Yay! New chapter! I'm sorry it took so long, dear readers, really I am. However, it's here now, so we might as well all take advantage of that while we can.

Disclaimer: *Grins* Maybe I do own Torchwood. Who knows? I'd like to see you try to prove I don't. It is outside the government and beyond the police and a secret organization, after all. Obviously I don't own the television show or the novels, but I very well could own the organization.

Enjoy!

CHAPTER 6

Martha arrived sooner than anyone expected, boyfriend in tow, and was talking to the Doctor and a much less tired Owen in a corner of the hub before going over to the patient, who was currently being examined by Tom.

"So basically," she summarized back to the two men, "when he was seperated from his family, he couldn't function?"

"Yes," the Doctor said, emphasizing the word with his hand. "Without someone to let him know who he was supposed to be or what he was supposed to be doing, there was no way for him to function normally. Whoever else he was around could have been ordering him to do things all day and he probably would have done them, but without the mental connection, it could never be the same. Now that he's got parents again though, the mental bond is there again and he's got some sense of self back."

"But he can't remember what happened when he wasn't with family because without them, he didn't exist?"

"Right, exactly!"

Owen spent most of this conversation looking skeptically back and forth between the pair and just offering any necessary medical knowledge.

"That poor boy..."

"Yes, but that's not the issue. The issue is-"

"That he might have four sets of competing genes now. Yeah, do we know for sure that his first mum and dad are dead?"

"I don't think there's any other way the bond could be broken so completely."

"So that's a yes, then?" The Doctor nodded energetically. "And the other issue is the cut on his forehead, which we have no clue what is. Right." she said, looking determined, "We'll get right on it."

It didn't take very long for Martha and Tom to get introduced to Rory and then for the four of the Earth medical professionals to get together over test results and different data and start brainstorming. The Doctor kept talking to Amy and Ianto kept seeking comfort either with Jack or Tosh.

Jack continued on with work to distract himself when Ianto wasn't with him, but closed himself off emotionally, not knowing how to handle this 'mental and genetic bond' that tied him to another living person. It felt odd, being so thouroughly connected to someone. Confusing.

Ianto was having the same problems with the new connection, not having experienced anything like it before. He could almost feel Hayden, even when they were seperated by floors and walls. He couldn't help but wonder if all parents felt this or if it was a purely alien thing. When he asked Jack, he was told that although there was a bond between all parents and children, this was different.

Over the next several days, Hayden's pain petered off and he started to take walks around the hub with his parents and the others. The scar still ached and throbbed, but it wasn't completely overpowering.

It only took another week for the doctors to determine that there was simply nothing more they could do. Hayden did indeed have genes coming from four different parents, but they weren't competing and it didn't seem to be causing any problems. The strange energy still hung around him and there seemed to be a concentration of it around the scar, but it wasn't doing anything, and until it did, they didn't have anything to work with.

So, as Hayden began to relax around other people, speak more, and move around more like a healthy kid, they all tried to stop worrying. Martha and Tom went back to London, The Doctor took Amy and Rory back into the TARDIS with him for another adventure, and Owen went back to doing autopsies on aliens. And Hayden came home with Ianto and Jack.

ooo

The first few weeks were rough. Hayden had trouble sleeping after everything and after two nights, they realized he was nervous to ask and invited him into their bed, where he ended up a lot afterwards. It took a few more days for him to get the hang of walking and running, but once he had that down, a bike with training wheels was ready and waiting. The guest bedroom was soon converted into Hayden's space with a few posters on the walls and colorful blankets on the bed, the stuffed lion right in the middle of the pillows.

But despite all this progress, Hayden was nervous and jumpy and frightened and weak and confused. Building muscles would take a while. Building trust and a sense of security would take longer. But confusion—well, Jack and Ianto were confused too. It was all so new. Jack and Ianto had been together before, but the archivist still hadn't been convinced that it was anything really serious on Jack's part. How could an imortal person have a serious relationship with someone who would grow old and die? Hayden had changed things in a confusing way. A child couldn't be added to a fling. Hayden wasn't an accident or a mistake. He was theirs. And they were a family now. That was an incredibly fast turn and it frightened Ianto more than a bit.

The bond thing was difficult to comprehend as well. The gist of it was that Hayden would do anything to make them happy with him which meant everything from not crying to not getting sick to deciding on a career based on their desires for him. They had to be incredibly careful what they said and even thought for fear of it influencing him. They both also thought that this meant he would progress at about the speed they thought he would and that he wouldn't surprise them too much. That was horribly wrong.

Ianto had kept speaking to Hayden in Welsh whenever the kid had a nightmare or needed to be calmed down for whatever reason but it was a great shock to everybody when Ianto was hugging Hayden tightly one morning after he'd tripped and hit his arm on the coffee table and Ianto said '**Dim ond yn bump a bydd yn well yn fuan,' only for a dry-eyed Hayden to respond with "I know that it won't hurt as much later, Tad, but that doesn't stop it from hurting now and I love you more than anything and I'm sorry for getting hurt like this because I know you wish I wouldn't but it was an accident and I'm sorry and it hurts," in fluent Welsh.

As it turned out, despite either of their predictions or expectations, either Hayden himself or Tenza as a species had a knack for languages.

After that incident, it only took a few weeks to teach Hayden Armenian, which was followed by Latin, Greek, and sign language over the year. It pleased Jack to no end that he could share secrets with his son speaking in his own home language and they planned to teach him all the main Earth languages they could before moving on to additional alien ones.

Regular school was another challenge altogether though. Months progressed and Hayden kept getting better, but trust still seemed to be an issue. Surprisingly, not just from Hayden. They tried putting him in a primary school, but not only did he have trouble trusting the teacher or talking to the other children, but Jack and Ianto found that they had trouble letting him out of their sight for that long. It was quickly settled that for now, at least, they'd teach him themselves. This was probably the best decision they could have made, but not just because he managed to learn at twice the rate most humans his age could-in fact, he learned at a speed quite similar to what Jack had at that age in most areas-but also because it was two o'clock in the afternoon when Hayden had the biggest breakdown that had occurred since they'd gotten him and it could have been truly awful if it had happened at a school.

oo

Hayden was struggling with a bit of reading and Ianto was more than puzzled. They'd been going over the second world war and Hitler's reign and Hayden kept loosing focus while reading. Random words and phrases kept getting added to sentences and it seemed like Hayden was grinding out some of the words through clenched teeth, almost like he was fighting himself over it. He looked like he had a splitting headache and Ianto was trying to get Hayden to stop, but his son was fighting him as well.

And then it got worse. "NO!" Hayden screamed, clutching his head. "No, no, no, no, no," he was sobbing now, and pushing against Ianto's arms, trying to get out of the hug, probably feeling as though he didn't deserve comfort while crying. This had been a serious issue for them that they'd yet to overcome. "No, muggles...aren't...no...that...it can't be...NO! That's wrong! Grindelwald... Tom, that's wrong! Killing is...wrong. No one is... better. I DO! I-I d-do h-have p-par-rents!"

Hayden collapsed unconscious in Ianto's arms and he reached up to touch the com in his ear. "Owen, Jack, Hayden's collapsed." It was only then that he looked up and observed the things fallen off of the shelves and pages spread across the room.

Gathering up the nearly-seven-year-old in his arms, he pushed open the door to the classroom they'd created on one of the lower floors and climbed the stairs to the main area of the hub and back down to the med bay, where he was met by a worried Jack and an irritated Owen.

"Ianto, what happened?" Jack asked, his voice shaking while he took Hayden into his own arms.

"He was having difficulty with a passage about WWII, trouble reading it. Jack, it- it almost seemed like he was- arguing with himself. He started yelling. Some of it complete nonsense, some of it straight-up denial of something. He shoulted loudly that killing was wrong and that no one was better and then cried that he did have parents. Jack-"

"I don't know, Ianto," Jack said, wrapping his lover in his arms. "It sounds bad, but it could be anything." Ianto nodded into Jack's shoulder, waiting as Owen ran tests.

oo

"He'll need a brain scan," Owen said behind them.

"Then do it," Jack responded.

"Well, uh, mine's a bit... not working." Jack looked up and glared at him. "I can have Tosh work up some official papers to prevent interference and whatever, but we'll need to take him into a hospital.

Jack nearly growled in irritation and Ianto squeezed his eyes shut to refrain from getting too emotional. "Fine," Jack said. "Get on it then."

oo

When they were finally driving to the hospital, Hayden still asleep and held in Jack's arms, everybody was thinking about the same general thing. Tenza were known to have odd traits and the transfer of parentage may have enhanced them to violent effects, but whatever was causing this, it was terrifying. They didn't have proof yet, but arguing with oneself was never a good sign. If Hayden were insane, they didn't know what they would do. Would human treatments even work? According to Amy, doctors hadn't been able to do anything to help the little boy they'd encountered with his extreme phobias.

Needless to say, Jack and Ianto were terrified, and hearing the full story complete with moving objects and screams only enhanced the captain's trepidation.

So I decided not to include a confrontation between Martha and Amy after all. Martha spent significantly more time with Rory than with Amy. Suffice it to say that when they met, Amy was a bit jealous and upset that there had been people before her, but Martha laughed it off, only surprised that the Doctor wasn't a love interest for the new companion. They'll never be friends, but it wasn't too bad.

Please leave a review to tell me what you think of it all! Comments and questions are always appreciated!

Thanks for reading!

-MP

**It's only a bump and it will be better soon.