So hi everyone, hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Warning: Scenes of boyxboy, violence, character death, swearing and some gore later on.

The darkness, the cold and merciless darkness. Being buried up to your neck in thick quicksand like mud. It was a life that Timothy Latimer was used to. Crawling through the marsh like land with meadows of barbed wire over his head. The idea of spending every night in a cramp underground space bunker was certainly something that wasn't different to him. Although he hated everything which went on around him, he knew that the war needed someone to help, he fought for his country, but he never rose a gun.

Even now at sixteen, he had not raised a gun, but only fought for a way for the peace to come back to the world. Of course many of those who had seen him in command would call him the coward, his suggestions for battles never resulted in the death of the enemy but only traps. Traps which meant that the enemy were often rebounded from them in battle, but all that people could focus on was that there just weren't enough dead people already.

Something which ate away at Timothy's heart as the boy would look out sadly across the battle field, dead body's hung in shreds across the fields waiting to be picked up. How long was this war going to go on for now? How many more years would it rage across the earth? Sometimes it felt like the war would never end, but Timothy still had to see it every day.

More bodies being buried out here, so far from home.

"War is old men talking and young men dying." He sighed, getting shoved aside as another soldiers glared at him viciously.
"You wouldn't know, coward." The soldier snarled before carrying on.

Timothy steadied himself out turning his gaze down to the watch he always kept on his person, his thumb ran comfortingly over the surface of the metal, remembering a time which felt so long ago. A time when he was still at school and he had to defend his home from threats which he had originally never considered. But now, as he looked down at the watch he felt the same thing that he had done for the last on going weeks. The same gut feeling that he always had and learnt to recognize. Soon. It whispered to him. A message. So very soon.
But when. His thoughts whispered back, but as hard as he tried, he could never get exact, only just feel the same headache he always got whenever he tried to use his... unique skill.

"Brace yourself boys!" A voice shouted, "We're in for a rough night! Batton down the hatches and go into your rabbit holes!" The soldiers barked to each other loudly and Timothy just closed his eyes again, so full of sadness and regret. How many more were going to die tonight? How many had to die, period, for this world to learn that killing each other wouldn't solve anything! "Don't worry coward." The same soldier called out. "Only real soldiers die in these trenches."

Timothy gritted his teeth and sighed, at least until the soldier chucked something at the back of his head and a blue envelop slid to the ground at his feet. "But even cowards get their letters from home."

Something coursed through Tommy as he looked at it.

Something flashed through his mind, an image of fire running through the stars, a flame so bright and so warm yet with a darkness to it. The flame was in the shape of a man, running across the vast space from star to star. His name burnt like the sun but was hidden among the stars. Ice and fire.

He stared down at the watch for a moment before leaning down and picking up the envelope. Staring at it, he knew who it was from, he could just feel it inside of himself. It was as irrefutable as it was obvious to him. Just like all the other stuff that he 'guessed', he knew that this was from the man, the man who was brilliant. He was wonderful, ancient and forever.

But he just never would have thought that he would have seen him again.

The boy took his place on his bed and quickly pulled out the note, staring at it still with a slight disbelief but the words ran through him like wildfire.

Dear Timothy,

An age has passed since we have last spoke and on my adventures I still remember that I would not have been here, if it had not been for the help of you and so many others who had aided me then I would not be here. But although to my greatest self I must ask of you help, you once did me a favour and kept me safe in a time I had to be hidden, you saw my life, but now it seems that the darkness and fire you saw inside my self has... passed on.

Timothy looked at the paper and saw just how heavily the pen had been pressed down, leaving a dent and a blotch of ink before it carried on.

I must now ask of you a favour again, a task in which I can ask no one else. I am sorry, so very sorry. But this time it is not me you must help, there is someone who needs to see a side of humanity which they haven't witnessed yet.

"Yes Doctor." Timothy whispered, though he frowned slightly. His respect for the man was in abundance but what could really worry The Doctor? What use could Timothy be to him? All he had seen of the man, all of those brilliant adventures... what could he do?

He turned his eyes back down to the paper at one sentence which was underlined.

Now don't think that! You're brilliant!

Timothy smiled to himself, shaking his head slightly. That man. That impossible man!

It's not going to be easy and I'm afraid, just as dangerous as the last time. Good luck Timothy, I wish you the best of luck... and have patience.

"Eh up! There's something in the sky!"

Timothy looked up from the paper just as he noticed an object hurtling out of the sky, making directly for the trench he was in.

It was large, dark and hurtling towards them faster and faster. "It's heading right for us!" The soldiers screamed as they threw themselves back into their dig in.

Timothy began to back up before something large and dark enclosed around him.

The last thing he heard before the world melted away around him was the bellows of soldiers running.

-Break-

And that's how it had gone.

For so long it felt like he had been free falling, like for a second, a moment, an eternity he had been picked out and now he clattered harshly to the ground, finding himself in a roll he could barely stop. The ground was harsh and at first it was covered with sharp grass soon became stabs and impalement of small rocks which tore through his clothes and uniform as though it meant nothing.

When he finally came to a stop the world was still spinning around him and he hardly felt himself able to catch his breath. The air- the air itself was so dense in one second and so thin in the next! The ground and the temperature changed so violently that he found it hard to keep up with whether he was freezing cold or boiling hot.

His mind and instincts however took over immediately as he went to check himself over. His ankle hurt and stung violently, he must have twisted it on his fall. He would be able to walk on it, but he could already feel it beginning to swell up rather harshly in his boots. "Doctor." He groaned as he looked at his hands which were bleeding quite harshly. "Where am I now?"
"You're kidding me."

Timothy hesitated at first as a sudden cold sense rushed over him, while that cold and deep grating mechanical voice growled above him. He would have moved faster but while a hand grabbed around his collar, he felt his back arch and images burst through his mind, as it felt like for a minute, his gifted extra sense was a damn suddenly hit by a barging storm river and burst wide open. "This is what they partner me with?! THIS!? At least you're a soldier. Something even your pathetic race couldn't get right half the time."

Timothy's eyes rolled back slightly as the air rushed out of his lungs.

It was there in his mind, just like before except now there was nothing in his thoughts but an agonizingly painful burning of a blaze. A black shadowed figure stood in the heart of an inferno with eyes blacker than midnight in shadows. So dark, so cold, so full of pain. It was almost completely overwhelming. He had felt something like this before, a darkness inside The Doctor but not as deep as this. The Doctor had been wonder and brilliance as well as the darkness... but with this feeling inside him right now. Timothy had to stop himself from screaming out.

While the Doctor's essence had danced in the stars, with the joy and perils of adventure.

This one only drowned and screamed out as the universe stabbed it with fire and in that pain, it dragged everything down with it in fire.

But as he was pulling himself out of his daze and the grip loosened, Timothy felt for a second, just the tiniest of seconds.

A faint white screen be pulled over all of that pain.

Like a piece of paper being erased and then sketched on, over and over again.

"Wake up!" The mechanical voice snarled, pausing as it saw that Tommy was struggling to find his stance. "So he was right. That's why it hurt me. The bastard somehow, mentally or physically connected us! YOUR GAMES! AREN'T! FUNNY!" The figure roared and Timothy finally got his first decent look at the figure as he was lowered back to the ground.

A figure, wrapped in a tight ink black trousers which hugged the skin like they themselves were another layer. Just like the midnight black shirt which was clamped over the boy's torso. At least, Timothy guessed it was a boy from the tones he could make out as well as what he had just felt. He might not have mastered his extra sense, and it might even be on a low scale, but he still found out some basics: It's a boy. He thought to himself. And the boy is far from happy.

The boy's arms were bandages not daring to show a single ounce of skin which were wrapped around each finger and bound from hand to shoulder where glowing lines flowed along that black shirt, like fresh and venomous magma. The cloak however was one of the strangest things that the boy wore, it flowed out behind like an enormous trail, making him look incredible thin and small beneath it's covering hood.

But then Timothy locked his eyes onto the worst of it. The venom green glowing lenses on the horrific mask with the almost wolf like baring of teeth on the black metal where steam hissed out. Even now he could feel the resentment and the hatred rolling off the boy like he was sending out a flare at him. "Already injured." The mechanical voice growled while steam hissed out. "Fragile, pathetic."

He was set down slowly and the figure settled themselves down next to him. Timothy had dealt with people like this when he had been in school. Bitter, twisted, angry other boys. Angry at the world for something, then taking it out on him or whoever else was weaker. But never, had he come across someone like this. With such an anger that was so intense. "You're lucky that I'm still bristling with the change." The mechanical voice growled. "Had you not arrived here for another hour, we would have been struck down dead already by the others."

The figure lifted their bandaged hand as they began to rip away the leg and lower part of Timothy's trouser.

"W-What are you doing! Get off me!" The boy barked.
"Listen here, kiddo." The figure paused for a minute and Timothy swore he almost heard the boy questioning himself slightly at the use of his own words. "I have no time. I have to get us to cover before we're killed or worse, found out by them! Now shut up and bite, this might sting a bit." He waited for Timothy to open his mouth before The Nightmare wrapped the cloth around his jaw so the boy couldn't bite down on his own tongue.

After all, the bandages around his hands were already turning red with blood as well as he could feel his ankle swelling painfully in his boots. He might as well use the last of his regeneration energy to ease this pain off himself for now. "Hold still and shut up- Good, seems you can do something right."

Timothy found his patience growing, harder and harder to maintain the more that mechanical bark snarled at him. But he did as he said and bit down onto the cloth. I still don't understand. Why would The Doctor send me here-AGHH.

He bit back a scream and arched his back as it felt like suddenly fire exploded through his leg. He could hear the other boy snarling in pain himself, and Timothy barely managed to catch the glint of an burning green light before the masked boy pulled his hand back and flexed his fingers, closing it into a tight fist and letting out a small sight. "There." It stated, "Now we will have to wait till we find shelter for me to have to deal with the rest of your wounds. Now do me a favour. Shut up and fall in line."
"Listen." Timothy said calmly, "I don't know who you are, or what even your problem is, but-"

He fell silent as a pain banged against his head sharply.

The last thing he saw before falling unconscious was the shadow of the other boy as he rose to his feet, the boy's heavy knee high boots crunching against the shingle and gravel of the rocky floor beneath them. Dropping the rock he must have hit Timothy with. "I told you. Shut up." He said. Timothy could hear the cold smirk behind the mask.
"D-Damn it." He whispered quietly as everything went black.

-Break-

Timothy groaned as he felt himself waking up. His head screamed with pain where had been struck and his body ached with exhaustion, it felt like he had trekked across four trench fields in the space of half an hour. His vision was still swarming slightly and he found himself having to blink a couple of times, to try and bring some sense back to himself. He frowned, barely noticing he was bare as he sat up, wearing only a pair of shorts which kept him decent. But he was kind of glad in a way, it felt like he was sitting in the heart of an inferno.

His turned his head slowly but found that a vicious bark was thrown at him as the cloaked figure who was sitting next to him, quickly turned their back on him, making a grab for their mask. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you- wait hang on. You hit me in the head!" He frowned as the memory was coming back to him.

Wit a loud click he paused, watching as the figure pushed the mask against their face and it let out a large burst of steam, sealing itself against the skin and the lenses flaring back up, when it was finished. "I had my reasons." The mechanical voice growled. "And you did not startle me. I have made my vows, and I will not let one stupid human be the reason they are broken. You draw too much attention to yourself! Arriving like that! Falling down and hurting yourself within the first ten minutes you get here! If it hadn't been me here you would have been killed! Don't you get that you fool!"
So. This is what The Doctor meant. Timothy gritted his teeth while he tried to push his thoughts back into his own mind. "Where am I? Who are you. For someone who seems so horrid, you seem to have a keen sense on keeping me safe-" He fell quiet as the figure let out a vicious snarl, moving from their crouch till the metal canine fangs of the mask were nearly barred at Timothy's throat.
"You ask too many questions. Now shut up, and rest." The figure snapped.

So for a while, Timothy fell quiet, beginning to try and take more notice of where he was and trying to keep his gaze going back from that mask.

They were enclosed in a cave, full of stalagmites and stalactites. It was a decent enough height around them, but it was still just that, a cave... to be honest, it was still warmed and a lot more spacious than the bunker or trench back home had been. "You got quite lucky didn't you." The figure purred coldly behind their mask, in somewhat of a voice which was bemused. "You were pulled out of there at the exact moment the bomb was about to hit your trench."

Timothy stared for a moment, still shocked, not understanding any part of this situation he was in. One moment he had been on earth, fighting in a war, about to be killed by a bomb hitting his trench. Now here he was, sat in a cave, watching as a cloaked boy wearing a mask, wearing clothes which were like something Timothy had only ever seen in his wildest dreams of a future where there was no war. And a mask, a mask that seemed to have eyes which glowed with green lightning.

But now the greatest part of confusion entered his mind. He had dealt with this before in his life, the night when the scarecrows walked, when he had seen the life of The Doctor, the memories of the man, all those aliens and worlds. But he didn't understand why a boy, who so far had only burnt, and knocked him unconscious, had bandaged his slit palms to stop the bleeding.

"You helped me." He said, frowning looking over at the boy, who now had fallen into silence. "You found me, apparently in front of others who are out to kill me. You knocked me unconscious. You fixed my ankle by the looks of it." Timothy stated, shaking his head as his dark brown hair came became a mess. In the firelight of the stone pit which the other boy had make, his skin looked pale, while his dark brown eyes were the paintings of confusion. But still he flexed his ankle experimentally, it was sore, but there was no pain to it. None that resembled the wound he had got earlier. "Now, again, as you made the point earlier, you could have left me out there, in what ever hell battle zone that was. But you brought me with you. Who are you and where am I?"

The boy stared at him for a long minute and Timothy felt the harsh glare burn into him from the gaze of those glowing Green lenses. He pulled the blankets tighter around himself which had been wrapped it and pulled his knees close to his chest. "You're strong willed aren't you? You're not on earth any more. And a little tip. If you try and screw up my plans? Or try to leave this cave? Then you will be dead and in whatever after life you believe in, before you realize that I've ripped your throat out!"

Timothy felt himself grow increasingly pale. He had never heard such certainty from a voice that cold before in his life. "Good." The voice whispered. "I guess you can call me... The Nightmare Child." There was a deep smirk behind the voice as the young sixteen year old soldier listened to the way that this strangely clothed boy, spoke with such a coldness. "And you're in a war zone. I've been charged with keeping you safe. Until I fulfill my orders. We're stuck here. Now shut up and go to sleep."

The cloaked boy repeated his earlier warning before pushing himself against a nearby wall and taking a seat, the harsh black and fanged mouth looked horrific. From war zone into the next, except this time now my executor is looking me down in the eyes. Timothy thought, but that didn't change the fact that as Timothy laid down he was already thinking of an escape plan.

But also, a small part of him was wondering: Why?

Why would The Doctor have sent him here, with someone so cold and dark.

The answer would come soon in the most unexpected of forms.