"I can't take this," said the Doctor. "It's absurd!"
"It's no weirder than your box," said Chris.
"My box is excellent," said the Doctor. "It blends in. This? It blends out, is what it does."
She hammered her fists on the back of the Monk's machine.
"MONK!" she shouted. "I know you're in there! You can bloody well hear me out here!"
The back of the machine clicked open and a frizzy-haired head poked out.
"What is it now, Doctor?" said the Monk grumpily. "You going to tell me how I should always brush my teeth?"
"This," said the Doctor. "Your TARDIS. Why did you make it look like that?"
The Monk came out to look at her TARDIS also, which was jangling cheerfully and beeping electronic sounds. It had taken the form of a large arcade cabinet, of the kind you weren't likely to find in the time before Christ had been born. It was black and covered in ugly designs, with the words MS. MONK! in neon on the side.
"Like this?" shrugged the Monk. "It's because I'm a woman now."
"Not that! Why have it like this at all? A video game console doesn't belong in Ancient Carthage!"
"An arcade machine isn't a video games console," said Chris. "You don't know anything."
"I just modified how it's disguised," said the Monk. "When my TARDIS lands it makes a big list of the most appropriate forms it could take, then chooses whatever ends up at the bottom."
"But that's a terrible idea," said the Doctor. "It's"—
Before she could finish space wobbled a bit around her, and both Time Lords recoiled from the shock.
Chris looked at them, confused. "What have you heard?" she said.
"It's a different sense from hearing," said the Doctor. "We have it; humans don't. Like when you hear an explosion that's so close by, it might be you who's doing the exploding."
Chris looked in horror at her friend, then in greater horror at the Monk.
"You're scared," she said to the Doctor's foe. "I didn't think that you could be."
The Monk wasn't listening to her, just looking absently into space.
"Not yet!" she cried. "It can't be happening yet, I'm not ready"—
There was a sound like someone unblocking a sewer, and Chris's mother exploded from thin air.
The Monk stared at her. "You're not the end of everything," she said, in a way that was slightly annoyed.
"Feels like I am," said Lorna, croaking. "Like water's gone up my nose, then just kept right on going." She looked angrily at the Doctor. "You might have thought to mention that would happen."
"She's why you're here?" said the Monk. "That's funny. She was just saying how it was wrong, bringing clapped out things from the nineteen eighties."
"That's my mum!" said Chris. "Don't be mean to her."
"Quite right," said Lorna. "I'm here to deal with you."
The Monk raised an eyebrow. "And how're you going to do that?"
"She'll give you a stern talking to," said the Doctor. "It's a lot more effective than it sounds."
"I will!" said Lorna, who had forgotten why she was there. Her whole head felt like it had been at the bottom of a swimming pool: heavy and groggy like it might still be half underwater. She knew the Doctor wanted her to launch into a furious defence of all history yet to come, but all she could think in was—
"You sound like you're from Manchester," she said to the Monk.
The Monk cackled. "Is that wrong?"
"No! Just before I met the Doctor, I thought that aliens… that you'd sound like you were from somewhere else. Not from just down the road."
"People from anywhere can sound like anything," said the Doctor. "Even from just down the road."
"Touching," said the Monk. "When you're done saving planets, you'll be great in the greetings card industry."
Lorna smiled despite herself, then winced when she saw that the Doctor had seen.
"It is true, you know," she said. "Sometimes you do sound a bit trite."
"That's one thing," said the Monk. "But it's not the only way."
Lorna looked at her. "The only way?"
"That she's like a greeting card. Leave things out, don't they? Big on the Glad you're getting married, less with the shame that it isn't to me. You know there's so much that she hadn't told you."
She gave a conspiratorial smile.
"You want to know how this war started?" she said.
"You don't," said the Doctor.
"Oh, I definitely do," said Lorna, "if she doesn't want me to know."
"Lorna; Chris is here"—
"I want to hear too!" said Chris. "I've seen what's happening here anyway."
Her mother sighed.
"You've brought be me here to fight for you, Doctor," she said. "I have to know what you're fighting for. And so does Christina, if you want her to stick with you too."
"She'll twist things," the Doctor said.
"Yes. But she won't pretend anything else."
The Doctor sighed, knowing she was beaten.
"Don't get taken in by her," she said, throwing up her hands.
"Carthage must be destroyed," said the Monk. "That's what Rome's been saying. It's too close to it, too powerful. There's no telling what it might do. Except it hasn't done anything; it didn't want to fight. But the Romans always find a way to war."
The Monk narrowed her eyes, looking out to the starving city.
"First they asked for the children," she said. "To take so many hostage, as a gesture of goodwill. So Carthage did that, but the giving still wasn't enough. Rome asked for all their weapons, for everything they could use to fight. And this city said yes; they were really that desperate for peace. And once they'd given up absolutely everything," the Monk said, "Rome said they'd be burned to the ground."
"That's awful!" said Chris. She turned to the Doctor. "How can you let that happen?! How can you think that you're good?"
With her senses that were better than she always pretended they were, the Doctor could hear someone running towards them, down from the citadel that stood at the top of the hill. They were shouting the Monk's name and sounded frantic, and it wouldn't be long until they reached the machine where they were.
This might not be an argument she could win. But maybe she only had to drag it out.
"They didn't let it happen," she said. "Carthage kept up the fight. They'd lost all their weapons, so they made some new ones instead. Coins into swords, hair cut off to make catapult strings. Melting everything down into what they really need. Somewhere out there, there's a me who would really approve. And I'm dead jealous of her," she said as she glared at the Monk, "'cause she'll never have to deal with you. I've not told you what the Monk's planning, Lorna. She's given them a nuclear bomb"—
"MONK!" bellowed a voice that was now close by. "You here by your… thing that you have?"
"I'm here, Arabo," said the Monk as the voice's owner pulled up beside her. "There's no need to go about shouting, is there?"
"There was a Roman," said Arabo, "who tried to kill the General. But his skin was like metal, and his stomach was an eye"—
Once again, the Monk lost her swagger completely. She stared at him like she didn't know what was happening, because she knew enough to be overwhelmed that it was.
"Oh Hell," said the Doctor. "So there was a need to go about shouting."
"I have to go," said the Monk.
"Think I have to, too," said the Doctor.
Arabo frowned at her. "You're a monk too?"
"Sort of. Medicine and religion; at this point they're basically the same thing." She frowned. "And in this case, I think that's entirely justified."
She looked at everyone individually to try and get back some control.
"We'll talk about all this later," she said to Chris and her mother. "About everything. But we both need to go for now. Save something bigger than the world. You should get to the TARDIS, both of you. I think you should get there now."
"You should," said the Monk, as sincere as she never was. "You need to get out of here."
"The Romans are coming," said Chris.
"Yes," said the Doctor. "The Romans. You won't want to see what they do."
Chris had noticed it a long time ago, how the Doctor got worse at lying the more and more scared that she got. But now it felt like she wasn't even trying, and that was enough to scare Chris as well. She'd seen what made the Doctor frightened. She couldn't imagine the thing that would make her like this.
Like so many children, she knew what to do in this situation. You pretended you knew less than you did, went along with the lie you were stupid. Children spent so much time protecting adults. They probably didn't even realise how exhausting it could be.
"I've seen enough of Carthage," she said. "I don't want to see when they die."
"No," said the Doctor. "Nobody should. Stay safe," she added. "Both of you."
The two Time Lords started to run up the hill, the Monk's plastic jacket flapping as they went. Arabo ran some distance behind, pretending it was only the hunger that made him slower.
"Who's actually coming?" said Chris once the three of them were gone.
"The Romans, honey," said her mother. "You already heard it was the Romans."
Sometimes it was rubbish, being eleven.