Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC and Pushing Daisies belongs to Brian Fuller, all I have is my Microsoft word...

----FEARING DEATH----

Private investigator, Emerson Cod, was busy constructing the centre page of his first pop-up book sensation, 'How to Profit from the Death of a Loved One', when he received a phone call from the wife of one Rupert Collins.

Rupert Collins, a respectable biochemist with Halik industries, was forty three years, thirty one weeks, four days, and twenty seven minutes old, when he met his untimely death in his lab, whilst biting into a vegemite sandwich. The coroner ruled his death as a heart attack, but the look of complete and utter terror they'd found on Rupert Collins's face, upon his death, caused June Collins, the not-so-merry widow, to wonder about what her husband had seen before he died.

It was a question only Rupert Collins could answer.

Ned winced and drew back as Emerson unzipped the bag. "That is not normal," he said.

"It isn't?" Chuck asked. "I thought that, you know, the rictus of horror and death always looked like this." She snarled up her fingers and grimaced. It was rather cute, Ned decided, if a bit disturbing, considering the circumstances.

"Nooo, that's a bit of a myth, actually." Ned stuck his hands into his pockets. "It's usually only an expression of mild surprise: eyes a bit round, mouths slightly parted…" He shrugged uneasily. "Their lips don't usually peel back like that, over their teeth, and their eyeballs... um, usually stay inside their sockets; maybe a poker was involved, or another household accessory?"

"Oh," Chuck's eyes widened. "Does that happen often – you know, with a poker?"

Emerson sighed. "Just touch him, okay?" he said. "Then we can get out of here."

"I'm starting the watch," Ned said softly, as he set the minute timer in motion, and prodded Rupert Collins to life.

"Aaaaaaghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!"

Ned jumped back, and narrowly missed bumping into Chuck, as the corpse screamed its head off.

"Arrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!"

Fifty seconds," Ned called out.

Mwaaaaaghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!"

"Forty nine."

Ack…ack…aggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!"

"This is getting ridiculous," Emerson said, and slapped the Rupert Collins across the face.

"Ack—" said Rupert Collins, before taking a deep swallow. "Thank you," he added, after a moment's pause.

"You're welcome," Emerson said.

Chuck stepped up. "Do you have any last requests, or thoughts, people you want to say good bye to?" she asked.

"Huh?" he asked.

"You're dead," Ned told him, apologetically, as he eyed his watch. Thirty Seven seconds left. "Sorry, but we're on the clock, here, do you remember what you saw before you had your heart attack?"

"Heart Attack?" Rupert Collins echoed. "But I didn't have a heart attack!"

"You didn't?" Chuck asked.

Rupert Collins's pointed at his own face, still distorted into a mask of absolute terror. "Does this look like a heart attack to you?"

"He's got a point," Ned murmured.

"Doesn't matter," Emerson said. "We're getting paid to find out what he saw before he died, not how he actually kicked the bucket."

"Kind of the same thing, really," Rupert Collins said helpfully.

"See?" Chuck said, sticking out her tongue at Emerson's disgruntled face. Ned smiled; she was adorable when she did that, too.

"Whatever," Emerson said, folding his hands.

"So," Chuck said, turning to Rupert. "What was it that killed you, exactly?"

"A homicidal alien," Rupert Collins volunteered, with a smile… well, sort of a smile; turns out it's kind of difficult to summon a smile when your lips are peeled back into a rictus of terror.

The room fell silent. "I'm sorry" Ned eventually said. "I think we may have had a slight communication problem here; did you just said you were killed by an alien?"

"Ah, yes," Rupert Collins said. "I think we have had a communication problem, actually."

"Oh, good," said Ned.

"Because what I said was: I was killed by a homicidal alien."

"Ah," Ned said, and Chuck elbowed Emerson as he sniggered into his sleeve.

"It's important not to reinforce stereotypes, you see," Rupert Collins blithely continued on. "Some can be quite sweet, actually, I knew this alien, once, who used to make these lovely Christmas cards for me… although, she did have this disturbing habit of putting Jesus on a sacrificial alter, wreathed in mistletoe, rather than in a crib – bit of a misunderstanding with cultural icons, I suspect - and did I mention that she was really quite sweet—"

"Time's up." Ned touched Rupert Collins and sighed with a relief as he fell back onto the morgue shelf.

"Well, that was different," Chuck said.

Emerson spun a finger at his temple. "Oh, yeah, that as different, all right," he drawled. "Come on, let's get out of here."

The Doctor was 900 hundred years, three thousand weeks, and a unquantifiable amount of days old – primarily because he was still pretending his age amounted to a mere three digits - when he materialised his TARDIS outside the entrance to the Pie Hole. This, in itself, may have had no impact on this story, if it weren't for the fact that the Doctor's companion, a Miss Martha Jones, aged twenty four years, twenty six weeks, and forty eight minutes, hadn't looked at the menu in their window and spotted their triple berry pie.

"But it isn't just pie, it's triple berry pie!" Martha cajoled, already tasting the pastry crumbs in her mouth. The Doctor pouted, but Martha grabbed him by the elbow and tugged him in the direction of the door.

"Don't know what the fuss is," the Doctor muttered, "It's not as if it's got bananas in it, and besides, this is boring, we could be having pie in…in…the sky."

"It's pie, triple berry pie, we can have banana splits tomorrow," Martha said. "Again," she added, under her breath.

And so, the Doctor and Martha found themselves eating piping hot triple berry pie when Ned, Chuck, and Emerson came back from their trip to the morgue, and slid into the booth next to them.

"Mmmph," the Doctor said, a few moments later, his mouth filled with pie.

"Huh?" Martha asked. "What was that you said about homicidal aliens?"

The Doctor swallowed, then jerked his spoon at the booth behind him. "I wasn't ," he said. "But they were."

Six seconds later, both the Doctor and Martha were kneeling on the leatherette seats and looking down on the trio discussing the mystery surrounding Rupert Collins's death, in the next booth.

"Excuse me," the Doctor said. "Sorry, don't mean to bother you," he said. "But you were talking about aliens?"

"Homicidal aliens," Martha chipped in. "As opposed to the nicer, pie eating variety."

"Or the ones who make Christmas cards" Chuck added helpfully.

"Those ones, too," the Doctor said, with a wide grin. "Although you rarely see the nice ones round here, on account of the Earth being pretty much a backwater class five planet that only an exploitative ne'er-do-well would even bother to visit, of their own free will."

"Or a time traveller, out to see the universe by bending time and space," Martha pointed out.

"Yeah, that too," the Doctor said, as he licked his spoon. "Nice pie, by the way."

"Thanks," Ned said, because he didn't think he had anything else to say about the matter.

"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said, almost as an afterthought. "And this is Martha."

"Hi," said Chuck, smiling up at them.

"Hi, said Martha. smiling back. "Sorry to butt in like this."

Emerson scowled at them. "Did anybody ever tell you it was rude to eavesdrop?"

"Ah, but I wasn't, you know," the Doctor said. "Eavesdropping, I mean, just got good ears – one of the signs of an enquiring mind, you know."

"A busybody, is what you mean," Emerson huffed. "And we don't need your help, thank you very much, we've already got things covered."

"Oh, right then," the Doctor drawled. "Then you've already figured out that Halik Industries is your next port of call, then?"

"Yes," said Emerson.

"No," said Chuck. "Why do you think it has something to do with Halik Industries? Is it because he died there?"

He did?" the Doctor blinked. "Oh dear, we'd better hurry then."

---TBC---