I don't own Doyle, the Secret Saturdays, or some of the various people that the characters talk about.
I own Corbin, Zander, and the rest of the household, as well as Fae and the Mulo Clan and some of the other various people that the characters talk about.

There are a couple of scenes in this chapter that exist almost entirely because of some vague reference within the show. Like that stack of photos on the floor, in "Van Rook's Apprentice." You'll know which photo I mean when I get to that scene. At least...if you saw the photo.
I've got another whole arc coming based on another vague (or "blink and you'll miss it," depending on the viewer) reference within that same episode.
And I'm trying to play around with my camera and computer to enlarge these pictures without ruining the quality. (Digital camera plus LCD monitor...nice combo for my experiments.) It's one of those "shouldn't work but does" experiments I learned in speech class. But with a camera instead of a scanner. I'll post one of them on my profile if it ever works.
Which won't happen until I extract the episode from my official volume 2 DVD, then convert to a plain ol' video file, then extract the frames, then....
There's a lot of steps, just to get One. Single. Picture.
Or maybe I'll just play the video at slow-speed, set my camera to high-speed video, and record a minute of my screen at a time, then extract the frames from that. Still very involved, but less variety of steps. But then I'll need the tripod.
Or skip the camera and use Irfanview's screen capture, though I'm not sure about the framerate.
Suggestions?

Stray

Nearly two months after the attack, Zander found Doyle outside, struggling with a piece of wood.

His hands shook as he picked up the knife and set it to the wood. He pressed down to remove a thin slice—

And dropped wood and knife with a cry of pain. He scrambled after them and tried to pick them up again.

"Doyle?" Zander called. "What are you doing?"

Doyle cowered and looked away, but not before Zander saw the tears in his eyes. "I'm supposed—supposed to—to be making those carvings for you—" He sniffed and tried to wipe away the tears. "I got a job—an'—an' I can't do it; I can't even hold it anymore—"

"You just need to wait until you're done recovering is all," Zander said. "Now come on, come back inside."

"But—but I got a job, an'—"

"Doyle, please, listen to me. Perez and that shaman said you're healing quick, they figure your wrists should be strong again in another month or two. But you're not done healing; if you keep this up now, you're just going to hurt yourself worse."

"But I—"

"Doyle...." Zander shook his head, trying not to let the younger boy see his anger; he feared Doyle might think himself its target. He was doing better. He was starting to trust us, I know he was! "Look, your...your job is to do stuff for me, help me feel better, right?" Doyle nodded, slowly. "It's not just the carvings; it...." Zander sighed. "You don't have to do anything to do that. Sometimes, the best way you can help someone is just to be there for them." Like dad and me are trying to be there for you. Zander put every effort into wanting Doyle to hear that thought. "That's all you need to do, okay? So just...come back inside. For me?"

Doyle finally nodded, and Zander helped him to his feet and inside.

Doyle tried not to look at Zander, but the older child didn't miss the fear in his eyes. Now I know how Benton felt, Zander thought. I don't much like having someone afraid of me. Maybe if I'd run into them that hurt him, maybe, but not him, not someone I'm trying to help.

"You found him?" a servant asked, running up. "Oh, you did! Thank the gods, you found him!"

"Yeah, you can tell my dad he was outside trying to do his job," Zander said. "Um...is the TV free? I thought I might check and see if there's a game on."

The servant had turned to find Corbin, then turned back at the question. "Yeah...I suppose...." He had a puzzled look on his face. "Why?"

"I just figured since Doyle..." Zander forced himself not to snarl the next part, "needs something to do, maybe he could watch with me."

"Um, well it has been a while since you've been involved," the servant began.

Zander only shrugged. "Then I guess me and Doyle will start on a level playing field, won't we?" Then he groaned. "Oh, please tell me I did not just say what I think I did."

"Sorry, kiddo, but you did." The servant laughed. "Yeah, I'll let your pop know what you're up to."

"Hey, thanks," Zander called over his shoulder. He led Doyle through a few more rooms before finally stopping at one with a number of metal boxes. He fiddled with the buttons on some of them for a while, and tried to talk to Doyle over his shoulder. "Top of the line, dad says. Brand new set. I can control all of it with just one remote—" he gestured with the small, flat object in his hand, then pointed at some of the smaller boxes. "An' you see all those speakers? You can make it sound like you're really in the show."

He smiled at Doyle, but the younger child did not smile back. Doyle didn't even look at him; he just stared off into space.

Catatonic again? Zander wondered. But no, Doyle reacted to his surroundings. Not that this reaction was much better. "Here we go," Zander said. He pressed a few more buttons, and the soccer game came in clearly. "Wow. It has been a while. I don't recognize any of these teams."

—

They watched the game for about half an hour, when Zander turned to Doyle and asked if he knew what was going on.

"I don't really know," Doyle mumbled. "I thought—" He glanced at Zander, then stared at the floor.

"Go ahead. It's all right," Zander said. "Take your time if you want."

"Well, I—I kind of thought it was maybe like a couple of wolf packs fighting over who gets to hunt, but.... But they weren't trying to catch nothing, so I don't know."

"Wolf packs?" Zander thought about the analogy. "Yeah, sure, wolf packs. Only except for running their prey down like wolves, they got to catch it in the net, see? And they only got so much time to catch it. But they want to see which team—which pack—can catch more prey in the time they got. But do you see how they catch more prey? 'Cause they only got the one thing to chase." He waited for Doyle to reply.

"They...take it out of the net and start over?"

"Right! And when the game's done, whoever caught the most prey—caught it the most times, rather—gets to go on and face another...pack, and see which of them can do better."

"So..." Doyle began, and hesitated. Zander gestured for him to continue. "So every time they win against one pack, they just keep going at it?" He frowned. "How come?"

"Well.... If we're looking at the ball as prey, I suppose you could say it's for territory." Zander shrugged. "Yeah, whoever catches more prey in a game gets to keep their territory for longer, and if they win enough times, they get the chance to...to hunt in other territory, I guess, get more kinds of prey."

Doyle stared at him, and Zander had to force himself not to laugh at the younger child's incredulous expression. "Wolves and them would take what they got and be done; they only fight a little, and only if they had to. But these...teams got to do this a lot? How do they fight over it, anyhow? Must be all the territory owned by one pack, by now." He frowned. "No, younger wolves could fight the older ones for control, but...." He shook his head. "That'd still be one pack, just different wolves controlling it."

"Uh...not exactly," Zander replied. "Like the man said, it's been a while since I've been involved, so I don't remember the numbers too well. But I know there's only so many games in a year. After the last game's played, everyone's got to go back to their original territories, and the next year, they start the whole thing over."

Doyle shook his head, unable to comprehend such madness.

Zander chuckled at the look on his face. "If you think that's bad, you got to really watch out for the audience." Doyle glanced up, and Zander pointed at the people he meant. "The people watching the game. Sometimes they get into fights—real fights, not chasing the ball around—about which team is better. Which of them wins doesn't affect the game, but that don't stop them from fighting."

"What—what do they get out of it, then?"

"A couple hours in jail," Zander replied. "Unless maybe they do some real damage."

"Zan—Zander?" Doyle said after a few moments. "How do you know so much about this...game?"

Zander winced at the fear in the younger boy's voice. Least he's asking questions, again, he decided. Least he's willing to ask, without needing one of us to prompt him. "Ah, I don't know a lot but.... My mom and dad used to play. It's how they met, actually, from rival teams. They decided they liked each other and...stopped playing and came here." He looked up at Doyle. "You know what I mean by that?"

"Um.... They came from different packs?" Doyle suggested, and Zander nodded. "And they left their packs and joined up to start their own?"

"Eh, sort of. Didn't start up a new soccer team, but they had me." Zander sighed. He hesitated, unsure of how Doyle might react, then plunged on. "Dad said this used to be a great place to live, good place to raise a family; people around here were friendly and all, nothing like they are now. Only...mom and me got sick. Nobody could say what was wrong with us, and dad doesn't talk much about what happened, and...." He rubbed at a stray tear. "By the time anyone figured out how the people had changed, mom was gone, and dad was scared I wasn't strong enough to travel. So we had to stay."

The game was over, and Corbin found them and shooed them both off to bed. Zander wanted to talk more, to encourage Doyle to ask more questions, but he knew better than to press too hard.

He stood outside Doyle's room for a moment. "And I'm glad we stayed," he whispered. "'Cause now you got yourself a big brother. I just wish we could get you to understand that."

—

A few days later, Doyle had recovered enough to move around more, and Zander decided to show him how to play soccer.

Zander dug out a ball and talked one of the servants into setting up a few logs in place of a net. Then he proceeded to tell Doyle some of the rules. "'Kay, first, you don't ever use your hands in the game. Well, not unless you're guarding the...the net," he pointed at the logs, "but since there's only the two of us, we ain't going to worry about that." He smiled. At least he don't need to wait 'till his hands recover for this.

"You can kick the ball, hit it with your knee or whatever if it goes high enough. I've seen people who played so long, they learned to hit the ball with their heads. Most just kick it, though, and that's all we need to do for a while. There's lots more rules in the big games, but I figure that's good enough for now." Zander placed the ball on the ground, perhaps ten feet from the "net." "Right now, I gotta try to kick the ball into the net, and your job is to stop me."

"S—stop you?" Doyle replied nervously. "I—I don't know...."

"Well, I suppose you could stand by if you wanted, but if nobody tries to stop me, it don't mean much if I get the ball in, right?" Zander tried to catch Doyle's gaze. Note to self: Stop pulling this stunt on pushovers; I hate myself for using it on him, and he needs it. "Please, Doyle? Try it, for me?"

Doyle mumbled an agreement.

Zander kicked the ball around a few times, to get a feel for the activity, to refresh memory and remind muscles how they worked. He had to remind himself not to act defensive when Doyle started following him; some moves that were technically legal, even a few that good sportsmanship allowed, would probably scare off the younger boy for good. Time enough to teach him that part when Doyle's confidence improved.

Zander glanced over at Doyle, checked the angle to the logs—Not too hard, now; we've both been stuck in bed for too long—and drew back and kicked the ball.

And it bounced off Doyle's foot and away from the logs. Doyle jerked his leg back and looked between the ball and Zander. He looked like he wanted to run away.

"Hey, good job!" Zander said with a smile. "Much better than my first time; do you know, it took me about a year before I'd stop running away from the thing?" He grabbed the ball and returned to his starting position. "All right, it's your turn. You try for the net, and I got to stop you, 'kay?"

—

Corbin found Zander in the stable a few days later, staring into Viper's stall. "What's the matter? Not enjoying your game?"

"Oh, hey dad," Zander mumbled. "Yeah, it's fun, but that's—that's kind of the problem."

"Oh? How so?"

"Well.... I don't think Doyle's having any fun."

"I think," Corbin slowly replied, "that he just doesn't realize yet that he's supposed to be having fun."

"I've been trying to show him that," Zander said. "I want to show him that it's okay to enjoy himself, and I know I got to be able to have fun myself so he can see what it's like, right?" Corbin nodded. "Except then I think about why he ain't having fun, and it makes me feel kinda rotten, like maybe it's wrong of me to think about fun when he's hurting." Tears formed in his eyes; he didn't even try to wipe them away. "Before those people attacked him, I'd seen him smile lots of times. Usually got surprised into it, but at least he smiled. Now it's like he's forgotten how; I haven't seen him smile once, not even when he's with the animals."

"Zander, you know these things take time," Corbin said. "We'll keep working on him, don't worry about that. You just have to remember to be patient."

"I know," Zander said with a sniff. "I know, I'm trying. It's just—if I could see him smile once—it wouldn't have to be real, even, maybe that he smiles only 'cause I want him to, or something—but if I saw it once more, maybe I'd know I'm doing something right. That's the worst part, dad. I don't understand what he's going through. I mean, the animals understand how he feels better than I do! I see him like this, I want to help him, but I don't even know if I can.... It hurts, dad. Not like he's hurting, but it still hurts."

"I know, I know," Corbin whispered, embracing his son. "I know what you mean. First time I felt like that was when you and your mother got sick."

"Least that was like an accident, though," Zander said, his voice muffled in Corbin's arms. "Just something that happens. I mean, it wouldn't have made you feel all rotten and ashamed of yourself, just for being part of the same species as the people responsible."

Corbin gave a start at the remark, but chose not to answer. Zander was too wrapped up in his misery to notice.

—

Zander was determined to find some way to make Doyle smile again. He didn't particularly care anymore if he gave the younger boy a good reason; at this point, it was enough if Doyle was confident enough to smile.

Doyle continued to take part in Zander's games. Both children continued to grow stronger, and they spent more time outside every day, and Zander tried to increase the size of their "field."

One day they chased the ball behind the stables. Zander ran back to retrieve it, when he heard a noise that made him spin and fall to the ground. "Viper!" he yelped, scrambling to get away from the stallion. "How'd you get out of your stall?"

Viper ignored the older boy and went to investigate the younger. Zander tried to tell Doyle to get away, to tell him the stallion was mean, but the warning died on his lips. He stared in amazement at what he saw.

Viper mouthed Doyle's hair for a moment, then nudged at the child's chest. The stallion got to his knees so Doyle could reach to pet him behind the ears. Viper's eyes closed in bliss.

And Doyle laughed.

"What're you asking me for?" Doyle said. "I don't know; I'm not the one with all the rules!"

"Doyle?" Zander managed in a squeak. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Doyle, were you—were you laughing?"

"Yeah," Doyle replied. "Viper showed me what he thought we looked like, and...." The smile vanished, and he gave Zander a look that the older boy couldn't decipher. "Sorry," he finished in a mumble.

Viper showed...? "He probably thought we looked real silly," Zander said after a moment, forcing a smile. Doyle only nodded in reply, his expression guarded again.

Viper gave a sigh that—in any other animal, any other horse—Zander might have thought was regret, and nudged at Doyle again.

"Okay," Doyle said to the horse. He turned back to Zander. "Viper says I got to ask you, on account of you can't hear him—" The stallion whinnied, and Doyle winced and gave that look again. "Sorry, I didn't—didn't mean to say it like that."

Zander recognized that tone. His dad's servants had spoken in that tone a lot when he'd first gotten sick, if they tried to talk about it and realized only after if they'd said something rude.

"Anyway, Viper says I got to ask you, but he wants to know if he can guard the 'net' for us."

Zander stared between Doyle and the stallion. Was Doyle actually saying that—? "Um...sure," he said, still a little dazed. Zander climbed to his feet and repeated the rules they were using so far, and listened to Doyle repeat them to the stallion.

He didn't know what to make of this. There was no way the stallion could understand the game just by being told the rules, but Doyle had smiled again. And laughed! Zander thought, amazed. If Doyle wanted to think Viper could play along, Zander decided he wasn't about to argue.

Shortly into the game, Zander started to wonder if maybe the horse did understand...though Viper seemed to let the ball through an awful lot when it was Doyle's turn to kick.

Section 1: Darn, I wanted to use the "can't set the clock" gag. But apparently, a programmable timer was introduced for VCRs back in the 70's, and between my guesses about Doyle's age and the general flow of my timeline, this arc takes place in the mid-80's. And I want that TV set to be "new" technology.

Section 2: That entire "wolf pack" analogy was originally supposed to be how Doyle explained the notion. (Remember in "Once More the Nightmare Factory," when he referred to the family as running around in a "pack?" That sounded wolfish to me. I mean, how many people think of a group of humans as a pack? Of course, I could be wrong. I could just be biased, grabbing up anything that could verify my pet theories by even the loosest interpretation...and ignoring anything that violates them. So, you know, I might be wrong. It's...theoretically possible.)
That was before I decided he'd become near catatonic after that attack, and was afraid to speak even when spoken to, and so on and so forth.
*sigh*
Oh, well. It still, technically, came from Doyle's interpretation, so I suppose it serves my purpose.

Section 4: Urk! Guess I got a little too into that scene. I kept having to run off to wipe my eyes....

Sections 2 and 4: Still wondering about the cause of Zander's illness. I have my own theories, but I doubt they'll influence the story any (and I'd prefer that they don't), so I'll try to leave it...ambiguous.
It's another "author opinion versus fanfic/personal canon," so....
Feel free to speculate!