Part 2

Tuesday, November 15th, 1955

Hill Valley

5: 16 P. M.

Doc Brown came awake with a slight moan. "Ouch," he muttered. "I should have been more careful. How in the name of Sir Issac H. Newton could I have forgotten that the string of flags was there?"

He realized the voices behind the billboard were gone. The time travelers had obviously departed. Saddened at having missed his chance to see the car, he got up and rubbed his head. Well, that was certainly an adventure, against--

Against. . . .

Doc frowned. For the life of him, he couldn't recall who had been mucking around in time. Come to think of it, his memory was pretty blurry on that pretty female time traveler's face too. Must be from hitting my head. The memories were so fresh they were easily disrupted. Ah, well, no man should know too much about their own future anyway.

That reminded him -- Marty's letter was still in his pocket. He took the pieces out and looked at them again. It would be so easy to drop them to the ground and let them scatter in the winds and rot. But, for some reason, he felt a strong compulsion to go home and read it. It didn't matter what danger he could put the future or himself in, he had to read it. He had no choice. "What the hell," he said aloud, rationalizing it. "It is my last tie to Marty and my future." He stuck the pieces back in his pocket and turned to go to his car.

Then he turned back. Something had caught his eye. He looked around to see a strange craft hovering overhead, lights on its belly. For a moment, Doc thought it was a UFO, like the one Otis Peabody had claimed wrecked his barn. Then he recognized it as the time vehicle -- in flight! Amazed, he stared a moment as it flew about, then waved to it. The car dipped down slightly -- maybe someone had waved back. Then it flew off and vanished into another time, leaving a set of brief fire trails in the sky. Doc silently wished his future self and his companions luck in stopping the evil time traveler.

Tuesday, November 15th

6: 01 P. M.

By the time Doc arrived home, the compulsion to read the letter was almost overpowering. He rummaged around for his house key, hoping he had tape inside. He might go crazy if he didn't read the letter soon.

Copernicus welcomed him home with a set of happy barks. "Hello, Copernicus," he said, kneeling down and ruffling the puppy's fur. "I saw Marty today. He insisted that I read this." He pulled out the letter pieces and looked at them. "I really shouldn't, but I have to. I suppose I'll tape it back up, read it, then burn it over the Bunsen burner. After all, it'll be 30 years before I see his teenage self again. I'll have surely forgotten the contents by then."

He sat down at his work table, currently covered with different blueprints for the time machine. He cleared a spot for himself and fetched some tape. Separating the envelope pieces from the actual letter itself, he began piecing it back together.

Halfway through, the scientist stopped himself. He shouldn't be obeying a compulsion to read the letter. He should be obeying a compulsion to destroy it. He picked up the half-completed letter and the remaining pieces and went to the garbage can with them.

The urge drove him back to the table. He couldn't help it. It felt like, in a way, his brain wasn't his own on this point. Like someone had explicitly told him to read this letter, and to ignore all feelings to the contrary. Resigning himself to it, he kept putting the letter together. Damn it, why is this so important? What could be so bad about my future that even my own mind won't let me throw it away? Marty is a good kid and all, but he should know that messing with the past doesn't lead to good things in the future. He nearly ended up not existing! So why would he take that chance with me?

Suddenly, a strangely appropriate memory popped into his brain -- watching the video tape Marty had made of the first time travel experiment. It had ended suddenly and disturbingly for him. All the rest of the week, he couldn't help but wonder who had found him and why he had been so afraid. Did the letter have to do with whoever had found him? Did it have to do with Marty's strange behavior the night of the dance? He had said some confusing things to the scientist that night -- "I'm really going to miss you too." "I have to tell you about the future! On the night I go back in time, you get--" And the hug he had given him before his intended departure was the topper. It had felt -- sad. Like this was the last time Marty was ever going to see him. At the time, Doc had chalked it up to a fear of getting killed if the experiment didn't work, but now he was wondering. Did Marty mean I was dead in the future?

As soon as the thought popped into his mind, he dismissed it. It didn't make sense. If he had been dead in the future, Marty wouldn't have come back to today, most likely. And he had even heard his older self's voice! The letter couldn't be that important.

Or could it?

Marty and the female had come from a time line that hadn't involved them coming to today. And they had seemed extremely insistent on him reading that letter. Had he, in the original time line, read it and benefitted from it? And, if he didn't read the letter now, would he cause a life-ending paradox?

Worse, if he didn't read it, would he never meet Marty or that enchanting girl?

Mentally berating himself for thinking that a paradox would be less damaging then never meeting a potential girlfriend, Doc finished taping up the letter. He leaned over it and read Marty's scribbles:

Dear Dr. Brown,

On the night I go back in time, you will be shot by terrorists. Please take whatever precautions are necessary to prevent this terrible disaster.

Your friend,

Marty

Doc stared at the letter. Shot? By terrorists? Why? And for what? Did it have to do with the time machine?

Slowly, with shaking hands, he picked up the letter. And to think he had been determined to destroy it! Not now. He would keep that letter to 1985, and probably beyond, as a reminder of the friends who had risked the future for his life. As for the questions, those would be answered in due time. All he needed to do was make sure he was ready for the terrorists, and everything would stay on track. Maybe they made bullet-proof clothing in the future.

Reverently, he folded the letter and put it in his pocket. A final question occurred to him. How did his future self explain his reversal to Marty? The teen knew him as a stickler to that doctrine.

He smiled. "Well, maybe I'll just tell him I thought, 'What the hell'. Worth a shot, he knows I'm human. I won't tell him about his intervention though, that would be liable to confuse the kid completely." He looked at his dog. "Come on, Copernicus. Let's take a walk. I need a break from all this time travel business." He got up -- then remembered something important. He went upstairs to find Marty's clothes in the Goodwill box. He quickly located the outfit he'd seen Marty wearing earlier and hung it back up in the closet. Besides insuring the future, it also made a nice keepsake of the boy. He then returned to his dog, thinking, I've got 30 years to wait to catch up to Marty. Might as well make the most of them.

The End