Chapter Text
The Silver Queen Hotel was one of dozens of structures erected after Virginia City's Great Fire of 1875. The population of this mining boomtown more than halved four years later when the Comstock Lode dried up. However, the Silver Queen continued to enjoy a steady stream of travelers still hunting for that elusive fortune under the mountains.
Buford Tannen had his fair share of gold by 1893. He didn't look it, probably because he didn't especially care for the confinement of tailored suits and speaking in coy riddles to gain popularity. He was fine stirring up trouble in neighboring towns and sitting at this bar most evenings. The owner's wife didn't mind much.
She didn't mind him much at all, especially when her husband was out of town. Not a romp went by without her trying to sell the place to him, though; she wanted out of this shithole. He played her game for a while, letting her think she was chiseling him down until he realized she was.
His father owned the Palace in Hill Valley and made a decent dime. Paid enough men to run it for him. Maybe this place, the Silver Queen, could be something he left to the son he'd never met. Nothing so glamorous as the Monterey Theater the boy would inherit in Pine City, but a reminder that he was who he was – a Tannen.
Buford emptied his drink.
What did he care about legacy?
"Well, Buford Tannen! Sure as I live and breathe."
Buford glanced into the mirror behind the bar, perplexed at the buoyancy attached to his name. He sat out of his hunch when a shrewd smile emerged over his shoulder on a long, thin face too unweathered for the frontier.
"Virgil Stubbs?"
The lanky man squeezed through the grime-coated patrons, took up the stool on Tannen's right, and put his hat on the bar. He combed sweaty, blonde strands off his forehead, an uncanny gesture that brought Stubble back to life for a heartbeat.
"Damned if you ain't a hard man to track down."
Buford eyed him.
"What do you want, Stubbs?"
"A word. About why you left New York in a mighty hurry."
"Weren't no hurry," Buford said. "Better opportunities."
A shadow passed over Virgil's face.
"We had something good goin' for a few months there, you and I. You were running my lines like clockwork when I left that January. I was arrested when I came back in May. Every one of my transports had been abandoned and seized. I'm gonna have to resort to real estate now."
"Your men sold your books before I set foot in New York," Buford reminded him. "Loyalty does not reward carelessness, nor does it the fact that you think I got your brother killed."
Virgil sucked his teeth. "He was waiting for you, so –"
"So what?" Buford challenged. "I was in a wagon on my way to be hanged. What Jack, Buck, and Cecil did was on them. They all died."
"But you got a new friend that night." Virgil smiled wide, over-enunciating, "Clint Eastwood."
Buford took up the shot that materialized before him.
"I don't keep friends."
"I wouldn't keep company with that sorry son of a bitch neither. Not after he got that pretty wife of his killed. Your cousin."
The hair stood on Burford's arms. Virgil's grin softened with his voice.
"Kind of thing that would make a man exact immediate revenge, you'd think. 'Less he was in on it."
Buford's eyes darkened.
"Don't talk about business that ain't yours, Stubbs."
"Oh, it is my business," Virgil said, "and it's been left unfinished for too long."
Tannen did a double take at the worn gold ring on Virgil's hand. He swallowed; the last time he'd seen that horizontal, octagonal ruby, the hand that bore it left him penniless behind the marshal's office with Clint Eastwood.
"Where the hell did you get that?"
Virgil plaintively turned the ruby in the low light.
"I loved my brother, Mr. Tannen. And he loved you as I loved him. So you can tell yourself what you like, but he died for you.
"But Ann Gardner?" He sighed pensively, feeling Buford coil like a rattler at her mention. "I'd shoot that idiot between the eyes for her, so what do you think I'm going to do to the men who took her from me?"
Eyes gleaming with fury, Tannen sank the knife in his boot into Virgil's thigh. The railroad smuggler grunted in shock. Buford put more of his weight on the blade until a shotgun muzzle nestled into the base of his skull.
Apparently, the owner's wife really wanted out of this shithole.
Virgil flashed his eyebrows.
"Told you I was in real estate now."
Tannen snarled, roaring and ripping the knife from Virgil's leg.
"Ahh!"
Buford let the scream fuel his rage, spinning him up to the formidable darkness of a big, black twister. Before he could plunge it into the traitor's neck, however, several men immediately descended on Buford, punched him in the stomach, and hauled him toward the door.
Virgil smiled.
"Tell Clint I'll be seeing him!"
Thud.
Emmett's feet stuttered to a stop. He walked backward several paces along his cart, stopping when he heard a giggle disrupt the insects' evensong. He held up his lantern to the nearest crate.
A little face peeked at him from where a hen should have been.
Damn it, Marty.
Doc opened the crate. Another giggle burst into the night sky as the girl pulled herself up and tried to wipe her stringy, baby-blonde hair out of her face with a flat hand. She held out her arms, bouncing with a big grin and bright eyes.
"Pick you up?"
Doc plucked a feather from her hair and swatted straw from her nightdress. The toddler bounced and vocalized more vigorously to redirect Emmett to her needs. Still preoccupied with how he didn't hear a three-year-old ejecting a chicken from its crate, Doc climbed in the front of the cart, sat Marty's daughter on his lap, and reached for the reins.
"Alright, Miss Ellie. Let's get you home."
A knock came on the cabin door, interrupting Marty's rhythm. He shared a quizzical frown with the man beneath him.
"Ignore it. 'S just a drunk, come on."
Marty doubled his efforts at Seymore's insistence, sprinting for the finish line. Seymore sank his fingertips into Marty's thighs to absorb his final ruts, huffing out ragged moans of pleasure until Marty collapsed on top of him, breathless.
More knocking.
"Jesus…"
"It's alright," Seymore said. "I'll go."
"No."
"We'll finish this at camp tomorrow night."
Marty sighed. Not that the troupe didn't have comfortable tents; he just thought he'd treat one of them to a proper bed for once. He planned to be at the camp tomorrow night anyway, but his blood was far from cool right now.
Seymore propped himself up on his elbow.
"Tomorrow's it, Clint." He slowly arched his hips and ran his nose down Marty's neck, warmed as his pursuit buried a hungry hand in his dark locks. "And I'm going to have you one more time if you're making me wait clear 'til next summer again –"
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
"God damn it– Just a minute!" Marty shouted.
He reluctantly stood, officially forfeiting the evening and snatching his pants off the floor. Hurrying to situate himself, Marty took up his Peacemaker, closed the bedroom door behind him, and stalked the three paces to the cabin's front door before whipping it open.
Doc looked about as happy to see him as he did to see Doc.
"Daddy!"
Marty caught himself on the door frame as his daughter barreled into his knees with a fierce hug.
"Ellie?"
Marty holstered his gun in the back of his waistband. He did a double take between her and her bedroom door. His shoulders fell.
Fuck.
Marty refused to meet Doc's eye as he dropped to one knee before Ellie, who leapt at him with another affectionate squeak.
"Daddy, it's Doc!"
"Yeah."
"I went in the wagon." She giggled, craning her neck to look up at Doc. "It's a big wagon, Daddy, a big wagon!"
"You went in Doc's wagon?"
"Yeah! It was really fun!"
Marty wet his lips.
"Ellie, didn't Daddy put you to bed a while ago?"
"Yes."
"Mmhm. Are you allowed to get out of bed once we say goodnight?"
The small girl's smile bent into a pout. Marty pulled her into his arms to smother her sniffle.
"I'm not mad at you, baby. But you scare Daddy when I don't know where you are."
"It's Doc."
Marty nodded patiently. "I know you're safe with Doc, but you have to tell me before you go anywhere with anyone. I thought you were asleep in your bed. If you and Doc got in trouble, I couldn't help you because I don't know where you are."
Ellie whined into his shirt. Marty held her tighter, reminded that she still listened more to his tone than his words. Once he hushed and rocked her into a calmer state, Marty put his hands on Ellie's waist, backed her up a few steps, and pressed his lips into a soft yet stern line.
"Daddy has to know, okay? I love you."
"I love you, too."
"Back to bed, princess. Come on."
Marty took his time tucking her in, hoping Doc would give up and leave. Nights like these suggested that Doc no longer trusted him with his own daughter, and Marty did not appreciate that the subsequent hovering and berating convinced him of it. It was unavoidable, he supposed, especially when Seymore squeezed past Doc in the doorway with a casual, parting smile.
Seeing Marty's ears turn bright red was all the confirmation Doc needed; the kid had very few readable tells left, but this one was unmistakable. He waited until the vagabond was down the path to close the distance Marty so carefully kept between them.
"Do you think this helps deter rumors?"
Marty polished off a forgotten glass of whiskey on the mantle. He glowered into the dying fire.
Rumors ain't rumors if they're true.
"Rumors deter matchmakers."
Doc's eyes fluttered shut. Marty's status as an eligible bachelor had been a subject of interest since 1885, and his status as a widower with a young child even more so. Doc understood Marty's frustration, but flaunting his promiscuity wasn't the way to go about it.
The scientist pointed his eyes at Ellie's bedroom door.
"You can't keep letting this happen."
"I didn't let it happen."
"You have to pay more attention to her whereabouts until she's broken this habit of wandering off," Doc said. "I won't be here after tomorrow, and you shouldn't be either."
Marty's brow deepened.
"I'm not going, Doc. I told you, I am done with time travel."
"Marty, please." The boy just didn't know what he was talking about anymore. "You'd be safer, both of you."
Half the town still wanted Marty's head after three years. Before Strickland cleared him, they were convinced his apprentice was a wolf in sheep's clothing for months. And some people could not be talked out of their beliefs, despite how erroneous and dangerous they were.
Strickland's passing that spring didn't help matters; Doc suffered great unease at the increased iciness Marty and Ellie incurred with the loss of that barrier. The thought of leaving them in this climate did not sit right with him, but Marty was backed into a corner enough now to get defensive.
"Going back to 1985 isn't going to fix anything anymore, Doc." Marty motioned to the front door and everything beyond it. "If it'd only been a year or two, I'd be the first one on the train, but eight years?"
"Can't you at least go back and make peace with your family?" He raised his voice over Marty's incredulous laugh. "I'd do it for you, Marty, but they won't take my word for it! They have to hear it from you!"
"Doc, if I show up eight years older with a three-year-old daughter, do you really think my family would just accept that? That Jennifer would even be able to look at me?"
God, how long had it been since he said her name?
Marty shook his head, eyes shining.
"They'd take my daughter from me. I'd never see her again."
They'd put her in some facility because she would only ever name Marty as her father and tell all these stories about living in the Old West. They'd think he was some sick fuck that murdered her mother and brainwashed her, and they'd try to spend years un-brainwashing her to find her real family. And once the media got wind of it? Fuck that.
Doc laid his large hand on Marty's shoulder.
"All I'm asking is that you spare your parents that very pain."
The bottom of Marty's stomach fell out. He resented the low blow but didn't fight the lump swelling in his throat. Blinking back the threatening tears, Marty walked around Doc, went into his bedroom, and retrieved the leather journal he'd loosely kept during his time in the nineteenth century.
"They've got plenty of my notebooks to compare the handwriting to," he said, giving it to Doc. "There's some, some gaps in there, but…" He rubbed the back of his neck as Doc fanned the pages. "It's something."
It wasn't the best he could do, but it was something.
The next morning, Doc stowed it away under the padded bench in the Time Train.
"Thank you. I'll make sure they get this."
Marty hid in Doc's embrace for a solid minute afterward. His decision wasn't easy; he hoped Doc knew that. Marty never wanted this, but some things were too big for a time machine to undo. Right now, his friend's unconditional love would have to be what carried him in their time apart.
"Don't erase Ellie, okay?"
"I would never."
"Because I know you feel responsible for me being here and all, but I really love her.”
"So do I."
Jules and Verne came aboard. They sat on the bench housing Marty's journal, trying to find the seatbelts that got sucked into the seam of the cushions. Clara came next with a sad, sleepy Ellie on her hip. She brushed the girl's silky hair aside and kissed her temple again before handing her to Marty on the stairs.
"Take care of your daddy, sweetheart."
"Mmhm."
"We’ll see you again soon. Goodbye."
"Bye."
Marty walked Ellie thirty yards away from the Time Train as it came to life.
And kept walking.
And didn't look back.