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Having lost the Doctor in the Thames, the journey back to Paternoster Row was a tense one. Clara looked a little lost. Jenny tried to help by reassuring her that she was more than welcome to stay the night with them, that they were hardly going to kick her out on the streets. Not when she knew how unpleasant they could be, Jenny thought to herself. Although she had a sneaking suspicion that Clara would be able to survive more than well enough.
She got Clara settled in to their second spare bedroom, the other young woman surprising her by asking her to stay for a little bit. She did her best to reassure Clara as to the Doctor turning back up and this all getting sorted out and then excused herself. She’d seen the state of the Doctor’s room and chalk was hell to get out of floorboards. Strax was seeing to the horse so she got a bucket and a brush to deal with it herself.
She got distracted by the signs and symbols, as she knelt down to clean them up. She wondered what they meant, as she idly traced them with her finger. What had the Doctor been trying to figure out? She’d seen several regenerations but never a newly regenerated Doctor. And he’d come here. To them. Well he always had.
“Ah! Here you are. I wondered where you’d disappeared to.”
Jenny didn’t raise her head at Vastra flinging the door open. “Just looking at these, ma’am. Thought maybe there’d be some clue as to where he’s gone or what he’s gonna do.”
“Hm.” Vastra knelt down beside her. “No eye contact and a ma’am. Have I been insensitive again?”
Jenny didn’t answer, still tracing her finger around a circle. It overlapped other circles, making it look like orbits. “What were the stars like?”
“Hm?”
“When you saw dinosaurs as a little girl, the stars were different than they are now. I remember goin’ to the museums. The planetarium. What were they like…before they fell to dust?”
The sharp intake of breath was audible. “What is this about?” Vastra’s voice sounded oddly sharp too.
Jenny stood up, brushing the chalk dust from her skirt. She couldn’t give a damn about the marks anymore. “Nuffin’ ma’am.” She went back to their room, dressed in her nightgown and curled up on her side of the bed as tightly as possible.
“Jenny?” The softness in Vastra’s voice made her want to cry. She felt the bed dip and shift as the Silurian burrowed under the blankets. She felt the small tug at the back of her nightgown, and it tugged at her heartstrings.
“The stars were just the stars Jenny.” She heard Vastra whisper. “They burned bright, as they do now. In different positions and in different ways. Perhaps a little brighter, what with the air having been polluted by…”
“Apes.” Jenny finished. She felt Vastra wince and then draw close.
“You are my star now.”
“Are you my mountain range then?” Jenny wasn’t quite ready to give in.
“Well if you’re trying to flirt with me, you’re doing a poor job.” But there was an edge to Vastra’s laugh.
“Maybe I should get some tips from Clara. She seems to know how to get your attention at any rate.”
The edge of the sudden silence was even more keen than that of the laughter.
“You seemed very moved by her performance as well.” Vastra hissed, moving away.
She hadn’t expected that. A denial, a comfort, not a return accusation. That stung.
“I love you, yer stupid lizard! An’ I told her that an’ all. Tryin’ to comfort her about how the Doctor was still the same, even if he looked different. Tryin’ to explain how even if someone looks different you still love ‘em.”
There was another silence, but it was soft and mildly apologetic. “Like I love you, even though you look different to me.”
Jenny felt an arm slide under hers and over her side and allowed herself to be rolled backwards. She raised an arm, felt her hand connect with a head crest and tugged at it, to bring Vastra down for a kiss.
“Alright then.” She relaxed completely into the embrace, Vastra holding her as tight and close as possible.
Vastra always rose later than Jenny and thus wasn’t surprised that Jenny had already disappeared from their bed, although it still caused the now normal blip of fear. But Jenny had gotten annoyed after Trenzalore, when she had been unable to stop trailing after her, so Vastra bit back the urge to call out for her. She got dressed in the clothes Jenny had laid out for her. She remembered the days when Jenny would come back up with tea and they’d lie together on the bed before Jenny would help her with the ridiculously complicated ape garments and then they’d face whatever adventure lay in wait together.
Well, the business of the day still had to be attended to regardless, so she made her way downstairs to find Jenny in the kitchen.
“I told Strax to take a crew down to the river and bring back the TARDIS. Figured that way the Doctor might come looking for it and he’d find it here.” Jenny informed her, business-like already. “Tea’s waitin’ for you in the study. The Camberwell Child Poisoner’s locked up in the larder, waiting at…your disposal. And I laid out the particulars of the Fraud Case in case you wanted to take a look while we’re waiting for the Doctor to turn up. I’ve asked the Paternoster Irregulars to keep a look out for ‘im. Anyone can find ‘im they can. And possibly protect ‘im if he goes in the wrong quarters.” There was a small grin.
Vastra nodded. “Thank you, Jenny.” It was the only response she could think of. She walked off to her study. If it was to be all business, she could at least conclude it quickly.
An hour later though and she was bored already. Fraud was hardly the most exciting thing. She couldn’t even detect a sniff of an alien or strange creature just to spice things up. Well, there were other ways to spice things up. She smiled, although a little sadly. That had become a habit after Trenzalore too. She rang the bell for Jenny, and it wasn’t long before she heard footsteps.
“You rang?”
“Ah! Jenny.” She tried to sound cheerful and light-hearted. “How would you feel about posing for a while?”
“Posin’? We got cases.” Jenny pointed out.
“Yes, and my mind is full up with them. I need a break.” Vastra gestured to the piles of paperwork on her desk. She caught Jenny rolling her eyes.
“Alright then. But not naked.”
“On this chilly a morning? I would never ask for that.” Vastra was affronted.
“I’m thinkin’ more about Clara.” She heart Jenny mutter as she took off her waistcoat.
“Why would she come here?” Vastra shrugged.
Although apparently Jenny’s fears were not unfounded. Curse the ape for bursting into someone’s study. The woman had no manners. Vastra hated seeing Jenny look discomfited like that. Her sarcasm didn’t seem to land on either Clara or Jenny, and she hated that she was feeling discomfited herself. If she was found out, if Jenny knew the reason for her hobby of drawing her…but there was no time now to think about such things, not with a battle to go into.
Jenny wasn’t avoiding Vastra. She really did have chores to do that involved not being near Vastra at all. Like scrubbing the chalk off the spare room floor before the floor really was stained forever. And scrubbing relieved some of her anger. Having come back to find the TARDIS gone, it was inevitable what the next step would be. Her offer of staying the night would have to become one of staying…forever? Or at least until Clara was on her feet or the Doctor came back. As much as she wanted to be charitable, Jenny wasn’t looking forward to it. 13 Paternoster Row was their sanctuary and she wanted to return to that. Where the only people who ever walked in on them was Strax and they were well used to him by now. But she still felt guilty for heaving a sigh of relief at the sound of the TARDIS wheezing into existence and then taking off. Although with that case concluded, maybe she could talk to Vastra and they could get back to what passed as normal. She went to find Vastra in the study.
“Ah! Jenny. Good. Go to Scotland Yard. I need the books from the bank going right back to March. You can give them the report on the Poisoner at the same time. Make that January. Those ignorant apes have missed how long this has been going on for. They’re so useless.”
It wasn’t that Vastra had ordered her, she realised as she stood there, as still as one of Vastra’s statues. That had become the norm, somewhere along the line. And it wasn’t the usual insulting invectives about apes. That had always been there. But for some reason Jenny felt…included in the insult this time. After all, she had been useless. Hadn’t even been able to hold her breath.
“You’re just like the Doctor sometimes. All ‘puddin’ brain humans’. I don’t understand. If we’re so pathetic how come you bother helpin’ out at all? Why save somethin’ so pathetic? Or is it that you like it? Bein’ smarter than us, more powerful. Superiority complex is it?”
“I don’t help them out of the goodness of my heart!” Vastra bit back. “It is a duty. The task set me by the Doctor, to help apes rather than kill them. A ridiculous penance. It’s not as if they’re ever worth it.”
It was the scoff that was the final straw. And the ‘ever’. And the fact that she couldn’t be sure, couldn’t feel certain, that she wasn’t included in the ‘they’.
“I dunno.” She said quietly. “I think you got a pretty good deal out of helpin’ me. A nice maid to clean up after you an’ make you tea an’ run errands an’ put up with your flirtin’ and pose for you when you want something pretty to look at!” Her voice had risen to a shout. “But what happens when you decide I ain’t pretty anymore ey? Like Clara.” Jenny broke off.
“What does Clara have to do with this?” Vastra looked baffled.
“Nuffin’!” Jenny wasn’t sure what she was saying herself now. But it had perturbed her. The Doctor was old now, so Clara didn’t love him anymore? She’d been so relieved when Clara had fought back against that, against Vastra’s accusations. But she suddenly wasn’t sure that Vastra would do the same. That Vastra would love her if she became different, if she changed, if she grew old.
“Jenny…” Vastra had got up.
“So that’s why you gave me breath was it? Out of duty?”
“No! Jenny…”
“You shouldn’t’ve done that! I didn’t want it!”
“You’d rather I let you die?” Vastra asked disbelievingly.
“You should’ve saved it for you! So you could get out of there! You’re gonna live longer anyway right? Longer’n me! What happens when I turn to dust ey? You gonna get a new one, a younger one? Like the Doctor does?” She was crying now, and it made it difficult to speak. “You were always going to have to get used to me being gone right? So you can start right now!”
Vastra stood there, uncomprehending, as she heard the door slam. It didn’t seem real. Couldn’t be real. What on earth had gotten into Jenny’s head? She’d thought there was an argument brewing but just one of their usual spats. Jenny would shout and Vastra would sulk or Jenny would do both, Vastra not really inclined to shouting matches. And then they’d reach out and reconcile. Clearly something had been missed. Something had been overlooked. Vastra was not called the Great Detective for nothing, so she sat in her study, drinking the endless cups of tea Strax provided and tried to figure it out.
The day wore away and became evening and then bedtime and the door hadn’t slammed back open and Vastra went with a heavy tread to their bedroom. Jenny hadn’t come back. Their bed was right there, Jenny’s nightgown, her shawl, her scent everywhere but there was no little ball curled up in the bed. No warm presence stoking the fire or murmuring to Vastra to come to bed. The sharp pain in her chest made Vastra sag onto the bed. How could she sleep in it? She dressed in her nightgown, grabbed the shawl and the bed sheet and curled up by the living room fire. She remembered nights in the gin flat, curled up by the fire. Before Jenny arrived. That ball of warmth and light. She really did brighten the room, just by being in it. She’d told Jenny that, hadn’t she? Or had Jenny just dismissed it as teasing? Had Vastra not been sincere enough? She drifted into an uneasy sleep, troubled by memories. The nightmare of turning, endlessly turning, every which way and still there was no Jenny to be seen. She was gone. Until Vastra turned and tripped and there was she was, lying on the ground, cold and motionless. And when Vastra reached for her, she disappeared again, leaving Vastra clawing at the ground, as if she could just dig deep enough, she could get Jenny back.
She woke cold and miserable in front of an ash-filled hearth. She shivered herself upright and tried to re-light the fire but even when the flames blazed, she still felt a chill in her heart. Some heat, she reasoned, is internal. And Jenny was her heat. And nothing could ever warm her in quite the same way. She heard the back door open, assumed it was Strax or the urchins or even Parker. Either way, it was nothing to pull her away from staring blankly into the fire.
Jenny came into the living room after a brief exploration of the rest of the house had turned up no-one. She wasn’t sure what she expected. A row, silence, sulking. A huddle of blankets by the fire was not it. And was that her shawl? That was rather worse than anything she’d imagined. She’d been the one to run away, although she felt like she had just cause, with the way Vastra had been flirting with Clara. But it wasn’t about Clara. She’d said that herself. No. This was about…
“Vastra?” she shook the approximate shoulder.
A tongue snicked out, tasting the air. Blankets were thrown back, and disbelieving eyes snapped open and held hers. Jenny was stunned at the expression in them. And somehow, it merely confirmed all her fears.
“hold me?” It was a whisper so faint she wasn’t entirely sure she’d heard it, but it was there in Vastra’s beseeching eyes anyway, pleading with her. She threw her arms round the Silurian and gripped her tightly, pressing her forehead against the hard head crest, hard enough to leave an imprint of scales on her skin.
“Vastra.” Jenny interrupted the soft keens. “Vastra! …we need to talk.”
Vastra had read books. That phrase was always a precursor to some terrible conversation in which nothing went well at all. This was not Jenny returning then. She was going to leave. Vastra had fought against that for so long. She tried to speak, found she couldn’t, so nodded instead. Jenny sighed and got up, shaking off Vastra’s hand as she tried to keep hold of her. Bereft of even that comfort, Vastra slumped back, waiting as Jenny sat down in one of the armchairs. She felt too large and too small simultaneously.
“I think we have some problems need sortin’ out. Do you agree?”
Vastra tried to think. But her hours in the study had drawn a large blank. She couldn’t deduce why Jenny had left, which scared her more than Jenny leaving. The emptiness, the distance, was mental as well as physical.
“Yes.” She said, for something to say.
“Are you just sayin’ that or do you acutally know what the problems are?”
Well at least her ape still had some insight into her.
“You are unhappy. You are upset. Due to my behaviour.” That was a safe bet.
“And what behaviour is that then?”
What it usually was, or so Vastra thought. “You don’t like me calling people apes.”
Jenny snorted.
“You don’t like being seen as a maid. Being treated as one.”
“Better.”
“You didn’t like the way I treated Clara.”
“Well that’s a start at least.” Jenny sighed. She was not satisfied. That was obvious. Vastra had failed. She smiled sadly to herself. Some detective she was. “Two things. Stop treatin’ me like a maid, orderin’ me around worse’n you do Strax. Here was always meant to be the place I didn’t have to be the maid. Where I could be yer wife. We’re meant to be partners. An’ no more askin’ people to take their clothes off.”
Vastra stared at her in horror. “I…”
“No!” Jenny cut her off. “Maybe she does have a pretty face an’ maybe it did turn your head. But if it does, I don’t need to know about it.”
“That was Clara thinking that!” Vastra spat. “The Goddess knows the woman has an ego on her. Well she needs it around the Doctor, I suppose.”
Jenny snorted again but there was humour in it this time. “Need one around you as well. Otherwise we’d all go round thinkin’ we really were useless and stupid and ridiculous and whatever else it is you think we are.”
Oh. The realisation clanged into place in Vastra’s head.
“An’ no more askin’ me to do stupid things like posin’ if you’re not gonna draw me. No more lyin’! Manipulatin’ me, making me feel stupid.”
Oh dear. She felt her scales pale as more realisations fired into her brain. Yes. They did need to talk because she needed to explain that. If that was how Jenny felt then she would have to. But perhaps another day.
“An’ you’re sleepin’ on the sofa. Or the spare room. Wherever.” Jenny shrugged.
Vastra didn’t care. That implied Jenny would be sleeping in their bedroom. Which implied…
“You are staying?”
“’course I am. This is my home. You’re my wife. I jus’…we need to sort this. I don’t want to feel like that ever again.”
Vastra nodded. Well, if she were staying, then there would be time to. She sighed. It appeared this time, she’d been the ignorant one, the stupid one. No better than the apes.
She made herself a cup of tea before bed, taking it up with her to the spare room. It’d been a long time since she’d slept in a bed without Jenny and she was not looking forward to the chill of the sheets. When she slipped under the cover to inexplicable warmth and realised that someone had put a heating pan there (and it couldn’t be Strax, she reasoned, because they’d very firmly banned him from anything hot other than the kettle after a minor incident with the fire in the living room) she burrowed her head into the pillow and keened softly.
She was back in that bizarre building. Running between strange columns. Turning and twisting until she felt sick with dizziness. She was back on that ledge, watching the stars go out, turning to dust. “What happens when I turn to dust?” She fled back in, trying to find Jenny, somewhere. Anywhere.
Jenny had gone down to the training room to practice with her sword. The stances calmed her mind and her strength and grace exhilarated her. This was something she could do. She hadn’t expected Vastra to be up yet so when she saw a moving pile of blankets come down the steps she was surprised. She sheathed her sword, placing it on the rack and grabbed two practice swords, holding one out. A hand reached from among the blankets and grasped it before shedding the rest of the blankets. Vastra was still in her nightgown which wasn’t really training gear. Jenny liked hers. The loose short trousers and the tight vest. Still. She took up a starting stance in the centre of the training area. Vastra just stood there, sword dangling by her side, not meeting Jenny’s eyes.
Jenny relaxed, confused. They’d fought out and thought out quite a few of their arguments this way. Or it could be a feint. She regained her stance and darted towards the forlorn lizard, stopping her final strike just before it contacted with Vastra’s head when no sword rose to counter it.
“Fine then.” Jenny sighed at the silent lizard and replaced her sword on the rack.
“You’re not going to hit me?” a raspy voice asked.
“Why’d I do that for?” There was silence. “Oh well I guess apart from insultin’ me but that’s normal from you, humiliatin’ me but that’s normal too, orderin’ me about but that’s normal these days. Why’d I hit you for?”
Vastra replaced the practice sword on the rack with delicate care, slumping slightly. She turned to face Jenny, blue eyes meeting brown and holding them. Despair and love met sorrow and anger.
“I’m sorry.” Vastra’s voice trembled.
“Apology accepted. Although that don’t make it alright.” Jenny perched on the edge of the rack table beside her wife.
“It was never my intention.” Vastra tried but Jenny held up a hand to cut her off.
“How’d we get here? What happened? We ain’t always had the most perfect marriage but this? You’ve been off. Distant. Ever since Trenzalore.” She noticed the shudder at the name. “So. Trenzalore then.”
“Stop! Saying that name.” Vastra shrank away from her. “You were dead. You were dead. And then you were gone. And I tried to find you. I tried.”
Jenny stared at the floor; her mouth dry in remembrance. The darkness flooded over her, the not really quite real memories of things that had never happened but possibly could have. In the snow, down the alley, still able to remember what should’ve happened, as it didn’t. And calling out for someone who hadn’t come. But Vastra had tried to find her.
She looked up at the ceiling, remembering the weeks after Trenzalore, having watched the Doctor disappear into his own whatever that was. Vastra had trailed after her constantly, always checking in on her, even over their psychic link. It’d frustrated her in the end, it’d become intrusive. They’d had an argument about it, which hadn’t gone well. But Vastra had seemed better after it, had seemed to settle down. Become almost too distant, absorbed in the cases or her hobbies, her drawing. That was when she’d asked Jenny to pose for her, having apparently become bored of sketching the statues.
“Why’d you ask me to pose for you?” Jenny asked after a long silence. She didn’t know why but it felt important to know that. She’d never asked why. Just assumed it was another of Vastra’s odd fancies.
“I wanted your likeness.” Vastra seemed relieved to have been asked. “I thought if I had pictures, paintings. Even photographs. I knew I’d bothered you. And studying cases, murders. The brutality of them. And you were, you were dead! Murdered. And I was so afraid all the time, that it would get you too. Having you there, to draw, was a reminder that you weren’t gone. I could turn and look and there you were.” Vastra smiled softly at her. “You do brighten the room, just by being in it.”
Jenny’s gaze fired directly across the basement room. Of all the things she’d been expecting as a reason, that was not it. She felt filled up with something all of a sudden. A strange joy, still quite a lot of anger.
“Why ask Clara then? An’ why not just tell me.” Jenny sighed, emptied as suddenly as she’d felt overflowing. She slumped to one side, resting her head against Vastra’s shoulder, feeling the tension in the Silurian.
“I was trying to make it obvious that she’d just barged in on a private moment and should barge right out again.” Vastra spat.
“Sorta failed there, love.” Jenny grinned wryly.
“Considering she just kept brandishing the newspaper at me, yes. Couldn’t see a hint if you hit her on the head with it.”
“Not like some other people I know then.” Jenny looked innocently up at Vastra.
Vastra glowered at her but conceded the point. “I had no idea, until you walked out. That it upset you so much.”
“Yeah well. I din’t either til you just said. I mean, I know we can talk telepathically but I ain’t a mind reader y’know?”
“Ha!”
“I’m sorry too.”
“Whatever for?”
“After Trenzalore. I felt so bothered by it. The way you wouldn’t leave me alone. I got scared, I guess. Like, I finally realised how much it would hurt you. An’ what was you gonna do after I did die anyways? What were you gonna do? How’d you cope? You’re older’n me. I know you never say. An’ you’ve already lost so much. But I didn’t mean for you to just completely pull away either. An’ when you said about flirtin’ with a mountain range, I thought, I thought you were talkin’ about us. I thought I was losin’ you.”
At the sound of her bitten back sob, Vastra enveloped her in a rib crushing hug.
“That was only ever about the Doctor. I have known him so long, and with so many different faces, and he has been my friend with all of them. I was so angry at her. I thought she would love only one face and not all. That she was the one turned by a pretty head and not by who he is. I thought her so shallow. My love for you is bound up in so many things. I cannot comprehend not loving you just because you will appear different. My love for you will change as you do but it will still be my love and it will still be you.”
“So I am worth it then?” Jenny wanted to bite her tongue but if this was the time to reveal all anxieties and insecurities…
“When…humans fail to be as good as they can be, it frustrates me.” Vastra sighed. “It scares me. To live in this era, this world. I need them to be better than they are. Sometimes it doesn’t feel worth it, to help them. Endlessly, endlessly helping them. But you are and always have been worth it. And you make all the rest of them worth it too. Worth putting up with in any case if it means I can be with you.”
“Even if they are stupid or ridiculous or foolish?”
“I fear I have been foolish, my love.” Vastra admitted, releasing Jenny. “So afraid of losing you and I might have lost you anyway. In the worst possible way.”
“Can I kiss you? A proper kiss.”
Vastra blinked. The puzzlement on her face was cute, Jenny thought. “Of course.”
She’d been expecting something a little more chaste, but she wasn’t about to complain either as Jenny pressed against her, her warmth easy to feel through a thin nightdress. She felt hands reach up and Jenny pressed her forehead against hers.
All the nightmares were suddenly there in her mind. The endless turning. She felt sick with it. And there were other nightmares too, empty dark alleys and pain, screaming and a cold so encompassing she felt she might never be warm again. But she could feel warmth still. It was right there, in front of her. She wasn’t alone. She opened her eyes, realised that she was breathing heavily, and that Jenny was warm but also drenched in sweat and was clinging to her as if she’d never let go.
“I’m here. I’m here.” Jenny was whispering in her ear. Vastra wasn’t sure who she was trying to reassure.
“You’re shivering, my dear.” Vastra tried to pick her up but ended up with a limpet attached to her, arms around her neck and legs around her waist. “Come on then.” She walked upstairs to the bathroom, managing to deposit Jenny on the toilet whilst she ran a bath. She seemed to calm down as she sat there, stripping off her clothes as the bath filled and getting into it, submerging completely to wet her hair.
“You gettin’ in then?” Jenny leant against the side of the bath and gazed up at her.
Vastra blinked, once again, surprised by the sudden shift in gears. Still, such an invitation was not to be turned down and she divested herself of her nightgown and climbed in, facing Jenny. The young woman shook her head, turned around and leant back against Vastra. She was going a dark green, she could feel it, particularly when Jenny pulled her hands away from the sides of the bath and wrapped Vastra’s arms around herself. Words. Words should definitely be being said. Something. Anything.
“Mm…my dear…” Vastra tried. But then Jenny twisted suddenly and shifted until she was straddling Vastra and Vastra’s head went back. Stars exploded in front of her eyes as her head crests banged against the porcelain bathtub and she hissed in pain, rubbing furiously at them.
“Did you just…” she looked up to find Jenny staring at her in awe. “Did you just faint?”
“Hm?” she blinked.
“You swooned! I made you swoon!” Jenny was laughing but there was something so joyous about it that Vastra didn’t mind. Merely gave a wry smile.
“You do rather undo me, my dear.” She tucked Jenny’s wet hair behind her ears and kissed her.
“I’d sooner you do me.”
Vastra felt Jenny’s smile against her lips. Well, it always was the best and most reassuring way of having Jenny close to her. She let out a long sigh, as if she’d been holding her breath and hadn’t know it. And then took a deep breath in because extra lung capacity had a lot of advantages sometimes.