The pounding was continuing by the time they reached Caecilius's home. "Caecilius?" the Doctor shouted as he ran in. "All of you, get out."
"Doctor, what is it?"
He ran to a stop beside Donna, Caroline moving closer. "I think we're being followed." The grill of the hypocaust flew off, something sounding like a roar echoing from inside. "Just get out!"
Caroline was preparing to run but she, like everyone else in that room, was distracted by the fire creature climbing out of the hypocaust. It looked to be made of stone, brimming with magma, like it was a creature of the volcano itself.
"The gods are with us," Evelina said.
Caroline looked down at the fountain. "Water."
The Doctor nodded. "We need water. Quintus. All of you, get water. Donna!"
One of the slave entered the room, staring at the creature that Caroline was fairly certain was an alien. "Blessed are we to see the gods." The fire alien breathed on the man, instantly turning him to ash.
Donna and Quintus ran out to find buckets of water, Caroline hurrying to the doorway in order to grab them when they returned. "Talk to me." The Doctor raised his hands, stepping forward. "That's all I want. Talk to me. Just tell me you are. Don't hurt these people." Caroline glanced back at him when the alien roared. "Talk to me. I'm the Doctor. Just tell me who you are."
Quintus and a slave returned with buckets. Caroline grabbed the one from the slave and, together, she and Quintus grabbed water from the pond in the center of the room and threw it onto the creature. All of the fire went out, making the alien seem to solidify and crumble to the floor. The Doctor walked forward, staring down at the ash, and Caroline came beside him.
"What was it?"
"Carapace of stone, held together by internal magma." He shrugged. "Not too difficult to stop, but I reckon that's just the foot soldier."
"Doctor," Metella said, "or whatever your name is, you bring bad luck on this house."
The Doctor looked vaguely offended. "I thought your son was brilliant. Aren't you going to thank him?" The family embraced each other while the Doctor turned to Caroline. "Still, if there are aliens at work in Pompeii, it's a good thing we stayed." They both frowned, looking around for any sign of Donna. Caroline had just thought she'd been looking for more buckets. "Donna? Donna? Donna!"
But Donna was nowhere to be found.
It was almost comforting to hear Donna shouting at the Sisters of the Sibylline as the Doctor and Caroline entered the temple. He'd tried to convince her to stay with Caecilius and his family, but Caroline had refused. She was not going to be left abandoned on the actual day Pompeii was supposed to be destroyed.
She would much prefer to stay with the time traveling alien, thank you very much.
"Listen, sister, you might have eyes on the back of your hands, but you'll have eyes in the back of your head by the time I've finished with you. Let me go!"
The pair of them rounded a corner just as what appeared to be a head priestess raised a knife above Donna. She looked like she was tied to a stone sacrificial table. "This prattling voice will cease forever."
"Oh, that'll be the day." All of the priestesses spun.
"No man is allowed to enter the Temple of Sibyl." Her eyes were more narrowed at the Doctor then Caroline.
"Well, that's all right. Just us girls. Do you know, I met the Sibyl once." He looked at Caroline like she was supposed to be impressed and not slightly worried about the sacrificial priestesses before them. "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. You all right there?" They'd been walking as he'd spoken, stopping at the end of the table Donna was tied.
"Oh, never better."
"I like the toga."
"Thank you. And the ropes?"
He shrugged. "Yeah, not so much." He used his sonic on them, cutting Donna free and further horrifying the priestesses. Caroline moved to help Donna sit up.
"What magic is this?"
"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, hey? On the blade of a knife?"
The priestess raised the knife again. "Yes, a knife that now welcomes you."
"Show me this man." The new voice was almost gravely, like stone was speaking.
All of the priestesses turned to her, the majority of them falling to their knees. "High Priestess, the stranger would defile us."
"Let me see. This one is different. He carries starlight in his wake and she the weight of moons."
The Doctor, Caroline, and Donna all looked at each other, frowning, before the Doctor stepped closer to where the voice was coming from, a space behind a curtain. "Oh, very perceptive. Where do these words of wisdom come from?"
"The gods whisper to me."
"They've done far more than that. Might I beg audience? Look upon the High Priestess?"
Two of the other priestesses drew apart the veil to reveal that the High Priestess was living stone, her entire body turned like Lucius's arm.
"Oh, my God," Donna whispered. "What's happened to you?"
"The heavens have blessed me."
The Doctor stepped forwards, holding out a hand. "If I might?" She held out a hand and he rushed forward, taking it gently. "Does it hurt?"
"It is necessary."
"Who told you that?"
"The voices."
Donna looked around at the other women. "Is that what's going to happen to Evelina? Is this what's going to happen to all of you?"
The one who'd been holding the knife stepped forward, pulling up her sleeve to reveal that her arm had also been turned to stone. "The blessings are manifold."
Caroline looked to the Doctor. "They're stone."
"Exactly," he nodded. "The people of Pompeii are turning to stone before the volcano erupts. But why?" he walked back towards where the two of them were standing.
"This word, this image in your mind. This volcano. What is that?"
"More to the point, why don't you know about it? Who are you?"
"High Priestess of the Sibylline."
He shook his head. "No, no, no, no. I'm talking to the creature inside you. 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."
"Oh, but you can read my mind. You know it's not. I demand you tell me who you are."
The High Priestess spoke, but this time it was with two voices that merged into one far deeper than her original. "We are awakening."
"The voice of the gods."
The other priestesses began rocking on the ground, repeating themselves. "Words of wisdom, words of power. Words of wisdom, words of power. Words of wisdom-"
"Name yourself," the Doctor addressed the High Priestess. "Planet of origin. Galactic coordinates. Species designation according to the universal ratification of the Shadow Proclamation."
"We are rising!" the High Priestess cried, the voice almost becoming the roar the other alien had done.
"Tell me your name!"
"Pyrovile!"
The other sisters took that up as their chant. "Pyrovile. Pyrovile. Pyrovile."
Donna and Caroline looked at each other. "What's a Pyrovile?"
"Well, that's a Pyrovile, growing inside her. She's a halfway stage."
"What, and that turns into?"
"That thing in the villa. That was an adult Pyrovile."
"And the breath of a Pyrovile will incinerate you, Doctor."
The Doctor however, pulled what was very clearly a yellow plastic water pistol from his pocket. "I warn you, I'm armed. Donna, Caroline, get that grill open." He nodded towards one on the side.
Donna frowned. "What for?"
"Just." They went over to do so while he fixed the High Priestess with the weapon. "What are the Pyrovile doing here?"
"We fell from the heavens. We fell so far and so fast, we were rendered into dust."
"Right," he nodded, "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. But why the psychic powers?"
"We opened their minds and found such gifts."
"Okay, that's fine. So you force yourself inside a human brain, use the latent psychic talent to bond." Caroline glanced over at him. He could talk quite fast occasionally. "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?"
The Pyrovile roared as Donna and Caroline managed to pull the grill up. "Got it."
"Now get down."
"What, down there?"
"Yes, down there. Why can't this lot predict a volcano? Why is it being hidden?"
"Sisters," the one who was not yet chanting stepped forwards, "I see into his mind. The weapon is harmless."
"Yeah," he shrugged, "but it's got to sting." As Donna and Caroline climbed into the grill, Caroline first, the Doctor ran after them. "Get down there!"
Inside the hypocaust appeared to be a very hot tunnel. Immediately the three of them began to sweat.
"You fought her off with a water pistol," Donna laughed. "I bloody love you."
"This way." The Doctor leaned against one of the rocks, looking down the path.
Caroline frowned. "Where are we going now?"
"Into the volcano."
"No way."
"Yes, way. Appian way." They set off down the tunnels towards what Caroline hoped was actually the volcano.
Donna ended up at the back of their small group. "But if it's aliens setting off the volcano, doesn't that make it all right for you to stop it?"
He shook his head. "Still part of history."
"But I'm history to you. You saved me in 2008. You saved us all. Why is that different?"
Caroline watched the Doctor as he answered. He'd said Pompeii was fixed, that made sense. And it made sense that there would be some things a time traveler could alter and some things he couldn't, otherwise time travel would be impossible.
"Some things are fixed, some things are in flux. Pompeii is fixed."
"How do you know which is which?"
He stopped and turned to them. Caroline noticed that he was looking at her, and she had the strong impression he was going to ask her why she wasn't as insistent as Donna. "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 started walking again.
"How many people died?"
"Stop it."
"Doctor," now he did pause, "how many people died?"
"Twenty thousand."
"Is that what you can see, Doctor? All twenty thousand? And you think that's all right, do you?"
Something roared in the distance, back where they'd walked. "They know we're here. Come on."
They tried to hurry, but it was quite difficult as the tunnel grew smaller. Caroline did managed to stay behind the Doctor. "I'm sorry."
He glanced back. "What?"
"I'm sorry that you're the last one. And I'm sorry that you see the universe like that."
He didn't say anything, only kept walking. Caroline swallowed hard. She was trying to breathe in as little of the dust as she could, but it was getting quite difficult after all the running she'd been subjected to that day.
Eventually, they arrived in an extremely large cavern filled with various Pyroviles. It looked to almost be some sort of structure, like the Pyroviles had built something deep inside the volcano.
"It's the heart of Vesuvius. We're right inside the mountain."
"There's tons of them."
He frowned. "What's that thing?" From another one of his pockets he pulled out a monocular to study some red-hot looking rock near the middle of the cavern.
They could still hear the Pyrovile following them. "Oh, you better hurry up and think of something. Rocky fall's on its way."
"That's how they arrived. Or what's left of it. Escape pod? Prison ship? Gene bank?"
Caroline frowned, pulling her hair off her neck. "But why do they need a volcano?"
Donna shrugged. "Maybe it erupts, and they launch themselves back into space or something?"
"Oh, it's worse than that."
"How could it be worse?" the Pyrovile following them roared again. "Doctor, it's getting closer."
At the other side of the cavern, Lucius had arrived, still missing the arm the Doctor had taken off. "Heathens defile us. They would desecrate your temple, my lord gods."
"Come on." The Doctor leapt up from where they'd been huddled.
"We can't go in."
"Well, we can't go back."
"Crush them," Lucius continued. "Burn them."
A Pyrovile stood up in front of them, but the Doctor somehow managed to extinguish it with just his water pistol. Thankfully, that cleared the way to that pod, which the Doctor decided was the safest place to go.
"There is nowhere to run, Doctor, dweller of water, and daughter of London."
"Now then, Lucius," the Doctor called. "My lords Pyrovillian, don't get yourselves in a lather. In a lava?" he looked at Donna and Caroline for a reaction to his pun. "No? No. 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 civilization."
"But if you've crashed, and you've got all this technology, why don't you just go home?"
"The Heaven of Pyrovillia is gone."
Caroline shook her head. "Where's it gone?"
"It was taken," Lucius continued. "Pyrovillia is lost. But there is heat enough in this world for a new species to rise."
"Yeah, I should warn you," the Doctor shrugged, "it's seventy percent water out there."
"Water can boil. And everything will burn, Doctor."
"Then the whole planet is at stake. Thank you." He nodded. "That's all I needed to know. Donna. Caroline." They ducked into the pod, which was filled with various circuit boards. The Doctor hurried to close the doors with his sonic, locking them in.
It was quite small inside, barely enough space for three people. "Could we be any more trapped?" There was a roar from outside, and Caroline was fairly certain that the Pyroviles began to breathe fire onto them, since the temperature rose sharply. "Little bit hot."
"See?" The Doctor pointed at something. "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?"
He nodded. "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."
"But you can change it back?"
The Doctor gestured to the circuits. "I can invert the system, set off the volcano, and blow them up, yes. But, that's the choice, Donna, Caroline. It's Pompeii or the world." He looked to them.
"Oh my God."
"If Pompeii is destroyed then it's not just history, it's me. I make it happen." He began to reset a few controls.
"Doctor, the Pyrovile are made of rocks. Maybe they can't be blown up."
Caroline shook her head. "Vesuvius explodes with the force of twenty four nuclear bombs."
"Nothing can survive it. Certainly not us."
Donna shook her head. "Never mind us." Caroline nodded as well. It was terrifying, horrifying, to think that she would be partially responsible for destroying the city and thus killing herself, but she much preferred saving the lives of everyone else in the future. And she could not forget, this was the history she'd always known. That Pompeii was destroyed.
The Doctor looked down at the controls, resting his hands on it. "Push this lever and it's over. Twenty thousand people."
Caroline placed her hands over his, breathing deeply. Donna was next, the three of them unified in what they would need to do. Together, they pushed.
The ground shook as the pod was thrown around, tossed through the skies as the volcano erupted. The three of them prepared themselves for the eventual impact, their destruction.
And then, it stopped.
The Doctor opened the door and they climbed out, shocked. "It was an escape pod." They'd landed on the mountain, but were forced to run almost instantly as an avalanche of ash rolled down towards them. The clouds blocked out the sun.
They managed to get to the center of the city just as ash began to fall.
"Don't!" Donna cried to the people running around them, trying to get to safety. "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." They passed a little boy that was crying, and Donna stopped for a moment to lift him. "Come here."
However, he was snatched away instantly by a woman who must have been his mother. "Give him to me."
Donna had begun crying now, and Caroline, despite her belief that Pompeii had needed to occur, felt her own tears brimming. "Come on," the Doctor grabbed Donna's hand, pulling her through the streets. Caroline had no choice but to follow as they made their way to Caecilius's villa and the TARDIS.
Caecilius's family was huddled together against a wall when they entered. "Gods save us, Doctor."
The Doctor did pause to look at them for a second before turning back to the TARDIS. "No!" Donna shouted after him, Caroline caught in between. "Doctor, you can't. Doctor!"
But he wasn't listening. Caroline and Donna ran to the TARDIS, Caroline having started to move almost immediately after stopping, as he began to pilot them away.
"You can't just leave them!"
He didn't look at them. "Don't you think I've done enough? History's back in place and everyone dies."
"You've got to go back. Doctor, I am telling you, take this thing back." The TARDIS shook. "It's not fair."
"No, it's not."
"But your own planet. It burned."
He stopped working, looking up at them. "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."
"Just someone," Donna begged. "Please. Not the whole town. Just save someone."
The Doctor looked down, fighting himself. Caroline didn't know what to think. Pompeii was fixed, everyone died, she knew that. The city was destroyed, the people killed. It was a fixed point and, from what Caroline understood, that meant nothing could be changed.
But some people had survived Pompeii. Not many, but some.
"Some survived," she whispered, and Donna and the Doctor looked to her. "Some citizens of Pompeii survived, didn't they? The eruption itself may have been a fixed point but all of their deaths…"
|C-S|
The gathered crowd of seven watched as Pompeii was destroyed. The Doctor had gone back and saved Caecilius and his family, making Donna cry in relief. And now, now they were watching everyone they'd ever known burn.
"It's never forgotten, Caecilius," the Doctor said. "Oh, time will pass, men'll move on, and stories will fade. But one day, Pompeii will be found again. In thousands of years. And everyone will remember you."
Donna looked to Evelina. "What about you, Evelina? Can you see anything?"
She shook her head. "The visions have gone."
The Doctor nodded. "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 anymore. You're free."
"But tell me," Metella stepped forward. "Who are you, Doctor? With your words, and your temple containing such size within?"
"Oh, I was never here. Don't tell anyone."
"The great god Vulcan must be enraged. It's so volcanic. It's like some sort of…volcano." The three future travelers smiled, briefly, as they walked backwards. A new word for the Romans. "All those people."
The three slipped back into the TARDIS, leaving the family to live their new lives after the destruction, comforting each other after everything.
"Thank you," Donna said, leaning against the controls of the TARDIS.
"Yeah," he nodded. "You were right. Sometimes I need someone. Welcome aboard."
Donna laughed. "Yeah."
The Doctor then turned to Caroline, who had been leaning against a railing and struggling not to cough. "Are you alright?"
She nodded. "Bit of dust."
Later in what Caroline guessed was a day, she still wasn't exactly certain on how time worked inside the TARDIS, they were back in the main control room. Both she and Donna had taken a shower and gotten changed. Donna had gone to set up her things in the rooms the TARDIS had given her, but Caroline could guess that the Doctor wanted to talk about a few things with her.
It was true. Once she'd entered, the Doctor had stopped walking, turning to her. "Why?" She leaned against the console. "Why were you not like Donna?"
"Pompeii was fixed. It was going to happen whatever we did."
"But the Pyroviles wanted to change it."
Caroline nodded. "We didn't know that until the very end. Until then, the only option was to try and keep history on track. Because, like you said, it was fixed." She paused. "Is what you said true? That you see the universe in the form of what's fixed and what's in flux?"
"Yes."
She walked around the console a little. "Changing what happened in Pompeii would have thousands of ripple effects on the universe."
He frowned. "How do you know that?"
She shrugged. "It makes sense. Pompeii was fixed, the eruption had to occur. What we did preserved the lives of everyone on Earth."
The Doctor looked down for a moment. "Would you like to travel to the future? A different planet?" he chuckled when he glanced up to see her eyes wide.
Caroline Attwater was a strange companion, the Doctor knew that for certain. It was strange enough that he'd managed to run into her as many times as he had, but the same thing had happened with Donna, after all. But Donna was loud and talkative. Caroline was almost silent but, when she did speak, it was to ask a question or make a comment he himself had almost said.
And she understood fixed events. She understood that changing something in her relative past would have effects that altered her way of life, even before they'd realized aliens were at work in Pompeii. She understood time, and this was only her first adventure.
He'd been planning on returning her to Earth after their first trip, but now he found himself not wanting too. One more journey couldn't hurt, he could show her something in her future and see how she reacted to that. And then he would return her to Earth.
Or, maybe, just maybe, he would ask if she wanted to travel with him and Donna. Because Caroline was…interesting. She was brave and curious and clever. Though he would have to work on her inability to talk when others were around.
A/N: Caroline is certainly noticing quite a few things and making some intelligent conclusions...I wonder what it could all mean.
Thank you so much to everyone who's read this story so far; it means so much to me that you're actually interested in reading about Caroline, so thank you! :)
