A/N:- *bangs head against brick walnut* I've been vair vair wicked lately *cues melodramatic music – preferably by Mozart or Beethoven* and haven't posted up a chapter in TWO WHOLE WEEKS!
Why? Being stuck inside the Coroner's storage cupboard (EEP!) isn't very comfortable and permanently jams your head from the flow of ideas. =P I am currently writing this all out on an abandoned useful tin of shoe-polish, which conveniently has access to the Internet... Mwahahaha! Also the Evil Ones have been very sprout-ishand howwible lately, so I've been a bit caught up in homeworks, projects and exams! LOTSA DIALOGUE in this chappie! Be warned!
BIG SHOUT OUT to all mah fabbity fab regular-and-irregular pistachios *coughs* reviewers: Cymini Sectore, LuckyBlackCat, James Birdsong, Winnow, Whas'Up, ChosenOneKnuckles, Hamsworth, and xkissfromarosex!! Ooh! - As promised… *lobs sacks full of choccies into the air*
Disclaimer: Pushing Daises – not mine. Doctor Who – not mine. Stretchy cheese (not in this story) – MINE! HEEHAW!
BTW – UnBeta'd!
Ah well, here it is, the next chapter!
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Chapter Eight – Let's Get This Show On The Road
"WOOF! WOOF!" Digby barked again, although what he was trying to say was this: "This place smell a lot like the dead fruits my owner keeps, but a lot worse. I hope you have ice-cream."
"Hello Digby!" Chuck exclaimed, grinning – the current situation obviously forgotten in her mind, as her mind drifted away into a world of honey, bees and blooming flowers. She ambled over to Digby, currently twenty-three years young.
"Hell's bells!" Olive shrieked and jumped back, finger pointed up in the air, as she restrained an energetic Digby. "Is he dead?"
"Question number one: yes, of course he's dead Itty Bitty, that's why they call this place a 'morgue' and question number two: Olive, what in the name of rhubarb are you doing here?" one Emerson Cod questioned.
The girl known as 'Itty Bitty' and 'Little Big Mouth' shuffled forward, squinting at a spot on the floor in the near distance.
"You sure that he's dead, Emerson? He's still twitching," she reasoned.
"HE IS?!" Ned and Emerson yelled simultaneously.
At that instant, the Pie Maker jumped around and checked the body of young Paris, but sighed in relief when he found no signs of life at all. His flesh was still as pale as… death and his body remained as lifeless as ever. Phew!
"False alarm," the Pie Maker muttered.
"It better be," Emerson murmured incoherently to Ned.
"Besides," Rose stated. She was clearly unaware of one Olive Snook's obliviousness to the 'Magic Finger' status. "Didn't you say that you--" she gestured coolly at Ned. "--could only bring 'em back for a minute?"
"Bring what - who - back for a minute?" Olive shouted nosily over the audible tune of Hands on the Wall, which was still playing.
Donna frowned at Olive's unawareness, assuming she'd already been let in on the secret and said. "Bring back the de--"
But faster than the Private Investigator could buy a copy of Knitwits, Emerson rushed over and clamped his hand over the redhead's mouth, smiling forcibly.
"She means deadline," Emerson improvised quickly.
"Do you mind?!" Donna protested, squirming out of the P.I's grasp and straightening her clothes. Emerson grunted and kept a close eye on her and the blonde.
"Wait, Ned can bring back the deadline back for one minute?" Olive reaffirmed. "That doesn't make any sense."
Donna and Rose shared a confused glance. Ned and Chuck shared a worried one.
"Yeah… Yeah! Pie Man's good at makin' up excuses. Like squeezing out of tight spots and deadlines by creating some rubbish, for only a minute. Good for investigations."
Olive merely shrugged and dismissed it; just like she had dismissed and ignored every secret, she wasn't told. But she still didn't understand how deadlines had anything to do with the cute young guy on the gurney-type table. And it definitely didn't relate at all to the man in question: man who'd claimed he was a 'Doctor'. The Doctor.
Well, seeing as she was specifically talking about the tall cutie, currently lying on the floor – looking rather insentient.
"Doctor, what d'you say?" Rose declared, eyes skimming the room for the sight of one energetic, skinny, rambling Time Lord. She found none. The girl named Rose frowned. She had to admit, he had been unusually quiet. "Doctor?"
"What's Space Man doin' on the floor?" Donna yelped in surprise. She jumped back and jabbed a stunned finger at the sight of one Doctor, splayed atop the cool, black tiles and unconscious at the back of the room.
He twitched in his sleep, as he dreamt of talking horses, poisonous pears, and an extremely ugly Absorbaloff. Well, they were all extremely ugly to begin with, but let's just say that this one made the others look pretty. Extremely pretty.
"If I recall correctly: just as Olive and Digby surprise us by entering, the Doctor crashed into that inconveniently placed pile of buckets, while babbling madly, and fainted," Ned explained in detail, intervening. "Not that anything important or out-of-the-ordinary was happening or taking place, while you were out of the room of course. Everything was completely normal. We weren't talking about secrets. Definitely not."
Emerson smacked his head and groaned despairingly. Chuck sighed.
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In the meanwhile, the dwellers of London, Rose and Donna scuttled over to the Doctor's aid, kneeling by his side. They'd tuned out and ran off as soon as Ned had mentioned the word faint.
One thing that struck both women most was that Pie Hole waitress, Olive Snook, seemed completely oblivious to Ned's power and everything that was happening around her. Judging by three separate reactions, it looked as if the waitress wasn't supposed to or ever going to know…
"I knew there was something strange when I stopped hearing Time Boy's gob running," Donna commented, checking his pulse at the neck – just to be on the safe side.
She felt the double heartbeats thrum through her fingers and pulled them back quickly, still not used to the concept of not one, but two hearts. And a double respiratory system. And a non-sleep needing body. Now that was just plain cheating!
Rose began clearing the buckets away from his head and propping them up against the wall in a messy stack.
"We fully forgot 'im as well, what with Digby and Olive bursting in an' all?" Rose laughed, glancing at the cataleptic Time Lord.
As if on cue, the dog being discussed whined appreciatively and broke free from Olive's grasp on his leash, padding over to the red-haired and blonde giantesses. He squeezed in between the gap between them and wagged his tail, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. He sniffed around the place, his wet, sensitive nose detecting the distinct trace of… chocolate. Nestle chocolate, to be exact. Digby mooched about, sniffing out the source of smell, while Rose and Donna petted him affectionately – rubbing his back and patting his fur.
The smell seemed to be originating from the skinny, tall giant in brown. After exactly one minute and six seconds of continuous sniffing, Digby rifled around in the hole in the Giant's clothes and discreetly pulled out the delicious, slightly melted red slab of chocolate from his pocket. He backed away, sneakily tucking the entire bar deep into the crevice of his mouth.
Luckily, the Giantesses didn't notice him and chatted amongst themselves – praising him and using a high-pitched intonation, Digby never did understand the latter part… The dog allowed himself to be patted and stroked, once more, before he trotted off back to Olive and gobble up his prize.
"The dog is so adorable," Donna concluded.
"I know!" Rose agreed.
"An' he reminds me of Captain Jack."
"I kn— He does?"
"It's… the eyes," Donna explained, slightly thoughtful. "When you look at Digby, he scarcely looks like he's completed his puppy years, yet alone adulthood, but his eyes are so old and dark. Like he's been living for ages, longer than he should be, older than he looks. It's--"
"…Like Jack," Rose completed, quietly.
Donna's eye widened. "Wait, all those things, Chuck!"
They shared a contemplative look and at the same time, a light sprung from both their eyes and they gasped, as a possible thought erupted from the core of their minds.
"NAH!"
"Besides, Ned didn't even say if he could bring anything other than humans back to life!" Rose blurted out, rationalising. "A re-alived dog is one thing, but if we're talkin' Chuck…"
"Yeah." Donna breathed. She frowned. "But when the Doctor was rambling at goodness knows how fast, it seemed like he was so sure about something."
"Doctor? Doctor? Wake up!" Rose shook the Doctor's shoulders, trying to stir him. She continued, "Ned said it 'imself, if he keeps a… a dead thing awake for more than a minute and longer, than another thing dies in its place!"
The dozing Time Lord only muttered something foreign and fell silent again. Rose sighed.
"So if Chuck was resurrected…" Donna contemplated the thought.
"I dunno," Rose said, shrugging. "He just doesn't seem the selfish type. I mean, like, d'you think he's really the sort of person to go waking up a woman, even if it is the love of his life, knowing that someone else will die in 'is place. Doesn't fit his personality."
"Right I've had enough of this!" Donna exclaimed suddenly, prodding the Doctor a final time and attempting to awake him. When proved unsuccessful she stood up and tapped her foot impatiently.
"What did you say?" Rose snapped out of her sudden daydream and leapt up, brushing the dirt off her jeans.
"I said, I've 'ad enough of Himself sleeping through everything. We need answers, and nobody wants to tell us anythin', so we need a way to wake this skinny excuse of an alien up!" she jabbed an accusatory finger at the Doctor. "But how?"
"Sink."
"Bless you."
"Sink," Rose repeated.
"…"
Donna furrowed her brow, and the blonde promptly nodded in the direction of the sink nearby. Rose let a small grin adorn her face and collected a bucket off the pile.
A light shone in the redhead's eyes, as she clocked it. Donna grinned, repeating, "Sink."
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"Are you tellin' the truth?" Olive continued, after a moment of silence.
"YES!" the Pie Maker, the Private Investigator and the Dead Girl all cried out simultaneously.
"Your eye's twitching again," Chuck whispered helpfully to the Pie Maker.
Olive tilted her head to one side as she observed the Pie Maker's actions. He swallowed a lump in his throat and shuffled over to Emerson, followed by Chuck, muttering something in the P.I's ear. The P.I. growled and inaudibly gibbered something back, as they formed some sort of group huddle.
Digby returned, munching and ripping apart the Kit Kat he'd 'found' in the tall, skinny man's pocket. He thought of the reaction of the skinny man, when he found his food missing, and his ears flopped. Ah well! It wasn't Digby's fault that the Tall Giants of the world, failed to look after their own property and left them lying around. As the old saying went: finders' keepers, losers' weepers. Olive scratched his ear in boredom, wondering what 'secret' they were discussing to hide from her next.
Some times she felt like Digby was her only real friend, but then again, there was just that something about the Golden Retriever that made her feel out-of-the-know. Olive Snook, discarded, unknowing and dejected. But other times, she felt like bottle feeding the whole lot of them 'Secret Keepers' with the truth, and enraging them with the fury and wrath of the tiny waitress's mind. It would teach 'em. She scrunched up her nose in frustration and pinned her attention back on Emerson, Ned and Olive.
The girl named Chuck flashed him a winning smile. Emerson, exasperated and forbearing, reluctantly gave in and grunted in approval.
"You owe me, big time," the Private Investigator concluded to the girl named Chuck. "This is precious investigation time I'm wasting, and time means money."
"Thank you Emerson!"
He mumbled something out of earshot and suddenly his attention fixated itself on Olive.
"Olive, Digby, get in the car, you're coming with me," The P.I. snapped his head round, for a second, to Ned and Chuck. "You two keep a close eye on the Three Musketeers – don't let 'em eat their way into this any further. They're like them boomerangs, you fling them as faraway as you can get them, but they come hurtling back – asking for more. An' I don't like no boomerangs, so you'd better sort things out and send them on their way – especially that tall guy. Oh and find out as much as you can about young Paris. You got that?"
"No need to worry about us. We'll be fine!" Chuck reassured, elbowing Ned. "Everything'll be as right as rain! Even though I don't like the rain very much – the bees get scared…"
"Why?" Olive chipped in. "Where we going?"
"Back to the Pie Hole," replied Emerson.
"The Pie Hole's closed?" checked Ned blatantly. The Pie Maker didn't wait for an answer and check his watch. "But it's only 2pm. The Pie Hole shouldn't be closed, it should be open and brimming with happy, satisfied customers for lunch!" he rambled onwards. "What if there were hungry, cold customers who were waiting to be filled with the warmth of pie, but gave up and tottered off to some other refectory. Possibly the, arch-rival and pizza eatery, GIANT Slice. And how long did you say the Pie Hole has been closed for?"
Ned took a deep breath.
"I didn't. It's been closed for fifty minutes, thirty seconds," the petit waitress answered blankly. "I only left, 'cos the whole place is as empty as anything – I left Pigby to guard it, by the way. Everyone's gone to that daft Muse Museum for that shoe convention!"
"How interesting!" Emerson stated sardonically, and rather impatiently. "Now let's go."
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"On the count of three."
"One, two, THREE!"
The man called the Doctor awoke with a gasp, jerking up to a sitting position, as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice-cold water over his head. He gaped in shock, realising that this statement was a little too literal. His clothes, face and hair were completely soaked to the brim and he was dripping wet . And not to mention, very very cold. The Time Lord shuddered and shook his head, like a wet dog, causing bouts of protest to erupt from above him.
"Brrrr, that's cold!" he exclaimed and finally looked up into the faces of the culprits. "Did you just throw a bucket of ice-cold water over my head?!"
They merely smirked and burst into peals of laughter, point and laughing at him. They quickly straightened out, trying to form 'deeply sophisticated and mature' expressions.
"Noooo," they cried out, voices full of sarcasm and feigned innocence.
Smirking like two guilty school girls, stood Donna and Rose, each shamefacedly clutching a metal bucket each – still in a water-throwing position.
"That took you long enough," Rose said, grinning.
"Thought you were never gonna wake up, Space Man!" Donna contributed
"You're awake!" the girl named Chuck proclaimed suddenly, big, brown eyes meeting with his.
The Doctor blinked and refocused his thoughts, gripping and piecing his memories together to try to remember what had happened. His mind lit up a light bulb, as he remembered something about talking horses called Matthew and Andrew, sentient, poisonous pears and an… Absorbaloff. But no… that wasn't it! There was something else! He dug around in his head for a second.
Suddenly all the memories flooded back to his Time Lord mind and he jumped up onto his feet. Forgetting the fact that he was still dripping wet and had violently whacked his head, he consequently crashed into a shelf behind him, as a result of sudden dizziness.
Donna and Rose pulled him forward, to steady him.
"Now, where was I?" he blinked rapidly and stared around expectantly. "No-one. Nope? What've I missed? Nothing good happen? Right! So, 2009, brilliant year! Obama's America's first black president, clamp down on free music downloads, King of Pop - Michael Jackson dies, and…" the Doctor stood dipped his hands deep into his pockets, and caught Chuck's eye, looking at her intensely. A serious expression adorned his features. "And, you're not s'posed to be alive."
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A/N:- Justa wondering people, you prefer: CHEESE or FORK? The choice is yours… POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
Reviews?
=D =D =D =D =D
