Lost In Thought

Bearer of Hearts

The Doctor:

She was still not speaking. It was painful watching her, just looking at everything, her rings in particular, and not being able to explain to her, to get her to understand, that everything that happened to her in her life was not her fault. If anything, it was my fault, but mostly her late husband's. Oh, dear Elizabeth... Why had I let him do this to you?

The TARDIS parked herself in a small curtained-off alcove as we stepped out into the sunshine, nice and warm for my always cold baby sister and her new friend. Not that they'd actually gotten less than a meter near each other, Lizbeth's fear of people not helping there, but I liked to think that when she was better they'd be great friends. "Ancient Rome. Well, not for them, obviously. To all intents and purposes, right now, this is brand new Rome."

"Oh, my God. it's, it's so Roman. This is fantastic." I laughed at Donna's reaction, arm linked with Elizabeth's. "I'm here, in Rome. Donna Noble in Rome. This is just weird. I mean, everyone here's dead."

"Well, don't tell them that."

"Hold on a minute. That sign over there's in English." Painted on the side of a barrow was two amphorae for the price of one. "Are you having me on? Are we in Epcot?"

Why would I take you to Epcot? You could go there yourself. "No, no, no, no. That's the TARDIS translation circuits. Just makes it look like English. Speech as well. You're talking Latin right now."

Which impressed her enormously, Bethy just looking to the North. "Seriously?" Uh huh. "'I just said seriously in Latin." Oh yes. "What if I said something in actual Latin, like veni, vidi, vici? My dad said that when he came back from football. If I said veni, vidi, vici to that lot, what would it sound like?"

Actually... Not a clue. "I'm not sure. You have to think of difficult questions, don't you?"

"I'm going to try it." Sure, whatever you wanted.

She decided a fruit seller looked safest. "Afternoon, sweetheart. What can I get you, my love?"

"Er, veni, vidi, vici."

"Huh? Sorry?" He questioned, before speaking like she was dumb. "Me no speak Celtic. No can do, missy."

Donna nodded a little, before coming back over. "How's he mean, Celtic?"

Did you not know the history of the Celts and the Romans? "Welsh. You sound Welsh. There we are. Learnt something."

"Don't our clothes look a bit odd?"

No more than normal. My sister was wearing goggles again. "Nah. Ancient Rome, anything goes. It's like Soho, but bigger."

"You've been here before then?"

"Mmm. Ages ago. Before you ask, that fire had nothing to do with me." Even Lizzy looked at me then. "Well, a little bit. But I haven't got the chance to look around properly. Coliseum, Pantheon, Circus Maximus. You'd expect them to be looming by now. Where is everything? Try this way."

We started further in, before we stopped dead in the piazza, all three of us looking up at the giant mountain in the distance. "Not an expert, but there's seven hills of Rome, aren't there? How come they've only got one?" One big, bare-headed mountain, which then made the ground start to shake. And all the people just grabbed the wares and laughed, used to it. "Wait a minute. One mountain, with smoke. Which makes this"

Somewhere incredibly, immensely dangerous. "Pompeii. We're in Pompeii. And it's volcano day."

Then took a tighter grip on Bethy's arm as we ran back to the TARDIS, the curtain pulling back to show no beautiful blue box. "You're kidding. You're not telling me the TARDIS has gone." Fair enough, it was bad news. "Where is it then?"