This is just a small chapter, thought I may as well put it up now so I can work on a bigger chapter for next week.

Thursday Afternoons

The Fifth Year, Third Week - The Swings

It was one of those dark days both mentally and physically. Rain clouds loomed above The Doctor and his grey skinned boy as they sat on the swings at the park allowing for the winds to guide their forward movements, or in the long legged man's position a simple push of his toe against the dirt set him moving slowly.

It wasn't a good day. In fact it was an incredibly bad day. The Doctor had arrived on Thursday, as he always did but instead of finding his son on his way home from school the man was greeted with his son tucked up in his own bed looking like death.

This week they sat on the swings, the chilly breeze pushing at their hair as Isaiah didn't put the effort into trying to make his swing soar. It made his hearts ache to watch the boy, the life was drained from his little boy, his eyes had turned from their usual green to a faint grey as bags darkened under his eyes. River had told him the boy wasn't sleeping very well and it definitely showed in his little face. Their swings swayed, the only noise between them being that of the wind through the trees.

"You have a time machine." Isaiah mumbled, his head against the fingers he'd wrapped around the swing chain. The Doctor nodded in confirmation unsure if the boy's sentence was a statement or a question. "After you leave do you just skip to the next Thursday and see me again?" Isaiah's swing pushed slowly with a heavy gust, it was The Doctor who put his feet flat on the ground halting the movement of his individual swing. He wondered how much of it could be turned against him, a double ended sword, he could show eagerness to see the child again or an eagerness to be over and done with him. Which did he choose, which disappointment was the one to be displayed on the child's face? "Because I guess, I'm not going to live very long" Isaiah continued, his head hung. "you should just get it over and done with. I'll waste less time that way." The young boy lulled his head forward watching as he moved back and forth over the ground watching as his small pair of oxfords flew over the dirt on their own for a moment before a larger pair of shoes interrupted his view and stopped his swing.

"Don't think that. Don't ever think that." His father's hands gripped at Isaiah's shoulders, squeezing, pleading, encouraging a different thought. "You're the most important thing in my life, Isaiah. You make the earth spin." The boy shook his head, refusing to make eye contact as he continued to watch the dirt under his feet. "Honestly, without you life ceases to matter. You need to understand that." He squeezed the boy's arms firmly again.

"But I'm not important." The Doctor shook his head, his hands tensing yet again. Leave it to his son to believe that. How many years had he spent travelling with people who believed themselves unimportant, their lives boring, or that no one needed them? Thousands. Were they preparing him for this moment? Surely not. But perhaps they were. A child's mindset could be so fragile, especially that of Isaiah Song.

The Doctor smiled even though his boy wasn't looking. "Didn't I just tell you that you made the earth spin?" Isaiah nodded but he still wouldn't lift his head. "It's the same for your mum too. I don't know where either of us would be without you Isaiah. We'd be lost, stuck in limbo, our lives just wouldn't be the same."

"Do you love me?" He asked, teeth gnawing into his bottom lip.

The Doctor grinned, his face almost cracking in two with the sheer force of it. He waited, one minute … two, just for the boy to look up and meet his eyes. He did. "All the way to the moon and back." He whispered to his son, hand coming out to tap the boy's nose. Probably more than that, he thought. To the moon wasn't far enough.

"It's 238,855 miles to the moon." Isaiah rambled without thinking, causing his father to smile. The boy was always listing off facts about the solar system, sometimes without thinking first. The Doctor nodded at his comment, his smile widening as the boy looked at him in awe. That was a long way.

The Doctor watched him, the light returning to his son's face if only a little. In only a minute the boy was pinker now than he had been the whole duration of his father's visit. "You always talk about space travel, about how I go away but you never ask to come with or go anywhere." The two had held and understanding between them since The Doctor's second visit. His father was The Raggedy Man the one who made alien races run away in fear at just the mention of his name. He touched the stars and chased daemons. He knew of thousands of planets the boy had only dreamed of.

Isaiah shrugged. "Mum would miss me."

"Your mum could come." The Doctor offered with a nonchalant shrug. River would never agree not in a million years. Not until her son was laid to rest and perhaps a little while after that.

"I don't think she'd approve." Isaiah shrugged again, it seemed to be his thing when he was ill. Head down and shoulder shrugging. The Doctor never minded, instead adopting his son's mannerisms to better relate, River on the other hand couldn't stand the sight of her son unwell. "She likes it here, my mum. I think travelling will make her think of what my dying has caused her to give up."

"That's a rather adult thought, Isa." The boy shrugged again.

"It's true."

Again The Doctor's hands were on his son's arms squeezing the thin limbs softly. "Don't think that she'll give up on you, Isaiah. I knew your mother before you were a flicker of a thought, long, before that. She has changed completely. She's changed for you. Your mother, Isaiah Song, will do anything and everything for you and she's willing to doing it."

"It's love."

"Correct!" The Doctor beamed, jumping with the force of it. "All the way to the moon and back, remember." Isaiah nodded, repeating the words quietly to his father the colour returning to his eyes slowly. But it wasn't a good day, nothing was supposed to be right.

"The doctors say I might need an oxygen tank in the next two years, but mum said that if my lungs don't decline too much then I won't need too. I can't get sick, she said, not even a little bit, infections are bad." The Doctor nodded, watching his son as worry developed in his own eyes. He wished River had contacted him when Isaiah had taken sick that week. He needed to be there, not only for the boy and his mother but for himself as well. Surely his ten-year-old son couldn't be that sick. He was and Isaiah always had a brilliant way of reminding them of that fact.

Everything hurt, everything was wrong. He shouldn't be sat on the swings with his dying ten-year-old son. He shouldn't be watching as the child got worse, life was supposed to work the other way around. This was one ending he didn't want to witness, one ending he could see coming and one he had to grit his teeth through. He couldn't turn around and plug his ears as it happened or go back in time to change it. They'd placed their son's fate in his hands, although not yet, the boy was still unaware towards his rather large decision but they were giving it to him.

The Doctor could do nothing but watch as his son picked his own end and forced his parents into watching it.

For now it wasn't as much of a problem as it was eventually going to be.

For now, this was just a Thursday afternoon with his son.