Pushing Who: Happy-Go-Weirdy - A Doctor Who/Pushing Daisies crossover, chapter 6a
“Pushing Who: Happy-Go-Weirdy” - A Doctor Who/Pushing Daisies crossover.
Collab between me and my friend Jess. I’ll write a chapter, she’ll write a chapter.
Title: Pushing Who: Happy-Go-Weirdy
Genre: Crossover, Mystery, Humour, Drama
Story By: Immy (applegrass-wolf) and Jess (thecakemaker)
This Chapter By: Jess (thecakemaker)
Word Count: 2,964
Disclaimer: Characters not ours, DW © BBC and PD © Bryan Fuller/ABC/etc. (oh how that corporation is loathed).
This chapter is epically long, so we made the decision to split in two…6b will be coming shortly.
An ordinary day at the Pie Hole, and Chuck and Ned are planning a picnic. But all this is halted by the arrival of a strange man and three companions in a bizarre blue box…chaos ensues…and Emerson finds he might just need their help with the latest, most mysterious case.
CHAPTER SIX, PART a)!
Chapter Six, Part One
In Which Everything Happens At Once
“Making me look at paint… what cheek! I once saved the Earth from little creatures made of fat, - and rampaging Ood too! - and now he wants me to look at paint?!” Donna ranted. She was sitting on The Pie Hole’s counter, venting to Olive or whoever happened to be listening, and generally being a nuisance in the crowded eatery. Picking at the remains of her blueberry cup-
pie, the time-traveller noticed Olive struggling under a mountain of platefuls of pie.
“Want a hand with that?” the flame-haired woman asked, jumping down off her perch and taking some pie off the tiny waitress’s hands.
“The strawberry, the peach and the raspberry need to go to that table over there,” Olive attempted to gesture with her eyebrows, before plunging on, “The apple and the two cup-pies here are for the first booth on the right, and take the apricot to the counter. I need to make a lot of coffee,”
“Right,” Donna said, artfully balancing the plates in both hands, with the plate of apricot pie resting carefully on her head.
A few minutes later, the two women had worked themselves into a comfortable routine: while waiting for the water to boil, Olive would cut up slices of pie, which Donna would then serve, during which time Olive would make hot drinks of tea and coffee for the customers.
“I’ve never seen this place so busy,” Olive remarked, as she and Donna stood in the kitchen. They were glad of a moment’s rest now that everyone was happily eating pie and ice cream. The Pie Hole was the busiest it had been in months, full of chatter and laughter, and it seemed a shame to Olive that the Pie-maker himself wasn’t there to see it.
“Can I ask a question?” the blonde-haired woman began.
“Fire away!” Donna replied enthusiastically.
“Is Jack...?” Olive continued, although she found that she didn’t really know what she was asking.
“Don’t worry; he’s like that all the time!” Donna laughed, “He’ll flirt with anything that has a pulse,”
“Oh,” Olive said. She looked slightly put out by this, but at the same time she was relieved that the Pie-maker was not completely to blame for Jack’s advances. It made sense, in her mind at least, for Jack to be attracted to her beloved Ned, but was glad that the Pie-maker had not encouraged the Captain’s behaviour.
“It does mean that he finds you attractive,” Donna went on, attempting to put Olive’s mind at ease, “But it does get irritating after a while when you’re travelling and he makes a comment about every life form he sees,”
“Right,” the waitress replied. The use of the words ‘life form’ rather than ‘person’ had not escaped her notice, but her mind was preoccupied with thoughts of the Pie-maker’s wellbeing in Jack’s company, and so she decided not to mention it.
“You know,” Donna began suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence the women had slipped into, “I can spot unrequited love a mile away, so are you going to bring it up, or shall I?”
“Is it that obvious?” Olive asked, a little surprised by her own lack of subtlety. Mentally, she was supposed to have been working on that…
“Not really,” the time-traveller admitted, while cutting herself a sliver of kiwi pie, “But when you’re around the Doctor, unrequited love becomes a pretty big issue,”
“Oh… Are you…?” Olive hinted at a relationship between the pair, at which Donna laughed and said,
“God, no! He’s…,” she stopped short of saying that he was an alien, and instead continued, “…not my type. I was talking about Martha. And Jack, to a lesser extent,”
“He does seem to be a very… magnetic person,” Olive said, thinking of the way Chuck was drawn to the strange man.
“Magnetic is, I think, the word to describe the Doctor,” Donna replied, “He seems to pick up people wherever he stops,”
“Are you one of those people?” Olive asked, genuinely interested as to how the Doctor met the people he travelled with, and wondering if maybe there was a certain South-poled honey-lover who could be attracted to the Doctor’s North pole.
“In a way…” Donna began, wondering where to start with her story, “It was my wedding day and -”
“Excuse me, but why is there a British ‘Gilbert Mackenzie Trench’ model blue police box on your roof?”
~*~
Meanwhile, the medical student and the private investigator were speeding across town to the scene of Tobias’ murder: the gardens at Papen County Ornithology Society’s halls of residence.
“Have you seen a lot of murders?” Emerson asked Martha suddenly. The idea of bringing her with him had been playing on his mind, and even though she seemed calm and confident, he couldn’t help the slight worry that had lodged itself in the base of his brain.
“I’ve seen my fair share,” Martha replied quietly, “It was mostly just illnesses and the like at the NHS, but death seems to follow the Doctor…”
“How did you get caught up in all this?” the private investigator wondered aloud, “You all seem out of place, but you especially seem too young to be so familiar with death,”
“I love him,” the medical student admitted bluntly, “I’d follow him to the ends of the Earth, and I have, but I’m interested in the medical side as well. Wherever we go, there’s something I can do, and I’m glad that I can help. So this is another adventure for me,”
The pair were quiet for a moment. Emerson, feigning interest in the road ahead, considered Martha’s words. He understood what she was saying. Love, mystery, the thrill of the chase - these somewhat romantic ideas appealed to him just as much as they did to her.
“What about you?” she asked, “What brought you into the dark underworld of murder investigation?”
“Justice,” Emerson replied simply, “And… it gives the brain a good workout too,”
They laughed, comfortable with themselves, their current situation and each other, and they noticed with slight surprise that their journey had come to an end.
The Papen County Ornithology Society had recently relocated its headquarters, as too few breeds of bird could be seen from its rather dusty windows. The Society was now housed in an imposing building on the outskirts of the city: the walls were of a dark grey stone that seemed to ooze haughtiness; the wrought iron gates seemed almost menacing; and the large stone eagle perched on the roof eyed all visitors with disdain, as if only a true ornithologist could admire such a creature.
“Nice place,” Emerson muttered to his companion as they stepped out of his car onto the gravel.
“Friendly,” Martha replied, and the private investigator smiled at her tone.
“Name?” a snooty female voice greeted Emerson when he pushed the ‘ADMITTANCE’ button on the gates.
“Emerson Cod, I’m a P.I., here to investigate the possible murder of one Tobias Skywalker,” he glanced at Martha, “And this is Doctor Jones, my partner,”
Martha flushed at the reference. ‘Doctor’ was better than ‘student’, and ‘partner’ was better than ‘assistant’. ‘Partner’ was also much, much better than ‘person who’s left to clear up the mess the whirlwind that calls himself ‘Doctor’ leaves behind’.
“You may enter,” the disembodied voice replied, cutting into Martha’s thoughts, and the gates creaked open.
“Shall we?” the private investigator offered Martha his arm, which she took, and they walked up the drive together, ignoring the angry eagle which towered above them.
They were met, at the door, by a flustered receptionist. From her manner, the two investigators could tell that she was definitely not the woman who had admitted them minutes previously.
“You’re here about Tobias, aren’t you,” she said, fumbling for the glasses that hung on the chain around her neck. It was a statement rather than a question and at the nods she received in reply, the motherly woman promptly burst into tears.
“Such a l...loss,” she sobbed, “He was so… brilliant, so w….w….wonderful. The project he was working on was g…g….going to be his masterpiece!”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what project was this?” Emerson asked, as Martha put an arm around the woman’s shoulders and comforted her.
“He was compiling a -” she stopped and sniffed into a pink handkerchief, “- a detailed report on the magnificence of w…wings,”
How she managed to say that and not sound bored, Martha could not understand. Nor could Emerson understand how she had managed to say that with a straight face.
“Could you show us - ?”
“Where did Tobias - ?”
The two investigators laughed, and the receptionist managed a shaky smile at the way the two spoke over each other, each beginning their question at exactly the same time.
“Where did Tobias do his work?” Martha spoke first, phrasing the question kindly so as not to upset the woman further.
“He did most of his work in his dormitory. I’ll take you to it,” the woman replied, sniffing slightly.
“Nice work there,” Emerson muttered quietly to Martha as the pair of them followed the receptionist to Tobias’ room.
“Thanks,” Martha replied, flashing the private investigator a smile that shone as brightly as the polished brass doorknob in front of them.
“This was his room. His place of peace…” the woman sniffed again. She left Emerson with the key, then excused herself, her eyes full of tears. Emerson rolled his eyes.
“So,” he pondered, looking up and down the tiny room, “What can we learn from Mister Skywalker in here?”
“Well, it looks like he was interested in birds of another kind,” Martha said, holding up two photographs in silver frames. The first showed Tobias, a handsome and resolutely not-purple young man, with his arm around the waist of a pretty, green-eyed redhead. The second featured Tobias again, but this time his arm was adorned with a striking brunette with dark, intelligent eyes, known to Tobias by such nicknames as ‘Gorgeous’ and ‘Stunner’, but also known to Emerson as…
“Miss Maria Moore,” the private investigator remarked, taking the picture from Martha and studying it, “Skywalker’s ex-girlfriend. The one the brother thinks killed Tobias,”
“So who’s this?” Martha asked, holding up the picture of Tobias and the redhead, “His current girlfriend?”
“Could be. We’ll have to rely on Ned and Jack to squeeze some information out of Maria here,” Emerson continued. He looked up from the photograph and surveyed the room again. Having completed his initial search of Tobias’ room and found himself empty-handed, the private investigator ushered the medical student out of the room and they made their way to the garden in silence, their heads swimming in theories.
~*~
At the same time, the Doctor and Chuck were standing on the rooftop, enjoying the afternoon sun, and talking about the murder they were investigating. Or rather, Chuck was talking about the death of Tobias, the Doctor, however, kept going off on some quite random tangents that confused Chuck thoroughly. Despite the Doctor’s ramblings, Chuck found herself enjoying his company and this slight and precious respite from the normality she was forced to pretend she had.
“It was then, that night, that the Vurons attacked! The slime, let me tell you, went everywhere. Not pleasant. Although,” the Doctor paused, “that was a rather darker shade of purple…”
“So, what were you saying about the cobra? Do you think that might be what killed Tobias and made him turn purple?” Chuck asked, trying to keep up with the conversation.
“The Caernopholocchi?” the Doctor mused on this possibility, “I don’t know… Maybe. But how one got to Earth unharmed is beyond me. Their scales are very delicate, very sensitive, but they make fantastic clothing. You don’t have space travel here, do you?”
Chuck shook her head. She felt that the Doctor was testing her, so she decided that she would test him right back.
“Isn’t space travel a bit farfetched?” Chuck challenged, knowing, hoping, that the Doctor would prove her wrong.
“Oh, of course,” he nodded vigorously, “But what is your take on space and time travel?”
Leaning against the side of the TARDIS, the Doctor’s eyes sparkled.
“You mean…?” Chuck said reverently. The Doctor smiled in reply, taking the TARDIS key out of his pocket. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, confident that Chuck would follow him.
After just a moment’s hesitation, Chuck pushed open the blue police box door and walked into the TARDIS.
“Wow…” she breathed, looking around the organically golden interior. The Doctor waited for the classic ‘It’s bigger on the inside!’ reaction, but the beekeeper seemed to be taking all weirdness in her stride.
“This is amazing! Can it really travel in time?” Chuck wondered, running a hand over the console.
“Yup. Space too. But that’s not why we’re here!” the Doctor remembered suddenly, “To the Analysis Room!”
“The Analysis Room?” Chuck repeated.
“Exactly. The Analysis Room!” and he shot off through the TARDIS’ twisting corridors, and Chuck hoped fervently that she wouldn’t get lost inside the Doctor’s fantastic machine…
The Analysis Room, so imaginatively named by the Doctor, was a large room, with curved coral beams meeting at an apex to create a high vaulted ceiling. Complex alien machinery line one of the walls, silver and gleaming in its stillness. A large turquoise-coloured crystal orb sat on a short podium on the centre of the floor, which seemed to radiate intelligence and power.
“Right,” the Doctor said, clapping his hands together, “Let’s begin,” And with those words, he bounded into action. He pulled a glass vial out of one of the inside pockets of his jacket, and slotted it into the waiting three-pronged claw in the side of one of the bits of machinery. Chuck watched as the thick red liquid poured, juddering, into the machine.
“Where did you get that?” she asked, curious, as she hadn’t noticed the Doctor take the sample of Tobias’ blood earlier.
“This?” he looked up, devious innocence written all over his face, “I took it at the morgue. With a syringe. You were there!”
“Does Emerson know?”
“…”
The Doctor’s refusal to answer Chuck’s question spoke as loudly as he had on the rooftop. He surprised her further when he took out another sample that Chuck found slightly disturbing.
“You took his finger?!”
“He doesn’t need it!” the Doctor justified, waving his hands as though the problem could be dismissed as easily as one of Chuck’s bees, “Here we go!”
He pulled down the green-topped lever on the side of the machine, and the whole TARDIS shook and groaned. Lights flickered, smoke filtered into the room, and a sound like a distant explosion was left ringing in the ears of the Time Lord and the girl who was not dead, who found themselves sprawled on top of each other on the TARDIS floor.
“What was that?” Chuck asked, coughing and propping herself up on her elbows.
“Felt like an internal earthquake,” the Doctor said thoughtfully, extricating himself from Chuck. On his feet, he brushed off his suit and helped Chuck to stand.
“Come on. Let’s see what’s wrong with her,” he said, turning away from the girl and surreptitiously hiding the hair he had taken from her during the fall in his pocket. He was sure that there was something not quite normal here. The evidence all pointed to one or more supernatural forces acting in Papen County: Tobias Skywalker’s purple body; the flash of body heat he’d noticed in Tobias’ blatantly dead corpse under the Pie-maker’s hands; Chuck’s reactions, or not, to the strange things that were happening, i.e. the revelation that a police box could travel in time and space; and that pie, that tasted so perfect that it could not have been made by human hands. Hmmm... maybe he’d have to obtain another one of Ned’s pies for, ahem, evidence gathering...
~*~
You know, I’m sure I’ve asked this before, but what is up with this partition?” Jack asked, rapping his knuckles on the offending transparent panel that separated him from the Pie-maker. Ned sighed inwardly. He was glad to be back in control of his car, and thankful that the Captain could not get to him for the moment, but he knew that Jack was intrigued, and would therefore ask questions that the Pie-maker did not want to answer.
“And what’s with the convenient rubber glove?” the Captain continued, “My brain’s going crazy with the number of things I could think of to do with that,”
“It’s for steering emergencies,” the Pie-maker replied, keeping his eyes firmly on the road.
“Sure,” Jack winked at Ned, but thankfully didn’t continue with questions about the glove or the partition. He was content to sit and fantasise about Ned, Chuck and the glove, and all the exciting things they could do with it. The Pie-maker was also content with the silence, pleased for a respite from Jack’s flirtatious advances.
“What are you doing?” the Pie-maker asked suddenly, looking at Jack with warning in his eyes.
“Nothing,” Jack replied, his perfect teeth sparkling as he kept his hand on the Pie-maker’s thigh, “Just wondering what exactly constituted a steering emergency,”
“Not this,” Ned replied, taking his eyes off the road and forcibly removing Jack’s hand from his leg.
“Whoa!” Jack exclaimed, taking control of the car as it threatened to career out of control, “Maybe that does constitute a steering emergency,”
The Pie-maker glared at him.
“That was all your fault,” he said.
“It was worth it,” Jack said cheekily, grinning at the shocked man beside him, “Be careful next time,”
Consequently, the Pie-maker kept his eyes on the road for the rest of the journey, ignoring Jack completely, no matter how hard the man in question tried to get his attention.
_______________________________
To be continued...
Sorry for the cut off ending, but the part 2 will be here soon!
Collab between me and my friend Jess. I’ll write a chapter, she’ll write a chapter.
Title: Pushing Who: Happy-Go-Weirdy
Genre: Crossover, Mystery, Humour, Drama
Story By: Immy (applegrass-wolf) and Jess (thecakemaker)
This Chapter By: Jess (thecakemaker)
Word Count: 2,964
Disclaimer: Characters not ours, DW © BBC and PD © Bryan Fuller/ABC/etc. (oh how that corporation is loathed).
This chapter is epically long, so we made the decision to split in two…6b will be coming shortly.
An ordinary day at the Pie Hole, and Chuck and Ned are planning a picnic. But all this is halted by the arrival of a strange man and three companions in a bizarre blue box…chaos ensues…and Emerson finds he might just need their help with the latest, most mysterious case.
CHAPTER SIX, PART a)!
Chapter Six, Part One
In Which Everything Happens At Once
“Making me look at paint… what cheek! I once saved the Earth from little creatures made of fat, - and rampaging Ood too! - and now he wants me to look at paint?!” Donna ranted. She was sitting on The Pie Hole’s counter, venting to Olive or whoever happened to be listening, and generally being a nuisance in the crowded eatery. Picking at the remains of her blueberry cup-
pie, the time-traveller noticed Olive struggling under a mountain of platefuls of pie.
“Want a hand with that?” the flame-haired woman asked, jumping down off her perch and taking some pie off the tiny waitress’s hands.
“The strawberry, the peach and the raspberry need to go to that table over there,” Olive attempted to gesture with her eyebrows, before plunging on, “The apple and the two cup-pies here are for the first booth on the right, and take the apricot to the counter. I need to make a lot of coffee,”
“Right,” Donna said, artfully balancing the plates in both hands, with the plate of apricot pie resting carefully on her head.
A few minutes later, the two women had worked themselves into a comfortable routine: while waiting for the water to boil, Olive would cut up slices of pie, which Donna would then serve, during which time Olive would make hot drinks of tea and coffee for the customers.
“I’ve never seen this place so busy,” Olive remarked, as she and Donna stood in the kitchen. They were glad of a moment’s rest now that everyone was happily eating pie and ice cream. The Pie Hole was the busiest it had been in months, full of chatter and laughter, and it seemed a shame to Olive that the Pie-maker himself wasn’t there to see it.
“Can I ask a question?” the blonde-haired woman began.
“Fire away!” Donna replied enthusiastically.
“Is Jack...?” Olive continued, although she found that she didn’t really know what she was asking.
“Don’t worry; he’s like that all the time!” Donna laughed, “He’ll flirt with anything that has a pulse,”
“Oh,” Olive said. She looked slightly put out by this, but at the same time she was relieved that the Pie-maker was not completely to blame for Jack’s advances. It made sense, in her mind at least, for Jack to be attracted to her beloved Ned, but was glad that the Pie-maker had not encouraged the Captain’s behaviour.
“It does mean that he finds you attractive,” Donna went on, attempting to put Olive’s mind at ease, “But it does get irritating after a while when you’re travelling and he makes a comment about every life form he sees,”
“Right,” the waitress replied. The use of the words ‘life form’ rather than ‘person’ had not escaped her notice, but her mind was preoccupied with thoughts of the Pie-maker’s wellbeing in Jack’s company, and so she decided not to mention it.
“You know,” Donna began suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence the women had slipped into, “I can spot unrequited love a mile away, so are you going to bring it up, or shall I?”
“Is it that obvious?” Olive asked, a little surprised by her own lack of subtlety. Mentally, she was supposed to have been working on that…
“Not really,” the time-traveller admitted, while cutting herself a sliver of kiwi pie, “But when you’re around the Doctor, unrequited love becomes a pretty big issue,”
“Oh… Are you…?” Olive hinted at a relationship between the pair, at which Donna laughed and said,
“God, no! He’s…,” she stopped short of saying that he was an alien, and instead continued, “…not my type. I was talking about Martha. And Jack, to a lesser extent,”
“He does seem to be a very… magnetic person,” Olive said, thinking of the way Chuck was drawn to the strange man.
“Magnetic is, I think, the word to describe the Doctor,” Donna replied, “He seems to pick up people wherever he stops,”
“Are you one of those people?” Olive asked, genuinely interested as to how the Doctor met the people he travelled with, and wondering if maybe there was a certain South-poled honey-lover who could be attracted to the Doctor’s North pole.
“In a way…” Donna began, wondering where to start with her story, “It was my wedding day and -”
“Excuse me, but why is there a British ‘Gilbert Mackenzie Trench’ model blue police box on your roof?”
~*~
Meanwhile, the medical student and the private investigator were speeding across town to the scene of Tobias’ murder: the gardens at Papen County Ornithology Society’s halls of residence.
“Have you seen a lot of murders?” Emerson asked Martha suddenly. The idea of bringing her with him had been playing on his mind, and even though she seemed calm and confident, he couldn’t help the slight worry that had lodged itself in the base of his brain.
“I’ve seen my fair share,” Martha replied quietly, “It was mostly just illnesses and the like at the NHS, but death seems to follow the Doctor…”
“How did you get caught up in all this?” the private investigator wondered aloud, “You all seem out of place, but you especially seem too young to be so familiar with death,”
“I love him,” the medical student admitted bluntly, “I’d follow him to the ends of the Earth, and I have, but I’m interested in the medical side as well. Wherever we go, there’s something I can do, and I’m glad that I can help. So this is another adventure for me,”
The pair were quiet for a moment. Emerson, feigning interest in the road ahead, considered Martha’s words. He understood what she was saying. Love, mystery, the thrill of the chase - these somewhat romantic ideas appealed to him just as much as they did to her.
“What about you?” she asked, “What brought you into the dark underworld of murder investigation?”
“Justice,” Emerson replied simply, “And… it gives the brain a good workout too,”
They laughed, comfortable with themselves, their current situation and each other, and they noticed with slight surprise that their journey had come to an end.
The Papen County Ornithology Society had recently relocated its headquarters, as too few breeds of bird could be seen from its rather dusty windows. The Society was now housed in an imposing building on the outskirts of the city: the walls were of a dark grey stone that seemed to ooze haughtiness; the wrought iron gates seemed almost menacing; and the large stone eagle perched on the roof eyed all visitors with disdain, as if only a true ornithologist could admire such a creature.
“Nice place,” Emerson muttered to his companion as they stepped out of his car onto the gravel.
“Friendly,” Martha replied, and the private investigator smiled at her tone.
“Name?” a snooty female voice greeted Emerson when he pushed the ‘ADMITTANCE’ button on the gates.
“Emerson Cod, I’m a P.I., here to investigate the possible murder of one Tobias Skywalker,” he glanced at Martha, “And this is Doctor Jones, my partner,”
Martha flushed at the reference. ‘Doctor’ was better than ‘student’, and ‘partner’ was better than ‘assistant’. ‘Partner’ was also much, much better than ‘person who’s left to clear up the mess the whirlwind that calls himself ‘Doctor’ leaves behind’.
“You may enter,” the disembodied voice replied, cutting into Martha’s thoughts, and the gates creaked open.
“Shall we?” the private investigator offered Martha his arm, which she took, and they walked up the drive together, ignoring the angry eagle which towered above them.
They were met, at the door, by a flustered receptionist. From her manner, the two investigators could tell that she was definitely not the woman who had admitted them minutes previously.
“You’re here about Tobias, aren’t you,” she said, fumbling for the glasses that hung on the chain around her neck. It was a statement rather than a question and at the nods she received in reply, the motherly woman promptly burst into tears.
“Such a l...loss,” she sobbed, “He was so… brilliant, so w….w….wonderful. The project he was working on was g…g….going to be his masterpiece!”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what project was this?” Emerson asked, as Martha put an arm around the woman’s shoulders and comforted her.
“He was compiling a -” she stopped and sniffed into a pink handkerchief, “- a detailed report on the magnificence of w…wings,”
How she managed to say that and not sound bored, Martha could not understand. Nor could Emerson understand how she had managed to say that with a straight face.
“Could you show us - ?”
“Where did Tobias - ?”
The two investigators laughed, and the receptionist managed a shaky smile at the way the two spoke over each other, each beginning their question at exactly the same time.
“Where did Tobias do his work?” Martha spoke first, phrasing the question kindly so as not to upset the woman further.
“He did most of his work in his dormitory. I’ll take you to it,” the woman replied, sniffing slightly.
“Nice work there,” Emerson muttered quietly to Martha as the pair of them followed the receptionist to Tobias’ room.
“Thanks,” Martha replied, flashing the private investigator a smile that shone as brightly as the polished brass doorknob in front of them.
“This was his room. His place of peace…” the woman sniffed again. She left Emerson with the key, then excused herself, her eyes full of tears. Emerson rolled his eyes.
“So,” he pondered, looking up and down the tiny room, “What can we learn from Mister Skywalker in here?”
“Well, it looks like he was interested in birds of another kind,” Martha said, holding up two photographs in silver frames. The first showed Tobias, a handsome and resolutely not-purple young man, with his arm around the waist of a pretty, green-eyed redhead. The second featured Tobias again, but this time his arm was adorned with a striking brunette with dark, intelligent eyes, known to Tobias by such nicknames as ‘Gorgeous’ and ‘Stunner’, but also known to Emerson as…
“Miss Maria Moore,” the private investigator remarked, taking the picture from Martha and studying it, “Skywalker’s ex-girlfriend. The one the brother thinks killed Tobias,”
“So who’s this?” Martha asked, holding up the picture of Tobias and the redhead, “His current girlfriend?”
“Could be. We’ll have to rely on Ned and Jack to squeeze some information out of Maria here,” Emerson continued. He looked up from the photograph and surveyed the room again. Having completed his initial search of Tobias’ room and found himself empty-handed, the private investigator ushered the medical student out of the room and they made their way to the garden in silence, their heads swimming in theories.
~*~
At the same time, the Doctor and Chuck were standing on the rooftop, enjoying the afternoon sun, and talking about the murder they were investigating. Or rather, Chuck was talking about the death of Tobias, the Doctor, however, kept going off on some quite random tangents that confused Chuck thoroughly. Despite the Doctor’s ramblings, Chuck found herself enjoying his company and this slight and precious respite from the normality she was forced to pretend she had.
“It was then, that night, that the Vurons attacked! The slime, let me tell you, went everywhere. Not pleasant. Although,” the Doctor paused, “that was a rather darker shade of purple…”
“So, what were you saying about the cobra? Do you think that might be what killed Tobias and made him turn purple?” Chuck asked, trying to keep up with the conversation.
“The Caernopholocchi?” the Doctor mused on this possibility, “I don’t know… Maybe. But how one got to Earth unharmed is beyond me. Their scales are very delicate, very sensitive, but they make fantastic clothing. You don’t have space travel here, do you?”
Chuck shook her head. She felt that the Doctor was testing her, so she decided that she would test him right back.
“Isn’t space travel a bit farfetched?” Chuck challenged, knowing, hoping, that the Doctor would prove her wrong.
“Oh, of course,” he nodded vigorously, “But what is your take on space and time travel?”
Leaning against the side of the TARDIS, the Doctor’s eyes sparkled.
“You mean…?” Chuck said reverently. The Doctor smiled in reply, taking the TARDIS key out of his pocket. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, confident that Chuck would follow him.
After just a moment’s hesitation, Chuck pushed open the blue police box door and walked into the TARDIS.
“Wow…” she breathed, looking around the organically golden interior. The Doctor waited for the classic ‘It’s bigger on the inside!’ reaction, but the beekeeper seemed to be taking all weirdness in her stride.
“This is amazing! Can it really travel in time?” Chuck wondered, running a hand over the console.
“Yup. Space too. But that’s not why we’re here!” the Doctor remembered suddenly, “To the Analysis Room!”
“The Analysis Room?” Chuck repeated.
“Exactly. The Analysis Room!” and he shot off through the TARDIS’ twisting corridors, and Chuck hoped fervently that she wouldn’t get lost inside the Doctor’s fantastic machine…
The Analysis Room, so imaginatively named by the Doctor, was a large room, with curved coral beams meeting at an apex to create a high vaulted ceiling. Complex alien machinery line one of the walls, silver and gleaming in its stillness. A large turquoise-coloured crystal orb sat on a short podium on the centre of the floor, which seemed to radiate intelligence and power.
“Right,” the Doctor said, clapping his hands together, “Let’s begin,” And with those words, he bounded into action. He pulled a glass vial out of one of the inside pockets of his jacket, and slotted it into the waiting three-pronged claw in the side of one of the bits of machinery. Chuck watched as the thick red liquid poured, juddering, into the machine.
“Where did you get that?” she asked, curious, as she hadn’t noticed the Doctor take the sample of Tobias’ blood earlier.
“This?” he looked up, devious innocence written all over his face, “I took it at the morgue. With a syringe. You were there!”
“Does Emerson know?”
“…”
The Doctor’s refusal to answer Chuck’s question spoke as loudly as he had on the rooftop. He surprised her further when he took out another sample that Chuck found slightly disturbing.
“You took his finger?!”
“He doesn’t need it!” the Doctor justified, waving his hands as though the problem could be dismissed as easily as one of Chuck’s bees, “Here we go!”
He pulled down the green-topped lever on the side of the machine, and the whole TARDIS shook and groaned. Lights flickered, smoke filtered into the room, and a sound like a distant explosion was left ringing in the ears of the Time Lord and the girl who was not dead, who found themselves sprawled on top of each other on the TARDIS floor.
“What was that?” Chuck asked, coughing and propping herself up on her elbows.
“Felt like an internal earthquake,” the Doctor said thoughtfully, extricating himself from Chuck. On his feet, he brushed off his suit and helped Chuck to stand.
“Come on. Let’s see what’s wrong with her,” he said, turning away from the girl and surreptitiously hiding the hair he had taken from her during the fall in his pocket. He was sure that there was something not quite normal here. The evidence all pointed to one or more supernatural forces acting in Papen County: Tobias Skywalker’s purple body; the flash of body heat he’d noticed in Tobias’ blatantly dead corpse under the Pie-maker’s hands; Chuck’s reactions, or not, to the strange things that were happening, i.e. the revelation that a police box could travel in time and space; and that pie, that tasted so perfect that it could not have been made by human hands. Hmmm... maybe he’d have to obtain another one of Ned’s pies for, ahem, evidence gathering...
~*~
You know, I’m sure I’ve asked this before, but what is up with this partition?” Jack asked, rapping his knuckles on the offending transparent panel that separated him from the Pie-maker. Ned sighed inwardly. He was glad to be back in control of his car, and thankful that the Captain could not get to him for the moment, but he knew that Jack was intrigued, and would therefore ask questions that the Pie-maker did not want to answer.
“And what’s with the convenient rubber glove?” the Captain continued, “My brain’s going crazy with the number of things I could think of to do with that,”
“It’s for steering emergencies,” the Pie-maker replied, keeping his eyes firmly on the road.
“Sure,” Jack winked at Ned, but thankfully didn’t continue with questions about the glove or the partition. He was content to sit and fantasise about Ned, Chuck and the glove, and all the exciting things they could do with it. The Pie-maker was also content with the silence, pleased for a respite from Jack’s flirtatious advances.
“What are you doing?” the Pie-maker asked suddenly, looking at Jack with warning in his eyes.
“Nothing,” Jack replied, his perfect teeth sparkling as he kept his hand on the Pie-maker’s thigh, “Just wondering what exactly constituted a steering emergency,”
“Not this,” Ned replied, taking his eyes off the road and forcibly removing Jack’s hand from his leg.
“Whoa!” Jack exclaimed, taking control of the car as it threatened to career out of control, “Maybe that does constitute a steering emergency,”
The Pie-maker glared at him.
“That was all your fault,” he said.
“It was worth it,” Jack said cheekily, grinning at the shocked man beside him, “Be careful next time,”
Consequently, the Pie-maker kept his eyes on the road for the rest of the journey, ignoring Jack completely, no matter how hard the man in question tried to get his attention.
_______________________________
To be continued...
Sorry for the cut off ending, but the part 2 will be here soon!