PARENTHOOD

Chapter Ten

"John, behave."

John sniggered as Rosie sighed and glanced at Simon. All three of them were sitting on the porch with their three year old daughter, Jackie. They had come over to the Doctor's house for supper and had let their daughter play with the Doctor's triplets. However, in the course of playing with a doll, Sokanon had gotten possessive of it and slapped Jackie in the face when she tried to take it. This led to another confrontation when the Doctor tried to get Sokanon to apologize to her cousin. To John's amusement, rather than submit to her father's wishes, Sokanon announced loudly to all that she was running away. The Doctor threw up his hands in exasperation when Rain intervened.

"Calm down, Dear. Lots of children do this whole running away scenario. I know just what to do, just play along with me," she said to him.

She walked over to Sokanon who was standing her ground with her arms folded over her chest.

"Do you still want to run away?" she asked as everyone watched.

"YES! I wanna run away and live somewhere else!" Sokanon yelled at her.

"Okay, let's get you packed so you can be on your way then," Rain said, shrugging.

The Doctor grinned when he noticed his daughter was confused by that. Putting his hands in his trouser pockets, he followed her as she followed Rain upstairs to her bedroom. Sokanon stood near Rain and the Doctor leaned against the door while Rain pulled her Dora the Explorer pink suitcase out of the closet and made a big show of packing it with a couple of her shirts and jeans.

"Now, that oughta be enough, clothes-wise, but you need Ba-ba," she said, grabbing her little pink bunny blanket off her bed. "And you need Lamb Lamb," she added grabbing her little lamb plushie.

She put them all in the suitcase and zipped it up while Sokanon watched in silence.

"Let's seeeee, ah, you need something to eat, it'll be a long journey," Rain said, pulling up the handle and walking with the wheeled suitcase out of the room.

The Doctor let Sokanon passed and followed her downstairs. Rain carried the suitcase downstairs and wheeled it into the kitchen while John and Rosie held their laughter in check. The Doctor winked at them as he passed by and the two of them got up and followed them to the kitchen door. By the time they got there, Rain was putting some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a few cookies on top of her blanket.

"There you go, that oughta get you started. Oh! Here's an apple juice box in case you get thirsty," Rain said, putting in the juice box and zipping it up. "Well, that's done. Come on, we'll see you off then."

Sokanon quietly followed her mother as she walked to the door with suitcase in hand. John scooped up his daughter and Simon picked up Namid and the Doctor carried Chaska and he and the others followed behind. They went outside and Rain went down the steps with the suitcase before she handed the handle to her daughter.

"Goodbye, Soki, good luck and I hope you find a hotel or something," Rain said, patting her on the head.

Sokanon hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to do. Then she began to walk down the pavement, pulling the suitcase behind her while everyone waved goodbye. She took five steps, stopped and thought for a moment. Then to everyone's amusement, she turned around, walked back to Rain, took her hand and started off again.

"Oh, am I part of your running away equipment?" Rain asked as the adults giggled. "Okay, bye Love, I hope I see you sometime!"

Everyone watched as Rain walked with Sokanon as she tugged her suitcase down the pavement. As they walked, the door to Jackie's house opened and Jackie came outside to water her plants. Sokanon stopped and watched her while Rain waited patiently. Jackie spied her and waved.

"Hi, sweetie, whatcha doin'?" she asked her.

Sokanon hesitated a moment and then everyone laughed when she led her mother over to the porch. Leaving the suitcase at the first step, she and Rain climbed the stairs. Jackie looked over the half wall around her porch and studied the suitcase.

"Oh, are you going somewhere, love?" she asked Sokanon as the others headed towards her house.

"She's running away from home," Rain said to her.

Jackie stared at Sokanon in shock as she settled onto her lap.

"What? Why are you running away, love?" Jackie asked Sokanon.

Sokanon shrugged. She hopped down off of Jackie's lap, went to her suitcase, opened it and grabbed the sandwiches and cookies. She walked back up to Jackie, sat in her lap and began to eat while the others laughed.

"Wait, that's your running away food," the Doctor teased. "You'll need all that to survive on those long, lonely nights on the road!"

"So I take it you've had an interesting day over at your house," Jackie said as everyone let the children down on the ground.

"Yup, never a dull moment with these kids," the Doctor said. "But I'm glad Soki changed her mind about running away."

Simon shook his head.

"Where'd these kids get these crazy notions from? I never threatened to run away from home when I was a kid."

He noticed John staring at him.

"What? I never ran away from home," he said.

"You didn't? I thought you ran away from home to be a drummer boy in the Civil War," John said.

He and Rosie laughed when Simon's cheeks flushed.

"Okay, well I did that but I wasn't three years old, Pa," he said as John shrugged and grinned.

Sokanon slid off of Jackie's lap and walked over to little Jackie. She gave her cousin a cookie and they sat down together and ate while the others joined them.

"Well, I'll accept that as an apology to little Jackie then," the Doctor said to Rain as they watched them eat.

The children continued to eat and play with one another while the adults sat on the porch and talked to Jackie until it was time for her to go inside and cook dinner.

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