Disclaimer - I don't own Back to the Future, but I do own this one-shot.
Anyway, this is my first Back to the Future one-shot, but I was interested in how Doc Brown felt about being in the Old West, so I cobbled this together. I hope you all enjoy it.
Please drop me a review to let me know what you think.
Utopia.
It was dawn in Wild West Hill Valley, and as he took his usual morning walk on the outskirts of the small town - Emmett relished the small size of the place, and the fresh, clean mountain air which wouldn't be polluted until the internal combustion system was fully developed, though he enjoyed walking in the almost untouched outdoors - the stranded time travelling scientist had time to think while at the same time he was surprised by how much he enjoyed being here, going on these walks through what would eventually become a part of the town in the future which would become larger and larger and more developed.
It was hard to believe that he had adjusted to this place so well, becoming the town blacksmith and becoming so happy here that he no longer wanted to return to his own time.
Why should he? It wasn't as if he had that many friends, and in the letter to Marty which he had drawn up for his young friend he had explained he had come to love the wide open space and the fresh air, things absent from the 20th century. He had meant every word. He just hoped his friend respected his wishes and went back to 1985, and leave him here.
Doctor "Doc" Emmett L. Brown had not expected to be thrown back into the past as a result of that freak flash of lightning which had sent a sudden bolt of electricity into the flux capacitor and sent him back to 1885. The moment he was in the past, the flying circuits gave out - the flying circuits were extremely delicate despite their construction, but in the future due to the risk of adverse weather, the little computers which were a part of their components were designed to 'shield' the flight systems from the risk of lightning, and besides he hadn't expected the lightning anywhere near him, though it had made sense.
When the Delorean came out of temporal displacement and ended up in 1885, Emmett and the car had dropped like a stone, but fortunately, he was not that high up in the air to cause any permanent injuries to himself, but the time machine had suffered some damage. The Time Circuits were practically fused, and it had taken him a while to admit it to himself.
It hadn't taken the scientist long to get himself a job as a blacksmith - he had learnt how to work with metal, and granted the materials he was used to working with were far superior to anything in this time period, just as the techniques were, metal was still easy to work with, and most of the things in this century were easy enough to fix up, though it had been hard to learn how to mend horseshoes, it was pretty straightforward when he got used to it.
At the same time, he had thought about using his new resources to repair the Delorean and get back to the 1950s so he could get back to Marty and return to their home time so he could, at last, dismantle the time machine. After that mess involving Jennifer, completely his fault because he couldn't just leave her behind with the knowledge of the future, which spiralled out of control with the sports book, the last thing Emmett wanted was any more potential paradoxes.
Emmett idly kicked the dirt with his boot, smiling as he saw the plume of reddish-brown dust rise from the ground, wondering why human beings worked so long and hard to destroy nature instead of just trying to live with it. Everyone in this century seemed to be content with their small town, small houses, and they did the bare minimum to adapt the environment to fit in with the way they built their town, but these townspeople; Emmett knew that in the cities, everything was built over with tonnes of stones and cement and concrete and bricks, but here he found it easy to just ignore it.
As he watched the sun rise over the desert, Emmett took a deep breath, inhaling the clean, dusty, hot air that hadn't been tainted with the stenches of car fumes and everything else you became used to in the 20th century.
Thinking of the 20th century made Emmett turn his mind over to Marty, and he sighed sadly; while he genuinely missed Einstein and wondered how the dog was coping on his own for the time being when he was left behind during that mess in the alternate Hill Valley where Biff Tannen had taken control thanks to the sports Almanac Marty had bought in order to make money using knowledge gleaned from time travel.
Emmett still couldn't believe he was stupid enough to rant about the book, it was obvious the Biff from 2015 had been listening; how else could he have learnt about the time machine? Emmett had come to that revelation when he had looked back on the incident in question when he'd gotten here, and how he had ranted loudly about time travel without paying attention to his surroundings.
He had always had a problem with social convention, being content to tinker around, but it was academic now anyway, and he often forgot himself as his enthusiasm made him rush around everywhere despite his advanced years, and let his mouth rule the air.
Emmett pushed those thoughts aside - he didn't like looking into his personality too much, especially since he had always been deemed insane by everyone around him because no-one had ever tried to truly understand him, and besides too many believed everything other people said about him to formulate their own opinions - and he focused his mind on the time machine.
He had been so fixated with repairing the time machine and getting back to the future he hadn't really bothered with taking stock of where he truly was, but he had hoped there would be something he could use to repair the Delorean, but while he could probably do some work on the car with the crude materials around, he couldn't work on the Time Circuit control system with what he had, though he had hoped he could find something to use.
It was a vain, remote hope.
As far as he could tell the right technology wouldn't appear until the late 1940s-early 1950s, and he had no intention of waiting that long. In the end, he had given up. He had become happy living in this smaller, more primitive version of Hill Valley where he was just the town blacksmith. Emmett had not bothered repeating his earlier behaviour as he had done since he had first met Marty, which was experimenting with different scientific theories so he could develop a whole new science to enlighten humanity and make things better for all.
At the same time, he had slowly become more happy with his situation.
He had constructed an oversized refrigerator which in itself was impressive; the techniques for building such devices was beyond the realm of current technology, but while the essential components were unavailable to make it small and portable, his understanding of the underlying principles of the technology allowed him to make a primitive version of a refrigerator, but that was one of the only things he had done in this century.
After the mess caused by Biff and to a lesser extent Marty, the last thing Emmett wanted to do was to further jeopardise the space/time continuum by giving everyone here knowledge of the future even if it would be pathetically simple to do it.
Seeing that alternate timeline and the realities of it had made Emmett realise the dangers of time travel, and he wanted nothing to do with it. But something else had happened.
While he had tried to make repairs to the Time Circuits, Emmett had slowly become used to the beauty of the place, and he had learnt to enjoy the overall peace and quiet despite the frequent arrivals of the trains that serviced the town and the sounds from the townspeople, but what he was even more happy with was how accepting everyone was of him rather than judge him for his eccentricity like everyone in his own time were prone to do. When he had made the decision not to apply his 20th-century scientific knowledge, he had found that he was much happier, and now it had become second nature to him.
But the time machine was still around, and when he accepted the fact he could repair the machine, never mind replace the tyres which had rotted and nothing could replace them in this century, Emmett had faced up to the facts. He had drawn up a letter and some schematics for Marty, knowing that his younger self would be more than up to the challenge of repairing the car. In the letter, after he had spent the best part of a month drawing up calculations to make sure the letter turned up on the right day, at the right hour while he locked the Delorean away in that disused mine, knowing it would be forgotten in the future. In short, it was the best place to hide the time machine.
Emmett shook off his thoughts, the sound of the townspeople breaking through his mind and he walked back to his shop. It was time to start the day, and he knew that Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen would be coming around again….
Until the next time, readers...