Look Me Up When You Get There
Hill Valley, CA -- Saturday October 26, 1985
The invention of Kevlar was a wonderful thing, but the stuff definitely has its limitations.
The force of bullets slamming into his vest sent Doc crashing to the ground and completely knocked the wind out of him. "Nooooo! Bastards!" he heard Marty scream, and as the Libyans turned their attention towards his young friend, Doc tried desperately to take a deep breath. "Thirty years, and this was the best I could come up with," he thought wryly, and promptly passed out.
Doc blinked and stared up at the sky, momentarily disoriented. Close by, he could hear the distressing yet familiar sounds of muted weeping. He identified the sound and thought, "Marty’s back from 1955." He smiled faintly for a moment, relieved that the teen had made it back to the present unscathed. Then it hit him. "Marty thinks I’m dead!" Jolted by the realization, he quickly sat up, wincing a little, and looked around until he found himself staring into the wide-eyed, tear-stained face of his best friend. Marty looked, naturally, as if he’d just seen a ghost. He even backed away a little.
"You’re alive," Marty whispered incredulously. Alarmed by the thread of horror running through his voice, Doc hurriedly showed Marty the bulletproof vest, and in answer to the resulting questions, handed Marty the note. Marty’s eyes narrowed for a moment as he gazed in disbelief at the carefully mended and preserved missive and Doc felt a small twinge of doubt. After all, he’d just put the kid through hell – in their own best interest, but intentionally nonetheless. It wasn’t inconceivable that.... Marty lifted his head. For a moment, he looked as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
"What about all that talk... about screwing up future events? The space-time continuum?"
Relieved, Doc smiled. "Well, I figured – what the hell?"
Marty grinned back.
They were both still sitting there, getting their bearings, when Doc suddenly looked around them and said, "Marty, where’s the time machine?"
"It’s still in front of the old theater." At Doc’s horrified look, Marty hastily explained. "Well, I had to leave it there, Doc. It stalled out again right after I got back to ’85. I didn’t have time to play around with it, what with..." Marty slapped a hand to his forehead. "Doc, we gotta get out of here. The mall’s far enough in the boonies that maybe no one’s called the cops yet, but I don’t think we wanna stick around and find out. Besides," Marty shuddered, "someone may come looking for them." He gestured toward the wrecked van.
Doc immediately saw Marty’s point. "You’re absolutely right, Marty. I think we’ve been shot at enough for one day. Get in the van and we’ll pick up the DeLorean."
Once they were in the van and safely away from Lone Pine Mall, Marty turned a critical eye on his friend. "You sure you’re okay, Doc?" he asked.
"Yes, Marty," Doc answered. "Although that’s not an experience I care to repeat."
"Me neither," Marty said softly, gazing out the window. "When I got back and thought you’d died again..."
Doc sighed. "I’m sorry, Marty. I hadn’t planned on you finding me unconscious like that." He paused and shook his head. "I must have been out for awhile."
"The important thing is that you’re okay," Marty said, and quickly changed the subject. "We should probably find a pay phone and call the cops, you know. Just to make sure that those terrorists are taken care of."
"I don’t think they’re going anywhere, Marty," Doc said soberly.
"After flipping a VW bus going 80? No kidding," Marty answered grimly. "Hell, the one with the rocket launcher wasn’t even sitting down. I don’t know whether they’re dead or just hurt, but they’re gonna stay the hell put until someone comes after them." Doc was still trying to digest the bit about the rocket launcher. Marty, perhaps realizing that his friend hadn’t grasped the greater implications of what he was saying, tried again. "Doc," he asked gently. "Do you really think they sent everyone they had after you tonight?"
Doc paled at the words. "Great Scott! I can’t believe I never thought of that."
Marty almost smiled. "Same old Doc," he said, too soft to be heard. He realized that they’d reached their destination. "Hey, Doc! The DeLorean’s over there. Do you wanna try and start it, or should we just push it into the van?"
Doc’s mind was elsewhere (Oh my God, they found me...), but he tried to focus on the task at hand. He pondered the options. I don’t know how... "Let’s see if I can start it up. You go find a payphone." ...but they found me.
Marty ran in search of a phone. Doc shook his head. "What have I gotten us into?" he asked.
Minutes later, after Marty returned from making his phone-call, the DeLorean still wouldn’t start. In a hurry now, they loaded it into the van and headed back to Doc’s lab. It was a quiet ride, as in the distance sirens began to wail. Once they reached the garage on JFK, Marty broke the silence.
Glancing at the place where the mansion once stood, he looked up at his friend and grinned. "So, whatever happened to that mind-reading gizmo of yours, anyway?"
Doc looked puzzled for a few seconds, and then laughed as he remembered. "Oh, it’s still in a box in the lab somewhere, I’m sure. I never did get that damned thing to work."
"Oh, I don’t know," Marty said, eyes glittering mischievously. "I really was trying to sell you a subscription to The Saturday Evening Post..."
Doc turned and looked at him. "Don’t get smart, Futureboy," he said, smiling. He clasped Marty by the shoulders. "It’s been hard waiting thirty years to talk to you about everything that happened."
Doc and Marty talked for well over an hour about the events of November 1955. Doc didn’t know whether to be amused or appalled by Marty’s animated retelling of his "Johnny B. Goode" performance, although he laughed himself out of breath as the teen shamefacedly explained how he’d accidentally changed the name of the mall. For his part, Marty listened intently to Doc’s recitation of his hassles on the clock tower on the night of the storm. He got offended on Doc’s behalf when the inventor admitted that a few of the more suspicious townsfolk had actually accused him of deliberately drawing lightening to the clock tower, even though the authorities (and most of Hill Valley) realized that such a thing was absurd.
Eventually, Doc brought up the subject of Marty’s letter, apologizing for tearing it up. "After all," he said, "I’d have saved us both a whole lot of trouble if I’d just read that letter then and there."
Marty shook his head. "It’s okay, Doc. I should’ve just straight-out told you what was gonna happen the first time you watched that tape. Besides, it’s not like I wouldn’t have worried about it anyway."
Doc thought it over. Marty’s words made sense, although they brought his present situation back to mind. He looked over at his friend, and could tell that they were both thinking the same thing. Marty said it first. "Doc, you – you can’t stay here. It’s not safe."
Doc nodded sadly. "I know. I’m gonna have to leave town for a while."
"Do you know where you’ll go?" Marty asked bleakly. "What about Einstein? And the time machine?"
"I guess I’ll think of someth—Of course! The time machine! If I’m time-travelling, Einie and I can dodge those bastards indefinitely."
Marty brightened considerably. "Hey, yeah! And I’ve got an idea. If you go to the future, you can find out when it’d be safe for you to come back. Maybe you wouldn’t even have to be gone that long!"
Doc looked much calmer. "That’s a very good idea, Marty."
"I’m still gonna miss ya, Doc."
"Yeah, I know. I waited a long time for today to happen. It’s a shame things didn’t work out a little better."
"It’ll still work out, Doc," Marty said, trying to smile. "We’ve got plenty of time."
Doc chuckled. "We do at that, Marty."
Doc drove Marty back to his house. As Marty got out of the car, carrying his skateboard, he asked, "About how far ahead are you going?"
Doc looked up and smiled. "About 30 years," he answered. "It's a nice round number."
The two friends said their good-byes. As Doc drove away, he looked back at the teenager. Marty had gone through so much in the last (week? few hours?), and Doc couldn’t help but feel a little responsible for him. God, I hope everything works out for that kid. "Take care of yourself, Marty," Doc whispered as the speedometer reached eighty-eight.
completed May 2003 by Starlighter
StarlighterCRM_114@hotmail.com
