Disclaimer: As much as I'd like to, I don't own Doctor Who
Feedback: Of course
AN: Well, here we are; "The Unicorn and the Wasp", and I hope you like it
AN 2: Bonus points to anyone who catches the relevance of the reference to the old series
The Legacy of Gallifrey
"Come on, you two!" the Doctor said, impatiently tapping the TARDIS door as Donna and Martha changed into more appropriate clothing for the current time period (At least his own suit, even if it was a bit odd, wouldn't exactly be too out of place at this point in history; he just wasn't sure how he'd feel about getting back into his eighth body's old clothes...). "We'll be late for cocktails at this rate!"
A few moments later, the two women stepped out of the police box, Donna wearing a brown-and-gold shoulderless dress while Martha was wearing a long-sleeved dress in a deep purple, their hair up in buns at the back of their heads to go with the image.
"What d'you think?" Donna asked, indicating herself and Martha with a brief wave of their hands. "Flapper or slapper?"
"Flapper," the Doctor replied, linking arms with Martha as he smiled at Donna. "You both look lovely."
"Thanks," Martha said, leaning over to give the Doctor a brief kiss on the cheek before they continued walking.
Approaching the house, Donna and Martha couldn't help but be impressed at the style of the building before them; a large grey mansion with a significantly-sized garden, a small group of guests gathered in one area as a footman adjusted a music player on a table near an assortment of chairs in the garden, gathered around a table covered with various fruits and cakes.
"Look sharp, we have guests!" a woman said, clapping her hands together before walking off to attend to further arrangements.
"Good afternoon!" the Doctor said, waving casually at the staff as the three of them walked up.
"Drinks, sir? Ma'am?" the man who could only be a butler asked as he walked up to them.
"Sidecar, please," Donna said with a casual smile.
"Two lime and sodas," Martha added, exchanging a brief glance with the Doctor that was met with a confirming nod.
"May I announce, Lady Clemency Eddison," another voice said, prompting the three to turn around and see an older man in the same butler-stereotypical attire at the top of a small slight of stairs leading down to the house, an older woman in a long-sleeved dark blue dress and short curled blonde hair.
"Lady Eddison," the Doctor said, holding out his hand to shake hers with a casual smile as though he'd been purposefully invited rather than just dropping in at the last minute.
"Forgive me, but who exactly might you be... and what are you doing here?" Lady Eddison asked, sounding slightly bemused even as she shook the Doctor's hand.
"Doctor John Noble," the Doctor replied, smiling warmly at her as he indicated his companions. "This is my sister, Donna Noble- of the Chiswick Nobles, you know-, and my fiancé, Martha Jones."
Martha and Donna briefly shot shocked glances at the Doctor- although neither of them were certain what they were more shocked about; him introducing Martha as his fiancé or Donna as his sister, although the fact that he was using her name as an alias was a definite change from the norm-, but the currently public nature of their surroundings prevented further questions being asked about that choice of alias as the Doctor continued talking.
"We were thrilled to receive your invitation, my lady," the Doctor explained, as he pulled out the psychic paper and presented it to Lady Eddison, not even giving her time to ask any of the possible questions she might have about his and Martha's relationship. "We met at the Ambassador's reception."
"Doctor, how could I forget you?" Lady Eddison replied, smiling at him in the manner that left it hard to determine if she was embarrassed or had literally 'forgotten' them. "But one must be sure with the Unicorn on the loose."
"A unicorn?" the Doctor said with a sudden smile. "Brilliant! Where?"
"The Unicorn," Lady Eddison corrected, as the four of them walked over to the nearby table
"The jewel thief. And nobody knows who he is. He's just struck again; snatched Lady Babbington's pearls right from under her nose."
"Funny place to wear pearls," Donna muttered, a waiter presenting them with their previously-requested drinks.
"May I announce," the same butler who'd introduced Lady Eddison said, as an old man in a grey suit and a red waistcoat was wheeled onto the garden by a younger man in a light fawn, "the Colonel Hugh Curbishley,the Honourable Roger Curbishley."
"My husband," Lady Eddison said, leaning over to briefly touch the old man's cheek as he joined them. "And my son."
"Forgive me for not rising," the old man in the wheelchair said with a nonchalant smile (The Doctor made a mental note to check the colonel's family tree when he could; the odds of this man being related to Henry Gordon Jago were slim, but it wasn't like Jago had really shared much about his family during that mess with Magnus Greel, and that smile was rather distinctive). "Never been the same ever since that flu epidemic back in '18."
"My word," Roger said, walking around to look appreciatively at Donna, "you are a super lady."
"Oh, I like the cut of your jib," Donna replied, smiling broadly as she tipped her glass at him. "Chin chin."
"Hello," the Doctor said, stepping forward to shake Roger's hand. "Doctor John Noble."
"Martha Jones," Martha added, taking Roger's hand almost as the Doctor released it; she still had some questions about the Doctor's current decision regarding his alias here, but it was probably best to go along with it until further notice. "I'm his fiancé, and this is his sister Donna."
"How do you do?" Roger asked in response.
"Very well," the Doctor replied, Roger subsequently being distracted by another butler offering him a drink.
"How come she's an Eddison but her husband and son are Curbishleys?" Donna asked in a low whisper.
"The Eddison title descends through her-" the Doctor began.
"And speaking of titles," Martha asked, looking pointedly at the Doctor, "what was with that 'Doctor John Noble and his fiancé' introduction?"
"Well, it's not like I could have just said we were just travelling together," the Doctor pointed out with his own low whisper as he leaned in to address his two companions. "It was a bit easier when it's just two of us; three in this time frame and people start asking questions I thought you'd prefer me to stop-"
"Robina Redmond!" the old butler called out once again, the new arrival to the garden being a dark-haired young woman in a light floral-patterned dress.
"She's the absolute hit of the social scene; a must," Lady Eddison said by way of explanation to the Doctor before she walked over to the new arrival. "Miss Redmond!"
"Spiffing to meet you at last, my lady," Miss Redmond replied. "What super fun!"
"Reverend Arnold Golightly," the old butler said once again, this time introducing a young man in the traditional black coat and white collar of a priest.
"Ah, Reverend, how are you?" Lady Eddison said, smiling warmly at the new guest as she shook his hand. "I heard about the church last night; those ruffians breaking in."
"You apprehended them, I hear," the colonel put in with an approving nod.
"As the Christian Fathers taught me, we must forgive them their trespasses," the reverend said with a casual shrug. "Quite literally."
"Some of these young boys deserve a decent thrashing," Roger put in, his gaze subsequently shifting to the young waiter standing to his left.
"Couldn't agree more, sir," the waiter said, the two men exchanging a meaningful look that the Doctor and Martha instantly recognised from so much time with Captain Jack.
"Typical," Donna muttered, glancing back at her companions. "All the decent men are on the other bus."
"Or very taken Time Lords," Martha added, shooting Donna a brief glare before smiling at her lover, the Doctor returning the smile with one of his own before his attention was drawn back to the conversation by Roger's reference to a 'special guest'.
"Here she is," Lady Eddison said, pointing at a newly-arrived woman in a blue dress with a gold pattern on it and short blonde hair with a slight curl, satisfaction evident in Lady Eddison's voice as she spoke. "A lady who needs no introduction!"
"No, no, please, don't," the woman said, smiling slightly sheepishly as the group clapped in approval as she joined them. "Thank you, Lady Eddison; honestly, there's no need."
Smiling slightly at the guests, she turned to face the Doctor and held out her hand. "Agatha Christie."
"What about her?" Donna asked, even as the Doctor and Martha exchanged surprised smiles.
"That's me," the woman replied.
"Nooo!" Donna said, her eyes widening as she looked at the woman, Martha only able to stare in equal astonishment at this confirmation. "You're kidding!"
"Agatha Christie!" the Doctor said, smiling enthusiastically at the novelist as he shook her offered hand, Agatha unable to restrain a similar smile. "I was just talking about you the other day. I said, 'I bet she's brilliant'. Doctor John Noble; this is my sister Donna and my fiancé, Martha Jones. Ohhh, I love your stuff. What a mind! You fool me every time. Well, almost every time. Well, once or twice. Well, once. But it was a good once!"
"Take it as a compliment," Martha said reassuringly to Agatha even as she shot a warning glare at the Doctor. "He always like to talk about how smart he is; saying you fooled him at all is an achievement."
"I shall keep that in mind," Agatha said, smiling back at Martha before she took in the other two. "You three make a rather unusual group."
"I get that a lot," the Doctor said dismissively. "I always like diversity when I'm travelling, you know how it is..."
"No wedding ring for your fiancé, Doctor Noble?" Agatha asked, raising a slightly teasing eyebrow at him as Martha glanced down at her ringless fingers.
"Oh- oh, you don't miss a trick, do you?" the Doctor said, smiling in approval at her.
"It's more of an 'engaged to be engaged' relationship at the moment," Martha said by way of explanation. "He's proposed, but we haven't found the time to get a ring yet; it's all been a bit busy lately..."
"You might want to keep it on hold for a while, Miss Jones," Agatha said with a brief smile. "The thrill is in the chase, never in the capture."
"Mrs Christie," Lady Eddison suddenly said, walking over to interrupt the current conversation with a slightly embarrassed smile, "I'm so glad you could come. I'm one of your greatest followers; I've read all six of your books..."
As Agatha fell into conversation with their hosts, the Doctor reached over to borrow the colonel's newspaper, muttering a brief apology to the man as Martha and Donna exchanged glances at Agatha's momentary discomfort at the reference to her husband before the Doctor beckoned them over to where he sat against a table.
"What is it?" Martha asked, noting her 'fiancé's' currently thoughtful expression.
"The date of this newspaper," the Doctor answered, his voice low as he glanced briefly up at the novelist he'd enthusiastically greeted only moments ago. "It's the day Agatha Christie disappeared."
"Disappeared?" Martha repeated in surprise.
"She'd just discovered her husband was having an affair," the Doctor elaborated, his eyes still studying the woman in question as she laughed with some of the other guests at the party.
"She seems rather... cheery... about it, doesn't she?" Martha asked, looking uncertainly at Agatha.
"Well, she's British and moneyed; that's what they do, they carry on," the Doctor said, keeping his voice low as Donna and Martha moved in closer to better listen to him. "Except for this one time. No one knows exactly what happened, she just vanished. Her car will be found tomorrow morning by the side of a lake; ten days later, Agatha Christie turns up in a hotel in Harrogate, saying she'd lost her memory. She never spoke about the disappearance till the day she died, but whatever it was..."
"It's about to happen," Donna finished for the Time Lord.
"Right here, right now," the Doctor confirmed.
"Professor!" the housekeeper- Miss Chandrakala, Martha thought she'd heard her being identified as- suddenly yelled, hurrying out of the house and waving her arms in a panic. "The library! Murder! Murder!"
A brief glance was almost more than the three companions needed before they were running into the house in the direction of the earlier yell.
"Oh!" the Doctor said, smiling as he studied the toolbox that Agatha and Donna had recently discovered in the garden; given the wide assortment of small chisels, hammers, keys and files inside it, it seemed to be the first genuine clue they'd found since this mess began. "Someone came here tooled up... the sort of stuff a thief would use."
"The Unicorn?" Agatha said, looking sharply at the Doctor in revelation. "He's here!"
"A jewel thief and a killer?" Martha said, a slightly reflective smile on her face as she looked over at her boyfriend. "You always have interesting trips for us, don't you?"
"The Unicorn and the wasp..." the Doctor muttered reflectively, lost in his thoughts to the point that he didn't even seem to have heard Martha's comment, before the arrive of Greeves, the eldest of the Eddison butlers, momentary halted their conversation.
"Your drinks, ladies, Doctor," he said, holding the tray down in front of them.
"Very good, Greeves," the Doctor said, smiling briefly in thanks at the butler as they took the drink, the older man walking out of the room with his task completed.
"Talking of the case, did you find anything in your analysis?" Martha asked.
Nodding at her as he swallowed his drink, the Doctor pulled out the test tube he'd used to store the sample earlier.
"Vespiform sting," he said by way of explanation, studying the sting as it glowed in the tube. "Vespiforms have got hives in the Silfrax galaxy."
"Again, you talk like Edward Lear," Agatha said, raising her hands in amused exasperation.
"But for some reason," the Doctor said, looking thoughtfully at Agatha as he sipped at his drink, "this one's behaving like a character in one of your books."
"Come on, Agatha," Donna said, looking at the author with a prompting stare, "what would Miss Marple do? She'd have overheard something vital by now, because the murderer thinks she's just a harmless old lady."
"Clever idea..." Agatha said, looking thoughtfully ahead of herself before she turned to look at Donna. "Miss Marple? Who writes those?"
"Um..." Donna said, looking awkwardly down at the table before her, "copyright Donna Noble; add it to the list."
Martha and the Doctor could only exchange exasperated glances at this, but the Doctor's face suddenly fell before he could say anything to Donna.
"Doctor?" Martha asked, noting the sudden concern in her lover's eyes. "What's wrong?"
"Something's inhibiting my enzymes," the Doctor said, before he suddenly reeled forward in his chair, clutching at its arms as he stared urgently ahead of himself with his teeth clenched. "I've been poisoned!"
Martha's eyes widened in horror.
Poisoned...
Even if she knew that the Doctor would only regenerate, it wasn't exactly something she was looking forward to; she'd love the Doctor whatever he looked like, but after everything she'd seen of his other selves- both when she'd met them directly in his mind and indirectly from the stories she'd heard from his past companions during her travels-, she didn't exactly have a guarantee that he'd still love her if that happened...
"What do we do?" Donna asked, hurrying over to crouch down beside the Doctor as she looked up at Martha. "C'mon, Martha; what'd he say we do if this happens?"
"Bitter almonds..." Agatha's voice suddenly said, the other two women sharply spinning around to see her sniffing the Doctor's glass. "It's cyanide! Sparkling cyanide!"
As though that news had been the cue he was waiting for, the Doctor suddenly leapt out of the chair and ran- albeit in a slightly stumbling manner- out of the room, leaving the women with nothing to do but follow him as he ran towards the kitchen, catching up with him just as he was tipping a bottle of something over his head.
"I'm an expert in poisons, Doctor!" Agatha said, sounding almost hysterical- although whether from the Doctor's odd behaviour or the potential imminence of his death- as she looked at him. "There's no cure; it's fatal!"
"Normally, but the Doctor's not normal-!" Martha began, only to be interrupted as the Doctor spat out the liquid he'd apparently drunk earlier.
"Exactly!" he said, smiling briefly at her despite his still-urgent expression and the fearful confusion of the staff, now hiding on the other side of the worktop from the group. "I can stimulate the inhibited enzymes into reversal... Protein! I need protein!"
Despite Agatha's evident scepticism of the Doctor's last claim, she joined Donna and Martha in searching the kitchen supplies, Martha's eyes immediately falling on a likely-looking jar.
"Walnuts?" she asked, handing the jar in question over to him.
"Brilliant!" the Doctor said, shooting her another brief smile before he grabbed the jar and gobbled the contents down, subsequently tossing it aside as he began to shake his hand up and down.
"I can't understand you!" Donna said, looking at him in confusion. "How many words?"
"Salt!" Martha yelled as the Doctor held up one finger; pepper might have been another option, but the effects of salt on the body were more obvious, which made it the more likely candidate. As the Doctor pointed at her in confirmation, Donna reached over to grab a brown bag and pass it to the Doctor, only for him to glance inside it and then put it down as he continued to urgently wave his hand.
"What was that?" Martha asked, looking at Donna in confusion.
"Salt, of course!" Donna replied in frustration. "What else would I give 'im after-?"
"It's too salty!" the Doctor continued, finally apparently swallowing the walnuts.
"What about this?" Agatha asked, passing him another jar which the Doctor only consulted for a split-second before he opened it and tossed the contents down his throat once more.
"What's that?" Martha asked.
"Anchovies," Agatha replied, only for the Doctor to start gesturing once again, his hands facing outwards with the fingers outstretched.
"OK, so this time you need... what, ten of something?" Martha asked, privately wondering how much longer this was going to take; even with the Doctor's physiology, surely he could only stand arsenic in his system for so long...
"It's a... song?" Donna asked, voicing her own opinion of what was taking place before her. "Uh... I don't know... Camptown Races?"
"Camptown Races?" the Doctor repeated, swallowing the anchovies and looking incredulously at Donna.
"Look, we'll worry about your charades skills later; what do you need?" Martha asked urgently.
"It's a shock!" the Doctor yelled, his body almost shaking as he looked urgently between them, still waving his hands. "Look! Shock! I need a shock!"
"Right then," Donna said resolutely as the Doctor bent over to gasp for breath. "Big shock, coming up!"
With that, she grabbed the Doctor's shoulders, pushed him so that he was standing up in front of her, and then pulled him down to kiss him directly on the lips, the Doctor momentarily unable to do anything more than follow Donna as she pulled them both back towards the counter behind her before she released the Time Lord. As soon as he was free again, the Doctor stumbled back to the counter that he'd been leaning against earlier, his eyes wide with shock as he threw his head back and exhaled a cloud of grey smoke.
As the rest of the people in the room could only stare in shock and confusion at the recent actions of the man before them, the Doctor took a few deep breaths as he rested against the counter before he stepped away from it, a broad smile on his face despite his recent near-death experience.
"Detox!" the Doctor said, wiping his mouth as he took another few deep breathes through his broadly-smiling mouth. "I must do that more often!"
Then his eyes widened as he noted the pointed stares on Donna and Martha's face. "I meant the detox- very refreshing once you know you aren't going to die; it purges everything even slightly toxic from your body, not just the poison-, and you know I love you, Martha-!"
"Doctor," Agatha said, looking at him in clearly-shaken disbelief, her body slightly trembling as she kept her gaze fixed on him as though waiting for him to disappear or collapse, "you are impossible! Who are you?"
"Long story," the Doctor said briefly, smiling over at Agatha with an apologetic shrug and a wink before he headed for the house. "Come on, Agatha; we've got new evidence to think about!"
Clearly stuck for anything else to do after recent events, Agatha walked hurriedly after the Doctor, leaving Donna and Martha to exchange an awkward and pointed glance respectively before they walked out after their associates at a slightly slower place.
"So," Martha said, looking at Donna with the same pointed stare she'd originally assumed in the kitchen, "care to explain what you thought you were doing kissing my boyfriend?"
"What?" Donna asked, looking over at Martha with a genuinely hurt expression. "Look, I'm sorry, but you kissing him wasn't going to shock 'im; I had to try something-!"
"Relax," Martha said, holding up a reassuring hand as she smiled at her fellow companion. "I get why you did it, and I appreciate it; if anything had..."
The smile faded as she contemplated what might have happened if Donna hadn't taken the action she'd taken at the time, but she pushed that thought aside with equal pace; this wasn't the time to dwell on that kind of thing.
No matter how much the thought of the Doctor regenerating might simultaneously scare and comfort Martha- it might not be easy for the Doctor to be permanently killed, but that didn't mean she didn't sometimes worry about losing the Doctor who loved her if he regenerated-, it wasn't something she had to worry about now, and doing so wouldn't get anything done; right now they still had a murder to solve...
Even with her pre-existing future knowledge of Agatha's writing career, Martha couldn't help but be impressed at what the Doctor had just revealed to them; just the idea that Agatha Christie's books, even with their own author's low opinion of them, would continue to be published that far into the future...
It was times like this that she really appreciated her time with the Doctor; there was something so incredible in learning about what would remain significant in the future from her own time.
"Just out of curiosity, met any other interesting writers?" Donna asked, smiling curiously at the Doctor as she paused in her brief perusal of the Doctor's collection of Christie's works. "I mean, Agatha was great, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't mind knowing who else you've run into..."
"Well... your comment about Dickens earlier?" the Doctor said, looking over at Donna with a brief smile. "I actually did meet him surrounded by ghosts once."
"Oh, come on..." Donna began, only for her eyes to widen at the slight smile on the Doctor's face, her current experience with the Time Lord all she needed to realise what he meant by that. "You're serious?"
"Well, they weren't ghosts, per se- they were extra-dimensional entities who manifested a partially physical but intangible form on Earth in 1869-, but they met most of the criteria for ghosthood, so it's pretty much the same thing," the Doctor said with a casual shrug. "Oh, and another time I helped Arthur Conan Doyle solve the mystery of a bunch of mermaids, and don't get me started on the time I had to work with Sherlock Holmes to stop his brother leading a telepathic slug in an invasion of Earth after it made the eldest Holmes think it was a god..."
He trailed off as he took in Donna and Martha's incredulous stares. "What?"
"You... you met Sherlock Holmes?" Donna said, looking at him incredulously.
"Again, he wasn't actually called 'Sherlock Holmes'- it's just an alias that Doyle and Watson gave them when Doyle published Watson's memoirs to avoid attracting excessive attention to themselves-, but yeah, I worked with him; not a bad chap, if a bit out of depth the first trip we took," the Doctor said, looking upwards with a slightly wistful smile. "Of course, that time I ended up inspiring the wooden horse was more historically interesting, but-"
"Wait a minute; the wooden horse?" Martha asked, holding up a hand to halt him from going any further. "As in the Trojan Horse? You created it?"
"Just gave Odysseyus the idea to build it, really, and that was only because he was threatening me..." the Doctor said, shrugging awkwardly as he looked at his two companions. "As I said, it was more historically interesting, but I preferred my meetings with Winston Churchill; he might have been a bit keen on the TARDIS key, but that aside he's a decent enough chap..."
As the Doctor and his companions fell into conversation about his various past meetings with historical figures, Donna and Martha both showing a keen interest in learning how else the Doctor had met during his adventures in history- although he made a mental note not to bring up Reinette; that would definitely have started some difficult 'talks' with Martha-, the Time Lord couldn't help but enjoy the brief chance at relaxation after the difficulties of the mystery of the last few hours.
It hadn't been the most stressful experience he'd ever had, of course, but it still hadn't been the relaxing holiday they'd set out for either; sometimes, even he enjoyed the chance to go somewhere and just talk with his friends (And girlfriend, he reminded himself) without worrying about even the possibility of something else coming up...
If it hadn't been for the sudden heat being generated by the psychic paper in his pocket just as he was telling the two women about his trip to the Titanic during that mess with Huitzilin- it might have been personally difficult, but the ship had been an excellent example of engineering and design-, he might have tried to find a good leisure planet in the TARDIS databanks where they could get the rest they'd been looking for; as it was, he just hoped that, whoever or whatever had sent him this message, it wasn't about anything too serious...
