Chapter Fifteen: Giant Wasp

"Doctor!" Rose shrieked. She was genuinely terrified.

The wasp's sting, a thing that looked more like a horn than a stinger, burst through the door, splintering the wood.

"It's a giant wasp," Cassie explained as the Doctor and Agatha came running.

"What do you mean, a giant wasp?" the Doctor asked.

"I mean, a wasp, that's… giant," Cassie said, in a manner similar to the Doctor's when he explained his sonic screwdriver.

"It's only a silly little insect," Agatha said, looking at Cassie as though she was a much younger child.

Donna stepped in at this point, a little miffed by Agatha's condescending tone towards Cassie, whom she rather liked at this point. "When we say giant, we don't mean big; we mean flipping enormous! Look at its sting!"

The Doctor and Agatha looked down and saw the massive spike. "Let me see," said the Doctor, and he raced into the room to find nothing. "It's gone. Buzzed off."

Agatha faced the door and saw the sting. "But that's fascinating!" she exclaimed, bending down to look more closely.

The Doctor raced over as soon as he saw Agatha trying to investigate. "Don't touch it. Don't touch it. Let me," he said, pushing her away. He beckoned for Cassie to join him as he scooped gook, similar to the gook he found in the bedroom, into a test tube.

"Giant wasp," Cassie mused. "Well, tons of amorphous insectivorous lifeforms, but none in this galactic vector."

"I think I understood some of those words," Agatha said with a great deal of disdain. "Enough to know that you're completely potty." She gave Cassie and the Doctor another patronizing look.

"Oi!" Donna glared at Agatha, once again defending her new young friend, and the Doctor as well.

Rose, this time, was the one to bring everyone back on topic. "Lost its sting, though. That makes it defenceless."

Cassie jumped in immediately. "Oh, a creature this size? Got to be able to grow a new one." She looked up at her dad, who was grinning at her with pride.

"Can we return to sanity? There are no such things as giant wasps." Agatha's comment earned a little glare from Donna and a slight sigh from Rose.

"Exactly. So. The question is…" said the Doctor, looking at Cassie expectantly.

"What's it doing here?" Cassie finished.

All of a sudden, they heard a scream.


The Doctor, Rose, Cassie, Donna, and Agatha ran from the room and towards the scream, where they saw Chandrakala, underneath a stone gargoyle. Agatha raced to lay a hand on the woman's forehead, but the three plucky ladies stood back, knowing that it was too late.

"The poor little child," Chandrakala whispered, and she died. Just then, they heard buzzing overhead.

The Doctor stood up and pointed at the wasp in the sky, who had grown a new stinger already. "There!" he shouted, and then the wasp flew off. "Come on!"

"Hey, this makes a change," Donna mused as they followed the creature up a flight of stairs. "There's a monster, and we're chasing it." Rose laughed rather heartily, knowing the feeling exactly.

Agatha, naysayer that she was, just had to interject, "It can't be a monster. It's a trick. They do it with mirrors."

They reached the upstairs corridor, where the creature was on top of an archway or something, its sting poking holes in the ceiling.

"By all that's holy," Agatha said, her eyes widening,

"Oh, but you are wonderful," the Doctor grinned. The wasp came closer to them. "Now, just stop. Stop there."

But the wasp flew at them, scratching the wall with its new stinger. They all ducked, and Donna muttered to Rose, "My turn with the glass." Rose passed her the magnifying glass and she stood up, shouting "Oi, flyboy!" She held up the magnifying glass and the big bug buzzed back.

The Doctor ran after the wasp, saying "Don't let it get away! Quick, before it reverts back to human form. Where are you? Come on. There's nowhere to run. Show yourself!" Every single door opened and someone walked out.

"Oh, that's just cheating," Cassie groaned, once again stealing the Doctor's words. "Carrionites, remember?" she muttered. The Doctor nodded with a grin.


The whole party gathered in the drawing room. Lady Eddison was sobbing, "My faithful companion! This is terrible!"

"Excuse me, my lady," said Davenport, "but she was on her way to tell you something."

"She never found me. She had an appointment with death instead." Lady Eddison buried her head in her hands for a moment.

Cassie interjected, "She said, 'the poor little child.' Does that mean anything to anyone?" She looked around the room.

"No children in this house for years," said Curbishley. "Highly unlikely there will be."

"Mrs Christie, you must have twigged something. You've written simply the best detective stories." Lady Eddison gave Agatha a pleading look.

"Tell us, what would Poirot do?" Golightly's look was more expectant than pleading.

"Heavens sake. Cards On The Table, woman. You should be helping us." Curbishley's expression, too, was quite expectant.

"But, I'm merely a writer," Agatha stammered, her eyes quite nervous.

"But surely you can crack it. These events, they're exactly like one of your plots." Robina laid a hand on Agatha's, trying to encourage her.

Donna remembered her earlier comment about the murder-mystery and Agatha Christie. "That's what I've been saying. Agatha, that's got to mean something."

"But what?" Agatha retorted. "I've no answers. None. I'm sorry, all of you. I'm truly sorry, but I've failed. If anyone can help us, then it's the Doctor and his… plucky ladies… not me." Everyone turned to look at the Doctor, who was standing towards the corner, Rose and Cassie next to him. The Doctor's look was solemn, as was Rose's, but Cassie grinned, finally feeling appreciated and accepted by her earlier rival-in-cleverness.


Agatha retreated to a little gazebo in the yard. Donna followed her, her earlier annoyance towards the writer gone. "Do you know what I think? Those books of yours, one day they could turn them into films. They could be talking pictures."

"Talking pictures? Pictures that talk? What do you mean?"

Donna realized that the Doctor would have given her a chastising look had he been there. "Oh, blimey, I've done it again."

"I appreciate you trying to be kind, but you're right. These murders are like my own creations. It's as though someone's mocking me, and I've had enough scorn for one lifetime." She looked truly upset.

Donna continued to try to encourage Agatha. "Yeah. 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 do you know what? I moved on. I was lucky. I found the Doctor. It's changed my life. There's always someone else."

Agatha didn't really take this comment well. "I see. Is my marriage the stuff of gossip now?"

"No, I just. Sorry," said Donna, realizing her mistake.

Agatha sighed, "No matter. The stories are true. I found my husband with another woman. A younger, prettier woman. Isn't it always the way?"

"Well, mine was with a giant spider, but, same difference." Donna grinned.

"You and the Doctor talk such wonderful nonsense," Agatha mused. "And Cassie, and Rose. All four of you."

"Agatha, people love your books. They really do. They're going to be reading them for years to come." Donna plowed on in her encouragement.

"If only. Try as I might, it's hardly great literature. Now that's beyond me. I'm afraid my books will be forgotten, like ephemera." She sighed, and then she noticed something. "Hello, what's that? Those flower beds were perfectly neat earlier. Now some of the stalks are bent over." She rushed for the flower bed and picked up a small, black case.

"There you go. Who'd ever notice that? You're brilliant!" Donna grinned brightly and led her new friend to the sitting room.


The Doctor opened the case, revealing a whole set of lock-picking tools. "Ooooh…"

"Someone came here tooled up," Cassie remarked. "The sort of stuff a thief would use. What do you think, Agatha?"

"The Unicorn! He's here!" Agatha exclaimed.

"Oh, you're right! I forgot about that!" She was telling the truth, too - she had indeed forgotten the Unicorn in all this excitement. "The Unicorn and the Wasp…"

Just then, Greeves entered the room. "Your drinks, ladies, Doctor."

"Very good, Greeves," said the Doctor. "Thank you." Greeves left the room.

"How about the science stuff?" asked Donna. "What did you find?" For the Doctor, Rose, and Cassie had gone to examine the wasp gook in the TARDIS while Donna was talking to Agatha.

"Vespiform sting," said the Doctor. Donna gave him a "well what the hell does that mean?" look.

"They have hives in the Silfrax galaxy," Cassie said, trying to explain. Donna rolled her eyes.

"Again, you talk like Edward Lear," said Agatha.

"But for some reason, this one's behaving like a character in one of your books," said the Doctor, sort of ignoring Agatha's comment.

"Come on, Agatha. 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, Miss Marple. Who writes those?" Cassie sighed. Again with the not-yet thing. She'd have to have a talk with Donna about this.

"Er, copyright Donna Noble. Add it to the list." Donna shot Cassie an apologetic look. Cassie shook her head. Later, she thought, trying to send Donna a telepathic message. Judging by the nod, she got it.

"I've been poisoned!" the Doctor shouted. He was crouching, bent over in pain.

Rose ran to him and put her arms around him. "What do we do?"

Cassie went to sniff the drink. "Bitter almond," she murmured.

"It's cyanide!" Agatha exclaimed. "Sparkling cyanide."

The Doctor, meanwhile, ran for the kitchen, stumbled in, and grabbed Davenport the footman. "Ginger beer!" he shouted.

"I beg your pardon?" asked the footman.

"I need ginger beer," the Doctor exclaimed, as though that made a bit of sense. He found the ginger beer and began to guzzle it.

Agatha ran in behind him and the others. "I'm an expert in poisons. Doctor, there's no cure. It's fatal." Rose began to cry softly.

"Not for him," Cassie explained with a soft smile. "He's stimulating the inhibited enzymes into reversal." She took her mother's hand, trying to calm her down.

The Doctor spit out the ginger beer, which went flying across the room. "Protein! I need protein!" He began to hyperventilate in a somewhat rhythmic fashion.

Donna came back with a bottle of walnuts. "Walnuts?" she asked.

"Brilliant!" The Doctor shoved the walnuts into his mouth, and then began miming the next thing he needed.

"I can't understand you. How many words? One. One word. Shake. Milk shake. Milk? Milk? No, not milk? Shake, shake, shake. Cocktail shaker. What do you want, a Harvey Wallbanger?" Donna was clearly terrible at charades.

"Harvey Wallbanger?!" Cassie exclaimed.

"Well, I don't know!" Donna retorted.

"How is Harvey Wallbanger one word?" Cassie asked. Rose at this point was practically sobbing. "Shhhh…" she murmured to her mum. "It's going to be fine."

"What do you need, Doctor?" asked Agatha, trying to keep things moving.

"Salt. I was miming salt. It's salt. I need something salty." He rolled his eyes a bit.

Donna grabbed something from a shelf. "What about this?"

"What is it?" asked the Doctor, still hyperventilating.

"Salt!"

"No, too salty!" the Doctor replied.

"Oh, that's too salty!" Donna looked a bit exasperated.

"What about this?" Agatha handed something to the Doctor. Apparently liking it, he downed the contents of the jar.

"What's that?" Rose asked, trying to not cry.

"Anchovies," Agatha explained. The Doctor then began miming something else.

"What is it? What else? It's a song? Mammy! I don't know. Camptown Races?" Donna was possibly worse at this charades round than at the last one."

"Camptown Races?" The Doctor seriously couldn't believe how awful this woman was at charades. The four of them needed to practice together… anyway.

"Well, alright then, Towering Inferno." Donna seemed more than a bit annoyed.

"It's a shock. Look, shock. I need a shock." The Doctor made the motion again.

"I've got this one," said Cassie. "Big shock, coming right up." She pulled her sonic screwdriver out of her pocket and pointed it at the Doctor. He jumped about half a foot in the air and then blew grey smoke from his mouth, the detox complete.

"Oh, Cassie, that was brilliant!" he laughed, grabbing his daughter and lifting her into the air. "A shock!" He spun her around. "That's my girl! All that ingenuity! Oh, Cassie, you are clever. You are so clever."

"What did you do with that?" Donna asked.

"Shot him with a harmless but definitely somewhat painful bolt of sonic energy." Cassie grinned brightly.

"The three of you are impossible," said Agatha. "Who are you?"

The Doctor wasn't paying attention to Agatha, looking at Rose instead. She had at this point buried her face in her hands. "Never mind that," he muttered. He walked over to Rose and put an arm around her shaking shoulder. "Rose, what is it?"

"I thought you were going to die!" she sobbed. Cassie took Agatha and Donna out of the room, under the guise of looking for more clues.

The Doctor wrapped his other arm around Rose, pulling her into a close hug. "I wouldn't die, Rose," he murmured into her hair, so only she could hear. "I'd regenerate… although I suppose you wouldn't have liked that either. It's okay, though. I knew I'd make it. My plucky young ladies would get me through. Right? My plucky girls? You three can get me through anything." He grinned brightly, but Rose continued to cry into his shoulder. Okay, time to try something different.

"Shhhh," he soothed, deciding that just holding her was what she needed. "Rose, it's alright now. All okay. Shhhh…" He began to gently stroke her hair, trying to calm her down, murmuring soft words of comfort into her ear. "Hey," he said softly. "Rose, look at me."

She tilted her head up to meet his eyes, thinking she was about to hear some particular words of comfort. Instead, he brushed a thumb across her cheek and pulled her in for a kiss.

The kiss lasted less than five seconds, but it had an effect. As he pulled away, he could see that she had stopped crying. "See?" he said gently. "I'm okay." He was about to lead her to follow the others, but then he realized he had one more thing to say. Pulling her in close one more time, he whispered "I love you" into her hair and then took her by the hand out of the kitchen.


All cheesiness set aside, it was a dark and stormy night, and the party had sat down in the dining room to have dinner.

"A terrible day for all of us," the Doctor mused. "The Professor struck down, Miss Chandrakala taken cruelly from us, and yet we still take dinner."

"We are British, Doctor. What else must we do?" Lady Eddison was significantly more composed than earlier, but the sadness was clear in her voice.

"And then someone tried to poison me," said the Doctor. "Any one of you had the chance to put cyanide in my drink. But it rather gave me an idea."

"And what would that be?" Golightly raised an eyebrow.

"Well, poison. Drink up." The entire party stopped drinking the soup except for Cassie, who had a feeling she knew what her dad had done. "I've laced the soup with pepper," he finished. Cassie nodded, her hunch correct.

"Ah, I thought it was jolly spicy," said Curbishley.

"But the active ingredient of pepper," said Cassie, "is piperine, traditionally used as an insecticide. So, anyone got the shivers?

All of a sudden there was a great big crash of thunder. The windows blew open and shattered. The candles blew out, and everyone gasped.

"What the deuce is it?" Curbishley exclaimed.

Cassie shushed everyone, saying "Listen, listen, listen, listen." A buzzing sound filled the room. Lightning flashed even more than before.

"It can't be," Lady Eddison muttered.

Everyone tried to leave the room. "Nobody move! Don't! Stay where you are," the Doctor shouted. But it was too late. The wasp had appeared, and everyone panicked. "Out, out, out, out, out, out!" And everyone fled.


Hey y'alls! Here's the next installment of Unicorn and the Wasp! I really like the development of the dynamic between Agatha and Cassie. HBU?

A note for everyone: I AM NOT going to be rewriting any more episodes until Stolen Earth/Journey's End. So no River, no Midnight, no Turn Left (not that that last one would make sense to write anyway). Sorry!

After this, there's going to be another TFTH cross in which the crossed story will be told in sort of alternating chapters, and then moving right along to Stolen Earth/Journey's End, which is going to be way modified as obviously Rose is already present. And, as anyone who knows me (or has read "Donna Noble, Psychiatrist's Field Day) knows, I freaking HATE the metacrisis plotline so that ain't happening.

As always, thank you to Rachel, Jubilee, and everyone else who reads and reviews. You are my inspiration and motivation!

Love,

Kate xxx