The wolf's howl echoed darkly across the universe. Every moment, every place, everything, the howl echoes. The wolf is angry. Her pain is overwhelming. Her power is unmistakable. She howls her wrath.

And every universe freezes in fear to listen.

Rose Tyler tightened her grip on her son and swallowed the scream threatening to burst from her throat. Her gaze refused to leave the vision on the table, but her brain could not comprehend it.

It wasn't fair. She was supposed to get a happy ending. She was supposed to be able to live in this universe with her son and her own special Doctor. It was to be her payment for saving the world. Her payment for saving the multi-verse. This was wrong.

She stared at the dismembered body of John Smith, the metacrisis Doctor, on the table. The scientists had wanted to know how Time Lords worked, wanted to know how they operated. But John wasn't a Time Lord, not really.

It wasn't right. She had returned from 27 Planets to find her son gone, taken by monsters who wanted to use his half Time Lord, half human DNA for something. She hunted for her son, ignoring almost everything else around her. John couldn't even keep up, and she knew it scared him. It scared everyone. She was the Bad Wolf, and these fools had stolen her cub. She would rip apart time and space to get him back.

It was only by luck she found him. Horrible, terrible luck. They had stolen John, and she had been able to follow them. But she was too late. Her son was alive, but her love was not. Her Doctor was gone and her baby was broken beyond words.

The door banged open, startling her away from her staring. She blinked at the sight of the soldiers with guns, the scientists white the white coats, and she couldn't stop it anymore.

She strengthened her grip on her son, tilted her head back, and howled.

If a certain little girl had been awake on the third night after the Doctor left, she would have seen something amazing in her garden. In the middle of the night, a crack appeared on the ground near the destroyed shed. It was very similar to the crack that had appeared on her wall, but this one was very different. It was golden and bright, and it burned with a light that would have destroyed the retinas.

On the other hand, it probably was a good thing that she was asleep.

The golden light expanded and twist, and with a bright burst that resembled a supernova, exploded to reveal a red phone booth with fogged panels of glass.

The doors of the phone booth opened, and smoke poured out, golden sparks intermixed. A loud noise echoed through the air, a mixture of a howl and the unmistakable sound of a T.A.R.D.I.S. materializing. Two things happened at once.

With one more burst of light, the phone box disappeared.

Amelia Pond woke up with a shout.

Rory Williams did not normally make friends. He was small and quiet, and while he was quite clever, he had a bad stutter when he was nervous, which was quite often. The only person that he really could get along with was Amelia Pond. She was tough and bright, and while he did feel smaller when he was near her, she made him feel stronger. It was an odd sensation.

But on the first day of school, of his second year, he felt himself drawn to the silent boy sitting by himself in the corner. Three hours since the start of class, and the boy had not spoken a word. He had kept to himself and only raised his hand when the teacher had called his name.

Rory had noticed that he had done absolutely nothing to join in with the rest of the class. It made him sad, just looking at him. Rory didn't know why, but it almost felt that he was lonely.

So, when lunch time came, Rory gathered up his courage, and did the only thing he could think of. He walked over to the boy, settled his tray across from him, and smiled.

"Hello, my name is Rory Williams."

The boy blinked at him and tilted his head slightly. He reached down, pulled out a notebook and pen, and wrote in a neat script, "Hello, Rory. My name is Benjamin."

"Why did you write it down?" Rory asked, tact forgotten in curiosity. Suddenly he seemed to realized what he said. "I'm sorry, it-it's none of m-my business. "

Benjamin grinned brightly and picked up the pen again. "Don't apologize. I cannot speak. My mother tells me that the proper term is being mute."

"Oh."

Ben just shrugged. "You get used to it. Been this way for a while."

"Oh," Rory felt slightly stupid but he didn't know what to say. This wasn't something he had ever had to deal with. He was only seven after all. Though he was going to be turning eight soon.

Ben looked down sadly. "You don't have to sit with me anymore. I know I'm not exactly what you expected"

Rory read it once, and re-read it agin and blinked. He glanced up at Benjamin and just stared. Here was a boy about his age, a boy who seemed lost and alone. If Rory was perfectly honest with himself, he was always drawn to the lost and lonely, and particularly the hurt. That was part of the reason why he was Amy's friend. She was as lost and as lonely as you could get. But Benjamin looked as though he was all three.

"Well," Rory said quietly. "I supposed it's a good thing I came here without expectations."

The grin that lit Benjamin Wolfe's face was almost painfully brilliant.

Somewhere in time and space, a certain blue box was rejoicing. Her Thief was much too busy to notice, but she saw it. She heard it.

Her little Bad Wolf was back where she belonged.