Thunderbolts and Lightning

By Flaming Trails

A BTTF: PreTime Story

Part 1

Wednesday, November 12th, 1975

Hill Valley

10:04 P.M.

BOOM!

Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown jerked awake, the loud crash of thunder startling sleep from his mind. Outside his window, there was a brilliant flash of lightning, followed closely by a second loud BOOM. "Great Scott!" Doc gasped, sitting up. "What a storm!"

He looked out his window to see the rain pouring down in sheets, almost completely obscuring the outside world. Lightning flashed in wild patterns overhead, illuminating the otherwise dark and dreary night. Although it had been miserable all day, Doc hadn't been prepared for anything quite like this. "I hope the power doesn't go out," he muttered to himself. "That would be very inconvenient."

Watching the storm, Doc remembered that the local weatherman had warned that they might get a severe thunderstorm on the evening news. Doc had mostly dismissed the warning -- it had been his experience that weathermen were notoriously bad at predicting the weather. But it appeared that, for once, the weatherman had been right.

"Since when can weathermen predict the weather, let alone the future?"

The voice popped unbidden into Doc's head, bringing a smile to his lips. Then again, maybe it had less to do with the weatherman and more to do with the date. After all, it would only be appropriate for there to be another thunderstorm on the 20-year anniversary of the greatest storm Hill Valley had ever seen. The one that had stopped the town clock, and helped send a young time traveler back to his home time. November 12th was a particularly special day for Doc Brown -- he had even taken the day off inventing and had instead spent it remembering. Great Scott,he thought, as more lightning flashed. 20 years. So much has changed since then. We've had the Vietnam war, the hippie movement, Woodstock, the start of disco. . . . And on a more personal level we have my time at the local university, my mansion burning down, George McFly wedding Lorraine Baines, and their birth of their three kids, Dave, Linda and --

Marty. . . .

Doc felt a sudden pang. All these thoughts about 1955 and the McFlys made him miss Marty. The teenager had really managed to brighten his days back in 1955. Doc had never met anyone before who had seemed so interested in his inventions, whether they worked or not. Who had seemed so interested in him, for that matter. Doc had felt like he could talk about anything with Marty, anything at all. It didn't matter if the teen didn't understand a word -- he'd listen anyway. Doc could easily see why his older self had chosen to befriend the boy. How long will it take?he thought sadly, watching the rain beat against the window pane. I know I have to wait for Marty to make the first move, to avoid altering the space-time continuum, but -- I'm getting impatient. I miss him, damn it. Even with all the trouble he caused in 1955, I miss him. I want to help him again, I want to show off for him again, I want to do mundane things like watch TV with him again.

I -- I want my friend back.

Lightning flashed in a jagged line across the sky. Doc looked at it and remembered the last time he had encountered lightning -- climbing up the Clock Tower in a desperate attempt to get Marty home to 1985. The concept of time had been so mysterious to him back then, despite his obsession with clocks and watches. The revelation that he would discover how to transverse it had nearly blown his mind. Back then, he had seen time as a great force, relentlessly and mindlessly moving forward and pushing the earth and all its inhabitants with it.

Now, though, with all the studying he'd done on the subject, time seemed much more -- human. A manic-depressive human, given how it swung between good times and bad, but human nonetheless. It could be fickle or generous, loving or harsh -- but it always seemed to know what to do in the end. I suppose I'll just have to trust in time,Doc thought, watching the storm for a moment more. I'll meet him someday. I know I will. And, until then, I've always got my memories.Smiling, Doc lay down and drifted back to sleep.