocket.

"Once we get back to the future I'll use the memory depressor on him as well," Doc answered, returning to the main control panel. "That way we won't have to worry about Tannen attempting to steal the time machines again before I get them disassembled. But first we have to drop the train off one day in the past."

"Why?" Marty asked, taking a seat.

"So our past selves can find it in the forest when they search for it," Doc answered. "We could potentially cause a paradox by not having the train there."

"Oh," Marty said, not completely absorbing the information. "Well, you're the doc, Doc. Let's just get back to the future so I can forget about all this shit, okay?"

The scientist nodded in agreement. The sooner he and Marty forgot about this incident, the better. Thank God he wouldn't have to worry about time travel anymore. There were too many immoralities linked to it. Sometimes Doc swore he'd, (if it wouldn't most assuredly cause a paradox) for just two cents, go back to 1955 and stop himself from discovering the flux capacitor. But that was in the past. And the past was the past. And, Doc decided, it should remain that way.

He then loaded Mr. Fusion and prepared the train to return to the future.

After returning the train to Oakdale Woods earlier in the morning, Doc and Marty hauled Biff into the DeLorean and traveled a few hours into the future. The train still sat in the forest, just as they had left it. Marty's truck was still on the outskirts, and, as they took to the sky in the DeLorean, Doc asked if he should drop Marty off. But the teenager assured him that he'd rather help Doc finish with Biff first, just to make certain no other problems arose.

Along the way to Biff's home, which Marty had looked up in the phone book they had brought from the altered reality, (indeed, Biff's address had changed, no longer reflecting Doc's house number) Doc made a side trip. The scientist brought the DeLorean over the area where his garage once stood, its shadow passing over flat ground. That was enough to convince Doc now that they had completely succeeded in repairing their reality.

A few minutes later, Doc brought the DeLorean down outside of Biff's apartment building in Little Cherry. As Marty pushed open his door, Biff began to stir. He was awakening.

"Hey, Doc," Marty whispered as he moved his hands away from Biff, afraid if he moved him any more that he might wake entirely. "Biff's waking up. Should we use the Sleep Inducer again?"

Doc shook his head as he climbed out of the car and went around to Marty's side. "I used all of the power to knock Biff out the first time. Let's just hurry up and get him home."

"Right," Marty said, carefully stepping out of the car.

He pulled Biff out by the shoulders, then handed him to Doc. The scientist hoisted Biff's front end while Marty grabbed his legs. He was extremely heavy, a complete dead weight. Biff began to move his head back and forth, muttering inaudibly, as they brought him to the building's front door. They carried him up to his apartment, 7F, his address had said, on the seventh floor. The door was locked, so Doc slipped his hand under Biff's arms and bared his weight as Marty rummaged through Biff's pockets, finally turning up a house key. It slid into the lock perfectly, and Marty turned the key and opened the door. Then he returned to grab Biff's legs and they carried him inside.

"Let's set him on the couch," Doc said.

They shuffled over to the love seat and draped Biff on top, Marty tossing his legs over the arm of the sofa. Marty wiped his forehead with the back of his head and said: "Is that it?"

"Almost," Doc said and reached into his pocket and pulled out the memory depressor. "Marty, go watch the car while I finish up here. I don't want anything to happen to it while it's unsupervised."

"All right," Marty agreed and quickly left the room.

Doc bent over Biff's form and placed the rod of the device into Biff's ear. Suddenly, Biff's hand shot up and slapped the device away. As Doc moved his hand to place the device back in his ear, Biff reached out and grabbed his wrist. Biff's eyes snapped open and he stared at Doc.

"You!" he cried with abhorrence. Then he began looking around the room. "Where am I?"

"You're back home," Doc supplied.

Biff's face soured and he placed his free hand to his head. "I'm home," he sighed. Then he turned to Doc. "I didn't want it to be this way. I didn't! I wanted to be happy!"

"I'm sorry," Doc twisted his wrist out of Biff's grasp. "Sometimes we don't always get the life we want."

"Don't do it, Brown!" Biff again swatted the device away.

Doc looked confused for a moment. Did Biff know what the device was for? "Don't let your dreams get screwed up," Biff continued. He spoke with slurred speech, a result of being blinked by the Sleep Inducer. He was still out of it, not completely revived. "Screwed up like mine. Like when my parents died. That's when I screwed up. I stopped trying. That's when it all got messed up." Biff stared at Doc earnestly, twisting his head to look at the scientist. "Don't let one bad thing screw you up, Brown!" He reached up and grabbed Doc's collar, pulling him toward his face. "Don't let it!"

Then Biff released his grasp and his head fell backward onto the sofa. Doc didn't move for a moment, brooding over Tannen's comments. He rid away these thoughts with a shake of his head and placed the rod of the memory depressor gingerly into Biff's eardrum. The thing flashed away Biff's memories of all the events he had witnessed, everything about time travel. Then Doc stood, pocketed the depressor, and left Biff's apartment, closing the door quietly behind him.

 Doc drove Marty back to the forest to pick up his truck.

"If you see anything ... strange, let me know," Doc told him as Marty climbed inside his Toyota.

"Will do," Marty saluted Doc, then started the engine and sped home to meet his almost guaranteed to be fuming parents. He had, after all, disappeared all day, without so much as a warning.

Doc then climbed back into the DeLorean and brought it into the clearing where the train sat. He climbed out of the car and took a long analyzing look at the locomotive. Then he turned his gaze to the newly recreated DeLorean. He was hoping to have time travel a thing of the past by this time. It seemed fate had intervened to prevent it.

Doc chuckled to himself at this thought. He didn't believe in fate. Or destiny. It was a person's choice to forge their own future. Every decision was critical. It could determine the outcome of someone's entire life. Their entire future, destiny, fate, whatever. One decision could determine everything. Doc turned to look at the locomotive again, then back to the DeLorean.

He had better choose wisely.

 Doc returned home. He parked the DeLorean in his garage and locked the place up behind him, just in case. He crept to his front door and held his breath as he slid his door key into the lock. This time it clicked into the key hole effortlessly, and Doc unlocked the door and stepped inside. It was dark in the alcove, but as he moved to the living room to climb upstairs he saw a light on. He peered into the living room where the light emanated from and saw his wife, sitting in the lonely love seat, reading her favorite novel. She bit her lower lip and tapped her finger nervously against the book's cover. A bad habit she had picked up as a tot. She hadn't heard him come home.

"Clara," Doc said as he stepped into the room.

She looked up. Her face was serious, stone. "Emmett." She stood, staring at him. "Where in God's good Heaven have you been?" she demanded. "The boys and I were worried sick!"

"There was a mishap," Doc said vaguely, going to his wife. He put his hands on her shoulders. "I'm sorry."

She slapped his hands away. "Where were you?" she demanded.

"Clara," Doc turned away, afraid to face her. He didn't want to see her reaction when he told her what he had done. "The truth is, I've been using the time machine."

He waited for a reaction, some kind of angered reply from his wife, but it didn't come. He continued reluctantly without looking back. "To get this house, to get the adoption records and you and the boys' birth certificates, I needed future technology and funds. I went on one last trip last night with Marty to get the equipment I'd need to take apart the time machine once and for all. I finally decided that I no longer needed it. But apparently Biff Tannen stowed away. You remember I told you about him, how his older self had altered reality the first time? In any event, he stole the time machine and altered reality. I'm not sure what I did on your side of things, but while we were in the other reality, we had to find out what Biff did and undo it. That's why I was gone."

Doc waited for Clara to say something. The room was silent. Finally, he turned to look at her. Her face remained serious. She refused to speak. "Please, Clara," Doc pleaded. "Say something!"

Her mouth twisted into an uneven line and she spoke. "You lied to me, Emmett. You told me you'd never use the time machine again." Her voice was monotone, though there was a faint touch of hurt that seeped through.

"But I had to!" Doc retorted. "It was the only way!"

"But you lied to me!" Clara cried again. "I can accept that. That you had to use the time machine. I don't like it! It gives me goose pimples every time I think of it, because it's so very dangerous! But I trust your judgement, Emmett.

"But what really perturbs me is that you didn't tell me about it! You didn't tell me the truth! That's what really hurts, Emmett!"

"But if I had --"

"What?" Clara demanded. "If you had, what? What would I have said? You have no idea! No idea! Whatever you were thinking, for some nonsensical reason, you believed that hiding it from me was the better thing to do! And then you end up getting yourself and Marty into trouble! And here I am, worried sick, and Marty's family, too, and we have no idea where you are! Because you never told us! Not one single thing! Because of your irrational and illogical apprehension of events you didn't even know would happen! Of events you didn't even consider happening!"

"I'm sorry," Doc said again, lowering his head.

"Emmett, I want you to understand something," Clara said. "I can't have you lying to me. My father did the same thing to me and my brother when my mother died! And I knew he was lying! And I couldn't stand it! I hated him for it! Until one day, he just disappeared. Emmett, I'm not waiting around for that day. If you can't tell me the truth -- If you can't be honest, then I can't be with you! I have to be able to trust you, Emmett!"

"You're right," Doc looked up at her. "You're absolutely right, Clara. I was acting foolish. I promise I'll never lie to you again."

"I hope not," Clara sighed. "Because I won't stand for knavery in this house, Emmett. If that's how things are going to continue, then you might as well take me back to 1888 right now."

"I promise," Doc assured her again.

Clara slowly began to regain her composure, taking in a deep breath. "All right, Emmett. I believe you," she said, putting her hand to Doc's chin and lifting his head up to look into his eyes. "Are you all right? Is Marty okay?"

"We're both fine," Doc nodded. "Everything is fine."

"You're certain?"

"Yes," Doc said. "I promise."

"Okay," Clara turned away from him, heading toward the stairs. "I'm going to bed, Emmett. We can talk some more about this tomorrow. And in the morning you'll have to explain to the boys what happened and let them know you're okay. For now, I think we could all use a good night's rest to clear our minds ... and conscience."

Clara stopped midway up the steps and looked back at Doc. "Are you coming?"

"In a minute," Doc replied. "I'll be up."

Clara stared at him for a moment. Her husband had been acting odd ever since they moved to 1985. She had a feeling, something in her gut, that she knew what it was. She was certain, somewhere deep down inside, he knew, too. But it seemed this was something he had to get through himself. This was one thing they couldn't invent a solution to together. Giving her husband one more thoughtful glance, Clara returned upstairs to let him meditate in private.

Once she was gone, Doc collapsed in the love seat, holding his head in his hands. Why had he lied to his wife? Because a part of him wanted to believe that he was completely done with time travel, Doc answered his own question. But he couldn't give it up that easily. His life's work. He couldn't just throw that away like it was nothing.

Doc pulled off his coat and draped it over the arm of the couch. Only then did he notice something sticking out of the inside of his coat pocket. He reached in and pulled it out. His future self's journal. He had placed it in his coat in the future without giving it a second thought. The entries would be different now. They would reflect a different reality. His future!

Doc went to the fireplace, placing the journal under his arm and holding it pressed there to his side, and picked up a Presto Log from a pile and tossed it inside. He reached into his pocket and pulled out Biff's Auto Detailing matchbook and lit a match and tossed it into the fireplace, then picked up a poker and stroked the fire. He didn't want to know his future. That wasn't important to him. He had to live in the present.

As the fire began to blaze, Doc took a seat again, leaning over and staring into the flames. He turned the book over in his hands. Although, he wondered just what his decision would be. Of course, that didn't mean his future was for certain, but he couldn't help but wonder.

He flipped open the book. Curiously there was only one entry, dated January 1st, 2021. He read it aloud to himself: "'Happy New Year. No so happy for me. Clara and I had a peaceful evening with Marty and Jennifer. The kids came over, as well as Marlene, though Marty hasn't heard from his son for quite some time. As the New Year passed, I made a resolution to myself. I want to stop regretting the past. I can't help thinking about it every day, though. I've accomplished nothing since I've destroyed the time machines. Yes, Clara and I raised wonderful children, and yes, I have a loving wife and wonderful friends in Marty and Jennifer, but there's still something missing. I still have a yearning. I've tried my best to fill the hole by working on other inventions. Most were failures, others trivialities. Those that may have meant something in the past are bricabrac compared to my greatest invention. Nothing has measured up. I spent my whole life wondering what would have happened if I'd kept the time machines. I may have never used them again, but I will never know for certain. I may never know that possible future. That reality.

"'But I'll always wonder.'"

Doc snapped the book shut and stared into the fire's embers. It was time to make a decision. He stood and moved toward the fireplace, staring up at the staircase the entire time, the opening at the top dark, obscure and uncertain. On one hand, time travel was dangerous and absurd and his wife hated it. On the other, it was his life's passion. So which one won? What was more important to him?

He dropped the book into the flames and watched as the paperback burned. It had flipped open to the only journal entry, the only page with scribbled words, and Doc stared down as the page charred. Soon, the only portion left of the page was the line that read "Not so happy." As it burned away, the scientist swore that the "Not so" had changed to "I'm so", but the page was burned away shortly thereafter, and he no longer knew if it had really happened or if it was just his mind playing games.

Either way, he had made a decision. For better or worse, he had made his choice.

The shrill ringing of his phone awoke Biff Tannen. He slowly sat up, looking around his room. The phone rang again, causing a sharp pain in his brain. He reached groggily out for the phone and picked up the receiver. "Yeah?"

"You son of a bitch!" a voice cried. Biff knew who it was instantly.

"Hey, doll-face," Biff sighed.

"Don't pull that shit with me!" his ex-wife retorted angrily. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What are you talking about?" Biff demanded.

"You disappear all day! No one can find you! You leave our daughter alone all night!"

"Alone?" Biff asked. "What the hell are you talking about? She had a babysitter while I was working."

"Yeah!" his ex cried. "And she called me and told me that you hadn't shown up all night! That she had to watch our daughter because you had disappeared and no one knew where you were! If she wasn't there, do you know what could have happened? You reckless prick! Where were you, huh? Out getting drunk again?"

"What are you talking about?" Biff cried again.

"You were gone all night Sunday! When I came to pick up my daughter yesterday morning the babysitter was watching her! You were gone all day yesterday! Where the hell were you?"

"I-I don't know," Biff said, confused. It was Tuesday?

"Too hung-over to remember?" his ex begged. "Damn it, Biff, that's it! I'm filing a suit to get full custody of Agnes!"

"What? No, you can't!" Biff cried, sitting up in his seat (and causing a rather woozy feeling to beset his brain) and pounding his fist on the coffee table. "You can't take away my little girl! She's all I've got left!"

"Too damn bad, Biff! You don't act like you care about her one bit! Leaving her alone all night! I swear, when I'm done you're never going to see her again! Got it?"

"No!" His ex hung up, the sharp sound of the phone being slammed down into its cradle smacking in his ear.
What the hell had happened? He didn't remember. He couldn't remember what had happened. He slumped back in the love seat again and strained his mind to think. Had he really left his daughter alone all night? Had he been drinking all night? He couldn't remember. Maybe, then, that is what happened. It had happened once or twice before, without his wife's knowledge. But it was always after the babysitter had left. He had always made certain that no one would discover his recklessness. How could he be that careless.

Biff put his hand to his head and dropped his head back. How could he have let that happen? He couldn't let his daughter be taken away! That was the only person he had left! The only family he had left! The only love he got in this crummy world!

He sighed with frustration and disparity, choking back a sob.

His life just kept getting worse.