Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did, Doc Brown's (Christopher Lloyd's) goggles, coat, and hair would be surrendered to me.

This story takes place sometime after the end of the third movie. If Marty's parents seem strange for letting their son stay over at an older man's home for long periods of time, please remember that this takes place over the course of about three months, and Marty -usually- only stays over on the weekends.

This is not a story for purists of canonical accuracy. In fact, if you're expecting this to mesh perfectly with the movies, please don't read further. (I kill off Clara and the boys, just to warn you.) This seems to be just an exercise for writing poetry into prose, so forgive me if it royally stinks.

Although intended to be a Doc/Marty fic, this story came out to be a story about their relationship as the movies portrayed it...with a little bit of a stretch.

Please enjoy!

Marty knew. He knew all about how two days (or four years, depending on when you were) after he and Jennifer had spoken to Doc in his flying train-machine, Doc had come back...without a family. Marty was passing by the lab on Monday afternoon and had decided to borrow one of Doc's records for old (new, whatever) times' sake.

For old times' sake. And his own sake. Because Doc was dearly missed. And the lab reminded Marty of Doc.

So when Marty came into the lab, Einstein greeted him with a sad bark. And that was mildly horrifying and genuinely surprising.

And then Marty found Doc lying on the small green cot in the lab, breathing quietly.

The man's eyes were closed and he looked older than Marty could ever remember him looking. And very sad.

And even though Marty was so happy to see his best and only true friend he thought his heart was surely burst, that look of sadness stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Doc...what happened?"

The scientist jumped at the sound of another person's voice and his eyes flew open, rolling frighteningly before focusing muddily on his young friend's face. The creases in his face lightened slightly, and then deepened again.

"Hello, Marty," he said quietly, as if he was still half-asleep.

"Doc! Doc, you're back!" Marty felt a rush of selfish joy. "Y-you're back! What the hell happened?"

The scientist sort of caved in on himself and stared into the middle distance as if recalling something from a recent memory.

Then he told Marty what the hell had happened. And then Marty knew, and caved in on himself a little bit.

Marty knew about the influenza that had swept through Hill Valley in the winter of 1889. The influenza whose sister strain had left Doc bedridden for days as a child. That influenza took Verne and Jules first, and Clara, beautiful Clara, seeing her boys die...just lost the will. She couldn't eat, she couldn't speak...and then she died. He could have saved them, he could've! -If only the supply caravan hadn't been four days late.

Doc attended the funeral for his beloved wife and darling boys. And then, he fired up the train, and came back to 1985, because it was too much.

Entirely too much. He couldn't handle it in the Old West without someone to help him. Someone to care about him.

The train was hidden in the woods beside the next town over, hidden and abandoned.

Marty had no idea what to say. Doc told the story without a tear, as if he had already used up all his tears.

Finally, Marty found his voice. "Do you need me to help you with anything? Should I stay the night?"

"I don't want you to worry your parents," Doc said, fully awake now.

"They don't mind. Doc, I...I have no idea what to say. I'm so sorry."

"You couldn't have done anything," the scientist muttered, and laid back on his cot. As though suddenly struck by a deep exhaustion, he promptly fell asleep.

Marty stared at his friend for a long moment. He hadn't really known Clara or the boys very well, but...this was still terrible.

And Marty knew that there was nothing he could do.

Nothing at all.

Marty knew about nightmares. He knew about being naked in front of the class and about being chased by gangsters. He knew about car crashes and girls hating him and his family dying, and -inexplicably- killer French fries. But nothing like the nightmares Doc was having.

Before they started traveling in the DeLorean, Marty would occasionally spend the night at Doc's. Doc kept strange sleeping patterns: for months at a time, he would sleep barely three hours per night and spend the rest of his time working and drinking coffee. Then, for a week or so, he would sleep nearly sixteen hours a day, and rise up bright as a daisy for a meager eight hours before passing out again.

But now Doc was almost constantly sleeping. Marty would spend almost every night in the garage on the worn old Davenport and wake Doc up when his nightmares got the better of him. Occasionally Doc would mutter about Clara's last moments, or how the boys looked at the wake, or about Marty and Buford's face off, or the location of the Almanac, and once or twice he even woke up terrified that the Libyans knew where he was.

It broke Marty's heart.

This pattern went on for nearly two weeks, before Doc stopped sleeping all together and would simply stare at the ceiling or look at his books without so much as touching them. He got out of bed maybe once every day to use the bathroom. Marty brought sandwiches and Burger King, which Doc sort of picked at.

Finally, Marty decided that they were getting nowhere fast. So he turned on the TV and popped in a VHS of Ghostbusters, in an (admittedly weak) attempt to cheer Doc up a little bit.

Doc tried to slide Marty a skeptical, "I-know-what-you're-up-to" look, but it came up lacking, and so he merely watched the movie with his young friend.

Although both parties were lost in their own thoughts during the film, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Monster managed to get a chuckle out of Marty and a weak smile out of Doc.

It didn't work as Marty had planned. After the movie, Doc said, "Thanks for the film, Marty," turned over, and (finally) went to sleep.

As he made a cold cereal dinner in the kitchen-come-storage part of the garage, Marty decided that Doc's grief, although justified, was getting a little out of hand. And there was only one thing to do.

Doc had to take a shower.

Now.

Marty knew about being sick. He knew about not caring about how your smell or look and just wanting to sleep. He knew about having chickenpox and the flu, and colds and even bronchitis. He knew about chicken noodle soup and getting shots. He knew without a doubt that a hot shower can cure you or make you feel even worse.

Since Doc wasn't actually sick, a shower should do him some good.

"You should take a shower, Doc," Marty said one afternoon, about a month after Doc had reappeared.

"Are you trying to tell me something?" Doc's dry sense of humor was beginning to return, which Marty took as a good sign.

"It'll make you feel better."

Doc's face sagged slightly, but he nodded, seeming to consent. He forced himself up and picked gingerly over the clutter of his lab to the bathroom.

An hour later, he came back, smelling much better and even looking a little bit better, too. Marty put on a Bill Haley and his Comets record and whipped out his Physics homework, asking for help on a really knotty problem. For a moment, Doc seemed to be back to himself, and he lectured on for a few minutes about the problem, until Marty finally scribbled down a thoroughly-understood answer and the record turned over.

Then Doc fell into a long silence and Marty scratched at his homework. Bill Haley sang "Rock Around the Clock." Einstein snorted on his dog bed. Marty watched Doc stare into the middle distance for a long moment, until the scientist's long-fingered left hand suddenly reached out and plucked up a book on auto-mechanics that was so beaten up that Henry Ford's dog must have been chewing on it before Doc had managed to get his hands on it.

Doc opened up the book and began leafing through it, reading pages in no real order. Marty smiled a small secret smile.

Marty knew about healing. He knew about scabs and cuts disappearing into little silvery lines that covered a small portion of your skin and told the history of your choices. He knew about black eyes loosing their ugly purple color and swellings going down. He knew about stitches that repaired you like a little broken ragdoll and that were pulled out when you could fix yourself.

He knew that people healed in different ways. For Doc, healing seemed to be having long nights of rest that were becoming less and less full of nightmares, chicken sandwich breakfasts and cold cereal dinners, B-movies, showers, and having someone to look after you even when you're lost to yourself.

And having someone fill up a part of you that's empty, especially when they tell you it's okay to remember who had been there first.

One day, nearly three months after Doc's reappearance, Marty came back to the garage after school. He had had it out with Jennifer earlier that day about how much time he had been spending with Doc. He was still smarting from the slap she had dealt him when he told her that just because she couldn't understand Doc didn't mean that the scientist deserved to be abandoned. Marty was hoping she would calm down and they could talk this over tomorrow, but he doubted that it would do much good, so early after such harsh words were exchanged.

He came into the lab and patted Einstein on the head. And then he found the shock of his life.

Doc was slumped over the lab counter, a beaker half-full in his left hand.

His head was laying against the counter and the fingers of his right hand appeared to have been in the process of turning on a Bunsen burner when the scientist had...

...fallen asleep.

Marty grinned full out and went over to wake the Doc. The scientist was smiling a tiny smile in his sleep.

Marty knew what rebirth smelled like. For him, it was pancakes and morning air.

For Doc, it seemed to be Irish Spring and motor oil.

And Marty knew that it was going to be all right.

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