Chapter 21: Family Matters

Chuck thought she knew what to expect when she picked up the phone. Ned would be on the other end of the line (as the front desk idly informed her), his dulcet tones sending a wave of warmth from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. He would tell tales of curmudgeonly customers and brightly colored bees; of playful pets and much missed friends. And she would feel – for a moment – like she was there with him, not touching, but sharing a type of closeness that meant more to her than any plastic-coated kiss…

The story she got instead was less pleasant, and as he told it, the initial thrill of hearing his voice gave way to a cool trickle of dread.

"Chuck? Are you there?"

The Alive Again Adventurer shook her head as if to clear it. Between the Deadly Dozen, the undead doctor and the dead-waking father, Chuck felt – for the first time – that they had stumbled upon a mystery beyond their capabilities.

"I'm here…but I should be there. Ned, why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Because I was afraid you might try to fly back home. You're the Alive Again Avenger; you're not very good at sitting tight."

"I most certainly am not…" Chuck was, in fact, already on her feet, looking around the room but not really seeing anything. There was so much to arrange; so much she had to explain to her family…her father…

How was she going to tell the Pie Maker about her father?

"And that is one of my many favorite things about you. But you can't do what you want to do right now. You have a family to look out for."

"I have family there too," she protested, and it felt like she was arguing with herself as well as him. It had already occurred to her that she would have to tell Charles Charles why they were going home. And he would want to get involved, to dive headfirst into danger, especially with Eddie back in the picture… "We need to be together. Safety in numbers, right?"

"Maybe, if we were a pack of wolves. But until we know what exactly is going on we're just sitting ducks. Chuck-" he urged, before she could conjure up an argument against this. "I know it's a lot to ask. But I need you to lay low for a little bit. Don't draw attention to yourself; don't get involved in any Darling Mermaid Darlings press. And please don't come home yet. I can't – I won't risk you walking into a trap." At that, she found herself sinking back down onto a chaise lounge. Ned had never spoken to her like this before, and it was almost as alarming as the threat at hand… "I'm sorry."

"…sorry? You have nothing to be sorry about. I'd be sleeping with the fishes right now if it weren't for you."

"Sleeping with the worms," he pointed out wryly. "On account of you almost being buried…"

"Oh yeah," she mused. Strange how easy it was to forget that he found her in a coffin. To Chuck it was like waking up in bed after a bad dream… "Ned, promise me you'll all be okay."

It was a promise he could not possibly make with any real certainty. But in that moment, with thousands of miles between them and mere wires connecting them, the words were like a spell for her, containing great power if only they could be said with enough conviction.

"We'll be okay."

Chuck eased her grip on the receiver, reminding herself to breathe…

It wasn't enough. But it would have to do for now.

XXX

"If 'there are others' means what we think it means then we are screwed six ways to Sunday. Unless we put them on the defensive. Hit 'em with a preemptive strike. How much do we know about what Doctor Doom was planning anyway?"

The wizened man contemplated his pie for a moment, rotating a fork between his fingers. Olive watched him with bated breath, as if waiting for him to pull a rabbit out of his hat. She would barely be surprised if he actually did it. For Eddie had saved the Pie Maker, and rid the world of Treadwell in a way that suggested he had powers other than dead-waking at his disposal. That alone made her want to trust him, even if his own son did not…

"Well, judging by the dossier, Treadwell had input and support from multiple people, all with their own roles to play. He names them, but they might be using aliases. Either way I put feelers out to try and find them." Olive nodded along, already somewhat reassured. "Now based on what I heard in the shack, he'd been wrong about the existence of necromancers before. So he'd have to convince his colleagues that Ned was the real deal before they'd show. Lucky for us he never got the chance."

"On account of you…you know…" Olive grimaced, recalling the few gory details Ned had shared with her. "Interrupting him."

"That's one way to put it," he said, with a ghost smirk playing about his face.

Olive did not find it at all smirk-worthy, and she longed to move on from the subject. But this was the man responsible – at least in part – for making the Pie Maker who he was. She wanted to find out what made him tick…

"I thought you Blue Berets were all about keeping the peace. Where did you learn to do that…other stuff?"

"If I told you I'd have to kill you."

Olive rolled her eyes. "I'm gonna assume you're joking, gunslinger, but this is dead serious. If your line of work is the reason you left your family – families – then you should probably say so."

Eddie leaned forward and narrowed his eyes, as if spotting her in the distance. The scrutiny made her feel an uneasiness that she usually only experienced around mean nuns…or tax auditors…

"I don't see how that's any of your business," he said, with the finality of someone shutting a door in her face.

Olive bristled but decided to hold her tongue. Her own parents had been neglectful, so much so that she preferred her accidental kidnappers, but at least they never abandoned her at a boarding school. Or a magic show…

Her indignation was quelled a little by the fact that Eddie had shown up when he was needed most. And not for the first time, she suspected…

"You know," Olive began casually, "Ned and I got into a little trouble once, during one of our detective-type misadventures."

"What kind of trouble?"

She crossed her arms on the table and her legs underneath it. "The hanging off a cliff about to fall to our deaths kind."

Eddie nodded, only mildly curious it seemed. "And how did you get out of that?"

"We were pulled out. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would ya?"

For a moment Eddie was silent, fixing her with a blank stare. Then – like sunshine slicing through cloud cover – a smile broke out on his face.

"You figured it out."

Olive shrugged. "Ned hasn't. You should tell him. It might lend a little credibility to your guardian angel alibi."

The man waved a dismissive hand. "People will believe what they want to believe. And disbelieve anything that challenges the narrative in their heads."

"Well, his narrative might be one-sided but you didn't give him much perspective. You just left him in the dark. Not to mention his little brothers."

"Sweetheart, don't make me say it twice-"

"You shouldn't have said it the first time, bud. You might think I'm butting into your business but they're my family too. And if anyone's the buttinski here, it's you."

Eddie opened his mouth to say something, then shut it promptly at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. As the Pie Maker came down, tugging at his sleeves and staring at the ground, Olive leaned in to murmur:

"If you're gonna stick around after being AWOL for twenty years, you need to start building trust. And that means being honest."

She sat back as Ned joined them in the booth and began to relay the bullet points of his talk with Chuck…

She was upset, understandably; she wanted to come home, unsurprisingly; but she agreed to sit tight, for now. Olive knew how hard that would be for her fellow Pie Ho. But until the danger had passed, they could not risk having the Pie Maker and his undead paramour in the same place. Digby alone was enough of a smoking gun, but his undeadness could be concealed by the fact that he was a dog – one of many that looked exactly alike…

"So that sucked," Ned sighed, prompting Olive to pat his back. "But at least she knows to keep her eyes peeled for trouble now. Oh, and she said that if she doesn't hear from one of us every other day she's coming home and she won't hear another word about it."

Eddie huffed a laugh. "That girl always had grit. I get why you brought her back."

The Pie Maker fixed his father with an opaque look. "Really. I thought you might've been mad that I…violated the natural order or whatever."

Eddie shrugged. "I've been where you are. I carried that power like a curse for years before you. I didn't want it, I didn't ask for it, but I accepted it. And most of the time I used it responsibly. For the greater good and all that. But it wears on you after a while. Seeing all that death – being death. Then one day you meet someone that's so full of life, and the thought of losing them…it makes you act irresponsibly."

Silence blanketed the table for a moment, as Ned and Olive glanced at each other.

"What are you talking about?"

The older man looked at Olive, then down at his hands. Street light – bisected by blinds – filtered through the window onto his face, and she was reminded fleetingly of a Catholic confessional…

"There was a girl that I loved, long before Ned's mother. I asked her to marry me; she said yes. And then she died, because god forbid I should have something good in my life." A bitterness had crept into his voice and he took a moment to swallow it. When he spoke again he sounded oddly petulant, as if daring them to chastise him. "I couldn't let her go, so I brought her back."

Olive could feel Ned not breathing, and realized abruptly that she wasn't either.

"Who was she?"

Olive was the one who asked, but Eddie looked only at his son as he answered. "Her name is Emma. She's Maurice and Ralston's mother."

XXX

Emerson had known what Eddie would say before he said it. After that note, the PI could not leave. For the foreseeable future they had to circle the wagons, pool their resources, and prepare for the threat ahead. Penny was not a priority. In fact, she could prove to be a liability if anybody found out that one of the Pie Maker's allies had such an easy to exploit weak point…

The PI knew this to be true. He had come to the same conclusion before arriving at the Pie Hole. Still, it was all he could do to keep from punching the other man in the throat…

Not for the fact that he felt the need to tell Emerson what he already knew, or for the detached, matter-of-fact manner in which he said it. But for his inability to see that were it not for the way he raised his own child (or rather, failed to raise him) this could have been avoided…

Emerson had barely been home ten minutes when the phone rang, as it had been doing since yesterday. But this time the PI actually answered.

"Cod here."

"Papen County Private Investigator, Emerson Cod?"

"Mm-hm."

"Big ole bald-headed bad-tempered Emerson Cod?"

"The very one."

"Good. I was just makin' sure, 'cause, you know, I've been calling this number – like you asked – to talk to you about your daughter – like you asked – and you haven't been pickin' up."

"My apologies. I been…otherwise occupied."

"Well, you better free up some time. 'Cause I thought about what you said, and – despite the fact that Lila will beat my ass into the dirt if she finds out - I've decided to help."

The PI heaved a sigh; scrubbed a hand over his face. Mere hours before he would have been thrilled to receive this call…

"Yeah, about that…just forget the whole thing, Teddy."

"Why?"

"Because bein' a PI is dangerous business. Sometimes you piss off powerful people. And the next thing you know they're followin' you, listen' in on your calls…"

"…is this actually happening to you or is the job making you paranoid?"

The PI scoffed. "Just 'cause you're paranoid doesn't mean they ain't after you."

"All right, well…if I get a chance to talk to Penny should I pass on a message?"

As if of its own volition, Emerson's hand tightened around the receiver, gripping it so hard he could hear it creak.

"Tell her…tell her I knit a scarf for her birthday. It's got little magnifying glasses on it. And I wrote her a book."

"You wrote her a book?"

"Thanks, Theodore."

And he hung up abruptly, grateful in that moment that there was no one around to see the look on his face.

A/N: Bryan Fuller isn't doing American Gods anymore? *flips every table in sight* Why can't I have nice things?!