While Jack kept vigil at the Doctor's bedside, Rose and Jackie were in the kitchen. Rose was rummaging in the fridge. She wasn't sure how long it had been since she'd had a proper meal, between the events at the Game Station and the fact that when the Doctor had sent her home she'd been too upset to eat anything. Rose spotted a pork pie and reached for it.

"How can he go changing his face?" Jackie asked abruptly. Rose remained silent, shutting the fridge door and reaching toward the silverware drawer for a fork. "Is that a different face or is he a different person?" Jackie continued.

"How should I know?" Rose exclaimed sharply. She set her pork pie and fork down on the table across from her mum and took a deep breath. "Sorry," she said, trying to be calm. It wasn't her mum she was mad at, after all.

Jackie nodded at her. She might be difficult to deal with sometimes, Rose mused, but her mum was pretty great at understanding how Rose was feeling. Rose sat down at the table and took a bite of pie before attempting to continue the conversation. Jackie waited with uncharacteristic patience, giving Rose her space.

"The thing is," Rose finally said, "I thought I knew him, Mum." She felt her eyes fill with tears. "I thought me and him were…" she trailed off, unable to quantify precisely what she thought she and the Doctor were or had been. "And then he goes and does this," she said, her voice trembling. Annoyed with herself for crying, she sniffed and wiped her tears away with the sleeve of her jumper. "I keep forgetting he's not human," she muttered.

Her mum continued to look at her steadily and without (much) judgment. Giving herself a mental shake, Rose forced herself to smile at Jackie. She reached across the table and covered Jackie's hand with her own. "The big question is," she said with manufactured brightness in her voice, "where'd you get a pair of men's pajamas from?"

Jackie pushed her chair back from the table and rose, turning to fiddle aimlessly with something on the counter. "Howard's been staying over," she said mildly.

"What, Howard from the market?" Rose asked, slightly incredulous. "How long's that been going on?"

"A month or so," Jackie said. "First of all, he starts delivering to the door and I thought, 'that's a bit odd.'" She shook her head, a hint of a smile on her face. "Next thing you know it's a bag of oranges-"

Rose suddenly became aware that she recognized one of the voices issuing from the television, which had been left on in the living room as they'd attended to the Doctor. "Is that Harriet Jones?" she asked, interrupting her mother mid-sentence. She shot to her feet, leaving her pork pie forgotten on the table.

"Oh, never mind me," Jackie muttered, trailing after Rose into the living room.

"What's she doing on the telly?" Rose asked, staring at the television screen.

"She's Prime Minister now," Jackie explained. "I'm eighteen quid a week better off," she added. "They're calling it Britain's Golden Age." Jackie grinned then. "I keep on saying 'my Rose has met her'."

Rose grinned, her first genuine smile in hours. "Did more than that," she said, pride and nostalgia coloring her voice. "Stopped World War III with her. Harriet Jones…" The reporter on TV asked Harriet about something called the Guinevere I Space Probe being a waste of money and the look on Harriet's face was indignant.

"Now, that's where you're wrong," she said briskly. "I completely disagree if you don't mind."

Rose chuckled a little at that. It was so very much like the woman she remembered fighting the Slitheen with.

"The Guinevere I Space Probe represents this country's limitless ambition," Harriet continued. "British workmanship sailing up there among the stars."

The news cut to a shot of a jittery, nervous-looking man giving a press conference. He was saying something about the spirit of Christmas and rejoicing and miracles, but Rose's stomach growled, reminding her of her abandoned pork pie.

"Harriet Jones," she muttered again, turning back to the kitchen.

Rose was nearly finished with her pork pie when Jack appeared the in the doorway. She scanned his face anxiously, looking for signs that the Doctor had taken a turn for the worse. "Is he-"

"He's the same," Jack answered before Rose could finish the question. "He seems pretty stable at the moment," he added. "With any luck he's just in a standard healing coma and he'll come out of it in a relatively short time."

"There's nothing standard about a coma," Jackie muttered.

Jack shrugged. "There is if you're a Time Lord," he said good-naturedly. "According to the data the Time Agency had about them, it was a pretty normal response to a difficult regeneration."

"Would've been nice," Rose said under her breath, "if you'd shared some of that data with me before it became an issue."

Jack grimaced, but simply murmured an apology and gave Rose a contrite look.

Rose shrugged, deciding it was mostly the Doctor's fault anyway, so there was no reason to continue to punish Jack for it. "Are you hungry, Jack? There's stuff in the fridge, and I can get you some tea if you like."

"A little food would be great, thank you," he said. "Whatever you've got, I'm not picky."

There was a knock on the door of the flat and then Mickey let himself in. He'd gone back to his own flat to change his clothes and pick up his computer. "I'm back," he announced unnecessarily. Rose heard a thump as he dropped his stuff in the living room on his way to the kitchen. "How is he?" he asked upon entering the room.

"The same," Rose said, and busied herself with sorting out a pork pie for Jack.

"Listen," Mickey said, "I was thinking."

"Sounds dangerous," Jack said teasingly. He gave Rose a wink as she set his pork pie in front of him and she smiled slightly and shook her head.

"Shut up," Mickey said mildly as Jack immediately began to wolf down his pie. "Anyway, I was thinking that we should go out, do a bit of shopping."

Rose rolled her eyes. "You just want to make sure you get presents from us and figure we don't have any since we didn't exactly plan to come here beforehand."

Mickey grinned. "Maybe. But you've always liked the high street at Christmas anyway. Come on, it'll make you feel better."

Rose sighed. She supposed it would be nice to do a proper Christmas - or at least as much as they could with the Doctor in some sort of healing coma in her mum's bedroom - since they were here anyway. And maybe they could stop at a chip shop while they were out. She could use a nice helping of chips after the day she'd had.

"What do you think?" she asked Jack. "Want to do a bit of shopping? Mum can stay with the Doctor and call us if he gets worse."

Jack shoveled the last of his pork pie into his mouth and nodded. "Sure, sounds fun," he said once he'd swallowed his food.

After stopping by the TARDIS so that Jack could pick up a coat, the three of them headed off to the high street. It was quite crowded, thanks to the fact that it was Christmas Eve. Rose shoved her hands in her pockets in an attempt to keep them warm, and at that point it occurred to her that she didn't have any money with her - it was not generally something they worried about on the TARDIS.

"Jack, I don't suppose you've got any money," she said. Jack shook his head.

"Nope. We don't generally need it, do we?"

Rose chuckled. "Guess not. Looks like you won't be getting any presents after all, Mickey."

Mickey shook his head. "I'll cover you. What d'you need, twenty quid?" He rifled through his wallet and pulled out a wrinkled note. He held it out to Rose.

"Do you mind?" she asked, taking the note from him. "We'll pay you back."

"Call it a Christmas present," Mickey replied.

"I'm all out of sync," Rose said. "Don't you think so, Jack? We forget about Christmas and things most of the time on the TARDIS. It's like they don't exist."

"It's like being timeless," Jack suggested. "Time's all relative, anyway."

"Oh, yeah, that's fascinating," Mickey said, frustration edging his mostly-jovial tone. "'Cos I love hearing stories about the TARDIS. Oh, go on, Rose, tell us another one 'cos I, wow, I could listen to it all day. TARDIS this, TARDIS that…"

Rose lightly slapped Mickey's shoulder, amused. Jack, she noted, looked slightly annoyed, so Rose made sure her tone was light when she said "Shut up!"

"Oh! One time, in a biiiiiig yellow garden, full of balloons-"

"I'm not like that!" Rose insisted.

"Oh, you so are," Mickey replied. He gestured at Jack. "At least he tells stories from before he started tagging along with you two."

Jack held his hands up. "Hey, leave me out of this. This is between you two."

"I must drive you mad," Rose said, bumping Mickey's shoulder with her own. "I'm surprised you don't give up on me." The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she flashed uncomfortably back on the last time she'd seen him, in Cardiff, and he'd left her without saying goodbye. Mickey didn't seem fazed, however.

"Oh, that's the thing, isn't it?" he said proudly. "You can rely on me. I don't go changing my face."

Jack frowned. "Would you rather he had died and left us stranded in the middle of the Time Vortex, Mickey?" Jack asked coldly. "Because that was the alternative."

Mickey looked suitably chastised, and Rose felt slightly guilty that she's been about to agree, if half-heartedly, with Mickey.

"What if he's dying?" she asked, unable to hold in the words. She looked at Jack imploringly. He was about to reply when Mickey jumped in front of Rose and grabbed her hands.

"Okay!" he said, slightly exasperated. "Just let it be Christmas!" he added. "Just for a bit. You and me… and Jack… and Christmas."

"Sorry," Rose murmured. "I'm sorry."

"No thinking about the Doctor, no monsters, no life-or-death."

"Okay," Rose said. "I'll try."

"Promise?"

Rose glanced at Jack. He took her hand and began to pull her down the street. "She said we'll try," he said testily.

Mickey scrambled after them. "Right," he said as he pulled even with them. "What do you want to get for your mum?" he asked Rose. He continued talking, babbling about all the time he'd been spending with Jackie since the last time Rose had been home. But Rose and Jack were no longer listening, as both of them were concentrating on a small brass band in which all of the players were wearing creepy Santa masks.

"They're weird, right?" Rose whispered to Jack. "It's not just me?"

"Definitely off," Jack affirmed.

Suddenly, flames began to shoot out of their trumpets. Amidst the screams of the other shoppers, Rose yelled for Mickey, grabbing his wrist and dragging him along with her and Jack as they took cover behind a market stall.

The Santas looked around, shooting indiscriminately as they scanned the crowd for something - or someone.

"It's us," Rose said, alarmed. "They're after us!" The Santas caught sight of the trio and blasted the stall behind which they were hiding.

"Let's go!" Jack shouted, instinctually taking charge of the situation. They ran down the street, away from the band of Santas, who pursued them. Jack dodged around passersby and other things blocking their path, trusting Rose and Mickey to follow.

"What's going on?" Mickey asked frantically. "What've we done?! Why are they after us?!"

As they approached a cross street, a taxi pulled up, and Jack hailed it. As they piled in the back of the cab, Rose answered Mickey's question.

"They're after the Doctor," she said matter-of-factly, as if they weren't in the middle of running for their lives away from a murderous brass band of Santas.

Mickey threw up his hands. "I can't even go shopping with you! We get attacked by a brass band!"

As the taxi pulled away from the curb, Rose took out her phone. "Who're you phoning?" Mickey asked.

"Mum," she said. "They might already know where I live." Rose tapped her fingers impatiently on her knee, willing Jackie to pick up. "Mum, get off the phone!" she muttered furiously at her mobile when all she heard was a busy signal.

"Who were those Santa things?" Mickey asked, directing his question at Jack.

Jack shrugged. "Dunno, never seen 'em before. Shiny bit of tech, though." He shifted his position so that he could wrap an arm around Rose's shoulders. "Definitely after us, though, and since the two of you are regular old citizens and there shouldn't be any records of me around yet, we can only assume they're really after the Doctor and trying to get to him through us."

"Because today wasn't already long enough," Rose said, dropping her head down onto Jack's shoulder.

"No rest for the wicked," Jack said lightly. He pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head and exchanged concerned looks with Mickey.

A few tense minutes later, the taxi pulled up in front of the Powell Estate. Mickey handed the driver a couple of notes and told him to keep the change, and then he, Jack, and Rose piled out of the cab. Their feet had barely hit the ground before they took off at a run towards Rose's building.

Note: Bit of a cliffhanger there, sorry! It was the best place to break things up, though... and I promise a nice long next chapter. Also, although I feel like the standard "the source material isn't mine" disclaimer is implied in all fanfic posting, I would like to mention since I haven't already that obviously I have pulled some dialogue straight from the episodes The Parting of the Ways, the Children in Need special, and The Christmas Invasion, and said dialogue belongs to Russell T Davies; I'm just using and modifying it for fun and no profit ;)

Thank you so much for the follows/favorites and reviews y'all have left so far, I really appreciate it! I hope you continue to enjoy the fic :D