#promptsandchips

The Doctor watched her carefully. “Not too bad though?” he asked in concern. “You don’t need any pain relief?”

Rose shook her head. “No. You fixed me up fine. Think my brain’s just catching up.” Her gaze was still on the five year old at the table.

The Doctor watched her out the corner of his eye. “He’s not gonna hurt you, you know,” he said quietly after a moment. He gave a significant look back to the table, where the little boy was now happily wolfing down the toast. “We fixed him, Rose. Well, us and the nanogenes. He’s just a child.”

She nodded again. “I know,” she told him softly. “It’s just... It’s a lot to take in, yeah? Especially after what happened to Nancy...”

At that, the Doctor’s face went dark, and he turned his attention to his tea. “Yeah,” he agreed after a long pause. “But we promised her we’d look after him.”

Sensing a change in conversation was needed, Rose shifted slightly, before speaking again. “Is Jack up yet?”

“Don’t think so,” the Doctor responded as he added the milk. “Or maybe he’s just got lost.” He looked thoughtful at that. “Think you can keep an eye on this one while I go check on the Captain?”

He nodded towards Jamie as he spoke, and the boy looked up, bright eyes and a hesitant, jam-covered smile on his face.

Rose tamped down the residual wariness and plastered a smile onto her own face. “Yeah. We’ll be fine, won’t we Jamie?”

The boy looked at her, before looking at the Doctor. Then, seeming to make up his mind, he gave a slightly shy nod. Seemingly satisfied, the Doctor picked up his tea and left the galley, not noticing Rose letting out a slow breath as she was left alone. She could do this, she decided. No matter what had happened a few days ago, Jamie was just a scared little boy. And now they had to look after him.

~0~0~

Captain Jack Harkness had just turned a corner when he saw the Doctor coming towards him, mug of tea in hand.

“That for me?” he asked with a cheeky grin.

The Doctor blinked, looked down at the mug, and realised. “Oh. No. Sorry. Didn’t know how you took your tea. I came to find you actually. Thought you’d maybe got lost.”

Jack said nothing. In reality, he was a tiny bit turned around, but he wasn’t about to admit that to his new-found friends.

“How’s the boy this morning,” Jack asked instead, falling into step beside the Doctor as they began to make their way back towards the galley.

“Seems fine,” the Doctor admitted carefully. “Slept all through the night. I checked in on him a couple of times. He’s just had breakfast, and he seems alright. Bit shy still, but that’s to be expected. Rose is keeping an eye on him for now.”

At that, the time agent grimaced. “And how’s Rose?”

The Doctor hesitated a little more before talking. “She’s doing fine,” he said after a long moment, though he didn’t seem sure.

Jack fixed him with a look.

“She’s a little uncertain about having Jamie around,” the Doctor then admitted on a sigh. “She knows that he’s fine now, and that there was no other choice...”

“But she’s still wary of him,” Jack concluded knowingly. “Understandable. She’s young, she’ll learn.”

The Doctor’s only response was a grunt as they neared the galley doors. When they entered, they saw that Rose was sat opposite a now-giggling Jamie as she pulled faces at him. Hearing them enter, Rose’s head shot up, a blush staining her cheeks at having been caught.

“You found Jack, then,” she stated, clearly wanting to pretend they hadn’t just caught her doing what she had been.

Jamie had turned in his seat to peer over the back of the chair at the two men, blue eyes wide and curious.

“I didn’t need finding,” Jack responded, already heading for the kettle.

The Doctor and Rose just shared a look and said nothing. Instead, the Doctor turned his attention back to Jamie.

“Rose didn’t get into too much trouble while I was gone, did she?”

Rose herself looked mildly affronted at that, but her retaliation died on her lips as Jamie giggled and shook his head.

“Are you sure?” the Doctor asked, crossing to crouch beside the boy’s chair. “She didn’t wander off?”

Jamie shook his head again, face pressed against the back of the chair in shyness, like he was trying to hide, even as he giggled and smiled at the Doctor.

“Good,” the Doctor said, giving Jamie a grin back. “We might need to keep you around, Jamie. Seems like you’re the only one who can keep her in check.”

~0~0~

Much of the morning was spent showing Jamie around the TARDIS, getting him used to his temporary home. Jack headed off on his own exploration, equally keen to explore his new home but not so excited to see the numerous playrooms and gardens as little Jamie was.

Rose had dressed the five year old after breakfast, in a pair of denim shorts and a t-shirt with a dinosaur on the front, and while they weren’t really what Jamie was used to wearing, he seemed to like the bright colours of the t-shirt, and the denim shorts weren’t too far from what he was used to. The trainers were a little different to what he knew, but he’d soon grown used to them and was running about in them within half an hour.

And it was as Jamie bounded into yet another spacious playground that Rose frowned up at the Doctor.

“I know you said last night that this was temporary,” she said quietly, a small frown furrowing her brow, “but how temporary are we talkin’?”

The Doctor said nothing, but the grin he’d been wearing fell and his eyes remained on Jamie. “We couldn’t leave him there, Rose. Not after what happened.”

Rose reached for his hand then, squeezed it gently. “I know,” she told him softly. “An’ I’m not suggesting that. I’m just sayin’, I need to know how long we’re thinkin’ of having Jamie with us. ‘Cause we promised Nancy we’d look after him.”

There was a tension in the Doctor, his shoulders and jaw were set, and he still wouldn’t look at her. “I know this isn’t what you thought you were getting when you agreed to come with me,” he admitted softly after a moment. “And if you want to leave, I won’t stop you-”

“Leave?!” Rose spluttered, loud enough for the five year old to look over from where he was at the top of a slide. She gave the boy a hopefully reassuring smile and turned back to the Doctor, lowering her voice. “I’m not leavin’, Doctor. You’re stuck with me.” She took a breath. “No, what I mean is we promised Nancy that we’d take Jamie. As far as she was concerned, we would take him an’ raise him. An’ then you said this was temporary. An’... I just wanna know, ‘cause obviously things will have to change if we keep Jamie with us. An’ yeah, I might miss all the runnin’, and the danger an’ everything, but we promised Nancy. An’ as long as we don’t have to stop travelling altogether...”

She trailed off, shrugged, picked at her nails.

“I just...” she started again, still staring at her nails rather than the Doctor. “We’re showin’ Jamie round the TARDIS, an’ showing him all these rooms and all the stuff we can do here, an’ I don’t want you to turn around in a week, or two, an’ say you’ve found the perfect family a million light years from Earth who’ll take Jamie. Like I said, we said that we’d raise him, an’ he knows that, an’...”

The Doctor watched her carefully. “Are you saying you want him to stay?” he asked softly, frowning at her.

Rose shrugged again. “I dunno,” she admitted softly. “All I know is I don’t want Jamie to think that this is his home now, and that he’s gonna be here forever, an’ then us suddenly give him away to another family. He wasn’t there last night when you said we were a stopgap, Doctor. All he knows is Nancy tellin’ him that we were gonna take him and look after him. All he knows is she said we’d be his family now. An’ I get that our lifestyle maybe isn’t practical for a kid, it’s just that I don’t wanna lead him on, Doctor. If we’re not keepin’ him around, and it is temporary, we need to tell him. An’ anyway, we didn’t agree with Nancy to just shove him off on someone else. She trusted us with her son. He’s our responsibility, Doctor.”

The Doctor stared at her for a long while then, expression unreadable. Finally, he spoke. “I know,” he nodded. “I’m feeling the same way. I know that what we do isn’t always safe for Jamie, and he doesn’t really get a say in it all. But we promised Nancy, that we’d look after him, that we’d be his family now that she can’t be. When I said this was temporary, Rose, I was only saying it because I thought that would be best for Jamie.”

“What’s best for Jamie is bein’ somewhere stable,” Rose pointed out quietly. “He’s five years old an’ he’s already had his life turned upside down. I was lucky when Dad died, I was too little to remember, an’ I still had Mum. All Jamie’s got is us. An’ yeah, it’s not like he’s gonna have a normal home or a normal life here, but as long as it’s stable... That’s what Nancy wanted for him, stability and safety.”

The Doctor turned his attention back to Jamie, who was oblivious to being talked about and was still running around happily playing on his own. “When I put him to bed last night, that room I put him in hadn’t existed before then. The TARDIS created that room for him, specifically for Jamie. And all this,” he waved a hand around at the vast playground they were stood in, the soft green grass beneath their feet, the trees perfect for climbing in the far corner of the room, “none of this existed. I had no need for anything like this, let alone seven whole playgrounds.”

“I did think that was odd,” Rose admitted with a small smirk. “So what are you sayin’? The TARDIS wants Jamie to stay too?”

He shrugged. “Seems like it.”

She nodded slowly, taking it in as she watched the boy in question clamber up the wooden climbing frame.

“I suppose if we can give him the stability he needs,” she said quietly after a long pause. “I mean, ‘s not gonna be a conventional family. Me, an’ you, an’ Jack.” The worry in her voice began to build then, as the enormity of what she and the Doctor were discussing crashed down on her. Nineteen years old and now the guardian of a five year old boy? Not exactly how she saw her life panning out when she started travelling with the Doctor. “I mean, none of us are in a relationship, so he’s not exactly gonna have parental figures to look up to, is he?”

“Rose, it’ll be fine,” the Doctor interjected calmly.

But she didn’t hear him. “I mean, he’s got you an’ Jack, I suppose, but I don’t really see Jack as a dad. Maybe an uncle? I dunno, we’ll have to ask him... Does that mean he’s gonna see me as his mum?! How’s that even gonna work? Will that confuse him? If he’s got me as a mum figure and you and Jack as his father figures? I mean, he’s from 1941, he’s not used to any of that. Two Dads an’ stuff. I suppose stranger things have happened to him, but I dunno if that could count as stable, could it? An’ after what happened to Nancy...”

A shuddering breath left her then, as the events of the previous few days rushed back, and she suddenly found herself struggling to breathe. She was vaguely aware of the Doctor talking to her, lowering her to sit on the ground, and then his face swam into view. His lips were moving, but the rushing in her ears made it difficult to hear him. And then his voice filtered through.

“...with me. Rose? You need to breathe with me...”

She nodded as best she could, focusing only on the Doctor’s face as she breathed with him. They repeated it again and again, and slowly the sensations lifted from her and she could finally breathe again.

“What happened?” she asked cautiously, eyes darting to over the Time Lord’s shoulder, where a worried-looking Jamie was now stood.

“Panic attack,” the Doctor told her, following her gaze over his shoulder to the boy.

Jamie was stood, wide-eyed and nervous, watching the events unfold. Sensing the boy’s worries, the Doctor held out a hand to him, and the boy willingly crossed to him.

“Are you ok?” Jamie asked quietly, eyes a tiny bit damp as he stared at her.

Briefly, Rose’s eyes flickered to the Doctor’s before she responded. She plastered on a smile and held out her arms to him. “I’m fine,” she said. “Promise.”

Less than ten seconds later, Jamie was in her arms, cuddling her with his arms tight around her neck.

~0~0~

They met up with Jack in the galley for lunch, the ex-con man already there when the Doctor, Rose and Jamie arrived. As Jack continued to make sandwiches, and the Doctor started making drinks for everyone, Rose sat beside the boy at the table and quietly observed him as he watched the two men work.

His eyes kept wandering to the amount of food Jack had spread out on the counter, going wide-eyed at the sight of all the butter and cheese and ham there. Rose stifled a small laugh at that. Of course Jamie had accepted the TARDIS immediately, and of course the thing that surprised him most was that where he was now wasn’t the subject of food rationing.

When Jack brought the food over and the Doctor set mugs of tea in front of everyone (including a smaller cup of tea for Jamie), the boy looked nervously from the plates of sandwiches, to Rose, and back again.

At that, Rose frowned. She’d been almost certain that the little boy would dive right in, particularly with all the energy he’d burned up running around the TARDIS all morning. But then she recalled what the Doctor had said about Nancy feeding the homeless children of London, how she’d always expected them to show good table manners even in the face of stealing food. With a barely suppressed smile, Rose pulled the plate of sandwiches nearer so that the boy could reach.

“Go on then,” she told him with a grin.

He looked at her a little hesitantly. “I didn’t wash my hands,” he told her solemnly, eyes darting to Jack and the Doctor as he spoke.

“Oh, I’m sure we can skip that just this once,” Jack told the boy happily.

But Jamie just looked uncertain, and looked back to Rose. “Nancy... Mummy said manners are important.”

Rose could feel the Doctor’s and Jack’s eyes on her, and somehow knew they’d be no help to her in this situation. She was on her own.

“And they are,” she agreed, pulling the sandwiches closer again. “But right now it’s more important that you’re hungry. An’ just ‘cause I’m giving you a pass on washing your hands now doesn’t mean I’m gonna do it every time, yeah?”

That seemed to settle Jamie then, the reassurance that the manners he’d been taught by his mum (even when he thought her to be his big sister) were still very important and wouldn’t be ignored allowing him to instead give in to his hunger. Eagerly, he reached for two sandwiches, putting them on his plate, but Rose moved the plate away again before he could take a third. His brow furrowed at that, but the Doctor spoke before he could say anything.

“Eat those two first, lad,” he said as he helped himself to sandwiches. “Once you’ve had them, if you’re still hungry, you can have another.”

Jamie nodded then, and happily tucked into the food already on his plate. If the boy knew the three adults were watching, he didn’t seem to let on, as he sat at the table swinging his legs and chewing on a cheese and ham sandwich.

“Had a good look around then, Captain?” the Doctor asked once it was obvious that Jamie was perfectly happy.

Jack nodded, swallowing a mouthful of food. “Yeah. When you said it was big I didn’t appreciate just how big you meant. You could get lost for days in here.” He gave a significant look to little Jamie then.

“The TARDIS wouldn’t allow it,” the Doctor assured the two other adults as Rose looked mildly panicked about that. “She’d alert me if anyone got lost in here. Or she’d rearrange the corridors herself and bring you to me.”

Jack nodded, but looked a tiny bit dubious about that. “Anyway,” he continued after a pause, “I just wanted to say thanks, I suppose. I know me being here is probably only going to be temporary, what with...” Another nod at Jamie, who had by now polished off one sandwich and was drinking his tea. “But I just wanted to say thanks. You didn’t have to save me, you could’ve left me on my ship to die. An’ especially considering I messed up...”

He trailed off then, and there was an uncomfortable silence as the three adults all avoided looking at one another. It couldn’t have been helped, really. Well, maybe if the Doctor had been aware, something could have been done. But people still would have been hurt.

Jamie, seemingly oblivious to the tension, set his mug down, wiped his mouth on the back of his arm, and turned to Rose.

“I need a wee.”

~0~0~

The afternoon was much calmer than the morning. Apparently tired out by the morning’s running around, Jamie was fast asleep on a sofa in the library, Rose on the opposite sofa as she flicked through some books.

None of them were holding her attention, though. Instead, her gaze kept drifting to the sleeping five year old opposite, and her mind kept wandering back to the conversation in the galley. Of course Jack blamed himself for the situation. And of course it would make him a little uneasy about being around Jamie. Maybe she’d been wrong earlier, when she’d said to the Doctor that Jamie would have two father figures. Maybe Jack wouldn’t stay with them, maybe he’d feel like he’d have to leave now that both she and the Doctor had agreed that they had told Nancy they’d care for Jamie and not anyone else.

And not only that, but Rose was beginning to think that Jamie had the right idea having a nap. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a nap in the middle of the day- it was probably when she’d been Jamie’s age. But everything had been quite hectic and emotional the last few days, and she’d slept fitfully last night, worrying about the little boy down the hall from her.

Besides, the TARDIS would alert her or the Doctor (or even Jack) if Jamie woke and needed anything, wouldn’t she?

Dropping the book she’d been attempting to read to the floor, Rose shifted to lie down on the sofa and closed her eyes.

~0~0~

“Right, you lot,” the Doctor said, surveying the patients and soldiers standing around in confusion on disused railway lines. “Lots to do. Beat the Germans, save the world. Don’t forget the welfare state!” He nodded to the Chula ambulance beside him. “Setting this to self-destruct, soon as everybody’s clear. History says there was an explosion here. Who am I to argue with history?”

“Usually the first in line,” Rose told him with a small grin. Jack’s vanishing act was still weighing heavily on her, particularly now knowing that he was ending his life to save theirs. Taking that bomb inside his ship? There was no chance he’d survive that, was there? But still, she had to keep up appearances in front of the Doctor and all these people.

As she turned, Nancy gave her a small smile, Jamie still in her arms. That was what Jack had done, Rose realised, risked his life so all these people would survive. To save Nancy and Jamie, give them a chance to live a life they almost hadn’t got. To give all these people affected by the nanogenes he’d brought to them their lives back.

People were heading towards the gates then, vacating the site as the Doctor pulled the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and started pointing it at the ambulance.

“Rose?” he called to her over his shoulder.

She crossed to him. He gave a pointed look at Nancy and Jamie. Jamie was now on his own two feet, still clutching his mother’s hand, but Nancy wasn’t moving.

“Get them out of here,” he told her quietly. “This thing’s gonna blow soon. I want all three of you out of here.”

Rose nodded, and with one last worried look at the Time Lord, headed over to Nancy.

“Why don’t we get you two out of here, yeah?” she said even as she tried to gently nudge them towards the gate.

“What about the Doctor?” Nancy asked worriedly, instead staring at the Doctor over Rose’s shoulder.

“He’ll be fine,” Rose said, plastering on a fake smile.

The look Nancy gave her told her she hadn’t fallen for it for a second.

Rose sighed. “Look, we need to move. You an’ Jamie are in danger if you stay here.”

At that, Nancy snorted. “What? Like there aren’t bombs falling from the sky all over London? We’re no closer to danger here than anywhere else.”

The Doctor gave them a look over his shoulder then, and Rose let out another sigh.

“Nancy, we’ve gotta move,” she tried again. “We need to keep Jamie safe. We can take him into the hospital, yeah?”

Nancy opened her mouth to protest, but there was instead a whistling noise filling the air. Rose frowned, looked round at the Doctor. Had he started the sequence? But instead there was a terrified look as he stared up at the sky.

Rose frowned, and followed his gaze. And then she saw it. A second German bomb, not dissimilar to the one that by now had probably already killed Captain Jack, falling from the sky and heading straight for them.

“Move!” the Doctor bellowed, and suddenly they were running.

She and Nancy and Jamie and the Doctor, all running for the gate. But the ground was slippery and muddy, and they were slipping and sliding all over the place. The whistling was growing louder, closer, and it felt like the pressure in the air was changing...

And suddenly, Nancy fell. She’d slipped on the ground, falling face-down in the mud. Without thinking, Rose grabbed Jamie as he stood at his mother’s side, swept him into her arms and kept running even as the Doctor hauled Nancy to her feet.

“Keep going, Rose!”

She didn’t look round to see the Doctor’s face, to see how far behind he and Nancy were. She didn’t want to know. All she knew was she had to keep Jamie safe.

The whistling was growing painfully louder, so much closer... She was almost at the gate...

....And then there was a bang.

~0~0~

Rose woke with a start, almost tumbling from the sofa. The library was dark, and she had no idea how long she’d been asleep. When she looked to the other sofa, she saw it was empty, and her heart jolted.

Where was Jamie? Had it all been a dream? Had they never even been in 1941? Or had they been there and they had lost him as well as Nancy?

But as she pushed herself into a sitting position, and mostly-healed injuries screamed their presence to her, she realised it hadn’t been a dream. Or rather, her dream had been real. She’d been reliving it. The Doctor had warned her she might have nightmares for a while, but last night she’d been so exhausted she hadn’t dreamed at all.

Was this going to happen every time she closed her eyes? She’d relive that bomb falling on them? Relive the screaming and the shouting and the terror?

Rose mentally shook herself. She still didn’t know where Jamie was. She could deal with herself later, right now she needed to find him.

She sent out a mental plea to the TARDIS, hoping that she’d take pity on her and lead her straight to the boy. And she did. When she found him, he was in the console room with the Doctor and Jack, sat on the jump seat while the two men tinkered beneath the console.

“They won’t let me help,” Jamie announced when he saw Rose in the doorway. “They said I’m too small.”

Rose nodded at his words, waves of relief washing over her at the fact he was much more worried that he couldn’t conduct TARDIS maintenance with the men than what he had lived through in the last few days.

“Jack said when I’m a big boy I can help too, but I’m too little at the moment.”

“You are,” the Doctor agreed, emerging from the console, “but it’s your job to keep Rose company, isn’t it?” The boy nodded seriously. “What’s rule number one?”

Jamie straightened up in his seat, puffing out his chest as he proudly replied. “Don’t wander off!”

At that, Rose rolled her eyes as Jack snorted from under the console. But the Doctor ignored their responses and instead crossed to Rose.

“Are you ok?”

She nodded, giving him a somewhat weak smile. “Didn’t sleep well,” she admitted quietly, being cautious not to let Jamie overhear.

The Doctor nodded, looking concerned. “Anything I can do to help?”

But she shook her head. “Dunno. Might come talk to you about it later, once Jamie’s in bed.” She frowned as she saw Jack’s legs disappear back under the TARDIS. “You teaching Jack to fix up the TARDIS?”

The Doctor shrugged. “If he’s going to stick around, I could do with a helping hand,” he admitted. “I was going to speak to him about what we said earlier, about keeping Jamie with us.”

“An’ you think he’ll still want to stay?” Rose asked worriedly, biting her lip. “I mean, Jack feels like it’s his fault, that Nancy died ‘cause he didn’t realise there would be two bombs dropped there. An’ I don’t know if he’d wanna see Jamie every day.”

The Doctor nodded in understanding. “I know. That’s why I want to teach Jack a bit of TARDIS maintenance. Show him he can be of some use, show him he has a place here. Like I said, I want to talk to him about what we were saying, and if I can sweeten him up by teaching him a bit about the TARDIS first...”

Rose nodded in understanding. “Ok, yeah. Want me to take Jamie so you can talk? It must be nearly dinner time anyway, yeah?”

The Time Lord looked at his watch. “Earth time, it’s not quite half four in the evening,” he confirmed.

“Alright. I’ll take Jamie an’ we’ll get started on dinner, an’ you an’ Jack can talk, yeah?”

With a soft smile the Doctor nodded. “Sounds great.”

He seemed to lean forward slightly then, eyes still on hers, and for a tiny moment, Rose thought that maybe- just maybe- he was going to kiss her. But then he was moving away, moving back to the console, and instead Rose forced a smile and held out her hand to the five year old boy watching them carefully.