Chapter 1:

When you have no place to go, where do you go?

If there's no one to love, what is the point in being capable of loving?

How do you know what to die for if you can't die?

Well, you see, you don't.

That's what two people in the universe both thought, both knew.

Blood Matters...

He went by many names : crazy, nutter, physco, but his favourite was his own, self-proclaimed title: a madman in a box. Most people didn't understand him, they thought he was a god on earth; he hated to break it to them, but he was more like the devil. Yes, he did all he could to help others, to save them, but really he had seen and done so much that was wrong, that there was no way that he could be a god, in his opinion anyway. At the young age of 102, he had been ripped away from his home and family and self-exiled to space by one thing: war. He could have been so much more. He could have become Supreme, but now he travelled around by himself saving humans, but there was one, one that was different, one that knew that he wasn't all as good as he looked, who, dare he say it, understood him? To the maximum of her capabilities anyway.

(Flashback):

'We really shouldn't! I mean you're, what 20?' he stammered.

'Yes and you're what 870?' she replied, hands on bare hips.

'895! And that's exactly my point: besides you're human!' he ran his hand through his hair in confusion at what he should do: a) satisfy his longing or b) run and regret.

'And you're some crazy bloke who I love!'

'Well, it certainly seems you must do if you're willing to do this!' he gestured at their practically naked bodies, crikey was he thankful she had worn extra layers today- dammit! she was rubbing off on him with her strange British phrases - as if she hasn't, then well let's just say he would have given in a long time ago.

'Of course I am! I love you and you always go on about how much you 'like me- in a friendship sort of way',' she rolled her eyes and took off his belt.

'Ok, on one condition:' he smiled his cheekiest grin.

'Go on!' she squealed.

'You marry me,'

'How?! You said we couldn't!' her eyes lit up.

'Yes, weeeelll I did say that didn't I, weeeell I lied. As a human under the name John- sorry Daniel Smith I can!' he said softly, She didn't like the name 'John' if it wasn't his real name.

'Yes yes and YES!' she cried.

'Well my loving fiancée, I do believe we have some sleeping to do!'

(End Flashback)

His eyes slowly teared up at his fond memory, one day he had had to go and when he came back she had gone. Kapeesh. The house was in ruins, when he had looked inside he had found an empty destroyed nursery that once belonged to his son and the bodies of his wife and another man. Another man.

Another.

That had broken him. Destroyed him utterly. He knew that there was a chance that he wasn't involved, but when he saw the matching rings, the one that wasn't his gift to her he knew. He had been so convinced that she had loved him as much as he loved her, but evidently he had been wrong, there was a man in her life and it wasn't him. It was a man with blood soaked black hair and tanned skin; what had confused him was that only a day ago she had run out on him crying saying that she had something to tell him. He guessed that was it: that she no longer loved him.

He turned and kicked the wall hard at his stupidity, his misplaced trust, why had he not realised something so big? He prided himself on being the best of the best when it came to solving mysteries and saving people; but not this time, this time he didn't solve the mystery and couldn't even save himself. What was the point in being able to live forever basically if you couldn't share it with someone? Back home he had a wife but she had died and he had vowed not to love again, but how could he not love such a woman as she was? How could he resist such intelligence, kindness and love for him? Quite honestly, he couldn't. Many a time he doubted his decision but then there was the longing and lust he felt, that wasn't normal, he felt friendly feelings with his usual companions, but she was- different, that described it, she was different. When he first brought her back to his home, his little castle, she hasn't questioned it, just accepted it and helped improve it with her extra, unusual qualities. When he had found out about those, he was shocked to say the least, he had previously thought he'd seen it all! He was so odd that he concluded that actually she had realised he would never be normal and to accept whatever he threw at her, which excluded cats obviously; cats were never good as he'd found out, now that had been an interesting day!

And now he was alone once more.

'Where to now?' he said to himself softly, 'what about the moons of Avuan? Yes, haven't been there in a while!' he hummed as he pulled the necessary triggers on the dashboard. Being the Doctor wasn't all life-saving you know? He spent most his time being a tourist, that was something she had enjoyed doing, just travelling about the universe visiting different places and times, but now his travelling was different: now he spent most his time travelling to get his mind off Her, which obviously wasn't working.

'To the many moons of Avuan! ALLONSY!' he laughed as he whammed his hand on the big red transport button he had fitted earlier today for no real reason but to have a big red button. The familiar whirring started up and he felt himself falling back into the usual rhythm of disappearing, it was like being on a plane, the extra feeling of the pull of the earth, it had never been as bad before he met Her, Mrs. Daniel Smith. As he fell into the rocking motion of the TARDIS he felt something change in the air, it was like gravity would just NOT LET GO! He pumped up the gravity flux redirectors in a desperate attempt to get out of the pull, with one final pump he felt the system kick in- only to come to a standstill... In space... Drifting... He was suddenly immersed in darkness as the lights shut down for no reason that he could tell, then came the feeling that he had always dreaded: the falling. When you felt yourself falling, all time lords knew you could only do one thing and that was hope that in heaven there was a hospital. The darkness did nothing to squash his fear, it increased it. The Doctor listened as he took shallow, panting breaths, breaths of a man with only seconds to live; his last minutes of life were to be spent listening and feeling the thrumming if his hearts and the whooshing of blood in his ears. The Doctor never usually felt fear, he was normally too busy saving the world to be able to focus on puny emotions like that, but with no one but himself to save, he was able to feel the full blast of years pent up fear, the fear of not seeing her again, of dying. As the TARDIS fell, the Doctor's stomach did flips inside of him, his heart was in his mouth and his brain panicked. This was not how he had planned on going, falling out like an amateur was not high on his to do list! As the g-force grabbed ahold of his body and weightlessness set in, he found that in his mind he could find calm and embrace his imminent death like a Time Lord; but the bouncing against the high ceiling stopped him from getting there. As they reached terminal velocity the Doctor had an epiphany: he never checked the registry to see if She married again! Well too late now, he mentally shrugged.

CRASH!

The weightlessness abruptly stopped and the Doctor was thrown hard against the floor, alive. Man his face hurt! He gingerly stroked his cut lip and forehead to feel hot wet liquid seeping out, this was ok, he had had worse; what did amaze him though was the small thing that HE WAS ALIVE! Against all odds he had survived the infamous falling, stuff of legends back home! Ah, She would be proud! But his alive-itude brought something to his attention: he either had landed in something squishy or had completely annihilated the outside of the TARDIS, hopefully the former. The Doctor hesitantly stood up and hobbled over to the door, he pushed it open with a creak and stepped out into the world.

He was surrounded by forest, as far as the eye could see, rivers and rocks, it was hauntingly beautiful, like something from her much loved documentaries. He looked down at the shallow, slow flowing creek and then at his blood speckled converse and then back at the creek before settling on a dead tree trunk a bit further up stream. The Doctor, being a man of adventure, often found himself exploring unknown lands such as these, but usually they wouldn't be as deathly silent as this place, they would at least have some animal life, a thrum of beating Gineracos wings or the gently clacking of a Trinip native to his home town, but here there was silence. He stepped onto the tree trunk and in a slightly less-than-average agility than usual walked across the river, he was about to step down when he could have sworn he saw a pair of eyes staring at him from a nearby tree, well at least there was some life here! he chuckled to himself. He set off again down the opposite side of the stream to a gorge he had spotted from his early vantage point whistling merrily until he saw the same pair of eyes in a close by tree, ok it was now starting to get a teensy bit scary. The Doctor ceased his whistling and walked cautiously towards the gorge in the hope that nearby there maybe some food or even people living nearby perchance, he jumped onto a large smooth, grey boulder and was about to jump onto the next moss covered one when he heard a cold voice from behind him,

'Who are you?' the Doctor span around and looked for the source of the noise, it was a small boy in a pair of scruffy jeans, a black polo shirt and an open zip up navy fleece, he had startlingly green eyes, but on second look the Doctor could see blue creeping in at the edges, he had a closed cut in his face that looked fairly recent and blood smudged on his hand and cheek.

'They call me the Doctor, who are you?'

The child looked cautiously at him with guarded eyes before saying slowly, 'the Doctor. And I asked what your name was, not what THEY call you.'

'I call myself the Doctor,' he was a bit taken aback but the child's words, 'who are you?'

'I already said,' at the Doctor's look of confusion the boy say 'The Doctor,'

'But I'm the Doctor!' he stammered.

'Yes, well there are multiple Benjamins and you don't see them complaining!' the boy said scathingly.

'Ok, when did an eight year old become so sarcastic and witty? And I've never met another 'Doctor'' he grinned.

'Neither, apart from the one who tried to vaccinate me, tried being the main word, she never looked at a needle the same way again,' the boy looked tearfully up at the sky in an act of comedy before turning back to the Doctor with a familiar grin.

'So... What are you doing here?' The Doctor asked the kid who called himself the Doctor.

'Sitting,' the kid replied simply.

'In a tree?'

'Is that so unusual? Why do all adults have problems with not being entirely normal? Is being different too much?' the kid ranted from the tree.

'Weeeell normal's overrated anyway,'

'So being able to do special things is ok with you?' the kid asked with a tone of doubt in his voice.

'Sometimes being able to do special things makes all the difference. I would know,' the Doctor sighed with a weak smile, he was getting too old to be dealing with lonely eight year olds.

'You can do special things too?' the Doctor nodded once before the child clapped his hands an with a new sparkle in his eyes said, 'like what?'

'I can die and still survive, that count?'

'You can do that too? I thought I just dreamt it! They told me I was lying but I knew I could!' he rambled excitedly, this was too much for the Doctor, not only had he just crashed the TARDIS, he had met a kid in a tree that was now telling him he came back from the dead.

'You can't have, you can't have died.' the Doctor shook his head in confusion.

'And why can't I?' the kid demanded, 'what makes you do special?'

'Because I'm not like you! I'm not human!'

What the kid said next really stumped the Doctor, 'What's to say I am?'

'You live on earth,' the Doctor massaged his temples.

'And? You're here aren't you?'

'I didn't mean to though! And also your parents would have told you by now if you weren't!'

'Yeah? Well they can't.'

'And why ever not?' the Doctor said sarcastically.

'They're dead,'

'Oh crikey, listen I'm so sorry! I didn't mean it-' but the Doctor was cut off by the child smirking.

'It's fine! I'm used to it, used to get it a lot at school, but hell! I could remember everything up to degree level by reading it once! What's the point in staying?'

'But don't you have family or something to help you?'

'Mum? Dead. Dad? Legged it. Other family?' he snorted, 'What family?'

'But what about your dad?'

'Gone with the wind, all I know is that he looks like me, they told me my dad was dead but you know when you can feel that someone's still alive? Yeah I can feel that,'

'Would you want to find him?' the Doctor asked, gesturing in the direction of the TARDIS.

'Only if you came with me... Pleeeeeaasseee!' the kid jumped down from the tree and fell on his knees in front of the Doctor, grasping at his overcoat.

'Yeah sure, why not? Besides I have nothing better to do,' he grabbed the kid by the hand and pulled him to his feet before setting off to the TARDIS.

At the TARDIS:

'What's the time? My watch has never worked. It's quite cool, it's silver and has circles in it,' the kid said with a smile.

'I'll fix it later. So why were you in the forest in the first place Doc?' the Doctor asked the kid.

'No where else to go, may as well find somewhere nice,' he shrugged.

'Why don't you have a place to go?' said the Doctor.

' my 'family' kicked me out to the orphanage and as if they wanted me!' he snorted.

'So you, an eight year old, lives here, a forest, and are still alive?' the Doctor said wide eyed.

'Yeah well it's not as if I'm defenceless,'

'What do you have? A bow and arrow or something?' the Doctor said sceptically.

'No! That's stupid! What could I do with a bow and arrow? No, I'm able to change things and do things without touching them, just with my mind! Besides, if I do get hurt, I can fix myself,' the kid shrugged.

'Is that why you call yourself the Doctor?' the kid nodded and showed him his forearm, he pointed to a large gash that had recently healed up, a few days old by the looks of things.

'This happened this morning - I fell out a tree. Not very heroic but it's better than being eaten alive,' said the kid.

'That's- interesting. Can I just- run a few tests?' the Doctor raised one eyebrow at the kid's honesty.

The kid looked at the Doctor warily before conceding, 'No needles though, right?'

'Of course- just these sticky things I found in a hospital one time, I adapted them to make them do loads of different functions. For example, DNA testing! Shirt off!' the Doctor said before side stepping over to a grate in the floor which he lifted up and jumped into, sounds of clanging echoed through the TARDIS, just as the little Doctor was about to inspect to see where the Doctor had gone to the Doctor's head appeared grinning. Little Doc. thought that he was just grinning manically because he was slightly crazy but on second look, little Doc saw he held a load of cables in one hand with little white patches interspersed, he held his other hand in a thumbs up.

'Found them! And why isn't your shirt off? Come on, nothing I've not seen before!' the Doctor said jovially. Little Doc have him a withering look before pulling off his shirt to reveal a tanned, toned body with the occasional scar littered on him, he looked at the Doctor with a defeated facial expression.

'See! That wasn't so bad was it? Now to hook you up! That sounded wrong!' the Doctor cringed much to the little Doc's amusement. The Doctor placed the pads on multiple points around the boy's chest and arms before plugging in the wires to the main control panel. As the wires were plugged in little Doc. felt a sharp pain in both sides of his chest.

'You know when I said no needles? Weeeell I kind of forgot one! Perhaps two-' the Doctor said regretfully much to little Doc's annoyance.

'How much longer?' said the little Doc.

'Should be about five minutes... Roughly... It gives me a full scan of your entire body and chromosomes and etricoliam... Not that you would know what those are-'

'You forget I don't need school to learn-' said the little Doc.

'Yes well- you must learn fast! So- your powers. What have you done?' asked the Doctor.

'Well, I managed to heal myself after I got- beaten up. I can change what I look like when I want to, I can talk to some animals, I can see what could happen if someone makes a decision normally- I see multiple options that could happen, but I can't tell for definite which will happen- among other things.' he ticked his fingers off with each 'power'.

'Have you ever had any funny dreams?'

'YES! All the time! I've had them about a planet with two suns! But that couldn't be possible because the women at the orphanage said that there was only one sun here. I also had a dream where my parents died. But that wasn't a normal dream. ' he said darkly.

'Oh- where was this orphanage?'

'Dorking in Surrey, a few miles from here. It's called Priory's Home for Orphans but I call it Priory Scum. Most people just ignored me- called me 'strange' or 'freak' , so leaving didn't affect anyone too much,' this last revelation filled the Doctor with such sorrow and compassion that he hugged the boy tightly and whispered into his hair,

'Well, I'm glad you left, I wouldn't have met you otherwise,' the little Doc looked at his incredulously.

'You mean it?'

'Yeah, from the bottom of my heart, I mean it,' in that moment, the boy's face lit up and he, for the first time, looked truly innocent and happy.

'Will I get to stay with you?' he asked with a slight stutter.

'Well, we're about to find your dad, would you want to stay with me?'

'Yes and no. I like you but I think I'll like my dad too-' he looked almost mournful, like it broke his heart to say he would want to leave, this was understandable, in the Doctor's mind this was the finest place anywhere!

'I'm sure you will, besides, if you don't you can stay with me,' this seemed to perk him up, no longer was he stuck without a home, now he had a person to live with who wanted him.

'Now, the results are almost done. I think we should give you a normal name, one that I can call you as a nickname- the Doctor would get confusing, right?' the Doctor said as he typed in data into the the computer system.

'Yeah and I get to call you something too!'

'Seems fair! I'll call you- James. I think that it suits you. James. Doctor James. James the great. Yeah I like it, do you?' the Doctor toyed around with the name, saying it in different voices, much to the amusement of the little Doc.

'I can call you Ben after Benjamin the Second who had to run away, cos you ran away didn't you?' at his words, the Doctor froze, he span slowly to face the newly named James and gave him wide eyes.

'How did you know? I never told you,' he whispered.

'You are an ALIEN on EARTH! Your planet is gone and you have no where else, why? Because you ran. You lost everything. Apart from one thing and you've yet to find it. Well find out what it is anyway. I don't know how I know, but I can tell. Besides, your eyes show too much, they show all the death and sorrow you've seen, rather like mine until I controlled them into only looking cold and tough- works a charm, you can get people to leave you alone easily,' he surmised.

'Should I be scared or intrigued?'

'Both,' James said simply. The Doctor shook his head and breathed out in a short breath.

'You can tell that much from, what? half an hours knowing me?' he said quietly.

'I know more, but I'll let you find out what I know on your own,'

A loud beep broke them from their conversation, they both turned to face the control pad and saw a large stream of paper, not unlike a receipt, tumbling out of a large blue box, on it were a series of circles and lines that the Doctor traced with his finger before inhaling sharply.

'What?' James said, running over to the Doctor to read the paper, he gazed at it before saying, 'You're-?'

'It would appear so, but how?'