Work Text:
If you were stranded outside your own time period long enough, you started to develop a routine.
Wake up not long after dawn, cause that was when the rest of the town woke up – when the Doc woke up – and the noise was tough to sleep through, and cause without electric lighting he’d got used to making use of all the daylight he could.
Lie awake in the loft, staring at the roof, listening to Doc puttering about below him and thinking for long, empty minutes about where he was and when he was and how long it might be before he was somewhere with electric lights and TV and decent mattresses.
Have breakfast with Doc, unless it was one of the mornings Doc was with Clara, in which case eat alone. Sneak Franklin scraps from the table while Doc alternately made disapproving noises and pretended not to notice. Give Franklin her breakfast. Wash up out of a bucket and try not to think about how long it might be before he could take a real shower. Do his chores. Feed the horses.
Time was he’d have hours to kill before suppertime, but a couple of months in Doc had come home one day and said, “Harold has an opening at the general store – one of his boys is getting married and headed for the city – do you want me to put in a good word for you?” and he’d said, “Sure. Not like I’ve got anything better to do.”
He liked working at the general store. There were people to talk to in and out all day and by and large they liked him. It kept him busy. There’d been kind of a learning curve early on and for the first few weeks Harold had been short with him but pretty quick he’d cottoned on that Marty wasn’t some kind of idiot and had got a lot more patient with him when explaining stuff like how much beans were supposed to cost and what a bushel was and how to handle kerosene without burning the place down. He got the impression Harold thought he was a down-on-his-luck rich kid who’d never learned how the world worked and he figured, close enough.
It felt better having his own money. It felt a lot better now that he knew most of the town by name and could make small talk in the store and on the street.
Work at the general store till noon. Go home to eat lunch with Doc – or eat lunch with Franklin, if Doc was off with Clara. Work till suppertime. Eat supper with Doc. Spend a few hours making conversation or helping out around the workshop or practicing guitar.
Go to bed. Listen to the sounds of Doc settling in for the night. If he felt up to it maybe fetch out his only picture of Jen and very quietly go a round with it. Otherwise lie awake, staring up at the roof, and thinking about how many days it had been since everything had gone wrong.
Eventually, hopefully, fall asleep.
*
“I need to go into the city to pick up some supplies,” Doc said over dinner one evening. “I’ll be about five days. It’d be good if you could hold down the fort, so to speak.”
“Sure,” said Marty, toying with his potatoes. “Have a good time.”
“You can come with me if you want –”
“It’s cool,” he said. “I don’t mind.”
He really didn’t. San Francisco was a hike and he liked having some time to himself.
With Doc out of town, the routine got changed up.
Wake up when the rest of Hill Valley did. Lie staring at the roof, thinking about where and when he was, till Franklin fussing down below spurred him out of bed. Eat breakfast. Wash up out of the bucket and think about how badly he wanted a shower.
Go to work at the general store. Eat lunch. Finish up the day. Scrub the counter, and think about how much his hands had toughened up since he’d got the job. Wonder if Jen would notice the difference, the next time they held hands. Say good-night to Harold. Eat dinner with Franklin. Fetch out the bottle of whiskey he’d secreted in the loft. Get so drunk he couldn’t move.
When the house was empty and quiet there was no room for anything but his own thoughts, but with enough whiskey in him his mind could be as empty and quiet as he wanted. He lay sprawled out on his old cot down in the workshop, the room dipping and swaying gently beneath him like the deck of a ship, not thinking.
Franklin’s wet nose against the back of his hand jolted him out of his haze and he rolled over onto his side, swatting at her. “Get outta here,” he said. “Go – go to bed.” She nosed against at his hand. “Get outta here!” he snapped. “Get – get gone. Stupid dog.”
She whined at his tone, but he was too far gone to care. He watched her wander away and became aware that rolling over had unsettled his already unsteady stomach. He squeezed his eyes shut, the bed bucking and surging as if he was caught in a maelstrom.
His mind went, unbidden, to the wreck at the bottom of Clayton Ravine. It went to Doc bleeding out and out for days. It went to the dizzying idea of being a hundred years away from someone. It went to names fading in and out on a gravestone and lightning storms and the ink fading on Jen’s picture and the point of no return and he lay there sweating, the whole world pressing and beating down on him, every sound and sight and smell of it unbearable until at last he rolled off the cot and by some miracle made it all the way to the outhouse before he broke open and his insides became his outsides.
His head pillowed on the seat, the outhouse dark and silent and peaceful around him, he tried to work up the will to go back inside. Somewhere nearby a dog was barking. Maybe it was Franklin. He didn’t care. After a couple of minutes he slid from the seat to the dirt floor, which in the circumstances was only marginally less comfortable than his cot.
He shut his eyes.
*
Wake up. Lie there for a couple of minutes, his head splitting, the sunlight through the curtains searing his eyes, staring at the roof and slowly, sluggishly processing that he wasn’t in the loft.
He was lying, inexplicably, in Doc’s bed. He figured he must have passed out there and thought that’s embarrassing. He tried to get his brain to work and distantly remembered crawling into the outhouse.
His jacket was folded neatly over the back of the chair. His boots were squarely by the bed. He became aware of noises filtering in from beyond the curtain that screened the bed from the rest of the workshop. The sound of someone wandering around Doc’s little kitchen. The kettle going. Franklin fussing. A voice answering her.
Forcing himself out of Doc’s bed, he stumbled blearily, barefoot, out into the workshop.
It was Clara. She was at the stove, stirring something in a pot. He squinted at her, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
“You’re up,” she said, blandly not looking at him. “Come sit down.”
“Uh-huh.” Too exhausted to argue, he shuffled over to the table and sat.
She set a mug down in front of him. “I made tea.”
“Okay.” He sipped it and crinkled his nose at the heat. Wrapping his hands around the mug, waiting for it to cool, he blinked up at her. “Uh,” he said. “What’re you doing here?”
“Emmett asked me to check in on you while he was gone,” she said, still in that bland tone, still stirring. “He thought you might get lonely.”
“Oh,” he said. It hadn’t occurred to him that Doc might worry about him. He’d said it would be fine. Doc had never worried about going off to do his own thing before. “Okay.”
“Are you hungry?”
His stomach was sour. “Not yet.”
“Drink your tea,” she instructed.
For a long minute neither of them spoke. She went on stirring and he fought down the tea. Franklin came over and nosed at Clara’s ankle, losing interest when she was ignored.
“So,” said Clara at length. “Do you make a habit of getting that drunk? Or was last night a special occasion.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, the lie coming quickly, automatically.
“Marty, please don’t try and lie about this,” she said. “I found you passed out in the outhouse stinking of liquor. I know you were drunk.”
He rubbed at his forehead, trying to think how to explain himself. “I don’t,” he said. “It’s not a habit.”
He drank with the guys at the saloon. They’d get drunk together. It was fun. Not puking drunk – not after he’d learned where his limits were – that wasn’t fun. Drinking enough to go fully numb was a rare luxury.
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Was this the first time?”
He should have lied. Without meaning to he went on the defensive. “I can usually put myself to bed.”
“So this wasn’t the first time.”
He really should have lied.
Clara finished up at the stove and spooned oatmeal into a bowl. “You should eat something,” she said, setting the bowl down before him and taking a seat across the table. “You’ll feel better with something in your stomach.”
He stirred the oatmeal around the bowl. She was probably right – she usually was – but right now he didn’t want to put anything in his stomach.
“Is this what you get up to when Emmett’s out overnight?” she said.
“No,” he said into his hands. It was the honest truth. He wasn’t about to risk having the Doc find him passed out in the workshop. It would be mortifying. “No. Of course not.”
“I see,” she said.
He wasn’t sure what she thought she saw. In a vain attempt to placate her, he spooned some oatmeal into his mouth. It felt gross. It was hard to swallow. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” he said, stirring it, working up the willpower for another mouthful. “Everyone around here drinks.”
“Well, Marty,” she said, "the way I see it, there’s a difference between drinking and anesthetising yourself.”
He cringed, screwing his eyes shut.
“I had an uncle who used to drink like that.”
Marty choked down another mouthful of oatmeal. It was getting a little easier.
“It killed him,” she said.
“Oh,” he said, not sure what else to say to that. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not trying to win your sympathy,” she said. “I just wanna make sure you know what you’re doing.”
“I know what I’m doing,” he said, though he didn’t think that was what she’d meant.
“Does Emmett know you do this while he’s away?”
His already queasy stomach clenched at the thought of Doc finding out. It wasn’t a secret. He didn’t think of it as a secret. But it was his own business and he could imagine how Doc would react – he didn’t wanna have to deal with Doc’s reaction.
“Aw, shit,” he blurted out. “Ma’am, please don’t tell the Doc.”
“I think I should,” she said.
“Come on,” he said. “Be cool – it’s not his business.”
“I don’t imagine he’d see it that way,” she said; then, before he could argue, “As far as he’s concerned you’re his responsibility.”
“Well, that’s his problem,” Marty shot back. “He’s not the boss of me and it’s not his business what I do when he’s out of town.”
Clara adjusted her grip on her mug thoughtfully. After a moment, she said, “Alright. How about this – I won’t tell Emmett about last night.”
“Thank you –”
“If you can promise me it won’t happen again.”
He stared at her, and she returned his gaze steadily. She was still using that bland, calm tone, the kind of tone his own schoolteachers would use when they were disappointed which was apparently one of those things that transcended time periods, and he hated it.
He hated it so much he gave up on breakfast and stumbled woozily out of his chair. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“Now, Marty –”
“Don’t you now Marty me – you barely even know me,” he snapped.
“Maybe I’d like to get to know you, if you’d actually let me,” she said.
He shook his head. “None of this is your problem.”
“It’s Emmett’s problem,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned that makes it mine.”
“It’s not his problem either.” He dragged a hand through his hair and found it damp with sweat. Shoulders slumping, he said, “I have it under control. Okay? Last night just got – out of hand.”
Her face had gone tight. She was giving him a disapproving look and pushing herself away from the table she said, “You are not thinking clearly, young man.”
Again he had the sense that she was treating him like one of her unruly students – he felt like a little boy, and he couldn’t stand it, but he couldn’t manage more than a stuttered half-retort.
“Sit down,” she said, taking him by the arm and leading him back to the table.
“But –”
“Sit down.” She pressed him back into his seat and too exhausted to protest any more, he went. “Eat your breakfast,” she said. “We’ll talk about this later.”
He rubbed at his eyes. “I don’t wanna talk about this later.”
She nudged the oatmeal closer to his hands. “Eat your breakfast,” she said again.
Struggling to find the will to argue, he ate some more oatmeal. It was getting cold. He tried not to think about the look that would be on Doc’s face when Clara told him what had happened.
It wasn’t fair. He’d stayed well out of Doc’s business when he’d started romancing some lady a century out of his own time. He’d stayed out of it and hadn’t said anything like don’t you think you guys are moving kinda fast or what are you gonna do when you finish the time machine or you’re too old to date, you’re basically a grandpa or this is crazy. Have you gone crazy? He’d minded his own business and surely he was owed the same courtesy.
A cold wet nose touched his ankle and half-smiling he leaned down to pat Franklin’s head. “Hey, girl,” he said as she lapped at his fingers. “You hungry?”
“Don’t pay any attention – she’s had her breakfast,” said Clara.
He huffed a laugh. “You trying to scam me, huh?”
He was almost done with his oatmeal, and figured he’d eaten enough to avoid Clara’s ire. Reaching down he heaved Franklin up into his lap. She was an easy-going dog and though she wasn’t a puppy anymore she still fitted in his lap just fine. Most of the time she was okay with being held. He ran a hand, slowly, up and down her back.
“I’m not trying to tattle on you or anything, if that’s what you think,” said Clara, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. “I just don’t think I’m the right person to help you with this.”
“I don’t need anyone’s help,” he said, the words coming almost automatically. But now that he’d eaten something he was feeling steadier and with that steadiness came an unpleasant clarity about the events of the previous night. “What time did you get over here?”
“Not long after dawn.”
“Shit,” he blurted out softly. He must have spent most of the night in the outhouse. It felt like something that’d happened to somebody else. It wasn’t the kind of thing he did.
He knew enough about these things to know that passing out drunk alone in a bathroom was a great way to choke to death. Sourly, the thought crossed his mind that it probably wouldn’t even have mattered. No-one in town really knew him. The only real friend he had was Doc, and Doc had Clara now; he’d get over it. It wasn’t like there were a whole lot of people who’d miss him.
A soft huff and a lick at his fingers got his attention. Franklin, disgruntled that he’d stopped petting her. “Sorry, girl,” he said as he went on stroking her neck. “Sorry.” She was looking up at him with her big soft eyes and oblivious, loveable doggy smile.
Rising, Clara collected his bowl from the table. “You done with that?”
“Uh-huh,” he said.
“More tea?”
“Sure.”
As she poured him another cup, he said, “I’m sorry.”
Clara glanced at him.
“For the trouble,” he added.
Bringing over the tea, she squeezed his shoulder. “It’s no trouble,” she said. “Not at all.”