A/N: I don't have much to say here, other than I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: Most of the dialogue was written by the writers of Doctor Who.

Following up on Ryan's 'copper's hunch', the pair walked to the girl's house. The Doctor pressed the doorbell once, and they waited. The Doctor rattled the door knocker in impatience, the mother seemed to be taking her sweet time answering. Finally, she answered, and they put on friendly smiles.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor, and this is Ryan. Can we see your daughter?"

"No! You can't," the woman said perhaps a little too quickly.

"Okay. Bye." The Doctor and Ryan turned and walked away, hands shoved in pockets. Ryan started counting down in his head. Three… two… one…

"Why?"

They turned with such synchronicity that the move almost looked choreographed. "Why do you want to see Chloe?" asked the woman.

"Well, there's some interesting stuff going on in this street and I just thought… well," the Doctor gestured at Ryan, "we thought that she might like to give us a hand."

"Sorry to bother you," said Ryan, giving an apologetic wave.

"Yeah, sorry. We'll let you get on with things. On your own," said the Doctor unsubtly. "Bye again."

They started to walk away again. Three… two -

"Wait!"

They span around.

"Can you help her?" asked the woman.

The Doctor smiled. "Yes I can."

The woman, who had introduced herself as Trish, let the Doctor and Ryan into her front room. Ryan sat down on the sofa, while the Doctor opted to stand, instead tossing his long caramel coloured coat beside Ryan.

"She stays in her room, most of the time," explained Trish. "I try talking to her, but it's like trying to speak to a brick wall. She gives me nothing, just asks to be left alone."

"What about Chloe's dad?" Ryan gently asked.

"Chloe's dad died a year ago."

"I'm sorry." Ryan understood the pain of losing a father, and how difficult it could be for a single mother to bring up a child alone.

Trish lightly scoffed. "You wouldn't be if you'd known him."

"Well, let's go and say hi," the Doctor said with enthusiasm.

"I should check on her first, she might be asleep."

"Why are you afraid of her, Trish?" said the Doctor, any trace of cheerful enthusiasm gone.

"I want you to know, before you see her, that she's really a great kid," insisted Trish.

"I'm sure she is," replied the Doctor in a genuine tone.

"She's never in trouble at school. You should see her report from last year. As and Bs."

Ryan smiled at Trish in encouragement, then he decided he felt like doing some of his own investigating. "Can I use your loo?" he asked.

Trish gave a surprised nod, and Ryan walked out the front room and crept up the stairs; he could hear Trish telling the Doctor about Chloe's involvement in the choir.

At the top of the landing, Ryan heard some noise coming from behind a shut door. Guessing it to be Chloe, he quickly hid in a cupboard. Peering through the gaps in the louvre door, Ryan watched as Chloe left her room. Once he heard the stairs creaking from the footsteps, he quietly moved into Chloe's room, taking care ensuring that the door wouldn't creak. Ryan was greeted with walls covered in drawings, most – if not all – of children and pets. He went over to the desk to see what Chloe had been working on.

Suddenly, there was a rattle coming from behind him; Ryan reflexively turned around, knocking over a pot of pencils. He quickly gathered the pencils from the floor when one of the pictures caught his eye. It was of a boy in a union flag t-shirt – Ryan could have sworn he didn't look as startlingly angry before. Ryan heard another rattle behind him. This time, he was sure it was coming from the wardrobe, there was no other place in the room it could have come from. Ryan slowly walked over to the wardrobe, feeling like he knew where this was going to go. He slowly pulled open both doors and was met by a strong gale emanating from inside the wardrobe. Ryan pulled back some clothes to find a tall, life-size drawing of a man, teeth bared, and his eyebrows pinched in anger, his furious eyes emitting sinister red light. "I'm coming!" the picture growled.

"Doctor!" Ryan yelled. He felt himself being drawn into the cupboard, unable to control himself.

"I'm coming to hurt you!"

Thankfully, at that moment the Doctor ran into the room. He lightly pushed Ryan aside and shut the doors. He drew in a breath and gave Ryan a slight glare that he struggled to interpret.

"Look at it!" insisted Ryan.

"No, ta," the Doctor dismissed him.

"What the hell was that?" demanded Trish.

"A drawing, a face of a man," replied Ryan.

"What face?" Trish went to open the wardrobe, but Ryan quickly moved himself in front of the handles.

"Best not."

"What have you been drawing?" Trish asked Chloe.

"I drew him yesterday," Chloe replied, matter-of-factly.

"Who?"

"Dad."

"Your dad? But he's long gone. Chloe, with all the lovely things in the world, why him?" Trish asked, the desperation clear in her voice. Ryan was feeling quite worried now.

"I dream about him. Staring at me."

"I thought we were putting him behind us. What's the matter with you?"

"We need to stay together."

"Yes, we do," Trish agreed, nodding.

"No, not you. Us." The Doctor lowered the drawing he'd been inspecting and turned around, frowning. "We need to stay together and then it will be alright." Trish comforted Chloe, but she flinched away.

"Trish… the drawings. Have you seen what Chloe's drawings can do?" asked Ryan.

Trish glared at him. "Who gave you permission to come into her room?" she questioned. "Get out of my house." The Doctor chose that moment to intervene.

"Tell us about the drawings, Chloe."

"I don't want to hear any more of this," Trish said.

"But that drawing of her dad… I heard a voice, he spoke!" Ryan said insistently.

"He's dead! And these, they're kids' pictures! Now get out!"

Ryan ignored Trish's demands. "Chloe has a power, and I don't know how, but she's used it to take Danny Edwards, Dale Hicks; she's using it to snatch the kids!"

"Get out!"

"Have you seen those drawings move?"

"I haven't seen anything!" Trish nervously half-chuckled.

"Yes you have." Ryan didn't need to be looking at the Doctor to hear the frown in his voice. Trish twisted around to look at him. "Out of the corner of your eye."

"No," Trish denied.

"And you dismissed it because what choice do you have? When you see something you can't possibly explain, you dismiss it, right?" The Doctor walked over to look Trish in the eye. "And if anyone mentions it, you get angry, so it's never spoken of ever again."

Trish interrupted him. "She's a child."

"And you're terrified of her. But there's no one to turn to, 'cos who's going to believe the things you see out of the corner of your eye? No one. Except me."

"Who are you?" asked Trish, scared.

"I'm help."

They left Chloe in her room, making their way to the kitchen. The Doctor spotted a jar of marmalade on the counter and swiped it as soon as it was in range. He unscrewed it and went to eat some but was stopped when Ryan caught him with a finger in his mouth. He cleared his throat and shook his head at the Doctor. What the fuck is he doing, thought Ryan. Nine hundred years old and still lacking basic manners.

The Doctor gave Ryan and Trish sheepish looks in turn, before putting the jar down as if nothing had happened. Ryan needed to refocus him.

"Those pictures, they're alive. She's drawing people, and they end up in her pictures."

"Ionic energy. Chloe's harnessing it to steal those kids and place them in some kind of holding pen made up of ionic power."

"And what about the dad from hell in her wardrobe?"

Trish interjected, "How many more times do I have to tell you, he's dead."

"Well, he's got a very loud voice for a dead bloke," Ryan snarked.

"If living things can become drawings, then maybe drawings can become living things." The Doctor shuddered at the thought. "Chloe's real dad is dead. But not the one who visits her in her nightmares. That dad seems very real. That's the dad she's drawn, and he's a heartbeat away from crashing into this world." He gazed at the ceiling.

"She always got the worst of it when he was alive," confessed Trish.

Ryan looked at him squarely. "Doctor, how can a twelve-year-old be doing any of this?"

The Doctor paused for a moment, then audibly inhaled as he pushed himself away from the counter. "Let's find out."

Ryan and Trish followed him back up the stairs into Chloe's room, where she was sat cross-legged on the bed, as if she had been expecting them. The Doctor crossed the room to stand in front of her. Chloe gave him the Vulcan salute, which Ryan assumed the Doctor had shown her earlier when she was downstairs. Finally, something a bit more Spock, Ryan contemplated, remembering their time in 1941.

"Nice one." The Doctor smiled. He bent down in front of her and gently placed his fingertips at her temples. Almost instantly, Chloe's eyes rolled back, and she fell back, the Doctor guiding her down. "There we go…"

"I can't let him…" Trish stepped forward to stop the Doctor, but Ryan placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Shush, it's okay. Trust him," Ryan reassured her.

The Doctor took a couple of steps back. "Now we can talk."

Chloe's voice took on a whispering tone, with an almost ethereal quality to it. "I want Chloe! Wake her up! I want Chloe!"

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked evenly.

"I want Chloe Webber!" Chloe, or more likely whatever creature was within her, slammed her fist against the bed in anger.

"What have you done to my little girl?" asked Trish, almost crying.

"Doctor, what is it?"

The Doctor paced around the bed. "I'm speaking to you, the entity that is using this human child. I request parlez in compliance with the Shadow Proclamation."

"I don't care about shadows or parlezes!"

"So what do you care about?" asked the Doctor in a low voice.

"I want my friends!"

The Doctor crouched down at the side of the bed. "You're lonely, I know. Identify yourself," he requested.

"I am one of many, I travel with my brothers and sisters. We take an endless journey. A thousand of your lifetimes." The Doctor looked down in empathy. "But now I am alone. I hate it. It's not fair and I hate it!"

"Name yourself!" demanded the Doctor.

"Isolus."

A look of understanding dawned on the Doctor's face. "You're Isolus, of course!"

Chloe picked up a pencil and started quickly scrawling on a nearby piece of paper. "Our journey began in the Deep Realms when we were a family."

"What's that?" Trish asked, looking at the flower-like drawing that Chloe was producing at an unnatural speed.

"The Isolus mother, drifting in deep space," answered the Doctor, rising to full height. "See, she jettisons millions of fledgling spores – her children. The Isolus are empathic beings of intense emotion, when they're cast off from their mother, their empathic link, their need for each other is what sustains them. They need to be together; they cannot be alone."

"Our journey is long."

"The Isolus children travel, each inside a pod. They ride the heat and energy of solar tides. And it takes thousands and thousands of years for them to grow up."

"Thousands of years just floating through space? Poor things. Don't they go mad with boredom?" Ryan asked.

"We play."

Ryan edged forwards. "You… play?"

The Doctor hummed in confirmation as he sat down on the bed. "While they travel, they play games. They use their ionic power to literally create make-believe worlds in which to play."

"In-flight entertainment?"

"Helps keep them happy. While they're happy, they can feed off each other's love. Without it, they're lost." The Doctor looked down at Chloe, directly addressing the Isolus. "Why did you come to Earth?"

"We were too close."

Chloe cast aside the paper she was pencilling on to start drawing on the sheet beneath it and started aggressively sketching a circle.

"That's a solar flare from your sun," explained the Doctor. "Would have made a tidal wave of solar energy that scattered the Isolus pods."

"Only I fell to Earth. My brothers and sisters are left up there and I cannot reach them. So alone!"

"Your pod crashed? Where is it?"

"My pod was drawn to heat, and I was drawn to Chloe Webber. She was like me… alone. She needed me and I her."

"You empathised with her," said the Doctor as he stroked Chloe's temple soothingly. "You wanted to be with her because she was alone like you."

"I want my family! It's not fair!" snapped the Isolus. Ryan and Trish looked on in sympathy.

"I understand, you want to make a family. But you can't stay in this child, it's wrong," the Doctor scolded. "You can't steal any more friends for yourself."

"I am alone!"

Suddenly, a crash came from behind Ryan and Trish and they saw the menacing red light through the cracks in the wardrobe. "I'm coming to hurt you!" roared the voice from earlier. "I'm coming!"

"Trish, how do you calm her?" the Doctor asked with urgency. Chloe was shaking violently.

"What?"

"When she has nightmares, what do you do?"

"I…"

"What do you do?"

"I sing to her."

"Then start singing."

The Doctor indicated to Trish to take his place, and he moved to stand next to Ryan. Trish sang Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree; eventually Chloe's shaking subsided and the commotion from within the wardrobe stopped.

Trish cradled her daughter. "It came to her because she was lonely. Oh Chloe I'm sorry." The Doctor and Ryan watched on in silence.

"Chloe usually got the brunt of his temper, when he'd had a drink," Trish explained as she gathered up pencils. "The day he crashed the car, I thought we were free, I thought it was over."

Ryan gave her a handful of pencils he had collected. Having grown up on an estate, he had seen the effect that having abusive parents had on children. "Did you talk to her about it?"

"I didn't want to."

Ryan sat down. "But maybe that's why Chloe feels so alone. 'Cos she has all these terrible dreams about her dad but she can't talk to you about them."

"Her and the Isolus… two lonely kids that needed each other…" the Doctor mused.

"And it won't stop, will it, Doctor? It'll just keep pulling kids in."

"It's desperate to be loved," sighed the Doctor, "it's used to a pretty big family."

"How big?"

The Doctor's eyes flicked down to Ryan. "Say around… four billion," he exhaled. Ryan's jaw dropped a little. A family that large was almost impossible to comprehend.

The Doctor and Ryan quickly left Trish's house, and explained that they would be back later.

"We need that pod," said the Doctor as they hurried down the driveway, still throwing on his trench coat in their rush.

"It crashed, won't it be destroyed?" Ryan asked.

"Well it's been sucking in all the heat it can. I think that should keep it in a fit state to launch," the Doctor replied, his frustration and annoyance evident. "It must be close. It should have a weak energy signature the TARDIS can trace. Once we find it, then we can stop the Isolus."

They rapidly approached the yard where the Doctor had parked the TARDIS. "We can scan for the same trace I picked up from the scribble creature," the Doctor explained. "Just need to widen the field a bit."

He dug his key out his trouser pocket and hastily unlocked the TARDIS, with Ryan following him inside.

The Doctor ripped up panels from the TARDIS's floor, picking out various components and pieces of machinery, giving a few bits to Ryan for him to hold.

"You knew the Isolus was lonely before it told you. How?" asked Ryan as the Doctor paced around the console. The Doctor nudged him off the jump seat.

"I know what it's like to travel a long way on your own," the Doctor deflected. "Give me the steino-magnetic… um…" Ryan put out both hands to him, not sure what he was asking for. The Doctor nodded clumsily. "The… thing in your left hand."

"Sounds like you're on its side," said Ryan slipping the component into a gadget the Doctor was constructing.

"I sympathise, that's all."

"The Isolus has caused a lot of pain for these people."

"It's a child. That's why it went to Chloe. Two lonely, mixed up kids," the Doctor replied, blowing on his gadget. Ryan hummed in disagreement.

"Feels to me like a temper tantrum 'cos it can't get its own way.

"It's scared. Come on, you were a kid once. Binary dot."

Ryan held out his index finger. "Yes, and I know what kids can be like," he argued. "Right little… terrors."

The Doctor held out his hand to Ryan. "Gum." Ryan let the gum he was chewing drop into the Doctor's palm.

"Oi, I've got cousins. Kids can't have it all their own way, that's part of being a family."

"And what about trying to understand them?" the Doctor countered.

Ryan turned away from him. "Easy for you to say, you don't have kids."

"I was a dad once," replied the Doctor offhandedly.

Ryan snapped round, not sure if he was being serious, surely the Doctor would have mentioned his children if he had any. "What did you say?" The Doctor pointedly ignored the question.

"I think we're there," he said, giving his device a shake. He stood up from the jump seat and made his way around the console. "Fear, loneliness – they're the big ones, Ryan. Some of the most terrible acts ever committed have been inspired by them. We're not dealing with something that wants to conquer or destroy. There's a lot of things you need to get across this universe…" Ryan noticed a blip on the monitor and pointed at it. "…warp drive, wormhole refractors. Do you know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold." He paused, noticing Ryan's outstretched hand. The Doctor glanced up at Ryan with the widest grin he had seen all day. The Doctor happily placed his hand on top of Ryan's.

"No, look I'm pointing," Ryan laughed. The Doctor shifted in front of the monitor.

"It's the pod!" he exclaimed. "It is in the street!" He looked at Ryan. "Everything's coming up, Doctor." Ryan followed him as he dashed out of the TARDIS.

Ryan took the lead as the Doctor shut the door. "Okay – it's about two inches across. Dull grey, like a gull's egg. Very light."

"So these pods, they travel from sun to sun using heat, yeah? So it's not all about love and stuff. Doesn't the pod just need heat?" Ryan heard glass smash behind him. He turned; the Doctor's device was lying in pieces on the concrete and the Doctor himself was nowhere to be seen. "Doctor?" Ryan spotted the gap between the two shipping containers where the TARDIS should have been. "Doctor!"

A/N: Still not sure whether this is gonna be finished in one really long chapter, or two shorter chapters. However, I am going to extend this out into series 3 and 4 rewrites; I love writing this AU and there's lines from series 3 and 4 that I can't wait to utilise. Hope you all are well, and thank you for reading! Any comments are very welcome, as always.