The Worth Of A Life, a doctor who fanfic

The Worth Of A Life

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

"Am I … alive?" said Strax, blinking sleepily up at the ceiling.

"That you are," said Jenny, smiling down at him as she smoothed his blanket. "Madame got the bullet out, I bandaged you up good and proper, and if you stay off your feet for a few days, with that constitution of yours, you should soon be good as new."

"Our targets?"

"The ones you didn't shoot? In Newgate." She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the memory of their latest criminals and the trail of misery they'd left across London. "Vastra didn't think the bastards deserved as much, but you know how opium-eaters' blood disagrees with her."

He chuckled slightly, then winced as the motion jarred his injuries. "It was a fine battle. Not quite as glorious as others I have fought, but still … "

"It was a bloody close call, is what it was!" Jenny surprised both of them by the anger flashing out of her like lightning. "What were you thinkin', Strax, chargin' in there like a bull in a china shop? We told you to wait by the carriage!"

"You were taking too long."

"We 'ad it all under control!"

"I found you and Madame tied to chairs and outnumbered two to one."

"We was only playin' for time until the Inspector arrived with his squad." Strax rolled his eyes at what he no doubt considered the foolishness of Vastra's tactics, which annoyed Jenny even more. "Instead the building got half smashed, we had to fight our way out, and you – one inch left and that bullet could've hit your heart! You could've died, you idiot. Don't you see?"

"I do see, boy.." His round brown face contorted itself into a shadow of his most aggressive glare. "No need to call attention to my shame."

"You're joking," Jenny gasped.

"I cannot joke."

Looking at his solemn alien features, surrounded by such commonplace objects as linen bedsheets, a nightstand with a bottle of brandy on it, and sunshine streaming in through a half-open window, made her feel strangely torn between laughing and crying. Of course he never joked. After working with him for weeks, she should have known that by now.

"Ashamed of not dyin'? Why, if that's not the most ridiculous thing I ever heard in all me life!"

And the saddest, she thought, in the voice of wisdom and compassion she was slowly learning from her beloved mistress.

"Be silent, human!" He flushed a dark maroon as he struggled, and failed, to sit up. "You could never understand. Yours is a weak race, primitive – naturally you fear death. To a proud soldier of Sontar, there is no greater honor than to give one's life in battle. One life is worth nothing to the glory of the collective."

Vastra had warned her from the beginning that the Sontaran's values would be nothing like her own, and that she would have to be patient with him as he adapted to life in 1870's London. She had been patient when he ate the horses, smashed the plates instead of washing them, threatened to obliterate their visitors, and called Jenny "boy" with irritating frequency no matter how much she corrected him. But she could not be patient any longer.

"You're not on Sontar anymore!" She smacked the pillow next to him, which for all his bluster, still made him flinch like a little boy. "We're not – what did Vastra call it? – we're not clones here. You might think a living being's as easy to replace as a broken dish, but they're not – every life is different, every life is unique, and even if we don't always live up to it in practice – " She suppressed a brief shiver thinking of London's slums. "Most of us believe that nobody, nobody is worthless."

"A bizarre concept." Nevertheless, Strax's frown lines began to fade a little as he pondered it. "Is that the reason for all your elaborate rituals after death? The black clothes, the flowers, the shedding of fluids from your eyes as an expression of grief?"

Jenny glanced down at her mourning frock, worn in memory of the brave and lovely Miss Oswald, and thought of the Doctor's hollow eyes as he kissed her on the forehead one last time. She nodded. "Yes, it is. There's nothing more terrible than losing someone you care about."

"But how do you cope with it? Such … emotion … over nothing but a common fact of existence?" His usually gruff and pompous voice was as innocent as a child's.

"Some of us believe in Heaven," she admitted, "Others … well, I try to be strong in honor of their memory, regardless. Loving someone … it's a terrible weakness, Strax, you're right. But sometimes it's the greatest strength there is."

She thought of her own mother, frail as a wisp of smoke, who nevertheless had clung to life long enough to support the family as long as she could; who had secretly sent letters, clothes, even money, after her father had thrown her out into the street for the sin of kissing another woman. She thought of Vastra's scales shimmering by firelight, her wry smile and surprising tenderness, and how devastating it would be to lose her. But Vastra, who loved Jenny's strength, would never want her to fall apart with grief.

"You people are a mystery to me," Strax muttered, rubbing a three-fingered hand over his forehead as if it ached from too much thinking.

Then he said something that startled her, almost more than any of those infuriating habits of his she had fought so hard to get used to. "Do you suppose," he said, stiffly and awkwardly, "That you … that either you or Madame would mourn for me? If … in case you should happen to survive me in the course of our duties?"

This time, the lump in her throat was impossible to ignore. She blinked hard, and watched Strax follow the course of her tears down her face in silent fascination.

"Why, Strax, of course we would. How could you think otherwise?"

"Even though my presence in this house is a constant irritation to you both?"

She laughed shakily as she wiped her tears away.

"You saved our lives today, and that weren't the first time either. You may be the daftest, maddest, stubbornest little fellow I've ever met, but you're also by far the bravest. You're one of us, don't ever forget that. You could never be replaced."

Her strange friend closed his eyes, relaxed into his bed in a way that contrasted strongly with his usual military stiffness, and showed the smallest flicker of a smile.

If he had been human, she might have wished him sweet dreams, or even kissed him on the forehead. As he would never forgive such an indignity, however, she contented herself with tucking the blankets more closely around him.

"Now get some rest," she said. "Madame's orders. And call me if you need anything."

"Acknowledged."

She slipped softly out of the room, which was already beginning to fill with his deep, regular breathing. At the end of the hallway, a rustle of silk against scales made Jenny turn around.

"Eavesdropping again, ma'am?"

"Silurian hearing, my dear." Vastra shrugged smoothly. "You're very good with him, you know."

"He drives me bonkers."

"Oh, me too," her mistress confessed in a sly whisper. "But then again, where would we be without him? Or he without us?"

"I know. Sometimes it feels like he might as well be our son."

"Goddess forbid!" Vastra rolled her eyes to the ceiling, but could not help smiling anyway. "Though I see what you mean. Any child of ours would probably cause just as much trouble, if not more."

Jenny's heart warmed at the idea of them, misfits cast out by their own kind and thrown together by chance and the Doctor, as a family. A real family, by choice and not by blood, ready to defend their home and each other against any enemies that came their way. If she ever had a child with Vastra, scientifically impossible as that was, she could not ask for a better fellow-parent. As for the hardheaded Sontaran now falling asleep in the butler's pantry, she was confident that taking him home after Demon's Run had been the right choice.

Do you suppose that you would mourn for me? he'd asked.

Jenny hoped in her heart that she would never have to.