2A/N: This story begins en medias res and involves some of my OCs I created awhile back for another BTTF story. Long story short, Doc Brown had another apprentice before Marty and then in 1985, Doc Brown gave him the secret to time travel and then in 2015, Jake had his own assistant in the form of his niece Sarah Malone. This is basically a one shot I had in mind for a while and is now in prose form.
September, 1885: "Ha, ha, how's it going Emmett?" said Jake Whitacre with a big grin on his face. He was looking at a white haired scientist who was disembarking from his horse and had a similar grin on his face. The two were in the middle of the desert just a few miles away from Hill Valley.
"I have to admit I was surprised to get your letter that you were in this time frame as well," Doc admitted. Jake shrugged as he leaned against his own horse.
"What can I say? You got stuck here, I got stuck here; time travel fiascos seem to run in the 'family' so to speak," he pointed out. Doc chuckled at that.
"So what are you doing out here?" he asked next.
"Waiting for my ride back to my own time frame," he answered. "Taking a page from your book, I buried my Lamborghini and am waiting for my niece to fish it out and fix it with my 1985 counterpart. I told her to meet me here and now in just a few moments."
"You sure your 1985 counterpart can fix what happened to it?" asked Doc, curious. He didn't know the extent of what was wrong with the vehicle as Jake's letter had only given the basics of how he ended up in the distant past.
"Hopefully he can do something simple like replace a car door," said the other scientist a little miffed. "Sarah and I fixed a temporal deviation in 1985 and then I went to pick her up, forgot the time circuits were on, and wound up here and subsequently wiped out."
"Always the details with you," said Doc shaking his head in humility. "But why set the time circuits for this year?"
"I wanted to say hi, I heard you got married," Jake confessed. Doc nodded humbly.
"Yes, I did," he told him with a light smile. "Sorry I didn't send you an invitation."
Jake waved his concern off. "You know me, if you'd sent it to me in 1985, I'd have forgotten about going until 2985. Congrats, though. I researched Clara Clayton and she seems like your type. Or at least, that's what Sarah says, I'm not really one for romance."
"Well thanks all the same," Doc told him. He wondered if Jake had read anything past September 1985 about him and Clara in the history books, but the 2015 scientist would never say anything unless lives were at stake.
"You find a way of building a contemporary time machine?" Jake asked consulting his wristwatch.
"Not yet, why?" he asked concerned.
"Because my ride is late," Jake answered, annoyed as he prepared to mount his horse. Doc was about to tell him that he should just hold on for a few more moments before realization dawned on him that it was impossible to be late with a time machine.
"What will you do now?" asked Doc mounting his horse as well.
"I'm going to Hill Valley to write an angry letter to myself," Jake revealed and then he took off on his horse without another word.
Later: Jake left the bewildered Western Union official behind as he exited to the building to find Doc waiting for him.
"You sure that's a good idea to antagonize yourself?" Doc asked, still a little at a loss about the whole situation.
"I know the car got there safely and I know that even without the letter, that my counterpart could easily locate it and fix it. So Sarah not being here means that's he not as smart I thought he was," said Jake stubbornly before yawning as the sun slowly sank in the horizon.
"Well I'd better go find a hotel and figure out my options," he figured. Doc shook his head.
"No, you can spend the night at my barn," Doc insisted. Jake looked at him doubtful.
"You sure your wife will appreciate an uninvited guest?" he asked. Doc shook his head.
"It's only for the night and I'm sure she'd be thrilled to meet someone from my past who isn't an ancestor," Doc promised. Jake wasn't entirely convinced, but he did want to meet her.
"Well alright," he said finally.
"Great!" said Doc pleased and led him to his workshop.
Clara had been pleased to meet Jake even though the scientist was still in a small funk over his lack of transportation. She couldn't believe the stories about the future with flying cars and other amenities, but accepted it all the same. The rest of the night, Jake spent explaining to Doc how he had refined the time travel formula to work with vehicles without a stainless steel construction like the DeLorean.
"Well, goodnight, Emmett, Ms. Brown," said Jake appreciatively as he lay down in the guest bed.
"Goodnight Mr. Whitacre," said Clara. "I hope you find your way home."
"As do I," Jake agreed as Doc and Clara left him alone and retired to their room. Jake spent a little time tossing and turning wondering what could've gone wrong with his plan before closing his eyes and trying to get some shut eye. He had just started snoozing when…
BOOM BOOM BOOM
Kindling and wood went flying everywhere and dust filled the inside of the barn as a massive object came crashing through the rear doors of the barn and roared to a halt inside. Jake coughed heavily as he stumbled back and forth in the haze as a multitude of colored lights permeated the dust in the air. As Jake squinted, the object that had come through resolved itself in the form of a lit up massive eighteen-wheeled semi truck with time travel equipment attached to the cab and the trailer.
"Oh man, I told him this would happen," said a voice as the door to the cab opened a seventeen-year old blonde female stumbled out in a jean jacket, white shirt, and jeans and looked around at the mess.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Jake shouted at her as he walked up to his assistant, Sarah Malone who looked at her uncle dimly.
"I came to rescue you," she responded as lights and sounds were heard from outside while Doc and Clara sleepily stumbled into the main area of the barn and Clara nearly fainted from the sight of the vehicle from the future in her home.
"I said the desert, yesterday afternoon. Not here and today!" Jake told her.
"Yeah you did," Sarah agreed. "Too bad your 1985 counterpart wasn't happy with the second letter you sent him criticizing his ability to get that right. He was so steamed that after he fixed the Lambo, he went with me to the future to get this truck, then we came back, and then we drove to Hill Valley. He said that you likely spent the night here after writing the letter and that he'd make you look like the fool by sending this thing in and nearly giving you a panic attack. I'm not qualified to be driving this vehicle!"
Angry knocks were heard at the front door to the barn from the mayor demanding to know what was going on as the front headlights of the truck permeated the outside with brightness through the far door. The four looked at the doors and then Jake and Sarah looked at each other before silently nodding their heads and heading for the cab.
"Emmett, I'll make this up to you one day, I promise," Jake insisted as he got in the driver's seat. Doc nodded in shock over this turn of events as Clara was barely holding on to consciousness.
"Can we go home?" Sarah asked. "I wanna go back to 2015. You know; the time frame where both of us belong."
"After we go forward and visit my 1985 counterpart for a simple exchange of ideas," said Jake menacingly as he shut the door as Sarah's muffled complaints could be heard about that plan. The wheels on the semi rotated ninety degrees and then the whole truck lifted up into the air and then through the roof as more wood came crashing down and then the barn doors were forced open and the townspeople looked around confused as the roar of an engine was heard and then three sonic booms erupted, shaking the ground as two trails of fire were briefly seen in the night sky above.
"Emmett, what was that?" the mayor demanded. Clara finally fainted and Doc nimbly held her up before picking her up.
"Science," said the man simply and carried his wife back to their bed without another word. The townspeople looked around confused before chalking it up to another of Emmett Brown's crazy inventions and filtered out of the nearly demolished blacksmith shop.
Had any of them bothered to look, they would've seen the fruits of Jake and Emmett's labors of the late afternoon in the form of a crude sketch of a locomotive with a time apparatus installed.
