Chapter Six: The Courage to Change the Things that Can

"Evelina!" Metella rushed forward, but it was Quintus who picked his sister up.

Donna watched as Rose and the Doctor exchanged a look. They seemed more adept at having a silent conversation than most married couples, and given that the Doctor was an alien, she suspected there might be a reason for that. Another thing to ask about, once she made it clear to them that they couldn't just order her about.

After a moment, Rose turned and put a hand on Donna's back. "Let's follow them," she whispered, rushing after Metella's retreating figure.

Quintus nodded when he passed them on his way back to the atrium, and Donna was unsurprised when they turned the corner and Evelina was reclining on a chaise lounge in front of a wall covered with a gorgeous blue mosaic.

Metella smiled sadly as she carried a cloth and two bowls to her daughter's side. "She didn't mean to be rude. She's ever such a good girl." She shrugged. "But when the gods speak through her…"

"What's wrong with her arm?" Donna asked as Metella unwrapped the bandage covering Evelina's right forearm.

"An irritation of the skin. She never complains, bless her. We bathe it in olive oil every night."

"Can we help?" Rose asked.

Donna stared at her. The compassion in her voice now was a far cry from her harsh tone earlier when she'd insisted they leave all these people to their deaths.

Metella looked up at them, her throat working as she visibly tried to control her emotions. "Evelina said you'd come from far away. Please, have you ever seen anything like it?"

Donna took a deep breath and stepped forward, running her fingers over the deep rash. But that's… She looked at her fingers, then back at Evelina. "It's stone."

Rose knelt at the girl's side and cradled her arm in her hands. "You're right, Donna," she murmured.

It was quiet in the room for a moment, the Rose looked up at Metella, her eyes sharp. "You said she breathes in the vapours from the hypocaust?"

Metella nodded. "The sisters say that is where the visions come from, and it must be true, for after she's inhaled the vapours, she is much more prone to a… an interlude like the one she had this afternoon."

"And your hypocaust is fed directly from Vesuvius?" Rose pressed.

A furrow appeared in Metella's forehead. "Does that matter?"

Rose stood up in one smooth motion and smiled, but there was something false in it. "Nah, I'm just trying to get all the information available," she said.

Metella sighed and brushed a hand over Evelina's forehead. "Thank you for trying to help. Could I offer you something in return?" She looked at them for a moment, then brightened. "New clothes, perhaps? With a palla to drape over your hair, so you will be properly attired."

Donna choked. She'd watched enough period dramas to understand what Metella was trying to hint at delicately. "That… that git," she hissed to Rose, who burst into a fit of giggles. "Like Soho, he said! Not one word about how people would think we were prossies."

"So, like Soho twenty years ago," Rose jested.

Metella smiled awkwardly. "Yes, I think new clothes would be just the thing," she said, then backed out of the room.

As soon as she was gone, Rose turned to Donna and took her by the shoulders. "Donna, you have got to stop talking about Vesuvius and trying to get them all to leave," she said urgently.

Donna crossed her arms over her chest, and Rose threw her head back and groaned loudly.

"Oi, don't try to play the long-suffering time traveller card with me, Blondie," Donna snapped. "I told you, owning that blue box doesn't mean you get to boss me around. I'll do what I like." She tossed her hair back over her shoulder. "I don't understand how you and the Doctor can stand talking to these people, knowing they're going to die, and not do anything about it. You saved me last year. You saved us all. Why is that different?"

"I thought you understood when I told you earlier," Rose hissed. "Time around you that Christmas was in flux. Time in Pompeii is fixed. We can't do anything to change what happens here."

"How can you tell the difference?" Donna countered. "What gives you the right to say this is fixed, that you can't help these people?"

Rose pressed her lips together and counted to ten before answering. "That's how we see the universe, the Doctor especially," she explained once she had her temper under control. "We can see it all—what is, what was, what could be, what must not. That's the burden of a Time Lord, Donna. And we're the only ones left."

"All right, well, how many people died in this fixed point?" Donna demanded.

The number had been running through the Doctor's head since they'd realised where they were, and Rose answered automatically. "Twenty thousand."

Donna arched an eyebrow and rested her weight on one foot. "Is that what you can see, you and the Doctor? All twenty thousand? And you think that's all right, do you?"

"Of course it isn't!" Rose exclaimed. "It's awful! But we know what will happen if we interfere. If we change a fixed point, more than those twenty thousand will die. The entire planet will become unstable as Time tries to compensate for what we've done." She took a deep breath. "I've seen it before, what happens when you mess with Time when you shouldn't. I tried to save my dad's life, and I nearly destroyed the planet. I'm not going to make that mistake again, not ever."

Uncertainty crossed Donna's face, finally. "It could destroy the planet?" she asked, her voice less strident. "You're not just saying that to get me to stop pushing?"

"I'm not just saying it." Rose ran her hand through her hair. "You really think that we'd just walk away if we could do something about it?"

Donna's shoulders lifted in a small, helpless shrug. "I thought it was strange," she admitted. "But I couldn't understand what reason you could possibly have. I mean… I know you tried to tell me, but I didn't really listen."

Some of Rose's anger returned when she remembered how difficult Donna had made the last hour for the Doctor. "Do you understand now, or are you just trying to get me to leave it alone?" she asked, her tone demanding honesty.

Donna flinched. "I understand, really."

Rose nodded. "Good. Then there's one more thing you need to understand, Donna. Challenge the Doctor. Push him. Ask him questions. It's why he travels with companions, and it's a quality I actively look for when I choose who to ask to come with us."

Her voice hardened. "But I will not tolerate anyone blaming the Doctor for things that aren't his fault." The Doctor had his protective streak, and this was hers. "Beneath his arrogance and ego, that man carries more guilt than you can possibly imagine. He's seen horrible things, and he blames himself for every person he's been unable to save."

Donna pursed her lips, and Rose recognised the consideration on her face. "What are you thinking?"

"Well… I understand we can't save everyone. I don't like it, but if it's twenty thousand people tomorrow or the entire planet next week, I do understand. But I wonder. Wouldn't it make the Doctor feel better if we saved someone?"

"What do you mean?"

Donna started gesticulating as she spoke, her motions getting bigger as she got more excited. "So, Pompeii is a fixed point, but it's not like there's a list of the dead. I wasn't brilliant at history, but I do remember that much. And that means there's no reason we couldn't rescue just one family."

Rose knew the Doctor would argue, but she also knew, deep in her bones, that Donna was right. Not only was it possible to save one family without undoing the fixed point, it was important that they do so. Time might hold the final trump card in Pompeii, but it couldn't steal their ability to show compassion, unless they allowed it to.

oOoOoOoOo

After Rose and Donna left, the TARDIS let the Doctor in long enough to take his coat off and toss it over a strut. Now that he knew there was a reason they were here, she trusted him not to fly away—especially not without Rose or Donna.

Once he was free of the extra layer, he scanned the atrium, looking for the hypocaust. Pompeians breathed in the vapours and became actual soothsayers, and he had a sudden urge to see what was going on with the Pompeii hypocaust system.

"Do you mind if I have a look?" he asked Caecilius. He pulled the grate off the hypocaust without waiting for an answer. Instead of the fire he expected, a different kind of heat was being pushed up the vent—like the difference between forced air heat and a fireplace.

"Different sort of hypocaust?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," Caecilius said proudly. "We're very advanced in Pompeii. In Rome, they're still using the old wood-burning furnaces, but we've got hot springs, leading from Vesuvius itself."

"Who thought of that?" It was rather brilliant, but not something the Romans had thought of in 79AD.

Caecilius sat down on the opposite side of the vent. "The soothsayers, after the great earthquake, seventeen years ago. An awful lot of damage. But we rebuilt."

The Doctor looked up from the burning embers. "Didn't you think of moving away? Oh no, then again, San Francisco," he said. San Franciscans fled to the East Bay after the 1906 earthquake, but of course that wasn't actually outside the range of the fault line—a fact that had caused problems more than once.

Caecilius cocked his head. "That's a new restaurant in Naples, isn't it?"

A loud roaring and hissing rose up through the duct into the villa. "What's that noise?" the Doctor shouted.

"Don't know." Caecilius' voice was filled the quiet fear of a man who'd tried not to think about what the noise could be. "Happens all the time. They say the gods of the Underworld are stirring."

Doctor, Evelina's arm is turning to stone.

Pieces started to fall together for the Doctor, and he pulled his head out of the vent and rested on his heels. "But after the earthquake, let me guess," he asked Caecilius. "Is that when the soothsayers started making sense?"

Caecilius nodded. "Oh, yes, very much so. I mean, they'd always been, shall we say, imprecise?" he whispered, conspiratorially.

The Doctor nodded. That sounded much more like what he recalled of soothsayers and augurs.

"But then the soothsayers, the augurs, the haruspex, all of them, they saw the truth again and again," Caecilius continued. "It's quite amazing. They can predict crops and rainfall with absolute precision."

The Doctor looked down into the steam coming out of the hypocaust. If they could make predictions with such accuracy, why hadn't they mentioned the volcano? "Haven't they said anything about tomorrow?" he asked.

"No." Caecilius shook his head, then fearful realisation crossed his face. "Why, should they? Why do you ask?"

"No, no." The Doctor shook his head and looked back down at the vent. "No reason. I'm just asking. But the soothsayers, they all consume the vapours, yeah?"

"That's how they see," Caecilius confirmed.

The Doctor put his glasses on as more steam and smoke wafted into the house. "Ipso facto." He reached into the vent and pulled up a handful of dust. "They're all consuming this."

Caecilius looked at it as he let the particles fall back into the hypocaust. "Dust."

"Tiny particles of rock," the Doctor agreed. "They're breathing in Vesuvius."

That cast Evelina's skin condition in a different light. A moment later, the Doctor remembered the way Lucius had refused to shake Caecilius' hand. But what if he couldn't, because his arm is stone? He's been breathing the vapours considerably longer than Evelina. Lucius Petrus Dextrus— Lucius with the stone right arm.

He stood up and wandered away from the hypocaust, leaving Caecilius staring at him in confusion. There was one member of this family who could quite possibly be convinced to help him, even though it would mean going against the augur.

The Doctor found Quintus in one of the smaller cubiculum, draped over a chaise lounge, looking, frankly, completely stoned. "Quintus, me old son," he chirped. "This Lucius Petrus Dextrus. Where does he live?"

Quintus rolled his eyes and let his head loll back against the arm of the chaise. "It's nothing to do with me."

The Doctor snorted softly and walked towards him. "Let me try again. This Lucius Petrus Dextrus."

He reached behind Quintus' ear and pulled out a coin, and suddenly, the drunken stupor was gone from the lad's face. He sat up, and the Doctor stepped back, forcing him to stand up and follow him.

"Where does he live?"

Quintus reached for the coin, then hesitated. "He's not going to welcome guests," he warned.

The Doctor stuck his hands into his pockets and bounced on his toes. "I didn't exactly plan to knock on the front door," he admitted.

"Oh, no." Quintus shook his head. "I'm no fan of the augur, but I value my freedom more than that."

"Oh, come on," the Doctor wheedled. "A denarius now for taking me there, and two more if I get in and out of the house without difficulty?" He jiggled his hand in his pocket so the money would jingle.

Quintus rolled his eyes and pulled a torch off the wall. "Fine. But if you get caught, it's not my fault."

"Course not!"

The Doctor blinked when they stepped outside and it was twilight. Had they really been at Caecilius' that long already? Quintus took off down a side street and the Doctor followed, taking advantage of the lad's sullen silence to talk with Rose. She'd been tense for the last few minutes, and he suspected he knew why.

How is Donna doing?

Good, Rose told him immediately. We had a long talk, and I think she actually gets it now.

The Doctor relaxed slightly. He understood where Donna was coming from, so he didn't blame her for being upset with them. On the other hand, it had hurt to have one of the hardest things they did thrown back in their faces, like they were doing something wrong.

Good.

Rose hesitated, and the Doctor waited for her to tell him what was on her mind. There is something, though… she said after a moment. She understands that we can't stop the eruption, or get the entire city evacuated, but she thinks we ought to save someone. Just… just this family.

We can't.

Why not? Do you know this family in particular dies?

The Doctor ground his teeth. We'll talk later, he said. I'm almost to Lucius' house.

Be careful, love.

It was completely dark by the time they reached the augur's house. True to his word, Quintus led him right past the door, stopping by a large, ground floor window instead. "Don't tell my dad," he muttered, looking over his shoulder.

The Doctor leapt lightly from the ground, to a barrel, to the window sill. "Only if you don't tell Rose," he told Quintus as he undid the shutters and crept into the house.

Steam rose from the hypocaust in the middle of the room, but it didn't provide enough light to see by. He turned around and leaned out the window, gesturing to Quintus.

"Pass me that torch."

The lad sighed and handed it to him, and with more light, the Doctor quickly spotted something curious on the wall. Quintus joined him a moment later in front a large curtain, and after peering behind it, the Doctor handed the torch back to him and pulled the curtain down.

The entire wall was covered with tiles just like the one Caecilius had given Lucius that evening. The Doctor put his glasses on and studied the marble tile circuits—enough to form a complete picture, he suspected.

"The liar," Quintus whispered. "He told my father it was the only one."

"Well, plenty of marble merchants in this town," the Doctor explained as he scanned the circuit pieces, trying to piece them together. What is Lucius up to? "Tell them all the same thing, get all the components from different places, so no one can see what you're building."

"Which is what?" asked Quintus

Another voice answered Quintus before the Doctor could. "The future, Doctor," Lucius declared, and the Doctor and Quintus spun around, caught red-handed. "We are building the future, as dictated by the gods."

oOoOoOoOo

Evelina regained consciousness just before her mother returned with their borrowed clothing, and the girl watched eagerly as Rose and Donna tried on the clothes and modelled them.

Rose enjoyed the soft texture of the yellow stolla she'd been given, and adjusted the pink palla around her shoulders. It was a little different from what she'd worn the last time they were in Rome, but similar enough that she understood how to drape it properly.

Donna's outfit was all purple, and the ginger looked absolutely stunning in it. Rose watched as she twirled once, then nearly tripped over the palla, getting a laugh from Evelina.

"You're not supposed to laugh," Donna protested. "Thanks for that. What do you think?" she asked, tossing her palla over her shoulders dramatically. "The Goddess Venus."

Evelina's eyes widened, even as she laughed again. "Oh, that's sacrilege."

Rose.

The Doctor's call sounded urgent, so Rose stepped to the side of the room so she could give him her full attention. She absently noticed as she moved that Donna stepped forward and sat down on the bed to talk to Evelina.

What is it, Doctor?

Lucius has a whole wall of those marble circuits.

Rose felt her forehead crinkle up. The longer they were here, the less she liked what they discovered—and that was outside of the fact that in less than twenty-four hours, the volcano was going to erupt in one of the deadliest events of classical history.

Be careful, she urged. If he's up to something…

The Doctor's guilt doubled. I… he might have caught me trying to break into his house.

Rose pressed her hands to her temples and rubbed circles against the pulse points. Doctor…

Oh, but it's all right! he reassured her quickly. He seems to have a good sense of humour about it. I'm trying to figure out what these circuits are for.

Rose shook her head; his bubbly excitement was so familiar, and she loved him for it. All right, Doctor. Let me know if you find out anything new.

He agreed absently, and she rejoined Donna and Evelina just in time to hear the Pompeiian girl ask, "Is tomorrow special?"

"You tell me," Donna said. "What do you see?"

"Donna, you promised," Rose hissed.

Donna shook her head. "I know, Rose, but she should be able to see it, shouldn't she? If their soothsayers all know the truth?"

Rose blinked. "That's a really good point, actually," she admitted. "Do you see anything, Evelina?"

Evelina looked confused, but she closed her eyes and did whatever it was she did when she was summoning one of her visions. "The sun will rise, the sun will set." She opened her eyes and looked at Rose and Donna. "Nothing special at all."

Rose and Donna exchanged a glance, and after a moment, Rose nodded. Time was doing something very strange in Pompeii—what should have been a deeply uncomfortable fixed point didn't feel off at all to either her or the Doctor, and now the strangely accurate seer couldn't see anything tomorrow, when the time travellers all knew the volcano was going to erupt. She had a feeling that getting to the bottom of this was why the TARDIS had brought them to a fixed point in the first place.

After Rose nodded her agreement, Donna took a deep breath. "Look, I've got a prophecy too."

To their surprise, Evelina covered her eyes. The eyes drawn on the backs of her hands were a bit freaky, but Donna didn't stop.

"Evelina, I'm sorry, but you've got to hear me out. Evelina, can you hear me? Listen."

"There is only one prophecy," Evelina insisted, her voice muffled by her hands covering her face.

There was something off about the situation, about Evelina's reaction, but Rose was too curious about why no one in Pompeii knew about the coming eruption to stop Donna.

"All right," Donna soothed. "Then maybe this is… part of the prophecy. Tomorrow, that mountain is going to explode. Evelina, please listen," she pleaded when the girl showed no signs of responding. "The air is going to fill with ash and rocks, tons and tons of it, and this whole town is going to get buried."

"That's not true," Evelina denied emphatically, rocking slightly.

Rose rested a hand on Evelina's shoulder, and the girl jerked away from her touch. She looked helplessly at Donna, then said, "Evelina… even if you don't believe us, just tell your family you want to get out of town for the day. It won't matter if we're wrong, will it?"

"This is false prophecy." Evelina finally took her hands away from her face and looked at them, betrayal etched on her face.

oOoOoOoOo

The Doctor let his conversation with Rose drift into the background as he played with the circuit tiles. "Put this one there," he muttered, adjusting one. Then he took the remaining piece from Quintus and slid it into place. "This one there." He tilted his head and looked at the next one, then nodded. "Uh, keep that one upside down, and what've you got?" He turned around and waited to see if Lucius would admit he didn't know what he was doing.

"Enlighten me," the augur said, looking decidedly less amused than he had before.

"What, the soothsayer doesn't know?" the Doctor taunted, rocking back and forth from one foot to the other.

Lucius heaved a sigh. "The seed may float on the breeze in any direction."

"Yeah, I knew you were going to say that," the Doctor said. He looked back at the finished circuit board. "But it's an energy converter."

"An energy converter of what?" Lucius demanded.

"I don't know." He turned around and grinned broadly. "Isn't that brilliant? I love not knowing. Keeps me on my toes." He jogged over to stand by Lucius, keeping his voice light. "It must be awful being a prophet, waking up every morning, is it raining? Yes, it is, I said so. Takes all the fun out of life. But who designed this, Lucius, hmm?" he asked, finally getting to the point of his rambling. Because there was no way a human from the first century AD could have designed a circuit. "Who gave you these instructions?"

"I think you've babbled enough," Lucius declared hotly.

The Doctor ignored the warning on Lucius' face. "Lucius, really, tell me. Honestly, I'm on your side. I can help," he promised.

Anger etched deep lines on Lucius' face. "You insult the gods. There can be only one sentence." He turned to his guards. "At arms."

The guards stepped forward and drew their short swords in one motion, and the Doctor took off his glasses and fell back to stand by the circuit and Quintus. "Oh, morituri te salutant," he muttered, quoting the pledge combatants in the Coliseum gave the Emperor before fighting to their deaths.

With the upper hand, Lucius' face returned to its previous, almost placid, expression. "Celtic prayers won't help you now."

"But it was him, sir," Quintus babbled. "He made me do it. Mister Dextrus, please don't."

The Doctor shook his head at Quintus. "Come on now, Quintus, dignity in death." He turned back to Lucius. "I respect your victory, Lucius. Shake on it?" he suggested, holding his hand out. An emotion flickered briefly across the augur's face, and the Doctor knew his suspicion was correct. "Come on. Dying man's wish?"

He lunged forward before Lucius could react and reached under the cloak for his right arm. When he wrapped his fingers around Lucius' wrist, the cold, rough texture confirmed his guess. Getting a good grip, he pulled, hard, and it cracked. Lucius grunted and doubled over as the Doctor backed up, a stone hand and forearm in hand.

"But he's…" Quintus stammered.

The Doctor stared at Lucius. "Show me," he ordered, brandishing the arm.

Lucius threw his cloak back over his right shoulder. It was worse than the Doctor had expected. The man's entire right side had been petrified, turned to stone. He was slowly becoming something else. This is seeding a planet on an entirely different level than Miss Foster attempted.

"The work of the gods," the augur declared proudly.

"He's stone," Quintus said, an oddly plaintive note in his voice along with the expected disbelief.

"Armless enough, though," the Doctor joked. "Whoops," he said as he tossed the arm back to Lucius, who had to use his one good arm to catch it.

"Quintus!" he yelled as he ran for the window.

Resourceful in the end, the lad tossed the torch at the guards while the Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver at the circuit boards. The tiles toppled over, eliciting a shout of anger from Lucius, and the Doctor and Quintus jumped out the window.

"Run!" he ordered Quintus, and they tore through the streets of Pompeii, back towards Foss Street.

When they'd run a quarter of a mile and there was no sign of pursuit, they slowed to a jog, then stopped at a corner. Quintus bent over, trying to catch his breath, and the Doctor patted him on the back.

"No sign of them. Nice little bit of allons-y. I think we're all right."

"But his arm, Doctor," Quintus protested, fear in his eyes and a furrow between his brows. "Is that what's happening to Evelina?"

Ah. That explains the plaintive voice. The Doctor tried to find an answer that would satisfy the question Quintus was truly asking—could Evelina be healed—but truthfully, he suspected the change was irreversible.

Thankfully, a noise echoed down the street only a moment later, serving as a distraction from the question he couldn't answer. Somewhere nearby a dog barked, and the Doctor cocked his head, trying to gauge the distance and direction the clunking came from.

"What was that?" the Doctor asked. It was still hours before the rumbling of the volcano should begin.

The ground shook again, and Quintus shrugged. "The mountain?"

"No, it's closer," the Doctor disagreed. Closer, and rhythmic. Like… "Footsteps," he realised as things started to topple over from the vibrations.

"It can't be," Quintus said, but he sounded more resigned to the reality than like he was denying it.

The footsteps came closer, but they still didn't have a form. The rumbling was enough to topple the chicken crates, causing the fowl to squawk indignantly.

The hypocaust! the Doctor remembered. "Footsteps underground."

"What is it?" Quintus whispered. "What is it?"

The Doctor grabbed him and turned him around, then started running again. The footsteps behind them got closer and closer, and steam billowed out of the open hypocausts in the street as their pursuer gained.

Rose, we're on our way back, but we aren't alone.

Who's after you?

I don't know, he told her. Whatever it is, it's large, and it's travelling in the hypocaust.

They whipped around the corner to Foss Street, and he could hear Rose's voice, yelling at the family. "I'm telling you, we need to get out of here, right now!"

The Doctor and Quintus burst into the villa. "Caecilius?" the Doctor said. He looked around at the family, and Rose and Donna. "All of you, get out."

Rose nodded and dragged the two servants who'd just emerged from the living quarters out of the villa, while Donna shook her head and stared at him. "Doctor, what is it?"

He put his hands on her shoulders and looked down at her. "I don't know, but I don't think it's friendly," he said, just as the grill from the hypocaust flew off. The Doctor's eyes widened and he waved frantically at Donna and Evelina. "Just get out!"

But no one heeded his words. When he turned around to watch the progress of their attacker, he supposed he couldn't blame them for being mesmerised by the sight. Cracks of fire appeared in the checkerboard floor around the hypocaust, and the steam billowed up even more than it did before.

A hand took his, and he looked down at Rose. You should have stayed out there, Rose.

She rolled her eyes. Got the servants to safety, then came back to make sure you stayed safe, she told him, her eyes daring him to argue.

The rumblings coming from the hypocaust crescendoed into a roar, and then an eight foot tall creature made of stone rose out of the opening, demolishing the vent in his progress. Fire glinted in his eyes and joints, making him look like a comic book villain.

"The gods are with us," Evelina moaned.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes and studied the creature. It was just… rock, held together by fire.

Fire!

"Water. We need water," he ordered, gesturing to the fish pond. "Quintus. All of you, get water. Donna!" She nodded quickly and ran off with Quintus and another maid.

The creature looked at each of them in turn, then breathed fire on a ficus, rendering it to ash. In the corner, Metella huddled in Caecilius' arms, her face turned away from the monster.

Rose shifted to stand in front of the couple, in one of those moments that made the Doctor burst with pride while simultaneously driving him absolutely bonkers.

"Talk to us," she said calmly, staring the stone creature in the eye. "You don't need to hurt anyone here—just talk to us."

"Talk to me," the Doctor amended, uncaring if his correction annoyed Rose. Lucius had sicced this monster on him, not anyone else, and he would be the one to keep it distracted long enough for Quintus to take care of it. "I'm the Doctor. Just tell me who you are."

The creature looked back and forth between them, apparently uncertain which one most deserved its fire… er, ire. Before it made up its mind, Quintus and a slave rushed into the room with buckets in hand. Quintus scooped water out of the pool and threw it at the monster, stopping it in its tracks.

They all moved back and watched with bated breath to see what would happen. The fire went out in the creature's joints first, then in its eyes. Then the stone collapsed, shattering onto the floor.

"What was it?" Caecilius demanded.

"Carapace of stone," the Doctor explained, "held together by internal magma. Not too difficult to stop, but I reckon that's just the foot soldier."

"Doctor, or whatever your name is, you bring bad luck on this house," Metella said, her voice forbidding.

Rose put her hand on Quintus' shoulder. "I thought your son was brilliant. Aren't you going to thank him?" she suggested, raising her eyebrows at Caecilius and Metella. Mother and father moved forward to embrace their son, leaving the Doctor and Rose alone.

Still, if there are aliens at work in Pompeii, it's a good thing we stayed, he told Rose.

Yeah… but speaking of that, where's Donna?

The Doctor frowned and looked around. "Donna? Donna? Donna!"

Instead, he found Evelina staring at him, regretful tears in her eyes. "If you are looking for your friend, Doctor, you will not find her here."

"What do you mean?" the Doctor and Rose asked in unison.

Evelina bit her lip, but tilted her head back defiantly. "She gave false prophecy about the fate of Pompeii. The High Priestess has declared that all false prophets must be put to death."

"Oh, no they don't," the Doctor growled. "Where is this temple of yours? Because I am not going to let my friend die because she cared too much to leave you to your fate."