Man of the House, Chuckie's Version

Summary: Takes place during season 8, prior to the events of 'The Fun Way Day.' Before Chas can quit his job as a Beurocrat, and open the Java Lava, he must go on one final business trip, leaving Chuckie behind, to watch over his new mom, Kira, and his little sister, Kimi. With a little help from his bestest friend Tommy, can he be, the man of the house? An homage to the season 6 episode of the same title, when Tommy underwent similar duties. This idea was given to me by Boris Yeltsin.

Disclaimer: I do not own the original Rugrats characters, they're the property of their original creaters. Jake is owned by Boris Yeltsin, and Peter is owned by TCKing12.

It was a typical day at the Finster household, or as typical as it got as of late. The family had been busy for a while, preparing their new coffee shop, the Java Lava, which would be ready for business not too far in the distant future. While Chas was finishing up what would be his last day at the office, Kira was at home with Chuckie, Kimi, and Jake, who had come over to play. They were out in the backyard, playing in one of those wading pools, because it was quite hot on this particular day.

"Look Chuckie, I can spout like a whale!" Kimi said, putting her face into the water, and blowing bubbles.

Chuckie giggled.

"You must like being a big brother, don't you Chuckie." Jake said.

"Oh yeah. Kimi's lots of fun. She's lots more funnerer than Tommy's brother Dil." Chuckie said, splashing around in the water.

"Oh, I don't know, I think Dil's kind of cute. Plus, he's got the cutest laugh." Jake said.

"Yeah, but he's always tipping himself over, he throws raddles at my head which hurts, and he can't do the stuff that I can do with Kimi, or any of my other friends." Chuckie said.

"Awe, don't worry Chuckie, pretty soon, Dil will be bigger, and he'll get to do all of the fun stuff that you and Tommy do together." Jake said, stepping out of the pool to dry off, as he had enough time in the water.

Chuckie decided to join him, while Kimi continued to giggle and splash around in the water.

Inside, Chas came home with Peter accompanying him, helping him carry in some boxes of several things.

"Thank you for helping me clean out my office Peter." Chas said, pointing to the space in the closet where he wanted the boxes.

"Not a problem Chas, I was happy to help." Peter said with a grin, placing the boxes on the floor of the closet and closing the door.

Just then, Kira walked into the entry hallway to greet them.

"Hi honey, I see you're home." Kira said.

"Yep, but not for long." Chas replied with a reluctant sigh.

"What's going on? Wasn't today your last day of work?" Kira asked.

"Yes, but my boss stopped me on my way out of the office. He said I still have to attend the business meeting in Minasota this weekend before I can officially resign." Chas said.

At that moment, Chuckie, Jake, and Kimi, who didn't wish to play in the pool all by herself, had come inside, overhearing Chas's comment to Kira. Chuckie turned his attention to Jake and Kimi.

"Did you hear that you guys? My daddy has to go away. He hasn't gone away since we went to Paris." Chuckie said.

"Don't worry Chuckie, mommy will take care of us." Kimi said.

"Yeah, but she's never taked care of both of us without daddy here. I mean, not all day and night. Now, she's gonna be all alone." Chuckie said.

"Maybe I can help." Jake said eagerly.

At that moment though, a horn was honking out in the driveway.

"That's my dad. I have to go." Jake said, picking up his towel and bag of clothes, walking towards the front door.

"Hi Jake, did you have fun with Chuckie and Kimi today?" Peter asked, seeing him pass through in the hallway where he was still chatting with Kira and Chas.

"Yep, I sure did. We went swimming in their wading pool in the backyard, and I fed Fifi lots of dog treats." Jake said.

"Sounds great!" Peter said, opening the door for Jake where his dad Jeb was now standing.

"Come on Jake, time to go, we're gonna be late for our plane." Jeb said.

"Coming dad." Jake said, heading in the direction of his father's voice.

"Where are you going?" Peter asked.

"Oh, hello Peter, nice to see you again. We're going up to Washington state for the weekend to visit my sister-in-law, Jake's aunt Maybelle." Jeb replied, taking Jake's hand.

"Wow! Sounds great! Have a nice trip." Peter said.

"Thanks Peter." Jeb said, walking down off of the front steps and leading Jake to the car, where they got in and drove home.

Peter decided to stay for dinner, while Chas headed upstairs to start packing. Later, Chas and Kira were getting things ready for Chuckie and Kimi's bath, when Peter notice Chuckie looking worried.

"Something wrong Chuckie?" Peter asked.

"Oh nothing. It's just, this will be the firstest time my daddy goes away leaving me behind with my new mommy and sister. Usually I go to Tommy's house or something when he goes away." Chuckie said.

Peter's face lit up.

"Chuckie, do you know what this means? You'll get to be the man of the house." Peter said.

Chuckie gasp, looking even more nervous.

"Don't worry Chuckie, I'm sure you'll do great!" Kimi said excitedly, placing a comforting arm on her brother's shoulder.

"I don't know, I mean, I've never been the man of the house before." Chuckie said.

"Wait a minute, didn't you help Tommy be the man of the house one time when his dad and I went off to the inventor's convention a while back? Back before we went to Paris, after our adventure in the forest." Peter said.

Chuckie stood there, his gazed fixed on Peter, thinking really hard.

"You're right! And Tommy's spose to come over tomorrow. Yeah! He can help me. Thanks Peter." Chuckie said with a smile.

"Glad I could help." Peter said, patting Chuckie on the head.

The following day, Chas awoke early and headed off for the airport. Before he left, he told everybody else goodbye, who were waking up and having breakfast.

"Bye Chuckie, you be a good little man of the house while I'm gone." Chas said.

Just then, Kimi started sneezing.

"Bless you. Let me get you a tissue." Kira said, heading for the tissue box, as Chas headed for the front door, carrying his suitcase.

"You can count on me daddy, I'll be, the bestest man of the house ever." Chuckie thought to himself, as he returned to eating his Dummi Bear Sugar Lumps cereal.

Turns out though that poor Kimi wasn't feeling well. She had come down with a cold, and it only got worse as the morning progressed. For this reason, Kira had Kimi go back to bed in her room, much to her dismay, and had Chuckie play outside. At around lunch time, Tommy was dropped off by Stu to play with Chuckie. He came out into the backyard, where Chuckie was scribbling on a crossword puzzle at the picnic table.

"Hey Chuckeroo, what's ya doing?" Tommy asked, taking a seat next to him.

Chuckie had a plastic toy telephone to his ear, pretending to be on the crossword puzzle help line.

"Yes, could I have the answer to one down please?" Chuckie said into the pretend phone, not noticing Tommy's presence.

Tommy however, waited for him to finish, which didn't take long, since Chuckie was getting tired of pretending.

"Oh, hi Tommy." Chuckie said, hanging up his toy telephone and turning to see Tommy sitting to his left.

"Hey Chuckie." Tommy said.

"Guess what, my daddy had to go away, so I'm the man of the house." Chuckie said, getting up from the picnic table.

"Hey, I was the man of the house once, remember? We accidentally broked Dilly's raddle, and we made him a new toy." Tommy said.

"Yeah, I member that, only…" Chuckie started to say, looking disappointed.

"Only what Chuckie?" Tommy asked, hopping off of the picnic bench and joining Chuckie out in the grass.

"Only, my daddy don't make toys like your daddy does." Chuckie said.

"Well, what does your daddy do?" Tommy asked.

"Well, he's been spending lots of time using tools and painting at the new coffee shop, but we're not at the coffee shop." Chuckie replied, twirling a blade of grass around his finger.

"Well, what stuff does your daddy do at home? Maybe you could do some of the things your daddy does around here." Tommy suggested.

"That's a great idea Tommy. And Kimi's gots a cold. I know, I'll take care of Kimi, just like my daddy takes care of me when I'm sick." Chuckie said with a grin, looking around the backyard.

"What are you looking for Chuckie?" Tommy asked.

"That's it!" Chuckie cried, running over to some flowers in the garden his late mother had planted, but came up again and again every year.

"Come on Tommy, help me pick these flowers for Kimi." Chuckie said.

He and Tommy got to work, picking a whole bunch of flowers, including some dandelions in the yard. No sooner did they have their flowers picked, when Kira called them in for lunch.

"Lunch time." Kira called from the back door.

The two toddlers headed inside, where there were sandwiches at the kitchen table for them, and Kimi was at the table, her nose running, sitting in front of a bowl of miso soup, that while it normally interested her, she wasn't very hungry today.

"Hey Kimi, we got something for ya." Chuckie said, handing the flowers to his sister.

"For me? Thanks Chuck…" Kimi started to say, before letting out a huge sneeze.

"Aaahhh chew!" Kimi cried, blowing all of the fuzzies off of the bundle of dandelions they had picked in the yard.

After that, Tommy and Chuckie sat down to eat their lunch, but they noticed Kimi was hardly touching her's.

"Kimi, aren't you hungry?" Tommy asked her.

Kimi shook her head, looking sad and pale.

"Come on Kimi, my daddy always tells me if I wanna get better when I'm sick, I've gots to eat." Chuckie said, getting down from his chair at the table and heading over to Kimi's spot at the table.

He picked up her spoon that was lying on the table, dipped it into the bowl of miso soup, and lifted it towards her mouth.

"Open up Kimi, here comes the rocket ship. It's coming to save the world." Chuckie said.

This got Kimi to laugh, opening her mouth. At that moment, Chuckie stuck the spoon into her mouth, and Kimi ate the soup. Chuckie was able to get her to take two more bites of soup, but after that, she refused to eat anymore, causing the next several spoon fulls to spill everywhere.

"Kimi, you're making a big mess. You're worser than Dil." Chuckie grumbled.

"Sorry Chuckie, I guess, I'm just, not very hungry." Kimi said.

"Would you at least drink your juice? My daddy says, an apple juice a day keeps the doctor away." Chuckie said, picking up Kimi's sippy cup off of the table and handing it to her.

Kimi did feel thirsty, so she started sipping on her apple juice, much to Tommy and Chuckie's relief.

"So far, so good Tommy." Chuckie said.

"That's great! What else does your daddy do?" Tommy asked.

"Well, he'll help get me settled down for my nap." Chuckie said, leading Tommy to their room where they got everything ready for Kimi's nap.

First, they got Kimi's bed ready.

"Pillow." Tommy said.

"Check." Chuckie said, laying her pillow down at the head of her bed.

"Blankie." Tommy said.

"Check." Chuckie said, straightening out the blanket on her bed.

"Super Thing." Tommy said.

Chuckie looked around the room, but couldn't find Super Thing anywhere.

"Uh, I don't see Super Thing." Chuckie said.

"Then we'd better go find it. Let's split up, you look in here, I'll check the living room. Maybe she taked it in there to watch TV or something." Tommy said, heading into the living room to look for it.

Chuckie searched every inch of their bedroom. In and under his bed, under Kimi's bed, and even in the toy chest, dumping all of the toys out on to the floor until there was nothing left, but Super Thing was nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, Tommy was searching every inch of the living room, beneath the couch and in between the cushions, on the floor by the TV and even on the bookshelf, but again, no trace of Super Thing anywhere. Then, he peered out into the backyard, and saw she had left it up in the treehouse. However, just as he noticed it, the sky clouded up and it started to rain.

"Uh oh." Tommy said, as Chuckie walked into the living room.

"What's wrong Tommy?" Chuckie asked.

Tommy pointed out the back door to the treehouse where Super Thing was sitting, and they both noticed it was raining.

"Come on Chuckie, quick!" Tommy called, heading for the back door.

Kimi overheard them, and got curious, wondering what was going on. While the two boys got the door open, before they could close it, Kimi snuck outside with them. This was not good, as it was bad enough that she had a cold, but if she got cold and wet, it would most likely, only make her cold worse.

"Kimi, you gotta go back inside." Chuckie scolded, turning towards her.

"Awe, I can't do anything fun." Kimi protested, letting out a tiny cough.

"But Kimi, you're sick." Chuckie said, as Tommy climbed up the ladder to the treehouse and got Super Thing down.

Unfortunately, it was soaking wet.

"I got it, but, it's kind of wet." Tommy said, handing the toy over to Chuckie.

"That's my Super Thing doll." Kimi cried, snatching it away from Chuckie, as the three toddlers continued to get drenched in the rain.

At that moment, Kira came outside to see what was going on.

"Oh my! Come on you three, let's get you inside and cleaned up." Kira said, leading everybody back inside.

However, before they could get entirely inside, Kimi started splashing around in some puddles, getting covered in mud.

"Oh dear Kimi, looks like you're gonna need a bath." Kira said, picking up her muddy daughter, and carrying her to the bathroom, where Tommy and Chuckie were now, drying off with towels, and trying to figure out a way to dry out Super Thing.

"Look, mommy's gonna give Kimi a bath. Come on Tommy, I've gots to help her." Chuckie said, heading into the lennon closet, and getting out the bath time puppet friends.

"What are we gonna do with those Chuckie?" Tommy asked.

"Member how my daddy always has Mr. Soap and Mr. Water talk to us while we take our baths?" Chuckie asked.

Tommy nodded.

"Well, come on Tommy, we've gotta do what my daddy does when he gives me a bath. Let's go put on the show for Kimi." Chuckie said, putting the Mr. Soap puppet on to his hand, while handing Tommy the Mr. Water one.

By this time, Kimi was in the bathtub, splashing around and giggling.

"She sure is happy for someone who's sick with a cold." Chuckie thought to himself, as he approached the edge of the tub.

"Hi Kimi, I'm Mr. Soap, and I'm gonna get you all squeaky clean." Chuckie made the puppet say.

"And I'm Mr. Water. See how much fun I am? You can make bubbles and everything!" Tommy made Mr. Water say.

They then attempted to wash her off, using the mouths of the puppets as wash cloths, only Chuckie slipped on the side of the tub, nearly dropping his puppet into the water.

"Uh oh." Chuckie said.

"I can get it." Kimi said, picking up the puppet out of the water and handing it to Chuckie.

"Thanks Kimi." Chuckie said.

The two of them continued to help Kimi get washed off, when Kira came into see what was going on.

"Wow! Look at you two, trying to help me bathe Kimi. You're mommy's little helper aren't you Chuckie." Kira said, patting Chuckie on the back, making him giggle.

Kira then got the shampoo, and washed Kimi's hair, while Tommy and Chuckie found the hair dryer on the counter.

"Hey Chuckie, this ought to help us get Super Thing dried out." Tommy said, turning on the hair dryer and blowing it on Super Thing.

"Chuckie! Hold it up to the hot air." Tommy called over the motor.

"Okay Tommy." Chuckie yelled back.

He did as he was instructed, getting Super Thing dried out. Once it was dry, while Kira was getting Kimi out of the tub and dried off, he and Tommy carried Super Thing back to their room, and placed it in Kimi's bed.

"I think everything's ready for Kimi to take her nap now." Chuckie said.

"I think you're right Chuckie." Tommy replied.

The two toddlers sat down on the floor, just as Kira walked in, carrying a squirming naked Kimi beneath the towel. She placed her down on the floor, about ready to put her into a fresh diaper and into some pajamas, when the phone rang.

"I'd better go get that, be right back kids." Kira said, leaving the room.

"Come on Kimi, let's get you into a fresh diaper." Chuckie said, approaching his sister.

She let out a few coughs, and lay down on the floor. Tommy climbed up to the changing table and got down some powder and a clean diaper, handing them to Chuckie.

"Okay Kimi, now, hold still." Chuckie said, applying the powder to Kimi's bottom.

She started giggling, and let out another sneeze, as her nose was running. She then proceeded to kick Chuckie, as a result of getting tired of staying still.

"I said to hold still." Chuckie scolded.

"Sorry Chuckie." Kimi said, trying her best to stay still, while her brother and Tommy got the diaper placed on to her.

A few minutes later, they had her diaper taped shut, and they were helping Kimi put on a clean pair of blue and purple Reptar pajamas that Chuckie got out of the bottom dresser drawer. They use to belong to him, but they were now too small for him. However, they were just the right size for Kimi, so he decided to hand down his favorite Reptar pajamas to her.

"These were my favoritest, but they don't fit me no more. So, here Kimi." Chuckie said, helping her by holding the pajamas up, while she stepped into the legs.

Tommy then helped her pull up the top of the pajamas, and get her arms into the sleaves, and finally, Kimi zipped up the front of the pajamas, while Kira, who came back at this point, helped button the button at the top.

"Wow! You guys are doing great!" Kira said, picking up Kimi and getting her placed into bed.

Just then, Kimi let out another sneeze. Kira reached over to the tissue box on the night table next to her bed, got her a tissue, and helped her blow her nose. However, her nap was delayed, because she continued to need tissue after tissue, which Tommy and Chuckie took over the job of giving to her, until the room was literally covered in Kimi's used tissues. Finally, she let out a yawn, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.

"Nighty night Kimi, sweet dreams." Chuckie said, blowing her a kiss, as he and Tommy left the room.

While Kimi took her nap, they went into the kitchen, where they colored pictures with crayons in one of Chuckie and Kimi's Reptar coloring books.

"Hey Tommy, maybe Kimi would like me to make her a picture to help her feel better." Chuckie said, turning to a page of the coloring book with Robosnails on it.

"That's a great idea Chuckie." Tommy said.

"And you know what? This picture of Robosnails is the perfect thing to cheer Kimi up." Chuckie said, getting to work on coloring in the picture.

Once he was done, he tore the page out of the coloring book, and decided to take it to Kimi to show her. Luckily at this time, she was waking up from her nap, and she saw Chuckie come into the room with the picture.

"Is that for me Chuckie?" Kimi asked, jumping out of bed and running up to her brother, who handed her the picture.

"Uh huh, I made it to help you feels better." Chuckie said, handing her the picture.

"Wow! It's Robosnails! Thanks Chuckie." Kimi said with a smile, giving him a hug, only to sneeze on the sleave of Chuckie's shirt.

"Bless you Kimi. Better give you a tissue. Or here, just use my shirt." Chuckie said, lifting up his shirt, and letting Kimi blow her nose on it.

"Thanks Chuckie. I'm feeling much better, thanks to you." Kimi said with a smile.

Chuckie nodded and smiled, pleased that he had done such a good job of being the man of the house.

Shortly afterwards, it was time for Tommy to go home. No matter, Chuckie continued to take care of Kimi for the rest of the weekend until his daddy returned home on Monday. A couple of days later, they went to play at Tommy's house, only Chuckie noticed his nose was more stopped up than usual.

"So Chuckie, how did it go?" Tommy asked when Chuckie came over to play that day.

"Well, I did a good job being the man of the house. Except…" Chuckie started to say, before letting out a huge sneeze.

"Bless you Chuckie." Tommy said.

"Thanks." Chuckie said, letting out another sneeze.

"Bless you Chuckie." Kimi said, handing her brother a tissue.

"Thanks Kimi." Chuckie said, letting out a reluctant sigh.

"What's wrong Chuckie?" Tommy asked, sitting on the floor of his playpen, picking up some blocks.

"Looks like I caughted Kimi's cold." Chuckie said.

"No worries Chuckie, since you taked care of me, I'm gonna take care of you." Kimi said.

And that's exactly what she did.

The End