A/N: It's been a while, I know, but I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love the Doctor/Donna dynamic - "You're not mating with me, sunshine!" being one of the best lines in new who EVER. Still, this new series will most likely bring with a tidal wave of Donna love, because let's face it, the woman's fantastic.

Too Bad.

by Flaignhan

Donna wandered down the corridor, dawdling behind the rest of the group. As fascinating as this pile of cleverly arranged rocks was, Donna felt like the Pyramids at Giza were a bit of a letdown. She thought that Egypt would be one big adventure; after Christmas Eve she thought adventures were right up her street. As it was, she'd already had a stomach bug from some dodgy food, there was sand rubbing between her toes and she was sunburnt because of her stupid bloody sensitive skin. It was the curse of the ginger people, and she was quite bitter about it.

She leant against the wall to balance herself as she adjusted the strap on her sandals and tried in vain to put her plasters back in place so her blisters were at least a little protected, but after the group turned a corner she decided it was time to catch up and she'd have to deal with the consequences of stupid shoes later.

Too bad that she hadn't rested her hand against the next block of ancient stone, because after the initial shock of discovering a secret passage, she would have been over the moon to find a man with unruly brown hair and twinkling brown eyes there, listening against the wall with his stethoscope.

She was a bit more interested in the large gold statues, precious stones and lovingly made pottery. The tour guide was going through all the boring facts about what each piece had meant to whichever Pharaoh had been buried in this tomb (you lost track after the third or fourth one, dead blokes were all the same to Donna) and how the British Museum were begging the Egyptian Government to let them exhibit it back in London. He had mentioned the words 'grave robbers' and Donna's interest heightened, but he glossed over it like it was something he'd rather forget.

She was disappointed you weren't allowed to touch anything. But then, she supposed, what was the point of touching something which was thousands of years old, if thousands of sweaty little hands had touched it before you?

She peered at the casket in which the Pharaoh lay interestedly, committing the detail on it to memory. She did like the caskets. Yes, they were a bit grim, but they were also absolutely gorgeous. When she died, she didn't want a boring wooden box, she wanted a nice casket, like one of these. (She'd pass on the whole 'brains out through the nose' thing though). The tour guide called for them to continue on to the next room and Donna tore her eyes away from the casket.

Too bad that the tour guide's voice filled the room a thousand times over – had there been silence, Donna probably would have heard the frantic scratching coming from the inside of the casket, as well as a few muttered Gallifreyan expletives.

It had reached an all time low. The tour guide was talking about beetles. As far as Donna knew, beetles were not a rarity – not like Pharaohs and gold and tombs and all sorts of exciting things that this place had to offer. She very much appreciated the fact that in that hands of a more enthusiastic and livelier tour guide, this tour could have been interesting, she could even see it stretching to fun, educational and enlightening. As it was, the importance of the dung beetle seemed to get Ohmid more excited than anything else.

Donna was half hoping Brendan Fraser would turn up and they'd have some fabulous adventure involving a resurrected High Priest and a couple of old and ominous books. The most exciting thing that had so far happened was that the annoying moany woman who found more things to complain about than Donna had ever complained about in her life (and that was saying something) tripped over the foot of a statue of Anubis. (Yeah, that's right, Donna knew which Egyptians Gods were which – take that, Lance.)

Too bad Donna had rushed past her in an attempt to hide her laughter from the woman – if she'd stayed dawdling at the back, she would have seen the head of the statue turn before it slid aside to reveal a man in a brown pinstriped suit coughing up quite a lot of sand.

She was thirsty. She was hot. She was tired. Ten days into a disappointing holiday, Donna finally gave up on having any sort of adventure. The Nile Cruise had been quite good, she supposed. Choosing the right restaurant in Cairo had been choice which had the fate of her digestive system resting on it (she chose badly) but that was as life threatening as the whole thing had got. Not that she wanted things to be life threatening of course, especially when that bloody Martian was nowhere to be seen, but adrenalin had flood her body and her heart rate had tripled during that one day she'd had with him, and now she was trying to get that same fix but never quite managing it.

As she made her way to the exit, along with the rest of the group, she wondered whether she should sign up for one of those sky diving things that people did if they had more money than sense. Donna didn't have a lot of money, but according to Lance she didn't have much sense either. That thought alone was enough for Donna to decide against it, to prove she had more sense than money, even if she didn't have that much money.

She took one last longing look at the empty entrance to the pyramid before she climbed onto the coach that would take them back to Cairo, wishing that instead of getting back onto a coach filled with socks and sandals tourists, she was instead running for her life down torch lit corridors.

Too bad she hadn't looked a few seconds later. If adventure was what she was after, a wrestling match between a lanky Time Lord and a murderous looking Mummy would have been just the ticket.

The End.