BACK TO THE PAST
Chapter One

Tommy and Fabrizio ran on Jack’s orders to check for any more boats on the other side of the ship. Jack thought he’d never see them again. He just hoped they would find a boat for all of them. If they couldn’t at least they might be able to find one for themselves. And he knew he could get Rose on this one. She was a woman they would let her on. There would be room for her. He kept repeating that to himself. He could at least save her. And he would.

Unfortunately, Rose was one of the stubborn people to grace the earth.

"I’m not going without you, Jack." She shook her head not taking her eyes off him.

"No you have to go now."

Just then someone came up behind them and grabbed them each by the arms. Had Cal found them? No, it was someone else. A short man in his later twenties it seemed. He looked at the two of them for a moment as if to make sure he recognized them.

"Please come with me," he pleaded. "I need to you get off of the ship now. I know a way. You need to come with me." Jack and Rose just stared for moment.

"She’s getting on this boat," Jack informed the stranger.

"No, not without you, Jack, no."

The man sighed heavily and considered his thought. "Listen, there’s a boat letting on both men and women on the other side. You have to come."

"Who are you?" demanded Rose.

"Please guys. I’m begging you."

"All right then." Jack agreed and led Rose in front of him, following the man. "Wait, if there’s a boat I have to tell our friends."

"Just come with me."

"No, we have to get Tommy and Fabri."

"Just keep going this way."

"No! We can’t leave without them! Please!" Jack couldn’t just abandon them.

His begging was no use. The man led them to a small rowboat waiting for them by the disappearing bow. They had to trek the icy cold water that was spilling over the deck again to reach it. It was a dinky little thing. Not one of Titanic’s lifeboats. It also had this strange machine attached to the end. A boy, a little younger than Jack and Rose waited for them in the boat.

"Where are we going? Who are you? Where are you taking us?" They may have been off the sinking ship, but they did not feel safe. Rose would not get until she knew what was going on. "What about our friends? My mother and Trudy too? Why just us?"

"Please just get the hell in already! If they’re meant to live they will! You’re killing me, come on."

They got in. The boy leaned over and pulled the chord the machine. It roared and startled the young couple.

"It’s okay. It’s just the engine."

"On a boat this small?" Jack asked.

"Yeah. I’ll explain later. This is Verne by the way. And you can call me Marty."

"Mr. and Mrs. D?" Verne inquired concentrating on them. Marty slapped Verne’s shoulder and shook his head. Jack and Rose didn’t understand.

"Why are you doing this just for us?" Rose turned her head back from the death and chaos behind them. In front of them there was only blackness in the moonless night.

"My wife. I’ll explain later."

Marty held up his flashlight to reveal another boat up ahead. They all climbed on board. Another little boat approached them from the distance, but it wasn’t very close yet.

On board two more people awaited them: an old dog and a white-haired man in his sixties or seventies. Next, as if out of nowhere, another woman just appeared.

"Jennifer!" Marty caught her as she fell down.

"What happened?" She looked up at her husband.

"There was a little problem with your great-grandfather. Remember he disappeared from the picture? It’s a long story."

"Huh…?" She was still dazed, but curiously examining the newcomers.

"Remember all that stuff with our kids and my parents?"

"What happened to Papa Jack?"

Jack and Rose stared at them blankly. Everyone but Marty was dressed strangely, they recognized almost none of the strange contraptions on this ship. And although they could no longer hear the screams of terror, when they looked out the window they could see the great ship in the distance. It looked so small. Despite the outrageous yet fortunate situation they shared a horrible guilt.

"Look Jack, the stern, it’s rising out of the water. What’s happening?"

"Rose…" He pulled her closer to him and turned to others. "What’s going on?"

Marty helped his wife to her feet. "Doc, you wanna handle this?"

Doc walked over to them. No one knew how to deal with them. A couple of very scared, very confused kids.

"We are from the future…your future."

"How?" Rose didn’t quite believe, but considering the situation she was almost forced to. "What about them?" She pointed towards the dying Titanic.

The eccentric old man continued. "There were only four we knew for sure that died, but weren’t supposed to, the last time someone used one our time machines something went horribly wrong altering the past and our present, that is the year 1996."

"We tried to find you guys days before the berg hit, and make sure you met too, but we didn’t anticipate how big a ship it could be. We thought we could just lead you guys to the collapsible C boat at the right time because it let men on too and we knew what time it left. Luckily we had this boat and another one that’s coming waiting for us now just in case. Hopefully Mom and Jules will be back soon," Verne said.

"Four? What you are talking about?" Jack managed to get out.

Verne continued. "Yeah we screwed up something the last time we went back or forward or whatever the hell you wanna call it, through time and boom, history was changed. You and some other people didn’t make it and were supposed to and some people we knew in our times just," he snapped his fingers, "disappeared. Totally erased from existence."

No response.

"Yeah, oh well, it’s happened before." He looked over at Marty and Jennifer and shrugged.

"What about them? You couldn’t save them? All those people!" Rose was so overcome with emotion she started shaking. "What happens to them?"

Doc sighed. "As a wrong this tragedy may seem, for our time, it was supposed to happen. Now we’ve just get the future back to normal and that includes fixing your family."

"That," Rose cried, "is not supposed to happen!"

"We can’t just sit here and watch!" Jack was shaking too.

"Wait!" Jennifer was now on her feet. "The picture! Marty, Doctor Brown, the picture! Nana, Papa…" She reached for an old framed picture on the table and handed it to youthful ancestors.

It was a photograph of them on a horse with a roller coaster in the background.

Jack seemed to recognize it. "Santa Monica."

Then he recognized himself slowly materializing into the picture seated behind Rose with his arms around her waist.

"You," Rose said.

Jennifer walked over to them with clean blankets and handed them to them. She looked at Jack and then at Rose. "I should have known it from the photographs, but you look just like my Uncle Gary and you look just like my cousin Julia. Don’t they? I guess it’s strange. I’ve just never seen you guys look so…young, before."

"How exactly are we supposed to get them back to New York by the eighteenth? We don’t have enough fuel if we want to use the flux capacitor and we won’t make it in time if just sail in." Marty asked Doc.

Jack looked out the porthole ruefully. "I don’t think anybody’s going to New York now."

"If we use the DeLorean. It’s almost fixed and it can cover miles and time at the same time now. We could try to get it off the boat."

They decided to have Marty take Jack and Rose to the New York countryside on April seventeenth so they could find someplace to land undetected and get them back to the city by the next day.

It was past two AM by now and Jack and Rose were letting it all sink in. They were seated in the DeLorean turned time machine while Marty squatted outside of the car and explained all the controls and what was going to happen and who Jennifer was to them and what happened to them. But as Doc had warned him so many times he refused to give them any information on the future or even the Titanic disaster itself. By this time they had been able to saw off the remains of the handcuffs on Jack’s wrists and bandage them for they were badly bruised. They waited for Clara and Jules to return with the other two passengers.

"…now we’re fully stocked on the plutonium, but we only have enough gas for one trip. It needs gasoline as much as it needs the plutonium and Mr. Fusion. To get this thing going you have get it up eighty-eight miles per hour."

"How? We’ll sink? There’s no roads." Asked Jack.

"Where you’re going you don’t need roads…I mean it flies too. Actually then you can get this thing all the way up to eighty-eight faster than on the ground, but then it’s harder to control. It happens much quicker, so be careful, but you don’t have worry about that I’ll be driving and now we have keys to cars to get them started." He demonstrated. "You just stick it in the ignition, turn and there you go." The engine started without the big jolt and roar Rose and Jack were previously accustomed to.

Rose looked out towards the Titanic in horror. It was sticking out of the water almost completely erect. "God almighty."

The other two turned. Jack looked on in horror. Marty looked at it too then turned away.

"Maybe you two should wait inside for right now." He didn’t want them to see what was to happen next, but was too late.

CRACK!

Rose cried out and turned away. Jack went suddenly pale, but didn’t take his eyes of the scene. Rose looked back again and turned away every few seconds. Jack just stared like a zombie for several minutes as the ship made its final plunge then he finally turned away and started hyperventilating.

The other rowboat looked to be coming closer. Rose pulled Jack closer to her. As Jack shifted to sit next to Rose he hit something. The doors slammed shut knocking Marty back onto the deck. Jack tried to grab the wheel and stop the car, but his foot was stuck. He twisted and turned it trying to get loose and accidentally hit the gas. The DeLorean rose above the little ship and zoomed forward.

Jack still struggled to free his foot.

"Oh my God! God damn it no! What do we do? Jack!" Rose yelled.

Jack reached for the wheel again and tried to direct back towards the boat but to no avail.

"Shit! Son of bitch!" Lights flashed all around and almost in an instant they crashed onto the ground and through several bushes narrowly missing a tree.

They weren’t sure what time or distance it had been set to. They knew Marty hadn’t set it yet.

They found themselves somewhere in the woods near the side of the road. When looked to check when and where they were the dashboard lights had already gone out, the gas had run out.

"Shit!" Jack slammed his fist to the wheel. "Shit!"

"Everything. This all happened too fast. I can’t take much more of this." Rose opened the door and stepped out of the car to catch her breath. Jack followed.

It was daytime and there was a long strip of road and cars whizzed by them like giant flies.

They pushed the car further into the woods and covered it with branches. They stayed there for several minutes just resting up against the car. No words were exchanged for a long time.

Rose finally spoke. "We should find out where we are."

"Let’s go then." He grabbed her hand and they walked down the side of the road.

They walked down approached a group of kids their age who were replacing a flat tire.

The guys wore pants without suspenders, one even had his shirt open, and the girls wore tight jeans and short skirts and let their bellybuttons show. But they were dressed in styles different from what their new friends wore. Rose and Jack tried to veil their shock.

"Excuse, us…" Rose started. "Hi, we’re a bit lost and we we’re wondering if you could tell us where we were."

They looked up at them. One of the girls spoke. "Sure. You’re in Hill Valley…" Rose and Jack just stood there still confused. "…California? Nice outfits by the way. Going to the prom or something?"

They weren’t sure how to answer that.

"We did have someplace to go, but we kind of got side tracked." Jack answered. Rose winked at for the nice save and quick-witted equivocation.

"The center of town is back that way if you need to use a phone or something." The girl pointed. "Just keep going that way."

"Thank you so much. Sorry to leave you so soon, but we have to be off." Said Rose.

They said goodbye to the others and headed for town. The two were on the move again.

Rose shook her head. "I don’t think we’re in 1912 anymore."

"When ever the hell we are we’re not going to be able to walk around dressed like this without drawing attention. We have gotta get out of here as quickly and as quietly as possible."

"You’re right. Let’s check the DeLorean."

When they got to the car they found a bag of old clothes from the previous trip in the back seat. They looked like they would pass for normal where they were. Rose also grabbed a wallet and pulled the cash out and handed it to Jack.

"Thank God." Rose sorted threw them. She found a pair of khaki pants and a button down cotton shirt for Jack and flower print sundress for herself. They changed in the car and emerged feeling rather awkward. The clothes fit well enough, but it was still strange.

Rose’s dress only fell to her knees. She looked down.

"I feel almost naked. Should my legs be showing too much?"

"I don’t think they care here."

"I still feel strange though."

"Don’t worry. We’ll get the car fixed; we’ll find a way. All we need gasoline. We’ll find out what happened to everybody too. We’re not going to be lost here. Let’s just go into town find some gas and some food and go back to Doc and Marty. We’ve got a pretty good idea of how to work to time machine now."

"All right then. Here we go." She offered him her hand. He took it and kissed her on the cheek.

"Besides, you look great." He teased.

She laughed and tweaked nose. They started for town not knowing what they’d find.

Chapter Two
Stories