'Til Broad Daylight

::10::

The two ran through the cemetery in the dark, each holding flashlights that they had found earlier. Stumbling blindly through the stones and the twigs, they both nearly fell multiple times. They began to point it at different headstones, hoping to find what they were looking for. Suddenly, Marty lit up a headstone that he wished he'd never read.

In loving memory
George Douglas McFly
Born
Apr 1, 1938
Died
March 15, 1973

Marty began to walk towards it. Rosie noticed this and followed.

"No!" He exclaimed. "No this can't be!"

"Marty," Rosie said, but couldn't get through to him.

   "March 15th, 1973!" He yelled, close to tears. Rosie kneeled down beside him. "No! Oh, god, no!"

   "Marty you need to calm down," Rosie said. She threw an arm around him and pulled him close to her. He started to breathe heavily, repeating himself.

   "Oh please, god please, God no. This can't be happening," he said, crying into her shirt. "This can't be-," suddenly, they noticed a shadow behind them.

   "I'm afraid it is happening Marty," Doc said, Einstein right behind him. "All of it."

   "Doc!" Rosie called out.

   "When I learned about your father, I figured you'd come here," he said, walking towards them as they stood up. They backed up, shining their lights on the headstone.

   "Then you know what happened to him?" Rosie asked, rubbing Marty's arm and holding his hand.

   "Do you know what happened March 15th, 1973?" Marty asked, the date now engrained in his memory.

   "Yes kids I do," Doc replied. He took them back to his place, where he could explain further. Opening a dusty book, an image of Marty's father was printed on one of the pages, the headline reading 'George McFly Murdered.' "I went to a public library to try to make sense of all the madness. The place was boarded up, shut down, so I broke in and borrowed some newspapers."

   "I don't get it Doc," Marty said. "I mean how can all this be happening."

   "Doc it's like we're in hell or something," Rosie said from where she was sitting on the couch behind them, head in her hands.

   "No, it's Hill Valley. Although, I can't imagine hell being much worse," he said. They heard Einstein whimpering behind them. "Oh Einie, um sorry boy. The lab is an awful awful awful awful mess." He went and made his dog a bed. Rosie walked over to Marty, who kissed her head.

   "We'll figure this out," he whispered to her as Doc worked. Doc walked back towards them.

"Obviously, the time continuum had been disrupted, creating this new temporal event sequence, resulting in this alternate reality," he said.

"English Doc," the two teenagers said at the same time, and it was obvious that they had said this many times.

"Here, here, here. Let me illustrate," he said, rummaging through boxes and picking up a large chalkboard. "Imagine that this line represents time."

   Marty picked up the newspaper, hardly paying attention to what doc was saying. He read the headline multiple times and ripping it out,

   "Here's the present, 1985, the future and the past. Prior to this point in time, somewhere in the past, the timeline skewed into this tangent, creating an alternate 1985. Alternate, to you two, me, and Einstein, but reality for everyone else," he taught them. He then walked over to the DeLorean, and grabbed a bag. "Recognize this?"

   "What did I say?" Rosie said, crossing her arms and giving the boy a pointed look, but held little malice.

   "It's the bag the sports book came in. I know, because the receipt was still inside. I found them in the time machine along with this," he said, holding up a cane as lightning and thunder struck around them. Rosie's eyes widened.

   "That creep!" She exclaimed angrily. Marty grabbed the cane from his hold.

   "It's the top of Biff's cane. I mean, old Biff from the future," he said.

   "Correct. It was in the time machine because Biff was in the time machine with the sports almanac."

   "Holy shit," "fuck," Marty and Rosie said at the same time.

   "You see, while we were in the future, Biff got the sports book, stole the time machine, went back in time, and gave the book to himself at some point in the past," Doc said, taking out the library book. "Look, Huh. It says right here that Biff made his first million betting on a horse race in 1958. He wasn't just lucky, he knew because he had all the race results in the sports almanac. That's how he made his entire fortune."

   "Shit," Rosie whispered under her breath.

   "Look at this pocket with a magnifying glass," Doc said, holding it over the paper. The young couple looked and saw the small book in the picture.

   "The almanac," Marty said in a defeated tone. "Son of a bitch stoke my idea! He must have been listening when I..."

   "Give him a minute," Rosie said as she watched the gears in his head turn.

   "It's my fault," he said. "The whole thing is my fault, if i hadn't bought that damn book, none of this would have ever happened. I should have listening to you Rosie!"

   "Well it's all in the past," Doc said.

   "You mean the future," Rosie said.

   "Whatever. It demonstrates precisely how time travel can be misused," Doc said, walking towards the DeLorean. "And why the time machine must be destroyed after we straighten all this out."

   "Right, so we go back to the future and we stop Biff from stealing the time machine," Marty planned.

   "We can't, because if we travel into the future from this point in time, it will be the future of this reality," Doc said.

   "Biff would still be corrupt and powerful," Rosie said.

   "And married to my mom," Marty said disgusted.

   "And which this has happened to me," Doc said, showing them a newspaper. They looked closely and read the headline.

   "Emmett Brown committed, crackpot inventor declared legally insane," Rosie read. "But they're wrong!"

   "Our only chance to repair the present is in the past at the point where the timeline skewed into this tangent" Doc informed them. "I'm order to put the universe back as we remember it, and get back to our reality, we have to find out the exact date and the specific circumstances of how, where, and when young Biff got his hands on that sports almanac."

   "I'll ask him," Marty said ominously, and Rosie gave him a look.

   "You'll do what now?"