Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or any of the characters/scenes that you recognise. The only one I own is Haylen and his story.

There was only so much a person could take, Amelia reflected as she knelt at her window. She wasn't bothered by her Aunt leaving her and her twin brother home alone, but the crack in her wall was disturbing. She knew her brother could feel it, even if he didn't have to sleep in the room with it. When they had moved into the house, Amelia hadn't given it much thought. It was just a crack after all. But Haylen had lost it the first time he had gone into the room and seen it. Being the older twin, Amelia had simply decided to take that room. There was no point upsetting her little brother by forcing him to do something he didn't want to.

It hadn't taken long to see where he had been coming from though, as night after night she could hear whispers coming from the crack. No matter how many times she had told her Aunt about it however, she refused to take her seriously. Grown ups could be so stupid.

She shook herself once she realised how far off track she had gotten lost in thought as she was.

'Dear Santa. Thank you for the dolls and the pencils, and the fish. It's Easter now, so I hope I didn't wake you, but honest, it is an emergency. There's a crack in my wall. Aunt Sharon says it's just an ordinary crack, but I know it's not. Haylen won't even come into my room anymore, and at night, there's voices, so please, please, could you send someone to fix it? Or a policeman. Or…'

She jolted and forced her eyes open at the sound of something loud crashing in the garden.

'Back in a moment,' she said distractedly. She grabbed the torch off her bedside table and peered outside. It was the oddest thing she had ever seen, and that included the crack in her wall, and when Haylen had decided that he was going to wear water-wings everyday for a month. It was a big blue box with the words 'police public call box' written on it in clear lettering. She felt her heart leap in her chest once the word 'police' registered properly.

'Thank you Santa.'

She ran out of her room as fast as she could. She needed to get down to the garden so that her help wouldn't leave without helping her.

'Amelia.'

She turned at the sound of her name and took in the wary look on her brother's face. She wanted to just keep moving, but knew she couldn't. Her brother would always be her first priority. She was the big sister after all. She spared a quick thought for how their lives might have been if Haylen had been born first. Would he have been up to the task of being the protective older sibling?

'It's alright Haylen, it's someone coming to fix the crack in my wall. Santa sent him,' she said with a reassuring look. She held her hand out in question but dropped it at the mutinous look at entered Haylen eyes at the gesture. She huffed once but nodded. She should have known he wouldn't take her hand.

They crept out of the house toward the blue box that had crashed into their garden shed in time to see the doors swing open letting out a warm glow. Amelia looked over at her brother but he was staring at the box. It was almost like he couldn't look away. She turned back to the box just as a grappling hook flew out and landed near the twins. Amelia put her arm out in front of Haylen to stop him from getting any closer. It was a risk she had to take. She knew he didn't like to be touched, but she wasn't making contact with any skin, so hopefully it would be fine. Besides, he had the most frustrating habit of getting into things he shouldn't, and she didn't want to have to climb up the side of the box and help him get back out if he tried to get into it.

The twins watched as a man's head popped over the side of the box, soaking wet. Amelia's face scrunched up in confusion. Was this really the person that Santa thought could help her? So far she wasn't impressed. Her wayward thoughts were interrupted by the man speaking suddenly.

'Could I have an apple? All I can think about. Apples. I love apples. Maybe I'm having a craving? That's new. Never had cravings before.'

'Maybe you're pregnant,' Haylen said from beside her, shocking Amelia. He never spoke to strangers. Heck, he barely even spoke to her, and she was his twin.

The strange soaking wet man looked at Haylen, blinking in surprise.

'No, don't think so. Pretty sure I'd remember that.' He shook his head and blinked once more before seemingly discarding the thought. 'Tell you what though, better hope I'm not pregnant! Just had quite the fall, and that is a very not good thing for people who are pregnant!' He said seriously.

'But your a man,' Amelia couldn't help but point out. She might not know everything about how it happened, but she knew that it was women who had the babies.

'Oi!' The stranger said loudly, startling her, 'Who are you to make assumptions? I could be pregnant you know.' He pointed a finger at her with that serious look on his face. Amelia was starting to think this man was a few bread sticks short of a basket.

'Is your box some sort of portable swimming pool?' Haylen asked. Amelia looked over and spotted the sulky frown on his face and mentally sighed. They would get nowhere until his questions were answered. She gritted her teeth. There were more important things to be worrying about.

'No, it's a spaceship. The flight went a bit wrong though, and the swimming pool decided to relocate itself into the library. Turned out to be a good thing though, because I fell all the way from the console room into the library! Would have been a nasty fall if it hadn't. Well, that's not true. The fall was fine, nice even, kind of relaxing if you ignore what it means. It's the sudden stop at the end that gets you.'

Amelia watched as her brother nodded sagely, as if what this stranger was saying made complete sense.

She screwed up her face in irritation. This was just going in circles, and it was hard enough following her brother's train of thought when he got going. Unfortunately, it looked like this stranger was on the same track as Haylen.

'Are you a policeman?' she asked a little too loudly. Both the stranger and her brother turned to look at her at her outburst.

'Why, did you call a policeman?' the stranger asked seriously.

'Did you come about the crack in my wall?' she asked instead.

'What cra-Arg!' he tried to answer, but was cut of as his body twisted in what looked like pain. He fell out of the box with the movement.

'Are you all right, mister?'

'No, I'm fine. It's okay. This is all perfectly norm-' he was interrupted by some golden light coming out of his mouth.

'Who are you?' Amelia asked.

'I don't know yet. I'm still cooking. Does it scare you?' he responded lightly.

A giggle broke into their conversation, and Amelia turned at the same time as the man. They were met with the sight of the golden light floating around Haylen almost playfully. She watched as it formed into a shape of some sort and rubbed up against his cheek. Her eyebrows raised up as far as they would go once she realised he hadn't had a meltdown at the touch. She distantly realised that her mouth was hanging open, and she worked for a minute to close it.

'It's not gonna hurt him, is it?' she asked, worry thick in her voice. She would be a terrible older sister if she let something that had come from this stranger hurt her little brother. She sent a suspicious look at him as her thought registered. Some people could be mean when they spent time around Haylen, and she wouldn't put up with it. It didn't matter if this man could fix her wall or not, if he was going to be mean to her brother then she would stop him.

'No,' he said softly. She could see a soft smile on his face as he watched Haylen interact with the light. 'It's fine. Totally harmless. It's just leftover regeneration energy.' He straightened up and turned back to Amelia. 'So, the crack, does it scare you?'

Amelia chewed on the inside of her cheek lightly at stop the fear from overwhelming her.

'Yes.'

'Well then, no time to lose. I'm the Doctor. Do everything I tell you, don't ask stupid questions, and don't wander off.'

With those commands thrown quickly at her, the Doctor jumped up to his feet and walked purposefully away. Right into a tree.

'Are you alright?'

'Early days. Steering's off a bit.'

As they stood in the kitchen, a very important question occurred to Amelia. 'If you're a doctor, why does your box say police?'

She looked curiously at the Doctor as he bit into the apple she had given him instead of answering her. She was shocked when he suddenly spat the bite he had taken out onto the floor.

'That's disgusting. What is that?'

'An apple.' she responded in confusion.

'Apple's rubbish. I hate apples.'

'You said you love them.'

'No, no, no. I like yoghurt. Yoghurt's my favourite. Give me yoghurt.'

She frowned at him and made her way over to the fridge, but stopped at the sound of Haylen coming back into the room. She turned and looked him over carefully. There was something that she was waiting for, she just wasn't sure what would trigger it.

She spotted it as he froze, looking at the floor, head tilted to the side. He knelt and she followed his gaze to the piece of apple that the Doctor had spat out earlier. She closed her eyes in defeat. She hadn't even given the discarded piece of food a second thought, but she really should have.

The sound of rustling clothing made her look over at the Doctor and saw the confusion on his face as he looked from Haylen's unmoving figure on the floor to Amelia and back again. She grit her teeth and put thoughts about the strange man to the side for the moment.

Haylen put a hand out as if to pick up the piece of apple, but stopped an inch or two away. Amelia focused on his hands to see him tapping each finger onto his thumb in a pattern that she couldn't follow. He was whispering something, and she didn't have to get closer to guess what it was.

Aunt Sharon hadn't really wanted to be lumped with her or her brother, but their parents were gone and she was the only family member left. She did her best, but it was hard raising a kid with autism, or that was what she had overheard from conversations her Aunt had with other adults. Haylen had a lot of trouble with food. Sometimes it was the wrong texture, or colour, or it had touched the wrong other food on his plate. He used to throw it off his plate when that would happen, and Aunt Sharon had gotten very cross with him for it.

'Here,' she said as she moved over to her brother. Sure enough, she could hear what he was saying as she moved over to his side.

'No, no, no, bad, not throw food, only bad boys throw food.' Over and over he repeated his words, but he couldn't bring himself to pick up the bit of apple.

Amelia solved that problem by picking it up and putting it in the bin.

'It's alright, Haylen.' she said softly. 'You didn't do it. It was the Doctor, if anyone is the bad boy, it's him.' She sent a cross glare at the man at her words. It was his fault that Haylen was having a meltdown after all.

She turned away once she saw the regret cross his face. He knew what he had done.

'Ah, yes. Sorry about that. She's right. Bad Doctor, very bad. No throwing food.' He rambled, but didn't try to get closer after another fierce glare from Amelia.

It was a much more polite taste testing session that followed once Amelia had gotten her brother calmed back down. It turned out that yoghurt was not, in fact his favourite. Nor was bacon, baked beans, or bread and butter. He wouldn't even tolerate the idea of trying carrots. Amelia had confirmed her earlier thoughts that he was definitely a bread sticks short of a basket once he pulled out fish fingers and custard with a triumphant sound.

At least Haylen was happy, she thought. He loved fish fingers, so she had been sure to put in enough for him as well as the Doctor. She only hoped he wouldn't try them with custard. That seemed like a bad idea.

Once they were sat down with their food, Amelia with a tub of ice cream and ignoring her brother's irritated stare as she ate straight out of it, she turned her attention once more to the stranger in their house.

'Funny,' she commented as she watched him drink the custard straight out of the bowl.

'Am I? Good. Funny's good. What are your names?'

'Amelia Pond, and that's Haylen, my twin brother.'

'Oh, those are brilliant names! Amelia and Haylen Pond. The Pond Twins. Like names out of a fairy tale. Are we in Scotland, Ponds?'

'No. We had to move to England. It's rubbish.' She grumbled.

'So, what about your mum and dad, then? Are they upstairs? Thought we'd have woken them by now?'

'Don't have a mum and dad. Just as aunt.'

'I don't even have an aunt,' the Doctor said conspiratorially.

'You're lucky.'

'I know. So, your aunt, where is she?'

'She's out.' Amelia said shortly, hoping to cut that line of questioning short. It didn't work, she realised with a nearly silent exhalation through her nose.

"I need a break. The kids are exhausting. No, don't even say the word autism. I don't want to think about it tonight. We're going to drink until we don't remember our own names, let alone anyone else's." Haylen recited as soon as Amelia had stopped speaking.

There was complete silence after his words, giving all of them time to take them in fully. Amelia knew that the way her aunt treated Haylen wasn't the best, but what could she do? She was only an hour older than him at the most, and they had nowhere else to go. It wasn't like she was physically abusive, she just had trouble dealing with Haylen being different.

'So,' the Doctor started after a moment. His voice was different, darker, and Amelia wondered if letting this stranger into their house had been the best idea. 'She just left you all alone, while she went out to get blackout drunk.'

It didn't sound like a question, and she didn't want to deal with the second part of that sentence, so she chose to ignore it entirely. She jutted out her chin in a challenge.

'We're not scared.'

She narrowed her eyes at the Doctor, silently telling him to butt out and mind his own business. His eyes also narrowed at her, before he cleared his throat.

'Course you're not. You're not scared of anything. Box falls out of the sky, man falls out of a box, man eats fish custard, and look at you, just sitting there. So you know what I think?'

'What?'

'Must be a hell of a scary crack in your wall.'

Amy woke with a start, her breath stuttering in her lungs. It had been a long time since she had dreamed of the raggedy man, and she wasn't sure what had brought it on now. She had almost managed to convince herself that he had been something she had dreamed up in the first place. The only thing stopping her was Haylen. He had a photographic memory, and he swore up and down that it had happened. She couldn't rightly discount his version of what happened because of that damn memory of his, and he had no trouble working out what was fiction and what was reality no matter what some stupid people might say.

She glared at the ceiling as she thought of all the times she'd had to defend Haylen from stupid school bullies and adults who thought they could talk down to him just because he was a kid. Her brother was smarter than most adults she knew, and they could fight her on that.

She rolled over and spotted the time on her alarm clock. It was still early which surprised her. Amy wasn't known for being an early bird, but here she was, awake before noon, on her day off no less. She groaned and buried her head in her pillow.

A noise downstairs pulled her from her irritation. She shot another look at the clock. The time hadn't changed, so there was no way it was Haylen down there making noise. He had a strict schedule that he only varied from when outside influences interfered, which only ever brought on a meltdown. At that thought, she leapt out of bed. If Haylen was back at this time of day, then she needed to be prepared to help talk him down. With that in mind she threw on the first clean clothes she found and reached for the door handle only to hear someone calling a name she hadn't used in years. She felt a shiver go down her spine. Unable to tell whether it was anticipation or fear, she stopped and listened from behind her door.

'Prisoner Zero's here. Prisoner Zero is here!'

Her eyes widened in shock at the words being shouted in her house. That just wasn't possible. Her face hardened as she spotted the cricket bat leaning up against her wall.

Haylen sat outside the hospital waiting for Rory. It was a Thursday, which meant that Rory's morning shift would be finished by ten thirty. After that, he and Rory would go to the grocery store together. It was a system that they had worked out last year after aunt Sharon had decided to move to London, leaving the twins in their childhood home together. Amy wasn't the most organised, so it fell to Haylen to keep on top of things. He was good at that sort of thing, so it worked out well. What didn't work well was shopping alone. If he did, then he would spend hours trying to decide between each individual thing, and then start to freak out at the amount of time he had used up, and the number of people around him.

He cut those thoughts off as they started to creep up on him. Just the idea of something upsetting his routine was enough to make his heart speed up, and his breathing to catch in his chest. He breathed in deeply and held it for the count of five. It was hard feeling like he had to rely on other people just to be able to function, but it was a fact of life for Haylen.

'Hey,' Rory said from beside him.

Haylen's eyes shot from his laptop to Rory and back again. He frantically looked down in the corner of the screen for the time. He was almost certain that he hadn't spaced out for over half an hour. He was right. It wasn't time for Rory to be done, so what was going on?

'What- You- Somethings not- You don't-' He couldn't find the words in his confusion.

'Hey, it's alright. Sorry, I didn't mean to surprise you. And you're right. I'm early.' he paused, his eyes going distant for a second before he focused back on Haylen. 'Im going to be taking some time off for a bit.'

Haylen frowned. That didn't sound good.

'Um, anyway, do you think we could post-pone the shopping for a day or so?'

Haylen felt his heart skip at the idea. That wasn't the plan. He had just used the last of some of the foods because he knew he would be doing the shopping today.

'But today's Thursday,' he said blankly. 'It's shopping day.'

Rory sighed, but nodded his head.

Haylen felt relief and shame all at once.

'But, I mean, I could just do my shopping without you,' he said, his eyes sinking to the ground. He berated himself over it. He had been doing so much better at making eye contact lately, or at least with Rory. Once he and Amy started dating, Haylen made a concerted effort to make eye contact at least once every time he saw him. He didn't understand the big deal about eye contact, but it was something that people always made a point of doing, and he didn't want to be the reason that Rory decided Amy wasn't worth it. He had been the reason for a number of his sister's break-ups before, and he didn't want this one to end for the same reason.

'No, really, it's fine. But do you think we could do coffee first? It was a really early start.' Rory said, breaking into Haylen's spiralling thoughts.

Haylen thought for a second. He could do coffee first, if it meant they still did the shopping. He nodded decisively and started packing away his laptop. Once that was done, he positioned the strap of his bag so it rested at his right side with the strap over his left shoulder and across his body. He frowned down at his jacket as it got caught up with the strap of his bag. He shot a look at Rory, but he was just standing looking down at his phone, so Haylen took his time straightening his jacket properly, and then his bow tie. He ran a hand down his front once more and nodded.

'Right, ready?' Rory asked as he put his phone back in the pocket of his hoodie.

'Yes. Lead the way.'

Rory shook his head with a smile and started walking away from the hospital with Haylen trailing after him.

'Still with the bow tie then?'

Haylen tilted his head slightly. It should have been fairly obvious that he was still wearing a bow tie, so why was Rory asking? He fiddled with the bow tie again just to check that it hadn't disappeared in the few seconds since he had straightened it.

'Yes.'

He looked at Rory with some worry. Was he alright? Maybe his sight was going.

'Right, fair enough. But, seriously, why a bow tie?'

'Bow ties are cool. Mels said so.'

Rory shook his head once more, huffing out a laugh. If it had been anyone else, he might have thought they were making fun of him, but he was almost one hundred percent sure that Rory was laughing with him. Or maybe at the situation.

He was distracted from the conversation by Rory stepping off the sidewalk onto the village green.

Haylen stopped at the edge, looking down at his shoes and the grass. He didn't like walking on the grass. If there was a path, then that was where you were supposed to walk. Why else make a path? Unfortunately, Rory was getting further away by the second, so his options were limited. He started to tap his fingers against his thumb in a rythmn that only he could hear. He subconsciously brought his right hand up to his mouth and bit down hard on his thumb.

He looked back over to Rory to gauge the distance, only to see him standing in the middle of the grass looking at someone with an odd look on his face. He bit down once more on his thumb and stepped off the pavement. By the time that he made it to Rory, his skin was crawling, and he had managed to bite hard enough to draw blood. It hadn't stopped him however, anything to distract him from the wrong feeling of walking on the grass.

The other man barely spared a glance at him before going back to looking between his phone and the man out walking his dog. He gave Haylen a second look after a moment once he realised what he had seen.

'Haylen, stop it. You're bleeding. Did you bring any of your chew toys?'

Haylen couldn't answer. He jaw had locked in response to how he was feeling. It wasn't helping enough.

He was distracted from having to answer Rory by someone running over to them, and to his relief, he spotted Amy following the man.

'The sun's going out, and you're photographing a man and a dog. Why?'

Haylen's jaw unlocked suddenly, as the voice of the man pierced through the fog of feelings swamping him at the moment. His blood covered hand dropped to his side as he stared in shock at the man who was staring intensely at Rory.

'Doctor.'

'Yes, not now Haylen. Man and dog, why?' he responded before trying to keep everyone on track.

Haylen's mind took that moment to register exactly what he had said before. He looked up and saw the sun looking particularly fiery and strange. His mind went blank at the sight and he waited for his normal response to change to kick in, but nothing happened. His heart rate stayed steady, his lungs refused to care about the change, and there was not a single part of his brain that was panicking. Which ironically, made him panic.

He tuned back into the present when there was a loud buzzing sound. The street lights around them started to explode one by one, followed by car alarms going off. Then a scooter sped off without the rider's instruction judging by her scream. Haylen watched in shock as a firetruck also made it's way off without its drivers.

He didn't know what that metal tube that the Doctor was using did, but he wanted one!

'I think someone's going to notice, don't you?'

Haylen followed the Doctor's gaze to the man with his dog. He was completely lost. That was what he got for tuning out the conversation, he thought sadly.

The sound of glass shattering made Haylen jump. He turned back at the sound of something electrical shorting out. The Doctor dropped the metal tube thing, but it didn't look the same anymore. It looked like it had melted, or exploded or something.

'No, no. No, don't do that!' The Doctor shouted at the tube.

'Look, it's going,' Rory pointed out as the spaceship in the sky that Haylen had completely missed until that moment started to leave.

'No, come back. He's here! Come back! He's here. Prisoner Zero is here. Come back, he's here! Prisoner Zero is-'

'Doctor! The drain. It just sort of melted and went down the drain,' Amy called.

'Well, of course it did.'

'Oh. They do that often do they?' Haylen asked. He blinked when he got strange looks from both Rory and Amy. 'Oh. That was sarcasm?' A short nod from Amy was his only response.

'What do we do now?' she asked.

'It's hiding in human form. We need to drive it out into the open. No Tardis, no screwdriver, seventeen minutes. Come on, think. Think!'

'So that thing, that hid in our house for twelve years?' Amy asked. She was fighting with the disgust at such a creature living in the house with both her and her brother, and the anger she felt for the danger both she and Haylen had been in since then. She honestly didn't know which emotion was the strongest inside her at that moment.

'Multiforms can live for millennia. Twelve years is a pit-stop.'

'So how come you show up again on the same day that lot do? The same minute!'

'They're looking for him, but they followed me. They saw m through the crack, got a fix, they're only late because I am,' the Doctor rambled as he thought.

'What's he on about?' Rory asked, feeling totally lost.

'Nurse boy, give me your phone.'

'How can he be real? He was never real.'

'Phone. Now. Give me,' the Doctor demanded impatiently.

'Great. There's two of them,' Rory muttered as he handed his phone over to the Doctor. It was like talking to Haylen when he was focused. He could be very single-minded at times.

'These photo's, they're all the coma patients?'

'Yeah.'

'No, they're all the multiform. Eight comas, eight disguises for Prisoner Zero.'

'He had a dog, though. There's a dog in a coma?' Amy couldn't help but ask in confusion.

'Well, the coma patient dreams he's walking a dog, Prisoner Zero gets a dog. Laptop! Your friend, what was his name? Not him, the good looking one,' the Doctor asked Amy suddenly.

'Thanks,' Rory complained half-heartedly.

'Jeff.'

'Oh, thanks,' Rory protested slightly more after that little piece of information was revealed. There went his self-confidence for the rest of the day at least.

'He had a laptop in his bag. A laptop. Big bag, big laptop. I need Jeff's laptop. You two, get to the hospital. Get everyone out of that ward. Clear the whole floor. Phone me when you're done. And you,' he said, turning to Haylen for the first time since that night so long ago, 'you come with me.'

Haylen pointed to himself in surprise. Did the Doctor mean him? He wanted him to go with him? But why?

'Yeah, you. Come on, let's go find Jeff's laptop,' the Doctor responded.

Haylen raised his eyebrows. That was impressive. The other man hadn't even been facing him and he knew what he had been silently asking with that gesture. He couldn't have seen it, so how had he known?

He was pulled out of his confused thoughts by a hand taking his and pulling him along behind them. His heart sped up at the contact, but before he could freak out too much, the Doctor moved his hand up to pull on the sleeve of Haylen's jacket instead.

By the time that they had made it to Jeff's gran's house, Haylen was gasping for air. He wasn't a very athletic person, so running about the village was taking it's toll on him. Not to mention this was all very much out of his comfort zone.

They burst into the house and breezed past Jeff's gran (who Haylen had never bothered to remember the name of), and made their way into Jeff's bedroom.

'Hello. Laptop. Give me,' the Doctor demanded upon seeing the laptop open in front of Jeff.

'No, no, no, no, wait,' Jeff said, sounding panicked enough that even Haylen could pick up on it.

'It's fine. Give it here.'

'Hang on!'

The Doctor finally managed to pull the laptop out of Jeff's hands, but once he looked at the screen his face froze. Haylen didn't know what that look was for. What could possibly be on that screen that was worth this type of reaction from both men?

'Blimey. Get a girlfriend, Jeff,' he said with an odd note in his voice. Haylen could feel frustration building up inside his chest. He didn't know what that odd tone of voice meant either.

'What is it?' he asked, thoroughly confused.

The Doctor's head shot up from where he was typing away at the computer, a surprised look on his face.

'Um, nothing. No need to worry about it Haylen. You just stay over there though. Not much room on this bed after all.'

Haylen huffed in irritation. He wasn't stupid. He knew that it was something, he just didn't know what that something was.

He was distracted from his growing irritation by Jeff's gran making her way into the room.

'Gran!' Jeff said from his place on his bed, looking almost guilty. That was a look he could recognise, especially after all the times he had come home to find Amy and Rory alone in her room. He didn't know why they would look guilty about it, but they definitely did.

'What are you doing?' she asked.

'The sun's gone wibbly, so right now, somewhere out there, there's going to be a big old video conference call. All the experts in the world panicking at once, and do you know what they need? Me. Ah, and here they all are. All the big boys. NASA, Jodrell Bank, Tokyo Space Centre, Patrick Moore.'

'I like Patrick Moore,' Jeff's gran said in response.

'I'll get you his number. But watch him, he's a devil.'

'You can't just hack in on a call like that,' Jeff said loudly.

'Can't I?' the Doctor asked rhetorically.

Haylen watched as the Doctor pulled out a black wallet with a blank piece of paper as the only thing in it. He held it in front of the webcam in the laptop for a second before putting it away. Haylen stared at the man, wondering if he might be just a little bit mad.

'Hello. Yeah, I know you should switch me off, but before you do, watch this,' the Doctor spoke at top speed once he had removed the blank piece of paper. Then he started typing away madly once more.

'Fermat's theorem, the proof. And I mean the real one. Never been seen before. Poor old Fermat, got killed in a duel before he could write it down. My fault. I slept in. Oh, and here's an oldie but a goodie. Why electrons have mass. And a personal favourite of mine, faster than light travel with two diagrams and a joke. Look at your screens. Whoever I am, I'm a genius. Look at the sun. You need all the help you can get. Fellas, pay attention.'

Haylen was almost burning with the need to pick this man's brains about all the things he had just spouted off. What he had managed to pick up from all of this was that his claim that he was a genius was not false, and he had so many questions.

'Sir, what are you doing?' one of the people on the computer screen asked after a moment of just watching the Doctor mess about with the phone in his hand.

'I'm writing a computer virus. Very clever, super fast, and a tiny bit alive, but don't let on. And why am I writing it on a phone? Never mind, you'll find out. Okay, I'm sending this to all your computers. Get everyone who works for you sending this everywhere. Email, text, Facebook, Bebo, Twitter, radar dish, whatever you've got. Any questions?'

'Yes,' Haylen stated. He got an amused grin from the Doctor for his comment, which just made Haylen confused. He didn't say anything funny, he really did have questions. Quite a few as well.

'Who was your lady friend?' Came someone on the screen once more. That got the Doctor's attention off Haylen, giving him a chance to breathe. There was something almost hypnotising about being caught in that man's gaze.

'Patrick, behave,' he chastised the man on the screen.

'What does this virus do?'

'It's a reset command, that's all. It resets counters. It gets in the WIFI and resets every counter it can find. Clocks, calendars, anything with a ship will default at zero at exactly the same time. But yeah, I could be lying, why should you trust me? I'll let my best man explain.'

There was silence as everyone stared at either the doctor or the computer. Haylen wasn't paying attention though. He was thinking about how his body had reacted to the Doctor giving him that grin. The way his eyes had lit up with something that Haylen couldn't name made something inside him want to make him look like that all the time. His cheeks had started to heat up the longer that their eyes had been locked on each other, and his heart had sped up slightly. It was enough to make him wonder if maybe he had been on the verge of a meltdown. He didn't like to make eye contact after all, but there was just something about that man that made him different.

He startled at the feel of someone's hand on his arm and tried to pull away out of instinct. The touch disappeared instantly, and he looked up to see the Doctor leaning down to try to put them the same height. He straightened after a moment and just held out his hand.

'Come on, we have to go help your sister and her friend/boyfriend,' the Doctor said softly.

Haylen took a deep breath and put his hand into the Doctor's waiting one.

They were in a firetruck. Haylen could die happy now. He was sitting in a firetruck with his and Amy's imaginary friend, as they drove toward his sister to save her (and the rest of the world).

The Doctor was on the phone to Amy, but unfortunately, all Haylen could hear was the Doctor's side of the conversation.

'Don't worry, we've commandeered a vehicle,' he said happily as he hit the button that set off the lights and siren.

There was silence for a minute as Amy responded, or so Haylen assumed.

'Are you in?' he asked.

Haylen watched the changes in the Doctor's face as he felt each emotion. He just wished he was better at understanding what people where feeling.

'You need to get out of there!'

Haylen jumped at the loud response to whatever his sister had said.

'Amy? Amy, what's happening? Amy, talk to me!'

Haylen frowned at that. Context would be great, but judging by how the Doctor was reacting, this Prisoner Zero must be there with his sister and Rory at the hospital.

'Which window are you? Which window?'

Haylen watched the Doctor hang up the phone and speed up.

'You're going to crash into the hospital, aren't you.'

The surprised look that the Doctor shot at Haylen was all the confirmation that the other man needed. He braced himself as best he could with the few moment that they had, before they came to a stop just before the wall. Haylen took a deep breath in as he followed the Doctor up to the roof of the firetruck.

'Right, I'll go first, but you better be right behind me. Understand me?'

Haylen looked up into the Doctor's eyes once more and nodded absently. There was just something about him that he couldn't put his finger on. When he looked into the Doctor's eyes he didn't want to claw his own eyes out like he did when making eye contact with other people.

The Doctor wrenched his own eyes away from Haylen's, breaking the spell.

Haylen shook his head once they were no longer looking at each other. His head felt all fuzzy the way it sometimes got when he'd had several attacks in one day and it was all too much.

He followed the Doctor across the ladder and into the coma ward. He ignored the Doctor talking to a woman once he spotted Amy and Rory, and crossed the room, making his way in between the Doctor and the woman.

'Amy. Are you alright?' He asked his sister once he got to her side.

'Yeah, shh. The Doctor's doing a thing. I don't want to miss this.'

Haylen turned back over to them, but just couldn't find the focus to pay attention to the back and forth he and that woman were doing. He stared out the window as his thoughts took off on their own. He idly wondered who would have to pay for the broken window. The Doctor was the one who had broken it, but he had done it to save lives, and the whole world on top of that. Somehow, Haylen didn't think he was the type to stick around and sort out damages and set stories straight.

He was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of a body hitting the ground beside him. He looked down and felt his breath stutter in his lungs. His blood seemed to have taken that moment to convert to being cold-blooded because it felt like ice in his veins. Amy was what had made the noise, and she was laying unmoving on the floor at his feet.

NO! The thought echoed around in his suddenly empty mind, and he felt a pressure building up in that space. It built up until the echoes of that thought punched a hole through the center. Haylen sank to his knees next to Amy's still unmoving form, unable to look away despite the sudden stabbing pain in his head.

If he had been able to focus on anything other than Amy in that moment, he would have seen the considering look the Doctor shot at him, or the pained wince that came from Prisoner Zero at the same time that his headache came on. But he could only see his sister laying on the floor.

Distantly, he could hear the Doctor talking and knew that something must be happening, but all he could focus on was Amy.

When she started to stir a few minutes later, Haylen took a shuddering breath in and he realised dimly that he hadn't taken a single breath for the entire time that she had been unconscious.

'What happened?' Amy asked with a groan.

Haylen had no idea. He had gone entirely to pieces when she had passed out, but luckily, Rory did know.

'He did it. The Doctor did it,' he responded.

'No, I didn't,' the Doctor corrected quickly.

'What are you doing?'

'Tracking the signal back. Sorry in advance,' came the distracted reply.

'About what?'

'The bill.'

Haylen tilted his head to the side as he watched the Doctor mess about with Rory's phone.

'Oi, I didn't say you could go! Article fifty seven of the Shadow Proclamation. This is a fully established level five planet, and you were going to burn it? What? Did you think no-one was watching? You lot, back here, now. Okay, now I've done it.'

Haylen felt that confusing reaction for the second time that day, as his cheeks heated up and his breath caught in his throat as he listened to the Doctor scolding those eye-ball spaceship things. He wasn't sure exactly what it meant, but he made a note of it to ask Amy about it later. She would know he was sure.

He followed them all into the men's locker room in the hospital to see the Doctor rifling through the lockers.

'Turn your back if it embarrasses you,' the Doctor stated as he started taking his clothes off.

As he got a nearly unrestricted look at the Doctor, Haylen finally thought he had figured out what that reaction had been about. He swallowed around his suddenly dry throat, completely unable to look away from the sight in front of him. He was both incredibly disappointed and relieved when the Doctor started putting clothes back on. He was relieved that the confusing reactions from his body could hopefully be put on hold now that the other man was fully dressed once more.

But there was something that squirmed in his stomach once he realised that the clothes that the Doctor had chosen were pretty similar to the ones that Haylen wore.

They were silent as they made their way out onto the roof of the hospital. Haylen was still examining his reaction to seeing the Doctor nearly naked, Rory was pouting about the fact that Amy had kept looking despite the fact that he was standing right there next to her, and Amy was worried about what was going to happen when they got up to the roof. The aliens had been leaving.

'So, this was a good idea, was it? They were leaving,' she said, finally voicing her thoughts as they walked through the doorway onto the rooftop.

'Leaving is good. Never coming back is better.'

He stepped forward, leaving the humans behind a few steps.

'Come on, then! The Doctor will see you now.'

Haylen snickered at the joke, but stopped once he realised that no-one else had. Maybe he had missed something again, he thought sadly.

He looked up to see the eye-ball spaceship in front of the Doctor. He blinked and decided to wave at it. He told himself he was not disappointed when it ignored him.

'You are not of this world,' the spaceship thing said after scanning the Doctor.

'No, but I've put a lot of work into it,' he said absently as he looked down at the ties around his neck. 'Hmmm, I don't know. What do you think?' he asked the spaceship.

Haylen wondered if the spaceship thing could really give a good opinion on fashion when it didn't have a body to put fashion on.

'Is this world important?' the spaceship asked, completely ignoring the Doctor's question. Haylen thought it was probably just jealous that he got to wear clothes.

'Important? What's that mean, important? Six billion people live here. Is that important? Here's a better question. Is this world a threat to the Atraxi? Well, come on. You're monitoring the whole planet. Is this world a threat?'

Haylen watched as the now named spaceship thing displayed a projection of the world. He also grumbled about the concept of 'better' and 'important'. It was all incredibly subjective. One person's important was pointless to someone else. It was why no-one liked listening to him talk about Harry Potter, or Marvel movies, but he found them to be the most interesting thing ever.

'No,' the Atraxi responded to something that Haylen had missed.

'Okay. One more. Just one. Is this world protected? Because you're not the first lot to come here. Oh, there have been so many.'

Haylen watched as alien after alien was projected into the air in between the Doctor and the Atraxi spaceship.

'And what you've got to ask is, what happened to them?'

That projection ran through a number of men before the Doctor stepped through it closer to the Atraxi.

'Hello. I'm the Doctor. Basically, run.'

They all watched as the spaceship withdrew and flew away at speed.

'Is that it? Is that them gone for good? Who were they?' Amy asked. They all looked around only to realised that the Doctor was gone as well.

Haylen sat on his bed, staring blankly at the floor. Amy had been almost inconsolable after watching the Doctor fade away once more in his blue box. As much as he wanted to help her, all Haylen had felt was numbness. He hadn't realised that he had been feeling anything until it was gone, but once the Doctor had come back into their lives for that glorious twenty minutes, Haylen had felt warm. It was hard for him to understand, let alone try to put into words, so he didn't try. He left the task of consoling Amy to Rory, and withdrew to his room. He hadn't moved since.

The door flew open and banged on the wall from the force. For a single second, Haylen thought it was him, that he had come back, but when he continued to feel numb, he realised it couldn't be the Doctor.

He looked up and saw Mels watching him carefully. He tilted his head to the side in question. She gave him a smile, but he frowned. It didn't seem right.

'So, mum tells me the Doctor came back,' she said with just as much energy as usual.

At the nickname for his sister, Haylen was reminded of that argument the four of them had had several years back. Mels had just been bailed out by Amy for the third time in as many months, and she had jokingly replied to Amy's reproach by calling her 'mum'. Haylen had just looked at her in surprise. He didn't know how that worked exactly, but he wasn't going to question her. She had called Amy 'mum' a number of times since, and Rory had been dubbed 'dad' when he sided with Amy. Haylen remembered saying that if Amy was Mels' mum, then that made him her uncle. She had gotten a strange look on her face, but hadn't called him by his name since then. Both Amy and Rory had tried to explain that it was just another time that sarcasm had gone over his head, but he had refused to hear it. They did know someone with a time machine after all, which meant that time travel had to be possible. Who was to say that Mels wasn't Amy and Rory's child?

Haylen was jostled as the woman in question sat down beside him on his bed.

'You okay?' she asked quietly.

He shook his head slightly. He was very much not okay, he just didn't know what to do about it.

Mels let out a heavy breath before leaning back on her elbows and staring at the ceiling.

'Me neither.'

Two Years Later

Amy woke with a start at the sound that haunted her in the best and worst dreams she had. Without another thought, she grabbed her dressing gown and shoes, and bolted out of the house. She didn't even pause, just made her way out into the garden. At seeing the light bleeding out of the box and the man silhouetted by it, she strode over and cut off whatever he had been trying to say by slapping him across the face. She could barely think a single thought over the pounding of her heart in her chest at the sight of this man just swanning back into their lives years later.

'OW! What was that for?' he asked incredulously, and immediately had to duck another swing.

'You're late! And you broke my brother!' she yelled right in his face.

'I- What?' he stumbled to respond while eyeing her hands warily.

'You broke,' she shouted as she stepped in to press a finger into his chest accusingly, 'my brother!'

'What? How could I have possibly broken your brother? I didn't do anything!'

Amy narrowed her eyes at the alien in front of her. Haylen hadn't spoken a word since the Doctor had left. Hell, he was barely conscious most of the time. If it wasn't for Rory and his training as a nurse, she might have had to put Haylen into care.

Making her decision, Amy grabbed hold of his bow tie and yanked him after her into her house, ignoring his protests. She forced him to follow her up the stairs and over to Haylen's room. She let the Doctor go with one more hard glare to ensure that he didn't go anywhere, then turned back to the door. She took in a steadying breath, before straightening her spine and opening the door.

They crept into the room, keeping silent so they wouldn't wake Haylen, but they needn't have bothered. Amy sighed as she spotted her brother sitting up on his bed staring off into space.

'Hey Haylen, look who I've brought. Someone's come to see us.'

She held back the tears that wanted to fall by some miracle, as Haylen gave no indication that he had heard her.

She turned back to the Doctor to see him giving Haylen a curious look.

'He's been like this since you left pretty much. No-one knows what brought it on.'

She clasped her hands in front of her, praying that there was anything that the Doctor could do to help. She wanted her brother back.

Amy watched as the Doctor stepped closer to her brother and took out another metal tube thing. She thought he had called it a sonic screwdriver, but that sounded kind of silly so maybe she had miss heard. He pressed a button and waved it over her brother before checking whatever it was telling him. The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, but Amy missed that entirely because at the noise of the screwdriver, Haylen had tilted his head toward it. She felt her heart leap, and she just about choked on hope.

'Haylen, yes. That's right. It's the Doctor! He's back,' she practically sobbed as she made her way toward him.

'Amy, I need you to take a step back for me. I need some room by Haylen,' the Doctor said just as she went to sit by her brother.

'What is it? What's wrong with him?' She demanded, her tears blinding her for a moment.

'You were right. This is all my fault.'

Amy felt her blood boil in her veins at that confirmation, and she whipped around to face the Doctor, her hair flying around her with the action.

'What did you do?' she hissed angrily.

'I don't think your brother is human,' he said looking into her eyes urgently. He had to duck once more as Amy aimed another slap at his face.

'Amy, let me explain.'

'I don't care what he is! He's my brother, and something you did hurt him! Fix him! Now!'

'Right, move out the way a second,' he said.

Amy gave the Doctor one more warning glare before stepping out of the way. She watched helplessly as the Doctor stepped into the space that she had been in before and knelt down by her brother. He moved his hands up and put them on Haylen's temples. Both men's eyes slid shut, and Amy was left in the dark. She had no idea what was happening.

'Whatever he is, he's highly telepathic. It was blocked, but it's been leaking out in spot his whole life. Making eye contact hurts because he can see into their mind. He didn't know why it hurt, because he could translate what he was seeing. The block was probably to stop any passing threat from finding him, but it broke the last time I was here. I think the trauma of seeing you pass out, and maybe thinking you were dead, was just the last straw and it broke the block. As the only other telepathic being close by, his mind reached out and bound itself to mine.'
'And then you left. For two years,' Amy realised angrily.

'Yes. He went into shock, his mind reaching out all that time, trying to find mine. This really is all my fault. Hold on, I need to focus for a minute.'

Amy felt useless. That was nothing new for her these days though. She hadn't been able to do anything but stand helplessly by the side as her brother fell deeper and deeper into his own mind. About the only thing she had been able to do was yell at the doctors and specialists she had sought to help fix the problem. All they had suggested was full time care in a secure facility. That was where her ability to yell had really come in handy. But all it was doing was covering up the scared little girl that she was inside, who was terrified of losing her twin brother. Once again, all she could do was stand here off to the side while a doctor tried to reach her brother.

She frowned as a shimmer of gold light came out of the Doctor's hands and seemed to sink into Haylen's head through his temples where they were still connected.

A yelp of pain came from Haylen after a moment, and both men fell away from each other gasping for air. Amy was ready to beat the Doctor to death with one of his own shoes until she spotted her brother blinking tiredly up at them from his new position laying on his bed. His eyes looked clear, like he was actually seeing them, instead of staring off into middle distance.

'H-Haylen?' she asked, begging the universe that she wasn't seeing things.

'Amy? What's going on?'

Amy lost all control of her emotions, and flung herself onto her brother, hugging the life out of him. She ignored the squirming, he had been nearly catatonic for two years. She deserved a hug.

Once she got a hold of herself, she pulled away reluctantly.

'Sorry,' she whispered to Haylen. She knew he didn't like physical contact.

'Uh, actually, I'm the one who needs to be sorry,' the Doctor cut in with an incredibly guilty look on his face. 'You were right. More than you know actually.'

Amy narrowed her eyes at the alien once more, threatening silently that she was prepared to deliver more violence in defense of her brother. The Doctor let out a heavy sigh as he slumped down the wall to sit on the ground.

'When I met you two, I was still regenerating. I was bursting with regeneration energy. If you recall, it wound itself around Haylen. My guess is, it reacted that way because you weren't human. I think, some of it stayed, and started working on breaking the block on your telepathic nature. That's what regeneration energy does after all; it fixes things. So it only started breaking down because you met me. It broke because I came back and you,' he said, pointing tiredly at Amy, 'got hurt. So, it broke, but there was no one else around to help guide it. What's the first thing that it would do? What's natural, if tried to find help. It found the only other telepathic creature it could and bound us together. And then I left, and got the flight back wrong.'

He put his head back and stared up at the ceiling with pained eyes. He really could do nothing right, could he?

'It's nowhere enough, but I really am sorry,' he said softly. He couldn't bring himself to look at the twins though.

'So, what happens now?' Amy asked. The look on the Doctor's face was enough to make her regret yelling at him, but it was for her brother. She would always do what she could for her little brother.

'Well, I was going to ask if the two of you wanted to come travel with me, but I can see maybe you might be better off without me in your lives.'

'I don't think so Doctor,' Amy started, her eyes narrowed again, as she felt that anger come back. 'Didn't you just say that you leaving was the problem in the first place? If you leave again, what will it do to Haylen?'

The tortured look in his eyes was answer enough for Amy.

'So, if you leave Haylen here, and you go somewhere else, you're essentially sentencing him to a live stuck lost in his own head. Which means he has to go with you. And he's my brother. If you think he's going gallivanting about the universe without me, you're not nearly as smart as you think you are.'

'Yes,' the Doctor agreed reluctantly. It felt like he was forcing them to come with him, and he didn't want that to ever be the case. Unfortunately, in this situation there wasn't much else he could do. 'Besides, Haylen is not human. I don't know what species he is, but I do know what humans do to creatures they don't understand.'

He took a deep breath and looked up into bewildered eyes. 'I'm sorry, but now that the block on your telepathy has broken, it's only going to get stronger. Which means that it will become more obvious. You would be in danger if you stayed here.'

'What are you talking about?' Haylen finally asked, completely confused. He didn't really remember the last two years. It was probably for the better, because when he had reached for the memories after hearing the Doctor and Amy talking as if it had been two years since he had been here, unlike the one day that Haylen had initially thought it had been, all he could see was darkness. It had been cold, and silent. It looked had felt like he imagined death would.

The twins stood in the doorway of the Tardis, just looking around the room, shock clear on their faces.

'Well? Anything you want to say? Any passing remarks? I've heard them all,' the Doctor called, trying to find that light-hearted feeling of beginning an adventure that he loved so much.

'I'm in my nightie,' Amy said, shock still muddling up her thoughts.

It's bigger on the inside!

The thought echoed softly on the edges of the Doctor's consciousness, and he smiled softly at Haylen. That was an enigma that he was excited to figure out, despite the guilt that plagued him at the fact that it was all his fault that he had even had to come along whether he wanted to or not.

'Right, yes. Don't worry about that. Plenty of clothes in the wardrobe. And possibly, a swimming pool. So, all of time and space, everything that ever happened or ever will. Where do you want to start?'

He fidgeted a bit as Amy stared at him with a look on her face that he couldn't quite read. He hoped she wasn't about to slap him again.

'Can you get me back for tomorrow morning?' She asked finally.

'It's a time machine. I can get you back five minutes ago. Why, what's tomorrow?'

He watched as she suddenly shot a guilty look at her brother, making him all the more curious.

'Nothing. Nothing. Just, you know, stuff,' she said, trying to be nonchalant.

'All right, back in time for stuff.'

He cheered up slightly as the old girl poked out a new sonic screwdriver for him.

'Oh! A new one! Lovely. Thanks, dear,' he said, giving the console a loving pat.

'So, Ponds! Are you okay? Because this place, sometimes it can make people feel a bit, you know,' he trailed off.

'I'm fine. It's just, there's a whole world in here, just like you said. It's all true. I was starting to think you might have been full of it,' she said bluntly, giving him another unreadable look.

He wasn't sure what to do with that, before she softened visibly.

'You know, that maybe you were just a madman with a box.'

He smiled widely at her. Hopefully, that meant he was forgiven. Besides, she could never hold a grudge against him the way that he would.

'Amy Pond, Haylen Pond, there is something that you had better understand about me, because it's important, and one day your life may depend on it. I am definitely a madman with a box. Ha Ha! Yeah. Goodbye Leadworth, hello Everything!'