AN: I'm having way too many feelings after the finale episode. Enjoy.
The fire crackles in the grate, spitting out embers and sparks.
It is a cold, dank evening on Paternoster Row, and Madame Vastra has taken to huddling up beside the fire in the parlour with a pot of tea and a newspaper. Jenny stays beside her, leaning slightly against her shoulder for comfort rather than warmth. She looks pale – more so than usual, the Silurian notices. She has worn herself out, the poor thing. Both of them have.
Vastra finds that even hurling orders at Strax is fast becoming a chore. Her head is pounding, and working with him has done nothing but aggravate the irritable lizard since returning from Trenzalore.
The truth is, she cannot bare to look at him. Watching him turn on her in those vital moments. Watching him forget; not caring that her dearest had been erased from time and space, leaving her to her solitude in grief. It terrifies her more than she could ever imagine.
She banishes Strax to the back yard with his grenades, for she fears that the resulting explosions will worsen her frightful headache. That, and Jenny has dozed off beside her, and Vastra has no wish to watch her awaken to the sounds of crockery smashing on the kitchen tops tonight. On any other night, she would watch gleefully as her lovely maid furiously swept up the entire mess and locked the Sontaran out of the house. But not tonight.
Instead she sits, scaly fingers wistfully tangling into soft brown hair of their own accord, and she watches silently. The warm, sleepy human in her lap shifts slightly, peacefully. But suddenly she gives a quiet whimper, and Vastra almost breaks all over again. She cannot stand it.
Strax has it all wrong. Hearts and their maladies are anything but simple. Jenny has awoken this in her. She has softened her, but Vastra does not see it as a weakness. She sees it as a strength, a form of redemption even greater than the Doctor's kindnesses. Jenny is special. She surpasses her entire species by lightyears, Vastra decides.
She gives a yawn – more of a beastly growl to anyone unused to her kind – and simply wishes to bundle up under a pile of thick blankets. She is tired beyond belief. Drained, physically and emotionally, and cannot seem to fight it. Vastra has not slept in weeks.
You see, Silurians do not sleep as humans do - they fall into a deep slumber for extended periods of time, restoring much needed energy and resurfacing when sufficient levels have been achieved. They awake from the depths of the Earth, lusting for human blood. In recent years, Madame Vastra takes to retiring to bed during most nights (when she has no desire for a midnight snack on some dingy east London corner), to simulate the human pattern of sleep her maid and wife regularly keeps. It is of convenience, really.
The difference, Vastra knows, is that Silurians do not dream (those candles, though, are a different kettle of fish all together). The great detective herself merely curls up, cocooned in desperate warmth and rests in silence until Jenny pulls open the curtains at 8 o clock sharp. Apes, in comparison, are curious creatures. Primitive, really, with their unconscious taken over so easily in sleep.
Vastra doesn't dream, ordinarily. But as of late, all she can see in the depths of her mind is the dark of the night sky, the stars burning out in front of her, and the agonising absence of her wife. Jenny lying there, cold and lifeless. The same jolt of fear, the tightness in her chest wakes her from her slumber now and then, and she spends the remaining hours reassuring herself that Jenny is right there sleeping beside her, unharmed.
And so now the Silurian sits, head propped up against the back of a comfortable armchair, quite exhausted. She often makes sure to keep warm so that her temperature does not drop dangerously low in the freezing evening air, but this lack of rest causes her to shiver all the same. She may as well roam the streets in her nightgown, for heaven's sake.
All of a sudden there is a rustling beside her, and she is watching as Jenny straightens up next to her, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand. The light of the fire sparkles in her big brown eyes, still swimming with the haziness of sleep. She looks more alive than ever. Vastra instantly warms at the sight.
"Ma'am?"
"You really must stop being so formal when we're alone, dearest." Vastra says. She gives a tired smile, that doesn't quite reach her eyes. It's not right.
Jenny knows this for a fact. Her fingers worriedly trace the edges of the bony crests that run along Vastra's forehead; a much practiced action that has always been proven to calm her mistress. "But you're shaking, ma'am—I'll get you more tea, or some blankets, or—"
"I shall not be needing any of that, my dear. Kindly stay where you are. I am not letting you out of my sight again." Vastra pushes a finger to Jenny's lips, resulting in her sudden lack of speech. It is endearing, but now is not the time. They do not need to be apart again.
Vastra leans against the younger woman, reveling in the cosiness of it all. "You are so very warm, Jenny."
Jenny's lips curl at the corners, but deep down, she knows. They have barely spoken of the incident at Trenzalore, and now it's eating away at them both.
"Daft lizard. You haven't been sleeping." She knows. She knows, because she has seen her mistress pacing back and forth during the night, swearing in Silurian under her breath. She knows, because Vastra has become less inclined to disappear into the mist on a hunt. She has seen the mistrust in her piercing eyes when she looks at Strax. She knows the trauma Vastra is suffering, and she only wishes she knew how to help.
Jenny nuzzles into the crook of her neck. "I'm so sorry- I never wanted to leave you."
Vastra feels the words stabbing her insides. The endless guilt Jenny bears. "No, no my dear. No more apologies," she whispers. She cannot imagine how scared her poor ape must have been when those creatures ripped her apart from the inside with their cruel whispers. When she felt the need to apologise for her own death. Vastra does not know what to do, so she simply pulls her wife into her arms. Jenny only clutches at her, as though willing herself to try and take Vastra's pain as her own. She knows that Vastra is still unwilling to discuss what happened at the Doctor's tomb, but she will wait until she is ready to all the same. Until the end of time, if she has to. Stubborn old lizard.
"I do love you, ma'am..."
Vastra feels the swell of joy burning out the anguish for a second. She dips forward, meeting Jenny halfway and kisses her with all her gratitude, pride and adoration. "And I, you, dear. More than anything."
For this one moment in time, the detective and her maid are too caught up in one another to notice the sounds of destruction coming from outside.