Hello all! With my beta back, it means a new chapter! I'm actually working on the next one, don't worry. Hope you will like it, don't forget to tell me what you think of it, it's always nice to know :) Have fun with this chapter!
Thank you to my beta who worked on that chapter even when her life was so busy.

Chapter 22

The atmosphere was definitely morose as Donna and Rose entered the room. Donna had been tasked with asking the questions, as Rose had been trying her best to find arrangements with Greeves for poor Roger. At the same time, she also tried her best to comfort Davenport, but he had refused to even see anyone, claiming that he was trying to mend his broken heart in private.

"Poor Davenport," said Rose with sadness. "He was supposed to go on without anyone knowing about him and Roger. It's terrible…"

Donna scoffed. "I don't get it. It's 1926, time to come into the modern age, not the dark ages."

"Did you inquire after the necklace?" Agatha asked excitedly.

Donna nodded as they sat down in one of the sofas. "Lady Eddison bought it back from India. It's worth thousands."

The Doctor was still pacing around trying to find the piece that completed the puzzle. He was so occupied in his thoughts, that he hadn't noticed Rose and Donna's return or the conversation that they were having with Agatha. "This thing can sting. It can fly. It could wipe us all out in seconds. Why is it playing this game?" he wondered aloud while sinking into the chair.

"Every murder is essentially the same." Agatha shrugged as if it was a key piece of evidence. "They are committed because somebody wants something."

"But what does a Vespiform want?" The Doctor was frustrated, and it was starting to show as he stood up and started to pace again.

"Money maybe?" Rose offered tentatively. For once she was stumped.

Agatha rolled her eyes. "You two stop it. The murderer is as human as you or I."

The Doctor stopped short and turned around so fast, he almost collided with the furniture. "You're right!" he yelled, making Agatha jump in surprise. "Ah, I've been so caught up with giant wasps that I've forgotten." His hair was now looking like he had gone through a hurricane with how much he had pulled it, making Rose smile at his adorableness. "You're the expert."

She scoffed at the nonsense. "I'm not. I told you. I'm just a purveyor of nonsense," she said with an indulgent smile, like she was talking to a child.

But the Doctor was not deterred. "No. No. No. Because plenty of people write detective stories, but yours are the best." He was now pacing with more vigor, but this time from excitation. "And why? Why are you so good, Agatha Christie? Because you understand. You've 've fought. You've had your heart broken." He had a brief look to Rose who felt her heart skip a beat involuntarily. "You have a way of understanding people at their core. Their passions. Their hope and despair. And most importantly: their anger. All of those tiny, yet huge things that can turn the most ordinary person into a killer. Just think, Agatha. If anyone can solve this, it's you. "

And just like that Agatha Christie had an idea.

As they were all gathered in the room, Rose could not help but feel like she was in one of those Hercule Poirot episodes that her mom would watch obsessively when she was a kid. He had been a fixed part of those lazy Sunday with her mom, when it had been too rainy or too cold to play outside. And now she was almost waiting for him to come in and announce the murderer. She smiled at the image, especially as she observed the present crowd. Saying it would be a surprise would be an understatement, she amused herself thinking. She wondered who would be the most surprised? The Doctor or Donna? But before she could dwell on that, the Doctor made his entrance, closing the door with a dramatic flourish. She heard Donna snorting behind her, visibly entertained by the dramatism of their friend.

"I've called you here on this Endless Night," he started, moving from person to person, his hands crossed behind his back. Looking each of them suspiciously. "Because we have a murderer in our midst." He held a second of silence, increasing the theatrics of his demeanor. He was really enjoying this, Rose mused. "And so, when it comes to detection of those murderers, there's none finer. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Agatha Christie." Like she was waiting for that moment, Agatha opened the door, appearing triumphant on the door frame, smiling like she knew all of their secrets.

Rose and Donna exchanged a look, not really sure what was happening. Agatha had just started to explain what she was thinking, when the Doctor had charged them to summon everyone. And they obviously had been busy while they were gone.

"This is a crooked house," she started almost as theatrically than the Doctor. "A house of secrets." She walked slowly, knowing all eyes were on her. "To understand the solution, we must examine them all." She turned to the youngest in the room. "Starting with you, Miss Redmond."

They all turned to her in one move. "But I'm innocent, surely?" Robina said, however with a touch of nervousness in her voice.

"You've never met these people, and these people have never met you," continued Agatha with a confidence that Rose found fascinating. The author really was in her element. "I think the real Robina Redmond never left London. You're impersonating her."

Robina scoffed. "How silly. What proof do you have?"

"You said you'd been to the toilet," Agatha alleged with a twinkle of triumph in her eyes.

Rose straightened suddenly, but Donna was the fastest. "Oh, I know this. If she was really posh, she'd say loo." She exclaimed, excitation written all over her face.

Agatha picked up the locksmith case and put it on the table in front of the whole assembly. "Earlier today, Miss Noble and I found this on the lawn, right beneath your bathroom window. You must have heard that Miss Noble was searching the bedrooms, so you panicked. You ran upstairs and disposed of the evidence."

"I've never seen that thing before in my life," Robina firmly denied the charge.

"What's inside?" Rose asked, as she had been out of the room when they had examined the case.

Agatha smiled, pleased by the question."The tools of your trade, Miss Redmond. Or should I say, the Unicorn. You came to this house with one sole intention: to steal the Firestone."

Suddenly the demeanor of miss Redmond completely changed. "Oh, all right then." She started, a cockney accent replacing the proper one she had been talking with since their first encounter. "It's a fair cop. Yes, I'm the bleeding Unicorn." She turned to Rose who was still surprised by the sudden change. "Ever so nice to meet you, I don't think. I took my chance in the dark and nabbed it. Go on then, you knobs, arrest me. Sling me in jail." She tossed the firestone to the Doctor, who grabbed without missing a beat.

"So is she the murderer?" asked Donna with genuine interest.

"Well I would say she is a thief, not really a killer," Rose said to Donna who was visibly way too deeply invested. "I mean be the unicorn AND the killer? Bit much, no?"

Robina nodded firmly. "Blondie is right. It's already hard enough to steal, killing is way above my paygrade."

"And that mean we come to you, Colonel," Agatha said, trying her best to regain the attention of the room.

But before she could finish, the colonel stood up, a defeated air on his face as everyone exchanged shocked looks. "Damn you woman, you rumbled me."

"He can walk now?" Donna whispered in Rose's direction, who was just as lost as her. As Lady Eddison and her husband were talking in the background.

"I suppose? I mean, I think I lost the plot somewhere between dinner and now, and I'm not really sure I understand what is happening," she whispered back, making Donna crack up.

"Ladies, behave…" hissed the Doctor, who had been mostly silent since Agatha had took the floor.

They turned their attention to the scene at play, realizing that now the writer was showing the Firestone around. "Far more than the Unicorn's object of desire. The Firestone has quite a history. Lady Eddison."

"I've done nothing!" Lady Eddison exclaimed with an affronted air.

"You brought it back from India, did you not?" Agatha continued as if Lady Eddison had not spoken out. But her expression was now softened, almost pitying. "Before you met the Colonel, you came home with malaria. And then confined yourself to this house for six months, in a room that has been kept locked ever since, which I rather think means…"

Rose gasped at the insinuation. "Oh my god, you were pregnant!" she cried out under the surprise. She crossed the choked gaze of the Doctor and the amused one of Donna and realized she said it aloud. "Sorry…" she said, slightly embarrassed.

Clemency suddenly broke down, her english persona melting down under old grief. "My poor baby. I had to give him away. The shame of it."

"But you never said a word…" said her husband, as much as loss than the rest of them.

She swabbed her cheek with a tissue, gaining her composure once again. "I had no choice. Imagine the scandal. The family name. I'm British. I carry on."

"And it was no ordinary pregnancy, right?" the Doctor said suddenly, taking part of the scene once again. "When you heard that buzzing sound in the dining room, you said 'it can't be'. Why did you say that?"

"You'd never believe it."

"Try us," said Rose as gently as possible.

She straightened up, looking right through them. "It was forty years ago, late one night in the heat of Delhi. I was alone, and that's when I saw it. A dazzling light in the sky. The next day, he came to the house." She sighed, deeply into her own memories. "Christopher. The most handsome man I'd ever seen. Our love blazed like a wildfire. I held nothing back. And in return, he showed me the incredible truth about himself. He'd made himself human, to learn about us. This was his true shape. I loved him so much, but it didn't matter. However, he was stolen from me. 1885, the year of the great monsoon. The river Jumna rose up and broke its banks. He was taken at the flood. Christopher left me a parting gift though. A jewel like no other. I wore it everywhere I went, keeping it always close. Part of me never forgot."

They all looked at her, moved by her little speech. And Rose could not help but feel a kinship to that poor woman. When she had been separated from the Doctor, she had not been able to be separated from her TARDIS key, the only physical souvenir she had of him. But forty years without being able to talk… She didn't know how she did it.

Before the silence could stretch much longer, Agatha said, "A poor little child. Forty years ago, Miss Chandrakala took that newborn babe to an orphanage. But Professor Peach worked it out. He found the birth certificate."

"Oh, that's maiden. Maiden name!" blurted out Donna, feeling like everything was starting to make sense. When Agatha nodded, she continued, "So she killed him?"

"I did not!" Clemency denied with force. "I never did such a thing."

"Lady Eddison is innocent," Agatha declared with a smile before turning to the Doctor. "Because at this point, Doctor..."

The Doctor nodded and with a smile, walked to the centre of the room, secretly pleased to have all the attention on him. "Thank you. At this point, when we consider the lies and secrets, and the key to these events, then we have to consider it was you, Donna Noble." He pointed to Donna, who looked around with surprise.

"Wait. You killed someone?" asked Rose, who was starting to feel like she had missed a huge part of the movie.

"No!" Donna exclaimed. Then turned to the Doctor with a shadow of doubt. "Did I?"

"No." He sighed, feeling he was the only one in the room with an ounce of sanity at this point. "But you said it all along. The vital clue. This whole thing is being acted out like a murder mystery, which means it was you, Agatha Christie," he finished with a maniac smile, making Rose and Donna inhale sharply.

"She killed them?" They asked at the same time.

"No. But she wrote. She wrote those brilliant clever books. And who's her greatest admirer? The Moving Finger points at you, Lady Eddison."

That's it. Rose had enough, she was all for theatrality but if the Doctor continued to play with her nerves, she swore she was going to choke him. "For the love of God, who is the killer?" she asked, exasperation written all over her face.

He rolled his eyes at her impatience. "I'm on it Rose, all in good time." He turned again to Clemency. "Last Thursday night, what were you doing?"

"I was in the library. I was reading my favourite Agatha Christie, thinking about her plots, and how clever she must be. But how is that relevant?" She was doing her best to respond but was visibly as lost as the rest of them.

"Just think. What else happened on Thursday night?" He turned around suddenly, fixing Golightly with his piercing stare.

"What?" asked the priest uncomfortably.

The Doctor took out his spec, placing them in his pocket. "You said on the lawn this afternoon. Last Thursday night, those boys broke into your church."

"That's correct. They did. I discovered the two of them. Thieves in the night. I was most perturbed. But I apprehended them."

"Oh, my God," gasped Clemency as the rest of the room was realizing what was happening. "My son?"

"Your child has come home." The Doctor smiled gently, a hint of sadness in his voice. Rose knew that he was thinking of Gallifrey. About how the possibility of returning home was forever lost to him. And she fought against everything in her to get up and hug him right that instant.

"You found those thieves, Reverend," continued the Doctor, not noticing Rose's turmoil. "And you got angry. A proper deep anger for the first time in your life, and it broke the genetic lock. You changed. You realised your inheritance. After all these years, you finally knew who you were. Oh, and then it all kicks off, because this isn't just a jewel." He tossed the Firestorm lightly in his hand. "It's a Vespiform telepathic recorder. It's part of you, your brain, your very essence. And when you activated, so did the Firestone. It beamed your full identity directly into your mind. And, at the same time, it absorbed the works of Agatha Christie directly from Lady Eddison. It all became part of you. The mechanics of those novels formed a template in your brain. You've killed, in this pattern, because that's what you think the world is. It turns out, we are in the middle of a legitimate murder mystery." He turned to the writer with a smile. "One of yours, Agatha."

"So he killed them, yes? Definitely?" Donna asked, who was probably the only one who had followed everything.

The Doctor nodded sadly. "Yes."

Golightly stood up brutally, a forced smile on his face. "Well, this has certainly been a most entertaining evening. Really, you can't believe any of this surely, Lady Eddizzon." The slight buzzing sound made everyone sit up more upright.

"Lady who?" asked the Doctor flippantly after a few seconds.

Rose stood up as the vicar started to look more and more angry by the second. "Lady Eddizzzzon," he repeated as the buzzing sound became more and more prevalent.

As the Doctor continued to egg him on, trying to make him change, Rose turned to Donna who was clearly ready to jump in if needed. "Maybe it's time to get everyone out?" she suggested with a smile. The redhead acquiesced and without another word was out of her chair and near the door.

"Damn it, you humanzz, worshipping your tribal sky godzz," Golightly yelled as his body was vibrating on himself. He was moving closer and closer to the Doctor who looked completely impassive. "I am so much more. That night, the universe exploded in my mind. I wanted to take what wazz mine." He faced Agatha, his face almost a blur. "And you, Agatha Christie, with your railway station bookstall romancezz. What'z to stop me killing you? What'zz to stop me killing you all?" He turned around, but only Rose and Donna were facing him. The rest of the group were now long gone.

Rose smiled. "Sorry, just us now. Disappointed?"

The alien screeched, his body rapidly changing from human to alien. It took him only a few seconds to become the wasp they had tried to chase after during the day. Rose was ready to face him, her body taking a stand in front of Donna. She really hoped the Doctor had a plan, because at the moment the only thing they had to face the alien was luck, and maybe a chair if she was fast enough. But before anyone had time to move, Agatha ran towards the Doctor and snatched the Firestone from his hands.

"No. No more murder," she pled, sadness creeping from her voice. "If my imagination made you kill, then my imagination will find a way to stop you, foul creature." And just like that, she ran out of the door.

"Agatha!" screamed the Doctor, before taking off after her. Donna and Rose were quick to follow.

As they ran down the different corridors, Donna could not help but smile, making Rose question her sanity.

"What?" She asked, a little out of breath.

"Well, now it's chasing us. Interesting change I believe," Donna replied cheekily, making Rose roll her eyes.

Children, they were all children.

"There she is!" the Doctor yelled as Donna closed the front door. "Agatha stop! What are you doing?" he screamed as they saw the author entering a car.

"If I started this, Doctor, then I must stop it!" She blared the horn multiple times, just enough to have wasp burst out the door, narrowingly avoiding Donna. And before he could move, she drove off, spraying gravel everywhere.

As the wasp flew off after Agatha, Rose turned to the Doctor with a frown. "Now how are we going to keep up with them? I suppose you know how to drive one of those?"

"Well!" He took out the sonic and pointed it at one of the cars. "Only one way to find out!"

Donna would never admit it, but when the Doctor showed that the TARDIS wasn't the only vehicle that he drove badly, she let out a tiny scream and held tight as the Doctor frantically drove to catch up.

As they stopped by the Silent Pool lake, the Doctor was the first one out of the door, visibly scared by the possibility of losing Agatha Christie today. "Stop!" he screamed as he saw the author near the lake, the alien only a few meters beside her.

"Here I am, the honey in the trap. Come to me, Vespiform," Agatha called, ready to jump into the water.

They all moved little by little, trying their best to not spook anyone. " She's controlling it," Donna whispered to them. "Maybe we can work on that?"

The Doctor nodded, his eyes not moving from Agatha and the wasp. "Its mind is based on her thought processes. They're linked."

Agatha looked briefly to him and smiled. "Quite so, Doctor. If I die, then this creature might die with me."

"Maybe we can help him change!" Rose answered desperately, trying to find a different solution. "Nobody has to die!"

"Rose is right," continued the Doctor, trying his best to reach the Vespiform. "You just had been programmed that way. It's just the wrong template."

But as they were pleading with Agatha and the Vespiform, Donna had moved away from them. Then without giving anyone the time to think, she took to Firestorm from Agatha's hands and threw it into the lake. As the stone plunked into the water, they watched in horror as the wasp followed suit, disappearing into the clear water.

"Too much was at stake…" Donna said, looking at them with sadness. "Gone, just like his father," she added, looking at the water bubbling in the distance.

The Doctor rubbed his eyes, tired beyond measure. "It couldn't help himself."

"So much death. And for what?" Rose added wistfully, as the water was losing color by the second. "Just the wrong thing at the wrong time."

Donna stared at her, curiosity written all over her face. "What do you mean?"

"If Lady Eddison had been gardening or reading a romance novel, everything would have been different. Like I said, wrong things, wrong time."

The Doctor started to open his mouth, when suddenly Agatha doubled over in extreme pain, kneeling on the soft ground.

"Oh, it's the Firestone," the Doctor explained as Donna was trying her best to support Agatha, who was quickly losing conscience. "It's part of the Vespiform's mind. It's dying and it's connected to Agatha." The Doctor looked agitated, realizing they could do nothing except watch. But before he could panic even more, a soft purple glow enveloped her for a few seconds before disappearing, making her go limp in Donna arms. " He let her go," he said while looking at the still water, melancholy creeping from his voice. "Right at the end, the Vespiform chose to save someone's life."

"Is she going to be alright?" Rose asked, as she was trying to help Donna with the unconscious body of the writer.

He shrugged. "Of course. The amnesia. Wiped her mind of everything that happened. The wasp, the murders."

Donna looked at the woman who had been a friend for a day, and she could not help but feel a little bit in mourning. "And us. She'll forget about us," she added in a whisper.

"Yeah, but we've solved another riddle! The mystery of Agatha Christie. Tomorrow morning, her car was found by the side of a lake. A few days later, she turns up in a hotel at Harrogate with no idea on how she got there, or where she's been."

Rose looked at the peaceful face of Agatha. "And now what do we do?" She could not help but ask. Because they were actually in the middle of practically nowhere with a body and a car with probably not enough space to have them all without some issues. Especially with one of them completely unconscious.

He sighed, looking at the view with some thoughtfulness. "Well, first we need to drop Agatha at the hotel and then…"

"And then?" asked Rose as the silence continued to stretch.

He looked at her, his face becoming serious and somber. "We talk."