AN: I probably have made at least a few numerical errors given that I figured them out with mental math and numbers from the Pushing Daisies Wiki Page. If anyone finds any errors, let me know. That would be sweet of you. Sweet like pie.
Also I do not own or claim to own Pushing Daisies, which is a shame, because if I did, it wouldn't be cancelled and I wouldn't be crying every time I think of pie.
At this moment, not so young Ned is thirty years, fourteen weeks, five days, eight hours, and twenty-four minutes old. His heart has been running for approximately seven hours and 39 minutes since it mysteriously stopped in the middle of the night. The facts are these: at eleven minutes past one in the very early morning of August the fourteenth, 2010, Ned the pie maker's heart ceased to function. In between his frantic revival at the hands of lonely tourist Charlotte Charles and his sudden death, a very distinct change occurred: his touch could no longer wake the dead.
Now, he is sitting in a hospital bed, holding Chuck's hand for the first time since he brought her back to life one year, four weeks, five days, and seven hours ago. And he likes it, he really does. But both Chuck and Emerson find a sudden heart failure at the age of thirty years, fourteen weeks, five days, eight hours, and now 40 minutes old suspicious. So suspicious, in fact, that Emerson Cod, Private Investigator, has opened up a new case.
"But who would try to poison Ned?" Chuck's tone is worried, but only as worried as one can be when she is finally holding that hand of the person she loves. Which, given his state, is very, very worried. "And why?" Emerson shrugs, his hands worrying at his stress-knitted sweater vest.
"Well, in case you didn't notice, we did put a few people in jail over the years. If any one of them or their family members found out that Ned was involved, well then..." He let his voice trail off, gesturing at the reclining Ned in the hospital bed.
"They would probably want to come after me with a very hard, very shiny, very strong swinging baseball bat," Ned finished, speaking a little too slowly to speak in his usual a-little-too-fast nervous voice. But the tone was there, and Ned had a reason to be nervous, because Chuck and Emerson were both correct. Someone had come after Ned, and that same someone would soon be coming after them. For now though, the tremendous trio were occupied with several different trains of thought.
Chuck was thinking partially of Ned's safety and also partially of the fact that now they could kiss entirely without plastic wrap and hold hands entirely without winter gloves. And how nice Ned's hands were without winter gloves. They were warm and soft and faintly floury after years of pie-making, and when she kissed his knuckles, she smelled sugar and piecrusts and fruit filling. Holding Ned's hand for real was even better than the best of hugs she had ever had, and it felt like sitting in the sunlight in an apple orchard on a warm blanket with a good book. She would be happy as long as she could hold his hand wherever they went to solve his almost-murder, which she was trying very hard not to think about on the account of just how upset she might get.
Emerson was thinking about the fact that this case would be substantially harder than normal given the fact that A) no one had died for Ned to touch back and B) Ned could no longer touch back the dead, not even for the limited minute of before. While yes, he was happy that this meant Ned and Chuck could now work out their couple issues like any normal couple would (with a noted increase in PDA at the Pie Hole), he was less happy that this case was such a cryptic one. There were so few clues left for Emerson and the others to pick up that it hardly seemed worth bothering at all, only the police had said the exact same thing , and Emerson would be damned if he let Ned (or himself, Chuck, or Olive for that matter) be put in danger.
The pie maker himself was thinking about much the same things that Chuck was, although his thoughts were rather more garbled, given that he had come back from the dead around seven hours before, and not in the magical, painless way. His ribs hurt from chest compressions and the shock of the defibrillator, and his brain hurt from wrapping his mind around the fact that he, Ned the pie maker, was no longer cursed with his magical touch of life and death. It was a pleasant hurt in his brain, however, dulled further by the comforting feel of Chuck's hand in his own.
While the three of them were thinking three separate trains of thought , Olive Snook was also thinking three different trains of thought, all tied together. Where was Ned? Where was Chuck? Where was Emerson? Upon going down to the Pie Hole at opening time and finding no one there and no note from Ned about a personal day, Olive began to panic. Thinking the worst, she ran straight to the hospital, asking for Ned, or Emerson, or Chuck, whichever one could have been on death's door, and was informed by a sour faced nurse that Ned was not allowed to have any more visitors. So Olive sat and waited, and when Emerson left the room, she pounced.
Back in Ned's hospital room, Chuck held the pie maker's hand as she smiled softly. For over a year now she had longed to touch him, and now she finally could, albeit with some slightly worrying circumstances attached.
"This is different," the pie maker said, also smiling, but his smile was more tired. "It's a good different, but it's different."
"I know what you mean," Chuck replied, lacing her fingers more tightly with his. "It's wonderful to be able to hold your hand. But it was less wonderful to perform chest compressions at one in the morning." A grimace crossed Ned's face before he spoke again.
"Yes. Well...perhaps it's a small price to pay for being able to hold your hand." The grimace was replace by a sleepy smile, and lonely tourist Charlotte Charles smiled in return and bent down to kiss her pie maker's lips in a way she had longed to do since he had woken her up. They were soft, softer than the plastic wrap she was used to, and sweet, sweeter than the fillings of his pies. Kissing the pie maker was even better than holding his hand, and could be compared to nothing, because nothing could be compared to the feeling of joy Chuck felt as she kissed the pie maker and he kissed her back, and then she crawled up into his hospital bed and, skin touching at every possible point, they fell asleep.