Chloe sits cross-legged on the bed, pictures all across her ceiling. When she spots the Doctor, she cutely -- with total deadpan -- gives him a Live Long And Prosper. "Nice one," he says, and kneels in front of her. The Doctor holds Chloe's head in his hands, fingers on her temples. There's a whistle tone before her eyes roll back and close; the Doctor closes his own eyes. Chloe falls backwards softly onto the bed, alarming Trish, whom Rose comforts: "Shh, it's okay. Trust him." He looks at Chloe: "Now we can talk." And when she speaks, her voice is very different: "I want Chloe. Wake her up. I want Chloe." The Doctor asks who is speaking, and Chloe's body angrily pounds the bed: "I want Chloe Webber!" Trish wigs, asking what on earth the Doctor's done to her daughter, and even Rose is wigged out. The Doctor paces around, upset at the spirit who's talking: "I'm speaking to you, the entity that is using this human child. I request parlez in compliance with the Shadow Proclamation." The thing laughs: "I don't care about Shadows or parlez." So what does it care about? "I want my friends." The Doctor kneels; he knows this part: "You're lonely, I know. Identify yourself." Chloe shakes her head: "I am one of many. I travel with my brothers and sisters. We take an endless journey. A thousand of your lifetimes. But now I am alone. I hate it. It's not fair. And I hate it!" Chloe's eyes snap open; the Doctor demands that she name herself. "Isolus," says the spirit. That is just so effing stupid, I can't handle it. An alien all about loneliness and you call it the Isolus. Shut up. Shut the eff up. The Doctor nods: "Of course."

Chloe's calmer now: "Our journey began in the Deep Realms, when we were a family." She begins to draw, as she's speaking. "The Isolus Mother, drifting in Deep Space." The Doctor stands, nodding. "See, she jettisons millions of fledgling spores. Her children. The Isolus are empathic beings of intense emotions, but when they're cast off from their mother, their empathic link, their need for each other, is what sustains them. They need to be together. They cannot be alone." Uh huh. "Our journey is long," she says, and he looks at Rose and Trish. "The Isolus children travel, each inside a pod. They ride the heat and energy of solar tides. It takes thousands and thousands of years for them to grow up." Rose frowns in sympathy: "Thousands of years just floating through space. Poor things, don't they go mad with boredom?" The Doctor and Chloe explain that, usually, they play games while they travel. "They use their ionic power to literally create make-believe worlds in which to play. Helps keep them happy. While they're happy, they can feed off each other's love. Without it, they're lost." Rose and the Doctor share a Meaningful Look. Chloe and Trish try not to fucking barf. "Why did you come to Earth?" asks the Doctor, and Chloe begins to draw again: "We were too close." The Doctor recognizes a solar flare: "Would've made a tidal wave of solar energy that scattered the Isolus pods." Only the Chloe one fell to Earth: "My brothers and sisters are left up there. And I cannot reach them. So alone." She circles and circles her drawing; it's becoming a black hole. "Your pod crashed?" asks the Doctor. "Where is it?" It was drawn to heat. Chloe Webber sat at her desk, sunlight pouring in through the window: "And I was drawn to Chloe Webber." Chloe smiled up at the Isolus, floating outside the window like a jellyfish tulip. "She was like me. Alone. She needed me. And I her." Chloe breathed the Isolus in, and gasped. "Dalek" also took place in 2012, which some say is the end of the world. "Dalek" also hit you with symbolic plot points over and over until you lost consciousness and any semblance of sympathy. Well, if you were me. Everybody else freakin' loved it. I have the feeling that won't be true this time. The Doctor strokes Chloe's head: "You empathized with her. You wanted to be with her because she was alone, like you." The thing cries out: "I want my family. It's not fair." All alone, separated from your people, lost in time, and you find one girl in London that needs you just as badly. And you write her into your story and cut her off from her own mother for your own purposes, so that you won't have to be lonely anymore. Leaving behind the hard and the broken and the lonely; stealing children for more and more stories, leaving death in your wake. With a glorious sense of play and fun about the whole thing. "I understand," says the Doctor.