Chapter 11: The Fires of Pompeii Part 4

Metella and her family stepped nearer to us, curious yet cautious looks upon their faces. "Doctor, what is it? Where is your friend?" she asked, glancing around for Donna. I guess she was so confused because Donna had literally been standing a few feet away just a couple of seconds ago, but everyone was too preoccupied with the gargantuan stone-lava-monster-thing in the living room to notice her kidnapping.

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, looking anxious, but he quickly masked it, winked at me conspiratorially and turned to Metella, saying nonchalantly, "Oh, she'll turn up. I'm sure of it." Here, the Doctor eyed me, then continued, "We'll just get out of your hair. Come, Tanaquil."

Caecilius started to protest about the blue box still in the corner, wondering why we would leave it here when we had made such a fuss over it earlier, but the Doctor pacified him with some such mollifying statement and we left. It was getting to be dawn, so I could sort of make out the Doctor's face as he scanned our surroundings, trying to figure out which direction to start looking, probably.

He opened his mouth, but I beat him to it. "She's being held in the Sibylline temple."

The Doctor's brow furrowed, but he only shook his head and accepted my answer and off we went, on the lookout for the temple. Of course, I had absolutely no idea what the temple looked like, since I'd only ever seen the inside of it, but I guess the Doctor had been to Pompeii before because in a few short minutes, he located it, pointing out to me a tall, dignified yet rustic building with lanky, liquefying candles in all the great windows. "That right there."

"Ok. How do we get in?"

"Remember Adipose Industries?" he cheekily replied.

I groaned. "Doctor, not again!"

"Yup," the Doctor answered, popping the "p" as he was wont to do.

So, we snuck around to the side, looking for a door. We found one, the Doctor making a snarky comment on their security as he sonicked the old-fashioned lock. He may have acted flippant, but I could tell that he was angry at the Sibylline for taking Donna. We crept down a pitch-black hallway (I felt the walls that made it up when we first entered - they were cold and slimy!), me holding onto the Doctor's sleeve before he grabbed my hand and squeezed it, giving me mental strength. I do not like the dark.

We finally reached the end, where I could hear Donna yelling angrily at the Sibylline sisters, "Listen, sister, you might have eyes on the back of your hands, but you'll have eyes on the back of your head by the time I'm finished with you! LET. ME. GO!"

The Doctor and I shared a chuckle over Donna's spirit before pushing open the secret door in front of us that lead to where Donna was being held. Or rather, tied down, as I saw when we entered. The Doctor immediately scanned the room, pausing over Donna's purple-toga-clad form tied down to a stone slab, then moved on. I guessed that he was looking for Donna, making sure that she was alright for now, then searching for an escape route once he got her free. We watched for a few seconds, me waiting for the Doctor to intervene.

Sister Spurrina raised a lethal-yet-freaky-looking knife. "This prattling voice will cease forever."

The Doctor, leaning against a column, said very casually, "Oh, that'll be the day."

The sisters all gasped, turning, and I spied Donna jerk her head up, catch sight of us, gasp, grin widely and relax, relieved that we were here to rescue her.

"No man is allowed to enter the Temple of Sibyl," Sister Spurrina proclaimed, her makeup-covered face looking eerie in the dancing candlelight.

"Well that's alright." The Time Lord shrugged. "Just us girls." I snickered. The Doctor moved away from the column and I followed, listening to his speech but still staring at the knife in Sister Spurrina's hands. If this didn't work, I was prepared to jump forward and stop the knife's descent, but I trusted the Doctor. He always finds a way. The Doctor kept speaking as he walked towards the stone slab, hands in his bottomless pockets. "Do you know, I met the Sibyl once. Yeah, hell of a woman. Blimey, she could dance the Tarantella. Nice teeth. Truth be told, I think she had a bit of a thing for me. I said it would never last. She said, I know. Well, she would." We reached the slab and I looked down at Donna and asked, "You all right there?"

"Oh, never better," she spat.

"I like the toga." the Doctor noted.

"Thank you. And the ropes?" Donna demanded sarcastically.

"Yeah, not so much." The Doctor raised his sonic screwdriver and, one at a time, sonicked off the robes restraining Donna's wrists.

She got up as Sister Spurrina inquired, bewildered, "What magic is this?"

The Doctor started to lecture the sisters, glancing at all of them in turn. "Let me tell you about the Sibyl, the founder of this religion. She would be ashamed of you. All her wisdom and insight turned sour. Is that how you spread the word, eh? On the blade of a knife?"

"Yes, a knife that now welcomes you," Sister Spurrina replied, raising the knife and pointing it at us threateningly with a leering, maniacal grin.

Suddenly (well, not to me, but surely, to the others it was), the High Priestess spoke up from behind the curtain that went around her bed, "Show me these people."

All of the sisters, with the exception of Sister Spurrina, turned as one to the High Priestess' bed and knelt. The Doctor and Donna looked suitably disturbed and creeped out from this show of sudden submission.

Sister Spurrina protested, "High Priestess, the stranger would defile us."

"Let me see. These ones are different. The man carries starlight in his wake."

The Doctor, me and Donna moved closer to the bed. "Oh, very perceptive. Where do these words of wisdom come from?"

"The gods whisper to me," was his answer.

I pitied her. "They've done far more than that," I whispered.

The Doctor glanced at me, then looked back at the sisters. "Might I beg audience? Look upon the High Priestess?"

Two of the sisters rose and drew aside the curtain around the High Priestess' bed. I wondered, briefly, what the High Priestess, now completely stone on the outside, had looked like before her slow transformation. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw all of the sisters except Sister Spurrina lie down in child's pose with their arms in front of them while Donna gasped and the Doctor's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the state of the High Priestess. I think he already had suspicions of what had happened to the High Priestess, if I based myself on what he had said earlier at the hypocaust with Caecilius. Donna was focused on the High Priestess as she breathed, "Oh, my God. What's happened to you?"

The stone High Priestess answered, "The heavens have blessed me."

The Doctor moved closer while me and Donna stayed back and held out his hand for hers. "If I might?" he asked politely. She held out her hand for him to take and he did, kneeling down examining it before inquiring gently, "Does it hurt?"

"It is necessary," the High Priestess rasped.

The Doctor looked up at her, concerned. "Who told you that?"

"The voices." It was pretty creepy how, so far, she kept speaking without looking directly at anyone.

Donna wore a horrified look upon her face. "Is that what's going to happen to Evelina?" she asked the Doctor. Then she turned towards the sisters around us and demanded in a louder voice, "Is this what's going to happen to all of you?"

Sister Spurrina stepped forward, pulling up her sleeve and holding out her arm for Donna to look at. "The blessings are manifold," she explained.

Donna held her stone wrist and declared, aghast, "They're... stone."

The Doctor stood back up, put his hands in his pockets and and moved away from the High Priestess and halfway back to us, replying, "Exactly. The people of Pompeii are turning to stone before the volcano erupts." He twisted back to face the High Priestess. "But why?"

The High Priestess seemed to be caught up on one particular thing that the Time Lord had said. "This word, this image in your mind. This... volcano. What is that?" Ah, of course. They didn't have a word for massive-lava-spewing-mountain. Yet.

The Doctor was confused. "More to the point, why don't you know about it? Who are you?"

"High Priestess of the Sibylline!" was the proud answer.

"No, no, no, no. I'm talking to the creature inside you." Here, I could have sworn that the Doctor had a small snarl on his face; he seemed more like the Oncoming Storm; I could tell that he was pissed off that someone was messing with Earth. Again. But he continued, looking her up and down and he queried, "The thing that's seeding itself into a human body, in the dust, in the lungs, taking over the flesh and turning it into, what?"

"Your knowledge... is impossible."

The Doctor leaned forward, replying, "Oh, but you can read my mind. You know it's not." In a more intense tone of voice he ordered, "I demand you tell me who you are."

The High Priestess started to speak in her own voice, but it morphed halfway through the second word to a more guttural, deep tone. "We... are... awakening!" She, or, at this point, it, started to act agitated, twisting its neck and bending down while still maintaining its sitting position.

"The voice of the gods," Sister Spurrina asserted, her face solemn.

This, of course, caused the other sisters to get up and start rocking back and forth, chanting eerily, "Words of wisdom, words of power. Words of wisdom, words of power. Words of wisdom..." The Doctor, Donna and I looked back at them, my two companions looking suitably disquieted while I remained steadfastly stoic, knowing how all of this would end. Hell, if I was going to survive any of this, I couldn't let it get to me.

They kept chanting as the Doctor started to panic. He demanded, getting more and more angered as he went along, "Name yourself. Planet of origin. Galactic coordinates. Species designation according to the universal ratification of the Shadow Proclamation."

The thing that was controlling the High Priestess' body just stopped squirming and almost echoed its declaration from before, arms out to the side and head upturned, "We... are... rising!" in the same voice.

By now, the Doctor had gotten closer to the bed and copied its actions, holding his arms out slightly and practically yelling, "Tell... me... your name!"

Finally, it tore off the scarf-thing that the High Priestess had worn as the Doctor stepped back cautiously and it shouted back in an awful voice, "Pyrovile!" dragging the word out. Sister Spurrina looked genuinely freaked out by this time, staring right at her previous High Priestess.

The sisters on the floor started to chant, probably thinking it to be the "god's" name, "Pyrovile. Pyrovile. Pyrovile..."

They continued to chant in the background as Donna and I advanced to the Doctor's side, quite creeped out by now by the weird chanting. Donna inquired quietly to the Doctor, "What's a Pyrovile?"

He nodded to the Pyrovile, who was grinning uncannily at the sisters, on the bed in front of us. "Well, that's a Pyrovile, growing inside her. She's a halfway stage."

Donna's mouth fell open in shock. "What, and that turns into...?"

"That thing in the villa. That was an adult Pyrovile," I answered.

It pointed at the Doctor and threatened, "And the breath of a Pyrovile will incinerate you, Doctor."

Somehow, the Doctor produced a yellow water gun from his suit jacket and pointed it at the Pyrovile. He cautioned, "I warn you, I'm armed." To Donna, who had glanced at his "weapon" and then had done an incredulous double-take, he bid, "Donna, get that grill open."

Donna looked baffled. "What for?"

"Just..." he prompted her with his head gesturing towards the direction of a hypocaust behind us. He pointed the water gun at the still-chanting sisters behind us, then pointed it at the now-standing Pyrovile in front of us. "What are the Pyrovile doing here?"

The Pyrovile answered, its arms spread out again, "We fell from the heavens. We fell so far and so fast, we were rendered into dust."

The Doctor seemed to reason it out aloud, thinking back to what he had learned from Caecilius and the "earthquake". "Right, creatures of stone shattered on impact. When was that, seventeen years ago?"

"We have slept beneath for thousands of years."

"Okay, so seventeen years ago woke you up, and now you're using human bodies to reconstitute yourselves." He twisted back to the still-chanting sisters to point his water gun at them, then turned back to the Pyrovile, water gun trained on it. "But why the psychic powers?"

"We opened their minds and found such gifts."

The Doctor nodded. "Okay, that's fine. So you force yourself inside a human brain, use the latent psychic talent to bond. I get that, I get that, yeah. But seeing the future? That is way beyond psychic. You can see through time. Where does the gift of prophecy come from?" I spied Sister Spurrina glance anxiously between the Doctor and the former High Priestess.

All of a sudden, Donna called from over by the hypocaust, "Got it!"

The Doctor moved so his back was to Donna, but he continued to watch the Pyrovile and the sisters. "Good. Now get down."

Donna gasped, confounded as to why he wanted her to go down to the quite heated tunnel system. "What, down there?"

The Doctor, exasperated, answered, "Yes, down there." He focused back on the Pyrovile. "Why can't this lot predict a volcano? Why is it being hidden?"

Suddenly, Sister Spurrina tensed and looked up, declaring, "Sisters, I see into his mind. The weapon is harmless."

The Doctor glanced at his water gun before replying, "Yeah, but it's got to sting," and shooting water at the Pyrovile, who started moaning loudly and cringing back. Over his shoulder, he yelled, "Get down there!" at Donna and I while he inched backwards to the hypocaust.

Me and Donna jumped down while the sisters stopped their bloody chanting already and went to help their "High Priestess." When the Doctor had jumped and landed next to us, Donna said, out of breath, "You fought her off with a water pistol. I bloody love you."

He got up and started walking down the tunnel behind us. "This way," he called back.

Donna got up, helping me up because the heat was already getting to me. She asked, "Where are we going now?"

The Time Lord stopped walking, turned back and replied matter-of-factly, "Into the volcano."

"No way." Donna looked appalled.

"Yes, way," came the cheeky response. He did some weird twirly-thing to the water gun and tucked it back into his pocket. "Appian way." And he set off again.

We walked for a bit in silence with the Doctor leading, our way lit by intermittent fires burning off to the side, until Donna suddenly asked, as the tunnel veered downwards, "So, it's those Pyrovile-things that are making Vesuvius explode, yeah?"

The Doctor replied curtly, "Yes."

Of course, Donna started bringing up the topic of saving Pompeii again. "But if it's aliens setting off the volcano, doesn't that make it all right for you to stop it?"

The Doctor asserted, "Still part of history."

Donna didn't give up. "But I'm history to you. You saved me in 2008. You saved us all. Why is that different?"

"Some things are fixed, some things are in flux. Pompeii is fixed," he explained.

"How do you know which is which?"

The Time Lord stoped suddenly and turned to face us, saying in a quiet, sad voice, "Because that's how I see the universe. Every waking second, I can see what is, what was, what could be, what must not... That's the burden of a Time Lord, Donna. And I'm the only one left." He turned back and kept walking.

Donna was determined to make him see things her way. She followed after him and I followed her, deciding that I'd better keep out of this one. "How many people died?" she demanded.

"Stop it." The order was given without even turning around.

She repeated, "Doctor, how many people died?"

The Doctor finally stopped and faced her, answering grimly, "Twenty thousand."

Donna looked indignant at his response. "Is that what you can see, Doctor? All twenty thousand? And you think that's all right, do you?"

We all jumped when a roar came from behind me and Donna. The Doctor grabbed our arms and pushed us forwards, saying, "They know we're here. Come on."

After some more speed-walking (or, as close to speed-walking as we could manage in the heat and with the terrain - good thing I'd worn porous clothing and my best running shoes!), we arrived, at last, from an enormous rock at a large clearing with a hell of a lot of Pyroviles in it. We crouched down and the Doctor shushed us as he glanced anxiously at the huge space crawling with the immense lava-stone aliens.

The Doctor stated, "It's the heart of Vesuvius. We're right inside the mountain."

"There's tons of them," Donna expressed, completely covered in sweat. I guessed that I looked a sight, too.

The Doctor was focusing on something in the distance. "What's that thing?" he inquired quietly to himself. He produced a monocular from his pocket (again, from where, exactly, I have no idea) and he magnified the thing in his vision while Donna looked behind us.

Suddenly, she breathed, "Oh, you better hurry up and think of something. Rocky five's on its way."

I squinted (it's a miracle that I hadn't lose my glasses in all this drama) and spied a hollowed-out rock with all of the marble circuits inside. "That's how they arrived. Or what's left of it. Escape pod? Prison ship? Gene bank?" The Doctor put down his monocular as he pondered the carved out rock.

"But why do they need a volcano? Maybe it erupts, and they launch themselves back into space or something?" Donna questioned.

"Oh, it's worse than that," I stated ominously, knowing the full plan of the Pyroviles.

Donna turned to me, out of breath and baffled, and asked, "How could it be worse?" A roar sounded out from whence we came and we all startled. "Doctor, it's getting closer," Donna announced nervously.

Suddenly, from a ridge at the other side of the scorching cavern, that moron, Lucius, called out, "Heathens! Defilers! They would desecrate your temple, my lord gods."

Evidently, it was time to go. "Come on," the Doctor directed to me and Donna, helping us down from where we had huddled together.

Donna resisted him. "We can't go in!"

I replied, "Well, we can't go back!" pulling her along.

She let out a soft, "Oh!" as she stumbled a bit on the way down, but we made it safely to bottom level of the cavern. From there, we ran towards the what I knew was an escape pod.

I faintly heard Lucius yell, "Crush them! Burn them!" to the Pyroviles. Disgusted at him, I nearly forgot the adult Pyrovile that would rear up in front us, blocking our path to relative safety. But I did remember and stopped just before it raised itself up to its full height and stomped forward. Donna and I backed up, her mouth falling open in utter shock and dread, but the Doctor, ever quick on his feet, extinguished it with his water pistol, making it screech and a lot of steam rise up. Once it had stumbled out of our way, we continued to run to the escape pod. As we got closer, Lucius asserted, "There is nowhere to run, Doctor, daughter of London and girl from another world!"

We finally reached the escape pod and turned around, the Doctor still holding his water gun like a character from an old spy movie while announcing, "Now then, Lucius. My lord Pyrovillian, don't get yourselves in a lava. In a lava? No?" Here, the Doctor looked to us for confirmation that his pun was satisfyingly funny, or at least clever.

Donna, without hesitation, replied, "No." If I'd had the energy, I would've laughed.

He made a what-can-you-do gesture with his head, but went on, "But if I might beg the wisdom of the gods before we perish. Once this new race of creatures is complete, then what?"

"My masters will follow the example of Rome itself. An almighty empire, bestriding the whole of civilisation." As Lucius was talking, a Pyrovile stomped past him, sending rocks spraying up as it went. I wondered, briefly, why the guy's mouth always seemed to stretch open in such a stupid-looking manner when he talked.

"But if you've crashed, and you've got all this technology, why don't you just. Go. Home?" Donna yelled-asked.

"The Heaven of Pyrovillia... is gone."

"What do you mean, gone? Where's it gone?" the Doctor inquired, bewildered.

"It was taken! Pyrovillia is lost. But there is heat enough in this world for a new species to rise," came the insane answer.

The Doctor, ever irreverent, pointed behind us and said, "Yeah, I should warn you, it's seventy percent water out there." Donna just gave him a look.

"Water can boil. And everything will burn, Doctor!"

The Doctor put away his water gun and decided, "Then the whole planet is at stake. Thank you. That's all I needed to know." He turned and guided us into the escape pod, saying, "Donna, Joyce." As soon as we were inside, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and closed the curved stone door, cutting us off from the Pyroviles and Lucius. Which was good, as I decided that I'd had enough of having to hear Lucius' irritating voice.

We all turned to face the stone circuits set up in the escape pod. "Could we be any more trapped?" Donna asked. When the temperature in the pod noticeably increased, I knew that one of the Pyroviles had stepped forward and was currently breathing fire at the escape pod. The Doctor put away his sonic screwdriver as Donna added mock-nonchalantly, "Little bit hot."

The Doctor, however, was more focused on the circuitry in front of us. "See? The energy converter takes the lava, uses the power to create a fusion matrix, which welds Pyrovile to human. Now it's complete, they can convert millions."

"But can't you change it with these controls?" Donna demanded desperately.

"Of course I can, but don't you see? That's why the soothsayers can't see the volcano. There is no volcano. Vesuvius is never going to erupt. The Pyrovile are stealing all its power... They're going to use it to take over the world," the Doctor explained, growing more and more distressed.

"But you can change it back?" Donna asked frantically.

"I can invert the system, set off the volcano, and blow them up, yes." The Doctor looked incredibly overwrought. "But, that's the choice. It's Pompeii or the world."

Donna gasped, immediately displaying a heartbroken expression. "Oh, my God," she breathed.

The Doctor looked off into middle distance, seeming deeply appalled and consternated. "If Pompeii is destroyed then it's not just history, it's me. I make it happen." In that moment, I felt such sympathy for the Doctor that I felt like my heart might just break in two. The Doctor had always tried so hard to do what's right and this is what he got for just trying to leave and not get emotionally attached to the people of Pompeii so he wouldn't try to save them, for he knew that he would eventually try to if he stayed too long.

The Doctor started to fiddle with the circuits and their controls. "But the Pyrovile are made of rocks. Maybe they can't be blown up," Donna hypothesized.

"Vesuvius explodes with the force of twenty four nuclear bombs. Nothing can survive it." The Doctor stood up and watched Donna and I gravely. "Certainly not us." He glanced at me for a moment, anguish apparent on his face. "I am so sorry, Joyce."

"Never mind us," Donna piped up, tearing up, and I nodded to confirm her statement. After all, I was pretty sure that we'd survive this. Keywords being: pretty sure, but hey, you can never be 100% positive about something.

The Doctor stared at us for a second, then leaned forward and put his hands on a stone lever. "Push this lever and it's over. Twenty thousand people." He shook his head, looking grief-stricken. Donna started to cry for real and she and I moved closer to him and simultaneously put our hands over his in a show of support. The Doctor looked up, shocked, at each of our faces (there was one of us on either side of him). I nodded at him, trying to convey that I would help him get through this awful mental burden once we'd gotten safely to the TARDIS. Finally, as one, we took a huge breath for inner strength and pushed the lever.

At once, the ground started to shake and something in the air shifted. After a few seconds, the pod flew up and we all went crashing around the walls, Donna and I screaming our heads off. I expected that I'd have some very interesting bruises later on if I even survived all of this. Finally, after probably flying through the air and out of the volcano, the pod landed with a grinding thump. The Doctor, Donna and I climbed out, exhausted.

The Doctor looked back at the hollow-out rock. "It was an escape pod." I stretched a bit, glad that we had survived the flight out of Vesuvius but knowing that we'd have to sprint for our lives very soon, once the Doctor noticed the avalanche of ash rolling down the mountain towards us...

He grabbed our hands and started running. Ah, yes. He'd noticed, all right. We made it to the town and dashed through the chaotic streets of Pompeii. By now, the heavy ash had blocked out the sun, so it was almost like nightfall if it weren't for the screams of confusion and terror echoing from everywhere. My heart pounded hard as I felt ash falling down on us, knowing that we didn't have much time.

The Doctor paused in the middle of the street, squinting to find his way back to Caecilius' villa while poor, poor Donna was screaming her lungs out, trying to help the townspeople. "Don't! Don't go to the beach! Don't go to the beach, go to the hills! Listen to me! Don't go to the beach, it's not safe! Listen to me!" She noticed a lost little boy crying in fear a few feet away and she said softly, "Come here," making to pick him up.

A woman ran up and picked him up, yelling, "Give him to me!" and rushed off.

Donna focused on me, sobbing and desperate. I felt so bad for her and for everyone in Pompeii. I had seen the calcified people of Pompeii back on my Earth, and it had horrified me. They had all been in the fetal position on the ground and it had been all-too-easy to imagine how terrified and perplexed they must have been, not knowing why a mountain was spewing fire and ash on them as they burned or choked to death.

The Doctor grabbed our hands and pulled us along. "Come on."

We finally made it back to the villa and spotted Caecilius and his family cowering in a corner with Evelina in the middle of their protective arms. Caecilius begged, "Gods save us, Doctor."

The Doctor paused, appearing very anguished, but ultimately, he decided that he couldn't do anything about it and he ran into the TARDIS. Donna screamed after him, "No! Doctor, you can't. Doctor!" I watched as Caecilius looked between us and the TARDIS, confused but desperate and scared. At one point, I just couldn't look anymore, so I was a tiny bit glad when the Tardis engines started up. I ran inside, pulling Donna with me.

Donna slammed the door. "You can't just leave them!" she screamed.

"Don't you think I've done enough? History's back in place and everyone dies," the Doctor snapped, bitter. He flew around the console, hands darting to prepare the TARDIS for takeoff into the Time Vortex.

"You've got to go back! Doctor, I am telling you, take this thing back!" Donna screamed at him. She sagged against the console, seeming to lose all her furious adrenaline-fuelled energy. "It's not fair," she rasped despairingly, voice hoarse from shrieking.

"No, it's not." The Doctor hadn't yet looked up.

"But your own planet. It burned." Donna's face was thoroughly wet with tears now, and I'm sure that mine was as well.

The Doctor finally looked up at her, trembling with pure emotion. "That's just it. Don't you see, Donna? Can't you understand? If I could go back and save them, then I would. But I can't. I can never go back. I can't. I just can't, I can't." He stared down at the console again.

"Just someone. Please. Not the whole town. Just save someone," Donna insisted, almost in a whisper. She sobbed; now it was her turn to shake with raw emotion.

The Doctor glanced back up, face stoic but I spotted the twitching of his muscles as he reigned in his desire to sob with her. He looked to me and all I could do at that point was breathe, "Please, Doctor. Save them. Remember what I said earlier."

The Doctor sucked in a breath, staring into my eyes, before he rapidly pushed a few levers and rematerialized the TARDIS into Caecilius' villa. He ran to the door and held out his hand to them, saying, "Come with me."

Caecilius reached out and grabbed ahold of the Doctor's hand, accepting his help and helping his family up as well before rushing into the TARDIS. As soon as the four got inside, the Doctor slammed the door behind them, echoing Donna from moments before, and then dashed to the console to bring us to a hillside overlooking Pompeii from a safe distance. He didn't seem to be able to even look at them. The family froze, gaping at the console room in absolute shock, but too tired and astonished to gasp out anything.

We landed and the Doctor herded us all out, Caecilius, his family, Donna and I noticeably stumbling, as if we were all drunk on the raw terror and horror of what we had all just witnessed. Once outside, we watched as Pompeii was filled with volcanic ash, engulfing the lights from people's houses and smothering the distant screams. I cringed at the mental images that I was imagining.

The Doctor stepped closer to Caecilius, whose face was filled with antipathy, and voiced, "It's never forgotten, Caecilius. Oh, time will pass, men'll move on, and stories will fade. But one day, Pompeii will be found again. In thousands of years." Caecilius turned towards him, his expression the same, and the Doctor continued, "And everyone will remember you."

I heard Donna ask Evelina, "What about you, Evelina? Can you see anything?"

Her reply was, "The visions have gone," was the Doctor and I moved closer to her.

The Doctor explained, "The explosion was so powerful it cracked open a rift in time, just for a second. That's what gave you the gift of prophecy. It echoed back into the Pyrovillian alternative. But not any more..." Here, the Doctor quirked his lips into a small smile. "You're free." She looked almost grateful then, even though tears were burning in her beryl eyes. She nodded slightly, and turned back to gaze at her hometown.

"But tell me," a voice piped up to our left. It was Metella, and she looked to be on the verge of a breakdown. "Who are you, Doctor? With your words, and your temple containing such size within?"

"Oh, I was never here. Don't tell anyone."

Caecilius stepped forward, Metella following him. "The great god Vulcan must be enraged. It's so... volcanic. It's like some sort of... volcano." I glanced at the Doctor as he realized that he had created the word volcano through the events of this terrible day. I turned back as Caecilius gasped, voice breaking, "All those people."

Metella reached for her husband and held onto him; he responded by holding her close and hugging her for comfort as much as she was hugging him for the same reason. Quintus moved without speaking to Evelina's side, taking her hand in his and squeezing it. She squeezed back, swallowing several times to prevent the tears from overflowing from her eyes. I watched as Caecilius consoled Metella and as the two siblings stood side by side, all of their gazes boring in on the incinerating and chock-full-of-burning-ash Pompeii.

The Doctor back up and touched Donna's arm and mine, silently telling us that it was time to slip back into the TARDIS and leave. I nodded, but just before I stepped into the time machine, I whispered, "Goodbye."

Evelina and Quintus peered back at me, and they both replied faintly and in unison, "Thank you."

I just said, "Good luck in Rome," with a wink and small smile and went inside, closing the door behind me softly.

The Doctor and Donna were waiting for me at the console. Once he'd seen that I'd gotten in, the Doctor started to dematerialize the TARDIS. Donna stepped closer to him, thanking him quietly.

He looked up at her. "Yeah," he answered awkwardly, looking down and at anything but her. "You were right," he went on, but about what, I didn't know, because the two couldn't have talked about having someone in the TARDIS to make sure that the Doctor stayed true to his self-chosen name while fixing the inducer back at Adipose Industries because Donna had known by then that I was travelling with him. But I suppose I'll never get my answer, for the Doctor just declared. "Welcome aboard."

"Yeah," Donna acknowledged, smiling a bit. The Doctor smiled in reaction to her smile and pushed the lever that would bring us into the Time Vortex.

I sighed, deciding that it was time to hit the sack. "I'm going to bed, Doctor, Donna." I grinned tiredly, realizing what I'd just said, but it faded when I thought of what would happen to the two people in front of me because of it.

"Oh, sure," the Doctor replied, looking away and fiddling with the controls.

"Yeah, I think I'll go to sleep too." Donna smiled at me as passed me while I nodded to her and watched her make her way down the hall and go left.

I was about to leave the console room and follow her, when the Doctor piped up from behind me, "Joyce, a word."

Stopping, I turned around to see him holding onto the console, staring down at it. "Yes?" I asked tentatively.

He inhaled, then inquired, "Joyce... are they okay?"

I frowned. "Doctor, I don't know who you're talking about."

"Caecilius. And his family. Are... are they alright? Do you know what became of them?" came the hesitant answer.

"Oh! Yeah. Yeah, they're fine. They moved to Rome. I think I... influenced them a bit in that department, but I knew that they'd do great there. Caecilius restarted his marble business and the family is rich again, living in an upper-class villa. He's going to try to get a contract for marble with the Egyptians which, if successful, will prove quite lucrative for him. Evelina is dressing in 'short' dresses and going out to see boys, but her father doesn't like it." We both chuckled. "And Quintus has cleaned up his act; he's studying to be a doctor, you know." The Doctor startled at that one, surprised and a bit flattered. "And they say thanks to different household gods now - you, Donna and the TARDIS."

The Doctor gasped, but I could tell that he was pleased. "Oh, that's good. That's very good. I just wanted to know 'cause... I needed to know if saving them made a difference." He played with the controls again, then spoke up in his usual everything-is-peachy voice. "But, I'm glad that almost everything worked out."

"Yeah," I agreed, thoroughly sorry for him, Donna and most of all for everyone back in Pompeii, Caecilius and his family included, for it was a long walk to Rome from the ruins of Pompeii.

"Well, goodnight, Joyce."

I had started to leave the room, but I looked back at saw the Doctor's earnest yet exhausted face. "Goodnight, Doctor. You did good today, regardless of what you may think."

And with that, I left to go to bed and, at long last, try to sleep after the harrowing yet deeply affecting events of August 23rd, 79 AD.


AN: Aaaannnnddd I'm back! I am SO sorry for not updating is so long. Exams came and went in January, a new semester came in February, stuff happened...

ANYways, I tried to make it up to you with a REALLY long chapter today! Hope you enjoyed it. For the next chapter, the Doctor, Donna and Joyce will visit the planet of the Ood and Donna will interrogate Joyce about her origins and her knowledge of future events (you didn't really think that she'd forget when Joyce told the Doctor to remember what she said earlier and when Joyce left her home in hurry but was unable to use the TARDIS to return later to get her things, did you?) :D

So, should be wild! I'll try to update within the next few days, as it's March Break and I have some time off when I'm not studying.