Author's Note: Short story only containing ficlets. It's all about Doc meeting Marty. Will either have four or five chapters. I hope you'll all like it. Oh, and happy new year.

Disclaimer: I still don't own the movies... again...

1: Twin Pines Universe

October 26, 1975
04:00 PM PST

Marty McFly was in a bad mood, as he ran home from school. He was in the second grade, now, but had already gotten into detention more than others in their lifetimes. Today was also one of those days, and that was why he was late.

The seven-year-old knew the consequences of being late. Marty's mother, 37-year-old alcoholic Lorraine Baines-McFly would either slap him and tell him that he was worthless, or else go around and tell a story about how she never did that kind of thing when she was a kid. Marty figured the woman was born a nun.

Anyway, he was in a hurry now. Checking his watch, he ran through the street. He really wished that he could have a skateboard, but his mother didn't want to buy him one, since he was too young, and his father was all like 'but what if you crash with it? I'm not sure the skateboard could take that'. Short said, he didn't get a board.

"Hey McFly!"

Marty froze in his tracks, as he saw Douglas Needles shouting at him. However he and Needles were roughly the same age, Needles was even two months younger, the guy was taller and had an own gang. "Hey, Needles" he said, as politely as possible. He was in a hurry…

"Say, we'd do a skateboard race?" Needles suggested, tauntingly. "You know, car-surfing?" Marty now saw the bully and his friends all had a skateboard with them. The young teenager knew how to skateboard, as one of Dave's friends had taught him last year when Mom and Dad hadn't been home. Dave himself was too much like Dad to do something like that.

However, he still shook his head. "Naa" he muttered. "It's too dangerous. What if anyone sees us? What if we slip somewhere?" He shook his head repeatedly. "The answer's 'no', Needles."

Needles frowned, as Marty started to walk away, and quickly blocked his path, which led besides a parked car, which had the trunk still open – apparently, the driver had forgotten to close it properly, and it'd moved back up. "No?" Needles repeated again. "What's wrong McFly, chicken?"

Marty shook his head. "No, not chicken. Just not interested." He was about to walk away when Needles walked up to him and grabbed him by the arm. "You're saying no?" he asked, smilingly. "Well, that's your problem then." He and the others quickly held Marty's arms, and dragged the pre-teen towards the car.

Needles then threw him inside. "See what happens to people who say 'no', McFly?" he said, tauntingly closing the trunk. "See you later, McFly." He grinned. "If you'll get out of there…"

"No, Needles, this is not fair!" Marty protested. "Now, wait, Needles, I…" It then occurred to him they'd walked away. "Hello? Where is everybody? I mean…" He sat down, embarrassed. This was one of the worst days of his life.

oooooooo

Dr. Emmett Brown was happily walking through the street, as he walked away from the local mechanical shop. He had bought some parts for the time circuits of the time machine, as he figured they had to be worked on now. He'd figured out it would require a transistor for functioning. Unfortunately, though, there hadn't yet been a car that he liked enough to buy and build the machine into.

He knew it worked, though. Twenty years ago he'd bumped his head against the sink after falling off his toilet and had came up with the flux capacitor, and he had worked almost twenty years to prove it. He figured that around now, though, he should start working on the other things. Such as the fuel. Doc had calculated in 1973, after hard work, that it would require 1.21 gigawatts for time travel. However, he had yet no idea to get it from.

We'll cross that matter when we come to it, Doc thought, firmly. Let's first work on the time circuits, then we can figure out the other things later.

At that moment, he heard a loud scream. "Help!" a voice called out, with a desperate touch in it. "Help! Get me outta here!" He saw a few feet away a shiny car, where the voice came from. "Help!" Yeah, he was sure it came from there. The voice, Doc now also heard, was male, and sounded pretty young. Curious, he headed over to the car.

"Is there anybody?" he asked, a little uncertain. "Yeah!" the voice came back. "You gotta help me sir, some bully just beat me up, then locked me in this trunk! Please help me!"

"Don't worry, help is on the way!" he said. He got a crowbar out of his bag – fortunately he'd needed that, as well – and started to try and open the trunk, without doing damage to the car. It was quite hard, but after a few minutes, the trunk let go and a young boy from about seven appeared. "This is heavy" the boy muttered, looking around. "Thanks, mister-"

"Brown- Dr. Emmett Brown" Doc said, politely. He knew that he wasn't exactly popular around town, since some people thought he'd burnt down his mansion in '62, while it had been an accident, actually. Still, he hoped that the boy wouldn't be that narrow-minded. "And you are?"

"Uh, McFly" the boy said. "Marty… Marty McFly." He looked around. "Thanks for saving me, Dr. Brown. I've got no idea what I would've done if nobody had showed up to save me. There wasn't too much air in the trunk, and it did smell rather weird… a few more minutes, and I think I'd dropped into unconsciousness."

"Yeah, that might have happened" Doc nodded. Looking at Marty's legs, where he'd been sitting on in the trunk, he added: "Can you walk, now?"

"I think I can" Marty said, smiling. As Doc helped him up, he added: "But thanks for the concern, anyway. Even my mother doesn't care that much… but that's not too much of a compliment, since she never cares much for me. She's a drunk most of the time, you know… and my father is just a wimp, so he's not really a great help either."

"That's too bad" Doc said, feeling bad for the boy. Although he didn't know Marty, he felt like the kid had a really bad life, and that he needed a father-figure to care for him. As he reached down to pick Marty up and look at him, he got the feeling that he would become good friends with this young boy soon.

oooooooo

That evening, Marty was at his home, sitting on the bench watching TV, when he heard the door bell ring. He went over to the door, and saw that it was Dr. Brown. "Hi" Marty said, smiling at the man. "How are you, Dr. Brown?"

"Fine" Doc said, smiling. "Actually, I came here to ask you how you were – since you told me the bullies beat you up hard." Concerned, he added: "Are you okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine" Marty said. "Come on with me, you gotta meet my family! I told them all about you tonight." As Doc then followed him into the living room, he saw a man sitting there, probably George McFly, who had a rather wimpy expression in his face and was watching 'The Honeymooners' on television while laughing in a rather idiot way, and he saw a woman sitting at a table drinking beer and other alcoholic things. Doc got upset. Are these supposed to be Marty's parents? I'm sure I could do better than both of them! The poor kid doesn't deserve to be treated like that.

Marty then led him over to the woman, who looked up. "Marty, whoz that?" she asked in a drunken voice.

Apparently, Marty was used to her being drunk, as he didn't pay any attention to it. "Mom, this is Dr. Brown" he said, smilingly. "The man who saved me from Needles."

Marty's mother extended a hand. "Pleaze to meet you" she said in a weird voice, making the 's' a 'z'. "How are you?"

"Um, fine" Doc said, gently. He felt bad for Marty, to actually have to put up with these people all day. As they walked backwards again, since George, Dave and Linda weren't interested, he asked: "Marty, what are your other family members like?"

"Well, Dave is thirteen," Marty told him, "and he doesn't really want to do something with his life. He's pretty much like Dad. As for Linda, she's eleven, and always searches boyfriends… but they seem not to like her."

"That's too bad" Doc said, gently patting the kid on the back. "Well, I hope that you'll be fine. What do you want to be later, by the way?"

Marty's eyes glowed up in a way they hadn't been before. "I want to be a rock star when I grow up" he said, proudly. "A big rock star! I wanna be famous, to be rich, to be happy…" As his voice darkened, he added: "Not to be like my family."

"I understand, kid" Doc said, smiling. "I'd be like that, too, which parents who treat you like that." He really felt like he cared for Marty, now. The kind really needed something to care for him. As he left the house later that evening, he was proud that they would develop an interesting friendship. Marty was a really nice kid, and for the first time in years, Dr. Emmett Brown felt like he actually had found someone to consider a friend.