After eating the livers and spleens of each of the child's attackers, Vastra looked at the girl who had just been molested by four men. Her clothes had been ripped from her body. There were bruises and scratch marks all over the young ape. She was small and skinny. Nearly emaciated. Vastra suspected she had been poorly fed for a long while. Then she recognized the girl. She is the same girl, Vastra thought to herself, the one called Jenny. She offered her gloved hand to the girl to help her get up. Jenny refused it, determined to show her own strength after the attack. She pushed herself to a standing position.
"Are you alright, dear?" Vastra asked the girl. She offered her cape, knowing that the girl would probably appreciate something to cover up with for the sake of both warmth and modesty.
"Yes, Ma'am," Jenny responded, "Thanks to you". She gawked at the face of the now unhooded figure. "It's you then," she remarked, recognizing the lizard woman.
"You recognize me? You don't fear me?"
Jenny nodded, "You were there, the day my father... died. The day I started to live with my uncle. Strange you should be here now".
"Why?"
"I've left my uncle's. For good, I mean."
"You are still a child"
"I'm twelve. But, I can't go back. She doesn't want me. And he…'e wants me too much, if you catch my meaning".
Strange, ambiguous words from the child, thought the lizard women. "Your uncle wished to… use your body, and your aunt forced you out, to live on the streets," she stated for clarification.
"Yes," Jenny confirmed. Actually her uncle had gone considerably further than wishing, but it was not something she was willing to discuss with a near stranger. She preferred to forget.
The lizard woman took a moment to digest this information. Disgusting and cruel what these apes were capable of doing to their own kind- their own kin, she thought to herself.
"Why did your aunt kick you out?"
"She caught me dressed as a boy and kissing another girl. She says I'm a deviant". Jenny continued to look at the veiled figure, refusing to show shame.
"Ah, yes, that does seem to be a taboo in this culture."
Jenny was surprised by this accepting response, "It is not a taboo for you?"
"No. While the type of coupling that humans do was rare among my people, when it did happen all forms of love were supported and celebrated."
"That sounds... amazing" Jenny stated with awe.
Vastra considered, "Yes, I suppose it was". She gave herself a moment to grieve for her sisters and miss her people before returning to the moment. The lizard still felt responsible for the girl. "Why don't you come with me, Jenny," Vastra requested, "If you have nowhere else to be".
Jenny smiled, "I don't even know your name. You likely saved my life, or at least my dignity to some extent, but how do I know you won't exploit me, like everyone else I have known?"
A sad question for the child to have asked, thought Vastra. She really has no reason to trust anyone, certainly not me. I killed her father. Vastra pondered as her guilt from that day resurfaced.
Suddenly more members of the Tongs Gang appeared. There were about four more of them. Vastra put herself in front of Jenny. "You! Monster!" the large leader of the men addressed the green lady. "What have you done to our brothers?" he demanded.
"I ate them!" she answered, licking her licks with her forked tongue. "And if you do not leave now, that will be your fate as well," she threatened.
"We shall see!" the Chinese man said before drawing a pistol.
"No!" shouted Jenny as she jumped between the lizard woman and the shooter. There was a loud bang, then Jenny collapsed having been shot directly in the chest.
"Jenny!" Vastra called out with surprise and concern. How had that starving and injured girl moved so quickly? The girl fell from the force of the bullet. Blood was gushing from the wound. The Silurian returned her attention to the gang members. She drew a sword and sliced off the hand with the gun in one swift move. The amputated man screamed. Vastra then decapitated him. The three other members of the gang ran off in fear. Normally the lizard woman would have eaten an organ or collected blood for later from her victim. She would have been tempted to chase the other criminals too. This time, however she was too worried for the girl to do so.
The Silurian ran to Jenny, ripped a piece of cloth from her own black dress and pressed it against the wound. Jenny's breathing was becoming rapid and shallow. "Stay with me, Jenny," Vastra pleaded, but the girl was losing too much blood. She lost consciousness. Vastra tended to the wound as best she could with strips of cloth ripped from her own clothes. At best she would be able to control the bleeding. But that was only a temporary treatment.
The child would need much more extensive care. She picked up the girl and carried her to the carriage. The lady demanded her driver, Mr. Parker, return to Paternoster Row as quickly as possible. There she had some much more advanced medical equipment.
She put the adolescent on her own bed. She requested Mr. Parker to retrieve the medical equipment as swiftly as possible. Under the light provided in the room she undressed the wound. In the light of the room she observed that the blood was an unusual color: darker and more orange that most of the apes. She looked for an exit wound. She saw none, believing that this must mean that the bullet was still lodged in Jenny. The driver arrived with the required equipment. She sterilized a pair of tweezers and used them to take out the bullet. Then she redressed the wound, this time with the proper gauze. She covered Jenny with blankets. She made a tea with willow in it to relieve the pain for when Jenny regained consciousness.
The girl stopped breathing. This frightened the lizard woman who then put a breathing apparatus on her. Next she checked Jenny's other vital signs. She observed a strange pulse. She grabbed a stethoscope to get a better assessment of the girl's heart. She heard not two heart beats as she was expecting from the ape, but four. "That is interesting," she muttered to herself, at first concerned it may be a peculiar heart defect. She smelled the girl. Strange how similar her scent was to that of the Doctor's. Then here eye's opened with realization. The girl was Gallifreyan!
One pulse had been distinctly weaker than the other though. One of the two hearts was injured. Not surprising considering the location of the bullet wound on the chest. In fact it made sense. The wound was on the left side. The shot would have killed a human. It may have been lethal to a Silurian too, Vastra considered, yet Jenny survived. Still though, one of her hearts was weak.
While Vastra had studied the biology of apes, her knowledge of Time Lord physiology was limited. "It is time for the Doctor to make a house call," she said to her servant. He glanced at her perplexed. Vastra went to the other room where she kept a telephone. She dialed the number the Doctor had provided to her in the telepathic link they shared many years ago. She called the TARDIS.
Not long after the phone call, a blue box appeared in the drawing room. The 11th Doctor peered out.
"Wow, look at this," he said, admiring the home on Paternoster Row. "You've done quite well for yourself, Vastra".
"It's Madame Vastra now, Doctor".
The Doctor made a quick bow, "My apologies Madame".
"Enough of the formalities," the green lady said with impatience, "Time for you to see the patient."
The Doctor followed the Silurian to the master bedroom where an adolescent brown haired girl slept in the bed.
"Is that?" he started.
"Yes, this is the girl from the day we met".
"What happened to her?"
"She was shot by a member of the Tongs Gang. But that is not why I called you," she handed the doctor her stethoscope. "Listen".
The Doctor did as he was asked. His eyes widened, "Two hearts".
The Silurian nodded in affirmation, "But one is weak, wounded by the bullet".
"Yes".
"You are a better expert on Gallifreyan physiology, Doctor. I was hopeful you would know how to treat her".
"Yes," he affirmed. He disconnected the breathing machine.
"What are you doing?" She asked, infuriated as the girl again stopped breathing. Was this not helping her stay alive?
"The machine is preventing her from entering a healing coma from which she will be able to mend her heart herself," the Doctor informed her. There was a pause.
"Now what?"
"We wait," the Doctor responded. Both took a breath. The Doctor listened to the heart rate with the stethoscope again. He observed it had slowed to about ten beats per minute. "She has entered the coma," he reported. He looked at the lizard. "Who is she?" he asked.
"I was hoping you could tell me," the lizard woman responded. "She is called Jenny Flint. She took the surname of a man who claimed to be her uncle".
"Jenny, the Generated Anomaly"
"What?"
"She was made by a progenation machine on Messaline using a skin sample of my previous incarnation. She was not born, but created in the year 6012 in the New Byzantine calendar. Biologically she is Gallifreyan and my daughter. Her creation was a paradox. She was both the reason for and the result of the TARDIS' visit to Messaline. She is a generated anomaly. Donna Noble, my companion at the time, gave her the name Jenny."
"So, she is your child".
"She was initially formed as a fully educated adult. A soldier. She knew how to fight before she was given her name. She was definitely not a child. I thought her to be an echo of the Time Lords that were. But then," he paused before confessing, "She took a bullet for me on Messaline. I thought she died. I should have known better. She is too much like me. So, here she is. She survived that and somehow ended up in Victorian London having regenerated into a child".
"All those years ago, when she was looking for her father…"
"A Time Tot, confused by the regeneration process, searching for something- someone familiar".
"You," The Silurian added.
"Me," the Doctor affirmed.
"We misunderstood. While I slaughtered many that day, I did not kill her father. The girl had in fact been your responsibility".
"I didn't know," the Doctor stated sadly. "I failed her."
"I failed her too," the lizard women quietly admitted. "I owe you a great debt for what you did for me that terrible day. Had you not interfered I would have slaughtered many more innocents. My vengeance was insatiable. You showed me a better way. You charged me with her welfare, but look at her. She is emaciated. She was exploited, neglected, and abused in that household. And I allowed for such treatment, by not halting it."
"Surely you didn't know," the Doctor told her.
"True. I believed, for the most part she was being cared for by her kin. But that they were suffering from poverty, which is so common in this society of the apes. She had to sell matches and contribute income to the family. Turns out they were not her kind, not her kin, and they did not take care of her".
"We will have to do better," responded the Doctor. "Well, I have to do better. As you stated she is really my responsibility, you may be relieved of the charge".
"No, Doctor, I'm involved in this now. The bullet she took tonight was meant for me. I still owe you a great debt, and I owe her as well. It will be my honor to care for her."
The Doctor nodded his approval and appreciation. "We've got to tell her to stop jumping in front of bullets," he responded with concern, mild amusement, and also something like pride.
"I wonder if she remembers anything before her regeneration. Strange she should end up in this time period, so far from when and where she was formed." Stated Vastra.
"If she remembers, it probably comes to her like a story or a dream- something she can dismiss in her current struggles for survival," responded the Doctor.
"Should we tell her?"
"I suspect not. If she doesn't remember there could very well be a good reason," he informed Madame Vastra as he recalled his former companion, the "Doctor Donna". Remembering could kill her. "And if we did tell her, what use would there be? She doesn't need the pain, the sorrow, of being the only one of her kind."
"Are you trying to protect her or yourself?"
"I told her in her first few minutes of life that she was an echo. Not a real Time Lord. Later I told Donna that if she were to travel with us she would be a constant reminder to me of what I had lost. I was trying to protect myself then. Then I thought she died. She was willing to sacrifice herself for me. This time I need to protect her. For now she cannot learn what she is. She must discover who she is first."