#alternate 1985

hello my darling friends guess who just got into a car crash??? me! i did! no lasting injuries but i totaled my sister's car hahah im so fucked. anyway. this is probably going to be a shorter scene 'cause my arm's pretty banged up. enjoy!

"Jen? You awake?"

Jennifer opened her eyes blearily, rubbing her head with one hand and pushing herself upright with the other. "What- where?"

"Careful- here, lean on me." Someone sat next to her- Lizzy, her mind supplied as it began to reboot- and supported her. "You looked like you were about to pass out again."

"I passed out?" That did make sense. She'd been in her house, or, well, future-her's house, trying to leave through the front door...

"You ran into your future self," Lizzy explained. "Dad wasn't sure what it would do, but luckily, you only lost consciousness."

"That's lucky?"

"Compared to the destabilizing and collapse of the entire galaxy, yeah."

Her laughter died away with one look at the dead-serious expression on Lizzy's face. "That was a possibility?"

"According to Dad, yeah. None of this stuff has been tested, so there's really no way to know until it happens." The tween worried at her lower lip. "Anyway, the universe didn't implode, which is good, I guess."

"You guess?" She raised an eyebrow- well, both eyebrows, she'd never really gotten a handle on the raising-one-eyebrow thing- and stared at Lizzy skeptically. "Why do you only guess? What..."

Several things sank in at once. One: Marty wasn't here. Neither was the Doc. Two: She wasn't at her house, but in Doc's garage (which made Doc's absence even stranger). Three: The garage was a mess, even more so than it usually was- covered in trash, graffiti, and other kinds of debris. The only light in the room came from candles, which she was guessing wasn't an aesthetic choice.

"Lizzy, what happened? What's going on? Where-when are we?"

It took a moment for Lizzy to respond. "Uh. That's...kind of the big question here. We tried to go back to 1985 after we picked you up, but...something has gone wrong with the timestream somehow, and things are not the same as we left them."

"Did I do this? Is this because of me going off with Tiff?" Her stomach clenched as guilt rose like bile in the back of her throat.

Lizzy just leaned forward and buried her face in her hands. "I don't know. We don't know- Dad has no idea what's going on or why...he said he was going to the library to figure out when and how things went wrong." Nudging Jennifer in the ribs, she added, "He told me to wait here so you wouldn't be alone when you woke up, but honestly I think he just wanted to keep me out of trouble."

"You mean more trouble," she grinned. "Have you told him what happened in 2015?"

"Other than Tiff showing up? No, and if you want to see me any time in the next 20 years, you won't tell him either." The duo shared a laugh that quickly faded away as they remembered the reality of their situation.

Jennifer's brow furrowed as she realized another important question: "Where's Marty?"

"When we realized something was wrong, Dad told him to go check on his family to make sure they were okay. With the state of things outside...he didn't want to leave, but we promised we'd stay with you and call him once you woke up. Problem is, I'm not sure where he is, not to mention the phone line in here Does Not Work and probably hasn't for years." Lizzy surveyed the trashed lab with distaste. "I don't, uh, really have a way to contact Dad either..."

"Oh, Liz..." Pushing down her own anxiety, she wrapped the tween in a hug. "I'm sure he'll be okay. They both will be; they're pros at this sort of thing."

With a snort, Lizzy looked up at her in disbelief. "Have you met either of them?"

Before Jennifer had a chance to respond, Doc bustled through the door in a blast of wind and Lizzy leapt up from the cot to greet him. "Dad!"

"Hello, dear," Doc replied tiredly. "There are a few more boxes in the car; do you think you can help me with them?" Setting down his own boxes, he glanced over at Jennifer and started. "Oh! Jennifer, good to have you with us. Has Lizzy explained the situation?"

"A little," she admitted. "Something about the timeline going wrong? But that you guys didn't know how it happened."

"I think I may have some of the answers in these." He began to unload the boxes, revealing stacks and stacks of newspapers. "The library seems to have been closed down, so these were my only source of information."

"If the library is closed, how did you get these?"

Doc didn't answer, and Jennifer had to bite back a laugh. Time travel is not for the morally upright, I guess.

"In all of these- just put those on the table there, my dear- I've tracked a common theme, which seems to be-" he grabbed one newspaper and poked it vehemently. "Him!"

"Biff?" The newspaper read Hill Valley Man Wins Big At Races, which was something Jen was pretty sure had never happened. Biff Wins Again, Luckiest Man on Earth...Gambling Legalized?

"Of course it was Biff," Lizzy scoffed. "Isn't it always him?"

With a sigh, Doc dropped the newspaper back onto the table. "The question is how. He must have some kind of futuristic information to be able to win constantly, but..."

Lizzy snatched the paper back up, squinting at it. "Dad, do you still have those binoculars from 2015?"

Wordlessly, he handed them over, coming to stand behind her.

"There!" She stabbed at the paper. "Look, look in his pocket!"

Doc grabbed the binoculars and stared through them. "Great Scott! The almanac! But how- I threw that away! And how did he gain access..." Mumbling to himself, he trailed off, leaving Jennifer confused. She glanced over at Lizzy, but she seemed just as clueless as Jen.

"Uh, Doc, do you mind filling us in on what you're talking about? What almanac?"

"Ah- that's a story for later, I'm afraid. We need to find Marty as soon as possible and set this right."

"Do you know where he is?" Jennifer couldn't hold back her anxiety any longer. If Hill Valley had gone to hell- if it was all Biff Tannen's fault, which she was still having a hard time believing- her boyfriend could be in serious trouble.

Doc wrapped his arms around himself and admitted, "No. But there's...I have an idea of somewhere he will probably visit, based on the information I found in this paper."

Jennifer took the newspaper with trepidation, nearly dropping it when she read: GEORGE McFLY MURDERED: Local Author Shot Dead. "Oh my God..." she whispered, paralyzed with horror.

From across the lab, Lizzy let out a strangled sound. She was holding her own paper, one that said: EMMETT BROWN COMMITTED: Crackpot Inventor Declared Legally Insane.