008. A Week


A week that was all he had, one single week.

Doc assured him it could be done, but then the Doc wasn't the sort of guy to let the impossible faze him, after all he had built a time machine!

It was thanks to that time machine Marty was in this mess in the first place.

1955! How the Hell had he ended back here?

Well he knew that, it was all thank to a bunch of Libyan terrorists...Marty shuddered to remember it...the cold night air, the harsh lights of the Twin Pines Mall parking lot, the sounds of gunfire...

But he didn't have time to worry about that, at least not right now, what happened to Doc wouldn't happen for thirty years, he had just one week.

He couldn't sleep, Doc had set him up in the spare suite of his mansion (Doc with a mansion, unbelievable!) while he tinkered around with the DeLorean.

But if Doc expected Marty to be able to sleep after what he had found out, he was being more than optimistic, he was being plain crazy!

Throwing back the covers he went over to the desk and picked up the photo.

It was of him, Dave and Linda standing in front of a Wishing Well, it had been on the last boring and embarrassing McFly family trip. Mom had insisted that he and his brother and sister pose in front of the Well and while she harangued Dad about how to use the camera, Dave had tossed a quarter into the Well and they'd all wished to be anywhere else but there.

Now Dave was beginning to fade, his curly hair had disappeared from the photo and now half his forehead was missing...according to Doc soon he would disappear completely, then Linda and then...Marty himself.

"Remind me never to do anyone a good deed," Marty whispered to himself, shaking his head.

Who would have thought that pushing your dad out of the way of a car would prevent you from ever being born?

The whole thing was creepy, Mom and Dad the same age as him! Dad hadn't been that much of a surprise, except for the Peeping Tom thing. But Mom...well, she was so thin and a complete flirt. Marty wondered if sometime in the not too distant future (past?) she got whacked on the head – perhaps that's why she agreed to marry Dad – and turned into a complete kill-joy.

There was a soft knock on the door.

"You awake?" Doc’s voice filtered through the door.

"Yeah, Doc, come in," Marty called.

"Your brother still fading away?" Doc asked as he opened the door.

"Yeah," sighing Marty put the photo down.

"I've been ruminating," Doc began, "and I’ve theorised quite a few possibilities."

Marty blinked. "English, Doc."

"I have a few ideas about why your brother is fading from the photo," Doc explained. "Perhaps it's not as bad as I thought that merely coming into contact with your parents being enough to jeopardise your existence. I can't see why that would be, so I considered that photo is an artefact from the future, technically it probably shouldn't even exist and maybe that's the reason your brother is fading."

Marty brightened at this information – maybe all he needed to worry about was somehow catching that lightning bolt that would hit the Clocktower. No easy feat, but not a patch on never being born!

"I further theorised that it's possible your parents have yet to fall in love and once they do, the photo will be restored."

Marty frowned, there was something....

"My parents fell in love thirty years ago, at least that's what Mom always says, in November...now."

"Undoubtedly they met during some social activity at school," Doc surmised.

Marty shook his head. "No...they never met before…before my grandfather hit Dad with his car...Oh shit..."

"The car you were hit by," Doc's eyebrows rose.

"Oh shit."

"Perhaps they'll meet at school? He'll seek her out, he was willing to climb at tree –"

"No way, Doc, no way, my dad can hardly answer the door, no way would he approach my mom!"

"Well, it's unusual but perhaps she'll seek out him –"

"Please, Doc, when I said my dad's a complete nerd, I mean a complete nerd, she probably doesn’t even know he exists!"

They both turned to look at the photo.

Doc held up his hands. "Let's remain calm, nothing can come from mindless hysterics." He then bit his thumb for a moment. "Obviously, you've interfered with your parents' first meeting...but there’s still time, at least until you start fading from the photo."

"What the Hell am I supposed to do? Match-make them?"

"Precisely!"

Marty closed his eyes, this was going to be even harder than he feared...


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