A/N: As always, much love and many thanks to all of you lovely viewers! Your feedback is always greatly appreciated! :D


Chapter 28: The Unicorn and the Wasp Part 2

The Doctor wasn't too pleased to have his wife wandering around a posh mansion with a murderer of alien origin lingering in the quarters. He'd much rather prefer Rose to be by his side, but he trusted her enough to let her go off and do her own thing when investigating. He turned back to face the author and noticed her watching him.

"Your wife helps you solve murder cases?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied with a nod. "Like I said earlier, she's very observant and a natural when it comes to making deductions. Can't really stay away from the excitement, right then!" He bounced on the balls of his feet, a wide grin on his face. "Solving a murder mystery with Agatha Christie. Brilliant!"

"How like a man to have fun while there's disaster all around him," she commented with a frown.

His smile faltered. "Sorry. Yeah."

"I'll work with you—gladly—but for the sake of justice, not your own amusement."

"Oh."

She brushed by him and he winced. He should've known that this amazing author with a great mind would be unhappy with him and his casual attitude to solving a murder case with her, but how could he not? It was Agatha Christie. Of course, he had to go off with his gob. Maybe it was a good thing Rose had chosen to go with Donna. Otherwise he'd have to hear another comment about him being Mr. Rude and Not Ginger. Didn't matter though since she still ribbed him through their bond barely a moment later.

The interviews went smoothly and not too lengthy, but gave enough evidence. Which, in other terms, ended up not being too helpful. Each of the guests recounted their stories of what they were doing at a quarter past four this afternoon.

Reverend Golightly claimed to have been alone in his room unpacking, adding that when one is 'with the Lord, one is never truly alone.' Roger claimed to have been outside walking alone, but based on the way his pupils were dilated as he spoke in the same way they had been when the young man was standing beside Davenport, it lead to belief he was having a tryst with him. Colonel Hugh claimed he was reading military memoirs in the study, but based on his faraway look, it was likely that Rose's earlier guess at what the man was reading was true. Good thing there wasn't a bet made on that one. Robina claimed to have been using the toilet, preparing herself while buzzing with excitement about the party and meeting Lady Eddison. Dodgy, he noted. Finally Lady Eddison claimed to having been drinking tea as her custom, but the smell of alcohol on her breath was evident.

Long story short, there were no alibis.

The Doctor and Agatha paced around the sitting room, gathering their thoughts and discussing everything they learned. He had a cuppa in his hand and drank from it, feeling it warm up his insides in a way he never had felt before. Why was that? Really good tea, he thought.

"The secret adversary remains hidden," the author said. "We must look for a motive. Use the little grey cells," she added with a Belgian accent.

"Oh, yes, little grey cells," he said, placing his cup in the dish and plopping down in the chair. "Good old Poirot. Y'know, I've been to Belgium before. Yeah…"

His mind went off into recounting as he remembered a past adventure where he, Rose, and Donna arrived for a feast at a castle where Charlemagne held court. It was an accidental route, but they tried to make the best of it. Charlemagne was meant to become the Roman Emperor until he was abducted by an insane computer and the history was endangered. They had searched for him, roaming deep in the Ardennes trying to find Charlemagne with a bow and a quiver. And there was something about a poisonous soup. They warned him at the end about it when everything was fixed and told him he should treat the odd events as if they were a dream caused by too much cheese the previous night.

"What the hell are you doin'?"

His eyes snapped open at the sound of Rose's voice in his mind which, by chance, was also at the same time Agatha had called him. "Sorry," he said to both women. He quickly sent a mental note to his wife and she said they found nothing yet.

"Charlemagne lived centuries ago," Agatha said, confused.

"I've got a good memory," he answered casually.

"For such an experienced detective, you missed a big clue."

He arched an eyebrow. "What, that bit of paper you nicked out of the fireplace?"

"You were looking the other way!" she protested, shocked that he knew.

"Yeah, but I saw you reflected in the glass of the bookcase," he replied.

Agatha smiled. "You crafty man."

He smirked. "I can't take all the credit, though. Rose caught you too, right in the corner of her eye."

"A wily pair you make. Very observant." She reached into her purse and pulled out the scrap. "This is all that was left."

The Doctor leaned forward and placed his tea on the small table before sprinting over to have a look. A word was printed out on it but the first letter was smudged. "What's that first letter? 'M' or 'N'?"

"It's an 'M'," Agatha said. "The word is 'maiden'."

"Maiden!" he shouted, causing her to jump. He lowered his voice. "What does that mean exactly?"

Agatha sighed and shook her head. "We're still no further forward. Our nemesis remains at large. Unless Mrs. Tyler and Miss Noble have found something."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Still wandering through the halls upstairs in the manor, Rose and Donna worked in companionable silence as they searched through every bedroom they came across. They had to have been at this for over twenty minutes and they found no further clues to the murder case of the professor in the library, not even another smudge of the residue. It was getting tedious, but they weren't stopping until each and every crack in this place was examined.

Through their bond Rose was able to pick up little tidbits of information that the Doctor had leaked in regards to the guests he and Agatha were questioning. From what she gathered from the pieces he sent her none of the guests had an alibi and the case was in the same spot it was since they first found the body. He did say to keep a close eye on on each of the guests. Everyone was a suspect no matter what they claimed to have been doing at the time of death, so they needed to be cautious around others and try not to trust them. So far there hasn't been any other scraps of evidence that could put the pieces of the puzzle together.

He did let her know that he called her out on the unburnt piece of paper found by the fireplace she had taken, as he said he would. And of course he was proud of himself for noticing. The Doctor wouldn't be himself without that massive Time Lord ego of his. He didn't take all the credit though and let her have some as well, as he should. Sometimes he would miss things so it was always a good thing she was, as he said earlier, a natural when it comes to deductions. He informed her that it read 'maiden' for some reason and didn't really answer anything.

"Rose?"

She blinked a few times and saw Donna watching her. "Sorry, zoned out for a bit."

"Talking with your mind again?"

"Yeah. Apparently none of the guests have an alibi."

"That's weird."

"You can't really believe them, though. One of them is a shapeshifter, so we gotta be careful and watch each of them closely."

Coming up to another room both women entered and searched thoroughly, sifting through papers on the wooden desk as well as the bookcases and other shelves. "Anything?" Rose asked Donna, who was on the other side of the room searching beneath the bed.

"Nothing but dust bunnies," she replied, pulling out of the space to push herself up. "I hope you don't mind, but I'm still thinking about slugging that husband of yours for calling me plucky and giving me this," she added, lightly shaking the large magnifying glass in her hand.

Rose snorted at that. "Not too hard, I hope. There's a chance he could actually blow up after taking a wild shot."

"Well, he's taken a few hard blows from you and he hasn't changed much."

"Nope. Still the same bloke—Mr. Rude and Not Ginger."

Donna shook her head and joined her by the table. "Rude's a bit of an understatement when it comes to him."

"Yeah, I'm usually the kind one. Pay no mind to him, Donna. Things like this and history just make us feel…" she trailed off with a head tilt, trying to find the right phrase to perfectly describe it.

"Like you got tarantula moving around in your stomach?" the ginger woman suggested.

Rose laughed and set her pile of papers back in their place on the desk. "That's one way to put it, I guess. But remember, you're far from bein' a plucky sidekick. You're our best friend and companion. Our partner in crime, mind you."

Donna offered a smile. "The super-temp with the large magnifying glass," she said, holding the object over her shoulder, making Rose chuckle again.

She was glad that they had taken this trip. While yes, the murder was depressing and unfortunate, it added more to the excitement around them. Now all they needed was for trouble to come into the picture. It was getting dull and boring having to look around every room on the floor—which were bland in their own rights and only added to the dullness—so they were in need to run into something at some point. Between them snooping around upstairs and the Doctor lingering in the sitting room the odds of them running into trouble was greater than his. As long as it wasn't the killer themselves, something else would make things more interesting around here.

Exiting the room after taking one last inspection around the room the women left and went back into the hall. Rose was leading the way while Donna closed the door behind them. "This is getting hopeless at this point," she commented with a sigh. "We still haven't found anything."

"We still have to keep looking," Rose said, walking down the hall. "Every room needs to get checked."

They went down to the last door at the end and went to open the door, only to find it locked. Rose frowned. That was odd. None of the other rooms were locked. Unless something was hiding in this room that could be an important clue to this case. "It's locked?" Donna asked.

"Yeah, wonder what's behind door number…whatever number this one is," Rose muttered.

She reached into her dress pocket and was about to pull out her sonic screwdriver but stopped herself when the butler suddenly appeared behind them and made her and Donna jump in surprise.

"You won't find anything in there," he said.

"How come it's locked?" Donna asked.

The butler tilted his chin up a bit. "Lady Eddison commands it so," he responded.

Rose licked her lips and nodded, keeping a professional manner. "Well, I'm afraid we're gonna have to make you open it, Mr…I'm sorry, what was your name again, sir?"

"Greeves, my lady," the butler answered with a small bow.

"Right. Mr. Greeves, we'll need to have this room unlocked. It's a part of this investigation so we have to check every room. We promise to let you lock it back up once we're finished."

Greeves nodded stiffly before moving to unlock the door with a key he kept in his pocket. "Why's it locked in the first place?" Donna asked.

"Many years ago, when my father was butler to the family, Lady Eddison returned from India with malaria," the butler explained. "She locked herself in this room for six months until she recovered. Since then, this room has remained…undisturbed."

Rose arched an eyebrow. Undisturbed?

When the lock clicked he stood out of the way and she pushed the door open. It creaked loudly from disuse and inside the room was unappealing like the others, but unlike those this one was covered in blankets of dust and spider webs. The room was bare save for a bureau, some shelves, a few chairs, a fireplace and a bed nearly kept with a faded teddy bear sitting at the foot. Entering she could taste the dust coating her tongue with every inhale and pulled a face.

"There's nothing in here," Greeves insisted. "Just everything kept the way it was when it was last used."

"How long's it been empty?" Donna asked, stepping further inside and looking around.

"Forty years."

"Sealed off for that long?" Rose said. "Why would she do that? Too scared about another malaria outbreak to somehow pour out?" Keeping a room closed off for forty years after an illness would seem a little too extreme, if she were honest. Why would someone keep a room locked away like this?

"All right, we need to investigate," Donna said to Greeves. "You just…butle off."

The butler turned and shut the door behind them, leaving them to survey the area. Rose took out her sonic and scanned the room in case of any alien signals or clues while heading over to the bureau. Small picture frames containing faded black and white pictures were on display, the figures barely perceptible through the covering of dust on the glass. The books on the shelves hadn't been touched and had cobwebs.

"'S a child's room," she concluded. "An abandoned kid's room."

"Looks like it," Donna said from her spot by the bed. She had picked up the teddy bear and studied it.

Suddenly Rose's ears perked up when a strange buzzing sound came to her attention. "D'you hear that?" she asked, switching off her sonic. "That buzzing."

"Yeah," the other woman said, placing the bear back on the bed. "1926 and yet they've still got bees."

"Remind us to look into that," Rose said, pocketing her sonic. "The thing with the bees disappearing."

"Blimey, what a noise!" the ginger woman exclaimed as she walked over to the drape-covered window. "All right, busy bee, I'll let you out. Hold on. I shall find you with my amazing powers of detection," she added with an affected accent.

Rose chuckled at it and continued searching the room. Then something had occurred to her. "Um, Donna?" she said with a frown. "They said this room was sealed off for forty years, yeah?"

"Right," she responded from the window, looking back at her from over her shoulder.

"Then how could a bee fly in here if everything was shut?"

Donna shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe it's outside."

Rose arched an eyebrow. "Must be a pretty big bee to be heard through the window," she muttered.

She made her way over to the bed and was about to check beneath the bed when she felt a chill shoot down her spine and she froze up. The buzzing was getting louder and she twitched at the pitch. She slowly turned to look at the drapes where Donna was standing with the magnifying glass and was about to pull them back to let the sunlight in to find this bee. And it clicked.

"Donna, don't!" Rose yelled, running over to the woman to stop her but she was too late.

When she pulled back the curtains they found the bee—which turned put to be a massive sized wasp lingering by the window. Donna screamed when the insect backed up a few inches and broke through the glass, shattering the window and sending shards flying through the air. Luckily Rose was close enough to pull her friend away from the blast and stood back by the head of the bed.

"That's impossible!" Donna cried.

"Never say impossible!" Rose yelled, whipping out her sonic and aiming it at the wasp.

She turned it on a high pitch and it made the bug screech a bit, but it was still coming at them. Cursing she maneuvered to lead the wasp away from the Ned and Donna, becoming a diversion. It wasn't wise, but she gave it a shot.

"Doctor!" Donna shouted.

"Donna!" Rose called, moving back to the foot of the bed.

Thinking fast the redhead ran over to the open space where the window had been and raised her magnifying glass up reflect in the sunlight, the beam aiming straight for the wasp. It connected with its thorax and burned it, causing it to screech in pain and flail.

"C'mon!" Rose hollered as they bolted for the door and slammed it shut behind them. "Doctor!" she alerted mentally.

"What's wrong?" he said immediately, alarmed. "What is it?"

"Pest problem! Just get up here!"

"On my way!"

"Doctor!" Donna yelled down the stairs.

"He's coming, don't worry," Rose assured. "I called him."

"Who needs phones when you two got your minds?"

At that moment the wasp's stinger came through the closed door, making the women shout and jump back. Thankfully it was at the bottom where they couldn't be pierced with it. The thing was huge and thick, looking to be the size of of a forearm. Rose pushed herself away from the door and leaned against the wall when spots formed before her eyes, blurring her vision momentarily. Her head felt like it was swimming but it eased up quickly. Must have been from the rush.

Not a moment later the Doctor and Agatha came darting down the hall. "What happened?" he asked hurriedly before placing a hand on his wife's shoulder. "You okay?"

She nodded. "I'll let you know in a second. Just a little dizzy, that's all."

"There is a giant…wasp!" Donna gasped out.

His brows furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean, giant wasp?"

"Just what it means, a wasp that's giant!" Rose said, her brows hitting her hairline. "What other way is there to put it?"

Agatha chuckled, clearly not buying that. "It's only a silly little insect."

"Little?" Rose repeated with a snort. "That ain't a little bug we just saw!"

"When we say giant, we don't mean big," Donna drew out before snapping. "We mean flippin' enormous!" She gestured at the bottom of the door where the stinger was embedded in the wood. "Just look at its sting!"

"Some little insect, huh?" Rose said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Let me see," the Doctor said as he pushed the door open and entered the room. It was empty and the wasp was nowhere to be seen. He walked around and took in the area. "It's gone," he said, moving over to the window. "Buzzed off."

"You just had to say that didn't you," Rose groaned at his bad but perfectly timed pun.

"Can't help it," he said with a cheeky grin before looking out the busted window, carefully avoiding the broken shards of glass on the window pane. He pulled back and scratched the back of his neck, turning around to observe the room. "What's the story behind this room?"

"It was locked when we came across it," Rose answered. "The butler let us in and told us that Lady Eddison kept it sealed shut for forty years."

"What for?"

"Apparently she came back from India with malaria and quarantined herself in here. No one's been in here since then. Or…at least until today, rather. And what a day to bust in, just when there's a giant bloody wasp waitin' for us."

The Doctor's mind was buzzing as he thought. He came forward and placed his hands on her upper arms. "It's gone right now, Rose, it's okay. You're not hurt? Either of you?" She shook her head. "Good. Don't worry, we'll find it and get rid of it."

"But that's fascinating," Agatha said with wonder as she knelt by the broken stinger plunged into the door.

"No no no no, don't touch it!" the Doctor barked as he rushed over to join her. "Don't lay a finger on it, it could be venomous. Just let me." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pencil and a vial with a stopper. Carefully he gathered a small sample of the substance smothering the point. "Giant wasp…well, there are tons of amorphous insectivorous lifeforms but…none in this galactic vector." He finished up and put the stopper on the tube before putting the objects away.

"I think I understood some of those words," Agatha said. "Enough to know that you're completely potty."

Rose snorted at that. "You should hear the things this one says. They're usually a lot worse." The Doctor shot her a look and she arched a brow at him.

"Lost its sting, though," Donna pointed out. "That makes it defenseless."

"A creature this size?" the Doctor said, moving his eyes over the length of the stinger. "Gotta be able to grow a new one."

"Oh, wonderful," Rose said. "Comforting to know that there can be a whole swarm of these things."

"Uh, can we return to sanity?" Agatha spoke up. "There are no such things as giant wasps."

"Exactly!" the Doctor said, rising to his feet. "So…the question is, what's it doing here?"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Leaving the bedroom the Doctor led the women down the stairs to come up with their next strategy. They needed to keep their eyes peeled for anything else suspicious in order to catch who the wasp was able to turn into. Which kind of species could this be? He was flipping through every possibility he could think of, making his mind buzz. No pun intended. Not even reaching the bottom of the flight of stairs a loud scream followed by a heavy thud came to their attention and made them freeze. He exchanged a look with Rose before dashing down the rest of the way, leaping over steps in the process to find the source.

Making it outside they saw Miss Chandrakala lying on her back on the entrance gravel path to the mansion with one of the large stone gargoyles that were placed on the corners of the roof on top of her. They ran to kneel by her side—the Doctor and Rose on one and Donna and Agatha on the other. A small trickle of blood dripped from the corner of her mouth. Rose placed a hand to the woman's head but she knew there was nothing they could do. The woman was dying from her injuries.

"The poor…little…child," she gasped out quietly before breathing her last breath, her eyes slowly slipping shut.

The Doctor placed a hand on his wife's back and looked up at where the statue had fallen from. From this position he was able to see where the statue once was on the roof, noting how the structure didn't appear cracked from natural causes—it was by force. Intentionally, at that. Judging by the size of the statue it would have to require an incredible amount of strength to shift it forward barely an inch.

A loud buzzing caused him to whip his head around to find a large insect lingering in the air above the building with a new stinger, barely blocking the sunlight. "There!" he shouted, making the others jump up. It looked to be debating its attack, but they would be coming right at it. "Come on!"

Grabbing Rose's hand he led the way as he dashed inside with the ladies hurrying behind him, making their way back up the flights of stairs to apprehend the creature.

"Well, this makes a change," Donna commented from behind. "There's a monster and we're chasing it."

"Not really much of a change, really," Rose commented.

"Can't be a monster," Agatha said, still in denial. "It's a trick. They do it with mirrors!"

They reached the top of the flight of stairs and came to a sudden stop when they found the wasp trying to enter the house through the skylight, its newly grown stinger moving around as it tried to wiggle inside.

"By all that's holy…" Agatha gasped out in shock, her complexion paling.

"Oh, but you are wonderful!" the Doctor said, an enthralled expression covering his face.

Rose shook her head. Of course her husband would be captivated by an oversized insect, it's what he did. Much like when they were trapped in Scotland with Queen Victoria and he was in a state of complete wonder when he caught sight of the werewolf that ravaged the area—at the time when they were trying to run away from the creature. Even the most threatening creature was beautiful to him.

The wasp managed to get inside the house and had its eyes set on him. "Now, just stop there," the Doctor tried to reason, holding a hand out to show peace.

Without warning the wasp rushed at them to attack, but they all ducked and dodged it. The Doctor shielded Rose as he brought her to the ground, noting how she shivered when the insect passed by their heads.

"Oi! Flyboy!" Donna called out, getting the wasp's attention as she held up the magnifying glass to threaten it with a shot of focused sunlight. It was smart and quick-witted since nothing happened, choosing to fly into the next hall.

"It's gonna attack someone else!" Rose said.

"Don't let it get away!" the Doctor yelled, rising to his feet along with his wife. "Quick, before it reverts to human form!"

They were chasing it again and entered the hallway where it had travelled. It was longer with various doors where it could have chosen to hide in.

"Where are you?" he shouted. "Come on! There's nowhere to run, show yourself!"

In unison every door opened up and each of the suspects came out, staring down the hall at him in confusion. No wasp. It switched back to human form.

His shoulders sagged. "Oh…that's just cheating."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Two murders had taken place in the house and right now they needed answers. The Doctor called all of the other guests to gather in the sitting room. He moved over to lean against a chair with Rose standing by his side, resting her elbow on his shoulder. Donna moved to sit on one of the sofas as the people entered.

"My faithful companion!" Lady Eddison cried as she sat herself down on the opposite sofa beside Roger and took out a handkerchief to dry her eyes. "This is terrible!"

"Excuse me, my lady," Davenport said as he wheeled in the woman's husband in the room to sit by her. "She was on her way to tell you something."

"She never found me," the woman said as Roger slung an arm around her shoulders. "She had an appointment with death instead."

"She said, 'the poor little child'," the Doctor told them. "Does that mean anything to anyone?"

"No children in this house for years," the colonel said with a shrug before giving Roger a sharp look. "Highly unlikely there will be."

"Mrs. Christie, you must have twigged something," Lady Eddison said, looking at Agatha. "You've written simply the best detective stories."

"Tell us…what would Poirot do?" Reverend Golightly asked.

"Heaven's sake!" the colonel piped up, almost in a desperate plea. "Cards on the table, woman! You should be helping us!"

"Oi!" Rose spoke up, annoyed. "Will you all just leave her alone? There's been two murders in this house and you lot are ganging up on her. Just stop."

"What more can we do right now?" the colonel said. "She has experience in this field with her works, she should know what to do in a situation such as this one!"

Agatha shook her head. "But…I'm merely a writer."

"But surely you can crack it," Robina told her. "These events, they're exactly like one of your plots."

"That's what I've been saying," Donna spoke up from her seat. "Agatha, that's got to mean something."

The author looked too overwhelmed by everyone pressuring her. "But what? I've no answers," she replied sadly. "None. I'm sorry, all of you, I'm truly sorry, but I've failed. If anyone can help us, it's the Doctor, not me."

The guests turned their heads to look at the Doctor expectantly, awaiting for him to do something. He arched an eyebrow and remained silent, keeping his eyes fixed on his toes. Rose's heart went out to the poor woman. These people were in a complete state of shock and how could they not be? Two suspicious murders suddenly happening on a posh estate in the middle of a party. That was hard for anyone to deal with and would make even the one with the most stone-like characteristics jitter in fear that they could become the next victim on the list. Just because Agatha was a famous writer and created some of the most brilliant and clever works and stories didn't mean that she could solve all of their problems.

She noted that the author herself had slipped away from the room altogether. Rose frowned and turned to the Doctor, who nodded once at her. He knew what she was about to go do. "Go on, go do what you do best," he thought to her. "I need to analyze the residue in the TARDIS to see what it is we're dealing with."

"'Kay. Just don't—"

"Relax, I won't lick it, I promise. I'll use necessary equipment to make more accurate analyses."

"Only telling you for your own good. You need to be told more than a couple hundred times."

He rolled his eyes and sighed. She slipped her arm away from his shoulder before leaving to follow the woman. As she walked by she caught Donna's eye and nodded in the direction she was going, prompting the redhead to join her. Searching through the house they found their way outside by a small gazebo where the woman was sitting. She sat with her elbows on her knees and her head low, staring at the ground almost in a defeated way.

Rose exchanged a look with Donna as they approached her. She appeared to be wiping away her tears and straightened her posture when she noticed them coming. "Agatha? You all right?"

"Yes," she replied, folding her hands in her lap. "I'm sorry. I just…needed a minute to collect myself."

"You don't have to be sorry," Donna said as they both took a seat beside her in the gazebo area. "After the way they were acting, it was uncalled for."

"They were acting like a bunch of swarming vultures in there the way they were ganging up on you like that," Rose added. "We'll figure this out, we promise."

"They expect me to be this heroine," Agatha said, shaking her head. "This person that can come up with strategies to help, but I'm not the one for that. I'm not the heroine they expect me to be, that's the truth of it. Not when everything is falling apart all around me."

Rose looked at her sympathetically, her heart going out to this woman. After hearing the Doctor's words on how this was a hard time for her to deal with what with her husband having an affair, she could only imagine the pain she was feeling. She was no stranger to dealing with self esteem issues, and if there was one thing she learned in her years with travelling with her husband it was that everyone was important, no matter how much they doubted themselves or put themselves down. Everyone mattered.

She reached over and placed a hand on her arm. "You're a strong woman, Agatha," she said softly. "Experiences like these are rough, believe us, we know. But that doesn't make you weak or worthless. Sometimes we have to go obstacles and pain in order to make us stronger. To prove to ourselves that we're resilient and confident to keep on going."

"Do you know what I think?" Donna put in. "Those books of yours, one day they could turn them into films. They could be talking pictures."

"Talking pictures?" the author said with a frown, confused. "Pictures that…talk? What do you mean?"

"Not yet," Rose whispered behind her hand.

"Oh, blimey, I've done it again," the redhead said with a sigh.

"I appreciate you two trying to be kind," Agatha said. "But you're right—these murders are like my own creations. It's as though someone's mocking me. I've had enough scorn for one lifetime."

"Yeah," Donna said quietly. "Thing is, I had this bloke once. I was engaged, and I loved him, I really did. Turns out he was lying through his teeth. But you know what? I moved on. I was lucky—I found the Doctor and Rose. It changed my life. There's always someone else."

Agatha's face was stone. "I see. Is my marriage the stuff of gossip now?"

"No, no," Donna said quickly. "I just—sorry."

"We're so sorry," Rose said gently. "You know how those tabloid people are like. They come after people the second they get a little bit of success and suddenly your life's turned upside down and in the public eye. It's not your fault, that lot would do anything to make a quick buck."

The author sighed, her expression becoming sad again. "No matter. The stories are true. I found my husband with another woman. A younger, prettier woman. Isn't that always the way?"

Rose frowned, being reminded of a similar incident happening to her so long ago. Back way before the Doctor ever came into her life and she ended up being around that bastard Jimmy Stone, probably the biggest regret of her life and something she could never take back. But it was all behind her now. She moved on.

"I know how you feel," she said softly, gently squeezing the woman's hand. "Before I met the Doctor I was with this bloke, and I thought I was living the greatest life. I thought it was perfect, but he wasn't the man I could find myself being with for the rest of my life. Turned out he was a liar, too. Someone who only found new ways to hurt me. He never cared for me. But I moved on with my life and left that one behind me. Then I was lucky enough to run into the man I call my husband today. He changed my life forever." She leaned closer. "There's always something else to live for, Agatha. It'll find you, you just have to give it time."

The author took a deep breath and nodded. "I hope you're right," she replied. "It just hurts knowing that I wasn't good enough for him and he went on to another woman."

"Well, mine was with a giant spider but there's not really much of a difference," Donna commented with a slight shrug.

Agatha smiled and laughed at that. "You two and the Doctor talk such wonderful nonsense."

"Been told that before," Rose said with a tongue-touched grin.

Donna snorted before turning serious. "Agatha, people love your books, they really do. They're gonna be reading them for years to come."

"If only," Agatha said with a sad smile. "Try as I might, they're hardly great literature. No, that's beyond me. I'm afraid that my books will be forgotten like ephemera."

"Don't think that way," Rose said. "With your plots and twists? They're so amazing that you'd have to read them over and over again just for the mystery and suspense."

The woman smiled faintly at that, but she appeared to be distracted by something. "Hello, what's that?" She stood up from the seat and moved closer to the flower bed down the end of the gravel path, her eyes studying the foliage. Rose and Donna followed her and crouched down with her. "Those flowerbeds were perfectly neat earlier. Now some of the stalks are bent over."

Rose narrowed her eyes as she studied the flowers. "What is it?"

Agatha then proceeded by reaching into the center of the bed and pulled out a small leather box that had been hidden.

"Way to go, Agatha!" Rose said with a beaming smile.

"Who'd ever notice that? You're brilliant!" Donna praised.

She smiled shyly as the three of them stood and made their way back inside the house, ready to share their discovery with the Doctor.


Response to newboy: Thanks! I'll start studying :D

Response to Meow: Ah, lover of angst you are, huh? I mean, I love angst and all but they really do deserve some happiness, you know. But I know things aren't always perfect for them so there's gonna be some things happening in later chapters. Oh, that sounds sadistic lol Nothing too serious but still some things to stir them up.

Response to waka waka waka: Thanks a lot! ;D Yup, you're not the only one looking forward to that scene. It'll be in the next chapter ^^