I hold no copyright on the owner's original works, or anything relative to the current copyright holders' material that the following story is based on. This was written for non-commercial purposes.
This story is set as a prequel to the beloved T.V. series, Chuck has not died, Olive has just started working at The Pie Hole, and Emerson has not found out about Ned's power.
It has been 2 weeks, 6 days, 1 hour, and 59 minutes since Ned "the pie maker" has hired Olive Snook to work at The Pie Hole. During this time they have formed an amicable work-relationship within the flakey-roofed bakery. Olive has found Ned to be a kind and slightly mysterious man, it has since piqued her interest suffice to say. Not in the investigative news report, follow him home, bang on his door while calling out accusations sort of way, just in the "what gives?" type of fashion. He didn't seem to want to touch anyone, even his lovable looking Labrador Digby, didn't get pet by Ned.
This particular moment in time was further illustrating this point to Olive. She and Ned were decorating the bakery before breakfast crowds bustled their way through the door this holiday's morning. It was St. Patrick's Day. Olive loved the festivities, the beer, and the excuse to wear her shimmery green dress. As she pinned up some paper shamrocks along the bannering she looked over at the pie man from where she stood and signaled him to hand over the next linked line of decorative arrangements. He looked like he was lost in his thoughts, really lost, as in the middle of nowhere was asking him for directions kind of lost. She attempted to snap him out of it by increasingly raising her voice as she repeated what she was calling at him. "Ned?...NED?...NED!"
Shaking his head and acknowledging Miss Snook's voice, Ned looked over at her curiously and asked her, "Something going on Olive?"
"Oh no, I've just been calling you for a few minutes now. What'd you do? Go on a trip to Ireland?"
"Sorry, I was just…thinking about something. Why would I go on a trip to Ireland?"
"To get me some more shamrocks to decorate the place with. That is of course unless you catch yourself a Leprechaun and get a pot of gold so that we can retire."
"Leprechauns?" Ned asked clearly bewildered.
"Yeah, magic folk, The Little People, Lucky Cereal Marshmallow affiliated-mascot, mythical beings having to do with St. Patrick's Day."
"I'm not a fan of magic." Ned muttered under his breath as he handed Olive the next set of paper decorations. Olive's innocent quip drudged up painful memories of Ned's father, who had previously abandoned Ned at boarding school as the man's last magic trick that he performed for his son before going off to become a part of a new family without Ned. Ned had discovered this factoid about his father on another festive holiday that he especially did not care for.
"What was that?" Olive asked and turned her head in his direction from where she stood on the countertop and pinned the next segment of shamrocks in place.
"Oh, it was…nothing."
"It didn't sound like nothing."
"Sure it did. It sounded exactly like the empty space between words. The silence of outer space. The pauses between notes in a song. You know, the: 'if a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?' -kind of nothing."
"But when a tree falls in the woods it does make a sound! The kind of 'hey, a tree just fell here!', thud! The: 'Tttiiiimmmmmbbbeeerrrr!' -call of the lumberjack and birds taking flight which signals to someone, somewhere, something happened in the woods, in the 'maybe a tree fell?' kind of conjecture."
"I suppose."
"What were we talking about anyways?"
"I think you needed me to give you some more shamrocks." Ned grabbed another strand of the strung together green clovers and handed them off to Olive with an apologetic smile.
Noting the cute look of sincerity on his face, Olive smiled despite herself. Ned the pie maker was T.D. and H. Although, right now, she was the tall one seeing as she stood over him from being the one on top of the countertop. Ned was still tanned a darker tone than she was, and he was definitely handsome.
Tacking up the last of the decorative garlands Olive replied a flirty "thanks!" to Ned. He failed to notice her tone as he started to get to work in the bakery. Olive held a look on her face of puzzlement. It had been 1 week, 4 days, 6 hours, and 32 minutes since she had started to become enamored with the pie man. She turned toward Digby, who wagged his tail excitedly as Olive came off the countertop and human hands rubbed him.
Anytime Olive had attempted to make any subtle romantic overtures at the man of the bakery he seemed aloof or oblivious to her. His not liking to be touched lifestyle made it hard. Who on earth would have a dog this lovely but not ever rub him? Digby looked up at her with delighted eyes, his tail thumped happily as his left hind leg let loose a spasm of uncontrollable joy from her attentions.
The curse of Ned's gift of waking the dead and baking wonderful pies made for the man's rather reluctant reclusiveness. That, and the last time he had tried to get intimate with another person had been on a bearskin rug six months ago. It had resulted in a broken attempt at romance and a reminder of Ned's affliction. Ever since that breakup Ned had decided not to plan dates with anyone for a while. Especially at the hunting lodge themed hotel, Huntington Hunter's Lodge, Lodging Hunter's Huntsman.
Between his now ex-girlfriend's and the owner and manager of the hotel, Huntington Hunter's reactions, from the commotion caused by the bearskin's alive-again behaviors as well as the claw marks that had been gouged into the floorboards before Ned had been able to make it dead again forever. Ned had not been keen on getting close to another person as of yet.
Ned just continued making pies until another holiday passed, and Olive would attempt to get him to display some token of mutual affection. Ever since the tragic incident at the race track Olive Snook had not been able to bond with another person until she had wandered into town looking for a new career path and found a kindred spirit. Now she just needed some of the luck of the Irish to see if they could both find solace in each other's company. She figured (much like the pie maker did), that it would happen whenever they were able to bring down the remaining walls they put in front of themselves when attempting to connect with other people.
Breaking from his train of thought Ned called over to Olive, "...are we good?"
"Why wouldn't we be? I've been doing a good job, there haven't been any moments, have there been?" Olive sounded confused and slightly hopeful at Ned's apparent inquiry of their mutual well-being.
"Sorry, didn't hear you Olive! Are we good to open the doors for business?"
"Oh, I…yeah…I'll go do that!"
"Thanks!"
"Yeah, no problem…" Olive sighed as she went over to open up the doors to a rather green crowd here for the morning rush of baked goods before the parade started. The day wasn't over yet, maybe she'd get lucky later on, if not there was always the mistletoe that could be hung at Christmas.
The End