At this very moment in a cozy restaurant called the Piehole, Ned was baking a pie. Or, he was trying to bake a pie. He could hear the slowly dying buzz from today's customers, occasionally punctuated by a giggle from Olive, the petite, blonde waitress. It was a soothing sound, a constantly calming soundtrack in his mind. It was familiar, and it made him happy.

"Whatcha' thinkin'?"

A voice from across the room interrupted his thoughts. Ned looked up, to see a curious Olive standing in the doorway.

"Nothing. Or Nothing that matters anyways."

She crinkled her forehead, and slightly shrugged, turning back to the customers, while a smiling brunette came into the room. The piemaker smiled up at her, longing to reach out and greet her with a touch, but this would mean certain death. So he simply settled for a smile and a welcome. "Hey."

Chuck looked lovingly back at him. "Did you see it started snowing? I love snow. It's like a powdered sugar coating on the world." She looked longingly out the window, before continuing. "I'm going shopping. So I'll see you later kay?"

Her liquid brown eyes looked at Ned, who nodded and looked back down at the pie.

"Have fun." The girl called Chuck smiled brightly and waved sweetly at him, then left, leaving only the small dinging of a bell. When the bell dinged again, Olive looked up from behind the counter, where she had been talking to Digby. A man entered and sat down at the booth nearest to the door. He was tall, very tall, and wearing in a black dress shirt, with his face adorned by thick sunglasses. Olive smiled and walked over.

"Hiya! Welcome to the Piehole, what can I get ya?" She asked, in her typical bubbly manner. The man looked up at her, and Olive slightly blushed. He was most definitely not looking at her face. In fact, she was look about 6 inches below there. She shrugged off the feeling, and cleared her throat slightly, making the man look up. "I'll have a slice of Three Berry, a la mode. And your phone number." His voice was deep and gravelly, and it made Olive shiver, but not the way Ned's voice did. This was a bad shiver, like the feeling you get when you know something isn't exactly right. But, she kept up with her cheerful smile and chit-chat anyways.

"The pie will be right up! But we seem to be all out of the phone numbers." His face dropped, and took on a slightly angry look. The small blonde however, didn't see this as she turned to scoop out a slice of the finest pie in Papen County. She returned to the table, and dropped the slice with a small smile and a slight thunk. "Enjoy!" She made to walk back to the counter, but she felt a hand grabbing around her wrist. A look back saw the man's large hand around her wrist, and her heart started beating a little faster. "Do you wanna re-think about the phone number?" he asked quietly, dangerously. Olive's lips tightened to a thin line. She hated guys like this. They had pestered her all her life. She took her other hand, reached out, and swiftly smacked him across the face. A crack could be heard throughout the shop, and even as he was the only customer, it caused Ned to hurry out to see what was going on. He arrived to see Olive pull her arm out of his grasp, and turn to look him in the face. "I'm positive." She walked to the counter, and saw a very baffled and confused Ned standing there.

"Olive, what in the world is going on?" Olive looked up at the handsome piemaker, and blinked twice.

"Whatever do you mean Ned?"

He rolled his eyes, and pulled the waitress into the backroom.

"I come out and see you slap a customer! What were you thinking Olive?"

The small blonde looked at him. "He made an offer I had to refuse. And clearly, he was unhappy with said refusal." She turned back to Ned, who was still standing there, looking slightly confused. A quick look outside showed that the Piehole was empty, and it was past closing time. "Ned, if you're done gaping like a fish out of water, I think I'm on my way home. I'll see you tomorrow!" The waitress pushed past Ned to her coat and purse, waving to him on the way out. He waved back, and called out "Good- Night!" over his shoulder. The tinkling bell brought him back him back to reality, and with a sigh, he began to wipe up his baking stone. This was ordinary, a constant in his everyday life. Put away Flour. Check. Put Away Fruit. Check. And so on, until the sanctuary of his kitchen was spotless and shining. It was his routine. A calm Ned was in the process of putting sugar back in the cabinet, when a high pitched scream reached his ears, causing his heart rate to rise and breathing to quicken. He dropped the sugar, when he heard another scream, except this one was abruptly cut short. Ned felt his stomach drop. He knew that scream. "Olive!" He exhaled, and ran to the door of the bakery.

The waitress had been walking home, when a large meaty arm had been wrapped around her mouth, and another around her waist. She tried to escape, but felt her tiny body being lifted in the air, and she heard a familiar, gravelly voice in her ear.

"You should have just given me the number."

Olive's eyes widened, and she kicked and struck out as hard as possible, but with no avail. Her direction changed, when she felt herself being slammed against a wall.

She whimpered, and the man laughed. "Time to have some fun, missy."

Her breath caught as she felt him unzip the front of her Piehole uniform. She kicked out at him, and in his frustration, the hand on her mouth lifted. Olive screamed as loud as she could, and then again, but she was cut off by a painful blow to her face. It throbbed, and her vision flickered in and out. The man lowered her to the ground, and smashed his huge body against her tiny one. Olive tried to fight but nothing was doing anything. Her Piehole uniform hung loosely around her waist, and she moved away from the man, who swiftly dropped his entire weight on the small body. Olive felt ribs break and bruise, and she gasped as her head swam. The last thing she heard was "Get off!" before she lost consciousness. If she would have looked, she would have seen the Piemaker brandishing a rolling pin, and the angriest he had ever been. When he heard Olive's scream, and saw the man, it was like he didn't care what happened. He just wanted to make him hurt. Ned smacked him, as hard as he could in the head with the rolling pin, knocking the man out. His heart broke when he saw Olive. He knelt down softly by the blonde and scooped her up in his arms. He tried not to notice that his little waitress wasn't moving. Ned carried her bridal style inside, and called 911. He laid Olive down in a booth, with her head in his lap. "Olive?" He asked the unmoving women. "Olive? Can you hear me?" His voice broke, and now in the light, he saw the damage that had been done. Purple bruises were spreading over the left side of her face, interrupted by a slowly bleeding cut. Her chest, which Ned blushed slightly looking at, was covered in nasty, mottled bruises, with part of it swollen. Ned felt his eyes grow wet, as he reached for her wrist, checking for a pulse. It was faint, like a bird's, but it was there. Ned smiled, remembering when a pigeon hit the window, and Olive insisted it was a miracle bird.

He saw the flashing lights of the police car, and to Ned it was like walking around in a snow globe. His world was all shaken up, and he was floating, waiting to hit the ground. Giving a Statement to the police, the man being arrested, the crowd gathering, Ned hardly noticed any of it. He simply climbed in the ambulance next to Olive, and held her hand.

Olive.

What would he do if he lost her? Ned absentmindedly stroked her hand, thinking what he would do without Olive. Honestly, he had no idea. He thought back to the day when she helped him steal the Norwegians bus, and they fell off a cliff. God, she had looked so beautiful that day. And the day when she had come home from the nunnery… It was like a missing piece of his heart had come back. That moment she had turned and asked him about their saliva being compatible.. he had loved her right then. He looked down at his Olive on the stretcher, and realized that what it was. He loved her. And she looked so sad, and broken. Not like his Olive, bubbly and full of sass. He looked down at her pale face. "Don't leave me." He whispered, and closed his eyes. Ned sighed and reached for his phone, dialing a familiar number. "Chuck?" His voice showed his emotions, and Ned winced. The voice on the other end was immediately concerned.

"Ned? What's wrong? Are you okay?" Ned took a deep breath. He could do this.

"I'm on my way to the hospital. It's Olive. She's…not okay." He heard Chuck's panicked voice on the other end. "Omigod, what happened??? I'll be right there!" Ned heard her moving around in a rush. "Chuck?" He paused. "Can you tell Emerson? I- I don't know if I can make this call again." The ambulance slid to a stop, and Ned hung up his phone. He wouldn't leave her side.

2 hours, 21 minutes and 14 seconds later, Ned was once again holding Olive's hand. Except this time, he wasn't alone. Emerson and Chuck had joined him, but he hadn't told them how she got hurt. He was pretty sure Emerson had figured it out, what with being a sought after detective, but Chuck was most likely under the impression that Olive had taken a dramatic fall over Digby. Ned looked up. He at least owed her the truth.

"Chuck?" The brunette looked up at him, her face obviously tear-stained. "Are you going to tell me?" She asked quietly. Ned looked back down at Olive's hand, and traced small circles on it. "She got attacked by a big man from the Piehole. He tried to… to rape her." He heard Chuck's intake of breath, but forced himself to keep going. "I don't know how far he got." Now he looked up at Chuck. "Chuck… It was the angriest and most terrified I have ever been." Ned dropped his gaze back to that tiny hand, but heard an angry Emerson. "Oh, Hell no! Nobody touches my friends, unless I say so!" Chuck pushed a strand of hair out of her face. "Where are you going?"

"The jail. I need to give this scum a piece of my mind. Call me if Itty-Bitty gets better." He stormed out of the room, leaving two very sad people, and one unconscious one.

"Ned.." Chucked looked up at him. "I'm getting something to eat. Do you want to come?" The Piemaker shook his head. "I won't leave her." Chuck swallowed a knot in her throat, but nodded. "Okay." Ned looked at Olive, begging her to be okay. The doctors had given her 4 stitches in her forehead, and said that she had 2 broken ribs and a concussion, but that she was lucky. Ned remembered nodding, and telling them that she was a fighter. A small flutter from Olive's hand brought him back to reality. "Olive? Olive are you there?" Nothing happened, and Ned sat back, until Olive's eyes scrunched together, blinked, and opened. "Olive!" Ned excitedly, looked at her. "You're okay! Thank God." A small smile graced her half- awake face. "Ned? Did you save me?" Ned blushed, his cheeks turning pink. "Uhm.. I wouldn't say save…" Olive smiled a sleepy smile. "I think you did. Because I had nice dreams with you by my side." She blinked a few times, and an unhappy look passed over her face. "Ned? It hurts." Ned's heart soared out to her. He just wanted to make it stop hurting her. To hurt him instead. Anything. On some unknown instinct, he leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I know sweetheart. Go to sleep." The command was unneeded, as Olive was almost asleep anyway. Her drugged and almost asleep voice quietly made it's way to Ned's ears. "Don't leave me alone." He smiled, and fell asleep himself.

The girl called Chuck saw the whole scene, and she knew what was happening. She had expected it for a while now, but that didn't make it hurt any less. He was in love with her.

She got up her courage and walked into the room. "Did anything happen?" She asked, know perfectly well the answer. Ned looked up at her earnestly and nodded. "She woke up for about a second. And she talked!" Chuck smiled. She was happy that her best friend was going to be okay. Poor Olive deserved all the happiness that she had been denied.

Ned slept at the hospital that night, in one of the chairs in Olive's room. He was exhausted. Olive woke up first, and blinked the sleep out of her eyes, trying to remember what happened. And then she remembered why her side and her head hurt. Her eyes wandered to the man in a chair beside her bed. The sight of him made her grin like the Cheshire cat. He cared about her. He had actually stayed. The man in the chair shifted and opened his eyes to the smiling blonde in front of him. "Morning" Olive chirped at him, and tried to smile as brightly as normal. Ned pushed himself out of the chair and over to her bed. "Olive! How do you feel?" She squinched her eyes. "Honestly?" She asked him, and he nodded. "My head hurts a lot, and my side is sore. And I feel.. pretty stupid and used for letting that guy…. Take advantage of me." She trailed off quietly toward the end, looking at her nail. Ned picked up her hand again, tracing designs and pictures on her hand. "Listen to me. You aren't stupid. You're beautiful and funny and sweet and amazing." He resisted the urge to add more on to the end. Olive looked at him, feeling the little butterflies in her stomach take off. "Really?" She looked up at Ned with big eyes. He felt his heart skip a beat. "Really." She smiled, and squeezed his hand. Just then, the doctor walked in, a tall lady with red hair. "Ms Snook?" Ned and Olive both nodded, and the doctor smiled. "It's good to see you awake. How do you feel?" Olive looked at her. "My head hurts, but my ribs hurt more. And I want pie. Does that make sense?" Ned chuckled, and the doctor smiled. "Yes it does. You have 4 stitches, a concussion, and 2 broken ribs. And you were pretty banged up." Concern crossed Olive's face, and she squeezed Ned's hand. "Jiminy Johosofet, that sounds bad…" The Piemaker squeezed back. She was brave. The doctor nodded. "We want to keep you here until tomorrow for observation, but then you're free to go!" Olive nodded and looked down until the doctor left. The Piemaker picked up on her change of mood. "What's wrong?" Olive kept her head down. "Do you wanna know what I was thinking about when it happened and when I was passed out?" Ned tightened up, this scared him a little. "Tell me." Olive played with the stiff hospital sheets. "If you get uncomfortable tell me, and I'll stop." He nodded.

"I thought I was going to die, so I tried to make him stop. I was wondering if anyone would care." Ned took a sharp intake of breath. "Then when I was passed out, I kept having this dream, and you picked me up and took care of me. And Pi was there, which was random… But you…cared if I was ok, and Chuck was with Alfredo. But then, you just left me and I was locked in the Piehole with only that man and me. And I was trapped." Olive tossed her head. "It was stupid, I'm sorry." Ned shook his head. "It's not stupid. I know about being scared no one would care, or that someone you care about would leave you." He looked at Olive's bruised face. "But Olive? I would never ever leave you."