The McFly Who Never Was

A/N: We all know that if George and Lorraine didn't get together, Marty McFly would have ceased to exist. But what would that mean for George and Lorraine, for Doc, and for the universe? That's what I've tried to answer...

November 12th, 1955

"Scram McFly, I'm cutting in", the ginger-headed bully said, pushing George McFly away from Lorraine Baines. A dejected George McFly walked away.

"George!" Lorraine called out, almost pleadingly. But George McFly had just had a moment of epiphany. A particularly tragic one. Gone was the euphoria of punching out his long-time nemesis Biff Tannen. For about ten minutes, he'd lived a dream! A dream where he walked side by side with Lorraine, with Biff Tannen, and every other bully who'd ever tormented him kneeling before him begging for mercy...who knows where that simple dream would have led? To fame, fortune, eternal happiness...it was all a matter of time!

But George knew that the dream was over. He was no hero. He was no knight in shining armour. He was just a nerd, a wimp...a slacker as Strickland kept saying he was. No McFly had really ever amounted to much in the history of Hill Valley; why would he be any different?

He'd enjoyed the dream while it lasted, but all it took was one push to end it. He could not build a life of success, of happiness, out of a single fluke.

"George..." came another feebler, weaker voice, from the direction of the stage. George briefly glanced in its direction. There on stage was Marty. Marty alias 'Calvin Klein'; his friend of one week who was currently prostrated on the floor, writhing in agony, looking at him as pleadingly as Lorraine had, perhaps even more so. George momentarily wondered if Marty was ill...perhaps he was having a seizure or something? However, his own feeling of dejection overwhelmed any lasting concern he might have had for his friend. In the place of concern, he even felt a tinge of resentment. After all, was it not Calvin Klein who had set him down this fool's path of trying to become a hero? And where had that got him? Humiliated in front of Lorraine...and a prime candidate to get pummelled to death by Biff when the Tannen recovered...

No, Marty had caused him enough trouble, George thought, as he walked out of the gym. Time to forget everything that had happened in the last few days and move on as best as he could...

The students of Hill Valley High certainly noticed the erratic guitar playing of 'Calvin Klein'. They certainly noticed Calvin doubling up on the floor, as though he were having severe muscle cramps in his stomach. Those closest to the dance floor may have even heard him calling someone's name desperately, though no one could make out whose name it was. But after Calvin half-ran, half-crawled off the stage, very few gave him a second's thought. Probably gone somewhere to throw up, they may have thought. Which was why hardly anyone noticed the fact that he had failed to reappear on stage that night...or indeed, reappear at all! Ever.

ooo

As soon as he saw George leave the stage, Marty McFly knew, deep down inside, that this was the end of him.

The pain had become excruciating. But worse still was the fact that he didn't even know why it was paining him because he couldn't feel his body anymore! He was still conscious, just about, but he felt almost like some kind of ethereal presence, experiencing the world, but not through his body...he could see and hear, but he didn't think it was through his eyes and ears...Then how was he still seeing and hearing?

He couldn't play the guitar. And in a shocking moment, he realized he couldn't even hold the guitar. Because he didn't have much of a hand left. It was almost completely transparent now...ghostly...the ghost of a hand which he couldn't even feel, just like he couldn't feel the rest of his body. Again he wondered, where was the pain coming from...his mind?

Almost instinctively, he made his way of the stage. He didn't know how he crawled along the floor, which he couldn't even feel anymore. At some point he dropped the guitar...but he didn't even realize that. He remembered the photograph though...the one with him, Dave and Linda. Only it was nearly empty now...there was just the ghost of an image of him...

He grabbed the picture, much like a sinking man would grab desperately at a plank of wood. Somehow, the photograph felt real, even though nothing else did anymore.

Outside, he thought. He needed to get outside...to the car! Maybe Doc could help him...just maybe they could figure something out. He needed to go...now.

He tried to run and nearly fell over. He tried to feel his legs, but couldn't feel them. He couldn't feel anything except the photograph of an empty well and the rapidly fading ghost of a teenage boy. Somehow he made his way to a side entrance and onto the grounds. He looked around for the parking lot. The car, he thought weakly, must get the car.

It was almost as an after-thought that he realized he didn't know where the car was, or indeed where the parking lot was. It was as though the memory didn't exist anymore. Bewildered, he looked around him. Where am I?, he thought, panicking suddenly, looking around at his unfamiliar surroundings. Panicking even more, because he knew that mere moments earlier he had known the answer to that question. Or had he?

Got to get a grip on yourself, Marty, he thought, through all the non-existent pain and agony which still mysteriously gripped his nearly non-existent body. He had lost one of his hands, and nearly lost his legs...the last thing he needed was to lose his mind as well.

Your name is Marty McFly, he told himself firmly. He remembered! You were born on June 12th 1968 to George and Lorraine McFly, in Hill Valley. You have a brother named-Dammit, what was his brother's name? He knew he had a brother...or didn't he? He wasn't so sure anymore.

Remember, he forced himself to think. You come from the year 1985. He forced himself to bring to his mind images and memories of 1985. Of Town's Square, the Clock Tower, Twin Pines Mall...except that none came to mind. He had names, but no memories.

Dammit, think about Jennifer. Except, he had no idea who Jennifer was or what she looked like...or why the name had even occurred to him.

He tried to focus on why he was here. Wherever 'here' was...perhaps that was the key to remembering.

His surroundings suddenly went out of focus. He knew he had fallen face-down onto the floor, but he didn't feel any pain from the impact. Probably because there was no real 'impact' as such...just a vague awareness of the fact.

Where was he? When was he?

What was the last thing he remembered?

He remembered something about a dance. A punch. Someone had punched someone. Who? Why? It was the reason he was here.

Doc...gotta find Doc, he thought. Except that he had no idea who Doc was or why he should find him.

Time travel, he thought, except that he didn't even know what those words meant.

Somehow, he felt the presence of the photograph near him. It was all he felt...as though he had some connection with it. But that connection was growing weaker...was on the verge of being severed. He knew that...even though he knew nothing else. He searched his mind for memories...but there weren't any. They simply didn't exist anymore. So did he exist anymore? He didn't know...he couldn't remember ever 'existing'...whatever that meant.

He didn't know who he was or what he was. He didn't know what he was doing here. He didn't know that it mattered anyhow.

The last thing he perceived was the night sky...except that he had never seen the night sky...had never seen anything...

ooo

At about a quarter to ten, Emmett Brown had grown really worried. Marty still hadn't shown up. Emmett knew now that whatever Marty's reasons, tardiness was certainly not one of them in this case. He sensed, no, he knew, something had gone wrong.

The dance! He had to get to the dance. He needed to find Marty. The teenager's very existence was at stake...and so possibly, was the integrity of the space-time continuum!

Emmett hurriedly hailed a cab and set off in the direction of Hill Valley High. During the drive, his mind pondered over the possibilities of what could have happened.

There could be any number of explanations. Marty's progress could have been impeded by Biff Tannen and his cronies...perhaps the Packard was damaged...maybe the teen truly had no concept of time! But deep down inside, Emmett knew the likeliest possibility was the unpredictable, unimaginable one he'd feared the most.

Unimaginable...hell, yes! Unimaginable before a week ago, when a teenager had shown up at his doorstep claiming to be from the future, and possessing a time machine to prove it. A time machine that he, Emmett Brown, would invent thirty years from now!

Purely, as an exercise in logical scientific reasoning, Doc had often pondered, in the past week, what would be the outcome of Marty's possible failure to unite his future parents. He knew of the 'Grandfather paradox' of course...and perhaps there would have been a time when he'd have dismissed it and believed that Marty preventing his own birth was an impossibility that the universe simply would not allow. But the fading images on the photograph had thrown a wrench in that theory...

But what would happen if Marty McFly ceased to exist...by his own agency. He needed to exist in order to not exist. Would that paradox alone be enough to tear the universe apart? Or would it resolve itself somehow?

Scientific curiosity aside however, he was concerned about Marty as a person. God...how long had it been since he'd come to care about anything and anyone not directly concerned with his scientific pursuits? As strange as the kid was, and stranger still the circumstances under which he'd entered his life, Emmett had grown quiet close to the kid, as he knew his future self had, or rather, would...He had realized eventually that his interest in helping Marty resolve his problems was not scientific, but purely personal. He wanted Marty to secure his existence and return to his life in 1985...he wanted the teenager to be happy; a desire that went beyond any consideration of the hypothetical space-time continuum or potential temporal paradox.

Which was why, it was with a feeling of intense dread and foreboding that Emmett hopped out of the cab, forgetting to even pay the cabbie, and ran across the parking lot of Hill Valley High like a madman, looking for any sign of Marty.

He caught sight of his Packard first...still parked presumably where Marty had parked it...the door on the driver's side open. So it was clear that Marty hadn't left the school...then where was he?

Fortunately, or unfortunately, his search yielded results, and answers, all too quickly. Answers he'd anticipated, but hoped to God he'd never have to face...

Crumbled on the ground, near one of the side-entrances to the gym...was the grey suit he'd hired for Marty to wear to the dance. And lying beside it, a photograph...

Emmett lifted the photograph. He knew, the moment he saw the empty suit, what he would learn from the picture, but he felt the compulsion to be sure...

It was empty. Apart from the well in the background, the picture was empty. No McFly children had posed for the picture...because there were no McFly children! There never were, and there never would be...

Looking at the picture, and then at the empty suit lying on the ground, the full realization of what had happened hit Emmett like a locomotive at full speed.

Marty McFly has been erased from existence.

He didn't exist...and never would again.

Emmett let out a cry of anguish. But his scientific mind told him there was no use for it now.

He was pulled out of his turbulent thoughts by the angry cabbie who'd followed him, demanding his fare. Almost as though in a trance, Emmett wordlessly handed the man all the money he was carrying. Then he picked up the suit, and with that and the photograph in hand, simply walked away, leaving the cabbie speechless.

He climbed into his Packard and started to drive home. As he drove, he could hear the rumblings of a thunderstorm. As though from another lifetime, he suddenly remembered the lightning bolt...the Clock Tower...the time-vehicle...

It was painful to think of what was going to happen, what would have happened at the Town's Square. But somewhere in his chaotic mind, Emmett knew that it wouldn't be a good idea to leave the time-vehicle out there in the open. So he sighed, changed his direction, and drove towards the Town's Square.

He attached the ramp holding the time vehicle. He stole a casual glance at the Clock Tower while doing so. As the flyer had predicted, it had stopped precisely at 10: 04 PM. It must have been a majestic sight to behold, the lightning striking the tower, and once again Emmett was forced to divert his thoughts from what might have been...

Instead, he drove home to his Riverside Drive mansion; half walked, half stumbled his way into the kitchen, and, though he had a notoriously low tolerance for alcohol, downed two entire bottles of whisky because he had numbed himself enough to be able to sleep.

ooo

October 26th, 1985

Doctor Emmett Brown sat in his garage, his dog Einstein next to him, a stiff whiskey on the desk in front of him. He was looking, ponderously, at the calendar which said it was Saturday, October 26th, 1985.

And he was also staring at the nearly thirty year old letter also on the desk in front of him. The letter, yellowed with age, which contained the words of a boy who never even existed. Words which intended to warn him of the fate which, in another life, would have befallen him on this date...

The letter was, ultimately, all he really had to remind him of Marty McFly.

Hard to believe it had been thirty years, thought Emmett. And yet, paradoxically enough, it seemed just like yesterday...a perpetual dream, a lingering nightmare, that visited him night after night, and even during his waking hours.

But time had passed, there was no denying that. Hill Valley had changed, its people had changed...he had changed.

And now, on this day that he alone knew should had turned out very differently, Emmett could not but help cast his mind back to those early feverish days after Marty's... 'disappearance'.

He had wildly considered using the Delorean to go back and somehow fix things...except that without plutonium, or the lightning bolt, it lacked a power source and was useless to him as a time machine. Perhaps he'd come close to making up his mind to store it somewhere...and use it when he'd discovered or developed a suitable power source. But before long, even that fledging possibility was taken away from him.

Around three days after Marty disappeared, the Delorean too ceased to exist. Slowly but surely disappeared before his very eyes! As did every other item Marty had brought back with him from 1985. The 'portable video unit' and the recordings of the experiment at the mall. Marty's clothes. His other personal effects. The radiation suit. The luggage belonging to his own future self. And last but not the least, that infamous photograph. All vanished into thin air...as though they had never existed.

Later, he had reasoned that it made perfect sense. If Marty was never born, then he never travelled back in time...and neither did the time vehicle and everything else that he had brought with him. It had simply taken the universe a little longer to realize that, than it had in the case of Marty of himself.

And yet, he remembered Marty and the week they'd spent together. He remembered every moment he'd spent with someone who never really existed. It would have been a creepy thought, if it wasn't also so overwhelming tragic.

Others had remembered Marty too. He remembered clearly how Lorraine had come to his house, not long after the day the Delorean had vanished, asking about Marty, whom she'd last noticed on stage during the Enchantment under the Sea dance. She was concerned that his disappearance might have had something to do with Biff Tannen, who had dragged him out of the Packard when she was with him earlier.

All Emmett could do was to assure her that Marty was alright, that he'd had to leave unexpectedly for his work in the Coast Guard. He said he wasn't sure when Marty would get back. Emmett did also take the opportunity, cautiously, to ask her about George McFly and if she'd seen him lately.

"George McFly", she had said, with a hint of confusion in her voice. "I-no, I haven't really seen him since the dance". She then paused and added, "To be very honest with you, Dr. Brown, I really don't know what to make of the boy. First, he...he saves me from Biff Tannen...knocks him out with one punch! But ten minutes later, on the dance floor, he lets someone else grab me and just walks away!"

"Well, George-has some difficulties overcoming his...shyness", Emmett said. "But he's a good lad, deep down inside. I'm sure of it".

"I'm sure he is too, Dr. Brown", said Lorraine. "But like I said to Calvin the other day...I think a man should be strong enough to protect a woman if he cares about her".

And that was that. Lorraine would not be convinced by any argument and Emmett knew his attempts were futile. How could he even begin to hope that a girl like Lorraine would fall in love with a boy like George McFly...unless the 'Florence Nightingale effect' was in play of course.

After that day, events unfolded rapidly. Or perhaps, that was only Emmett's perception in hindsight...

Fortunately for George McFly, he never had to contend with the wrath of Biff Tannen ever again. Biff had been seething with rage at being punched out his former victim, but he had perhaps decided that one embarrassment was more than enough. So he chose to vent his anger on others instead, becoming increasingly more vicious in his bullying...until he ended up getting suspended from school, and on at least one occasion, was even nearly booked for assault! After school, Biff got into the Auto Detailing business...had in fact, made a moderate success of himself, though for years, he continued to remain embittered that he never got his chance with Lorraine. Of course, many had heard him express the fact that he took a sadistic pleasure in the knowledge that the 'Irish bug' didn't get her in the end either!

Freed from Biff's incessant bullying, George McFly ought to have flourished...but he didn't, at least not as much as he could have. On the contrary, his fifteen minutes of fame had led to George becoming even more withdrawn than before. True, he'd garnered a fair bit of respect from many of his peers, but at the end of the day, they all saw him for what he was-the underdog who'd had his lucky shot and blown it. All was not lost however...during his college days, George did take up professional writing on the side...and indeed, became a moderately successful freelance writer for science fiction magazines. Those few who were close to him often said that if he'd had the sheer guts to, he could have even published his own novel some day...but his own hesitation, his own fear of rejection and of failure, perpetually held him back.

Emmett was briefly acquainted to George at some point in the 1960's and introduced himself as Calvin Klein's uncle. George did enquire after his old friend and admitted to Emmett that the little headway he'd made was perhaps owing to Marty's advice...before he ruefully said that it didn't make much of a difference in the end after all.

George McFly would never marry. His failure with Lorraine discouraged him with pursuing relationships with women, even though, he came quiet close to getting involved on at least two occasions. He and Lorraine, strangely enough, remained friends...Lorraine still felt she owed George for saving her from Biff, but she also resented his abandonment of her on the dance floor. Whenever they ran into each other somewhere in town, or met at the few social gatherings George would reluctantly attend, their reunion would be awkward to say the least.

Emmett wondered who it was more awkward for. Probably for George. Lorraine had long gotten over her disappointment on that front. George had been a mere passing attraction to her, less so than even the mysterious Calvin Klein. Her flirtatious nature led to her having a number of affairs all through college, which culminated in her marriage, in 1962, to an advertising executive named Harry Teller. They'd had twins; a boy named Sam, after Lorraine's father, and a girl named Sarah, shortly thereafter. The marriage, while outwardly a happy one, eventually strained, according to some of the couple's closest friends. Whether it would have lasted or not...no one could tell, for in 1970, Harry Teller died in a car crash. Thereafter, Lorraine would have many liaisons with men, but none of them seemed to last for too long. She seemed content enough though; probably more, Emmett thought, than she would have been married to George McFly.

And what of Doctor Emmett Brown, the resident 'mad scientist' of Hill Valley?

If he was to be truthful to himself, Emmett had to admit that for much of the last thirty years he had been...unsure about his future, to say the least.

There had been a time when he knew his future was all laid out for him already. When he knew he was destined to invent a time machine and befriend a teenager named Marty McFly who would accidently end up using it to travel back to 1955. But Marty's erasure from the time-stream had irrevocably changed all of that. The path that had been so clear to him since the day Marty entered his life was gone...and Emmett could never make up his mind whether he wanted to try to return to that path, or leave it behind altogether and move on...

This culminated in months, even years, of feverish activity as he worked day and night in pursuit of the realization of his dream of achieving time travel...alternated by periods when the plans for the time machine lay abandoned and Emmett either vigorously redirected his energies elsewhere, or sat still in his lab, consumed by memories of his many failures...and of that week with Marty.

His recollection of Marty was a paradox at best. There was something both mesmerizing and terrifying about remembering someone who never existed. And yet, Marty had existed during that week in November 1955...for him, for Lorraine, for George, even for Biff Tannen. He had appeared out of nowhere, irrevocably interfered with the course of Hill Valley's history, and disappeared into thin air as a result of his actions. He was virtually a phantom...an echo...a boy who existed only to ensure that he would not exist!

Sometimes, Emmett realized to his horror, that his memory of Marty was hazy at best. He recalled everything that had happened during that week, but somehow had trouble remembering Marty himself...his face, the sound of his voice, his manner, the essence of his personality...all gone! Wiped clean from Emmett's mind just like it had been wiped from the universe. Perhaps it had something to do with the space-time continuum attempting to minimize a paradox?

But then, there were the other times when he remembered Marty's face, Marty's voice, Marty's existence...all too vividly! Especially in his dreams...and after a drink or two.

There were many men who dwelled on the past...spent endless hours ruminating over it. And Emmett had often reflected on the irony that he instead spent endless hours dwelling not on the past, but the future. A future which could have been...a future where George and Lorraine were happily married, Marty had been born, the time machine had been invented, and he would enjoy travelling through time with his teenage friend by his side!

Instead, today, on the 26th of October, 1985...George was an unhappy bachelor, Lorraine a widow, Marty had never been born, and the time machine was a perpetual 'work in progress' that might perhaps never be completed...

Emmett wondered what he would do...if the time machine were completed. Would he risk going back in time and saving Marty?

No, he said to himself, firmly. What had happened had happened...for better or for worse. Lorraine's life was far from perfect, but she had attained at least a modicum of happiness. And she had two children...two young adults who did not deserve to have their lives snuffed out in favour of someone who was no more than a phantom in the memories of an old man. People had lived their lives...thirty years of it...who was he to play God and set things right?

This was his curse. The curse of knowing what could not possibly be known. Of witnessing the existence of the non-existent. Of being the perpetual seer of a nullified future. And he would live with this curse for the rest of his days.

And with that resolution in mind, Emmett raised his glass of whiskey, as a toast, to Marty McFly...the boy who never was.