Yet Another Chance
A/N: The 'tombstone paradox' of BTTF3 has long intrigued me, to the extent that I even wrote a whole story in an attempt to try to resolve it. This story however, is about how the situation of Marty finding the tombstone even came about. I've always found it a curious coincidence that Doc just happened to be buried in a cemetery right next to the place where he'd hidden the Delorean for Marty to find. So I set about writing this story with the idea that it might not have been just a coincidence...
This story is set in the timeline where Doc was shot dead by Bufford Tannen...therefore, the version of Doc and Clara we see here are not the same versions whom we saw in the actual movie.
Monday, September 7th, 1885
Dr. Emmett Brown; inventor, time traveller, blacksmith, victim-in that order; lay dying slowly and painfully...and all he could think about in the last few moments of his extraordinary life was...how the hell had he gotten himself into this?
He tried his best to think back...back to the beginning. But where was the beginning?
Perhaps it had all started that fateful day early in November when he'd fallen off that toilet seat and conceived of an idea that would literally change his life forever. Or perhaps the true beginning had been thirty years later, in the empty parking lot of Lone Pine Mall. Or perhaps...it had been when that accursed lightining bolt had struck the time machine, stranding him in the Old West...
No...he knew the immediate chain of events that had culminated in his present pitiable circumstances...
It began with a name...Bufford 'Mad Dog' Tannen.
Tannen...always Tannen. An entire line of descent that seemed to serve no other purpose than to heap endless misery and despair upon the residents of Hill Valley. He thought of Biff Tannen, who in another reality had turned Hill Valley into a hellish den of vice and corruption and tore the very fabric of the space-time continuum apart in the process...he thought of Griff Tannen, who would have left others to suffer the consequences of his crimes and thus ruined families...
And now, before either of those two notorious Tannens had even been thought of, there was Bufford...the notorious gunman who settled all disputes, financial or otherwise, with a well-placed bullet...
Like he'd done with Emmett...
Emmett could picture the scene clearly in his mind's eye. It was the night of the Hill Valley Town Festival. The mayor had been unveiling the brand new clock. Emmett had considered it fitting that he had been present to witness the occasion...after all, hadn't he also been witness to the moment that the clock had stopped, thirty years ago (or was it in fact seventy years later?)
He had been dancing with Clara. Clara Clayton, the schoolteacher he'd picked up at the station just the previous day...the only woman he'd ever met who genuinely liked Jules Verne! That in itself made her one in a googolplex...besides her overall charm and pleasant manner. Yes, the prospect of being with Clara made even the idea of remaining stranded in the Old West for the rest of his life seem palatable...
But then Tannen showed up, unannounced, unexpected...he'd pointed the tiny derringer at the 'blacksmith's' back...boasted about how it would take him two whole days to die...
And pulled the trigger.
He didn't remember what happened after that. Well, he did remember the ceaseless pain, and Clara feverishly trying to nurse him back to health...back to life...but he was beyond hope. He knew that, even if she refused to give up on him...
Dear Clara, sweet Clara...
So this was how it would end, Emmett thought to himself bitterly with what little comprehension he had left. He would die here, around thirty five years before he was even born! The fate which he had eluded that night at the parking lot had now finally caught up with him...almost as if the space-time continuum was avenging his previous triumph over it! He would inevitably perish...in a matter of hours or even a matter of minutes...and it would all be over. He would be absolutely, truly and unequivocally dead and buried...
Dead and buried...
Buried...
And in those moments of agony, there was suddenly remembrance.
Buried...cemetery...mine...
The mine!
The abandoned Delgado Mine...where he'd buried the Delorean...the mine adjacent to Boot Hill Cemetery...the mine which, if everything went according to plan, Marty and his other self would visit, seventy years later, to retrieve the time machine...and no doubt, in the process, find the cemetery as well...
The cemetery...it might just work after all, by God!
Suddenly, a strange feeling of triumph surged through his dying body...for a moment he almost felt alive again...
He had the answer! He knew the way out of his situation!
Of course, there was a chance it wouldn't work...a chance that neither Marty nor his 1955 counterpart would notice the tombstone...but all things considered, it was definitely worth a try...because, he certainly had nothing to lose...
Time travel had saved him once before...there was no reason why it couldn't save him again...
Of course, that didn't change the fact that he would die now...but another 'him' would live on, in another reality that would be born even as this one was erased...
His mind snapped back to reality...agonising reality, but a reality nevertheless made bearable by Clara's presence, and managed to get out the words he needed...instructions which, if followed, would save his life, even though Clara could never even begin to comprehend their purpose...
And then, he was finally able to peacefully go to his death, somewhat assured of the fact that although he would die now, if things went according to plan, this very death itself would be erased...
Yes, he chucked silently to himself, erased from existence...
Clara Clayton could sense that Emmett wanted to say something to her, madly, desperately...
She gripped his hand and fed him some more water.
She knew that her ministrations would ultimately be in vain. Emmett's death was inevitable...but the least she could do for the man who'd done his best to make her feel at home in Hill Valley, and in his life, was to see him out of this world peacefully and in as much comfort as was possible...
"C-clara", Emmett gasped.
"Emmett, I'm here", Clara said, anxiously glancing at his dying frame.
"Clara...I need...there's not much time...I..." Emmett began but she cut him off, "Oh don't say that Emmett...there's still hope..." Silently, she cursed herself for that lie.
"Please...listen", his eyes pleaded with her, even as the light slowly faded from them. "When I'm...gone...I want to be buried...at Boot Hill...Cemetery", he managed to gasp out.
"Boot Hill Cemetery?" she asked quizzically.
"Near the abandoned...mine..." he replied. "I must be buried there...and..." he let out a loud groan. The very effort of talking to Clara was draining him of life even faster than before.
"Emmett!", Clara cried out anxiously, and fed him even more water...but it simply fell out onto the sheets of Emmett's deathbed...the blacksmith wouldn't drink any water...what he had to say, in the last moments of his life, was far more important.
"...must be buried...tombstone...must have tombstone..." he said.
"Oh, Emmett! Don't talk about...that", Clara said. It was a measure of how much pain Emmett was in, thought Clara, that he could think about nothing but his funeral.
"Please", he almost shouted, or pleaded rather, as though his very life depended on it. Whatever was left of it anyway...
"Okay, Emmett, I'm here...I'm listening", Clara said.
"I must have...tombstone...big...noticeable...with my name...and...inscription...shot in back...Tannen...eighty dollars..."
"Emmett!", Clara exclaimed, seeing the blacksmith's face growing even more pale. She wondered to herself what sort of man wanted to be remembered by the cause of his death, but she put her curiosity out of her mind for now...
"Promise, Clara...PROMISE!", Emmett nearly shouted again, desperately...
"I promise", Clara said softly, tears streaming down her eyes. "I'll do everything you say..."
"Good", Emmett said...and for once, he seemed peaceful...almost as though he were in a trance...he had lapsed into semi-consciousness almost...
"Time machine...I haven't invented any time machine...", he muttered.
Time machine, Clara thought...Emmett's delirium certainly was getting bad. She fetched a wet towel and placed it on his forehead. But Emmett's delirious mutterings continued...
"They found me...I don't know how...they found me...run for it, Marty", he continued.
"Emmett, Emmett!", Clara shouted. "Please...stay with me! Please, don't...fall asleep...EMMETT!" she continued desperately, as the blacksmith lapsed into the final stages of delirium.
A strange expression of agitation, or rather the ghost of an expression, crept onto his face...
"You've got to come back with me...back to the future...your kids, Marty...where we're going, we don't need...". A spasm came over Emmett at that moment and his entire body writhed uncomfortably.
"Emmett!", she cried again, sensing somehow, that the end was near...
"Clara", Emmett's eyes suddenly opened. He stared at Clara...with a faraway look in his eyes as though he were looking at someone, or something else. "Clara", he said calmly, almost peacefully. "Don't be sad", he continued with an almost child-like innocence. "You know...the future isn't written...it's whatever you make of it...one day, Marty will find the tombstone...and then he'll come back for me...you see, he'll come back for me..."
"Emmett, what are you talking about? Who's Marty? Emmett!" Clara asked.
"Marty's... Future Boy", he muttered. "He'll come for me, Clara...he'll come back..."
"Back from where?" Clara asked.
"The future", Emmett replied cryptically. "It's not written...remember always Clara...the future isn't written".
And with those final words, Emmett Brown breathed his last...
One week later...
The funeral had been the very next day, at Boot Hill Cemetery, as per Emmett's dying wishes. The strange yet wise blacksmith, who had come to Hill Valley mysteriously on New Year's Day, a little over eight months ago, had become a reasonably respected and liked figure in town and as a result, a fair number of people had turned up to pay their last respects to the man. It was fitting indeed that Emmett's murderer, Bufford Tannen, had finally been arrested on the very day of Emmett's death, for robbing the Pine City stage...his reign of terror over Hill Valley, at least for the moment, had ended...
The late Emmett Brown remained as much a mystery in death as he had been in life. No relatives came to his funeral...no old friends from his life before Hill Valley. Far more intriguing were the stranger contents of his shop...particularly a large machine which none of the townsfolk could even begin to comprehend...the dead man had evidently been somewhat of a tinkerer...a big tinkerer...they'd also found some clothes which looked particularly strange...and another hand-held mechanism, which looked like some sort of strange elaborate toy...
Clara had been allowed to keep the clothes...and the toy...Emmett had, in one of his more lucid moments during his last days, expressed a desire for her to have them. He'd also wanted her to keep them to herself. As for the large machine...it had had to be dismantled...since it served no purpose it would merely be a waste of space for the next blacksmith.
And now, she stood by the gravesite, staring down at the large white marble tombstone. In accordance with Emmett's last words, she'd ordered the engraving-
EMMETT BROWN
Died September 7th, 1885
Shot in the back, by Bufford Tannen, over a matter of eighty dollars
Erected in eternal memory by his beloved Clara
She'd added the last per herself. After all, there was no denying it. She'd loved Emmett Brown, and in the short time they'd spent together, she'd almost started to envision a future for them together.
A future.
Her mind went back to Emmett's final delirious ravings. About the future and someone called...Marty. Yes, that was the name. Marty. Clara had had a lot of time to ponder the blacksmith's final words and she couldn't but help keep remembering how insistent Emmett had been that this Marty, whoever he was, would save him.
And there was something else she couldn't but help think about...the 'time machine' Emmett had spoken off. A dying man's delirious ravings...or could it possibly be...?
She looked at the strange device she'd 'inherited' from Emmett...was it merely a toy or could it be from...the future?
She shook her head. She had always considered herself a broad-minded woman...the writings of Jules Verne had seen to that...but this...was utterly fantastic! Too fantastic to believe...
And yet...
She sighed and thought about Emmett's very last words. What had he said? "The future is not written". That was what he'd said. With the conviction of one who knew something about the future...
She supposed he was right. But she couldn't see how the future would help Emmett now. His death was in the past...and his past was set in stone, right?
But Emmett nevertheless had put his faith in the future...in a tombstone...and someone named Marty. And all she could do was respect his faith.
Respect the man for all his strangeness...respect his final wishes, as incomprehensible as they were...and move on.
The future isn't written...not yet anyway. Clara would make her future whatever she wanted it to be. She knew it was what Emmett would have wanted for her. To be the mistress of her own destiny as he had evidently been of his. She would move away...far away from Hill Valley and the bittersweet memories...and try to live out her life as best as she could without him.
And so it was that she left the grave-site for the final time and made her way towards the horse and carriage that would take her to the station.
Seven decades later, long after Clara Clayton herself had breathed her last, after the world had seen two wars and Hill Valley had changed with the world...the boy a dying Emmett Brown had reposed his faith in, arrived at the grave-site. As Emmett had intended, Marty saw the tombstone...as Emmett had hoped, Marty resolved to save him...
And so it was that Dr. Emmett Brown, who had already cheated the space-time continuum out of his death once, came to have yet another chance at life...